The Cursus Publicus

The Cursus Publicus — Sunday, 12 July 2026 · No. XII

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Iran fired missiles and drones at the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain after U.S. forces struck about 140 sites; Tehran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed.
The widening Gulf war has all but halted Hormuz transits and is pushing oil prices and war-risk insurance sharply higher.
UNICEF warns half a million civilians are at risk as the RSF tightens its siege of Sudan's el-Obeid and cholera spreads.
DR Congo's Ebola outbreak is now the fastest-growing on record, with 600 dead and cases reaching new provinces.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-12.html

The Cursus Publicus — Saturday, 11 July 2026 · No. XI

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Iran's foreign minister met Oman on Hormuz shipping as a U.S. delegation also arrived, after Tehran privately admitted the tanker strikes were a mistake.
UN inspectors say they've lost all track of Iran's nuclear program since February's strikes, with access still denied.
Venezuela's earthquake death toll passed 4,000 as disease spreads through displacement shelters.
The US now names a California-born dual national as CJNG's top leader, complicating efforts to target him.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-11.html

The Cursus Publicus — Friday, 10 July 2026 · No. X

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Iran struck Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar as Trump declared the U.S.-Iran ceasefire "over"; Hormuz shipping has again ground to a near-halt.
Mexico's attorney general formally accused former U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar of lying about the 2024 Zambada capture.
A UN mission ruled Sudan's RSF committed genocide at el-Fasher as the army hardens conditions for any peace deal.
Italy expelled two Russian attachés after a spy ring leaked Ukraine-bound air-defense and NATO data to Moscow.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-10.html

The Cursus Publicus — Thursday, 9 July 2026 · No. IX

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Iran struck Qatar for the first time as CENTCOM hit roughly 90 more Iranian targets overnight; Hormuz-transiting tanker traffic is down about 95%.
Chinese scholars claimed the Philippine island of Batanes as Chinese territory, extending Beijing's Taiwan-adjacent “lawfare” into sovereign Philippine ground for the first time.
Mexico will pursue legal action against ICE after a fatal Houston shooting — a sharper step than its usual diplomatic protest.
China's port-state inspections of Panama-flagged ships show “no sign of abatement,” the U.S. maritime regulator warns, months after Panama's canal-terminal ruling.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-09.html

The Cursus Publicus — Wednesday, 8 July 2026 · No. VIII

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

The Strait of Hormuz crisis turned into direct U.S.-Iran combat after Iran struck a third tanker on the ceasefire's Omani bypass route.
Mexico's Sheinbaum now accuses U.S. Ambassador Ken Salazar by name of lying about FBI involvement in the 2024 Zambada extraction.
Taiwan's coast guard chief warns China's creeping gray-zone pressure risks a new status quo the world won't notice until it's too late.
Roberto Sánchez conceded Peru's presidency to Keiko Fujimori, clearing a smoother path to her July 28 inauguration.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-08.html

The Cursus Publicus — Tuesday, 7 July 2026 · No. VII

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Iran's Revolutionary Guard fired missiles at two commercial tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz overnight — including a Qatari LNG carrier set ablaze — specifically targeting vessels using the "Omani route" shippers adopted after the earlier ceasefire, sending Brent crude back toward $73 and reopening the risk premium the ceasefire was supposed to have retired.
Sudan's RSF now controls every route into el-Obeid except a single eastern corridor, with a UN official calling the window to prevent a full siege "rapidly narrowing" for roughly 500,000 remaining civilians, even as UNICEF ties six in ten Sudanese child casualties this year to drone strikes.
Mexico's Sheinbaum is set to release a chronology accusing the FBI of "interference and intervention" in the 2024 extraction of Sinaloa Cartel figure Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, just as a new Crisis Group report finds the military surge into Sinaloa since his arrest has fragmented — not curbed — fentanyl production.
Japan expelled Chinese coast guard vessels from its territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands and Morocco's intelligence service dismantled a Sahel-linked ISIS cell plotting car-bomb attacks in two cities — parallel reminders that low-level maritime coercion in the Pacific and jihadist logistics networks in North Africa both remain live fronts requiring separate vigilance.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-07.html

The Cursus Publicus — Monday, 6 July 2026 · No. VI

Mon, 06 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

China conducted a submarine-launched ballistic missile test into the South Pacific and rotated its coast-guard patrol group east of Taiwan for a second time in a month — two fronts where Beijing is converting one-off shows of force into a durable operating pattern.
An unclaimed skiff attack hit a bulk carrier off Hodeidah a day after the Saudi-led coalition named the Yemeni targets it would strike in retaliation, while Brussels rejected the airline industry's push to suspend its glitch-plagued border-check system, leaning instead on existing flexibility through September.
Venezuela's earthquake toll climbed to 3,342 dead even as a domestic rights group publicly challenged the government's own count, and UNICEF said drone strikes now account for six in ten child casualties in Sudan's escalating war around el-Obeid.
Mexico City's main airport was found to have handed security contracts to firms with alleged gun-trafficking ties ahead of the World Cup's peak stretch, and India's NIA formally named Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed as an accused in the Pahalgam attack.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-06.html

