Missiles, drones and smuggled weapons: How the Houthis keep striking back

Missiles, drones and smuggled weapons: How the Houthis keep striking back



This screen grab taken from CCTV footage played on a screen during a press conference by the Saudi-led coalition in Riyadh on October 15, 2026, and made available via AFPTV, shows what the coalition says was a Houthi attack on Abha International Airport on October 7, 2026. — AFP pic


Summary

• Since early September 2026, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis have resumed hostilities against Saudi Arabia, launching missile and drone strikes targeting critical infrastructure, triggered by an earlier Saudi bombardment of Sanaa's airport.
• The Houthis possess a diverse array of ballistic missiles and drones, some derived from Iranian models, with stockpiles acquired from seized arsenals or smuggled parts.
• While Iran provides substantial military support, including missiles and UAV systems, the Houthis operate independently as strategic partners rather than proxies.
• Their resilience, developed through enduring previous conflicts, enables them to sustain prolonged engagements.

First Published: Friday, 16 Oct 2026 9:00 PM MYT


PARIS, Oct 16 — Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have built up a missile and drone arsenal capable of launching varied and sustained strikes, as Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government it backs are finding out.

‘Tit for tat’ strategy

Since early September, the Houthis have struck key oil infrastructure and airports across Saudi Arabia, notably Riyadh’s airport, which has been targeted 20 times.

They have also unsuccessfully targeted the cities of Medina and Mecca.

The trigger for their return to hostilities, after a four-year truce, was a Saudi bombardment of the airport in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, in July to prevent a Houthi delegation from landing there.

Since then, there have been “tit-for-tat” military strikes, said April Longley Alley, a specialist on Yemen at the Washington Institute think tank.


“The Houthis framed this campaign as blockade for blockade, airport for airport, escalation for escalation,” she said.


Varied arsenal

The Houthis possess a wide range of ballistic missiles and drones, which they are also using to strike targets in the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the entrance to the Red Sea.

The group’s missile stocks partly come from arsenals seized when it took Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in 2014, as well as “whole systems smuggled in, or self-manufactured systems built from parts that were themselves smuggled into Yemen, primarily via the Arabian Sea”, explained Niranjan BS, a strategic weapons analyst at Jane’s, the open-source intelligence company.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance database, the Houthis have several types of medium-range missiles, some derived from Iranian models such as the Kheibar Shekan.

They also have short-range missiles, including the Asef anti-ship missile, derived from Iran’s Khalij Fars class of missile, noted the Wilson Center think tank.

In addition, the Houthis have a range of cruise missiles from Iran’s Quds missile family, with the Version 4 believed to have a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), according to the Wilson Center.

They also have a range of aerial and maritime drones, at least some of which are derived from Iranian models.

The Waeid-1 and Waeid-2 aerial drones, for example, are “local copies of the Iranian Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 one-way attack UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) respectively”, Niranjan said.


Iran’s support



Supporters of the Houthi authorities brandish their weapons during a protest against Saudi intervention in Yemen, in Sanaa, on October 9, 2026. — AFP pic



“Iran has provided critical military assistance to the Houthis, particularly with the delivery of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems,” the Middle East Institute said in a report.

“Missile and UAV parts are designed and manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Yemen via small boats, container ships, or over the Oman-Yemen border, where they are assembled,” it said.

However, Danny Citrinowicz, an Israeli analyst specialising in Iran, cautioned that the Houthis “see themselves as partners of Iran, not proxies. This is why when people are saying Iran instructed the Houthis, it’s not working like that”.

“The Iranians have a strong presence in Yemen,” established by the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, he said at a recent conference in Paris.

But those operatives only advise; they do not decide Houthi operations, he said.

In June 2024, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on a man in China suspected of links to the Houthis, who it said played “a key role in procuring materials that enable Houthi forces to manufacture advanced conventional weapons inside Yemen”.


Able to endure



The Houthis, who are fighting the Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government, seized the coastline along a crucial trade route during a lightning offensive last month, extending their control over all of Yemen's Red Sea coast. Yemeni government forces have been attempting for several days to retake coastal territory captured by the pro-Iranian fighters. — AFP pic



Having already weathered years of conflict, the Houthis are seen as capable of using their arsenal for a long time to come.

“We need to remember with the Houthis that they have withstood punishing air campaigns before, from the Saudis, from the Americans, and from the Israelis,” said Longley Alley of the Washington Institute.

“This is a battle-hardened group, and they have much less to lose than the Saudis.”

She added that “the Houthis are probably calculating that they can go longer because they’re used to absorbing these strikes”. — AFP

Britain Is Accelerating Towards Crisis

Britain Is Accelerating Towards Crisis

by Tyler Durden
Friday, Oct 16, 2026 - 10:20 PM


Authored by David Betz and Michael Rainsborough via The Daily Sceptic

Something is going badly wrong across Western societies, and the sense of political dislocation is no longer a fringe concern. Trust in institutions has fallen, established political parties are losing support and arguments over immigration and national identity have become sharp dividing lines.



