Ship attacks near Hormuz hit a wartime high, Trump calls Ukraine's refinery strikes a disgrace, and five geopolitical signals for October 16, 2026

Middle East: Iran's ship attacks set a wartime record as Washington weighs what comes next

• Twelve vessels reported being attacked in and around the Strait of Hormuz between October 5 and 11, the most in any week since the US-Israeli war with Iran began, according to BBC Verify's analysis of data from Britain's Maritime Trade Operations agency 1. Six were struck on Sunday October 11, a one-day high, and four more have been reported this week. The week before saw ten 1.
• The campaign has moved beyond the strait. A tanker was hit north of Qatar on October 8, more than 500 kilometres away, and another off Al-Jazirah al-Hamra in the United Arab Emirates a day later, the maritime intelligence firm Vanguard said 1. Iran's Revolutionary Guards navy has said its strikes would not be "limited to the Strait of Hormuz" and has announced a "new deployment formation" across the region, according to Iranian state media 1.
• The United States is planning for a return to combat. CNN reported that the military is preparing to use the GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb, nicknamed the "mother of all bombs", against Iranian energy infrastructure and nuclear sites if President Donald Trump renews the war, though officials questioned whether it could destroy suspected underground sites 2. Trump told Newsmax on Thursday that the weapon "is not nuclear at all, just an extremely large bomb" 3.

Middle East: Houthi missiles reach Aden's presidential palace as Washington presses Iran's banks

• Five people were killed and 16 injured when five Houthi ballistic missiles hit al-Maashiq Palace in Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government, officials said 9. Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani told the BBC that the prime minister and other ministers were unhurt, and the health minister, Qasim Buhaibeh, said the dead and wounded included guards and civilian employees 9. The Houthis' military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said the group struck "the Saudi enemy's military operations headquarters in Aden" 9.
• Saudi Arabia blamed Iran. Deputy Foreign Minister Rayed Krimly said Tehran "continues to arm, train and support the Houthi militia in violation of UN Security Council resolutions" and that the escalation is "encouraged by Iran" 9. The Houthis denied attacking Saudi Arabia on Thursday after the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted a cruise missile in the Medina region, home to one of Islam's holiest shrines 9. Iran has previously denied supplying weapons to the Houthis and its foreign minister has offered to help arrange talks between Riyadh and the group 9.
• The financial front is closing in parallel. Lebanon's central bank revoked the local licence of Bank Saderat, one of Iran's largest lenders, this week, as the US presses governments to cut commercial ties with Tehran 10. Its governor, Karim Souaid, said the move aimed to "send a clear signal to the outside world that we are determined to protect our banking sector from any entity that might cause it a risk of contamination" 10.

Russia-Ukraine: Trump calls Ukraine's refinery strikes a disgrace as Europe closes ranks

• President Donald Trump called Ukraine's renewed strikes on Russian oil refineries "a disgrace", telling Newsmax in an interview aired on Thursday that "all he's doing is making the world oil price higher" 11. "I'm not a big fan of Zelenskyy," he said, adding that he finds the Ukrainian president "more difficult to deal with than Putin" 11. Ukraine resumed the strikes after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times the pause he had observed was "done", because Moscow never stopped hitting Ukrainian energy sites 111213.
• Moscow's defence ministry said Ukraine attempted a large-scale attack on the Ryazan refinery about 180 kilometres south-east of Moscow, with a fire breaking out after drone debris fell on the site, and the Kremlin accused Kyiv of derailing US peace efforts 1214. Russia's answer overnight was its heaviest of the week: Zelenskyy said more than 850 drones struck 15 regions, and a strike on the western city of Lutsk damaged energy infrastructure and cut power 1214.
• In Brussels, Zelenskyy met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and held a string of bilaterals on Thursday before joining the EU summit on Friday 14. France's Emmanuel Macron said it was "crucial" that Ukraine receive "all the means necessary to protect itself", and Poland's Donald Tusk posted: "I can reassure you, dear Ukrainian friends and President Zelenskyy: YOU ARE NOT ALONE" 1114. The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: "We have to pressure the aggressor to stop the war, not the victim to surrender" 12.

US-China: Taipei moves to criminalise AI-chip exports to China as Brussels prepares quotas

• Taiwan plans to add AI servers and cutting-edge semiconductors to its list of controlled export items, its minister of economic affairs, Kung Ming-hsin, told Bloomberg, joining the Trump administration's crackdown on smuggling of advanced chips to China 15. Once the measures take effect, shipping restricted AI hardware to China will be a criminal offence under Taiwan's Foreign Trade Act 15.
• In Brussels, the European Commission has begun evaluating trade data to detect surges in imports, a first step toward putting quotas on more goods from China and other countries, with chemicals and machinery among the sectors under review, a person familiar with the matter said 16. The commission will most likely use its hybrid-vehicle understanding with Beijing, which capped those imports at 350,000 cars a year, as the blueprint for other sectors, and will look for a quota high enough to discourage retaliation 16. Germany is pressing for proposals by the end of the year; the EU's trade deficit with China hit a record $34.8bn in September 16.
• China's finance minister, Lan Foan, told EU officials in Bangkok on Friday that Beijing is ready for dialogue on global economic governance and macro policy coordination 17. Meeting the EU's economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde and Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Lan called imbalances "a complex economic structural issue" that is increasingly shaped by geopolitics and protectionism 17. He urged open cooperation and coordination of macroeconomic policy 17.

Taiwan Strait: eight PLA sorties cross the median line as TSMC looks to Texas

• Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense detected eight PLA aircraft sorties, nine PLA Navy ships and seven official Chinese ships in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. Friday Taipei time 18. All eight aircraft crossed the median line, the unofficial boundary running down the middle of the strait, and entered the island's northern and south-western airspace 18. Taiwan's military monitored the activity with mission aircraft, ships and coastal missile systems 18.
• TSMC is in talks with a customer to secure wafer capacity in Texas, chief executive C.C. Wei said on the company's earnings call, potentially extending its US manufacturing beyond Arizona 19. "Recently, we did expand our capacity consideration to see whether we can get another chance to expand our capacity outside Arizona, and Texas is the one," Wei said, naming the customer's planned fab, TeraFab 19. He said the plant must be run by TSMC whichever framework is used, as in its Japan joint venture or its European structure 19.
• TSMC reported record quarterly net profit of NT$763.06 billion ($23.65 billion), up 8% on the previous quarter and 68.7% on a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$29.43 19. It guided fourth-quarter revenue to $52.3bn–$54.3bn, a 14% sequential rise at the midpoint, and said 2-nanometre capacity would more than double next year 19. The company lifted its US investment to $265 billion in July 19.