The United States said it will leave the United Nations' culture and education agency Unesco, accusing it of supporting "woke, divisive cultural and social causes". Unesco's Director General Audrey Azoulay described the decision as "regrettable" but "anticipated". The move is the latest step in the Trump administration's efforts to cut ties with international bodies, after removing the US from the World Health Organization and Paris Climate Agreement, as well as cutting funding for foreign relief efforts.

The US's decision will take effect from December 2026. The State Department said Unesco's "globalist, ideological agenda for international development" was "at odds with our America First foreign policy". It also described the inclusion of the Palestinians in Unesco in 2011, as "highly problematic, contrary to US policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization". Those claims "contradict the reality of Unesco's efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism," Azoulay said.

Twenty-eight countries including Britain, Japan and a host of European nations issued a joint statement saying the war in Gaza "must end now" - the latest sign of allies' sharpening language as Israel's isolation deepens. The foreign ministers of countries also including Australia and Canada said "the suffering of civilians in Gaza has reached new depths." They condemned "the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food."

The statement described as "horrifying" the recent deaths of over 800 Palestinians who were seeking aid, according to the figures released by Gaza's Health Ministry and the U.N. human rights office. "The Israeli government's aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity," the countries said. "The Israeli government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable. Israel must comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law."

Iran tested one of its satellite carrying rockets with a suborbital flight on Monday (July 20), state media reported, the first such test since a ceasefire was reached after a 12-day war waged by Israel against Iran in June, which also saw the United States strike nuclear-related facilities in the Islamic Republic. The test was the latest for a program that the West says improves Tehran's ballistic missiles.

A report by the official IRNA news agency said the Ghased satellite carrier test aimed at "assessing some emerging new technologies in the country's space industry." It said the test results will help improve the function of Iran's satellites and space systems. The report did not provide any further details on the test flight or from where the rocket was launched. The Ghased, a solid and fluid fuel rocket, was first inaugurated in 2020 by the Guard when it put a military satellite in orbit.

A Brazilian supreme court judge ordered that the bank accounts and assets of Jair Bolsonaro's congressman son be frozen, as a political crisis - pitting Brazil's far-right former president and Donald Trump against the current administration - intensified. Justice Alexandre de Moraes - who has spearheaded a series of supreme court investigations into Bolsonaro - targeted the finances of Eduardo Bolsonaro, the ex-president's third son, as a result of police suspicions that money being sent to him by his father was bankrolling his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to help Bolsonaro avoid punishment for an alleged coup attempt after the 2022 election.

Earlier this month, the US president announced plans to slap 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports because of the supposed "witch hunt" against Bolsonaro. Eduardo has spent weeks boasting on social media about his apparent success in convincing the White House to pile pressure on Brazil's supreme court and leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula hit back, calling Trump's move "unacceptable blackmail" and criticising Brazilian "traitors".