New developments appeared on the line China-ASEAN. The Tuesday meeting of senior diplomats has marked significant improvements, among them the setting of a deadline for the South China Sea code of conduct (COC). The first draft is expected for next year. In addition to that, both sides agreed to arrange more frequent negotiations and creating a hotline between China and ASEAN in the case of emergencies.

Zambia police arrests over 130 rioting supporters of opposition party United Party for National Development (UPND). Police accuse the opposition of attacking perceived supporters of the president after disputed election result. Riots erupted right after resident Edgar Lungu was declared the winner of a highly-contested vote. The opposition party quickly rejected that result, saying that the electoral commission had colluded to rig the result in favour of Lungu. Supporters of the opposition took the streets in Southern Province and blockaded strategic roads. 

On Monday and Tuesday, August 15-16, several civilian objects on both sides of Saudi-Yemen border were hit by artillery and air strikes. Royal Saudi Air Force struck a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Hajja province in north-west Yemen and a residential building east of country’s capital, Sana’a. 14 and 17 people, respectively, died in the attacks. Houthi rebels have in turn fired from Yemen at Najraf on the Saudi side of the border, killing 9 people. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, condemned the hospital strike and said he was ‘deeply disturbed by the intensification of air strikes and continuing ground fighting and shelling’.

Donald Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, has been named in an investigation by Ukrainian authorities looking at whether he and others received millions in illegal payments from Ukraine's former pro-Russian ruling party, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Handwritten ledgers show $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau. Investigators assert that the disbursements were part of an illegal off-the-books system whose recipients also included election officials.

The European Commission is required to further beef up its steel trade defenses, perhaps as early as October, industry leaders say, as a worldwide trade war in the alloy intensifies and imports keep flooding into the axis. The Commission has ramped up trade defenses over the past year, slapping anti-dumping tariffs on products like reinforced bar, cold-rolled carbon steel and cold-cast stainless steel, running between 18.4 and 25.3% for imports from China. Admitting that, carbon steel imports in this year rose to 21% in May. European Union data shows that China now representing 27 percent of total imports, while stainless steel imports rose 17 percent over the period.

Russian Ministry of Defense stated that they used the Iranian airbase in the Western part of the country in Hamadan to make the strikes in Syria. According to the statement, Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers and Sukhoi-34 strike fighters took off from Hamadan on Tuesday. According to the Russian ministry of Defense, targets were in Aleppo, Idlib and Deir al-Zour provinces. According to the local groups, around 27 civilians were killed in airstrikes. According to reports, it was the first time, when Russia uses a third country base to destroy targets in Syria, since the start of the Russian campaign in Syria.