Morning Edition · Sunday, August 9, 2026
Macro
American payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, and traders abandoned bets on another Federal Reserve rate rise
Silver climbed more than 3 percent to a six-week high and the dollar index slipped to 99.56 as two-year Treasury yields fell for a second straight week.
Markets
Iran says the Strait of Hormuz stays closed until Washington changes course, as the UAE accuses it of striking an Abu Dhabi tanker
Brent crude traded below 82 dollars a barrel on Friday, while Oman, acting as mediator, said talks on reopening the waterway are progressing.
Macro
France heads into a budget confrontation with debt interest costs set to reach 74 billion euros in 2027
Public accounts minister David Amiel is asking opposition parties to take part in the spending cuts nine months before a presidential election.
Geopolitics
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey sign a mutual-defence pact that treats an attack on one as an attack on all
Turkey's defence minister compared the Makkah agreement to the collective-defence clause of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a pact that binds together an oil exporter, a nuclear armed state, and a NATO member.
Geopolitics
Russian strikes kill four near Kyiv while Ukrainian drones injure 13 in Belgorod
Ukraine's air force said it intercepted 135 of 151 drones overnight, and Zelenskyy told reporters in Belgrade that deliveries of Patriot interceptors have slowed from a year ago.
World
Shanghai cancels about 1,300 flights and Zhejiang halts port operations as Typhoon Dolphin approaches
Typhoon Dolphin made landfall Sunday evening near Yuhuan in Zhejiang province with sustained winds of 151 kilometres an hour, after Shanghai cancelled about 80 percent of flights and more than a million people were moved to safety.
Crypto
A breakaway bitcoin chain mined two blocks and stopped, ending the BIP-110 fork attempt
Miner support for the proposal reached 2.53 percent against a 55 percent threshold, leaving the minority chain 26 blocks behind the main network.
Geopolitics
Rheinmetall's chief executive says he will not step back after threats, as a drone explodes beside a gas pipeline in Bulgaria
Armin Papperger now works under round-the-clock protection while European energy infrastructure absorbs the spillover from a war on the continent's eastern edge.
World
Indonesia pushes for looser trade rules at BRICS and opens talks on a preferential deal with Brazil
Jakarta is negotiating market access through the emerging-economy bloc and separately weighing an agreement that would be its first step toward the South American customs union.
Geopolitics
Taiwan builds its defence around cheap drones as Japan's prime minister declines to commit on non-nuclear principles
Taipei is copying Ukraine's model of mass low-cost unmanned systems while Sanae Takaichi described Japan's current position at Nagasaki without ruling anything out for the future.
World
Turkey moves internet regulation into a presidential agency while parliament passes a bill to bring Kurdish fighters home
Powers over social media and gaming platforms now sit with the Cybersecurity Presidency, and a separate law can suspend prison sentences for returning PKK members for up to ten years.
World
A car bomb destroyed a highway toll plaza in Colombia one day after President Abelardo de la Espriella took office
The army attributed the attack in Cauca to two dissident factions of the FARC, testing a president who promised to crush armed groups, cut spending by up to 40 percent and revive oil production.