The Cursus Publicus — Sunday, 5 July 2026 · No. V

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Insurgents linked to Mali's Azawad Liberation Front struck five towns in a coordinated dawn assault, and Saudi Arabia's coalition has for the first time named the specific Yemeni ports and airport it would strike if Houthi provocations continue — two fronts where fragile postures are hardening rather than settling.
Taiwan's coast guard tracked a record concentration of Chinese vessels along the first island chain as Beijing confirmed its patrol rotation east of Taiwan has become a standing fixture rather than a one-off show of force.
Pope Leo XIV used his first July 4th as pontiff to appeal for migrant protection from Lampedusa, spotlighting the Mediterranean frontier that has taken more than half of Italy's 14,000-plus sea arrivals this year, while Europe's airline industry formally asked Brussels to suspend its glitch-plagued new border-check system through peak summer travel.
Peru's Keiko Fujimori opened a formal transition office ahead of her July 28 inauguration as her rival presses an international legitimacy challenge — a reminder that a "won" election can leave institutional authority contested for weeks.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-05.html

The Cursus Publicus — Saturday, 4 July 2026 · No. IV

Sat, 04 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Saudi Arabia intercepted an Iranian jet carrying mourners to Ayatollah Khamenei's funeral, and Yemen's Houthis have threatened retaliatory strikes on Saudi airports and vessels — a fresh flashpoint layered onto an already fragile Iran-Israel-US ceasefire and a still-recovering Strait of Hormuz.
The UK and France have committed naval assets alongside Oman to restore safe Hormuz transit — the first concrete Western military commitment to the strait since April's truce, and a sign that traffic normalization remains incomplete months after the war's end.
Venezuela's earthquake death toll has passed 2,645 with tens of thousands still unaccounted for, adding fresh displacement pressure onto a population that already accounts for one of the world's largest outflows.
Peru's Keiko Fujimori has been declared president-elect after a razor-thin runoff and Ecuador has captured a top Los Choneros-Sinaloa cartel liaison — modest wins for hemispheric stability, even as a slain Mexican journalist, police complicity, and a stalled USMCA renegotiation keep North American equities under strain.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-04.html

The Cursus Publicus — Friday, 3 July 2026 · No. III

Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Venezuela's earthquake death toll has climbed to 2,595 with roughly 50,000 still unaccounted for, and the interim government's response is drawing open criticism from experts and its own officials — a fragile-state scenario worth watching for downstream displacement pressure.
Singapore has seized a $42M mansion and frozen accounts tied to an alleged scheme funneling Nvidia AI-chip-laden servers toward China in violation of U.S. export controls — a reminder that Southeast Asian transshipment hubs remain a live evasion risk for controlled U.S. technology.
Guatemala's new attorney general is moving to unwind a predecessor era that U.S. and EU partners had sanctioned for stifling anti-corruption work — a notable justice-sector reset in a security partner under sustained Trump-administration pressure on regional governments.
China's coast guard and PLA are hardening what analysts now describe as a "permanent" gray-zone pressure campaign east of Taiwan, even as Poland disrupts a Belarusian espionage cell targeting exiles in Warsaw — great-power and hostile-state activity against partners continuing on parallel tracks.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-03.html

The Cursus Publicus — Thursday, 2 July 2026 · No. II

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Venezuela's earthquake death toll has passed 1,900 with search-and-rescue still underway; a sustained U.S. military and aid footprint there raises the odds of a fresh migration wave building over the coming months.
Washington's decision not to renew USMCA opens a prolonged review period with Mexico and Canada — talks resume the week of July 20 — that could inject friction into cross-border trade and customs coordination even as day-to-day enforcement continues unchanged for now.
A Peruvian court restored state oversight of the Chinese-run Chancay megaport, a rare setback for Beijing's port investments in Latin America that Washington had actively lobbied against.
Sudan's Rapid Support Forces face fresh war-crimes and ethnic-cleansing allegations as the conflict deepens, sustaining one of the world's largest displacement crises.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-02.html

The Cursus Publicus — Wednesday, 1 July 2026 · No. I

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:00:00 +0000

The USMCA joint review formally opens today (July 1) amid a strained, Canada-sidelined process — a rules-of-origin renegotiation that lands squarely on customs and trade enforcement.
Venezuela's quake toll has passed 1,700 with ~43,200 reported missing and 1.8M in need; UN agencies say needs are "skyrocketing." Displacement pressure keeps building.
Amnesty finds RSF crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in El Fasher, Sudan, as the UN Human Rights Council convenes — accelerating one of the world's largest displacement crises.
Taiwan told commercial ships to reject China Coast Guard boarding demands — fresh friction at a top global chokepoint that feeds transpacific supply to U.S. ports.

Full edition and sources: https://archive.cursuspublic.us/editions/2026-07-01.html