Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on August 26, 2022 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Stock futures fell on Sunday evening as investors tried to shake off a sharp decline in stocks at the end of last week.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 300 points, or about 0.93%. Those for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 1.18% and 1.6%, respectively.
The moves in futures come after a brutal sell-off for Wall Street on Friday, when Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's short and blunt remarks in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, appeared to extinguish hopes of the central bank changing its aggressive course of rate hikes in the months ahead.
The Dow fell 1,008 points, or just over 3%, for its worst day since May. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell 3.4% and 3.9%, respectively, for their worst days since June. The drop erased the August gains for all three averages.
"Investors again cut back on their recent Risk-On positioning, supporting our view that it is way too soon to call their recent risk appetite a more permanent stance, and now one more likely to have cost them badly," Rick Bensignor of Bensignor Investment Strategies said in a note to clients.
The coming week brings more Fed speeches, including Vice Chair Lael Brainard on Tuesday, before August's nonfarm payrolls report on Friday.
Marnus Labuschagne is a self-confessed tinkerer when it comes to his batting, sometimes changing things mid-innings, and he is focused on using the upcoming six ODIs against Zimbabwe and New Zealand in northern Australia to continue to adapt his middle-order game with little more than a year to go until the World Cup.
Labuschagne now has 21 ODIs under his belt since making his debut shortly before Covid disrupted the game - the opening ODI against Zimbabwe in Townsville on August 28 will be Australia's first on home soil since November 2020. He scored a century in his fifth innings, an emotional performance against South Africa in the country of his birth, and has also made a couple of sparkling half-centuries either side of Australia's 13-month absence from the format.
However, he was left frustrated by his returns on the recent tour of Sri Lanka, even knowing there were some tough conditions as the series progressed, having fallen between 18 and 31 in all five innings.
"Looking back on it, I certainly wish I'd played a slightly different way," he told ESPNcricinfo. "I almost started a little too defensively so I'm just reviewing my theories there and wished I'd applied my Test method a little bit more in those conditions; sweeping the ball, using my feet a little more. It was a bit disappointing from my end, that I didn't really do that until the Test series came. For me, it's a learning experience."
Part of that learning is to adjust to what could be the No. 5 position on a more regular basis. He twice batted there in Sri Lanka, with Josh Inglis and Travis Head in the slot above, and though neither of those players is part of the current squad, Mitchell Marsh and Steven Smith could both go in ahead of Labuschagne.
"I enjoy the different challenges, that's for sure," he said. "I always like batting in the top order, I've spent my whole life there, but understanding the team make-up, batting at No. 5, I need to continue to get better at that role and through the middle overs understanding when to attack and defend. It's about really trusting myself. That's the great thing with the coaching staff, they have full trust in us as players, to take the game on and put pressure back on the opposition.
"To be really positive out of the blocks is key for me. Understanding what the situation is. If we are going well it's about making sure that I'm getting the other batter on strike if he's really got momentum and starting to build the partnership. Putting the bowler under pressure from ball one and if I can do that it certainly changes the dynamic."
There has been some discussion about whether there is room for both Labuschagne and Smith in the ODI middle order with them having career strike rates of 85.80 and 88.43 respectively, but unsurprisingly, Labuschagne is not having a bar of that. Back in November 2020, the pair produced a stand of 136 in 16 overs against India at the SCG which gave a glimpse of how they could work together.
"I don't really see us as similar players, I think we attack the game very differently," Labuschagne said. "[Steve] goes a lot more straight down the wicket, especially against spin, whereas I attack it quite square with sweeps. Obviously, I think there's room for both of us. Steve got 100 off 60 balls against India in back-to-back games and feel like we complement each other depending on what the situation is. If it's a tough wicket, we can control the middle overs, but on the other side, we can put pressure on the opposition at a lower risk and be able to score quickly. The challenge is we've just got to continue to push that run rate, especially when we are batting first, and we both understand that."
On the broader theme of the ODI format's standing in the game at a time of unprecedented schedule crunch, Labuschagne is equally enthusiastic and hopes to add another chapter to Australia's World Cup legacy next year in India.
"I love 50-over cricket, it's a good mix, you need to show some really good tactical nous, understanding your opposition, getting wickets through the middle overs and trying to score at seven or eight runs an over at low risk, that's a different challenge in itself. I really enjoy the format, there's space for all three, it's just about how we schedule it.
