Aug. 28, 2026 - Daily News Digest
On this day: in 1990, Iraq declares Kuwait to be its newest province.
BRAZIL/WEATHER/COFFEE - Why Your Morning Espresso Might Not Taste the Same
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-08-28/why-coffee-could-taste-different-after-rain-in-brazil
rabica coffee is often celebrated for its mild flavor, rich aroma and sweet aftertaste, with notes of hazelnut, cocoa or citrus. But you can forget all that if the growing conditions weren’t right — and they weren’t this year in Brazil, the world’s top producer.
Heavy downpours knocked many of the ripe coffee cherries off the trees and left them soaking on soggy soil, exposed to contamination that may lead to moldy, musty flavors. Then, more rain compromised a drying process that’s critical to preserve volatile compounds that give arabica its characteristic taste.
As Ana Mano and Mumbi Gitau report in this week’s story, this means there will be less premium arabica to go around for roasters like Starbucks and Lavazza, and your morning brew may get pricier.
Your favorite beans might have been grown in the volcanic soil of Ethiopia’s highlands, the birthplace of arabica. Or perhaps they came from a place with very similar geography to the African country, like Colombia. Regardless, the weight of Brazil in the coffee market tends to make ripples. Prices have gone up 30% since mid-June when traders started getting edgy about all the rain.
NEPAL/CHINA/WEATHER - Death toll rises in Nepal-China border disaster as a lake poses new flood threat
https://apnews.com/article/nepal-tibet-china-glacier-floods-ae9973b5fd2b1dc6d54c3e88b1b55bdc
Rescuers pulled out survivors caked in dark brown mud and helicopters lifted stranded people to safety Friday, as Nepal and China raced to respond to catastrophic flash floods that killed more than 500 people and left more than 1,500 missing.
Rescue teams were put on high alert for more flooding from a new lake that has formed high up on the Himalayan mountains after the initial floods on Wednesday. Experts warn that the lake, formed after the glacier collapse that triggered the floods, was starting to overflow.
Nepal’s army was deployed to help rescue more than 100 people believed trapped inside a tunnel at a hydropower plant located in the country’s worst-hit district. Like elsewhere in the disaster zone, their work was complicated by thick layers of mud that covered the site.
GIFT LINK: Six Months In, Iran’s Regime Stands, U.S. Goals Remain Unmet
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/world/europe/iran-regime-war-us.html?unlocked_article_code=1.81A.kQT6.9csr5uSDwNhq&smid=url-share
It was supposed to be quick.
Still, six months after the U.S. and Israel launched massive airstrikes on Iran, the conflict drags on. The Trump administration has replaced its military war with an economic one, but the result is likely to be no different, analysts said, with a lack of American clarity about goals, a decline in American credibility and a strategic defeat.
One thing remains constant, however. The ordinary people of Iran are bearing the brunt of the war, victims of both the United States and their own leaders.
On the first day of the war, Feb. 28, President Trump promised Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.” Six months later, his administration is trying to impoverish them further, hoping against hope that they will revolt against a repressive, militarized regime and overthrow it.
The Iranian leadership, increasingly dominated by military men, sees its own survival as the nation’s, and it considers the sacrifices of ordinary Iranians as a necessary act of patriotism and even martyrdom. It has been ever more ruthless in stamping out the slightest signs of dissent.
SERBIA - Ratko Mladic, ex-Bosnian Serb warlord who oversaw atrocities, dies as a prisoner at 84
https://apnews.com/article/ratko-mladic-obit-03abf53803bef360978882d89024c475
Ratko Mladic, the bullish Bosnian Serb general whose forces besieged the Bosnian capital for several years in the 1990s and carried out the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, died Thursday while serving a life sentence for his crimes, U.N. officials said. He was 84.
Mladic died at a hospital in The Hague, Netherlands, U.N. court officials said. A Mladic relative who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation confirmed the reports and said Mladic’s son, Darko Mladic, was on his way to the Dutch city.
The U.N. tribunal for war crimes committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s sentenced Mladic to life in prison in 2017 in what was considered a key step toward bringing justice to the victims. He had been in custody since 2011 after many years on the run.
