The Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) summoned the German ambassador Philipp Ackermann seeking the early return of two-year-old Indian girl Ariha Shah, who has been in foster care in Berlin for over 20 months. The ministry took the step after 59 MPs from 19 political parties signed a joint letter asking for the early repartition of the girl.
Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) PM, James Marape, visited Indian Navy Ships — INS Sahyadri and INS Kolkata — which docked at Port Moresby on 2 August. Indian High Commissioner Inbasekar Sundaramurthi hosted Marape and his entire cabinet. During the port call, the crew from the two ships will engage with personnel from the PNG Defence Forces in a wide range of activities to enhance maritime partnership and cooperation with PNG.
Left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was rebuked by critics on Thursday for appointing his former personal lawyer, Cristiano Zanin, as a Supreme Court judge. As Zanin took his seat on the country’s highest court, critics accused Lula of jeopardising the impartiality of the Supreme Court.
North Korea has “responded” to efforts by the UN Command to discuss the fate of American soldier Travis King, who defected to the country last month and is believed to be detained by Pyongyang, the Command said on Thursday. “In order not to interfere with our efforts to get him home, we will not go into details at this time,” it added.
In an unexplained attack, a man in South Korea rammed his car into passers-by on Thursday before getting out to stab some of them, injuring 14 people in the incident near Seoul, police said. The assailant, who is in his 20s and suffers from mental health issues, was arrested after the attack.
Russia recently included Norway on its “unfriendly countries” list for allegedly targeting Russian diplomats abroad. The Russian government announced the decision on Thursday, limiting the number of local staff members the Norwegian diplomatic mission can hire in Russia to 27 people. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry stated that it has not yet received official confirmation from Russian officials, but there is no reason to believe Norway is unfriendly towards Russia.
A Moscow court fined Apple 400,000 roubles ($4,274) on Thursday for failing to delete “inaccurate” information concerning what Russia terms a “special military operation” in Ukraine on apps and podcasts, as reported by media sources. According to media reports, the wrongful content included information “aimed at involving minors in illegal activities in order to destabilise the political situation in the Russian Federation.”