Latest news for 22 September 2026

UNITED STATES

Press pass drama.

The US president has launched his own ‘Trump TV’ after revoking White House credentials for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico as “fake news”. The three outlets are now suing on First Amendment grounds. (Washington Post $)

Comment: With Fox (as rotating chair) now leading a TV pool blackout, while the Times, Post, and others refuse to publish the pics, it suggests even a friendlier network fears the precedent of state-controlled media access. Plus banning critical outlets is not only hard to square with Trump’s “most transparent admin ever” claim — it also risks backfiring as coverage goes dark right as his big UN and Xi summits kick off, and just six weeks before his high-stakes midterms. Either way, we’re now in a game of attention-chicken: the media is daring Trump to campaign in a blackout, while Trump is daring the media to survive without his ratings.

BOLIVIA

Fuel to the fire?

In a big win for the newish business-friendly administration of Rodrigo Paz, Bolivia’s congress has now approved a $1.9B IMF program to stabilise the nation’s finances and economy. Yet the ticket seems to have been scrapping costly but popular diesel subsidies that once kept pump prices even lower than in Saudi Arabia, now prompting warnings of renewed unrest. (Al Jazeera)

DJIBOUTI

Red Sea exodus.

As the Iran-aligned Houthis continue their military advances, thousands of Yemenis are now fleeing across the Bab-el-Mandeb strait to Djibouti. (IOM)

Comment: It’s another example of how easily this war can widen. Djibouti (barely the size of New Hampshire) already hosts bases for the US, China, France, Italy, and Japan, and hardly seems ready to absorb this humanitarian spillover without international help. Meanwhile, the UK has confirmed it’ll help the Saudis with “defensive air-to-air refuelling support” which — given the Saudis already have their own comparable tanker fleet — might not be the kind of support the kingdom really now needs.

GERMANY

Borrowed time?

Chancellor Merz is a notable absence at this year’s UN General Assembly in New York, cancelling his trip to instead deal with mounting speculation around his future after two more big state election losses — this time to the hard-left in Berlin, and the hard-right (AfD) in Meck-Pomm. (BBC)

Comment: You know you’re in trouble when headlines start inserting the word ‘embattled’ before your name, then major summits abroad suddenly become optional. And yet with Germany’s political centre hollowing out underneath him, it’s hard to see how losing Merz mid-coalition would somehow conjure up voters already drifting to the edges.

CHINA

Detroit vs Chongqing?

US lawmakers are urging President Trump to maintain DC’s strict bans on China-made EVs, amid reports he could offer President Xi more market access as part of their big DC summit on Thursday (Xi lands Wed). (Reuters)

Comment: Trump set the hares running when he told Fox News he’d be okay with China’s EV giants opening manufacturing plants *inside* the US, like Japan’s local auto-play in the 1980s. The worry is that once China’s subsidised supply chains get a US toehold, domestic automakers won’t be able to compete on price, leaving Detroit staring down the same abyss now confronting Stuttgart.

JAPAN

Grain of truth.

Tokyo has started its first official rice stockpile buyback since the scheme’s 2011 birth, with domestic prices now dropping for the first time in two years. It’s thanks to bumper local harvests and government stockpile releases. (Nippon)

Comment: Lower prices are a big win for Takaichi’s government, but farmer gripes around rising costs are reviving a familiar dilemma for Tokyo: how to refill household cupboards without crashing farm incomes.

UKRAINE

Secret tarmac talks.

President Zelensky has had an undisclosed tarmac meeting with the CIA’s John Ratcliffe while both were refuelling in Ireland. (The Hill)

Comment: Absent any details on the content, it’s noteworthy in the way it lends weight to rumours that the more Ukraine-friendly Ratcliffe might now be taking a larger role, eclipsing Trump’s more Moscow-regular Witkoff and Kushner envoys. One airport huddle doesn’t make the rumours true, but it could make the CIA’s own denials a little harder to sustain.