Live Q&A: How Will Israel-Iran Strikes Impact Oil and Shipping?
The dramatic escalation in tensions between Israel and Iran caused a spike in the price of crude and raised fears among oil traders about disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most vital waterways. Bloomberg's Joumanna Bercetche, Will Kennedy, Alaric Nightingale and Nayla Razzouk will take your questions on what the intensified volatility in the region means for oil and shipping in a Live Q&A at 12 p.m. BST/7 a.m. ET on Tuesday, June 17. Bloomberg digital subscribers and Terminal clients have the exclusive opportunity to ask our team live questions. This conversation will be recorded and be made available to listen and share.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
'She's not coming back': Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria
By Maggie Michael DAMASCUS (Reuters) -"Don't wait for her," the WhatsApp caller told the family of Abeer Suleiman on May 21, hours after she vanished from the streets of the Syrian town of Safita. "She's not coming back." Suleiman's kidnapper and another man who identified himself as an intermediary said in subsequent calls and messages that the 29-year-old woman would be killed or trafficked into slavery unless her relatives paid them a ransom of $15,000. "I am not in Syria," Suleiman herself told her family in a call on May 29 from the same phone number used by her captor, which had an Iraqi country code. "All the accents around me are strange." Reuters reviewed the call, which the family recorded, along with about a dozen calls and messages sent by the abductor and intermediary, who had a Syrian phone number. Suleiman is among at least 33 women and girls from Syria's Alawite sect - aged between 16 and 39 - who have been abducted or gone missing this year in the turmoil following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to the families of all them. The overthrow of the widely feared president in December after 14 years of civil war unleashed a furious backlash against the Muslim minority community to which he belongs, with armed factions affiliated to the current government turning on Alawite civilians in their coastal heartlands in March, killing hundreds of people. Since March, social media has seen a steady stream of messages and video clips posted by families of missing Alawite women appealing for information about them, with new cases cropping up almost daily, according to a Reuters review which found no online accounts of women from other sects vanishing. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria told Reuters it is investigating the disappearances and alleged abductions of Alawite women following a spike in reports this year. The commission, set up in 2011 to probe rights violations after the civil war broke out, will report to the U.N. Human Rights Council once the investigations are concluded, a spokesperson said. Suleiman's family borrowed from friends and neighbours to scrape together her $15,000 ransom, which they transferred to three money-transfer accounts in the Turkish city of Izmir on May 27 and 28 in 30 transfers ranging from $300 to $700, a close relative told Reuters, sharing the transaction receipts. Once all money was delivered as instructed, the abductor and intermediary ceased all contact, with their phones turned off, the relative said. Suleiman's family still have no idea what's become of her. Detailed interviews with the families of 16 of the missing women and girls found that seven of them are believed to have been kidnapped, with their relatives receiving demands for ransoms ranging from $1,500 to $100,000. Three of the abductees - including Suleiman - sent their families text or voice messages saying they'd been taken out of the country. There has been no word on the fate of the other nine. Eight of the 16 missing Alawites are under the age of 18, their families said. Reuters reviewed about 20 text messages, calls and videos from the abductees and their alleged captors, as well as receipts of some ransom transfers, though it was unable to verify all parts of the families' accounts or determine who might have targeted the women or their motives. All 33 women disappeared in the governorates of Tartous, Latakia and Hama, which have large Alawite populations. Nearly half have since returned home, though all of the women and their families declined to comment about the circumstances, with most citing security fears. Most of the families interviewed by Reuters said they felt police didn't take their cases seriously when they reported their loved ones missing or abducted, and that authorities failed to investigate thoroughly. The Syrian government didn't respond to a request for comment for this article. Ahmed Mohammed Khair, a media officer for the governor of Tartous, dismissed any suggestion that Alawites were being targeted and said most cases of missing women were down to family disputes or personal reasons rather than abductions, without presenting evidence to support this. "Women are either forced into marrying someone they won't want to marry so they run away or sometimes they want to draw attention by disappearing," he added and warned that "unverified allegations" could create panic and discord and destabilize security. A media officer for Latakia governorate echoed Khair's comments, saying that in many cases, women elope with their lovers and families fabricate abduction stories to avoid the social stigma. The media officer of Hama governorate declined to comment. A member of a fact-finding committee set up by new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to investigate the mass killings of Alawites in coastal areas in March, declined to comment on the cases of missing women. Al-Sharaa denounced the sectarian bloodshed as a threat to his mission to unite the ravaged nation and has promised to punish those responsible, including those affiliated to the government if necessary. GRABBED ON HER WAY TO SCHOOL Syrian rights advocate Yamen Hussein, who has been tracking the disappearances of women this year, said most had taken place in the wake of the March violence. As far as he knew, only Alawites had been targeted and the perpetrators' identities and motives remain unknown, he said. He described a widespread feeling of fear among Alawites, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and