In Germany, the President now warns openly of a return to the political divisions of the Weimar era. In France, a protest movement that began in schools has spread across the country, bringing arson, mass arrests and violent clashes with riot police to cities from Strasbourg to Marseille. Across Europe, insurgent parties of Left and Right prosper on dissatisfaction with political systems that seem increasingly unable to correct themselves. Britain exhibits the same symptoms. The question is why governments confronted by such conditions so often appear to aggravate the problems rather than address their causes.

Aggravating the conditions driving the crisis follows the logic of accelerationism. Most closely associated with the British philosopher Nick Land, accelerationism holds that an existing order contains forces which, once unleashed, drive change forward and ultimately overwhelm attempts to restrain them. Rather than arrest the process, accelerationist thought embraces its intensification, although versions of the idea on Left and Right differ markedly over where it might lead. The essential rationale remains: if the existing order contains forces capable of destroying or transforming it, remove the restraints and let them run their course.

Judged by that standard, Britain's ruling classes are accelerationists par excellence. They oversee economic stagnation, mounting national debt, growing welfare dependency, the decay of town centres and public services, and deepening social divisions, compounded by rapid demographic change and repeated failures to deliver effective immigration controls. Their own reports document segregation, declining trust and failures of integration, yet governments refuse to change the policies contributing to those problems. As opposition becomes more organised and disruptive, the state responds with surveillance and speech restrictions, as well as two-tier policing and justice. Grievance produces resistance, resistance produces stronger enforcement, and stronger enforcement fuels the grievance.

We first raised the likelihood of Britain moving towards violent social breakdown in a short article 'The British Road to Dirty War' in January 2019. At that time the prognosis was seen as controversial, not least within our own university. We were 'cancelled' and removed from our positions of authority in the Department of War Studies for daring to raise this heretical possibility.

Now, the prospect is no longer confined to supposedly dissenting academics. In June 2026, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch warned that communal divisions risked taking Britain towards civil war. What was once been dismissed as an alarmist prediction was now being voiced by the leader of the opposition. Recognising the danger is one thing, though; reconsidering the policies contributing to the problem is quite another.

Governments are not spectators to the forces at work, which raises the most fundamental - and still largely unanswered - question in the civil war debate: why, despite endless warnings about growing social fracture and the prospect of civil strife, do Britain's ruling classes continue pursuing policies that exacerbate these tensions? Why persist on a course that threatens to unleash forces capable of sweeping away the very political order upon which their own survival depends?

Is it simply incompetence?

The current debate over immigration illustrates this paradox most clearly. So, let's begin from the obvious explanation: that it is all a case of ineptitude.

There is plenty of evidence of incompetence, but as an explanation for the failure to tackle the wider problems generated by unconstrained immigration, legal and illegal alike, it doesn't quite wash. For example, consecutive administrations have promised to reduce immigration but then consciously moved in the opposite direction. Brexit should have removed one familiar explanation for the inability to control national borders. Instead, the system introduced in 2021 widened access to overseas labour by lowering skills and salary thresholds, removing the cap on skilled workers and abolishing the resident labour market test. Net migration subsequently reached 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. The rules were later tightened, and the figures fell but remain historically high.

Nor can governments claim that the negative social consequences are a surprise. As far back as 2001, the Cantle Report after the riots in Bradford and Oldham described communities living "parallel lives". As Home Secretary, Theresa May warned in 2010 that poorly managed immigration placed pressure on public services and damaged community relations. David Cameron declared state multiculturalism a failure in 2011. The Casey Review reiterated many of these findings in 2016. In November 2024, the Government stated that its intent was to restore order to a "broken" immigration system. In 2025 Keir Starmer warned of Britain becoming an "island of strangers", while the Government's 2026 social cohesion plan acknowledges similar problems.

The recurrence of such warnings points towards more than poor judgement. Other forces are clearly at work. For example, large employers, notably in the health and social care sectors, have come to depend heavily upon international recruitment, giving them a powerful interest in maintaining existing arrangements, while the detrimental social impacts are borne by the population at large, including fiscal costs, pressure upon housing, infrastructure, health and welfare services, wage suppression and rising crime, especially in sexual offending.

These social costs did not have to be distributed in this way. Employers could have been encouraged to invest more heavily in domestic recruitment, training and retention. Such choices would have imposed burdens of their own, but political decisions necessarily involve trade-offs. Governments instead accommodated business demands for access to overseas labour while leaving the wider population, especially those on lower incomes and in already deprived areas, to bear the burden.

