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Intrigue

Daily flyovers

Latest news for 9 September 2026

Quick hits of consequential news from all corners of the world.

  1. 01

    IRAN

    War on, war off.

    Amid a quieter month, the US says it’s now destroyed five IRGC-linked tankers after Iran twice tried to put ballistic missiles into a US warship. Tehran has now answered with another volley at US forces in Jordan. Unsurprisingly, oil is back up at $100 for the first time since July. (WaPo $)

    Comment: Absent political changes in Tehran or DC, this feels like the new Hormuz equilibrium: a kind of low-boil, high-stakes attrition loop, with no obvious off-ramp in sight.

  2. 02

    ISRAEL

    Settlement spat.

    Israel is objecting to what it’s describing as “outrageous lies”, after the UK, France, Canada, and others moved to ban imports originating from unlawful Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In response, the Israelis are closing the UK’s consulate in East Jerusalem, and one hardline minister has called for Israel to back Argentina’s claims over the Falklands/Malvinas! (EuroNews)

    Comment: Why is this all blowing up now? After a run of settler violence and expansions, the Europeans/Canucks are responding to the publication of Israel’s construction tenders for the new ‘E1’ settlement that’d sever East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. And that tender actually closes a week before Israel’s 27 October elections — the timing looks a lot like an attempt to ensure E1 survives whoever wins. Anyway, the actual trade hit from these new sanctions will be negligible (in the millions, mostly ag). The more meaningful hit will be the way this all fuels the West’s next street protests, spiking the political costs around supporting Israel.

  3. 03

    ICELAND

    Mind the flag.

    Reykjavík has summoned the US ambassador after President Trump tweeted a map with the Stars and Stripes draped over the US, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Mexico, and the Caribbean, all labelled “United States of America”. Iceland’s foreign minister has called it “completely inappropriate”, with the others also irked. (RUV)

    Comment: Maybe these stunts are just to distract from Iran, Epstein, or debt, and even rally the base ahead of the midterms. Or maybe they just reflect the MAGA comms style of flooding the field to put everyone else in perpetual reaction mode. But whatever this is, random territorial jabs risk just accumulating more bad international karma for the US.

  4. 04

    UNITED NATIONS

    “This is not 1945”.

    That’s how the Bangladeshi foreign minister (Rahman) opened the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, taking over from Germany’s Baerbock with a promise to rebuild trust in multilateralism. (BanglaNews24)

    Comment: Rahman is mounting a brave attempt to modernise the institution, but a hall full of diplomats can only do so much when the world’s major powers now openly prefer to settle scores outside UN walls. World leaders start arriving around 22 September, but we already know China’s Xi will skip to instead see Trump in DC. Meanwhile, the Security Council’s next secret ‘straw poll’ to pick the UN’s leader is also due soon, with no clear front-runner yet breaking from the pack.

  5. 05

    CHINA

    Solar plugs the gap?

    According to the Ember think-tank, clean energy covered all of China’s new electricity demand last year, while the country’s fossil fuel use has now peaked or dropped in eight of the 11 industrial sectors tracked by Ember. It comes after solar nudged past coal to become China’s largest installed capacity source in July. (Ember)

    Comment: Even factoring in China’s lagging economy, plus the gap between actual and potential kilowatt-hours (coal was still ~50% of generation in H1), the longer term trend seems to be that China’s historic clean machine is now not only large enough to meet new demand, but also start nibbling away at the old system.

  6. 06

    KENYA

    Temporary amnesty.

    President Ruto has offered temporary amnesty to undocumented East African migrants, after his announcement of a crackdown on foreign small-scale traders sparked a rush on Burundi’s local embassy. (Al Jazeera)

    Comment: A sudden and disorganised crackdown is a rough look, particularly in the aftermath of South Africa’s own bout of vigilantism. It’s also a reminder that integration is an easy line at regional summits, but it’s harder to sell in the streets.

  7. 07

    VANUATU

    More island drama…

    Port Vila wants the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to resolve a colonial-era dispute over who owns the uninhabited, volcanic Matthew and Hunter islands near New Caledonia. But because Paris doesn’t accept the ICJ’s compulsory jurisdiction, it now gets to decide if the case even proceeds. (Lowy Institute)

    Comment: The real prize is not the empty islands, so much as the massive ~350,000km² EEZ they generate, rich in fish and other resources. Intriguingly, New Caledonia’s independence movement actually backs Vanuatu’s claims, so this risks getting political and geopolitical, fast.