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Saudi, Turkish, Pakistani Military Chiefs To Hold Urgent Meeting Over Yemen War

Zero Rss
5 days 9 hours ago
Saudi, Turkish, Pakistani Military Chiefs To Hold Urgent Meeting Over Yemen War

Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani army heads are set to urgent talks on the Yemen crisis. Crucially, these countries represent signatories to the Mecca Defense Pact, which vows mutual defense in the instance that any member is attacked.

Of course, the Iran-aligned Houthis have been semi-frequently targeting the Saudi kingdom's territory, gong after oil export infrastructure as well as fuel storage sites, with ballistic missiles even targeting the capital of Riyadh this month, which marked a first.

Anadolu/Getty Images

Ahead of the meeting of defense chiefs, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Turkish Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar gathered in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss developments.

They have been closely monitoring developments in Yemen, after the Saudi-backed coalition based out of Sanaa has lost the Red Sea coast area.

"The three ministers strongly condemned recent attacks targeting Mecca, as well as civilian and economic facilities in Saudi Arabia, and reaffirmed the Kingdom’s right to take appropriate measures to defend its security under Article 51 of the UN Charter," Al Arabiya reports.

"They also discussed arrangements for the urgent meeting of their countries’ chiefs of staff, which will examine ways to support Saudi Arabia under the defense pact," the report adds.

As for the Houthis, who now have an even tighter grip on the fate of Red Sea shipping, as of Friday they are vowing not to attack European vessels.

However, the Yemeni rebels will still fire on Saudi ships or any Israeli-linked vessels, in accord with the ongoing 'siege for siege' strategy which has already been on for months.

Earlier this month, Pakistan threatened to trigger the young Mecca Defense Pact, but so far this has stopped at mere words. A regional analyst has explained to Al Jazeera why the Yemen crisis is 'tricky' and controversial for the alliance:

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement’s first real test, being framed around the Houthis rather than Israel, sits awkwardly with the Islamic-solidarity language the pact was sold on, says Betul Dogan Akkas, assistant professor of international relations at Ankara University.

“The Mecca Defence Pact might be used, for the first time, to frame itself as defending the lands of Islam, rather than being framed around the Israeli threat in Gaza or Palestine, which would have been the more obvious framing,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Using the Houthi threat as that first framing isn’t necessarily good for the pact’s long-term branding and perception,” she said.

“Even though you’re not targeting Israel or Western countries, you’re still ultimately targeting a Muslim country, a Muslim nation. That makes it a bit controversial and tricky.”

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has said previously that attacks on the kingdom "could trigger" the defense agreement.

"Under the trilateral agreement, any aggression against any of the three [countries] is regarded as an aggression against all. There is no ambiguity about that," the Pakistani minister told Geo News weeks ago.

The pact between Riyadh, Islamabad, and Ankara has been likened to NATO Article 5, where an attack on one is an 'attack on all'. These countries' own officials have in many cases advanced this interpretation.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/26/2026 - 07:55
Tyler Durden

Diesel Export Ban Off The Table? Ted Cruz Relays White House Assurances To Refinery Heads

Zero Rss
5 days 10 hours ago
Diesel Export Ban Off The Table? Ted Cruz Relays White House Assurances To Refinery Heads

As of early Saturday morning, AAA data put the national average retail diesel price at about $6.48 a gallon, slightly below its recent record high, while Brent crude settled on Friday around $104.30 a barrel. The modest pullback leaves fuel costs elevated and maintains pressure on the White House to deliver relief before the midterms.

The Trump administration's messaging on a potential diesel export ban has exposed differing views over how to address the global refining crisis that could soon morph into an economic shock (Read Apollo's warning). President Donald Trump has been for a diesel export ban, while Energy Secretary Chris Wright has opposed a blanket ban and instead encouraged industry measures to increase domestic supply.

Politico reported midweek that the administration was preparing a potential 90-day export ban. By late Friday, however, Senator Ted Cruz told refinery heads he had received White House assurances that a ban would not move forward.

Bloomberg reports that Cruz relayed those White House assurances to refinery heads during a call by the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association.

