Sunday 13 September: Red Sea strait seized, oil jumps

World news (past 24 hours)

Ferry sinks in the Java Sea. A ferry carrying more than 240 people sank in bad weather off Indonesia. About 130 passengers and crew are still missing as search teams look for survivors. The ship, the Virgo Transport 8, lost contact while sailing from Surabaya to Banjarmasin on Borneo. Fox News

Sabotage suspected in French train derailment. A regional train derailed near Rouen in Normandy on Friday evening, injuring 44 of the 186 people on board. Police found a piece of rail on the track and are investigating whether it was placed there deliberately. The train's black box has been seized for the inquiry. CNN CBS News

Houthis take full control of a key strait. Yemen's Houthi rebels captured Perim Island, completing their hold on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. About 12 percent of the world's shipped goods pass through this strait. The Houthis say ships are safe except Saudi vessels, which they have banned. NPR Washington Post

BRICS leaders meet in New Delhi. India's Narendra Modi hosted China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin at the BRICS summit. The group adopted the New Delhi Declaration, though members remain split over the US-Iran war. Modi called the outcome a sign of a bloc "wider in reach and stronger in purpose." NPR CNBC

Saudi oil pipeline shutdown pushes prices up. Houthi strikes forced Saudi Arabia to shut its main East-West pipeline, which normally carries 4 million barrels of oil a day. Brent crude jumped from 88 to 110 dollars a barrel in two weeks, and analysts warn the kingdom could run out of exportable stock within days. Business Recorder Benzinga

Wall Street snaps a losing streak. US stocks rallied on Friday as inflation data came in close to expectations and oil prices briefly cooled. The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all rose almost 1 percent. Traders are now watching for the Federal Reserve's rate decision this coming week. Rio Times

Dutch news (past 24 hours)

First survivors of Swiss bus crash return home. Five Dutch tourists died and dozens were injured when their tour bus crashed near Susch in Switzerland. The bus, run by Dutch operator Oad, was carrying 49 people. The first survivors flew back to the Netherlands this morning. Reformatorisch Dagblad Hart van Nederland

Wind farm near Winterswijk scrapped. A German developer has dropped plans for four large wind turbines, each up to 267 meters tall, near Winterswijk. Local residents in the Ratum-Kotten group had opposed the project since 2023. NOS

Cabinet moves to speed up the power grid. The government wants to clear the way faster for power grid expansion. People who object to grid projects will now have to go straight to the country's highest court, skipping lower appeals. NOS

Cabinet backs a European age limit for social media. The Dutch cabinet supports an EU-wide minimum age for social media use. Member states still have to agree on the exact age, with 13 or 15 years both on the table. NOS

Energy bills climb again. Dutch gas and electricity prices have risen to their highest level in more than three years, adding pressure to household budgets going into autumn. NOS

Diesel price rises with global oil market. The average pump price for diesel in the Netherlands rose to 2.725 euro a liter, nearly 2 cents higher than the day before, tracking the jump in world oil prices. BNR Nieuwsradio

AI news (past 24 hours)

Amodei calls for slower AI progress, chip stocks wobble. Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei asked the industry to pace how fast new AI models gain capabilities. OpenAI's Sam Altman and xAI's Elon Musk agreed within hours. The comments rattled chip stocks, with a gauge of US chip shares down 14 percent from its recent peak. Bloomberg Business Standard

Sakana AI ships a model that routes tasks to other models. Tokyo-based Sakana AI launched two new systems, Fugu Max and Fugu Ultra v2, built around directing tasks to a pool of other AI models rather than being one large model themselves. The company says Fugu Ultra v2 beats bigger frontier models on several benchmarks. MarkTechPost

Hackers used AI agents to breach hundreds of organizations. Security researchers say a Russian-speaking hacking group used AI agents built on OpenAI's Codex and a DeepSeek model to break into servers at 395 organizations in 48 countries, reaching full remote control of some systems in under four hours. AI Weekly TechStartups

Pentagon in talks for a 5 billion dollar AI loan. The Pentagon is discussing a roughly 5 billion euro loan to AI cloud computing startup Fluidstack, aiming to shore up the United States' data center supply chain. AI Weekly

Also

Sport: Elena Rybakina beat two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 to win the US Open women's title, her third Grand Slam trophy. Sports Illustrated

Nature fact: September is peak bird migration season over the Dutch Wadden Sea. Millions of waders and songbirds are stopping there right now to rest and refuel before continuing south along one of the world's ten major migration routes. Waddenvereniging

Weather in Groningen: Cloudy today with a high near 20 degrees. There is a chance of light drizzle this afternoon and evening, turning to steadier rain overnight.

On the agenda today

The US Open men's singles final is played today, with Alexander Zverev facing Ben Shelton at Arthur Ashe Stadium. In Brussels, the European Parliament debates AI governance rules, protecting minors online, and an extension of the carbon border tax.