Today on nwsTrail: The situation in the Middle East continues to deteriorate. The EU failed to reach an agreement on punishing Russia
In the Middle East, war no longer threatens only military bases, but also oil routes, commercial shipping, and cloud services. In Europe, Russia-linked hackers are attempting to outsmart artificial intelligence, while the European Union debates sanctions.
Saturday, 12 September 2026 20:44
In the Middle East, the war is increasingly becoming a struggle over infrastructure and "bottlenecks." Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, seized Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which approximately 12 percent of global trade passes. The Houthis maintain that maritime traffic is safe for everyone except Saudi vessels, but a promise from an unpredictable armed group is hardly the guarantee nervous markets want to hear. Additionally, the Houthis seized a building complex in Mokha that previously housed UN staff, who managed to leave before the city fell.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia closed its 1,200-kilometer East–West pipeline as a precaution after it was struck by drones launched from Iraq. The pipeline has allowed the bypass of the Strait of Hormuz and has carried 4–5 percent of the world's oil supply. Iraq launched an investigation and dismissed the operations commander of the Maysan province, which borders Iran, after confirmation that the attack originated from there. Riyadh currently promises to refrain from a counterstrike but reserves the right to take necessary measures to protect its security. This is a diplomatic way of saying that patience may not last forever.
A five-gigawatt data center project in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, originally planned as a single massive campus, will likely be redesigned as a nationwide network. Air defense, underground facilities, and blast-proof concrete are being planned, as Iranian attacks damaged two data centers in the UAE and one in Bahrain in March, and regional cloud services continue to experience disruptions months later.
Iran has partially resumed the production of ballistic missiles in underground facilities, assembling both liquid- and solid-fuel missiles from components stockpiled before the war. Production volume is significantly lower than pre-war levels, and the U.S. naval blockade complicates the import of necessary materials, but the continuation of production casts doubt on previous claims that Iran's missile program has been essentially destroyed. The Pentagon reported the destruction of up to 90 percent of Iran’s drone, ballistic missile, and naval industrial base, yet moving production underground could help Tehran prolong the war and deplete the adversaries' air defense stockpiles.
The U.S. published the names of the service members killed in Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan. 25-year-old James Feehan and 19-year-old Isabella Gonzales were killed in Jordan. According to U.S. military data, 17 service members have died in the war with Iran. Six of them died in Iraq when a KC-135 refueling aircraft crashed while supporting operations against Iran.
The European Union cannot find consensus on sanctions against Russia. Ambassadors postponed the decision to September 14, although the deadline arrives just a day later. Slovakia wants to remove Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman from the list, while France demands the lifting of sanctions on Usmanov. At the same time, the EU is planning new restrictions on Russian citizens and the shadow fleet, and is discussing stricter controls on the movement of Russian diplomats and travel by Russian citizens. Sanctions policy does not appear convincing when major principles get stuck behind the names of individual businessmen.
France also had to deal with a much more immediate crisis on Friday. A train carrying 180 passengers derailed near Cléon, injuring at least 44 people. One of them, an 18-year-old woman, was airlifted to the hospital in critical condition. Three carriages overturned, causing severe disruptions to regional rail traffic. The cause of the accident was not immediately known.
France's second news story of the day was not as tragic. Record heat and drought increased the sugar content of Champagne grapes so much that the permitted alcohol limit for this year's vintage was exceptionally raised from 13 percent to 15 percent.
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