Donald Trump announced a Russia–Ukraine “energy ceasefire” that Kyiv says it learned about from the announcement; Riyadh’s airport was hit again a day after the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in a decade; and the shipping war around Hormuz is heating back up. Ten stories as of Sunday morning, October 11.
1. Kyiv, Moscow and Washington / Ukraine, Russia and United States. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “Both parties have agreed. … Do not break it!” There was no immediate confirmation from Moscow, DW reported, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Axios: “The ceasefire announcement was news for me. But if Russians agree to an energy ceasefire, Ukraine will agree.” Trump made a similar claim in September that turned out to be untrue, The Guardian noted. Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian drones damaged a Yandex data center in Vladimir, east of Moscow, the third strike on “Russia’s Google” this week; the company said operations there were “completely suspended,” BBC News reported. The backdrop is the week’s row over Trump’s Russian diesel deal and his call on Saturday for Ukraine to “get a new president.”
2. Riyadh / Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition said an “unidentified projectile” struck Terminal 4 at King Khalid International Airport on Sunday, causing a fire, and that air defences intercepted a cruise missile nearby, AFP reported via The Guardian. The airport was already closed after Saturday’s strike killed 12 people, including an American, and injured 309, BBC News reported. Saudi authorities extended the closure and moved Riyadh’s schools online until Thursday, while the Houthis warned airlines, passengers and airport staff to stay away from Saudi airports and said “the worst is yet to come,” The Guardian reported. They exempted Mecca and Medina. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said Saudi Arabia struck Sanaa’s airport on Sunday afternoon, DW reported. On whether the U.S. joins in, Trump said: “We’re gonna look at it.”
3. Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz / Iran and United States. U.S. Central Command released footage of a fighter jet bombing the stern of a Panama-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman and knocking out its propulsion. CENTCOM said the crew ignored repeated warnings and tried to run the naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports. Since the blockade was reimposed in mid-July, it says, U.S. forces have disabled four commercial vessels, turned back 135 ships and destroyed 10 Iran-linked tankers, Al Jazeera reported. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy said an unnamed supertanker hit a naval mine and caught fire while using an “unauthorised route,” and it warned other tankers of the same fate. UKMTO reported a projectile hitting an outbound tanker on Sunday, and the UAE coastguard rescued 22 crew from a burning tanker. Kpler data cited by CNBC put crude flows through the strait about 40% below normal last week.
4. Obock / Djibouti. At least 139 migrants died and 84 are still missing after a boat headed for Yemen capsized off Djibouti’s coast late Thursday, the UN’s International Organization for Migration said on Sunday, DW reported. That’s up from an earlier count of 109 dead, including 15 children. Reports put the number on board at 305 to 350. About 80 people survived, all of them Ethiopian, and Djiboutian search operations are continuing, BBC News and Al Jazeera reported. “This is a devastating loss of life,” said Alexandre Coissac, the IOM’s Djibouti chief. The agency has counted more than 20,000 crossings from Ethiopia into Djibouti since September 10, despite the war in Yemen. More than 900 people died or went missing on the route last year.
5. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa / Pakistan. President Asif Ali Zardari put the north-western province under emergency rule on Sunday, effectively suspending its government, which is run by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s PTI party, DW reported. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office cited the “provincial government’s deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism.” Law Minister Azam Nazeer Tarar said the governor will take charge with an advisory council, initially for six months. A PTI lawmaker said Chief Minister Sohail Afridi and the party’s provincial president were arrested, which officials haven’t confirmed, Al Jazeera reported. It comes a week into a PTI march on Islamabad demanding Khan’s release.
6. Warsaw / Poland. Police received information about a possible plot to attack Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, and security chiefs held an emergency meeting on Sunday. “We take this matter extremely seriously,” said Jacek Dobrzyński, spokesperson for the minister overseeing the intelligence services, adding that officials saw a high probability the threats would have been carried out, The Guardian reported. Radio Zet reported that the tip came to police by email, according to Al Jazeera. Poland was already on edge after three school attacks in Mazovia province in four days, and Tusk has warned of Russian hybrid attacks on NATO’s eastern flank.
7. Vatican City / Holy See. “The doctors found an early, well-localised nodule on my lung,” Pope Leo XIV told pilgrims in St Peter’s Square at Sunday’s Angelus, saying he had agreed to surgery. The Vatican press office said the operation is set for early this coming week at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, and that the 71-year-old should need about a week to recover, BBC News reported. The pope didn’t say whether the nodule is malignant, but he said it was caught “at an early stage,” The Guardian reported.
8. Colima, Jalisco and Michoacán / Mexico. The core of “extremely dangerous” Hurricane Simon was near the coast of west-central Mexico at 9 a.m. CST: a Category 4 with 145 mph winds, 65 miles west-northwest of Manzanillo, moving north-northwest at 7 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It’s expected to be very near the coast later today and to stay close on Monday. A hurricane warning runs from Punta San Telmo to El Roblito and the Islas Marías. Forecasters expect another 8 to 16 inches of rain, with isolated totals of up to 30 inches in Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, and warn of “life-threatening flooding and mudslides.” Farther north, the remnants of Rachel are bringing heavy rain to parts of the south-western U.S., and the NHC has issued its last advisory on that storm.
9. Brasília / Brazil. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court gave Meta 48 hours to say whether it cut the reach of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s campaign posts, and to “report, profile by profile, all the measures applied” to his official accounts, AFP reported. Lula’s campaign says Facebook’s and Instagram’s parent company is trying “to interfere in the Brazilian electoral process to the benefit of Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy.” Meta’s Brazil office called the claims “simply false” and said many of the technical issues weren’t limited to Brazil or to specific accounts. Lula faces Bolsonaro, the son of the former president, in the October 25 runoff. Bolsonaro finished first in last Sunday’s first round.
10. Nikumaroro / Kiribati. A team from the U.S.-based Archaeological Legacy Institute and Purdue University is due by Monday at Nikumaroro, a remote atoll in Kiribati, to inspect what it thinks could be Amelia Earhart’s plane, BBC News reported. The target is the “Taraia Object,” spotted on the edge of a lagoon in 2020 satellite imagery and since found in aerial photos dating back to 1938. The team is aboard a Kiribati National Shipping Line vessel for the 830-mile trip from the capital. “Finding Amelia Earhart’s Electra aircraft would be the discovery of a lifetime,” said expedition lead Richard Pettigrew. Earhart vanished in 1937 while trying to fly around the world.
Coming Up
Confirmed dates on The Watch: October 12, the Nobel economics prize, the last of this year’s Nobels. October 12–18, the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, with G20 finance ministers there October 15. October 15–16, the European Council in Brussels. October 19, Alberta’s referendum on whether to move toward a binding independence vote.
Sources: BBC News; The Guardian; Al Jazeera; DW; AFP; U.S. Central Command; U.S. National Hurricane Center.