Over time, the logic acquired a momentum of its own. Dependence upon overseas labour was increasingly cited as a reason why immigration could not substantially be reduced. Policy created dependency; dependency became the argument for continuing the policy. Cue the inevitable smug Question Time audience member who bewails that without migrants, who will staff the NHS, and more importantly, who will serve us in Pret?

Incompetence alone cannot explain why governments pursue policies that heighten the danger of civil strife. Governments have certainly miscalculated, but they have also made deliberate choices, sustaining existing arrangements long after the resulting social tensions had been officially admitted.

Another failure, another report

Faced with declining social cohesion, governments have proved far readier to devise new administrative remedies than to reconsider the policies contributing to the problem. The latest example is Protecting What Matters, the Government's 2026 social cohesion plan. It acknowledges that large-scale migration makes community bonds harder to maintain, points to continuing segregation and records falling trust and worsening tensions.

Having diagnosed the problems, Whitehall proposes national integration standards, local cohesion plans, new mechanisms for detecting communal friction and a Social Cohesion Measurement Framework. After 25 years of reports documenting deepening societal divisions, the answer is apparently another programme for managing the consequences, while leaving the policies contributing to those divisions untouched. One set of policies creates the problems that justify another.

To illustrate the contradictory thinking at work, in March 2026 Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood accepted that people seeing illegal small-boat arrivals and the pace of immigration more generally had good reason to feel that matters were "out of control". Yet having conceded the failure of control, she turned to what she regarded as the more grievous threat: the growth of ethno-nationalism. Government policies, in other words, had provoked precisely the political reaction she now proposed to combat.

Combating the rise of the 'far-Right' gives government a new set of tasks. Anger over immigration is treated as a threat to social cohesion; hostility towards immigration becomes a potential source of extremism; communal tensions require monitoring and intervention. The policies generating much of the discontent stay in place, while government expands its efforts to contain the political reaction.

The accelerationist dynamic can therefore be summarised as a feedback loop. Policies that generate discontent are maintained; government seeks to contain the reaction they have caused; containment further exacerbates the grievance against the state. By treating the political expression of that grievance as a problem to be suppressed, the authorities intensify the very forces they are trying to control.

When political correction fails

Democratic politics depends upon the possibility of correction. Governments can be removed, policies reversed and lost arguments fought again at the next election. People can profoundly dislike a policy while accepting the political system, provided they retain confidence that democratic institutions offer a peaceful means of changing the direction of policy.

The scale and pace of recent immigration have tested that bargain. Governments of both major parties have promised greater control, yet policy has either barely changed or failed to deliver the promised results. The lesson is corrosive: when elections fail to translate public demands into political change, the appeal of seeking redress through other means inevitably grows.

Loss of faith in the capacity of elections to bring about meaningful change also extends to the institutions responsible for implementing government policy. The civil service, courts and police cease to appear as neutral instruments of democratic governance and come to be seen as obstacles to popular will, seemingly unresponsive to demands expressed through the ballot box.

Mismanaged immigration also accelerates the communalisation of politics. Competition over housing, schools and public resources, alongside disputes over cultural norms and practices, becomes organised increasingly around ethnic or religious identities. Government reinforces these divisions when it consults faith and community organisations, directs programmes towards particular groups and seeks representatives to speak on their behalf. A state that encourages minorities to consolidate politically along communal lines should hardly be surprised when the majority begins to do the same, and nativist demands follow.

If elections fail to change policy, while institutions meant to arbitrate political disputes are themselves seen as favouring competing communal interests, confidence that the system offers a peaceful route to political change begins to collapse. Opposition then moves beyond electoral politics. Protest becomes more confrontational, direct action more attractive and resistance easier to justify.

When containment becomes escalation

As opposition moves from protest to direct obstruction, the full weight of the state is brought to bear against those who resist. At Eastney Marina in Portsmouth, the authorities facilitated the landing and onward transport of migrants brought across the Channel by criminal smuggling networks, despite fierce local opposition. The determination to secure their passage stood in stark contrast to the refusal to reconsider the policies that had provoked the confrontation.

Such confrontations become tests of government authority: whether the state can enforce its decisions in the face of organised resistance. For those resisting, the same confrontation raises a question of legitimacy: whether governments that have consistently ignored demands for political change can still claim the obedience of their citizens.

Once resistance challenges the state's authority, changing course becomes politically more difficult than an earlier correction would have been. A policy reversal secured through ordinary politics can be defended on its merits; one made under pressure from direct action risks demonstrating that disruption works. The policy becomes a test of the government's resolve, giving ministers another reason to hold their ground.

For those resisting, the lesson is precisely the opposite, providing another reason to question the state's legitimacy. Elections, manifesto promises and official reviews have failed to deliver the promised reductions in immigration. Yet a government perceived as unwilling to secure the national borders proves ready to deploy its coercive powers against those challenging its decisions. The contrast reinforces the belief that open defiance is the only language the state appears to understand.

