Turkish police detained the CHP mayor of Ankara's Etimesgut district, Murat Beşikçioğlu, and 51 others on July 30 in a corruption probe; the previous day they detained the Uskudar district mayor, the first female CHP mayor to unseat the AKP in that Istanbul stronghold after 30 years; the Ankara operation spanned 71 locations across 9 provinces. The CHP has rejected the wave of investigations since 2024 as politically motivated, saying the probes are designed to disable the main opposition party before the 2028 elections; no European government has commented despite Turkey's EU accession monitoring status, and Erdogan's government has not formally responded to the political-motivation accusation. Taiwan's Constitutional Court dissolved the Chinese Unification Promotion Party on July 31, ruling it unconstitutional, one day after the Interior Ministry said it would file a dissolution petition in early August; the court acted faster than the stated timeline. It is the first time Taiwan's court has dissolved a political party; the KMT warned the same power could next target it, and CUPP founder Chang An-le announced a counter-petition to dissolve the ruling DPP under the same law. All major candidates in Nigeria's Osun State governorship election, scheduled August 15, signed a peace pact on July 30; the Accord Party separately petitioned President Bola Tinubu over alleged police intimidation of its members.
The IRGC's July 31 strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain force both GCC states to take a formal position in the US-Iran conflict they have tried to avoid; Kuwait and Bahrain's formal responses were not in the record by deadline. Ukraine's President Zelensky met Trump at the White House on July 28 and said Putin "no longer holds the upper hand." Keiko Fujimori was inaugurated as Peru's president on July 28.
Colombia's Abelardo de la Espriella took office in Cali on August 7, completing the handover from Gustavo Petro; Petro did not attend, breaking with tradition; Spain's King Felipe VI, Argentina's Milei, and FIFA president Infantino were present; De la Espriella's five declared priorities are security, employment, health reform, education, and anti-corruption; Gustavo Petro moves to the former-leaders tracker. The Vatican confirmed on August 5 that Pope Leo XIV will visit Peru from November 11-17, his first trip to Latin America as pontiff and a personal homecoming after nearly two decades as a missionary and bishop there; the tour also covers Uruguay and Argentina. Poland's former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki confirmed on August 4 that his breakaway parliamentary group will formally constitute itself as a new party by October; PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński responded by ordering members to sign a loyalty pledge rejecting external associations, completing the public rupture between Poland's two main right-wing factions. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf held protests across Pakistan on August 5 marking the third anniversary of Imran Khan's imprisonment; police in Karachi baton-charged demonstrators, fired tear gas, and arrested several party leaders including Dr Masroor Sial; Amnesty International called on Pakistan's government to release Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi and restore access to family and lawyers. North Korea's Kim Yo Jong warned on August 5 that Pyongyang would not remain a passive onlooker as Japan expands its military capabilities; she cited Japan's test-firing of long-range cruise missiles and participation in US-led drills, and accused Tokyo of reviving the ambitions of a "war criminal state." Brazil's Workers' Party formally proclaimed Lula its candidate for an unprecedented fourth presidential term on August 2 at São Paulo; Lula, 80, anchored the campaign on sovereignty, defence, and stability, with Trump-administration interference concerns as the live external variable. Ahmet Davutoglu announced the Gelecek (Future) Party will dissolve at an August 22 congress, ending his five-year opposition experiment and withdrawing from politics; Bülent Arınç, an AKP founding figure, welcomed the move, deepening Erdogan's consolidation of Turkey's centre-right. PML-N led unofficial results in Azad Kashmir's Phase 2 elections on August 2, covering Muzaffarabad and Jammu divisions; combined with Phase 1, PML-N is on course to control the new AJK assembly, giving Islamabad a closely aligned government in the disputed territory.
Nauru officially renamed itself the Republic of Naoero on August 4, restoring the pre-colonial indigenous name; the change is a sovereignty statement at the Pacific Island Forum level, where Australia and China are competing for influence. Ukraine's President Zelenskyy launched the Carpathian Initiative with Czech Republic and Slovakia on August 4, a regional security and reconstruction grouping distinct from NATO; Zelenskyy disclosed Ukraine holds FREYJA missile launchers but needs European components.
Venezuela's Dinorah Figuera-led opposition delegation arrived on August 6 with US backing to negotiate a political transition with Delcy Rodríguez's acting government; Nicolas Maduro has been held in US custody since January 3, 2026. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the talks around a three-phase plan; Maduro endorsed the process via Telegram from US custody; Rodríguez calls it a "dialogue," not a "transition," and has resisted US demands to cut fuel shipments to Cuba and sever ties with Russia and China. María Corina Machado is holding distance as a tactical choice. Figuera cited December 2026 as the timeline for first results.
Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi attended the 81st Hiroshima atomic bombing memorial on August 6, her first as prime minister, reaffirming the three non-nuclear principles as the government prepares to revise national security documents later in 2026; a record 123 countries attended. North Korea launched a ballistic missile the same day. The US ambassador was absent without explanation.
Ukraine's Zelensky visited Serbia on August 8 for his first official trip there since Russia's 2022 invasion, meeting President Vucic in Belgrade and signing a memorandum of understanding covering EU accession, energy, and the path to peace; Serbia and Ukraine also pledged to explore a free trade deal; TASS called the visit harmful to Belgrade-Moscow relations. Romania's far-right presidential candidate Calin Georgescu went on trial on August 6 on charges of falsifying election reports and undermining constitutional order; his campaign chief faced a separate hearing on influence-peddling charges; the case is the most significant test of Romania's judiciary since the 2024 election in which Georgescu was disqualified on national-security grounds. The Romanian Alliance for Homeland, which Georgescu leads, had polled first in the annulled December 2024 vote.
US President Trump signed two executive orders on August 6, one restricting birthright citizenship and one targeting "birth tourism," despite a prior US Supreme Court ruling on a Trump challenge to the 14th Amendment's birthright clause; SCOTUSblog confirmed both orders and said they are likely to generate fresh federal litigation. Whether courts issue emergency injunctions and whether the administration advances a new constitutional theory will determine whether the orders take practical effect.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement on August 7 with a mutual-defence clause: any armed attack on one is an attack on all three; Erdogan said the pact targets no country and is open to friendly nations; Turkey simultaneously asserted the pact aligns with its NATO obligations; Iran vowed to resist any coercion linked to the new framework; India's MEA issued a "fake news alert" denying reports it sought membership.
Watch: De la Espriella's first cabinet announcements and foreign-policy statements now that he is in office; whether courts grant pretrial detention to the detained Turkish district mayors or release them; whether the CHP files emergency Council of Europe or ECHR complaints; whether the Turkish crackdown reaches the Istanbul or Ankara metro mayors; whether Chang An-le files his counter-petition against the DPP and whether courts process it; Beijing's formal response to the CUPP dissolution; Osun State pre-election violence risk; Kuwait and Bahrain's formal diplomatic response to the IRGC strikes; Lula campaign poll trajectory and any Washington statement on the Brazilian election; Davutoglu's August 22 congress; whether Pakistani authorities charge or release those arrested in Karachi; whether Venezuela's December 2026 timeline produces any of Machado's four conditions; whether Maduro's US detention enters the formal Venezuela negotiation; whether North Korea's August 6 missile launch accelerates further provocations; whether Japan's US ambassador explains his Hiroshima and Nagasaki absences and what this signals on nuclear-sharing talks; India's formal diplomatic response to the Turkey-Saudi-Pakistan pact; whether Turkey's dual-membership status in NATO and the new trilateral creates any institutional friction; how the pact affects Saudi-India and Turkey-India bilateral relations.
