Monday, August 3, 2026
The United States and Japan have confirmed a rare joint currency intervention to stabilise the yen, with Trump framing it as a gesture of friendship toward a key ally. Japan's finance minister Satsuki Katayama has pledged further coordinated action if "disorderly movements" persist in currency markets.
Trump has announced a fresh round of nuclear and ceasefire negotiations with Iran set to begin Monday, claiming Gulf allies and Tehran both urged him to hold off on new strikes. Tehran has not publicly confirmed the talks and is pressing Washington to honour an existing memorandum of understanding, while the conflict grinds on.
South Korea recorded its highest temperature in more than a century on Sunday — 42.5°C in the city of Yangsan — marking the fifth consecutive day above 40°C, prompting authorities to ban all outdoor activity. Simultaneously, wildfires around Spokane, Washington forced 60,000 people to evacuate and destroyed at least 600 structures across roughly 21 square kilometres.
A Sudanese army drone attack on Darfur has killed at least 35 people, according to a rights group, as the war between army chief al-Burhan and RSF commander Dagalo continues to grind through its third year. The strike is the latest in a pattern of aerial attacks on civilian areas that have pushed the conflict's death toll into the tens of thousands.
The UK Home Office has formally recognised at least five survivors of abuse by former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed as victims of human trafficking, including women trafficked both internationally and within the UK. Survivors' groups are pushing the Metropolitan Police to make trafficking the central focus of its investigation, arguing Fayed could not have operated without an organised network of facilitators — one case was found to have occurred entirely within Harrods.