The two responses feed upon each other. Resistance gives government stronger reasons to assert its authority; the resulting enforcement deepens the grievances driving resistance. A classic escalatory dynamic develops, with each side supplying the other with reasons for its next move.

The confrontation over illegal Channel crossings thus develops into a more fundamental struggle over political power: whether change can still be secured through ordinary politics, or whether the outcome will increasingly be settled by force.

The self-preservation trap

As things deteriorate, the state is much better equipped to suppress a protest than to address its underlying causes. No comparable machinery springs into action when a policy fails for 20 years. Revising immigration policy requires ministers to confront organised interests, institutional dependencies and assumptions embedded across government. Arresting someone who blocks a port is considerably easier than reconsidering the policies that brought them there in the first place.

The grievances behind such protests have accumulated through years of political choices whose costs have been deferred, dispersed or transferred elsewhere. Some difficulties have arisen from governmental inaction; others are the direct result of policies deliberately pursued. Yet governments that have shown little inclination to address these problems become remarkably decisive when the resulting tensions threaten their authority. The authoritarian impulse asserts itself as those in power seek to defend the political order over which they preside.

Accidental accelerationists?

Accelerationism ordinarily implies intention. There is little reason to presume that Britain's ruling classes consciously seek the social upheaval or political destruction that accelerationist ideas envisage. Governments, however, are hardly innocent bystanders to the forces they help set in motion. They decide which interests to accommodate, determine which costs they are prepared to impose and follow the same course long after the dangers are plain to see. Absence of intention does not imply absence of responsibility.

Mass immigration and multiculturalism provide the clearest illustration. Neither simply happened to Britain. Both reflected political choices and, in some quarters, ideological convictions about diversity, national identity and the kind of society Britain ought to become. No democratic mandate was ever sought for so profound a transformation of British society.

The political and institutional interests sustaining mass immigration and multiculturalism also evolve over time. One government liberalises immigration for economic reasons; another preserves the system because public services have become dependent upon overseas recruitment; institutions built around multicultural policies acquire constituencies, practices and assumptions of their own. Later governments inherit both the policies and the costs of dismantling them. Choice becomes interest, interest hardens into dependency, and dependency is then presented as necessity.

Britain's present difficulties are therefore no mere accident. The policies contributing to them were consciously chosen, defended and sustained despite successive official warnings about their effects.

So, are they accelerationists?

Why, then, do Britain's ruling classes continue along a course that increases the danger of civil conflict? The answer lies in how the different forces we have examined combine to reinforce one another. Six propositions bring the argument together.


1. Incompetence explains part of the failure but cannot explain the refusal to change course. Governments make bad decisions, misjudge consequences and fail to deliver what they publicly promise. But such failings cannot adequately explain why, when the dangers have long been recognised, governments of both major parties nevertheless pursue much the same policies.

2. Powerful interests have a stake in maintaining the status quo. Employers and public services have become heavily dependent on overseas recruitment. Their interests are organised and well represented in government. Governments face stronger incentives to accommodate these organised interests than to address the consequences borne by the population at large.

3. Ideology shapes what governments are prepared to recognise and reconsider. Immigration and multiculturalism reflect convictions about diversity, national identity and the desirability of social transformation. Such beliefs influence which outcomes governments welcome, which difficulties they tolerate and which objections they regard as legitimate. Political commitments can survive mounting evidence that the resulting changes are generating serious divisions.

4. Political choices create institutional dependencies that make reversal progressively harder. Employers and public services organise staffing around overseas recruitment, while government builds institutions around the society its policies have helped create. Over time, decisions acquire powerful defenders and become embedded in administrative practice. Reversing these policies then requires governments to confront interests, assumptions and dependencies that their predecessors helped establish.

5. The failure of democratic correction encourages opposition beyond ordinary politics. Voters are promised greater control over national borders, but governments fail to deliver. Reports identify problems without resolving them; elections change governments without changing the direction of policy. As confidence in democratic redress weakens, resistance becomes more organised and disruptive. The failure to address grievances through established political channels creates the conditions in which more confrontational methods acquire greater appeal.

6. The defence of political authority can become a source of further escalation. Once resistance challenges the state's ability to enforce its decisions, changing course risks appearing to reward direct action and weaken formal authority. Governments therefore become more inclined to suppress opposition, even as the causes of discontent go unaddressed. Stronger enforcement, in turn, reinforces the conviction among opponents that the democratic process offers no effective remedy. The effort to preserve authority risks intensifying the confrontation that threatens its legitimacy.

