Friday 31st July 2026. UEFA boycott. Ukraine-Russia war. Poland missile. Saudi invasion? Australia Telegram court. Argentina snow rescue...

0:00 Hi, this is Stephen. Two things to say before the news. Firstly, we are taking a semi break during August, which just means that there will be only three episodes a week instead of five Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We'll be back to five episodes a week in September. Secondly, I've made a video. It doesn't happen very often, so you know it's important.

0:24 This video explains how to use the new supporters system and how to connect to the new Purple podcast feed with no adverts and bonus episodes. There's a link to that video in the episode description. Thank you, good morning. This is seven World News in seven minutes. I'm Stephen Devin Chenzie. Today is Friday, the thirty first of July twenty twenty six. Starting in Europe today, UEFA, the European Football Association, has said that it will boycott all FIFA competitions, including the World Cup, if FIFA goes ahead with a private investment plan announced this week. FIFA, the world's football governing body, announced a plan to start a new company that would run its tournaments, and that twenty percent of

1:25 that company would be sold to private investors. FIFA says that this will make more money to invest in football around the world. All fifty five European countries represented in UEFA agreed that they will not participate in any FIFA tournaments starting with the Women's Under twenties World Cup, which is starting in September and is hosted by Poland. UEFA has said that FIFA is selling the soul of football.

1:56 Ukrainian officials have said that over the last in two days, Ukraine has hit two major Russian oil refineries, three wild Berries online retailer warehouses, four Russian tankers in the Black Sea and as of Sea, a sea drones base in the occupied region of Crimea Russian air defenses and a drone storage and launch a site in the occupied region of Donetsk. Russia used missiles and drones to hit many cities in Ukraine yesterday, causing at least eight deaths and many injuries. In the western city of Lviv, close to Poland, rescue operations were continuing yesterday after residential buildings were hit in Poland. A missile has crashed in the Lublin region, about one hundred kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Poland's military

2:50 said that it made the decision not to shoot down the missile because they could see it was going to crash in an uninhabited area. Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited the site of the missile crash yesterday and said that it was probably a Russian cruise missile. The previous day, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenski met Tusk in Lublin. In Germany, thousands of car manufacturing workers have protested the proposed closure of the Audi factory in Nekhasuln. Volkswagen, which owns Audi, has said that tens of thousands of jobs are likely to be lost during upcoming changes. BMW has also said that thousands of jobs will be lost over the next two years. Analysts say that this is because of the expensive transition to electric vehicles, tariffs from the United States,

3:48 and competition from China. In Hungary, the low water in the Danube River has revealed the remains of a mammoth, according to an expert from the Ruse History Museum Asia and Oceania. In Japan, thirty four people have been confirmed to have died in the earthquake which hit the western island of Kyushu on Tuesday, mostly from the collapse of a shopping mall. And a paper mill. Australia is starting legal action against the social network and messaging platform Telegram.

4:28 Australia's E Safety Commissioner, Julie Grant said that Telegram left extremist violent content on its platform despite being told to remove it.

4:39 This case concerned content linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history, including depicting the christ Church and Buffalo attacks, as well as Isis beheadings and executions and other horrific material used for propaganda and for radicalization. We allege that this car remained publicly accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice by user reports.

5:08 Saudi Arabia could possibly be preparing to invade the WHO the controlled part of Yemen, according to some reports of large quantities of forces close to the Yemeni border. Since twenty fourteen, Saudi Arabia has been fighting the WHO, the group which controls most of western Yemen. Americas. In Argentina, one hundred and sixty three people have been rescued after being trapped in and around their cars during a snowstorm on a road in the northwestern province of Katamarca. They were trapped for two days at an altitude of four thousand meters and the snow reached the top of their cars before they were rescued. Canadians spent three point three billion dollars less on traveling to the United States last

6:03 year than in the previous year, according to government data. There has been anti US and pro Canada sentiment after US President Donald Trump proposed Canada becoming a state of the US and imposed tariffs on Canada. The data says that Canadians traveled just as much last year as they normally do. However, they replaced travel to the US with travel to other places Africa. In Spain, over one thousand, five hundred migrants have crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta over the last week. Hundreds of the migrants swam to Spanish territory and hundreds of others rushed through a hole in a fence. In Egypt, two gas tankers in the Mediterranean port of Damietta have been damaged by drones. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, however,

7:06 they are likely to be long range attacks by either Iran or Yemen's who These who have been attacking commercial ships around the Middle East. This is the first known strike on tankers in the Mediterranean Sea during this war, and the first strike within Africa and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A new species of monkey has been recognized. The monkey, known locally as liqueli, has orange lips, a black face, and hair on the top of its head.

7:41 That's your world news for this week. A big thank you to the seven supporters who keep this podcast running. If you need help moving to the new sen seven Supporters system, just send me an email. Our supporters now have access to every episode without advertss episodes, transcripts, vocabulary lists, worksheets, quizzes and more, and we give ten percent of our profit to highly effective charities. We are keeping our old lower price until the end of August, so if you want to lock in that price, then click on the link in the episode description. Have a great weekend, See you on Monday.