🪖 As Houthis tighten noose around Taiz, why does the city matter?

The Houthi forces are conducting a major offensive in the Taiz governorate, and have attacked the seat of the Saudi-backed government in Aden with drone and missile strikes.

Ansar Allah forces are have also virtually encircled Taiz.

➡️ with nearly 600,000 residents, Taiz is the last major urban stronghold of anti-Houthi forces in Yemen’s southern highlands

➡️ its capture would bring Ansar Allah closer to Aden – the seat of the Saudi-backed government - and weaken the coalition’s ability to launch counterattacks

➡️ Houthi advances around al-Turbah and al-Misrakh have cut sections of the roughly 200-km route to Aden

➡️ coalition airstrikes and ground operations have so far failed to reverse the gains

➡️ after Ansar Allah consolidated control over Yemen’s Red Sea coastline in September, the coalition launched an offensive to reclaim territory - losing Taiz would make it harder to threaten Houthi positions near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait

The fall of Taiz - predominantly Sunni Muslim while the Houthis adhere to the Zaydi school of Shi'ite Islam - would also be symbolic.

The city has long stood as a center of resistance to Houthis since 2015, when the Saudis formed a coalition with the UAE and waged a proxy war in Yemen, providing material support to the anti-Houthi forces to restore the regime of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🔥 Egypt ready to take action to defend Saudi Arabia amid Houthi escalation - president

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has pledged to take any necessary action to protect Saudi Arabia, according to Al Qahera News.

🔊 “We will take any measure to protect Saudi Arabia,” Sisi was cited as saying, calling for an emergency parliamentary session to authorize such action if requested.

The warning comes amid escalating hostilities between Yemen’s Ansar Allah (Houthis) movement and the Saudi-led coalition, following deadly strikes on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and retaliatory Saudi airstrikes against Yemen.

Sisi already warned on October 15 that attacks on Saudi Arabia threatened Egyptian and broader Arab national security. His latest reported remarks raise the prospect of Egypt becoming more directly involved in the confrontation, although no military deployment has been announced.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

⚔️ Iran fires back at US MOAB talk: Our missile power changed the equations

Iran’s acting Defense Minister Majid Ibn Reza swatted away reports that Donald Trump was allegedly considering unleashing the “mother of all bombs” - the Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb or MOAB GBU-57A/B - on Iran.

Dismissing the threat, he noted on X that “titles and dimensions of bombs hold no importance.”

The real detonation, he warned, would hit America’s global reputation, its economy, and Trump’s own electoral hopes.

🔊 “It is our missile power that has changed the equations and brought you to a point where, from now on, you must say: Hello, sir!” he added.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🇨🇳☢️China warns Cold War mentality and double standards are fueling nuclear arms race

The world's nuclear powers are drifting toward a dangerous confrontation as arms control mechanisms weaken and the threat of nuclear war grows, Chinese disarmament envoy Li Chijiang told the UN.

🗣 “The Cold War mentality is the primary source of deterioration of the international strategic security environment,” Li said on Friday, urging nuclear-armed states to abandon strategies based on winning nuclear wars and launching first strikes.

Without naming the US, the envoy argued that the country with the world's largest nuclear arsenal must make substantial cuts rather than pursue ever more powerful nuclear deterrence capabilities.

Li also warned against moves in Japan to reconsider its Three Non-Nuclear Principles, which prohibit possessing, producing or allowing nuclear weapons on Japanese territory.

China reaffirmed its commitment to never using nuclear weapons first, called for continued compliance with nuclear testing moratoriums and insisted that developing countries must retain the right to peaceful nuclear energy.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🇺🇸🇮🇷 Price of war: How US aggression against Iran bleeds global oil markets dry

Eight months into the Iran conflict, the global oil market is being reshaped by disruptions at two chokepoints that together carry a huge share of global crude. The Strait of Hormuz has been the primary battleground, while the Bab al-Mandeb has now emerged as a second front, CNN reports.

🔶 Iran has recently stepped up strikes on tankers trying to pass through Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, pushing crude prices above $100 a barrel

🔶 The strikes come amid a US shuttle system in which tankers sail with transponders switched off, transferring cargo to ships waiting in the Gulf of Oman. The White House uses the system to ease the pressure on oil markets

Meanwhile, fighting between Saudi Arabia and Houthi forces in Yemen has turned the Red Sea route into a new pressure point. The Houthis have targeted Saudi oil tankers transiting Bab al-Mandeb and launched strikes on Riyadh's main international airport.

➡️ Before the hostilities escalated this summer, the Saudi Red Sea port of Yanbu exported around 4.5 million barrels per day at its peak, with roughly 3 million of that leaving through Bab al-Mandeb.

➡️ By June, daily loadings from Yanbu had fallen 41% to about 2.39 million barrels, and as of mid-October flows through the strait stood at roughly 1.5 million barrels per day — about half the pre-war level

➡️ After drone attacks from inside Iraq struck the East-West pipeline that feeds Saudi Arabia's Red Sea terminals last month, Saudi Arabia moved quickly to redirect exports back through Hormuz, relying on the US-assisted shuttle operation

The Saudi-led coalition launched a large-scale counteroffensive against the Houthis in early October to counter the threat to oil flows. But those gains have proved fragile. Houthi forces repelled subsequent advances, inflicting heavy casualties and destroying armored vehicles, according to reports. The Houthis have consolidated control over thousands of square kilometers along the western coast, including the stretch from Mocha to Bab al-Mandeb, and continue to besiege Taiz, cutting the city's supply routes.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🇮🇷🚢 The IRGC Navy has released footage of a second supertanker hitting a mine as it tried to cross the Strait of Hormuz illegally.

