Category: World News

Two people were killed and eight injured in an attack on Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd International Airport on Wednesday evening, the latest in a rapidly escalating series of cross-border strikes that have shaken the kingdom in recent weeks.

The victims were an Indian national and a Saudi citizen, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation. Airport operations in Dammam — Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil hub — were briefly disrupted before resuming.

The same day, debris from an intercepted drone killed a Filipino and a Nepali national at Aramco’s Shaybah oil field, the Saudi Ministry of Energy said.

The attacks were claimed by Yemen’s Houthi movement. Military spokesman Yehya Saree said on the Houthi-aligned Almasirah television channel that the group had carried out four operations in 48 hours using ballistic missiles and drones — targeting the Saudi Defence Ministry in Riyadh, the Dammam airport, an Aramco facility in Yanbu, and Abha airport. Saree vowed “siege for siege and escalation for escalation” until, in his words, Saudi Arabia lifts its blockade. These claims could not be independently verified.

The Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted four drones over the Riyadh and Medina regions, with no casualties reported. Aramco told staff to evacuate its Dhahran headquarters and work remotely, according to people familiar with the matter. The US State Department ordered the departure of non-emergency US government employees and their family members from Saudi Arabia, citing attacks on civilian airports and critical infrastructure and severe travel disruptions.

The escalation has been building for weeks. A strike on Riyadh’s airport earlier this month killed at least 12 people — the deadliest series of attacks on Saudi Arabia in a decade, according to the Wall Street Journal. The escalation follows the collapse in July of the 2022 ceasefire, amid the wider US-Iran war.

Saudi authorities have not confirmed the Houthis’ account of the full scope of Wednesday’s operations. The conflict’s return to open escalation marks a sharp reversal of years of relative quiet, and leaves the region’s energy infrastructure — and the civilians working in it — exposed.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/one-person-killed-and-8-injured-in-airport-attack-in-saudi-arabia-4c84d5d4) and The Hindu (https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/indian-national-killed-in-saudi-dammam-airport-attack-others-injured/article71610871.ece).

With less than two weeks to go before America’s midterm elections, voters are casting ballots early in numbers well above the last midterm cycle — particularly in the states expected to decide which party controls the US Senate.

An Associated Press analysis of advance ballots cast through Tuesday found that more than 13 million mail-in and early in-person votes have already been recorded nationally, compared with 9 million at the same point in 2022. In Texas, early voting is up 74% on four years ago. Kansas has more than doubled its early turnout, while Maine, North Carolina and Ohio have each registered increases of more than 30% in combined early in-person and mail voting.

The pattern matters because of where it is happening. Democrats are trying to flip Republican-held Senate seats in each of those states, and in most of them Republicans account for a smaller share of advance voters than they did in 2022 — a shift that has encouraged Democrats and unsettled Republican strategists in places the party did not expect to have to defend this year. The AP points to dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the persistently high cost of living, and the high petrol and diesel prices caused by the war involving Iran as sources of political blowback against the governing party.

Midterm elections usually favour the party out of power, and this year’s environment is inverted from 2022: Republicans now hold both chambers of Congress and the White House, and are defending that record rather than attacking the other side’s. Control of the House of Representatives is also at stake on November 3, with Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries expressing confidence that his party can regain the chamber.

Analysts urge caution about reading too much into the figures, however. Early turnout measures enthusiasm and habit, not outcomes: it does not show how the votes will split, and some of the increase simply reflects states that have expanded early voting opportunities since 2022 or made more of their data available. A surge driven by one side’s supporters can also be cancelled out by the other side’s voters on election day itself.

Still, the geography of the surge — deep-red Kansas doubling its turnout, Texas up by three quarters — suggests an electorate that is more engaged, and more volatile, than midterm voters usually are. Both campaigns now have the same job for the remaining days: make sure the enthusiasm showing up in the early numbers survives until the polls close.

Sources:
Associated Press — https://www.kcau9.com/news/politics/ap-many-states-deciding-control-of-the-senate-are-seeing-a-big-boost-in-early-voting-ap-analysis-shows/
The Korea Herald — https://m.koreaherald.com/article/10911398