While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, July 26, 2025
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Neighbours Cambodia and Thailand traded deadly strikes for a second day on July 25.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Cambodia calls for ceasefire with Thailand: UN envoy
Cambodia wants an “immediate ceasefire” with Thailand, the country’s envoy to the United Nations said on July 25, after the neighbours traded deadly strikes for a second day.
A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on July 24, prompting the Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis on June 25.
“Cambodia asked for an immediate ceasefire – unconditionally – and we also call for the peaceful solution of the dispute,” said Cambodia’s ambassador, Mr Chhea Keo, following a closed meeting of the Council attended by Cambodia and Thailand.
The envoy questioned how Thailand, a regional military heavyweight, could accuse Cambodia, its smaller neighbour, of attacking it.
Trump arrives in Scotland for golf and trade talks
US President Donald Trump, dogged by questions about his ties to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, arrived in Scotland on July 25 for some golf and bilateral talks that could yield a trade deal with the European Union.
Mr Trump told reporters before leaving the US that he will visit his two golf properties in Scotland and meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Scottish leader John Swinney.
Mr Trump said he and Mr Starmer would discuss the US-British trade deal and perhaps even “improve” it, but gave no details.
Ukraine facing fierce fighting around Pokrovsk
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on July 25 that Ukrainian forces were facing fierce fighting around the city of Pokrovsk in the east, a logistics hub near which Russia has been announcing the capture of villages on an almost daily basis.
Mr Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, said Ukraine’s top commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, told a meeting of senior officials that the situation around Pokrovsk was the current focal point of its attention in the war, which began when Russia invaded in February 2022.
“All operational directions were covered, with particular focus on Pokrovsk. It receives the most attention,” Mr Zelensky said.
UK MPs urge Starmer to recognise Palestinian state
More than 220 British MPs, including dozens from the ruling Labour party, demanded on July 25 that the UK government formally recognise a Palestinian state, further increasing pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The call, in a letter signed by lawmakers from nine UK political parties, came less than 24 hours after French President Emmanuel Macron said that his country would formally recognise a Palestinian state at a UN meeting in September.
France would be the first Group of 7 country – and the most powerful European nation to date – to make the move, already drawing condemnation from Israel and the United States.
Two teens jailed in UK over murder of 14-year-old
A British judge on July 25 sentenced two teenagers to life in prison, with a minimum term of 15 years, for stabbing to death a 14-year-old boy on a London bus earlier this year.
The attack in January reignited debates around gang violence and the ongoing problem of knife crime that has plagued the British capital and other UK cities for years.
On Jan 7, Kelyan Bokassa was stabbed 27 times with machetes on the bus in Woolwich in south-east London.
