International News Bulletin — August 5, 2026

Politics

• Iran and Oman agree a Hormuz route as Trump renews threats – Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Wednesday that an agreement had been reached with Oman on a proposed route through the Strait of Hormuz, with a joint statement from Tehran and Muscat in final drafting, Bloomberg reported. Under the emerging interim arrangement, inbound vessels would enter the Gulf through Iranian territorial waters and outbound vessels would sail through Omani waters in coordination with Tehran, and Axios reported that Washington, Tehran and Muscat were preparing to announce a 60-day accord. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said there had been “progress made in those talks, but not finality yet”, while President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to authorise strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure if Tehran continues to target shipping.
• Jordan convenes Arab and Islamic ministers over Al-Aqsa – Jordan hosted an emergency conference of Arab and Islamic foreign ministers in Amman on Wednesday, called over what Amman describes as an imminent threat to the status quo at the Al-Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem. Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned that “tampering with the status quo could trigger a religious conflict that will reverberate beyond Palestine and Jordan into the whole Muslim world”, according to Arab News and The National. Officials from Türkiye, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Malaysia and others attended alongside the Arab League secretary-general, after a 23 July incursion in which more than 2,000 Israelis led by far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir prayed at the site.
• Netanyahu rejects the US draft on disarming Hamas – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly rejected a Trump administration draft on the disarmament and demilitarisation of Gaza, saying “they sent us a draft, we didn’t agree to it, it’s not our draft”, and insisting Israeli forces will not leave their positions until Hamas is completely disarmed. The proposal would have had Hamas begin disarming while Israel halted strikes and started withdrawing from roughly 60 percent of Gaza that it controls, according to AP and The National. Hamas maintains that any disarmament depends on Israel first halting operations and withdrawing under last year’s ceasefire, leaving the American framework stalled between the two positions.
• Myanmar’s war edges towards talks as the junta chief flies to Bangkok – Reuters reported on Wednesday that the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union, an umbrella coalition of major ethnic armed organisations and the shadow National Unity Government, has committed to pursuing a negotiated political settlement after more than five years of civil war. The military has not recognised the council as a negotiating partner, and analysts quoted in the report described the near-term prospect as talks about talks rather than substantive dialogue. Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is due to meet Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul in Bangkok on 6 and 7 August, part of a regional push to revive the peace track.
• Washington revokes the visa of Brazil’s ambassador – The State Department withdrew the visa of Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Brazil’s ambassador to the United States, in what a senior official called a reciprocal action over Brasília’s delay in granting agrément to Daniel Perez, Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Brazil. The official told CNN and NBC News that Viotti was not designated persona non grata and that her visa would be restored immediately if Brazil approved Perez. Brazil’s government said it repudiated the measure and called both American justifications false, in the latest step of a widening diplomatic dispute between the two governments.

Economy

• Dow sets a record while the Nasdaq snaps a four-day rally – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Wednesday at 54,349.12, up 263.24 points or 0.49 percent and at an all-time high, while the S&P 500 slipped 12.97 points to 7,723.55, down 0.17 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 221.55 points to 26,363.44, down 0.83 percent, according to Yahoo Finance. The split reflected a rotation out of technology as investors weighed the latest earnings against the prospect of a Hormuz agreement. Nvidia was the exception, rising 3.43 percent to 219.22.
• SpaceX shares fall 13 percent on its AI capital spending – SpaceX, which listed in June, dropped about 13 percent on Wednesday after its first quarterly report as a public company, with Yahoo Finance noting that a 20 percent share unlock this week added pressure. Second-quarter revenue was 7.8 billion dollars, up 92 percent year on year and ahead of expectations, and the net loss narrowed to 541 million dollars from about 1 billion a year earlier, while Starlink subscribers doubled to 12 million. Capital expenditure jumped to 18.4 billion dollars in the quarter from 10.1 billion in the preceding three months, of which 15.83 billion went to artificial intelligence, according to CNN and Fast Company.
• Crude falls for a third session on the Hormuz talks – West Texas Intermediate ended Wednesday near 75 dollars a barrel, its lowest in almost a month, after edging about 0.7 percent lower, while Brent traded around 79.43 dollars, according to CNBC and Rigzone. Traders attributed the third consecutive decline to signs that Washington and Tehran are close to an arrangement reopening the strait. The move came despite a claim by Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree of a missile attack on a Saudi oil tanker in the Red Sea, reported by Reuters.
• India’s central bank holds its policy rate at 5.25 percent – The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee left the repo rate unchanged at 5.25 percent on Wednesday and kept its neutral stance, after a meeting held from 3 to 5 August. Governor Sanjay Malhotra said the committee wanted “greater clarity” on the inflation outlook before acting and described the RBI as “neither dovish nor hawkish”, noting that headline inflation above the 4 percent target was driven by food and fuel with little sign of generalised price pressure. The committee raised its FY27 growth forecast to 6.7 percent from 6.6 percent and cut its consumer price inflation projection to 5 percent from 5.1 percent, with the next meeting set for 5 to 7 October.
• Brussels channels 1.4 billion euros of frozen Russian asset interest to Ukraine – The European Commission said the funds, transferred to the European Union on 3 August, come from interest accrued in the first half of 2026 on roughly 210 billion euros of Russian central bank reserves frozen since 2022 and held by central securities depositories. Most of the money will service G7 and EU loans to Ukraine, with 70 million euros directed to military assistance. The Commission described it as the fifth transfer of its kind, bringing total windfall profits channelled since 2022 to about 8 billion euros.

