International News Bulletin — August 13, 2026

Politics

• Putin visits the disputed Kuril Islands for the first time – Vladimir Putin toured a fish-processing plant, a hospital and a school on Iturup on Thursday and met the regional governor, Russian state media reported, a day after a stop on Sakhalin where the navy was holding drills. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the trip “absolutely unacceptable” and said it “offends the sentiments of the Japanese people”, while Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi summoned Russia’s ambassador to protest. The Soviet Union seized the four southernmost islands in 1945 and deported some 17,000 Japanese residents; Tokyo reclassified them as illegally occupied after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
• Zambians vote and counting begins in a cost-of-living election – Polls closed on Thursday afternoon and counting started in a general election in which President Hakainde Hichilema, 64, is seeking a second term against 13 other candidates, the strongest of them the opposition alliance nominee Brian Mundubile. About 8 million people were registered at more than 13,500 polling stations, according to the Associated Press, and voters also chose 226 members of parliament and local councillors. The Electoral Commission of Zambia said presidential results are expected by Monday, with a run-off if no candidate passes 50 percent.
• UN envoy warns Yemen is closest to full-scale war since 2022 – Hans Grundberg told the Security Council on Thursday that Yemen faces a more serious risk of returning to large-scale conflict than at any point since the truce that paused the fighting in 2022. A return to full fighting “would come at an unforgiving moment”, he said, with state institutions fragmented by more than a decade of war, the economy short of margin to absorb another shock and the wider region already engulfed by war. Yemeni military officials said one government soldier was killed and another critically wounded in clashes in Taiz province, and Al Jazeera reported at least 30 government troops killed in drone and rocket attacks on eastern Yemen over the past week.
• Venezuela’s government and opposition agree to overhaul the supreme court – A first round of United States-backed talks closed on Wednesday with a joint statement committing both sides to amend the organic law governing the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia, expand and renew the judicial nominations committee and open a fresh nomination process for every justice. The two delegations also agreed to pursue access to frozen Venezuelan assets abroad, including gold held at the Bank of England, according to Infobae. Negotiators have said a reconstituted court should be seated before the end of 2026, the first time the opposition has formally shaped judicial renewal.
• Zhu Rongji, China’s reform-era premier, dies at 97 – Zhu, who served as premier from 1998 to 2003, died of an illness in Beijing on Wednesday. He curbed runaway inflation, overhauled the currency system, steered China through the 1997 Asian financial crisis and forced a restructuring of state industry that cost an estimated 40 million jobs, before securing the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization. Obituaries in Chinese and international media credited him as the chief engineer of the reforms that preceded two decades of rapid growth.

Economy

• S&P 500 sets a record after flat wholesale inflation – The index closed at 7,798.99 on Thursday, up 0.65 percent and a record, after topping 7,800 during the session for the first time; the Nasdaq Composite added 0.81 percent to 26,803.03 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.13 percent to 53,839.99. July producer prices were unchanged on the month against the 0.2 percent rise economists expected and 4.7 percent higher on the year, with core wholesale prices up 0.2 percent. Initial jobless claims rose to 209,000 against 202,000 expected, and traders pared bets on a Federal Reserve rate increase in September.
• UK economy grows 0.4 percent in the second quarter – Preliminary Office for National Statistics figures published on Thursday showed output up 0.4 percent on the quarter, in line with forecasts and slower than the 0.6 percent recorded in the first three months of the year, while monthly GDP rose 0.3 percent in June after no growth in May. Liz McKeown, the ONS director of economic statistics, said the economy remained relatively robust after a strong start to 2026. Analysts cautioned that June was flattered by World Cup spending and an early heatwave, neither of which repeats before the Bank of England’s September 17 decision.
• Japan’s wholesale inflation slows for the first time in five months – Corporate goods prices rose 7.2 percent in the year to July, down from a revised 7.3 percent in June and up 0.1 percent on the month, Bank of Japan data showed on Thursday. Import prices were 29.1 percent higher than a year earlier, with a weak yen still feeding through to costs. The central bank left its policy rate unchanged in July while warning that underlying inflation could exceed its 2 percent target, keeping an increase at the September meeting in play.
• IEA and OPEC both cut their 2026 oil demand forecasts – The International Energy Agency said in its August report that world oil demand will contract by 1.6 million barrels a day this year, 510,000 more than it estimated a month ago, citing disruption at the Strait of Hormuz and high fuel prices. OPEC cut its 2026 demand growth forecast to 580,000 barrels a day, a fourth consecutive downward revision, leaving the two bodies split over whether consumption grows at all. Brent settled about 2 percent lower at $87.07 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate at $81.25.
• Cerebras reports record core revenue and a far wider loss than expected – The artificial-intelligence chipmaker posted second-quarter revenue of $180.1 million against the $194 million analysts expected, while the core revenue measure it emphasises rose 103 percent from a year earlier to $209.9 million, and it reported an adjusted loss of $2.98 a share against a forecast loss of $0.18. The company raised full-year core revenue guidance to between $880 million and $890 million. Its shares fell about 15 percent in after-hours trading after Wednesday’s release and stayed under pressure on Thursday, alongside Cisco Systems and Coherent.

