YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Houthis 'take control' of key island in global shipping route

137 points consumer451 1 hour ago 97 comments

ExoticPearTree 1 hour ago | parent

Why all the quotation marks in the article? It's not like they interviewed toddlers that said funny things.

afavour 1 hour ago | parent

It’s in quotation marks because it’s a quotation. The BBC have not independently verified that the Houthis have taken control of the island, they are reporting what a government source has said.

blitzar 44 minutes ago | parent

They need to start doing this when other "regimes" make wild claims.

wat10000 30 minutes ago | parent

They always have.

It's funny to see the evolution of language. Quotation marks indicated that something was a direct quote. Then people started to use them as a sarcasm indicator. Now we're to the point where people can't even recognize them as indicating a direct quote.

tovej 17 minutes ago | parent

I think the parent was pointing out that Israel's or USA's claims are usually stated without quotes, such as:

Israel invades Lebanon due to risk of Hezbollah attacks

rather than:

Israel says "risk of Hezbollah attacks" reason for invasion

frereubu 7 minutes ago | parent

Are there good examples of this from the BBC? Genuine question - no snark intended.

sanderjd 7 minutes ago | parent

I'm unconvinced that this is a pattern that is distinguished by the nation being reported on. Headlines vary. Both of your example headlines might appear at different times in the outlets I read.

I think this was just a stylistic choice and that this whole thread is a weird tangent.

meowface 7 minutes ago | parent

I am not saying this is necessarily incorrect but is it empirically actually true. Have people compared lots of different articles.

vanschelven 1 hour ago | parent

Presumably to indicate that the parts in quotes are indeed quoted literally from the source that is mentioned in the same sentence?

nkoren 1 hour ago | parent

When I moved from the US to the UK, the use of quotation marks in news headlines was something that confused me. In the US, these would be "scare quote", with the quotation marks basically standing in for the words "so-called". In the UK, that is NOT their meaning. The quotation marks mean "we are not ourselves in a position to verify this, but it is the words that a source has told us". Very different meaning -- and once I got used to it, I think the UK use of language in this case is more honest and useful.

tl;dr: two countries, divided by a common language.

qw12kl 59 minutes ago | parent

Yes, it's odd that quotes are presumed to be ironic. US clankers though also use them for indicating literal text from the luser prompt.

gobip 58 minutes ago | parent

This is like this in most of Europe: when in "quotes", it is not the journalist, but the person who said something. For example, Obama said "Yes we can". He did not say yes we can, he said "Yes we can".

It is not about the quotes being verified or unverified. It is about something said by somebody, that you are reporting.

cake-rusk 23 minutes ago | parent

This is precisely what the word quote means!

shawnz 56 minutes ago | parent

Is it really a different meaning? Isn't the implication that they tried, and failed, to independently verify the claim?

petesergeant 37 minutes ago | parent

No, it's a statement of who is making the claim.

cynix 56 minutes ago | parent

Does “so-called” not mean “words that someone has told us”?

NDlurker 53 minutes ago | parent

Huh? That's how quotation marks are used here in the US too

jameshart 45 minutes ago | parent

It’s not so much ‘we are not in a position to verify’ as the fact that the person who said the thing, and what they said, is itself newsworthy.

If you’re reporting that “Government sources say Houthis have ‘taken control’ of an island” then the fact that government sources used the words ‘taken control’ is itself interesting.

The headlines “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Zelensky”, “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Putin”, and “Russia ‘will be defeated’ in Ukraine says Taylor Swift” all tell of vastly different news events.

joejohnson 1 hour ago | parent

The BBC only assumes government sources as truth when it's from the crown or Israeli / US governments

nayroclade 1 hour ago | parent

This is completely standard journalistic practice when reporting a quote on something that is currently contentious or unproven. For example, consider the two hypothetical headlines:

Activists decry police murder of protester

Activists decry police "murder" of protester

The first implies that the police murdering the protestor is an established fact. The second makes it clear that it is the activists who used the term "murder" rather than it being a non-contentious fact.

JoshTriplett 58 minutes ago | parent

In that case, that seems like a variation of the "past exonerative tense".

gowld 50 minutes ago | parent

Do you consider every trial defendant to be exonerated?

lkey 47 minutes ago | parent

Both versions are fancifully direct in our era a media+police stenography, try:

Mayor denounces "radical activists" rioting and damaging city property in response to an officer-involved incident that resulted in one fatal kinetic altercation with a "loud and provocatively dressed" man.

amiga386 32 minutes ago | parent

> officer-involved incident

Ah, the past exonerative tense. https://archive.is/wPVdy

Read McSweeney's guide to ambiguous grammar, where they lead you step by step from the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog to the ultimate say-nothing sentence speed was involved in a jumping-related incident while a fox was brown, and the punchline is you can then translate "the St Louis County Police Department was involved in an officer-involved shooting after officers came under heavy gunfire" to "a police officer shot a black person"

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-...