So, are Britain's ruling classes the ultimate accelerationists? Not in the literal sense, of course. Accelerationism consciously embraces forces within an existing order whose intensification drives towards its destruction or transformation. Britain's ruling classes, one assumes, do not subscribe to any such doctrine. Yet their policies have set in motion a recognisably accelerationist dynamic. As elections repeatedly fail to produce the promised changes in policy, governments become more determined to assert their authority over those who resist. Governments unable to address the causes of political conflict prove considerably more capable of policing dissent. Suppressing resistance is easier, at least in the short term, than correcting the conditions that generate resistance.

Britain's ruling classes need not seek the destruction of the existing order. They need only defend it until self-preservation becomes self-destruction.

David Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World, King's College London. Michael Rainsborough is Professor of Strategic Theory and Director of the Centre for Future Defence and National Security, Canberra.

Two TNB contractors critically injured by electric shock as substation fire triggers Johor Bahru blackout

Two TNB contractors critically injured by electric shock as substation fire triggers Johor Bahru blackout 

Firefighters assist two injured TNB contractors following an electric shock incident at the Kangkar Tebrau main intake substation in Johor Bahru on October 16, 2026. — Picture courtesy of the Johor Fire and Rescue Department


Summary

• Two Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) contractors were critically injured from electric shocks during maintenance work, leading to a fire at the Kangkar Tebrau main intake substation in Johor Bahru.
• This incident disrupted electricity supply in several areas, including Johor Jaya, Tebrau, and Masai, causing traffic congestion due to non-functional traffic lights.
• TNB's technical team is working to restore power, and the company has apologized for the inconvenience.
• The Johor Fire and Rescue Department responded promptly, providing initial treatment to the victims and securing the area.

First Published: Friday, 16 Oct 2026 8:03 PM MYT


JOHOR BAHRU, Oct 16 — Two Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) contractors were critically injured after suffering electric shocks during maintenance work at the utility company’s Kangkar Tebrau main intake substation here this evening.

The incident triggered a fire and disrupted electricity supply in parts of Johor Bahru.


TNB said the fire broke out at 6.03pm, interrupting power supply in several areas around Johor Jaya and its surrounding areas.

“TNB’s technical team has been deployed to the site and is actively working to restore electricity supply to the affected consumers,” the electricity company said in a statement.

The national electricity company also apologised for the inconvenience caused.

The Johor Fire and Rescue Department said the Tebrau fire station received a distress call about the incident at 6.10pm.


“Upon arrival at the scene, the operational response team confirmed that an electrical power outage incident had occurred during maintenance work.


“As a result, two individuals were subjected to electric shock. The team provided initial treatment to both victims before transporting them to the hospital via an Emergency Medical Rescue Services,” said the department spokesman.


The department said firefighters later secured the area before returning to the station.

Earlier, social media users reported blackouts in several parts of Johor Bahru, including Tebrau, Masai and parts of Pasir Gudang.

They also reported that some traffic lights had stopped working, slowing traffic and causing congestion in several locations.

‘Until he retracts, go away’: Tuanku Muhriz rebukes Negeri Sembilan MB in public

‘Until he retracts, go away’: Tuanku Muhriz rebukes Negeri Sembilan MB in public



Negeri Sembilan Yang Dipertuan Besar Tuanku Muhriz Tuanku Munawir speaks to Menteri Besar Datuk Ismail Lasim, who responds with the traditional angkat sembah gesture. — Picture via Facebook/Screenshot


Summary

• In the ongoing constitutional crisis in Negeri Sembilan, Tuanku Muhriz Tuanku Munawir reprimanded Menteri Besar Datuk Ismail Lasim for suggesting he is no longer the state's Yang Dipertuan Besar.
• The altercation involved Tuanku Muhriz expressing dissatisfaction over Ismail's actions, which allegedly included informing the Keeper of the Rulers' Seal about the ruler's supposed removal.
• This follows a series of events, starting in April, involving disputed declarations by individuals claiming undang status and challenges to Tuanku Muhriz's reign, including the designation of Tunku Nadzaruddin as a new ruler.

First Published: Friday, 16 Oct 2026 4:54 PM MYT



KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 16 — The Yang Dipertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, Tuanku Muhriz Tuanku Munawir, publicly reprimanded Menteri Besar Datuk Ismail Lasim as the state’s constitutional crisis drags on.


Videos circulating on social media show the ruler telling a group of people that Ismail had written to the Keeper of the Rulers’ Seal to say that Tuanku Muhriz was no longer the state’s Yang Dipertuan Besar.


A visibly angry Tuanku Muhriz then asked why the menteri besar wanted an audience with him.

“Why does he want to see me? Until he retracts what he said earlier, go away,” he said, before turning to address Ismail directly.

“Don’t see me, I don’t want to see you. You understand? I am the Yang Dipertuan Besar but you said I am not.”


Ismail responded with the angkat sembah, the customary gesture of greeting royalty.

Worshippers at the mosque were heard chanting “Daulat Tuanku” after the reprimand.

