Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, India’s escalating Cockroach movement protests, and an Israel-shaped roadblock in the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal.
Red Sea Strikes
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to hold Iran responsible on Thursday for future Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian ships, just hours after the Yemeni rebel group targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. Although no casualties were reported, threats to another key shipping route risk adding a new front to the Iran war and worsening the already destabilized global energy market.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, India’s escalating Cockroach movement protests, and an Israel-shaped roadblock in the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal.
Red Sea Strikes
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to hold Iran responsible on Thursday for future Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabian ships, just hours after the Yemeni rebel group targeted two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. Although no casualties were reported, threats to another key shipping route risk adding a new front to the Iran war and worsening the already destabilized global energy market.
“[I]f they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, adding that the rebel group—whose official slogans include “Death to America”—had previously acted “very responsibly” and “very professionally.”
Last week, Houthi leadership accused Saudi Arabia of bombing Yemen’s Sanaa International Airport to prevent an Iranian plane from landing; the aircraft was reportedly carrying Houthi rebels who had attended the funeral of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is heavily backed by Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for the attack; in response, the Houthis launched missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport and declared a naval blockade against the oil giant.
This week’s strikes on Saudi Arabia’s Encelia and Layla tankers are believed to be the Houthis’ first direct attacks on Saudi shipping since the blockade went into effect. Riyadh confirmed the attack on Encelia on Thursday but did not mention Layla.
Tehran has had its eyes on the Red Sea for a while now. Iranian officials have previously pressed the Houthis to close the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb Strait if U.S. forces continue targeting critical Iranian infrastructure; on Wednesday, Trump threatened to escalate airstrikes against Iran by targeting bridges and power plants near the capital.
Since around 12 percent of global trade passes through Bab el-Mandeb, the strikes on the Saudi ships risk plunging the strategic route into a similar fate as the Strait of Hormuz, which Iranian forces have effectively stalled all traffic through.
Meanwhile, Trump told Axios on Thursday that he is considering renewing major combat operations in Iran. “I am considering a massive attack, bigger than ever before,” Trump said. “I am close to making a decision. We are all set for it.”
“They haven’t received enough pain yet,” Trump said of Iranian leadership, adding that although Tehran wants to negotiate, it is not ready for a deal.
Global markets have responded to the escalatory rhetoric, with Brent crude prices jumping more than 6 percent to above $100 per barrel—the highest level since May.
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What We’re Following
More protests to come. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged leaders of the Cockroach movement to come to the negotiating table on Thursday to resolve New Delhi’s biggest youth-led challenge since 2014. But rather than agree to talks, the self-proclaimed Cockroach Janta Party called for nationwide demonstrations on Friday.
Over the past week, thousands of people have protested in New Delhi to demand the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over repeated exam question leaks that forced around 2 million medical school applicants to retake one of the world’s toughest exams; the leaks have been tied to several student suicides. Although Modi has vowed to fast-track the establishment of special courts to prosecute those behind the leaks, his government has stopped short of dismissing Pradhan.
The Cockroach movement is the biggest political crisis of Modi’s third term to date, particularly after Indian police used tear gas and batons to dispel protesters on Monday. Ahead of Friday’s expected widespread protests, the government shut down 16 metro stations in and around central New Delhi, where many of the demonstrations have been staged. Modi also reportedly ordered telecommunication firms to block mobile internet services in the area.
Doomed from the start? Trump announced a new caveat on Thursday to the United States’ nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. The agreement “will be approved, but is totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the very respected and successful Abraham Accords,” the U.S. president wrote on Truth Social, effectively tying Riyadh’s nuclear energy ambitions to normalizing ties with Israel.
The landmark U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, announced late Wednesday, will allow U.S. companies to help the kingdom develop a civilian nuclear program. Although the pact, the text of which has not yet been publicly released, reportedly does not include the United States’ usual “gold standard” constraints, which bar partner countries from enriching uranium, Trump wrote on Thursday that the deal will have “no enrichment of material” and only be for “non-military use.”
But Trump’s inclusion of the Abraham Accords as a prerequisite for the deal has cast its efficacy into doubt less than a day after it was unveiled. Riyadh has repeatedly stressed that it will only join the accords if Israel first establishes a clear path to Palestinian statehood. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to entertain any agreement that eventually leads to such an outcome.
Pay up, Google. The European Union fined Google a total of 890 million euros ($1 billion) on Thursday for defying European antitrust regulations. One fine, of 460 million euros (around $523 million), penalized Google for favoring its own services in search engine results. And a second fine, of 430 million euros (nearly $490 million), targeted the Big Tech company for using its Google Play store to prevent app developers from steering users toward cheaper offers on rival websites.
“The best products should succeed because they’re better, not because they’re owned by the company running the search engine,” said Teresa Ribera, the European commissioner for competition. “And European consumers have a right to be told by app developers where to sign up to the best offers, even when the app store owner does not get a cut.”
The fine is expected to elicit fierce backlash from Washington at a time when the White House is weighing new tariffs on the EU; Trump has previously threatened to retaliate against the bloc for what he claims is unfair targeting of U.S. companies. Google similarly lashed out at the decision on Thursday, with the company’s global affairs president calling the $1 billion fine “product degradation driven by a small group of self-serving complainants.” Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported its biggest quarterly profit ever on Wednesday: a whopping $112.1 billion.
Odds and Ends
U.S. FBI Director Kash Patel personally delivered a collection of stolen cultural artifacts to Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday, underscoring Washington’s recent efforts to bolster ties with Jakarta. According to Indonesian Culture Minister Fadli Zon, the artifacts included several polished stone ax heads and ceremonial objects used by Papua Indigenous groups, specifically the Dani and Asmat tribes as well as the Lake Sentani communities. The return is part of a wider U.S. campaign to repatriate stolen Southeast Asian property that was trafficked through global antiquity networks.