US/VENEZUELA/ENERGY - Trump Administration in Advanced Talks for Stake in Venezuelan Oil Fields
https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/trump-administration-in-advanced-talks-for-stake-in-venezuelan-oil-fields-819546d3
The Trump administration is in advanced talks with Venezuela for the U.S. to take a direct stake in more than a dozen oil fields that house nearly one-third of the country’s massive energy reserves.
If the two countries reach a deal, it could pave the way for independent U.S. energy producers to become involved in oil production in the Latin American country, according to people familiar with the matter. Details are still being worked out, and the deal could fall apart, these people said. Axios reported on the talks earlier Thursday.
The details
The deal would give the U.S. a foothold in at least 17 of Venezuela’s most promising oil-and-gas fields, housing some 90 billion barrels of proven reserves, almost twice that of the U.S. Venezuela says it has 300 billion barrels of proven reserves, the largest in the world.
Some of the details the U.S. and Venezuela are still working out include whether the U.S. would create joint ventures with private companies, or whether the U.S. would hire companies to work the oil fields, according to one of the people.
The context
The U.S. deal would act to reassure American companies that are on the fence about gambling capital on the country’s oil industry. The sector has fallen into widespread disarray following years of mismanagement during the regimes of the late Hugo Chávez and former President Nicolás Maduro.
Although talks are continuing, major U.S. oil companies have yet to make any big new investments in Venezuela since the U.S. ousted Maduro in January. The country’s oil production has been slow to ramp up. It is pumping about 1.1 million barrels a day, roughly in line with last year’s figures.
US/EU/MIL - Exclusive: US Patriot missile stocks in Europe are ‘beyond critical’ due to Iran war, officials say
https://apnews.com/article/patriot-missiles-iran-war-russia-ukraine-trump-09c7d8030a2e11fbd8ee3f7176b3f2d4
The U.S. military is experiencing a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced missile interceptors in Europe largely driven by President Donald Trump’s war with Iran, a U.S. defense official in Europe and a NATO official told The Associated Press, raising concerns about vulnerabilities in NATO countries to a potential Russian attack.
The U.S. defense official said the most concerning shortfall involves Patriot missile interceptors, which can shoot down Russia’s high-speed ballistic missiles. The NATO official confirmed the low inventories of Patriots among American and NATO forces in Europe. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.
In the event of a Russian ballistic missile assault on, for example, a military headquarters or power plant, NATO could be in a similar position to Patriot-starved Ukraine and be forced “to take punch after punch in the mouth,” the U.S. defense official said.
SPAIN/MOROCCO/IMMIGRATION - Protesters clash with police, set fire to Ceuta migrant camp
https://www.dw.com/en/protesters-set-fire-to-migrant-camp-in-ceuta/a-78538847
Protesters in Ceuta set fire to a migrant camp and clashed with police on Thursday. The unrest comes one month after a mass influx of migrants from Morocco to the Spanish enclave in North Africa.
Footage on Spanish television showed a group of demonstrators on a beach, throwing objects into the fire. Police pushed the protesters back while the migrants retreated to a pier.
Earlier on Thursday, a military vehicle was attacked with stones and other objects by about 70 people, a police spokesman in Ceuta told the AFP news agency.
Local protesters tried to stop Red Cross vehicles from reaching the beach to distribute food to migrants. People waving Spanish flags shouted "They should leave" and "Out with the Red Cross."
FRANCE/POL - Election Fever Starts to Take Hold as French Debt Woes Loom
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-08-28/election-fever-starts-to-take-hold-in-france-as-debt-woes-loom
It felt like election season finally kicked off in Paris, with an acrimonious debate among seven leading candidates for the presidency going a full hour longer than planned on Thursday at business lobby Medef’s summer conference.
That might sound like a lot of people on one stage, especially considering the personalities present. There was far-right leader Marine Le Pen on one side of the spectrum and on the other, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the far-left firebrand who remains among the best orators in French politics. And in the middle was a relatively animated former prime minister, Edouard Philippe — to cite just the three leading contenders.
