International News Bulletin — August 16, 2026

Politics

• Kushner meets Hamas leader in Egypt before talks with Netanyahu – US envoy Jared Kushner and Board of Peace director Nickolay Mladenov held more than two hours of talks with Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya at El Alamein on Sunday, with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators present. No outcome was announced by either side. Kushner is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, days after Israel rejected the 15-point US-backed road map under which Hamas would disarm and Israeli forces would withdraw.
• Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro open Brazil’s presidential campaign – The two front-runners launched their campaigns on Sunday in their strongholds, a day after the registration deadline closed. Lula, who is 80 and seeking a fourth term, addressed more than 10,000 supporters at the Vila Euclides stadium outside São Paulo, where he made his name as a metalworkers’ union leader. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, endorsed by his father Jair, opened at Copacabana wearing a bulletproof vest and citing death threats; the first round is on October 4.
• Zambia’s count drags on with Hichilema ahead of Mundubile – The Electoral Commission of Zambia said it was still tallying results from 199 of the country’s 226 constituencies after Thursday’s vote. In the first 27 constituencies declared, President Hakainde Hichilema led with 243,509 votes to 161,883 for Brian Mundubile. Mundubile claimed victory on Friday, and the commission has since warned candidates that only it may declare a result.
• Houthi missiles and drones hit Marib and the port of al-Makha – Four people were killed and eight wounded in overnight attacks on al-Makha, according to Yemeni state media and the local airport director, while Marib’s government media office said six ballistic missiles and four drones struck residential districts on Saturday evening, wounding four. Port operations at al-Makha have been suspended for several days, its director general Abdulmalik al-Sharabi said. Yemen’s government reported 181 operations by its own forces against Houthi positions over the weekend.
• Morocco blocks a new crossing attempt at Ceuta – Moroccan security forces turned back hundreds of people who tried to reach the Spanish enclave over the weekend, the first large attempt since the breach of 30 July. Spanish authorities have confirmed at least 67 deaths from that crossing, while wider counts of more than 140 have circulated. Reporting published on Sunday questioned why Moroccan police, normally heavily deployed on that stretch of border, were largely absent on the night of the breach.

Economy

• Canada and the US negotiate against a Wednesday tariff deadline – Talks ran through the weekend on a preliminary agreement to head off the 50 percent US tariffs due on 19 August under Section 338, which would cover goods from steel and lumber to wine and cement. People close to the negotiations told the Washington Post and Bloomberg that autos, steel, aluminium, lumber and dairy access remain unresolved. Prime Minister Mark Carney has said Canada wants a full settlement rather than a narrow deal and is ready to respond if the tariffs land.
• Mexican avocado exports resume after Washington lifts a security alert – US authorities fully lifted the alert on Michoacán eight days after it halted shipments, and orchards, packing plants and Department of Agriculture inspectors were back at work by the weekend. The stoppage had left about 200,000 workers idle in Mexico’s main avocado-producing state, where four cartels designated as terrorist organisations by the Trump administration operate. One grower told the Associated Press he pays one peso per kilo in extortion, more than 5,000 dollars a day on exports of roughly 90 tonnes.
• Iranian inflation reaches 88 percent as the blockade bites – Prices were 88 percent higher than a year earlier and food 128 percent higher, with oils and fats up 261 percent, according to figures reported by Al Jazeera on Sunday. The rial traded at about 1.87 million to the dollar, leaving the minimum monthly wage of 166 million rials worth roughly 88 dollars. Youth unemployment stood at 23.4 percent in the spring, up 3.7 points on the year.
• Wall Street heads into Fed minutes and a retail earnings wave – US indices ended the last trading session, Friday 14 August, lower after softer consumer data, leaving the market just below the records set earlier in the week. The coming week brings July housing starts and industrial production, and the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting on Wednesday. Home Depot reports on Tuesday, Target and Lowe’s on Wednesday and Walmart on Thursday, before Kevin Warsh gives his first Jackson Hole keynote as Fed chair on 28 August.

World News

• Ukraine launches one of its largest drone attacks and Russia strikes back – Russia’s defence ministry said it destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight into Sunday, while Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said about 600 were detected heading for the capital and a third were downed over the Moscow region. Five people were killed in three towns of the Rostov region, where more than 150 drones damaged homes and a railway station and started a forest fire. Russian missiles then set fires in two districts of Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported two people killed in Kryvyi Rih and one in Sumy.
• Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba ferry toll rises to 84 – Police said on Sunday that 12 more bodies had been recovered, up from 72 the previous day, after the overloaded ferry capsized in rough water on Tuesday. Eighteen of the dead are children, 16 of them aged 10 or younger and the youngest one year old. The vessel, run by the state Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, was licensed for 90 people, estimates of those aboard run as high as 153, and 77 people were rescued.
• Indonesia’s Flores earthquake kills at least 51 – The magnitude 7.7 quake struck at 5.58am on Saturday at a depth of 10 kilometres off Flores, and rescuers recovered four more bodies on Sunday. At least 24 people died in Manggarai regency and 17 in East Manggarai, with further deaths in Sikka, Ngada and Ende. More than 900 homes were destroyed, about 5,000 people are sheltering elsewhere, and the meteorological agency has counted at least 235 aftershocks.
• Belgium’s largest recorded wildfire spreads towards Germany – The fire in the High Fens reserve in Liège province had burned more than 27 square kilometres by Sunday morning, almost twice the area of the 2011 blaze that held the previous record. About 600 residents of Waimes and Bütgenbach were evacuated on Saturday, and three districts of Monschau on the German side were advised to leave because of smoke. More than 250 personnel from Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are deployed.
• Bus crash in Hungary kills 12 Polish tourists – The Polish-registered coach, travelling from Serbia to Poland with 57 passengers and two drivers, left the M3 motorway near Mezőkeresztes at about 1am and overturned in a ditch. Eleven people died at the scene and one in hospital, 10 were seriously hurt and 37 suffered minor injuries. Police said the driver had probably fallen asleep and had been taken into custody, in Hungary’s deadliest road accident since 2003.

Bulletin automatically generated on August 16, 2026.