UKRAINE WAR: Kiev’s forces fired more than 400 drones towards Moscow in the latest major Ukrainian attack on the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said today.

The blitz came hours after Russia bombarded had Kiev and other Ukrainian cities with ballistic missiles in a cycle of tit-for-tat strikes that make a settlement to end Moscow’s more than four-year-old invasion appear a distant prospect.

FRANCE: MPs are racing against the clock to reach a compromise that would allow a Bill banning social media for children under 15 to come into force at the start of the new school year in September.

With the summer recess looming, seven members of the National Assembly and seven senators were set to meet today in a joint committee to seek an agreement that could be voted on later this week. 

YEMEN: The Houthi-led government announced a sea embargo on Saudi Arabia today in response to a recent attack on Sanaa airport.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement that the maritime ban would take effect immediately, in what he described as an “equation of ‘an eye for an eye’.”

The statement did not clarify the nature of the embargo. 

WEST AFRICA: Regional leaders have signed an agreement approving the construction of a gas pipeline linking Nigeria and Morocco.

The deal, signed on Sunday at a summit of the Economic Community of West African States in the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown, aims to arrange the movement of natural gas from Nigeria through 13 west African countries to Morocco.