Negeri Sembilan has been gripped by a royal crisis since April, when four individuals claiming to be undang, or chieftains, declared that Tuanku Muhriz had been removed as ruler.

In June, the same disputed undang purportedly proclaimed Tunku Nadzaruddin Tuanku Ja’afar as the “new” Yang Dipertuan Besar at a five-star hotel in Melaka.

Last month, Ismail endorsed a statement by his state executive council that purportedly affirmed Tuanku Muhriz’s removal. The ruler later revoked the appointments of the entire state executive council.

Record Tanker Rates Leave Heavy Crude Stranded In The Americas

Record Tanker Rates Leave Heavy Crude Stranded In The Americas

by Tyler Durden
Friday, Oct 16, 2026 - 08:00 PM


Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,


Record tanker rates are creating a heavy crude glut in the Americas, pushing Canadian, Colombian, and Ecuadorian crude prices down roughly $10 per barrel.


Shipping costs have surged to $40 per barrel, making American heavy crude increasingly uneconomical for Asian and European refiners.


The global diesel crunch is set to persist, as tanker shortages prevent heavy crude from reaching markets where demand remains strong.

The Middle East crisis has driven tanker rates to all-time highs and created a shortage of vessels. This oil logistics problem is now causing a ripple effect, tipping the heavy crude market in North and South America into oversupply - while Asia and Europe grapple with a shortage of heavy grades.



Canada is producing over 5 million barrels of crude daily, most of it heavy crude. Some 4 million barrels daily of that goes south to U.S. refineries. Venezuelan production has also moved higher after the U.S. disposed of the country's government and took control of the oil industry. According to Reuters, a lot of this heavy crude is stuck at home because of the record freight costs that have dampened appetite, pressuring prices in Canada, Colombia, and Ecuador. Venezuelan crude goes mostly to the U.S. Gulf Coast, so it is not as vulnerable to freight rate developments.

Prices for Canadian, Colombia, and Ecuadorian heavy crude have all shed some $10 per barrel in recent weeks, the report said, citing Argus data. All the flagship grades are now trading at the lowest in six weeks, with Western Canadian Select reaching $74 per barrel last week, before rebounding to $79.50 at the time of writing.

Ecuador's flagship heavy crude grade, Oriente, has also recovered, after dropping to $76 per barrel last week, now trading at over 84 per barrel. Colombia's Vasconia was the most expensive of the three last week, trading at $84 per barrel, and it has also probably gone up this week, as all oil gains on the flurry of tanker attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.

These prices cited above seem quite enticing on a market where Russian Urals fetches close to $120 per barrel, and Iran Light sells for $104 per barrel, despite the U.S. Navy blockade. However, these prices exclude freight costs and insurance, and these have reached up to $40 per barrel of crude, at a time when heavy crude is in especially strong demand because of the global diesel crunch. Heavy crude yields more diesel than lighter grades, which is quite a hot topic right now.

"You need a ship and the price of ships are going up, and the availability ships are going down," TP ICAP analyst Scott Shelton told Reuters. Global tanker rates have soared this year due to Middle Eastern producers taking to ship-to-ship transfers outside the Strait of Hormuz. For this, they use shuttle tankers, including smaller carriers, to sneak the oil through Hormuz and then load it on supertankers in the Gulf of Oman. As a result, supertanker rates from the Gulf to Asia hit $1.4 million daily earlier this month.

Shipping costs on the route from the U.S. Gulf Coast to Europe, meanwhile, have surged to $46 million in total, equal to $24.50 per barrel of crude. That compares to $6.5 million, or some $4 per barrel, before the war. The price is even higher on the route from the Americas to Asia, at over $80 million or $40 per barrel. It is little wonder why refiners in Europe and Asia are balking at the price and staying away from purchases.

This combination of factors suggests that the diesel crunch is not about to go away anytime soon. With heavy crude barrels stuck in the Americas because of freight costs, and few alternative suppliers of the same scale as Canada, for example, the market imbalance appears set to stay for a while. As long as there are so many vessels tied up in ship-to-ship transfers, freight costs are unlikely to move down meaningfully enough to stimulate cross-Atlantic demand for more heavy crude.

 

China tells Israel to stop ‘forced establishment’ of West Bank settlements

“The Palestinian question is the greatest historical injustice of this century,” China’s foreign minister said.

By Al Jazeera Staff and Reuters

Published On 16 Oct 202616 Oct 2026

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has told Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a meeting in Azerbaijan that Israel should stop and reverse its “forced establishment” of West Bank settlements, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Wang told Herzog that China has consistently viewed the Palestinian question as the greatest historical injustice of this century, the ministry said in the statement on Friday.

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Wang emphasised that the “two-state solution” is the right path to a resolution and said the immediate priority is to fully open access to the Gaza Strip so a humanitarian “catastrophe” is not allowed to spread.

