International News Bulletin — August 12, 2026

Politics

• Iraq calls the September 30 coalition deadline final – Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi told the US Central Command chief, General Brad Cooper, on Wednesday that September 30 would be “the fixed and final date for ending the military mission” of the US-led coalition, and that “October 1 will mark a new day in the trajectory of the Iraqi state, as Iraq will be free of any foreign military presence”. US officials said the withdrawal of the roughly 2,500 remaining American troops is on track to finish by the end of September. That would close a presence that began with the 2003 invasion and peaked at more than 170,000 personnel in 2007.
• Lebanon passes its first amnesty law since 1991 – Parliament approved a general amnesty by a show of hands on Wednesday, a day after voting to abolish the death penalty, in a package aimed at prisons that The National reports hold about 8,500 inmates against a capacity of roughly 4,500. Terrorism offences, premeditated murder, rape, repeat drug offences and convictions for collaborating with Israel are excluded, while other sentences are cut. Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement walked out before the vote after the defence minister was barred from addressing the chamber.
• Zambia votes Thursday with Hichilema seeking a second term – President Hakainde Hichilema closed a campaign of 127 rallies with a mass gathering south of Lusaka on Wednesday, telling supporters his government had expanded free education and recruited nurses and teachers. His main challenger, the lawyer Brian Mundubile, has accused the authorities of using arrests and abductions to intimidate the opposition; twelve other candidates are also standing. Voters in Africa’s second-largest copper producer choose a president, parliament and local councils on Thursday, with the cost of living and unemployment of close to 10 percent dominating the campaign.
• India warns Beijing that border incidents will shape ties – The Ministry of External Affairs said on Wednesday that peace and tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control remain a prerequisite for normal relations, after reports of a fresh military face-off in Arunachal Pradesh. Spokesman Randhir Jaiswal declined to deny the reported incident and called border questions the most serious issue in the relationship. New Delhi has been gradually restoring engagement with Beijing since the 2020 Galwan Valley clash.
• WHO rejects Trump’s overhaul of childhood vaccination – Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that the science is “unequivocal: vaccines including the MMR vaccine are safe and do not cause autism”, responding to an executive order signed on August 10 that calls for a review of school vaccine mandates and for the measles, mumps and rubella shot to be split into three separate doses. He added that vaccination policy “should be guided by rigorous, independent and transparent review of the best available science, not by political influence”. The order extends a series of vaccine reviews and schedule changes ordered by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Economy

• US inflation eased to 3.4 percent in July – The consumer price index rose 0.1 percent on the month and 3.4 percent on the year, down from 3.5 percent in June, with core prices up 0.2 percent on the month and 2.5 percent on the year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics release as reported by CNBC and CNN. Shelter accounted for about two-thirds of the monthly rise, while the energy index fell 1.5 percent over the month but stayed 14.7 percent above a year earlier. Wall Street read the print as tame: Yahoo Finance had the S&P 500 up 0.26 percent at 7,748.50 and the Nasdaq up 0.54 percent at 26,588.49, with the Dow marginally lower at 53,770.27.
• India’s retail inflation hits a 19-month high – Consumer prices rose 4.45 percent in the year to July, with food inflation at 5.52 percent against 5.32 percent a month earlier, according to National Statistics Office data published on Wednesday. Precious metals were the sharpest outlier, with silver jewellery prices up almost 110 percent year on year. The reading stays inside the Reserve Bank of India’s target band of 4 percent plus or minus two points.
• Seoul shares jump 3.7 percent on a chip rally – The Kospi closed at 6,579.04 on Wednesday, a third straight advance, as Samsung Electronics rose about 6 percent and SK hynix about 5 percent on reports that Singapore’s Temasek plans to invest directly in Korean memory makers. Exports in the first ten days of August had already jumped 45.3 percent year on year to $21.3bn, a record for the period, with semiconductor shipments up 155 percent to $10bn. The small-cap Kosdaq fell more than 1 percent as foreign and institutional investors sold.
• Hormuz transits near a three-month low as crude slips – Vessel traffic through the strait ran at a five-day average of about 13 on Tuesday, close to the lowest since May 12 and roughly 90 percent below the 130 ships a day recorded before the February attacks on Iran, according to CNBC’s tracking. Brent settled at $88.60 and WTI at $82.85 on Wednesday, both down less than half a percent, with Investing.com reporting prices oscillating near flat as US-Iran talks stalled. US crude inventories built by 17.4 million barrels in the week to August 7, the largest weekly build since January 2023.
• US tariff refunds pass $100bn after the court ruling – The Treasury’s monthly statement, published on Wednesday, showed $33.4bn returned to businesses in July against $24.8bn of tariff revenue collected, the third consecutive month in which tariff receipts were net negative. July followed payouts of $49.1bn in June and almost $22bn in May, taking the cumulative total above $100bn. The refunds stem from the Supreme Court’s February 20 decision striking down tariffs imposed under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

World News

• Congo’s Ebola outbreak passes 2,000 deaths – Congolese officials said on Tuesday that 2,011 people had died among 4,381 confirmed cases across five provinces, at least 1,000 of those deaths in the preceding three weeks. The World Health Organization says the epidemic, caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain for which no vaccine or treatment is approved, is the fastest-growing on record and is on course to overtake the 2014-2016 West African outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people. Strikes by unpaid health workers, misinformation and burial practices are slowing containment in the east, near the borders with Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.
• Colombia’s earthquake toll passes 200 as mourning is declared – The Institute of Legal Medicine had received 202 bodies by Wednesday, three days after the magnitude 7.4 quake near San José del Palmar, while the government counts 2,595 injured and 195 officially missing against civilian databases pointing closer to 4,000. President Abelardo de la Espriella, in office three days when the quake struck, decreed three days of national mourning with flags at half-mast at official buildings and embassies abroad. Washington has pledged $15.5m in emergency aid and urban search-and-rescue teams, the European Union $2.3m, with Mexican and Salvadoran relief flights also arriving.
• At least 44 drown in a Lake Kariba capsizing – Zimbabwe’s civil protection agency said the state-run ferry overturned on Tuesday carrying at least 114 adult passengers and five crew, against a stated capacity of 90; a ticket collector told local media he had counted 153 people boarding. Seventy-seven people were rescued. Survivors said passengers had pleaded with the captain to turn back in high waves, and to call for help, before the vessel went over.
• Thailand suspends new firearm permits after a school shooting – Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on Tuesday that no new permits to buy or own a gun would be issued and that existing purchase permits would not be renewed, with all current licences to be reviewed. The measure follows a shooting at Debsirin Nonthaburi School outside Bangkok that left nine people dead, carried out by a 14-year-old who had shot his grandparents beforehand, the country’s deadliest mass shooting in nearly four years. Officials were told to bring forward a tighter gun-control bill within 60 days.
• Total solar eclipse crosses Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain – The only total eclipse of 2026 swept the Northern Hemisphere on Wednesday, starting over the Russian Arctic and ending close to sunset in Spain, where totality arrived at about 20:32 local time and lasted roughly two minutes. It was the first total eclipse visible from mainland Europe since 1999 and the first over Spain since 1905, drawing crowds along the path. Roughly 230 million people elsewhere in Europe, including in Madrid, London and Paris, saw a deep partial eclipse of about 90 percent.

Bulletin automatically generated on August 12, 2026.