America publishes the consumer-price inflation figure for July on Wednesday. Economists think inflation was steady at 3% year on year. That is above the Federal Reserve’s target, which uses a slightly different index, of 2%.

It is unclear how markets would react to any outcome. An unexpectedly weak American jobs report contributed to stockmarket panic last week. Wall Street’s “fear gauge”, the VIX index, which measures expected volatility using the prices traders pay to protect themselves from it, reached its highest level since America’s regional banking crisis last year. Although stock prices have since recovered, lower-than-expected inflation could prompt a further sell-off if it is seen as another sign of an economic slowdown.

But higher inflation could also cause jitters. The Federal Reserve did not cut interest rates last month because inflation was too high. Most investors now expect that the Fed will cut rates in September, by a quarter or half percentage point. Inflation data that lead to a delay could make for market gloom.

The latest attempt to bring the warring parties in Sudan together for ceasefire talks starts in Geneva on Wednesday. America has invited both the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, a warlord known as Hemedti, and the official Sudanese Armed Forces, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. But only Hemedti has promised to turn up. The SAF insists that it alone should be recognised as Sudan’s government, not just as the army. The SAF also objects to the presence at the talks of the United Arab Emirates, which it accuses of backing the RSF.

A top UN official warned on Monday that Sudan is now at a “cataclysmic breaking point”. The civil war that began in April 2023 has displaced internally more than 10m people; 2m have fled abroad. Famine has just been declared in one large refugee camp. If these talks fail, or never even start, Sudan’s agony will only worsen.

“Dungeon & Fighter”, a popular slasher-style mobile game, has been a hit for Nexon, the South Korean company that develops it. This may bode well for another group, Tencent, the Chinese social-media and gaming giant that licences the game for the Chinese market. It reports second-quarter results on Wednesday. An analyst at Morningstar, a financial services group, thinks that “DnF” could contribute 22bn yuan ($3.1bn) of revenue for this financial year to its gaming division.

The multinational company once seemed unstoppable. But it suffered during an 18-month crackdown by China’s government on tech groups, which wiped hundreds of billions of dollars from companies’ valuations. (The launch of “DnF ” was postponed when the government withheld approval of new licences.) Tencent still runs the country’s biggest mobile-messaging service, WeChat. But its share price is half of what it was in early 2021. Some good news on gaming could punch up its valuation.

Inflation is falling in most Western countries, but in Poland it is climbing. On Wednesday the country’s statistics agency, GUS, released final figures for July. Annual consumer-price inflation jumped to 4.2% from 2.6% in June. Energy is to blame. In July the Polish government began to unfreeze electricity and gas prices for households, which it had controlled since 2023 to protect them from the economic effects of the war in Ukraine. Energy prices are estimated to have jumped by almost 12% from June to July.

Without the volatile components of food and energy, Poland’s annual inflation is thought to have been 3.7-3.8% in July, up from 3.6% in June. That may look better than the headline figure, but it ends months of decline. Poland’s central bank expects inflation to peak at 6.3% in early 2025. It will probably keep interest rates high for some time.

Amid a summer surge of covid-19, another disease that became prevalent in the early 2020s is back, too. A new strain of mpox, a potentially lethal virus that causes skin lesions and fever, has spread from Congo, where the disease has long been endemic, to other African nations reporting cases for the first time. On Wednesday officials at the World Health Organisation will convene for an emergency session to decide whether the outbreak constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern”, the body’s highest alert level.

Cases are up 160% compared with the same period last year and more than 500 people have died. Adult males made up the majority of those infected in past outbreaks, but 60% are now children under 15, for reasons that are still unclear. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a public-health body, says it has only 200,000 vaccines of the 10m it needs. Regardless of the WHO’s decision, the world should be very concerned.