August 2026
All columns and Brief analyses.
10 results
The won closes at a 13-month high as the dollar slips before US jobs data
The won closed at 1,368.6 to the dollar, its strongest level in 13 months, as the dollar edged lower on Monday with traders waiting for US jobs data due later in the week. In Seoul the Kospi erased a 2.58 per cent opening loss and finished 0.46 per cent higher at 6,820.02, while the Kosdaq fell 0.49 per cent. Hawkish remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh on Friday had renewed bets on a September interest rate increase.
United Arab Emirates diesel rises 13 per cent in September
September prices in the United Arab Emirates put a litre of diesel up 13 per cent at 4.30 dirhams. Fuel prices have tracked refined product markets since deregulation in 2015. The increase is tied to August tension. From 1 September a litre of diesel in Turkey carries 3 lira more special consumption tax and 60 kuruş more value added tax, a combined 3.60 lira. Pump prices, Ekonomim said, were 81.08 lira in Istanbul, 82.20 lira in Ankara and 82.47 lira in Izmir.
US forces strike 2 launchers on Iran's Larak Island, the first known hit since late July
A US official said American forces struck 2 launchers on Iran's Larak Island, the first known US strike on Iran since late July. Centcom's Tim Hawkins said the Guards were seen preparing rockets with sea mines for the Strait of Hormuz. The Guards said several people were killed and wounded, not independently confirmed, and later claimed an attack on US targets in Jordan; Jordan said it intercepted 8 missiles at dawn on Monday. Scott Bessent said the Treasury is likely to unveil weekly secondary sanctions, banks first.
US Treasury secretary Bessent takes his Iran dollar cutoff to the G20 in Asheville
Bessent says he will ask G20 members in Asheville to cut Iran from the dollar system. Operation Economic Outcast threatens dollar access for those who trade with Iran. Iran oil exports have dried up and inflation is above 80 per cent; China takes 90 per cent of the crude. He said he will meet Bank of Japan governor Kazuo Ueda after calling yen moves contained on Sunday, a month after Washington and Tokyo bought yen on 31 July. The yen slipped below 160 to the dollar on Friday.
29.5 billion dollars turns onchain while three platforms hold the exit
Monthly transfer volume in tokenized stocks rose 415 per cent in 30 days to 29.5 billion dollars while distributed value crept up 1.45 per cent to 2.54 billion dollars. Ondo, Kraken and Binance together hold about 81 per cent of that distributed value; when everyone heads for the same door, liquidity breaks in trade depth first.
A proposed cut-off, 103 companies, and a lookback that started before the rule
The US Treasury has proposed the loss of correspondent access for Banque Misr's UAE branches over an estimated 1.8 billion dollars moved for 103 companies, and the rule is still pending. The Emirates central bank opened its own forensic lookback anyway, and that is the step that changes what the branches can do this week.
A sham with no catheter still lifted the quality-of-life score
PVI-SHAM-AF randomised 262 people with symptomatic atrial fibrillation 2:1 to pulmonary vein isolation or to a sham of sedation and vascular access with no catheter. At six months AFEQT had risen from 61.3 to 81.1 after ablation and from 59.2 to 74.9 after the sham; the gap did not reach significance (p=0.36). Freedom from atrial fibrillation did separate the arms, at 73 per cent against 52 per cent. The score patients reported climbed on both sides of the blinding.
Guinea-Bissau turns to a singular executive to break a 50-year cycle of institutional fracture
The constitutional referendum in Guinea-Bissau seeks to end the recurring conflict between president and prime minister by elevating the former and cutting parliament to 65 seats. The military argues a village can only have one leader, treating the post-colonial institutional bargain as the source of repeated coups rather than their victim.
If Libya's legislatures do not approve, the text becomes a constitution
Libya's rival governments signed an election timetable in Tripoli, and Walid Ellafi said legislative and presidential elections will be held under a single executive within 24 months. The clause that binds is the next one: if the legislatures do not approve the text within 30 days, it becomes a constitutional document with Security Council support.
In Munich the endpoint chose the headline
A-CLOSE finished level on its combined endpoint while its two components moved in opposite directions. TARGET-CTCA did not find a difference of the size it was built to find. EMAIL-HF moved a prescribing rate without being sized to see a clinical outcome. Reading any of the three headlines starts with the endpoint underneath it.