There is a strait south of the Red Sea that helps explain why the Houthis have ceased to be just an actor in the Yemen war: Bab el-Mandeb, the maritime passage that connects the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea and through which 12% of global trade passes. In recent weeks, the group, aligned with Iran, has advanced along the western coast of Yemen and has consolidated positions at strategic points in the strait. At the same time, has resumed attacks against Saudi Arabia and has announced a blockade against ships linked to the kingdom.Now, the Houthis have a position that allows them to threaten one of the main maritime routes between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. And they do so while the war between Iran and the United States has turned the Strait of Hormuz into the other major focus of maritime tension in the region.“The Houthis have a real capacity for pressure. They cannot indefinitely close traffic through the Red Sea, but they can certainly increase costs, generate uncertainty, and periodically interrupt commercial and energy flows,” explains Neil Quilliam to ARA, a researcher at the Middle East and North Africa program at the international analysis center Chatham House. According to the expert, they do not need to close the strait: it is enough for them to increase the risk.If sailing through the Red Sea is too expensive or unsafe, companies can divert ships around the Cape of Good Hope, on the Atlantic coast of South Africa, with more days of navigation and higher costs. Thus, Tehran and its allies can exert pressure from two different points on two key routes for global trade and energy.The Houthis, who officially call themselves Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), are part of the so-called "axis of resistance," the network of armed and political actors linked to Iran, and they receive military and technological support from Tehran. A 2024 UN report documents transfers of military material, assistance, and training linked to Iran and other actors in the axis to the Zaydi Shia group. Although Iran denies supplying weapons to the group and claims its support is only political, the Houthis have gone from being a local militia in northern Yemen to possessing about 350,000 fighters and a significant arsenal of missiles, drones, and anti-ship weapons.The role of the Houthis in the US-Iran confrontation

Various reports from the analysis centers Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chatham House point out that the Houthis can now act as a negotiation instrument for Iran before Washington, in a war that has already been going on for seven months. But this does not mean that Tehran controls the group's decisions. The movement has a command structure, territorial interests, and its own political agenda. Control of the coast, in fact, responds to its own interests: it gives them more capacity to pressure Saudi Arabia, strengthens their position ahead of future negotiations regarding Yemen, and expands their control over the oil and gas in the areas they dominate.

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There are only a few weeks left until the Israeli legislative elections scheduled for October 27, elections that will determine the country's future for the next four years, and it seems difficult for there to be significant changes in the dynamics of the century-old conflict with the Palestinians. During the long campaign underway, we are witnessing a continuous evolution of attacks between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition leaders; a bellicosity that will continue to grow until the polls open and that periodically reaches intense isolated clashes.

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British police reported this Sunday that they have arrested several people for handling explosives near a military base with a US presence in the county of Gloucestershire, in southwest England. Authorities have indicated that a "major incident" has been declared and have established a security perimeter near the town of Whelford, close to the Royal Air Force base at Fairford, used by the United States Air Force during the war against Iran. Army bomb disposal experts are examining vehicles in the area and several homes have been evacuated.

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The American political scientist Susan Stokes explores in the book The Regressors: Leaders Who Erode Their Own Democracies (Galaxia Gutenberg) the causes behind the democratic backsliding that the world is experiencing in the 21st century. She points to economic inequalities as one of the key factors and describes the process followed by leaders of different countries and ideologies to dismantle the democratic system from within. We talk about it in a conversation in Barcelona, where she has participated in a debate at the CCCB.

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The European Commission, concerned about the European Union's loss of competitiveness compared to China and the United States, has long been repeating a mantra to reverse the situation: EU citizens need to invest more and have the means to do so.

