On Thursday, July 28, a Cairo court has sentenced Hisham Geneina, the former chief of the Central Auditing Authority (CAA), to a year in jail and a fine of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (EGP) for 'disseminating false news that was harmful to state institutions and threatened public peace.' The charges were based on remarks Geneina made in an interview with Youm7 daily newspaper in December 2015. In it, he estimated that corruption had cost the budget over 600 billion EGP (around $72 billion at the official exchange rate) between 2012 and 2015. Geneina will appeal the verdict and remain free on bail of 10,000 EGP.

The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, made a decision on July 28 to incorporate the Crimean Federal District into the Southern Federal District. According to the press services of the Kremlin, the main purpose of this action was to “increase the efficiently of federal bodies of the authorities”. In response to Russia’s decision, the Ukrainian delegation to the UN Security Council presented a proposal of a statement expressing deep concern over this situation. The statement was also to refer to Resolution 68/262 of the General Assembly of the United Nations of 27 March 2014 on “the territorial integrity of Ukraine”. However, the Russian delegation opposed and blocked the draft statement.

On Thursday, July 28, gen. John Nicholson, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, has announced an increase in US involvement in an offensive against ISIS in the east of the country. Additional special forces units have been dispatched to the area and are directly involved in fighting, while the US Air Force is providing air support for Afghan forces. The additional forces are not counted as part of the permanent US contingent. According to Nicholson, military operations have thinned ISIS ranks from 3,000 to 1,500 and forced the remainder to retreat into the mountains in the south of Nangarhar province. The current phase of fighting has begun in the middle of July and is a prelude to a planned large-scale ground offensive in the province.

On Tuesday, Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet proposed changes to the most radical of all the economic reforms of former dictator Augusto Pinochet – the private pension system which induced protests in the region with one, on Sunday, reaching over 150 000 people in Santiago, according to organizers. The protesters argue that Chile’s six private pension funds, which manage US$160 billion in assets, do not guarantee a dignified old-age and only perpetuate inequality.

After the servers of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were hacked and Wikileaks published emails of several American politicians, Donald Trump appealed to Russian hackers to find 33,000 emails of Hilary Clinton. Trump’s speech referred to last year’s email affair when Clinton transferred the contents of her mailbox to the state archive with a long delay. During her tenure as the Secretary of State, Clinton used her private email server instead of the government server, in breach of the regulations on state secrets. Opponents accuse her of deleting potentially damning emails, while Clinton claims that these were her private emails.

Due to the old airway system, Iran is one of the countries with most fatal airline accident since 1979. One of the nuclear deal’s fruits for Iran was signing the agreement with two major Aircraft companies, Airbus and the Boing. The first deal has signed with the French company, Airbus, during President Ruhanis visit to France. The value of the agreement was around $25bn and Airbus sold 118 of its recent models to Iran. After Airbus, its American competitor, Boeing started to open negotiations with Iranian officials. By receiving the green light from the White House, Boing has signed a $27bn deal with Iran, to sell 100 aircraft.