account for about a tenth of Syria's predominantly Sunni population. Some women and girls in Tartous, Latakia and Hama are staying away from school or college because they fear being targeted, Hussein said. "For sure, we have a real issue here where Alawite women are being targeted with abductions," he added. "Targeting women of the defeated party is a humiliation tactic that was used in the past by the Assad regime." Thousands of Alawites have been forced from their homes in Damascus, while many have been dismissed from their jobs and faced harassment at checkpoints from Sunni fighters affiliated to the government. The interviews with families of missing women showed that most of them vanished in broad daylight, while running errands or travelling on public transport. Zeinab Ghadir is among the youngest. The 17-year-old was abducted on her way to school in the Latakia town of al-Hanadi on February 27, according to a family member who said her suspected kidnapper contacted them by text message to warn them not to post images of the girl online. "I don't want to see a single picture or, I swear to God, I will send you her blood," the man said in a text message sent from the girl's phone on the same day she disappeared. The teenage girl made a brief phone call home, saying she didn't know where she had been taken and that she had stomach pain, before the line cut out, her relative said. The family has no idea what has happened to her. Khozama Nayef was snatched on March 18 in rural Hama by a group of five men who drugged her to knock her out for a few hours while they spirited her away, a close relative told Reuters, citing the mother-of-five's own testimony when she was returned. The 35-year-old spent 15 days in captivity while her abductors negotiated with the family who eventually paid $1,500 dollars to secure her release, according to the family member who said when she returned home she had a mental breakdown. Days after Nayef was taken, 29-year-old Doaa Abbas was seized on her doorstep by a group of attackers who dragged her into a car waiting outside and sped off, according to a family member who witnessed the abduction in the Hama town of Salhab. The relative, who didn't see how many men took Abbas or whether they were armed, said he tried to follow on his motorbike but lost sight of the car. Three Alawites reported missing by their families on social media this year, who are not included in the 33 cases identified by Reuters, have since resurfaced and publicly denied they were abducted. One of them, a 16-year-old girl from Latakia, released a video online saying she ran away of her own accord to marry a Sunni man. Her family contradicted her story though, telling Reuters that she had been abducted and forced to marry the man, and that security authorities had ordered her to say she had gone willingly to protect her kidnappers. Reuters was unable to verify either account. A Syrian government spokesperson and Latakian authorities didn't respond to queries about it. The two other Alawites who resurfaced, a 23-year-old woman and a girl of 12, told Arabic TV channels that they had travelled of their own volition to the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, respectively, though the former said she ended up being beaten up by a man in an apartment before escaping. DARK MEMORIES OF ISLAMIC STATE Syria's Alawites dominated the country's political and military elite for decades under the Assad dynasty. Bashar al-Assad's sudden exit in December saw the ascendancy of a new government led by HTS, a Sunni group that emerged from an organization once affiliated to al Qaeda. The new government is striving to integrate dozens of former rebel factions, including some foreign fighters, into its security forces to fill a vacuum left after the collapse of Assad's defence apparatus. Several of the families of missing women said they and many others in their community dreaded a nightmare scenario where Alawites suffered similar fates to those inflicted on the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic State about a decade ago. IS, a jihadist Sunni group, forced thousands of Yazidi women into sexual slavery during a reign of terror that saw its commanders claim a caliphate encompassing large parts of Iraq and Syria, according to the U.N. A host of dire scenarios are torturing the minds of the family of Nagham Shadi, an Alawite woman who vanished this month, her father told Reuters. The 23-year-old left their house in the village of al Bayadiyah in Hama on June 2 to buy milk and never came back, Shadi Aisha said, describing an agonising wait for any word about the fate of his daughter. Aisha said his family had been forced from their previous home in a nearby village on March 7 during the anti-Alawite violence. "What do we do? We leave it to God."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Gold Heads for Weekly Loss as Middle East Truce Saps Demand
(Bloomberg) -- Gold headed for its second consecutive weekly loss, after a ceasefire between Israel and Iran dented demand for havens. Philadelphia Transit System Votes to Cut Service by 45%, Hike Fares US Renters Face Storm of Rising Costs Squeezed by Crowds, the Roads of Central Park Are Being Reimagined Mapping the Architectural History of New York's Chinatown US State Budget Wounds Intensify From Trump, DOGE Policy Shifts Bullion fell by more than 1% to around $3,291 an ounce on Friday and was down about by more than 2% for the week. The precious metal has generally been confined to a narrow trading band this week, although on Tuesday it slumped as the Middle East rivals honored a ceasefire agreement after almost two weeks of warfare. The truce has signaled a return to risk-on market sentiment, which continued into Friday after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a Bloomberg TV interview that the US and China have finalized a trade framework and the White House has imminent plans to reach agreements with a set of 10 major trading partners. Still, details of any potential deals are vague. Bullion remains up more than a quarter this year, and is about $200 away from its record high reached in April. Along with geopolitical and trade tensions, it's been supported by robust central-bank buying and increased optimism the Federal Reserve is preparing to resume monetary easing, with lower rates typically a positive for the non-interest-bearing precious metal. Gold was down 1% to $3,294.47 as of 1:07 p.m. Singapore time. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index rose 0.1%. Silver fell. Palladium climbed again and was up around 9% for the week. Platinum fell after hitting the highest level in more than a decade on Thursday. How to Steal a House America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried Inside Gap's Last-Ditch, Tariff-Addled Turnaround Push Apple Test-Drives Big-Screen Movie Strategy With F1 Luxury Counterfeiters Keep Outsmarting the Makers of $10,000 Handbags ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg
an hour ago
- Bloomberg
Von Der Leyen Says EU Ready If US Trade Talks Break Down
00:00 We are ready for a deal. At the same time, we are preparing for the possibility that no satisfactory agreement is reached. This is why we consulted on a rebalancing list and we will defend the European interest as needed. In short, all options remain on the table. Okay. All options remain on the table. Joining us from Brussels is Bloomberg's Oliver Crook, who, of course, was covering that EU leaders meeting for us yesterday, only some EU leaders and pushing for a quick solution. As the deadline looms, how much division is there amongst EU leaders at this point? It seems at this point that they're coming slowly together to a more sort of pragmatic approach, Tom. And we should say that, you know, we are now, what, a week and a half away from that deadline, July the ninth, where the United States would impose 50% tariffs on the European Union. That is obviously a situation that everybody here in Brussels wanted to avoid. The United States probably also wants to avoid. But we should keep in mind, Tom, this is the biggest trading relationship on the planet. So from the EU's perspective and also from the US perspective, it's really important that they get a deal right here and it's one that is relatively balanced. That being said, it appears that the consensus around the table is moving a little bit towards the direction of pragmatism. We heard from the new chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz. This is his first EU leaders meeting that he's ever had. I'm saying that it's better to go fast and simple and then slow and highly complicated. We need to reach a result quickly. We have all agreed on that. There is no disagreement at all. We've also heard similar comments from Giorgia Meloni, who says she's willing to accept some asymmetry. We think, in terms of a trade deal with the United States. But the question is here, Tom, fundamentally, how asymmetrical is this deal going to be with the United States and the EU? Where are they willing to make these concessions? We don't have a very clear answer from the EU at this point. That's why they say that all options are still on the table. I think that the base case, Tom, is that at this sort of minimum, the best case scenario is you're going to have a minimum 10% tariff from the United States and the EU. The question is, with that 10%, will you get retaliation? We've heard from the French that they'd sort of be open to that, but that's going to be the sort of active conversation over the last couple of weeks as we really sort of reach crunch time for those trade negotiations. Well, talking to the French shortly, how willing is President Macron and the French government willing to accept that potential asymmetry in any deal with the US? Yeah. Yeah. So that's something that we've been reporting a lot on and we've been tracking very closely. And it seems at this point that the French are sort of moderating that position a little bit. So we heard from senior he's the commissioner for Industry and competition here. We have reported this a little bit earlier in the week that basically a 10% tariff would garner a retaliation from the European Union. It seems that there is potentially a moderating of that position. That being said, you know, I think that Macron is also very conscious of another dimension here, which is the Trump psychology dimension here. Is it better to sort of placate Trump or is it better to stand up to him? There are different schools of thought on this. He was saying that basically if you are not willing to stand up to him, you're going to, you know, appear naive and you're going to appear weak potentially both. And the EU is neither of those two things. That being said, again, this will rely on the sort of appraisal of what Trump's appetite for escalation is, we should say. There are also other sectors that the White House is trying to target. And I caught up with the competition commissioner yesterday, Tom, the one who is sort of in charge of all the big antitrust fines on those American tech companies. We know the White House wants to target those in some of the trade deals. I asked her if basically that's on the table, any sort of trade negotiation. Have a listen to what she had to say. We do not challenge the United States on how they implement the rules or how they adopt the regulation. I think that we deserve respect the same way. And I think that the Digital Markets Act is a very good proof of how we can be much more effective, much quicker and much cheaper when implementing a well-functioning market in the digital context. So I'm very proud of what we do. So, Tom, from the U.S perspective, you know, the digital regulation is not really on the table. But again, I think that speaks to a broader concern that you have among the Europeans. You have your amendment was alluding to it earlier. We still don't have the sectoral tariffs and there's always the perennial concern with the Trump administration is that they may get something and then come back for more. So the EU, apart from all of these sort of trade negotiations, and they're also thinking their broader term of de-risking from the United States moving forward with the Mercosur deal. That's the big trade deal with South America. But also and this is part of the conversation yesterday and leaders talking about an alternative to the WTO, which they think is sort of dysfunctional. So longer term, you may get a deal with the United States, but Europe is really thinking about how they can de-risk from what is a very volatile administration in the United States.
