Axon CEO says drones that stun perpetrators are in the future

US President Donald Trump told reporters on the evening of Wednesday, September 16, that he hopes the war with Iran, now dragging into its seventh month, is nearing an end, saying Iran wants a deal and that he had been contacted directly by Iran, though he did not disclose further details. The remarks came amid escalating tensions after the Saudi Arabian air force launched strikes in Yemen and Houthi rebels retaliated by firing missiles and sending drones to attack various Saudi cities, including the Red Sea oil port of Yanbu and the Khamis Mushait air base in the south, according to a statement by Yahya Saree, spokesman for the Houthi military. The war erupted on February 28, when the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran, before Tehran fired back at Israel and US bases in the Persian Gulf countries. The attack on Saudi Arabia that damaged the East-West oil pipeline has prompted oil traders to warn that if the pipeline is forced to halt shipments for an extended period, as much as 4% of global oil supply could be lost. Saudi authorities have not yet specified when the pipeline will be able to resume operation. The spread of the war into Yemen is also compounding the global energy shortage, after the earlier conflict cut off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which once carried one-fifth of the world's crude oil and liquefied natural gas. As a result, Brent crude traded at around 108 dollars a barrel on Wednesday, near its highest level since May, while US retail diesel prices surged to a record high of more than 6.30 dollars a gallon, which is becoming major political pressure on the Republican Party ahead of the midterm elections in November. Axios reported, citing sources, that President Trump is scheduled to meet with leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council, or GCC, which comprises Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next Tuesday, September 22, to discuss the next steps in the war with Iran. The conflict between the Saudi-led alliance and the Houthis, which has been underway since 2015 and had once calmed under a ceasefire agreement, flared up violently again after the Houthis declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia last July.

A drone attack struck Saudi Arabia's East-West oil pipeline, known as Petroline, a 1,200-kilometre conduit that carries crude from production fields in the east across the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, forcing Saudi Arabia to temporarily suspend operations on the pipeline. Petroline is regarded as a strategic bypass route that allows Saudi Arabia to export crude to world markets without passing through the Strait of Hormuz, which is facing a blockade crisis from war that has sharply reduced the volume of oil shipped through the usual route. At the same time, global oil inventories are plunging to their lowest level in more than three decades. Leading analysts and research institutions warn unanimously that if repairs to this infrastructure take several weeks, or if the threat of drone attacks persists, the world could enter a genuine energy catastrophe, because millions of barrels per day of export volume would vanish from the system, and Brent crude could surge to 150 dollars a barrel if strategic reserves worldwide are drawn down to exhaustion, which would in turn drive up shipping costs, the cost of living and consumer goods.