Voting in Russia's parliamentary election opened on Friday and runs through Sunday, with all 450 State Duma seats at stake. More than 111 million people are eligible to vote, and it is the first Duma election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. United Russia, the party backing President Vladimir Putin, is expected to keep its large majority after winning 49.8% of the vote and 324 seats in 2021. Because the result is not in doubt, analysts say turnout, the size of the protest vote and reports of pressure on voters will matter more than party totals. The Central Election Commission allowed the anti-war party Yabloko to compete, a decision made in July when polling put its support near 3%.
President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he hoped the war against Iran was close to ending, in the clearest signal yet that Washington wants to wind down a conflict now in its seventh month. The comments came as Saudi Arabia and the Houthi movement traded long-range attacks across the Arabian Peninsula. A Houthi spokesman said Saudi aircraft carried out as many as 450 air strikes on Yemen this week, while the group fired drones and missiles at the Saudi Red Sea oil port of Yanbu and an airbase at Khamis Mushait. Trump is expected to meet leaders of six Gulf states as Washington tries to turn military pressure into a ceasefire. Oil prices have climbed during the fighting.
A planned meeting in Oman on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was postponed this week after fresh Houthi attacks on Saudi targets. Iran said the delay came at Saudi Arabia's request, and a senior Iranian official rejected talk of negotiations until its conditions are met. The United Nations' maritime agency reported that a vessel was damaged on Saturday with two seafarers missing. The strait has been mostly closed since the war began on February 28, and before the conflict it carried about 20 percent of world oil exports. Saudi tankers are rerouting around the Horn of Africa, and oil prices have risen as the confrontation spreads across the Gulf and the Red Sea.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in Cairo on Tuesday for a working visit covering regional security, trade and the wars in Gaza, Sudan and Yemen. Egypt's presidency said the two leaders agreed that the security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states is part of Egypt's national security. Both stressed the need to protect freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, Bab Al-Mandab and the Red Sea, where shipping has been disrupted for months. They also agreed to speed up steps to raise bilateral trade and investment and to remove obstacles that limit economic ties.
A planned meeting between Iran and Gulf countries on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was postponed, pushing Brent crude above $107 a barrel on Monday. Oman's foreign minister said the talks in Salalah were delayed in the interests of consensus. Iran blamed Saudi Arabia. The delay came as a merchant vessel was hit by an unknown projectile in the strait and Iran's Revolutionary Guard said it destroyed a US MQ-1 drone over the waterway. With the six-month war showing no diplomatic progress, traders are betting on higher prices.
Iran-backed Houthi forces have captured Mayun Island, also known as Perim, at the narrowest point of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, giving the group a foothold over shipping lanes that carry a large share of Europe-Asia trade. Yemen's Saudi-backed government called for international help. Analysts say the move opens a new front in the wider Iran war and lets the Houthis threaten tankers from the shoreline. Oil has traded above $100 a barrel and US diesel hit a record $6 a gallon. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West crude pipeline after several attacks.
Saudi Arabia has closed its 1,200km East-West oil pipeline after drone strikes that Riyadh says were launched from Iraq, removing a route the kingdom used to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Iraq fired the operations commander in Maysan governorate and opened an investigation after confirming the launch site. Riyadh called the shutdown precautionary and said it would not retaliate for now. Reuters estimates the line had been moving 4% to 5% of global oil supply. The attack lands as Houthi forces in Yemen claim control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, pushing crude above $100 a barrel for the first time since July.
Houthi forces in Yemen have taken Perim Island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to Yemeni officials and news agencies, days after seizing the Red Sea port city of Mokha. The island divides the southern gateway to a trade route linking Asia and Europe, so control of it raises new risks for commercial shipping. Saudi Arabia ships oil in bulk to Asian buyers on tankers that pass Yemen and the strait, and that traffic is now exposed. The escalation has already helped push oil prices higher. Yemen's civil war began in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa, and a Saudi-led coalition has been bombing the country for more than a decade.
President Donald Trump marked the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks at an event on the Ellipse outside the White House, saying the country would never forget the victims. The ceremony, organized by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, centered on a 21-foot, nearly 17,000-pound steel beam recovered from the World Trade Center's South Tower that spent months crossing the country. Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Welles Crowther, the equities trader known as the man in the red bandanna, and honored firefighter Jeffrey Palazzo, for whom the Coast Guard will name a new cutter. The beam travels through New York on Friday, and Trump is scheduled to attend a Pentagon ceremony later in the day.
Two weeks after catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border, the confirmed death toll has passed 1,000 and roughly 4,000 people remain unaccounted for, most of them in Nepal. The Aug. 26 disaster began when ice and debris collapsed from Lirung Peak and sent a torrent of mud and water down the Trishuli River valley, destroying villages and flooding tunnels at hydroelectric projects. More than 21,000 security personnel joined the search before officials shifted focus to rehabilitation. Scientists say the flood was nearly impossible to forecast, and a review found Nepal's official SMS alert system arrived late and lacked location-specific guidance, while community warning networks saved lives. Researchers warn that warming is destabilizing Himalayan glaciers and that similar disasters will become more common.