Türkiye
In an interview with Al Jazeera, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Egypt could join the joint defence agreement that Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed in Mecca earlier in August, calling Cairo's accession possible and the pact open to further members. The agreement provides that an armed attack on any one of the three is to be treated as an attack on all three, a clause analysts have compared to NATO's Article 5, while officials in Islamabad have cautioned against reading it as a NATO equivalent or as aimed at any one country. Erdoğan also said reopening the Strait of Hormuz was a priority for Ankara and credited Qatar with a role in regional mediation.
At the party's 25th anniversary event in Ankara on 14 August, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan presented a 69-page vision document covering ten areas, among them high-value production, digital sovereignty, the judiciary, a new constitution, family policy, women, youth and the green transition. He said the party is aiming first at 2053 and then at 2071, that he has completed 50 years in politics and intends to continue, and he tied the progress he claimed to the terror-free Türkiye initiative. Three opposition lawmakers and seven mayors joined the AKP during the event.
Türkiye attracted 4.2 billion dollars in foreign direct investment in the first half of 2026, down 31 percent on the same period a year earlier, according to the investors' association Yased working from central bank figures. Investment capital itself fell only 6 percent, to 3.7 billion dollars. What pulled the total down was 2.4 billion dollars of investors unwinding existing holdings, much of it a single large liquidation in June. The Netherlands was the largest source with 23 percent, followed by Germany and the United States at 15 percent each, and the EU member states accounted for 52 percent of investment capital in the half year against a 59 percent share over the years 2003 to 2025.
Advertised accommodation prices in Antalya for August to October are 5 percent below last year's level, and in Muğla province, which contains Bodrum, Marmaris and Dalaman, 8 percent below, according to Lighthouse data compiled by the Financial Times. Istanbul is moving the other way with rates up 5 percent, so the discounts are concentrated in the coastal markets. The report ties the weaker demand to the Iran conflict, which has led some travellers to delay bookings and made it harder for airlines, tour operators and hotels to forecast peak-season revenue, while the Greek islands and coastal destinations in Italy, Spain and Croatia are holding or raising their prices.
Europe
The United States ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, called on the bloc on Friday to align two laws on human rights and environmental standards in supply chains, the CSDDD and the CSRD, with last year's trade deal. The American document he posted warns that Washington will take any actions necessary if its concerns are not addressed. The EU has already narrowed the scope of both laws under pressure from business, delaying implementation and sparing smaller firms, and the American document says that does not go far enough. Commission spokesperson Arianna Podestà replied that the exchanges continue but that neither the rules framework nor the EU's regulatory autonomy is up for negotiation. The day before, Puzder called the carbon border adjustment mechanism, CBAM, a tariff in substance.
Source:
Euronews · Friday, 14 August 2026
The Constitutional Council on Friday approved the law establishing a right to assisted dying for adults with an incurable condition, passed by parliament in July, and France now joins the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. Some provisions require clarification, among them the conscience clause, which must also apply to private healthcare facilities where the procedure is manifestly contrary to their mission, provided they are not the only establishments able to meet local needs. At the same time the council struck down the ban on social media for children under 15, finding it an infringement of the freedom of expression and communication that is neither appropriate, necessary nor proportionate. The Élysée says the government will work on a new draft law.
Source:
Euronews · Friday, 14 August 2026
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X on Saturday that Ukrainian forces had struck the Progress Rocket and Space Centre in the Samara region with FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles, calling the facility one of the key enterprises of the Russian space agency Roscosmos. He also reported hits on the Savasleyka air base in the Nizhny Novgorod region and on an oil facility at Ust-Luga near the Estonian border. Ukraine's General Staff confirmed hits at both the centre and the air base, saying the launch vehicles built there put Russian military, reconnaissance and communications satellites into orbit and that the base operates MiG-31K jets carrying Kinzhal missiles.
Source:
Euronews · Saturday, 15 August 2026
The World
A senior White House official told Wall Street Journal reporter Brian Schwartz that the president has not met his advisers about declaring the Strait of Hormuz United States territory and was joking during his speech at Garden City in New York state. Trump had said in that speech that he would soon be declaring the strait a territory of the United States, adding that it is true, and he also claimed that no ships get through unless Washington wants them to. Iran's deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi replied that the strait has been, is and will remain Iranian, that it is opened and closed only at Iran's command, and that it cannot be seized by a social media post, an aircraft carrier, an order or an election speech.
General Mohammad Bagherzadeh of Iran's armed forces wrote to the International Committee of the Red Cross that three pilots, Javad Salehi, Abdolmajid Dashtian and Omran Behraveshian, were captured alive by Qatar after their Su-24 aircraft crashed in March, and said they had been held incommunicado for six months, with no access to their families or to diplomats, according to the Fars news agency. Qatar's foreign ministry replied on Saturday through spokesman Majed al-Ansari that it categorically denies the claims that Iranian pilots are being detained and is surprised by misleading statements at a time when diplomatic efforts to de-escalate are under way. Iran had previously said one pilot was killed and the others were missing.
Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas's political leader and chief negotiator, is expected to meet Egypt's intelligence chief Hassan Rashad in Cairo on Sunday morning, according to Hamas sources speaking to AFP and Anadolu, his first visit to the country since he took over the leadership in late July. Next week Donald Trump's envoy Jared Kushner travels to Israel and Egypt with Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace's high representative for Gaza, to narrow differences over a 15-point plan that Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly dismissed and under which Hamas had agreed to hand its weapons to a new Palestinian governing committee. On Saturday Israeli fire killed two Palestinians and wounded 14 in air strikes, artillery shelling and demolitions, according to Gaza's health ministry.