WAO ART #127

French police have raided the headquarters of the organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as part of two preliminary corruption investigations. The police are reportedly looking into allegations of favouritism and misuse of public money in the attribution of construction contracts.

Bitcoin's market dominance has risen above 50% for the first time since May 2021, following the SEC's crackdown on altcoins and BlackRock's filing for a Bitcoin Spot ETF. The dominance metric has been criticized for under-representing Bitcoin's true market share by including stablecoins in its calculations.

Brazil's environmental protection agency has confiscated record-high figures of illegal shark fin harvests from two export companies. The confiscated shark fins, which weighed a total of 28.7 tonnes, was destined for Asia where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy.

Controversy has arisen in India over syllabus changes and textbook content for government-run schools under the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Among the topics being removed are chapters on federalism and diversity and content related to the 2002 Gujarat riots.

French clean energy firm Neoen is set to construct a multi-billion-dollar battery in Western Australia's coal-producing Collie region. The project will involve work being carried out in stages and eventually result in 1 gigawatt in capacity and a duration of four hours.

A search and rescue operation is underway in the North Atlantic after a submersible exploring the wreck of the Titanic went missing on 14 July. The Titan sub was scheduled to start its dive at 04:00 local time on 14 July, but contact was lost an hour and 45 minutes into its catalogue of the wreck.

Kenya's trade minister, Moses Kuria, has been accused of intimidating the Nation Media Group after it exposed a cooking oil scandal. The investigation revealed that a state agency under the trade ministry had reportedly single-sourced private firms to import cooking oil tax-free.