Evening Briefing: Tuesday 13 October 2026
- If you buy fuel: Saudi Arabia has bombed Yemen’s oil depots and the Houthis have named Aramco’s facilities a legitimate target. Both sides are now threatening each other’s energy infrastructure. Brent closed down 0.71% at $105.89, but it is those facilities that set the price you pay.
- If you employ anyone young, or work in retail: supermarket and high street chiefs asked the chancellor this morning to raise the threshold at which employers start paying National Insurance from £5,000 to £6,000, blaming the cut for falling numbers of young and part-time staff. The Budget is on 28 October.
- On security at home: the threat level has been severe since April, state threats have quadrupled in a decade, and MI5 says the sharpest rise in its casework is anti-immigration and anti-Muslim grievance tipping into terrorist intent.
Saudi Arabia Bombs Yemen’s Oil Depots as Aramco Is Threatened
Saudi aircraft struck the Sabaha oil depot on the western edge of Sanaa and hit storage at Ras Isa port in ten waves, after issuing an evacuation warning and publishing a map of the target. Within the hour the Houthis named Aramco’s facili…
Republican Senators Demand the Russian Diesel Deal Is Torn Up
Six Republicans — among them Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John Cornyn — have joined six Democrats to tell the president to rescind the agreement. “This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies,” th…
Argentina Takes the Falklands Oil Dispute to a Tribunal
Buenos Aires has asked the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to block drilling at the Sea Lion field, 130 miles from the islands, which holds an estimated 1.7 billion barrels and is due to start pumping in 2028. Britain has sep…
Pope Leo’s Lung Operation Concluded Successfully
The Vatican says the surgery to remove a nodule from the 71-year-old’s lung “concluded successfully, on time and as expected, and the Holy Father returned to his room”. He announced the operation himself from the balcony after Sunday’s Ang…
Kabila Takes Command of a New Congo Rebel Coalition
Joseph Kabila, who ruled the Democratic Republic of Congo for eighteen years, has launched the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation at his residence in Goma, the eastern city held by M23 since January 2025. He will lead it, with the re…
MI5 Says Iran Is Now Aiming at British Military Sites
“The other major shift this year has been Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets, like military sites,” the director general Sir Ken McCallum said in his annual threat update, disclosing more than fifty Iran-linked arrests in a year.…
MI5 Confirms the Brexit Attempt but Disputes the Effect
Russia did try to interfere around the 2016 referendum through state broadcasters and “trolls and bots and so forth”, the MI5 chief said, but “there is a really important difference between interference attempted and outcome swayed”. He st…
High Street Chiefs Ask for Cheaper Young Workers
Executives from Tesco, the Co-op, Costa Coffee, Marks and Spencer and Sainsbury’s met the chancellor at Downing Street this morning. They asked him to raise the point at which employers start paying National Insurance from £5,000 to £6,000…
Poundland in Rescue Talks With 12,000 Jobs at Stake
The management team is attempting a buyout of the chain, which has about 600 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland and employs around 12,000 people, with an Irish property development group named as its preferred partner. A union sa…
Report Urges Talks on Paramilitary Disbandment
An independent review commissioned by the British and Irish governments concludes there is “sufficient merit in and support for a formal process of paramilitary group transition” in Northern Ireland, and recommends no financial rewards for…