Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Yemen’s Houthi movement said it shot down a Saudi ‘Kariyar’ armed reconnaissance drone over Hajjah province in the early hours of the 18th, local time. The group said it was the fourth drone of that type brought down since the latest escalation. No further details on the incident or the drone’s operator were given.

TREE NEWS update: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on October 17 that no one at the White House ordered a slowdown of Ukraine’s access to Starlink. The remark addresses speculation about the satellite internet service, which has been critical to Ukraine’s communications. Rubio did not elaborate further on the matter.

TREE NEWS update: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on the 17th in Baghdad that Tehran supports an “inclusive and comprehensive political process” to resolve the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthi movement, calling it the “only viable and sustainable path” to a Yemen settlement. He spoke during a meeting of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers. Iran has repeatedly signaled willingness to mediate between Riyadh and the Houthis.

TREE NEWS update: Yemen’s Houthi movement said on 17 September it shot down a Saudi Apache attack helicopter over the border region near Najran while it was conducting hostile operations against Houthi positions. Spokesman Yahya Saree gave no details on the crew or the exact location, and Saudi Arabia has not responded. The same day, Houthi prisoner-affairs official Abdul Murtada said 159 government troops captured in recent fighting were released in Sanaa.

TREE NEWS reports: Yaoyao Liu, the oil derivatives trader who earned Vitol billions of dollars, is leaving the commodities trading giant. The 39-year-old stepped back from day-to-day trading around mid-year, people familiar said, as his team’s trading book posted significant losses for a second consecutive year. Liu had already begun planning his retirement in 2025, before this year’s trading turmoil.

TREE NEWS reports: Support for Alberta remaining in Canada has risen ahead of a referendum on whether to launch legal proceedings to separate, an Abacus Data poll of 1,021 eligible voters published Saturday shows. 68% of Albertans would vote to stay in Canada, up from 64% last month, while backing for launching separation proceedings held at 24%. Undecided voters or those planning not to vote fell to 8% from 12% in the Oct. 7-13 survey.

TREE NEWS update: The Burberry store on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris was looted, with the shop located about 500 meters from the Élysée Palace. The material did not specify the date of the incident, the value of goods taken, or whether anyone was arrested. The street is a luxury retail corridor in central Paris near the presidential residence.

TREE NEWS reports: The S&P 500 fell 1.1% on Friday, October 16, marking its biggest weekly decline since June, while the Nasdaq 100 dropped 2.5% for its worst weekly performance since April 2025. Surging crude oil prices revived inflation concerns, and doubts over the sustainability of the AI investment boom continued to weigh on chip stocks. CoreWeave shares fell sharply, deepening the selloff in technology stocks.

TREE NEWS reports: SoftBank is considering an acquisition of Allied Universal, the largest US security-services company, at a potential equity valuation of up to about $18 billion, with roughly $12 billion in publicly traded loans and bonds bringing total transaction value close to $30 billion. Masayoshi Son is exploring AI robotics applications across industries, and SoftBank hopes robots could eventually take over some of Allied’s security duties, though humanoid security robots may take longer to deploy. Discussions are still early and terms, including price, are not final.

TREE NEWS update: Antofagasta has reached a wage agreement with workers who were on strike. The deal ends a labor dispute at the Chilean copper miner. No financial terms or strike duration were disclosed in the union statement.

TREE NEWS update: KBRA assigned Anthropic a BB+ issuer rating in June, the highest speculative-grade level and one notch below investment grade, with a stable outlook. The rating covers about $4.4 billion of subordinated debt in a $35 billion chip financing package, yielding roughly 8.5% versus 5.75% for senior debt. KBRA substituted a risk score for a full financial model because Anthropic disclosed limited data. The five-year-old company had zero debt on its balance sheet at the end of June.

TREE NEWS update: Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei congratulated Iran’s U23 national Greco-Roman wrestling team on winning the World U23 Greco-Roman Wrestling Championship in Las Vegas, United States. The congratulations were conveyed in an official message. The team’s victory marks a world title for Iran in the U23 age category.

TREE NEWS update: Jewish settlers attacked vehicles belonging to French, Belgian and Polish diplomats during an olive harvest event in the occupied West Bank on October 17. Seven masked settlers surrounded the diplomats’ cars, demanded identification and smashed the window of a vehicle belonging to the Belgian consulate. Israeli police said they will open an investigation into the incident.

TREE NEWS reports: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other regions have added medical exoskeleton rehabilitation training to medical insurance or long-term care insurance pilot programs. The National Healthcare Security Administration’s 15th Five-Year Plan for universal medical coverage calls for actively incorporating new technologies, drugs and devices into commercial health insurance coverage. Medical exoskeletons are wearable intelligent rehab robots that provide standardized, repetitive gait training for hips, knees and ankles.

TREE NEWS update: Blue Origin plans to increase its New Glenn heavy-lift rocket’s launch cadence to multiple times per week by 2030, aiming to challenge SpaceX’s dominance in the global launch market. The company has invested over $3 billion in its Florida production and rocket integration facilities and plans a further $330 million expansion to support a higher-capacity version of New Glenn.

TREE NEWS reports: Global electric vehicle sales fell 2% year-on-year in September to 2.15 million units, ending six consecutive months of growth. Europe posted a record month with nearly 600,000 deliveries, up 10% month-on-month, while North American EV sales plunged 44%, the largest single-month drop so far in 2026. Cumulative January-September global EV sales rose 3% to 15.5 million units.

TREE NEWS update: Senegal’s former President Macky Sall withdrew his candidacy for UN Secretary-General on October 17, following an informal Security Council vote the previous day. Sall said he consulted Burundi’s President and African Union chair Evariste Ndayishimiye and Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye before deciding to step aside. He said he hoped the move would help the Security Council converge on a consensus candidate, noting earlier informal votes favored a candidate from Latin America and the Caribbean, with women candidates also drawing attention.

TREE NEWS update: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said it received a report of an incident southeast of Yemen. The agency did not specify the nature of the incident or identify any vessel involved. Further details were not immediately available.

TREE NEWS reports: US federal net interest spending reached a record $1.05 trillion in fiscal 2026 ended September, up more than 8% from $970 billion in fiscal 2025, Treasury data show. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation estimates the outlay equals 3.2% of GDP, which would exceed the record set in 1991; quarterly GDP figures are due later this month. The interest burden is consuming a larger share of federal revenue and could erode fiscal room to respond to economic shocks.

TREE NEWS update: Bank of Canada Governor Macklem said high oil prices are a positive for Canadian economic growth, citing increased oil investment. He cautioned that elevated oil prices also raise the risk of broader inflation. The remarks set the two effects of higher crude against each other in the central bank’s outlook.