An opinion poll by Bloomberg showed America’s vice-president, Joe Biden (who has yet to announce his candidacy), catching up with Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination. On the Republican side of the presidential contest, prediction markets now show Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, ahead of Jeb Bush, the mainstream contender with the biggest war chest.
Officials in Saudi Arabia said that at least 310 people had been killed and 450 injured in a stampede near Mecca. The victims had been taking part in the haj, Muslims’ annual pilgrimage to the holy city.
At yet another emergency summit on migration, EU leaders pledged €1 billion ($1.1 billion) of fresh aid for Syrian refugees in the Middle East—and more help to the neighbouring countries that harbour them. The aim is to stem the flow that reaches the EU’s external borders, which are to be reinforced. A row over the relocation of 120,000 migrants within the EU continues to bubble away.
“Peace is near,” tweeted Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, on his way to Havana for talks with the FARC. Hours later he signed a deal on transitional justice—a stumbling block in their complex negotiations—with Rodrigo Londoño-Echeverry (alias Timochenko), the leftist guerrilla group’s leader. With only a few questions unresolved, the two set a date for the peace accord that should end their 50 years’ war: March 23rd, 2016.
As part of its weapons splurge under President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt will buy two Mistral helicopter carriers from France. They were originally built for Russia, but their sale was stymied by sanctions. Egypt also pardoned two Al-Jazeera journalists, one Canadian and one Egyptian, whose conviction on charges of spreading “false news” sparked international outrage.
The Office of Personnel Management, which holds information—much of it highly sensitive—on past and current American government employees and their families, said that a computer-security breach in June was even more serious than it had first admitted. The OPM believes the fingerprints of 5.6m staff were stolen, rather than the 1.1m it originally estimated.
The Brazilian real plumbed another record low, nearly 4.18 to the dollar. On Tuesday it fell through four to the greenback for the first time since its creation in 1994. A severe recession, corruption scandals and political deadlock have scared away foreign investors and dampened demand.