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Two years after the death of Hassan Nasrallah, his face is still everywhere in Dahieh, the vast southern suburb of Beirut, which for decades was the main showcase of Hezbollah's power. On the walls, in the shops, on the posters remembering the dead leaders. But the city that Nasrallah left behind is no longer the same.Nasrallah died on September 27, 2024, in an Israeli bombardment on Haret Hreik, in the heart of Dahieh. For more than three decades, he had led Hezbollah and had turned the movement into much more than an armed organization. Under his leadership, the party built an extensive network of institutions, schools, clinics, media outlets, and social services, in addition to a powerful military and political structure.Dahieh was the natural setting for this power. But reducing it to a "Hezbollah bastion" is an understatement. It is a densely populated part of Beirut that grew from ancient villages, fields, and informal settlements to become a huge urban extension of the capital. A Shiite majority lives there, but also other communities. And its streets physically blend with other neighborhoods of Beirut.It is enough to travel a few kilometers for the city to change. In Gemmayzeh or Mar Mikhael, restaurants, bars, galleries, and terraces project an image of a cosmopolitan Beirut. In these neighborhoods, other urban codes and a different political history predominate. In Hamra, universities, hotels, offices, and shops are concentrated. In Dahieh, on the other hand, Hezbollah built for years a much more visible and daily presence. It was not just a party that was voted for. It was part of the life of the neighborhood.The 2024 war broke a good part of this landscape. And the 2026 one has done it again. In March, the southern periphery of Beirut, once again, emptied out. Closed shops, deserted streets and families displaced to other areas of the capital. Some residents returned during the day to check the state of their homes, collect belongings or feed their pets. At the Camille Chamoun stadium, the same setting that months earlier had hosted the massive funeral of Nasrallah, tents were set up for displaced families.The image summarizes well to what extent Hezbollah's territory has changed. The organization survived the death of a large part of its leadership, including that of Nasrallah and his designated successor, Hashem Safieddine. Naim Qassem assumed leadership in October 2024 and Hezbollah began to reorganize. There is no longer the charismatic leader who for decades concentrated much of the movement's identity. There is a more battered and more decentralized structure, and a different relationship with its regional environment.But the loss of power does not mean the disappearance of its social base. In March of this year, when Dahieh was being bombed again, some residents continued to say that they supported Hezbollah and that they would return to their neighborhoods. At the same time, others expressed something that a few years ago was much more difficult to hear publicly: weariness at the price of wars and questions about the role of Hezbollah and its disarmament.The burial and the cult of a symbol

Perhaps that is why Nasrallah's anniversary continues to be of great importance to the movement. His death has not closed an era; it has become one of its main symbols. Due to the war, the funeral had to wait. Nasrallah was initially buried provisionally and when conditions allowed it, on February 23, 2025, almost five months after his assassination, the great farewell arrived. Hundreds of thousands of people went to the sports complex to pay tribute to him and then accompanied the funeral procession to his mausoleum in Dahieh.That day, the stadium stands were filled with yellow flags and portraits of Nasrallah. Delegations from Iran, Iraq, and Yemen attended, and thousands of people followed the ceremony from outside the Sports City. Afterwards, the crowd accompanied the coffin to the place where he was finally buried.In September 2025, his followers gathered again for the first anniversary of his death, this time around his mausoleum in Dahieh. Days earlier, Hezbollah had also brought his image to the center of Beirut. His portraits and those of Hashem Safieddine were projected onto the Raouché rock, in a ceremony that sparked criticism and a dispute with the capital's authorities.And this Sunday, two years after his martyrdom, they will gather again to remember it. Nasrallah's image remains present on the streets of Dahieh. But around this face, the movement he built, the neighborhood that for decades symbolized his power, and Beirut itself have changed.

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The global map of liquefied natural gas (LNG), as well as that of raw materials, has been upside down for some time. First due to the war in Ukraine and the fact that Europe turned off the tap for this fuel from Russia. Now, the war in Iran has been added to this following the attack by the United States and Israel and the subsequent blockade of the Strait of Hormuz –through which between a quarter and a fifth of the world's crude oil and natural gas circulated–, as well as an escalation of tension in the Red Sea. The context has forced many countries to look for gas under rocks –metaphorically and literally– and to chart unimaginable, or at least unusual, maritime routes, to the point that during the first eight months of 2026 (between January and August) the port of Barcelona has seen 7,439 tons of LNG loaded from the regasification plant tanks bound for Thailand. Specifically to the port of Bangkok, according to data on LNG shipments, to which ARA has had access.

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On July 30, Viktor Kalinin, aged 14 years and three months, became the youngest person to be included in Russia's list of terrorists and extremists. His crime: having set fire to a railway signaling system box. Although he stated that he had acted under coercion, the police accused him of terrorism. That same day, Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, was also accused of collaborating with terrorism, in the latest episode of his war with the secret services.

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The deepest transatlantic crisis in recent times closed at the latest UN summit in New York. The handshake between United States President Donald Trump, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has sealed—at least apparently—the diplomatic fire ignited in January, when Washington launched a campaign of pressure and threats against the Arctic island. "In the Kingdom of Denmark, the United States has a friend and an ally it can always rely on," the Danish leader stated.

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In December 2025, a good number of African countries had found themselves with a window of opportunity. The price of oil was low and in global markets it seemed there was more supply of oil than demand, a fact that would have kept energy prices stable. Most African countries are importers of gasoline and diesel, with prices that tend to move at the same rate as those of oil. At the end of February 2026, however, war broke out in Iran.