"The history that comes with one-day cricket makes it such an amazing format. There's been so many great World Cup wins over so many years, so to be a part of a World Cup would be an amazing experience and one that I look forward to. Still think it's the pinnacle of international white-ball events."
The Israeli army has also announced the arrest of 19 people it said are members of the Islamic Jihad group in the occupied West Bank, alongside the arrest of one other person.
Health authorities in Gaza say 10 people have been killed by Israel's bombardment, including a five-year-old girl, with 79 others injured.
(AFP)
Israel has hit Gaza with air strikes for a second day, drawing retaliation from an armed Palestinian group, in the territory's worst escalation of violence since a war last year.
Israeli aircraft continued striking the besieged territory on Saturday, a day after the Palestinian Health Ministry said bombardment there killed 10 people, including a child.
Israel says it has launched a "pre-emptive" operation against the Islamic Jihad group. Israel's army estimates that its operations have killed 15 fighters in Gaza, including a senior commander.
Early on Saturday, Israel broadened its operation against Islamic Jihad. The Israeli army announced the arrest of 19 people it said were members of the group in the occupied West Bank, alongside the arrest of one other person.
Israel and Islamic Jihad have both confirmed the killing of Taysir al-Jabari, a key leader of the armed group, in a Friday strike on a building in the west of Gaza city.
The Palestinian Health Ministry also reported "a five-year-old girl, targeted by the Israeli occupation" was among those killed on Friday.
A Western-backed Palestinian Authority official condemned Israel's attacks. "We call on the international community to intervene and provide protection for our people," Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh said on Twitter.
Türkiye and Qatar have strongly condemned the Israeli strikes leading to civilian casualties.
Islamic Jihad said the initial Israeli bombardment amounted to a "declaration of war", before it unleashed a barrage of rockets towards Israel.
The rocket fire and Israeli strikes were continuing early on Saturday, risking a repeat of an 11-day conflict in May 2021 that left at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel dead.
"Israel isn't interested in a wider conflict in Gaza, but will not shy away from one either," Prime Minister Yair Lapid said in a nationally televised address on Friday.
Air raid sirens sounded across southern Israel early on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage, with many rockets intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defence system.
Officials in border areas urged people to stay close to shelters, which have also been opened in Tel Aviv.
Egypt — a historic broker between Israel and groups in Gaza — the United Nations and Qatar had begun mediating an end to the violence, according to a Palestinian official with knowledge of the efforts.
The strikes come four days after Israel closed its two border crossings with Gaza and restricted the movement of Israeli civilians living near the frontier, citing security concerns.
The measures followed the arrest in the occupied West Bank of two senior members of Islamic Jihad, including Bassem al-Saadi, who Israel accuses of orchestrating recent attacks.
China has encircled Taiwan with a series of huge military drills — now into their second day — that have been condemned by the United States and other Western allies.
Set to last until Sunday, the exercises will take place in multiple zones around Taiwan — at some points within just 20 kilometres (12 miles) of the shore.
(AFP)
Taiwan says Beijing's fighter jets and ships have crossed the median line that runs down the Taiwan Strait as part of its latest military drills, calling China "the evil neighbour next door".
China has been holding huge drills encircling Taiwan, which Beijing considers as its own territory, since Thursday to protest this week's visit to the island state by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The drills involve live firing on the waters and in the airspace near the self-ruled island state, with as many as four missiles believed to have flown over the capital Taipei in an unprecedented escalation during the exercises.
"This Chinese military exercise, whether it be the launch of ballistic missiles or the deliberate crossing of the median line of the strait, is a highly provocative act," Taiwan's defence ministry said in a statement on Friday.
"...multiple batches of Chinese warplanes and warships conducted exercises around the Taiwan Strait and crossed the median line of the strait."
The median line is an unofficial but once largely-adhered-to border that runs down the middle of the Taiwan Strait, which separates Taiwan and China.
It was previously rare for military jets and ships to cross the median line, although Chinese incursions have become more common after Beijing declared in 2020 that the unofficial border no longer existed.
And there has been a spike in median-line incursions during this week's drills.
Crossings of the line are sensitive because the Taiwan Strait is narrow, just 130 kilometres (81 miles) at its thinnest point, and incursions raise the risk of military accidents.
