1) Salzburg Festival begins in Austria.
- The Salzburg Festival began in the Austrian town of Salzburg, which was the birthplace of late composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
- Established in 1920, the festival will run through August and feature numerous concerts as well as opera and theatre performances. Over 2.5 lakh people attend the festival annually.
- Music, drama, readings, exhibitions and dance on every corner, all over the city – for two days, the beginning of the Festival summer is celebrated all over Salzburg with the Festival Opening Party.
2) Ronaldo unveils his first hotel in Portugal.
- Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo unveiled the Pestana CR7, his first hotel, developed in association with the Pestana Hotel Group in Funchal onhis home island, Madeira.
- The hotel will have branches in New York, Lisbon and Madrid, with the estimated cost of building the four hotels being around $82 million. The Madrid and New York projects are slated for 2017.
- The hotel, which is already up and running, has 49 rooms – 25 of which are referred to as `CR7 type rooms`, in reference to the former Manchester United man. There are also 23 ‘Superior CR7’ rooms and one suite for those visiting to take advantage of.
3) India, Mexico target tourism, telecom to boost ties.
- India and Mexico are charting out a new path in bilateral trade and investment ties with a focus on sectors including renewable energy, telecom and medical devices.
- This was agreed upon during the recent meeting in Mexico of the bilateral High Level Group (HLG) on Trade, Investment and Economic Cooperation. The HLG, which was established in 2007.
- With Mexico considering increasing its installed wind power capacity to 9.5 GW by 2018 from currently around 2.5GW
- Indian companies are interested in Mexico’s telecom sector as the Mexican government is looking to provide high-speed broadband Internet access even in remote areas.
- Besides, the HLG discussed ways to boost cooperation in tourism, food processing and protection of `traditional knowledge`.
4) Iraq overtakes Saudi Arabia as India`s top oil seller.
- Iraq has overtaken Saudi Arabia to become India`s top crude oil supplier while Iran has grabbed the fourth biggest exporter slot post lifting of sanctions.
- Iraq sold 11 million tonnes (MT) of crude oil to India during April-June, higher than 10 MT sourced from Saudi Arabia
- Saudi Arabia has been India`s top supplier of crude oil, selling 35 MT of oil in 2014-15 and 40.04 MT in 2015-16.
- Iran, which was India`s second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia in 2010-11, had been relegated to seventh place in 2013-14 and 2014-15 out of the 50-odd nations India sources its crude oil from.
5) Hillary Clinton makes history as first female presidential nominee.
- Hillary Clinton has been crowned as the Democratic presidential nominee, making history as the first woman to be picked by a major political party to run for the White House, and firing the gun on a fierce battle with Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
- The former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state, cleared the penultimate hurdle in her second run for president after Vermont, the home state of her opponent Bernie Sanders, carried her delegate count over the 2,383 threshold needed to secure the nomination at the Democratic convention.
- There were huge cheers on the floor of the arena as Mrs. Clinton officially became the nominee, ending what had been a bitter and unexpectedly close primary season running against Mr. Sanders.
6) WHO declares Brazil free of measles.
- The World Health Organization (WHO) declared Brazil free of measles. The step was taken after no case of the disease was registered in 2015.
- From 1985 to 2000, Brazil saw no domestic cases of measles, although it broke out in 2013 in the northeastern states of Pernambuco and Ceara.
- The WHO it had worked alongside the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) to eradicated the disease, with a joint investment of 335000 US dollar going towards measles control. The health agency also hired 165 dedicated nursing staff in Brazil.
7) `OPEN SKY POLICY` Agreement with SAARC Countries.
- As per National Civil Aviation Policy 2016, Government has planned to enter into an `Open Sky` Air Service Agreement on a reciprocal basis with SAARC countries and countries with territory located entirely beyond a 5000 km radius from New Delhi.
- Unlimited flights above the existing bilateral rights will be allowed directly to and from major airports within the country as notified by the Government time to time.
8) US postal service creates history; earns Guinness tag for sending postage stamp to Pluto.
- United States postal service made history after a stamp was send to Pluto which they placed on New Horizons spacecraft of the American space agency.
- The stamp travelled a mind-blowing 5,250,843,896 km becoming the stamp to travel longest distance ever in history.
- After the arrival of spacecraft at Pluto, the stamp earned a Guinness World records title for the farthest distance travelled by a postage stamp.
- New Horizons spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, 2006. The record-breaking stamp that travelled on the rocket was from a special series created in 1991.
9) Union Cabinet approves Bilateral Investment Treaty between India and Cambodia.
- The Union Cabinet has approved Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between India and Cambodia to boost trade and business.
- Decision in this regard was taken during the Union Cabinet Meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.
- The Treaty seeks to promote and protect investments in either country with the objective of increasing bilateral investment flows.
- It also seeks to encourage each country to create favourable conditions (climate) for investors of the other country to make investments in its territory and also to admit investments in accordance with its laws.
10) IOM becomes part of United Nations.
- The United Nation (UN) General Assembly has unanimously adopted a resolution approving an agreement to make the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) part of the UN as a related organisation.
- IOM, which assisted an estimated 20 million migrants in 2015, is an intergovernmental organisation with more than 9,500 staff and 450 offices worldwide.
- Founded in the wake of the World War II to resettle refugees from Europe, the organisation celebrates its 65th anniversary in this year.
11) WHO to consider dropping claim that transgender people are mentally ill.
- The World Health Organisation is considering removing transgender identity from its list of mental illnesses.
- It came following calls from researchers and advocates to remove it from the WHO`s list of mental disorders.
- The study was led by the National Institute of Psychiatry in Mexico.
12) India to supply free ration to jobless workers in Saudi Arabia.
- The government announced that the unemployed Indian workers in Saudi Arabia would be given free rations.
- Minister of state (MoS) for external affairs Gen. (retd.) V.K. Singh has rushed to Saudi Arabia to take stock of the situation and discuss the issue with the Saudi government.
- The number of Indian workers facing food crisis in Saudi Arabia is over 10,000.
- Indian Consulate in association with Indian Community Jeddah distributed 15,475 kg of food stuff besides eggs, spices, salt etc.