U.S. President Donald J. Trump issued a set of executive orders (FT) giving U.S. entities forty-five days to cease transactions with Chinese-owned mobile applications TikTok and WeChat. The move would bar the social media platforms from operating in the United States after this period unless they are sold (CNN). Microsoft is already negotiating to buy TikTok’s U.S. operations.
 
Trump cited security concerns and restrictions on the apps (Hindustan Times) in other countries, including Australia and India, to justify his actions. Nonetheless, China condemned Trump’s orders (Straits Times), accusing the United States of “political manipulation and oppression.” The move is the latest in a crackdown on Chinese technology amid surging tensions between the two powers.

A Chinese court sentenced (WSJ) Canadian citizen Xu Weihong to death for allegedly producing ketamine, the third time Chinese officials have imposed the death penalty on a Canadian citizen for drug-related offenses since late 2018. Experts worry Beijing is trying to pressure Ottawa into releasing Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, but Chinese officials say the verdicts are not politically motivated.
 
Hong Kong: Authorities charged twenty-four democracy activists for participating in a June vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Officials banned the annual vigil (NYT) due to the coronavirus.

Thousands of Afghan leaders gathered in Kabul (TOLO) today to decide whether to release four hundred Taliban prisoners, a move President Ashraf Ghani said could lead to intra-Afghan peace talks within three days. But some legal experts say neither Ghani nor the group of leaders has the power to pardon the prisoners.
  Sri Lanka: The ruling party won Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections (Straits Times) by a landslide. The results give President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his allies the two-thirds majority needed to reverse constitutional changes that limited presidential power.

Lebanese officials have detained sixteen port staff workers (DW) and frozen the assets of seven port and customs officials amid an investigation of Tuesday’s devastating explosions in the capital city of Beirut. Meanwhile, Cyprus police questioned the Russian owner of the ship that brought Beirut the chemicals that caused the explosion.
 
Saudi Arabia: In a lawsuit filed in a U.S. court, former Saudi spy Saad al-Jabri accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of sending hitmen (Al Jazeera) to assassinate him in Canada shortly after Saudi agents allegedly murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
 
On The President’s Inbox podcast, CFR’s James M. Lindsay and guests Yasmine Farouk and Bernard Haykel discuss whether the United States should rethink its relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Africa’s reported coronavirus cases have topped one million as the pandemic picks up steam (Guardian) on the continent. Some experts say the actual caseload could be one hundred times higher, in part due to low testing rates and poor government reporting.
 
Mauritania: Around forty migrants and refugees drowned after their boat sank (Reuters) off the coast of Mauritania. Migrants are increasingly making dangerous voyages from West Africa to the Canary Islands in hopes of reaching Europe.
 
This CFR InfoGuide looks at the shrinking options available to refugees.

Greece and Egypt signed an agreement (Politico) demarcating their borders in the resource-rich Mediterranean Sea after fifteen years of talks over their sea boundaries. Greek officials claimed the deal invalidates a controversial 2019 border agreement between Libya’s UN-backed government and Turkey. In response, Turkey decried the Egypt-Greece deal as “null and void.”
 
Belarus: Thousands of people gathered in Minsk (RFE/RL) to support presidential contender Svetlana Tikhanovskaya after officials shut down her planned campaign rally. President Alexander Lukashenko faces stiff competition in the country’s August 9 election, though analysts expect him to win.

Foreign trade in Latin America and the Caribbean will plunge 23 percent (teleSUR) this year due to the pandemic, according to a new report from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Regional integration is “indispensable” to recovery, the body said.
 
Canada: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland vowed to reciprocate (CBC) “dollar for dollar” after U.S. President Trump reinstated a tariff on Canadian aluminum, citing national security concerns. It’s unclear which goods the countermeasures will target, but Ottawa has previously aimed tariffs at goods produced in Republican-led areas.