August 1, 2013 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- War in Afghanistan (2001–2021):
- NATO forces in Afghanistan launch an investigation after a US airstrike in Nangarhar Province kills five Afghan policemen and injures another two. (ABC News Australia)
Business and finance
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 hit record highs. (Marketwatch)
International relations
- American National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden is granted a one-year temporary political asylum in Russia and leaves Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. (RT) (CNN)
- In talks in Manila, the Philippines and Vietnam agree to work together on a framework for resolving maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea. (Voice of America)
Law and crime
- Russian police detain 1,200 illegal Vietnamese migrants in raids in Moscow. (ABC News)
- Eight people are arrested in Greece for allegedly trying to smuggle weapons into Turkey. (IANS via Vancouver Desi)
- The U.S. states of Minnesota and Rhode Island begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. (MSNBC)
- The Dhaka High Court rules the registration of Bangladesh's largest Islamic group Jamaat-e-Islami as a political party illegal making it potentially ineligible to contest elections. (Bloomberg)
- The government of Uruguay legalizes the medical usage of marijuana, restricting legal purchases to Uruguayans in that country. (New York Times)
- Former school bus driver Ariel Castro is sentenced to life plus a thousand years for kidnapping three women and holding them hostage for a decade in Cleveland, Ohio. (ABC News Australia)
- Italy's top court confirms that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will serve a prison sentence for a tax fraud conviction. (Al-Jazeera via Yahoo!)
Politics
- The Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Willy Telavi, is removed from office by Governor General Iakoba Italeli after accusations that he allegedly tried to replace Italeli as Governor General. Opposition leader Enele Sopoaga is appointed as the country's acting Prime Minister. (Islands Business)
- Geoff Thorn, the General Manager of Parliamentary Service in the Parliament of New Zealand, submits his resignation to the Speaker David Carter after phone and other data belonging to Fairfax New Zealand journalist Andrea Vance were released to an inquiry without her permission. (TV New Zealand)
- Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party claims victory in yesterday's Zimbabwean general election as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change alleges "massive fraud". (News Limited)