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The Donald Trump administration has fully entered the Brazilian presidential race, which will hold its first round on Sunday, October 4th. The explicit support for the far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, has turned into an operation of electoral interference that has forced Lula da Silva, who is running for re-election, and his executive branch to take measures to protect themselves.Brazil, due to its position as a regional leader and for being one of the last great bastions of the left on the continent, has become a priority for the Republican administration within the framework of the reinterpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, which defended “America for the Americans”. Now, Latin America, forgotten during the last decades by Washington, is once again a key zone of influence for the United States, which wants to exercise direct and unilateral dominance there and integrate it into its national security and economic exploitation strategy, curbing Chinese commercial expansion.In the case of the Brazilian elections, there is a coincidence of personal, business, and political interests between Trump and his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who, in some conflicts generated by the White House, has acted as a counterbalance to the presidential rashness and outbursts. In this case, however, that has not been so.

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The general debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly runs the risk of becoming a mere stage for an increasingly unilateral world. But, paradoxically, it is the only stage that continues to exist so that the 193 countries that are part of it can make themselves heard. Even if it is to threaten the "annihilation" of the other, to make warmongering proclamations of "not bowing one's head" or to attempt to whitewash a genocide.

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Artificial intelligence agents developed by OpenAI attempted to gain unauthorized access to websites of United States government agencies and a university, according to an investigation published Friday by The New York Times. And they did so without having received explicit instructions to act in this manner, according to the company.

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Behind the warmongering rhetoric at the UN podium, Tehran seems to be moving in another direction. In the corridors of the United Nations General Assembly, the Iranian delegation, which had arrived in New York without showing any interest in dialogue, presented the US with a new proposal for an agreement to reopen the strait. The information was first leaked to the press by people familiar with the talks, and now the Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, has confirmed it.

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The German far-right is disguising itself as a lamb to win elections. Alternative for Germany (AfD) has changed the recipe with an image of hope to break its electoral ceiling, a turn that has allowed it to win elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in just two weeks. The party has moved from the campaign slogan "Enough" from five years ago to "Everything is possible" and "Everything will be fine" in Saxony-Anhalt, a change in strategy with which the ultra-rightists move from a narrative denouncing the decline – which, in their view, Germany is experiencing – to selling optimism and enthusiasm. Fear and hope are combined in a perfect cocktail to reap electoral profit from the disenchantment that part of the population feels regarding the federal government of the traditional right-wing CDU and the social democrats of the SPD.

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"It is not only nonsense, but also an example of provocation." Vladimir Putin has grown tired of denying his responsibility for the acts of sabotage that European authorities attribute to Moscow and of dismissing Western intelligence reports that warn that Russia is preparing to attack NATO. On the contrary, in the Russian capital they claim to feel threatened by the growing militarization of Europe and fear that the allies will use Ukraine to try to inflict a strategic defeat on them. In fact, they are convinced that the Atlantic Alliance is already in conflict with Russia and that, therefore, European countries are legitimate targets, if not for a conventional war, then for a hybrid war.

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Secularism and euthanasia have dominated the first day of Leo XIV's visit to France. From the Élysée Palace, the Pope called for a "fair secularism" that does not exclude religion from the public sphere, while French President Emmanuel Macron defended French secularism. Macron claimed that "it is, by no means, the denial of religion," but rather the freedom to believe or not to believe and the separation between the state and religious denominations. The other controversial point of the visit, in addition to sexual abuse within the French church, was the advancement of the right to euthanasia in France, after the country definitively approved the law legalizing it in July. The pontiff's reaction was swift, and he reiterated the Church's firm opposition to this law.

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In the film Passport to Pimlico (1949), the explosion of a World War II bomb uncovers an ancient royal charter proving that a part of this neighborhood in South London legally belongs to the Duchy of Burgundy. The discovery triggers a delirious debate over sovereignty and the identity of its inhabitants, who try to take advantage of the legal loophole to escape postwar restrictions. An administrative absurdity ends up becoming a matter of state.

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Several fighter jets from Finland and Sweden intercepted a group of Russian warplanes flying over the Baltic Sea this Thursday, according to the Finnish Air Force. This incident adds to the numerous Russian aircraft and drones that have recently violated or approached the airspace of NATO countries. In this case, the Russian squadron, consisting of a Tu-134 transport plane and several MiG-31 and Su-30 fighter jets, was flying in international airspace over the Gulf of Finland.

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Julian Assange has reappeared on X after more than two years without posting to his official account. The founder of Wikileaks wrote a brief message there on September 17, "I'm back" [I'm back], accompanied by a photograph of him in Sydney. His last post dated back to June 24, 2024, shortly after reaching a plea deal with the United States justice system and being released.

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