Latest news for 2 February 2026

UNITED STATES

Selloff.

Markets in Asia have taken a beating today (Monday), with key indices in Korea and Indonesia each down 5%, Hong Kong down 3%, and China down 2%. Commodity markets also plunged from their Thursday night highs, with gold and silver each crashing by double-digits. (Reuters)

Comment: Friday’s immediate trigger seems to have been President Trump’s nomination of the relatively hawkish Kevin Warsh as his next Fed chair, a conventional choice jolting investors to haul their cash out of sky-high safe-havens.

ISRAEL

Strikes, opening.

A day before Sunday’s partial reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing for the first time in two years, Israel carried out several airstrikes across the Strip, with scores reported dead. Israel says the hits were in response to violations by Hamas, which is in turn urging the US to intervene. (BBC)

RUSSIA

Breaking promises.

Days after President Trump suggested Putin would halt energy attacks for a week during Ukraine’s harsh winter, a Russian drone has hit a bus carrying Ukrainian energy workers, killing 12. (France24)

TAJIKISTAN

Guns to the rescue.

With security incidents along the Tajik-Afghan border now happening almost daily, the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, aka Russia’s NATO) now says it’ll supply arms to help bolster Tajik defences. (EurasiaNet)

Comment: CSTO’s remaining post-Soviet members will have questioned the bloc’s relevance ever since it did nothing to help Armenia in its territorial spat with non-member Azerbaijan. So with Armenia now bailing, the real point of this arms pledge is presumably just to demonstrate CSTO’s value to the rest.

CAMBODIA

Too late to join?

Nearly half a century after first signing on, Cambodia has finally now ratified the UN’s key maritime law treaty (UNCLOS). (SCMP)

Comment: Why now? With Cambodia’s big Thailand spat still simmering away, it reportedly fretted the Thai navy might cut its supply lanes, so formalising this treaty is probably a way to double down on every available protection.

CUBA

Help is on the way.

Days after confirming she’d halted oil shipments to Cuba, Mexico’s President Sheinbaum has announced new humanitarian aid for Cuba. (AP)

Comment: It’s a way to maintain Mexico’s traditional solidarity with Cuba without crossing Trump’s presumed new red lines about propping up the regime with oil.

IRAQ

Gone too soon.

It seems President Trump’s new special envoy for Iraq (Mark Savaya) has already left the role amid rising US-Iraq tensions — it’s unclear why, though the folks at Reuters suggest it might’ve been Savaya’s failure to stop Iran-friendly powerbroker al-Maliki returning to Iraq’s prime ministership. (Reuters)

Comment: Trump 2.0 had some early wins in Iraq, whether freeing Russian-Israeli researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, or helping de-fang Iran-backed militias, but DC now faces the same structural headwinds past administrations have hit.