International News Bulletin — August 6, 2026

Politics

• Trump vows to hunt down leakers over munitions reports – President Donald Trump said on Thursday that people who disclosed details of American weapons stockpiles after the war with Iran were “being hunted down” and that “long-term jail sentences will be sought”, insisting the United States holds “massive amounts” of munitions. CNN reported on Tuesday, citing multiple sources, that the military had used about 80 percent of its THAAD interceptors and roughly half of its Patriot interceptors, while a Center for Strategic and International Studies assessment published on 27 July put remaining stocks at just over a third of Patriot interceptors and about half of THAAD. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth called the depletion reports “not true”, and the Washington Post reported that Trump had confronted him over the issue.
• Rome talks between Lebanon and Israel end without breakthrough – The seventh round of United States mediated negotiations between Lebanon and Israel closed its third and final day in Rome on Thursday, with discussions covering Hezbollah’s disarmament, an Israeli withdrawal, prisoners and proposed “model areas” for a phased pullback. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott described the technical-level talks as “fruitful” and said the two sides were “much closer to reaching an agreement”, but no agreement was reached on withdrawal zones. Lebanon’s health ministry said Israeli air strikes on the town of Burj Shemali, about five kilometres from Tyre, wounded eight people while the talks were under way.
• Argentina rules out retaliation after Brazil downgrades ties – Argentina’s government said it would not respond in kind after Brazil reduced diplomatic representation between the two countries to the level of chargé d’affaires and asked Ambassador Daniel Raimondi to return to Buenos Aires. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said Argentina would keep its existing diplomatic posture, according to MercoPress and the Buenos Aires Herald. Brasília acted after President Javier Milei, addressing a Liberal Party convention in São Paulo on 25 July in support of Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy, called President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a thief; it is the first step of this scope between the two neighbours in decades.
• Sheikh Hasina says she will return to Bangladesh – Ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina said in an audio address from New Delhi on Wednesday that she intends to return home in December despite a death sentence, telling supporters “I know I may be detained, I may be sent to prison” but that “fear cannot decide my duty to the people”. Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal convicted the 78-year-old in November of crimes against humanity over the killing of more than 1,400 people during the 2024 uprising that forced her from power. Dhaka has repeatedly requested her extradition from India, which says the request is under examination, and student leaders who led the 2024 protests condemned the prospect of her return.
• Saudi Arabia names a commander for its naval coalition – Saudi Arabia appointed Rear Admiral Abdullah bin Salem Al-Shehri to command the Multinational Maritime Defence Coalition, the 14-member force announced on 30 July to protect freedom of navigation through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The founding members are Bahrain, Bangladesh, the Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Türkiye and Yemen, and Riyadh says further applications are being processed. Al-Shehri will oversee joint naval defence and coordinate with other maritime coalitions, with a planning meeting set for 12 and 13 August to finalise the institutional framework.

Economy

• Dow snaps its record run as Treasury yields rise – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Thursday at 53,885.10, down 464.02 points or 0.85 percent, ending the record-setting streak it extended a day earlier, while the S&P 500 slipped 13.59 points to 7,709.96 and the Nasdaq Composite eased 15.09 points to 26,348.35, according to Yahoo Finance. The 10-year Treasury yield stood at 4.67 percent and the 30-year at 5.21 percent as investors weighed earnings against firmer oil prices. The Labor Department reported 199,000 initial jobless claims for the week ending 1 August, up 1,000 from a revised 198,000, with the four-week average at 198,750, ahead of Friday’s non-farm payrolls release.
• Memory chip guidance drags Asian technology stocks lower – Shares in SanDisk and Western Digital fell sharply after both issued forecasts that undershot analyst estimates for artificial intelligence memory demand, with SanDisk guiding to revenue of 10.55 billion dollars and earnings of 45.00 dollars a share. Western Digital reported fourth-quarter revenue of 3.747 billion dollars, up 44 percent year on year, and still traded lower, in what Reuters described as lofty expectations eclipsing strong earnings. The selling spread across Asia: South Korea’s KOSPI closed down 4.6 percent after intraday losses of more than 5 percent triggered circuit breakers and SK Hynix fell more than 9 percent at one point, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.3 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 1.5 percent.
• Crude settles more than 3 percent higher – West Texas Intermediate settled Thursday at 77.77 dollars a barrel, up 2.55 dollars or 3.39 percent, and Brent at 83.05 dollars, up 3.60 dollars or 4.53 percent, according to Investing.com, after a media report that a framework agreement on managing the Strait of Hormuz was being negotiated. The move reversed three consecutive sessions of decline and came alongside continued reports of Iranian attacks on shipping in the waterway. An earlier reading during the same session had Brent near 80.34 dollars, a divergence recorded here rather than reconciled.
• European shares close at a third straight record – The pan-European STOXX 600 ended Thursday 0.2 percent higher at 658.19 points after touching 660.91 during the session, its third consecutive record close, with the benchmark indexes of Spain, France and Italy also finishing at record levels. Investors weighed a largely positive earnings slate against the prospect of a United States and Iran agreement reopening the Strait of Hormuz. WPP rose about 24 percent, Hikma Pharmaceuticals about 9.5 percent and Deutsche Telekom about 5.7 percent; a second market summary put the index up 0.3 percent on the day.
• Mexico’s central bank holds its rate at 6.50 percent – Banco de México left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 6.50 percent on Thursday, extending the pause it began in June. The board voted unanimously for the first time in this cycle, a signal read by analysts as pointing to a prolonged hold. The decision keeps Mexican policy on a separate track from the easing debate under way at the Federal Reserve.

