September 13: Gulf Escalation and Sweden’s Knife-Edge Election

In the Middle East Regional fighting is widening on several fronts. The UAE and Iranian leaders have held their first meeting since attacks on Gulf states, after Abu Dhabi suspended trade and financial dealings with Tehran. Emirati officials say restoring trust will be difficult. In Yemen, Houthi forces say they struck Saudi Arabia’s Sharurah military base with drones and missiles, while Yemen’s Saudi-backed government acknowledges the rebels’ advance along the Red Sea coast as a serious setback. Iran has also accused the United States of striking a commercial vessel near Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, killing one person. In Sweden Sweden is voting in an exceptionally tight election, with left- and right-wing blocs separated by as little as 0.3 percentage points in polling. The result could give the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, its first role in government. The campaign has featured personal attacks, misinformation disputes and MAGA-style advertising. In Ukraine Ukraine’s state rail operator says a Russian drone struck a train roughly two kilometres from the Polish border. Ukrzaliznytsia says it is monitoring aerial threats and taking steps to protect passengers and staff while trying to keep rail services operating. In Britain Housing Secretary Angela Rayner says the government has only a slim chance of delivering its manifesto target of 1.5 million new homes before the next election. She cites high construction costs and the war in Iran, while saying the target remains in place and the government is focusing on council-house building. In U.S. consumer news More than one million vehicles are being recalled over safety faults. Chrysler is recalling about 844,000 Jeep, Ram, Chrysler and Dodge vehicles for rear-view camera failures, while Ford is recalling nearly 149,000 Mustangs over wiring problems that could cause loss of drive power or disable key systems. Mitsubishi and Toyota also have smaller recalls involving camera software and battery programming.