World News

• Colombia’s earthquake search enters its final phase with 265 dead – Authorities said on Thursday that the magnitude 7.4 quake that struck near San José del Palmar on Monday morning had killed 265 people, injured more than 3,500 and left almost 500 missing, with more than 11,000 homes destroyed. Crews in Cali have shifted from search and rescue to debris removal, while teams in Pereira worked through the night at a collapsed bakery where vibration detectors picked up possible signs of life. Cali’s mayor, Alejandro Eder, said the response was “entering the final phase” as the 72-hour window in which survivors are usually found closed on Thursday afternoon.
• Congo’s Ebola outbreak reaches a sixth province – A man who had travelled from Isiro in Haut-Uele died in Buta, the capital of Bas-Uele, carrying the epidemic into a previously unaffected province, Africa CDC director general Jean Kaseya said on Thursday. The Bundibugyo strain has now caused more than 4,500 confirmed cases and over 2,100 deaths, with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control counting 4,566 cases and 2,128 deaths to August 11 and about 90 percent of infections in Ituri province. “We are chasing the virus; the virus is ahead of us”, said Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the World Health Organization regional director for Africa.
• Ukraine says a strike on Novorossiysk damaged four Russian warships – Kyiv’s General Staff confirmed that an overnight raid on the Black Sea Fleet’s main base, using jet-powered drones, naval drones and Neptune anti-ship missiles, hit the frigates Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov, a Buyan-M missile ship and a patrol vessel. The attack also struck a grain terminal and a pier at the Sheskharis oil terminal, and the regional governor said falling debris killed an eight-year-old child. Naval News reported that the damage may be severe enough to disable the frigates’ launch systems, while satellite imagery showed no fires or sinkings.
• Sudan’s RSF says it has taken Kurmuk in Blue Nile state – The paramilitary group announced on Thursday that its fighters had driven the army out of the border town and seized large quantities of equipment, two days after it claimed the nearby locality of Qayssan; the Sudanese armed forces have not publicly confirmed either loss. Kurmuk lies about 140km from the state capital Damazin and about 160km from the Roseires Dam, a main source of national power, and links Sudan to Ethiopia and South Sudan. The army had retaken the town in early July, and the war has displaced about 14 million people since April 2023, with the United Nations estimating that 20 million face hunger.
• England issues amber extreme-heat warnings as wildfires burn – The Met Office put London, the South East, the East of England, the East Midlands, the West Midlands and South Yorkshire under rare amber extreme-heat warnings from 9am to midnight on Thursday, with temperatures forecast as high as 38C, which would make it the hottest day of the year. Firefighters remained deployed on a blaze in the New Forest, covered along with Hampshire and the Isle of Wight by an amber wildfire alert, and tackled a fire that broke out overnight at Saddleworth. Western Europe recorded its warmest June and July on record this year, according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Bulletin automatically generated on August 13, 2026.