World News

• Ceuta’s leader tells EU lawmakers 100 people died – Juan Jesús Vivas, head of the local government of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, told the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee in Brussels on Thursday that at least 100 people died during last week’s mass crossings from Morocco, above the toll of at least 72 that Spanish authorities had confirmed on 2 August. Spanish authorities estimate about 72,000 people swam or walked into the enclave last Thursday and Friday, close to Ceuta’s entire population of more than 80,000, and Vivas said between 3,000 and 5,000 remain, calling the influx an “invasion” and the city’s reception centres “collapsed”. EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner told the hearing that “as long as control depends on the goodwill of one neighbouring state, we remain vulnerable”; Spain declined to attend and was represented by the European Commission.
• UNICEF counts 300 children killed in 300 days – At least 300 children have been reported killed in Gaza in the 300 days since the October 2025 ceasefire was announced, an average of one a day, UNICEF said on Thursday, with hundreds more wounded. Edouard Beigbeder, the agency’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, said “a ceasefire that leaves an average of one child dead each and every day is failing children”. UNICEF said families remain confined to roughly a third of the enclave, that more than 58,000 children have lost one or both parents, and that more than a million children need protection and psychosocial support.
• Italy puts all 27 monitored cities on red alert – Italy’s health ministry placed all 27 cities in its monitoring network under the highest heat warning on Thursday, the first time this year the entire network has been at red alert simultaneously, covering centres from Trieste in the north east to Palermo in Sicily. Austria set a national temperature record of 106.2 degrees Fahrenheit, about 41.2 Celsius, on Wednesday at Bad Deutsch-Altenburg near the Slovak border, according to GeoSphere Austria, the second time the record fell in two days. Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant has cut output to roughly 10 percent of normal as the Danube sits at record lows, and German Transport Minister Steffen Bilger warned that low water on the Rhine poses major challenges for inland shipping and industry.
• Nigeria frees 308 abductees in a single operation – President Bola Tinubu said security forces rescued 308 people held by kidnappers in northern Nigeria, in what his office called the largest single-day rescue operation the country has carried out. Those freed include 163 people seized in February from the Woro community in the Kaiama area of Kwara state and 145 taken mostly in Niger state, all of them recovered from forest camps and now receiving medical attention. Tinubu said the intelligence-led operation, run jointly by the military, police, intelligence agencies and the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, showed growing coordination between the services; operational details were withheld.
• Bomb on a minibus kills two near Damascus – An explosive device planted on a public minibus detonated at about 7:30pm local time on Thursday in the al-Rawda neighbourhood of Jaramana, a densely populated suburb south east of Damascus, killing at least two people and wounding more than 13, Syria’s health ministry said. A ministry source told Al Jazeera the toll was two killed and 11 injured, a figure not officially confirmed. Syrian state media said an investigation had been opened into the nature of the device; no group claimed responsibility, and the blast was the third such attack in Syria in just over a month.

Bulletin automatically generated on August 6, 2026.