Riyadh’s main airport was hit again a day after the deadliest strike on Saudi soil in years; President Trump’s “energy ceasefire” for Ukraine had no word from Moscow and no letup in Russian drones; and Hurricane Simon, now a Category 3, is grinding up Mexico’s Pacific coast. Ten stories as of Sunday evening, October 11.
1. Riyadh and Dammam / Saudi Arabia. A projectile hit King Khalid International Airport again on Sunday afternoon, setting fire to Passenger Hall No. 4, killing one person, a Pakistani resident, and injuring 11, Saudi officials said, BBC News reported. Air defences intercepted a cruise missile near the airport. Saturday’s toll rose to 13 after the Indian embassy said an Indian man had died of his injuries. Later Sunday, Saudi authorities confirmed King Fahd International Airport in Dammam had also been attacked, The Guardian reported. The Houthis claimed “four qualitative operations” in 24 hours with ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, including two Saudi Aramco facilities, DW reported, and warned that every Saudi airport except those in Mecca and Medina is a potential target. President Trump said the U.S. would “make a decision” on striking the Houthis and “move very quickly,” and the FAA told U.S. airlines to exercise caution on Saudi flights, Reuters reported. Houthi-run Al Masirah TV says Saudi jets struck Sanaa’s airport; Saudi Arabia hasn’t confirmed that.
2. Kyiv, Kharkiv and Washington / Ukraine, Russia and United States. Hours after President Trump posted that an “ENERGY CEASEFIRE” was “effective immediately,” the Kremlin still hadn’t said a word, BBC News reported. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is “ready not to strike at Russian energy” if Russia does the same, then said a Russian drone hit a power plant in Kyiv, causing outages, followed by strikes on energy sites in the Kharkiv region. “All of this happened after the president of the United States made his statement,” he said. Russian attacks killed six people in two Ukrainian cities, Reuters reported. Zelenskyy also told ABC News he would organise elections if Vladimir Putin agreed to a “total” 60-day ceasefire, and the Financial Times reported that Washington is threatening the weapons-procurement system that supplies Kyiv to make it stop deep strikes on Russian refineries, per The Guardian. At home, a bipartisan group of senators including Republicans Thom Tillis, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski wrote that “the Administration must immediately reverse course” on the Russian diesel deal, Al Jazeera reported.
3. Tehran / Iran and the Gulf. Iran’s security chief, Mohsen Rezaei, said Washington has accepted some of Tehran’s seven conditions for a deal to end the war but called the U.S. reply “inadequate,” Al Jazeera reported; Reuters described it as Iran calling the U.S. response to its proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “insufficient.” Separately, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi phoned Saudi counterpart Prince Faisal bin Farhan and offered to help start talks between Riyadh and Yemen’s Houthis, saying the region’s crises have no military solution, according to Al Jazeera, citing the Saudi state news agency.
4. River Nile state / Sudan–Egypt border. Air strikes on Saturday killed at least 72 artisanal gold miners at a remote mining area near the border with Egypt, the Khartoum-based rights group Emergency Lawyers said, BBC News reported. The group accused Egypt’s air force and said the attacks “may constitute war crimes”; neither Cairo nor Sudan’s de facto authorities have commented. The site lies south of the disputed Halayeb triangle, and one survivor told AFP thousands of people were working there when it was hit, DW reported. The toll is provisional; the Associated Press put it at at least 13, and the Sudan Doctors Network expects it to rise.
5. Jalisco and Colima / Mexico. Simon weakened a notch to a Category 3 with 125 mph winds but is still a major hurricane, its center about 50 miles south of Cabo Corrientes and 110 miles west-northwest of Manzanillo at 6 p.m. CST, crawling northwest at 5 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It’s expected to hug the coast tonight, edge offshore Monday and turn back toward Mexico on Wednesday; isolated storm totals of 30 inches of rain are possible in Michoacán, Colima and Jalisco, with life-threatening flooding and mudslides. President Claudia Sheinbaum urged coastal residents of Jalisco, Colima, Nayarit and Michoacán to stay sheltered, and 28 municipalities are under the highest cyclone alert, Al Jazeera reported.
6. London / United Kingdom. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said it is “clear” Russia interfered in the 2016 Brexit referendum, the first time a British prime minister has said so, BBC News reported. He told The Rest Is Politics podcast that he asked about it on arriving in Downing Street and “I’ve had the clear answer that, yes, there was,” though he gave no details. He warned that similar disinformation is aimed at Germany and France. Pro-Brexit group Britain Unbound called it a “crude attempt to undermine the legitimacy” of the vote. Russia has long denied meddling in Western elections, Al Jazeera noted.
7. Pyongyang / North Korea and South Korea. North Korea fired several ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area toward the sea off its east coast at about 9:20 a.m. Monday local time (5:20 p.m. Sunday Pacific), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, and Japan’s defence ministry confirmed at least one, France 24 reported. Tension has been building since September 21, when landmines wounded three South Korean soldiers in the DMZ; a joint Seoul–UN investigation concluded the North planted them, which Pyongyang denies.
8. Lower Silesia / Poland. Police arrested a Polish man suspected of plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, BBC News reported, updating this morning’s report of a possible plot. “The man threatening an attack has been detained,” Tusk wrote, thanking police for “swift and decisive action.” The plan surfaced in an email forwarded to police by the State Protection Service, and officials said there was “a strong likelihood that these threats could actually be carried out,” per The Guardian.
9. São Paulo / Brazil. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led a huge red-clad rally on Paulista Avenue, pushing a bill to give workers two paid days off a week instead of one and cut the maximum working week from 44 to 40 hours, RFI reported, citing AFP. The Senate is due to vote on it Wednesday. Flávio Bolsonaro, favoured in polls for the October 25 runoff, called the proposal “opportunistic.”
10. Vanikoro / Solomon Islands. All 73 passengers and crew of the drifting ferry MV Awka are safe on land. The police patrol boat Gizo reached the ferry about 11 p.m. Sunday local time and towed it, and the MV Helper 1 took everyone ashore at Vanikoro early Monday, the Temotu provincial government said, RNZ reported. “We are relieved,” Temotu Premier Stanley Tehi said.
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; DW; Al Jazeera; Reuters; Financial Times; France 24/AFP; RFI/AFP; RNZ; U.S. National Hurricane Center.