Iran's navy repeatedly warned that unauthorized traffic on prohibited routes undermines security and endangers other vessels.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🤔 Elon Musk’s Tesla Roadster looks like a health hazard on wheels

The vehicle’s performance at the demonstration in Texas, where it performed takeoff and landing and did a midair flip, raises the obvious question – what could happen to the driver during such aerobatic stunts?

Media and online personalities also point out Tesla’s less-than-stellar safety record, with some 772 deaths being caused by these vehicles from 2013 through 2025.

Some also openly doubted the validity of the stunt, wondering aloud whether the vehicle on display was an actual Roadster or a drone made of lightweight material.

And seeing how the Roadster is yet to enter production, the question remains – will it turn out to be the real McCoy or will it become another Hyperloop?

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🚨 An explosion was reported in Baghdad as US fighter jets reportedly flew over the Iraqi capital

UPD: Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) said that an explosion occurred at a warehouse storing faulty equipment at one of their facilities in eastern Baghdad. No casualties have been reported.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

📊 Anthropic offers investors over 10% returns to bankroll chips as AI boom gets pricier

Anthropic is offering Blackstone yields above 10% to fund its $60B chip financing deal, reports the FT.

The private equity giant’s total returns could be even higher once new-issue discounts and fees are included.

Comparable borrowers typically pay around 7% in the public bond market.

The startup is on a chip binge, diversifying its hardware supply across Nvidia GPUs, Amazon Trainium chips and Google TPUs.

Like other tech giants, Anthropic is piling up debt to secure scarce chips and computing power despite rumblings about a possible AI boom turning bust – with fallout potentially reminiscent of the 2008 financial crisis.

The financing package ‘Project North Star’ aims to help Anthropic secure ∼1.5 gigawatts of custom Google AI chips known as tensor processing units (TPUs).

Key terms:

🌏 ∼$18B in junior loans, half of which ($9B) would come from Blackstone funds and be backed by Anthropic’s five-year lease payments on the chips

🌏 remaining $9B of junior debt is expected to be sold later to a wider group of investors, potentially at a lower yield

🌏 ∼$42 billion in senior debt guaranteed by Broadcom, which co-develops the chips with Google

Earlier this year, the AI startup raised around $4.4B through a deal dubbed ‘Project Big Sky’ at an 8.5% interest rate.

The jump reflects how investors are demanding a fatter payday to bankroll the AI boom amid warnings that investment growth may peak in 2026 as chip, power and labor shortages bite, leaving Big Tech with shrinking profits - while rising Chinese competition looms.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🤝 Mecca agreement must become step toward Muslim unity – Iranian president

🗣 Iran is ready to participate in regional cooperation with members of the Mecca Trilateral Agreement, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera.

Muslim countries should not split into opposing camps, he added.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🪖 Erik Prince’s costly mercenary force fails to deliver on Haiti’s security promises

Blackwater founder Erik Prince, who made his fortune offering security services worldwide, often outside the law, has been selling Haiti a high-tech mercenary solution to its gang crisis, but the country remains trapped in violence, reports CNN.

Prince’s private force, Vectus Global, was hired by Haiti’s interim government last year for a mission to hunt gangs.

His task force paired foreign contractors with elite local police to unleash more than 2,000 drone strikes since March last year.

While some gang positions have reportedly been disrupted, the promised turnaround has not arrived.

➡️ vital road from Cap-Haitien to Port-au-Prince still sits under gang checkpoints more than 18 months after Prince said it would be freed within a year

➡️ international flights remain grounded for risk of being shot down over gang territory

➡️ general elections, once set for December, have been postponed indefinitely

➡️ gangs have simply shifted outward into farming communities that feed the country

➡️ forcible recruitment of children has tripled, with minors now making up 30–50 % of many groups

➡️ civilian casualties from the drone campaign stand at least at 85 dead according to UN tallies

➡️ over 1.5 million Haitians - roughly one-tenth of the population - remain internally displaced

Local human-rights advocates describe the expensive foreign presence as largely ineffective: no major gang leaders have been eliminated, armed groups still flaunt weapons and money online.

Prince refuses to name his fee, only claiming it is a fraction of earlier multinational missions, while securing a decade-long deal for a cut of future border customs revenue.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime

🇮🇷🔊 Iran warns new military plans will push US warships even farther away from the region

🗣 “American forces have been compelled to retreat to distances of more than 500 kilometers,” Army spokesman Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia said, saying that no US warships are currently present in the Sea of Oman.

Akraminia also dismissed Donald Trump’s claims of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, arguing that American forces do not dare approach the strategic waterway.

Iran has meanwhile repaired much of its war-damaged air defense equipment, deployed new systems, and developed new tactics to strengthen its military capabilities.

🗣 “We believe that lasting peace, calm, and stability can be achieved only through the end of the US presence and interference in the region,” Akraminia declared.

👍 Substack | Chat | @geopolitics_prime