Wang added that China is willing to work with the international community to push all parties to return to dialogue as soon as possible and seek a political settlement.

Wang is attending the Seventh Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, as the special representative of President Xi Jinping, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported.

China urges new Middle East framework

In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Cairo for the first time in a decade and called on Middle East countries to oppose external influence and consider reshaping the region’s security order.

Xi’s rare visit arrived as Beijing seeks to expand its influence in the region amid the US-Israel war on Iran.

The talks covered the US-Israel war on Iran, with both presidents urging “diplomatic solutions” to reach a “comprehensive agreement to end the war”, according to a statement from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s spokesperson.

In March, China criticised the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, with Beijing demanding an immediate halt to the joint attacks. Wang told his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, that the attack on Iran came as negotiations between Washington and Tehran had “made significant progress, including addressing Israel’s security concerns”, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement following the start of the war.

China was Iran’s largest trading partner, buying up to 90 percent of its oil, according to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. In 2021, Beijing signed a 25-year “comprehensive strategic partnership agreement” with Tehran.

At the same time, Beijing has spent the past decade cultivating closer ties with Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and remains a top trade partner of both the US and Israel.

 

Israel halts commercial goods from entering Gaza; Hamas denies tax claims

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of critical supplies.

By Al Jazeera Staff, AP and Reuters

Published On 15 Oct 202615 Oct 2026

Israeli authorities say no commercial goods have entered Gaza for two days, citing what they claim is a tax dispute between local merchants and Hamas.

COGAT, or the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli military body that “oversees humanitarian affairs” in Gaza, announced the halt on Wednesday.

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COGAT claimed that local merchants “made the decision in response to a 10,000 shekel ($3,220) fee imposed by Hamas on each truck entering Gaza” as well as a demand for 30 percent of all sales in Gaza to be carried out in cash.

This decision is expected to impact a crucial source of food and goods for the 2.1 million people in the Strip, who are completely reliant on Israel’s border crossings in a territory that is still suffering from famine.

Gaza’s government media office refuted the claims on Thursday and condemned the “blatant disinformation campaign and false statement”.

The media office instead said it was an attempt “to hold the government apparatus in Gaza responsible for the disruption of truck entry” and that the fee was a voluntary payment to a fund providing aid for those in need, such as widows and orphans.

It also said that cash payments were encouraged due to what it described as an acute cash shortage in the war-torn territory, but were never a mandatory requirement.

A Palestinian looks on at a house targeted by Israeli airstrikes in az-Zawayda, central Gaza Strip, October 11, 2026 [Mahmoud Issa/Reuters]

An already dire humanitarian crisis

The halt to commercial shipments, including fruit and winter clothing, cuts off a key source of food and other critical supplies as fears mount ahead of the encroaching winter.

Aid groups generally bring in staples such as flour, while merchants import more perishable foods like fruits and meat, according to data released earlier this year by COGAT.

The suspension is raising fears about affordability, with humanitarian workers saying a combination of aid and a robust commercial market is needed to keep prices under control.

“The humanitarian sector on its own cannot meet the needs of all the people,” said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The markets need to be functioning.”

Two Palestinian women walk along a street lined with buildings destroyed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza City, October 14, 2026 [Jehad Alshrafi/AP Photo]

Local merchants step in

The head of Gaza’s private truckers union, Nahed Sheheiber, denied the Israeli narrative, saying: “The Israeli coordinator is claiming that Gaza’s merchants are responsible, but the truth is that the Israelis are the ones who imposed the restrictions.”

Following COGAT’s announcement, Sheheiber’s union met with Gaza’s Ministry of Economy to express concern and say Israel was citing fees levied by the ministry as a pretext to cut off commercial goods.

A global hunger monitor in July warned that more than two-thirds of people in Gaza could face acute hunger by the year-end.

Israel is obliged under a US-mediated agreement to allow a minimum of 600 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter Gaza each day.

Diplomats say that far fewer than 600 trucks normally enter Gaza each day. Sheheiber said the figure was closer to 300, with two-thirds carrying commercial goods.

 

Trump administration seeks to strip Ilhan Omar of US citizenship: WSJ

Investigators have subpoenaed relatives and examined immigration records, the newspaper reports.

15 Oct 2026

The administration of US President Donald Trump is investigating Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to revoke her citizenship and eventually deport her, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing US officials and people familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry centres partly on how the Minnesota representative obtained citizenship after arriving in the US as a refugee from Somalia, the newspaper reported on Wednesday. Authorities are examining her family’s immigration records and have issued more than a dozen subpoenas, including to some of her relatives, seeking testimony before a grand jury in Minnesota.

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Omar’s office rejected the investigation as baseless in remarks to the Journal.

The Journal’s report comes just days after US federal agents raided the congresswoman’s home in what her office described as an “unprecedented escalation” by the Trump administration against its political opponents.

