CHINA: Electric vehicle sales are up 22 per cent on the same time last year.

The China Passenger Car Association said June sales reached 1.51 million, 22 per cent higher than in June 2025 and a 12 per cent rise even on May.

Analysts said rising oil prices due to the US war on Iran were accelerating Chinese citizens’ shift to electric vehicles.

CANADA: Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a new oil pipeline route to the Pacific on Thursday, as he seeks to diversify exports away from the United States and court the huge Asian market.

The line would follow an existing pipeline route to minimise environmental damage, he said.

Mr Carney has set a target for Canada to double its non-US exports in a decade following political and trade friction with US President Donald Trump, who has suggested the US should take over its northern neighbour.

UKRAINE: A Ukrainian drone struck a market in Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia yesterday, killing five people and wounding 18.

The town is in Russian-controlled territory and is part of one of the four Ukrainian regions Russia has formally annexed.

The Russia-appointed Governor Yevgeny Balitsky accused Kiev of a deliberate attack on civilians.

ROME: Pope Leo XIV has excommunicated all bishops and priests belonging to the ultraconservative Society of St Pius X after it ignored warnings not to appoint new bishops without papal approval.

Associated with traditional practices like the Latin Mass, the society has also long been criticised for promoting far-right ideology, selling antisemitic texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion through its publishing arm and harbouring prominent Holocaust deniers like Bishop Richard Williamson, who died last year.