Two ships sink near Hormuz, Ukraine resumes refinery strikes, and five geopolitical signals for October 15, 2026

Middle East: two more merchant ships go down near the Strait of Hormuz

• The Singapore-flagged container ship GFS Pride sank in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, a day after an unknown projectile hit it, Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority said. All 21 crew were evacuated unhurt 123.
• A second Singapore-flagged container vessel, GFS Giselle, took hull damage on Wednesday and reached a safe anchorage with all 22 crew aboard 2. The Antigua and Barbuda-flagged bulk carrier Cape Dao sank near the strait after a salvage attempt failed, weeks after a September 23 strike killed one of its crew 1. The two are the second and third vessels lost since the US-Iran war began on February 28, according to an analysis of International Maritime Organization casualty data 1.
• Iran's Revolutionary Guards said a ship struck a naval mine while taking an "illegal and dangerous route", and released photographs of a listing container vessel with containers floating in the water 24. UK Maritime Trade Operations attributed the damage to unidentified projectiles and logged at least five incidents in 48 hours, drone strikes included 4.

Middle East: the Houthis promise more strikes as Yemen's war restarts

• Yemen's Houthis said they will keep attacking airports and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and called the strikes retaliation for "treacherous Saudi aggression". Their stated rule is strike for strike, airport for airport, energy facility for energy facility 67.
• Their overnight strike on Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran damaged the top three floors of the building and left no casualties, two regional officials said 6. The Saudi-led coalition said it intercepted two Houthi drones, four cruise missiles and one ballistic missile aimed at Riyadh, plus a ballistic missile aimed at Dhahran and a cruise missile aimed at Al-Kharj; falling debris injured one person in the capital 6. Saudi Civil Defence issued threat alerts for Najran and Jazan on Thursday morning, then declared the danger passed within the hour 7.
• The ground war is widening with the air campaign. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported an "unprecedented surge" in combat casualties, above all at Marib and along the Red Sea coast 6. The World Food Programme says it can no longer reach more than 600,000 people in Taiz, where schools were ordered shut for a month, and a senior Houthi official told the Associated Press that Oman, Russia and China have offered to mediate 6.

Russia-Ukraine: the energy truce lapses and the Ryazan refinery burns

• A large Ukrainian drone attack set the Ryazan refinery on fire on Thursday, the regional governor said. It was the first Ukrainian strike on a Russian energy facility since President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed an energy ceasefire; the pause lasted three days 10.
• The Ryazan plant is owned by Rosneft, supplies Moscow with fuel, and accounts for almost 5% of Russia's total oil refining throughput 10. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Financial Times that Ukraine had paused energy strikes for three days to comply with US wishes and would now resume them, because Russia kept hitting Ukrainian energy infrastructure 1011. He used the interview to complain about what the FT called a "dangerous" withdrawal of US intelligence sharing and a weakening of Starlink satellite internet service 12.
• Russia's answer came the same night. The central Kirovohrad region took more than 360 drones in the largest attack on its territory of the war, with 26 locations hit, three people killed and six wounded, governor Andriy Raikovych said 13. Ukraine's air force said 580 Russian drones attacked the country overnight and 536 were shot down 13.

US-China: Brussels opens its China summit as Washington holds the chip-tool licence

• European Union leaders began a two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday to debate how to curb surging Chinese exports, bring down energy prices and bridge differences over the bloc's 2028-2034 budget, a week after the European Commission agreed a deal with Beijing to limit Chinese hybrid-car imports 14. The EU's goods trade deficit with China reached €360 billion ($400 billion) in 2025 and is on course to surpass that this year 14.
• Draft summit conclusions would keep the Commission talking to Beijing while using the full range of EU trade-defence measures and adding new trade instruments. "These imbalances are not limited to one sector. We don't have much time because every month that goes by, thousands of jobs are lost," a senior EU diplomat said 14. A Franco-German paper circulated last week calls for urgent measures on Chinese chemicals and PET plastic imports and for faster retaliation against countries that harm the bloc, a sharp turn for Germany, which two years ago opposed EU tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles 14.
• In Washington the lever is the export licence. Solidigm, the US unit of South Korea's SK hynix, has applied for extra licences to ship American chipmaking equipment to its plant in Dalian, China, and has tied a planned NAND flash plant on US soil to whether those licences are approved 15. The Commerce Department revoked the blanket authorisation that had let SK hynix and Samsung ship US equipment to their China plants, and now licenses existing-plant operation only, withholding approval for tools that expand capacity 15.

Taiwan Strait: 13 PLA sorties cross the median line as Taipei signs for Alaskan gas

• Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense detected 15 PLA aircraft sorties, 10 PLA Navy ships and seven official Chinese ships in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. Thursday Taipei time. Thirteen of the sorties crossed the median line and entered the northern, central, south-western and eastern airspace 17.
• Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs said state-owned CPC Corporation plans to buy 6 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas a year from the proposed Alaska LNG project once extraction starts, with an investment of up to $4.4 billion and first supply possible in 2032 18. Trump told a rally in Alaska that Taiwan had agreed to buy 30% of the pipeline's gas for the next 20 years 18.
• Beijing answered through its Foreign Ministry. Spokesperson Mao Ning said the external exchanges of "China's Taiwan region" must follow the one-China principle, and that the ruling party's "attempts to pursue Taiwan independence under the guise of economic and trade cooperation will not succeed" 18. Taiwan is still waiting on a $14 billion US arms package that stalled after Trump's May summit with Xi Jinping 18.