Here's more color from the outlet:

The president wants to see pump prices fall and is evaluating all options on the table, a White House official said. Representatives for Cruz and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Association, which conducted the call, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

To be sure, the counsel is consistent with a message that's been delivered for months by some of Trump's top deputies, who've consistently warned that diesel export curbs would ultimately cause more harm than good.

. . .

Cruz, a Republican from Texas, described having received assurances from the White House, not specifically from the president. He did not provide more specifics on who had ruled out an export ban, the people said.

Other tools in the Trump administration's toolkit could target taxes and regulatory costs. Officials have discussed allowing dyed red diesel, normally reserved for off-road use, on highways. Such a change could suspend some diesel taxes, including the federal levy of roughly 24 cents a gallon.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, the former chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy, has warned about the dire ramifications of a diesel export ban and instead emphasized voluntary industry changes to increase domestic diesel supply.

"We will not cease exports of US diesel," Wright said Wednesday, while leaving room for adjustments to where fuel from US refineries flows.

Last week, Barclays refining and midstream analyst Theresa Chen warned clients that a proposed U.S. diesel export ban would be "detrimental to the US refining complex and unlikely to provide the intended price relief."

Chen pointed out one major problem: keeping diesel inside the country does not guarantee it can reach gas pumps.

Goldman Sachs energy analyst Nikhil Bhandari warned clients early last week that the global refining system will be stretched through 2027, with diesel and gas prices expected to remain elevated.

Read: Goldman Warns Diesel Crisis Is Setting Up The Next Gasoline Squeeze: Here's How

On March 10, JPMorgan's head of commodity research, Natasha Kaneva, laid out the six options the Trump administration has to combat higher oil prices (read here, as the administration's next move could be to reduce fuel taxes).

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/26/2026 - 07:30
Tyler Durden

Should Europeans Overthrow Their 'Ruling Class'

Zero Rss
5 days 10 hours ago
Should Europeans Overthrow Their 'Ruling Class'

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

War fever is ramping up again across Europe. This has happened several times in the four and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine, usually coinciding with important national elections - particularly those in Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Poland, and Germany - when certain domestic political parties have been demonized as "pro-Putin" and "security threats" to the rest of Europe. The war drums also get loud whenever increased military budgets are being debated within the governments of the Scandinavian and Baltic states, Finland, Germany, and Poland, as well as the European Commission. The ebb and flow of political battle cries against the Russian Federation track closely with Europe's electoral and parliamentary calendars.

It is no coincidence that the German government decided to announce five days before Saxony-Anhalt's September 6 elections that Russia was responsible for a small drone discovered at the Leipzig/Halle Airport over a month earlier. Although the drone carried an explosive charge, the device caused no damage and sat at the airport unnoticed for many hours on August 4. When Germany accused Russia of perpetrating the "attack" four weeks later, Berlin presented no real evidence for its conclusions.

Nevertheless, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and national leaders across Europe immediately declared solidarity with Germany and condemned Russia's "hybrid war" on "European Union soil." To many observers, Berlin's finger-pointing appeared timed to dampen momentum for the "Alternative for Deutschland" political party, which German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the European Establishment have defamed as "Nazis" and "Russian puppets." If that was Merz's goal - to stave off election defeat for his political allies by falsely accusing his opponents of being Russian tools and spies - it did not work. The AfD decisively won the September 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt, and support for the pro-national sovereignty political party continues to surge across Germany.

Similarly contrived "national security" incidents arose before elections in Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Moldova. Pro-European Union parties accused Russia of election interference, economic sabotage, or even imminent attack, while framing opposing parties as Russian assets. In the case of Romania, the E.U.-aligned courts annulled the 2024 presidential election due to spurious allegations of "Russian meddling."

While European politicians predictably drag out the Russian bogeyman before every election, they seem to be ratcheting up their scaremongering in anticipation of the midterm elections in the United States. President Trump has made no secret of his belief that the Russia-Ukraine War is a stupid and unnecessary conflict that would have never happened had he been in office in 2022. For two years, he has attempted to end it. With the exception of Slovakia (and Hungary before former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's electoral defeat), European governments appear committed to an expanded war with Russia in the near future.