The search came just weeks before the November 3 midterm elections, a crucial vote for Republicans vying to retain control of Congress. Omar is seeking a fifth term representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district.

The Department of Homeland Security said the raid was part of “an ongoing federal investigation”.

Agents took Omar’s passport, mobile phone, personal computers and notebooks, according to people familiar with the search, the newspaper said.

Omar arrived in the US in 1995 after living in a refugee camp in Kenya and became a citizen in 2000. She has previously denied committing immigration fraud.

At issue in the citizenship inquiry is whether Omar or her late father altered her age in immigration paperwork to indicate that she was 17 rather than 18 when her father applied for citizenship, the Journal reported.

According to the newspaper, investigators are examining whether that allowed her to acquire citizenship through her father rather than having to undergo a separate application process.

Omar’s father died in 2020, complicating efforts to collect evidence on whether Omar lied about her own age – which, according to a former top immigration official in the Justice Department, the Trump administration would hinge its case on – or whether her father lied on her behalf.

The Journal also reported that Homeland Security Investigations officials examined a similar allegation during the administration of former President Joe Biden but did not pursue it because they lacked evidence of fraud.

The newspaper did not report that anyone had filed a lawsuit seeking to revoke Omar’s citizenship. Such a case would require court proceedings, as the investigation itself does not revoke her citizenship or authorise her deportation.

The newspaper reported that a nonpartisan congressional watchdog had earlier cleared Omar of wrongdoing over disclosures that overstated her assets.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), part of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), searched Omar’s home under what the department called a “judicially authorized search warrant”.

On Monday morning, agents blocked off the street around Omar’s home and removed boxes labelled “Seized Property Evidence”.

Omar, a prominent progressive Democrat, has faced years of attacks from Trump and his allies over her Somali background and immigration history.

Hours after the Monday raid, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with the search, saying it was “really up to the DOJ [Justice Department]”.

China agrees in principle to Malaysia’s proposal for world TVET council, says Zahid

China agrees in principle to Malaysia’s proposal for world TVET council, says Zahid



Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the agreement which includes a proposal for China to serve as the permanent host was conveyed by his counterpart, Ding Xuexiang, and Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng during a meeting yesterday. — Bernama pic


Summary

• China has agreed in principle to Malaysia's proposal to establish a World Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council, as conveyed by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.
• The council, which aims to foster global cooperation in skills development and workforce training, would have China as the permanent host and secretariat.
• This initiative also includes potential collaborations between Malaysian and Chinese TVET institutions, such as China's "Luban Workshop" centers, to support the development of a highly skilled workforce.
• The proposal received widespread international attention, highlighted by the participation of representatives from over 100 countries at the World TVET Development Conference 2026.

First Published: Friday, 16 Oct 2026 2:33 PM MYT

TIANJIN, Oct 16 — China has agreed in principle to Malaysia’s proposal to establish a World Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

Ahmad Zahid said the agreement which includes a proposal for China to serve as the permanent host was conveyed by his counterpart, Ding Xuexiang, and Minister of Education Huai Jinpeng during a meeting yesterday.


He noted that the proposal to establish the World TVET Council, with China acting as the permanent secretariat, was formally presented during his keynote address at the World Technical and Vocational Education and Training Development Conference 2026 (WVTEDC 2026) here today.


“I proposed it yesterday, and today I have officially put it forward in my speech. In terms of principle, Deputy Prime Minister Ding and China’s Minister of Education have agreed,” he said during a press conference following the event.

Ahmad Zahid, who also serves as the Minister of Rural and Regional Development, emphasised that the council is essential for creating a sustainable global platform to foster cooperation in skills development, technology, and workforce training, also expressed confidence in the initiative’s viability, citing China’s experience in organising TVET conferences over the past four years.

Ahmad Zahid, who also chairs the National TVET Committee, added that under this proposal, China would serve as the permanent secretariat to coordinate the sharing of knowledge and expertise within the TVET education ecosystem, thereby enabling member nations to benefit from ongoing collaboration.


The Deputy Prime Minister said the initiative also holds the potential to expand cooperation between TVET institutions in Malaysia and China including a proposed collaboration involving China’s “Luban Workshop” training centers, the Malaysia-China Institute (MCI), and various local TVET institutions.

Ahmad Zahid noted that such cooperation could pave the way for the implementation of skills training programmes, supporting Malaysia’s efforts to develop a highly skilled workforce capable of meeting the demands of the job market.

He added that the participation of over 100 countries and the attendance of 48 ministers at the WVTEDC 2026 conference reflect a global commitment to the development of education and skills training.

“We hope that efforts to strengthen the nation’s TVET ecosystem will continue to receive support from all stakeholders, in line with our aspiration to produce a workforce that meets industry needs, as Malaysia strives to become a highly skilled nation,” he said. — Bernama