World News

• Russian barrage on the Kyiv region kills 17 – At least 17 people were killed and 44 wounded in missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and surrounding districts overnight into Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, with figures also reported by AP and Al Jazeera. Zelenskyy said Russia fired 24 ballistic missiles, four other missiles and 115 drones, hitting warehouses in Brovary and Bucha, a brewing company, a construction materials depot and a railway station, and said interceptor supplies were “three times less than in 2025”. Russia’s defence ministry said it had downed 475 Ukrainian drones overnight and that its forces had targeted logistics hubs and supply chains.
• Two Israeli soldiers and one Lebanese killed in south Lebanon – Two soldiers from Israel’s 55th Brigade were killed and several others wounded, one critically, when an improvised device detonated inside a booby-trapped building in the village of Majdal Selem, Al Jazeera reported. An Israeli air strike on the town of Tibnin hit the roof of a cemetery prayer hall, killing one person and injuring 12, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. The Israeli military said it had begun what it called precise strikes across southern Lebanon in response to a violation of the ceasefire by Hezbollah, as talks on the truce continue.
• Puntland forces seize a federal-aligned camp in Galkayo – Puntland security forces backed by military vehicles attacked a camp near the airport in northern Galkayo on Wednesday morning and said they had taken control as Puntland Security Force fighters withdrew, Al Jazeera reported. Residents described sustained gunfire and mortar exchanges on the eastern outskirts of the divided central Somali city, and families fled neighbourhoods near the front line. Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni told a news conference in Garowe that the assault was “a planned security operation” and a message to anyone working against his administration, amid deepening tensions with Somalia’s federal government.
• WFP warns El Niño could push 49 million into acute hunger – The World Food Programme said its early analysis puts an 81 percent probability on a very strong El Niño event, with sea surface temperatures at their warmest since at least 1982, and projects that at least 49 million additional people could fall into acute food insecurity by the end of 2027. Across the 45 countries analysed, the acutely food insecure population would rise from about 225 million to 274 million, an increase of roughly 22 percent. The agency expects the event to peak between September and December 2026, with the sharpest deterioration in Latin America and the Caribbean, where more than 16 million people could be affected, and in East and Southern Africa, where the figure exceeds 18 million.
• Puerto Rico rations water in San Juan during a record drought – More than 180,000 customers will go without water for 48 hours at a time from Friday under an alternating schedule covering San Juan and neighbourhoods in Carolina, Juncos, Gurabo, Trujillo Alto, Canóvanas and Loíza, AP and Al Jazeera reported. July was the driest month on record in San Juan in more than 120 years and its fourth hottest, and the US Drought Monitor places almost 25 percent of the territory in severe drought with a further 36 percent in moderate drought. Governor Jenniffer González said she did not know how long the rationing would last, and forecasters expect dry conditions to persist into September.

Bulletin automatically generated on August 5, 2026.