Just last week, President Trump asked Ukraine's holdover-president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to refrain from attacking Russian oil refineries in an effort to stabilize global markets. After agreeing to do so, Zelenskyy did just the opposite and announced Ukraine's use of NATO-supplied missile systems to target Russian facilities, an action presumably meant to provoke Russia into targeting NATO members directly. Ominously, Ukrainian "journalist" and Zelenskyy confidant Dmytro Gordon recently announced, "Literally within days, something will happen that will give us great hope....I can't say what it is - it's a military secret. But I know that in the coming days...something will happen that will give the nation wings. I know this."

Gordon's promise that "something will happen" seems to be an open secret throughout Europe. European Commission officials are encouraging all four-hundred-fifty million European citizens to stockpile water, food, and medicine in preparation for war. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has told the Bundestag that war is coming, and Chancellor Merz has successfully worked around prior legal limits on - and substantially increased - defense spending, while acknowledging that Germany is "already in conflict with Russia." Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are expanding the size of their respective militaries and implementing broader conscription programs. French President Emmanuel Macron has reportedly informed political leaders that war with Russia has arrived, and the British government is furiously revising its war manuals, organizing civil defense exercises, and preparing for large-scale military conscription, including the activation of retired servicemembers up to the age of sixty-five. In the last week, the United Kingdom's top ten newspapers have published over two-hundred-fifty articles about the likelihood of war with Russia.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former cabinet minister and one-time Conservative Party favorite for prime minister, says that the British people must fight and die for their country: "In the next few years we may face a war, and if we face a war, we will need people who will join the armed services and who will go out and do their duty. We may even face circumstances where people have to die to save their country, as they did in the First and Second World Wars....That is something that makes a country survive. If people are not willing to do their duty, then the country will be taken over by another country."

Rees-Mogg is a poncy toff with an aloof style of speech. While in Parliament, he was often ridiculed as the "Honourable Member for the 18th century." So his insistence that ordinary Brits give up their lives for the sake of their country sounds remarkably out-of-touch.

According to Home Office records, an illegal alien is granted settlement or citizenship in Britain every single minute. British taxpayers are forking over more welfare payments to migrant households than ever before. Open defecation on public streets is so common that the U.K. must post signs warning the growing number of third-world immigrants that such behavior is inappropriate. The British government hands out a nine-page booklet to illegal aliens informing them that raping women and children is wrong. One British village has already voted to secede from the U.K. after the government insisted on housing a migrant camp ten times the size of the town right next door. The former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, recently warned the public that the government's "climate change" and "green energy" obsessions have rendered the country weak and practically defenseless against its enemies. And instead of tackling any of these national security threats, the government has used its dwindling resources to arrest nearly 65,000 Brits for "speech-related offenses" over the last five years.

When ordinary people hear Rees-Mogg say that they must be willing to "do their duty" and "die" or Britain "will be taken over by another country," they shake their heads in disbelief. One commenter asked, "So the UK government expects our young to die for them repelling Russian landing craft when it rolls out the benefits carpet for often dangerous invaders?" Another remarked, "A rich bloke who couldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding, says we should do our duty and die, to protect a status quo that delivers him fine wine, and the rest of the country bills they can't afford to pay." And another insisted, "Kit him up and send him to the Donbas."

An online pundit instructed, "Go and ask the migrants you brought in. Let's see how British they are then. Because none of us are fighting for you." One young man wondered, "[W]hat's left to die for? Football? A home you can't afford? A job you won't get? A school that will teach your kids to hate you for fighting in the first place?" And another commenter concluded, "A country without borders is not a country, nobody is dying for a country that does not exist."

Europe's "ruling class" want to sacrifice citizens in a senseless war against Russia. Citizens should overthrow their "ruling class" instead.

Tyler Durden Sat, 09/26/2026 - 07:00
Tyler Durden

Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott look like Dodgers’ playoff bullpen anchors

NY Post
5 days 15 hours ago
SAN FRANCISCO – The sequence was promising on paper. In practice on Friday night, it was spectacular. Roki Sasaki in the eighth inning. Tanner Scott in the ninth. Manager Dave Roberts emphasized they wouldn’t necessarily be deployed in that order come the playoffs, but their performances in the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory over the Giants indicated...
Dylan Hernandez

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