The latest drills are expected to continue until midday Sunday, and have sparked outrage from the United States, Japan and the European Union, as well as Taipei.
China defends the drills as just countermeasures in the face of provocations by the United States and its allies in Taiwan.
Taiwan's premier Su Tseng-chang called for allies to push for de-escalation on Friday.
"(We) didn't expect that the evil neighbour next door would show off its power at our door and arbitrarily jeopardise the busiest waterways in the world with its military exercises," he told reporters.
The military exercises have straddled some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Airlines too have cancelled flights to Taipei and rerouted others to avoid airspace nearby that has been closed to civilian traffic during Chinese military exercises.
Beijing is yet to formally confirm whether missiles overflew the island state during the drills, while Taipei has refused to confirm or deny the flight paths, citing intelligence concerns.
But Japan's defence ministry said of the nine missiles it had detected, four were "believed to have flown over Taiwan's main island".
Meng Xiangqing, a professor at China's military-affiliated National Defence University, told state broadcaster CCTV that the drills represented the People's Liberation Army's closest-ever exercises to the island, its first encirclement and the first time it set up a shooting range east of Taiwan.
"That's unprecedented," Bonnie Glaser, a Washington-based Asia security specialist at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said of statements that four ballistic missiles had been fired over Taiwan.
"In my view, the larger threat is that China is doing a rehearsal for a blockade, demonstrating it can block Taiwan's ports and airports, and prevent shipping," she said.
The occupation that began on Saturday was the second time in days that Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr's supporters had forced their way into the legislative chamber.
Despite oil wealth and elevated global crude prices, Iraq remains hobbled by corruption, unemployment and other problems, which sparked a youth-led protest movement in 2019.
(AFP)
Hundreds of followers of Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr have began a second day camped at the country's parliament.
On Sunday morning, the demonstrators marked the Muslim month of Muharram, a traditional Shia celebration, with religious chants and collective meals.
Volunteers distributed soup, hard-boiled eggs, bread and water to the protesters.
Some had spent the night inside the air conditioned building — which dates from Saddam Hussein's era — with blankets spread out on the marble floors.
Others took to the gardens, on plastic mats under palm trees.
A day earlier, they stormed the complex despite tear gas, water cannon and baking temperatures that touched 47 degrees Celsius.
They pulled down heavy concrete barricades on roads leading to Baghdad's fortified Green Zone of diplomatic and government buildings to break in.
Nearly ten months after October elections, Iraq is still without a new government despite intense negotiations between factions.
Analysts have said Sadr, a mercurial cleric who once led a militia against US and Iraqi government forces, is using street protests to signal that his views must be taken into account in government formation.
The immediate trigger for the occupation was the decision by a rival Shia bloc, which is pro-Iran, to pick Mohammed Shia al Sudani for the prime minister's post.
In multi-confessional and multi-ethnic Iraq, government formation has involved complex negotiations since a 2003 US-led invasion toppled Hussein.
Sadr's bloc emerged from elections in October as the biggest parliamentary faction, but was still far short of a majority.
In June his 73 lawmakers quit in a bid to break a logjam over the establishment of a new government.
That led to a pro-Iran block becoming the largest in parliament, but still there was no agreement on naming a new prime minister, president or cabinet.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports signed in Istanbul a day ago was an important success.
Internationally praised for its mediator role, Türkiye has coordinated with Moscow and Kiev to open a corridor from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa to restart shipments stuck due to the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fifth month.
(AA)
Türkiye is determined to forge ahead with its diplomatic efforts until there is peace between Russia and Ukraine, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.
Speaking at an event in the central Kayseri province on Saturday, Erdogan said the agreement on Ukrainian grain exports signed in Istanbul was an important success.
Türkiye is making a “substantial contribution” to efforts to overcome a global food crisis, he added.
With the mediation of Türkiye and the UN, Kyiv and Moscow signed an agreement in Istanbul to resume Ukrainian grain shipments from Black Sea ports.
Under the deal, reached on a UN-led plan during talks in Istanbul, a coordination centre will be established to carry out joint inspections at the entrances and exits of harbours, and to ensure the safety of the routes.
Internationally praised for its mediator role, Türkiye has coordinated with Moscow and Kiev to open a corridor from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa to restart shipments stuck due to the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fifth month.
Türkiye also hosted a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in the Mediterranean city of Antalya in March, part of its push to forge peace between the warring sides.
