Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
IRAN. YEMEN. Fresh attacks choke off supply.
ISRAEL. Washington looks to sell a gun for hire.
KOSOVO. SERBIA. More elections, more trials.
GERMANY. Merz faces a challenge from within.
CHINA. UNITED STATES. The future begins in the past.
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IRAN. YEMEN. Pain in the bottleneck
Fresh attacks choke off supply.
Yemen’s Houthis denied they had attacked Mecca amid separate reports they had downed a Saudi F-15 and mined the Bab-el-Mandeb. The US said oil would resume delivery at Yanbu in days, but contracts were cancelled until November.
INTELLIGENCE. Attacks on Mecca may be bogus, but the damage to Yanbu, the Red Sea terminus of Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, seems real, and industry analysts expect flows to only resume in 4-6 weeks, assuming there’s no further damage. Flows in Hormuz could resume sooner, amid reports of daytime military escorts, but potshots at ships continue such that they’ll unlikely make up for the Red Sea holdup in the interim. Riyadh has vowed to hit back.
FOR BUSINESS. Physical cargoes have reached $130 in Europe. Russian grades are trading at a premium to Brent. The Saudis (and Americans) look impotent as Iran’s foreign minister travels to Beijing for his second visit since the war began. Every president vows no more forever wars in the Middle East, but there are no good options to ending it that would be acceptable to the US public. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it has cost $38 billion so far.
ISRAEL. Last resort
Washington looks to sell a gun for hire.
The US was planning to sell Israel $2.8 billion worth of munitions, the Washington Post said, including 20,000 Mark 84 bombs. The head of the IDF met his Saudi counterpart last week during US-run talks at a German ski resort, Axios said.
INTELLIGENCE. Besides Israel and the US, the only other user of Mark 84s, an