Latest news for 13 August 2026

JAPAN

Island complaint.

Tokyo has lodged a complaint after Russia’s Putin paid his first-ever visit to the Kuril Islands, which the Soviets seized after WWII but Japan still partly claims. (DW)Comment: This long-running dispute is part of the reason Japan and the USSR/Russia never signed a formal peace treaty after WWII. But why visit now? Japan’s PM Takaichi just released a new defence white paper warning of growing Sino-Russo-DPRK cooperation, so a quick trip to the increasingly fortified Kurils is an easy poke in Tokyo’s eye.

UNITED STATES

Outlets sue.

A news outlet and free speech non-profit have sued President Trump over a new service selling preferential access to his social media feed (which often announces major new policies) for up to $100k per month. (Politico)

COLOMBIA

Quake death toll climbs.

With survivors still getting rescued, the death toll from Monday’s earthquake (the strongest in decades) now stands at 265, with another ~4,000 still potentially missing. (CNN)

Comment: Our group-chat (become an Insider and join) noted Colombia’s newly-elected right-leaning leader (El Tigre) initially only accepted search-and-rescue teams from politically-aligned USA, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Israel. Colombia’s foreign minister is insisting the criteria were technical, not ideological — but even if he’s now been more flexible on aid supplies (rather than personnel), it still feels a stretch, and hints at the extent to which El Tigre wants to now re-orient Colombia’s approach to the world.

ZAMBIA

Election day.

President Hichilema is still favoured to win re-election today (Thurs) though the fragmented opposition has enjoyed a late surge. He’s pledging more debt restructuring and fiscal stabilisation, while voters vent over familiar cost-of-living issues. (AP)

Comment: Extra intrigue: one surprising campaign issue has been the body of a former president who died in South Africa last year and remains unburied after a bitter cross-border legal fight —the family doesn’t want Hichilema presiding over a state funeral, instead banking on the politically-aligned opposition pledging a dignified burial if they win.

CHINA

Vale, reformer.

Zhu Rongji, the former premier (technically #2) and hard-charging technocrat who drove China’s historic WTO entry, has died at 97. (Guardian)

Comment: It’s a heck of a legacy that folks will mourn (or not) in different ways: the millions of state firm workers who lost work under his efficiency drive might shrug; the hundreds of millions who then rode China’s post-WTO boom into the middle class might give thanks; and the millions more abroad who lost their jobs amid the ensuing China Shock might burn with hurt. Meanwhile, members of the banned Falun Gong movement might remember him more fondly — he famously met their 10,000 demonstrators in 1999 and reportedly agreed to release detainees, only to be overruled by Jiang Zemin, who kicked off a brutal crackdown that continues today.

SOUTH AFRICA

Jobless rate climbs (again).

Official unemployment jumped to a four-year high of 33.6% (!) in Q2, while youth unemployment hit 47.4%! (Bloomberg $)

Comment: Still one of the world’s highest rates, it’s now reflecting a mix of stubborn post-apartheid structural challenges plus more recent energy and trade shocks. That youth rate is particularly toxic politically, with Ramaphosa’s own ANC youth wing already calling on him to declare a national disaster earlier this year.

RUSSIA

More silence over Assad.

Still no response from the Kremlin after a Damascus court sentenced Syria’s exiled Moscow-based dictator Assad to death for his various atrocities in office. (New Arab)

Comment: In a classic boomerang, it was actually Assad himself who signed the 2022 Russia-Syria extradition treaty that could theoretically now see him plucked from his ritzy Rublyovka penthouse and returned to face justice. But it’s realistically Putin’s decision, and he’ll have less incentive to play ball now that he’s already got what he wanted out of the Syrians — a deal to retain access to Russia’s strategic naval base at Tartus.