But there are more. Earlier in the day, center-right politician Xavier Bertrand, speaking on a panel at the same conference, threw his hat into the ring. And on Wednesday, former President Francois Hollande published a book laying out his policy proposals for a possible run and said in an interview in Le Point that he’d make a final decision in December.
As my colleagues William Horobin and Ania Nussbaum wrote, the many centrist candidates hand an advantage to Le Pen and Mélenchon. Le Pen consistently tops surveys for first-round voting intentions and two polls released this week had several scenarios that showed Mélenchon making it to the runoff.
US/JAPAN/ECON - Japan Spent Record $98.7 Billion to Prop Up Yen in Past Month
https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/japan-spent-record-98-7-billion-to-prop-up-yen-in-past-month-ddb03c64?mod=world_feat2_asia_pos1
Japan spent a record $98.7 billion to prop up the yen in the past month, as it undertook rare coordinated action with the U.S. to stabilize the currency.
The country deployed 15.3993 trillion yen of foreign-exchange intervention between July 30 and Aug. 26, according to data released by the Ministry of Finance on Friday.
The massive figure reflects Tokyo’s aggressiveness in defending the yen as it weakened to a 40-year low near 164 to the dollar in late July. That included a historic yen-buying operation with the U.S. Treasury—the first since 1998 carried out to strengthen the Japanese currency.
In 2011, the two countries sold the yen to weaken it and aid Japan’s recovery after a massive earthquake.
Japanese authorities spent 11.7 trillion yen on currency defense in April and May this year.
While the yen briefly recovered to the lower-155 range against the dollar in the wake of recent intervention efforts, persistent interest-rate differentials and mounting concerns over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s fiscal policy have limited the currency’s gains.
The yen was last trading around 159.65 to the dollar.
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said Friday that the Japanese government will enhance the yen’s credibility by boosting the country’s long-term competitiveness and potential economic growth.
GIFT LINK: Timber Was Gold in the South—Until a Market Collapse Crushed the Forest Economy
https://www.wsj.com/business/timber-was-gold-in-the-southuntil-a-market-collapse-crushed-the-forest-economy-1d1d1cbd?st=AsaSV2&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Bill Howard’s family has earned a living from the piney woods of southeast Georgia since 1898, when his great-grandfather and seven great-great uncles started cutting lumber with a portable sawmill.
Over four generations, the Howards built a permanent mill in Statesboro, Ga., and added timberland to feed it. Today the family employs roughly 300 people between the sawmill, two other plants and three builder-supply yards.
The collapse of pulpwood markets in the region is threatening the prospects of a fifth generation working the woods.
The South, and Georgia in particular, have borne the brunt of a historic run of pulp and paper-mill closures as recycled boxes, cheap imported pulp and more thrifty packing by e-commerce giants, including Amazon.com, have hit demand. Last year, the U.S. shed roughly 10% of its capacity to produce containerboard, the thick paper used to make shipping and moving boxes.
Demand for pulpwood—trees unfit for making lumber but fine for cardboard and paper—plummeted. So did demand for wood chips, sawdust and other byproducts that are crucial to the bottom lines of sawyers like the Howards. Prices across the South are at the lowest level in nearly 40 years before factoring in inflation. In some parts, there’s essentially no market. Some growers are, for the first time, having to pay to have their pulpwood removed.
The Howard family lost important buyers for its pulpwood, as well as for the residuals from its sawmill, when International Paper IP closed an 89-year-old containerboard mill in Savannah and another south of the city last year.
CHINA/MIL/POL - China removes top generals from state Central Military Commission
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/china-removes-top-generals-state-central-military-commission-2026-08-28/
China on Friday removed senior military officers Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli from their posts in the state Central Military Commission, state-run Xinhua said, citing the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Investigations into Zhang, second-in-command under President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission and a member of China's elite Politburo, and Liu, CMC member and chief of staff of the CMC's Joint Staff Department, had been announced in January, for suspected serious violations of discipline and law.
China has parallel Communist Party and state CMC structures. Friday's announcement concerns Zhang and Liu's positions in the state CMC. They have not been formally or publicly stripped of their posts in the Central Military Commission of the ruling Communist Party.