But no, that's the language issued by police departments covering their asses. Journalists are a little bit covering their asses in making clear what is a quote and what isn't, but they're still responsible for what they choose to quote, and to be clear on whether they have verified the claims they're quoting.

Ideally, unverified claims shouldn't even be in an article. But when there _has_ been some kind of stramash, they just don't know who did what, the need to rush out an article to get clicks means they'll just quote both sides and try to give them equal prominence until they can do more verification.

dylan604 22 minutes ago | parent

It doesn't help when snippets are post leaving out the other context clues where things like "according to" or "anonymous source stated" or similar attribute of the quote. Just putting words between quotation marks does not lead me to believe they were quotes if there is no attribution. Otherwise, it's a Trump level "people tell me" type of "quote".

bcjdjsndon 57 minutes ago | parent

It's because they been taken to court for mindlessly parroting shit they hear, but instead of actually verifying the truth of the claim (ya know, the entire purpose of a journalist) they just put it in quotes as some kind of "buyer beware" disclaimer

carlosjobim 39 minutes ago | parent

Journalism is just as much reporting what different influential people say, whether the underlying statement is true or not.

> actually verifying the truth

That's the job of the reader, not the journalist. Unless you're living under oppression. So you have misunderstood the purpose of reporting.

pessimizer 41 minutes ago | parent

It's a garbage habit that they've all fallen into. The quotes will fall away when future stories refer back to this story.

That single quoted phrase was set in the context of other words, and that context defined its meaning. We know this to an extent that almost no one could have imagined since LLMs have become a huge part of the world.

My favorite example of this is how no article in Britain during Corbyn's leadership of the labor party would ever quote an entire sentence that he had said. Thousands of articles, and the quotes were all fragmentary phrases and lone words framed in editorial.

edit: Brits and the BBC especially do this more than most, likely because of their bizarre libel laws (that were once even worse than they are now.)

littlecranky67 1 hour ago | parent

Will this bring oil prices down in Europe? Oil tankers could still go to the mediteranian via the suez canal. This will not help asia, but I can imagine if it is too dangerous the go through bab al-mandab strait it is more lucrative to sell the crude oil to europe at a discount?

alephnerd 1 hour ago | parent

> Will this bring oil prices down in Europe ... This will not help Asia

This hurts Europe more than Asia.

The UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, and others are similarly opposed to the Houthis having conducted airstrikes on the Houthis (eg. 2025) as well as helping target them directly or indirectly.

And a large portion of global shipping is owned by Greek conglomerates - a country that is a close ally of Israel.

Most GCC states also have some form of defense agreement with the UK or France. If those turn out to be meaningless, it reduces their incentive to cut preferential deals with European states.

Additionally, this further enhances Turkiye and Pakistan's hand, as Saudi Arabia has signed defense pacts with both and Pakistan has threatened action against Iran yesterday if further incidents threaten Saudi Arabia. If they were able to dislodge the Houthis without direct European intervention, then it is a massive black stain on the EU's power projection capacity and it's claim that it should be treated as a great power. It also gives Turkiye additional leverage against the EU.

Finally, the Houthis struck the East-West Pipeline [0]. Much of the KSA's oil is in Eastern Saudi Arabia around Dhahran. Most large Asian states like China, India, Japan, and South Korea have continued operations in Iran that allowed them continued passage. European states lack access to GCC oil as a result of Perim island being controlled by the Houthis.

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-rea...

eagleal 47 minutes ago | parent

Yeah the EU leadership has been really shortsighted on these past decades (especially since the 10s), especially in their strategic energy and industrial sectors.

Be it the Ukranian conflict, the ME crisis, the NA wars and instabilities, etc. The EU is the one that geopolitically speaking lost the most.

Unless they're full puppets for foreign interests, I simply do not understand how they could leave foreign actors to dictate policies that affect thier own territory and enterprises without any sort of critical thought.

But even then, they could not have possibly been all mere puppets. And yet.

markus_zhang 41 minutes ago | parent

I guess you only need maybe 20% of them to be puppets to mess around. It’s a lot easier to damage than to build.

alephnerd 41 minutes ago | parent

The issue was 1990s-2000s Germany argued it was in Europe's best interest to integrate Russia into the European fabric, but 1990s-2000s France+UK+Italy argued it was in Europe's best interest to integrate the Mediterranean into the European fabric.

When the UK left the EU and France+Italy were in the midst of their economic doldrums due to the Eurozone crisis, this left the hard power states within the EU comparatively weakened.

But the collapse of Minsk II and the ongoing war in the Middle East led to a cascading crisis for a unified Europe.

fabian2k 32 minutes ago | parent

It was cheaper, I don't think it's much more complex than that. And with fossil fuels, countries without significant local production are always dependent on someone else, with most potential suppliers being problematic in some way.

Of course we should have gone for renewable energy more forcefully, but that wouldn't have resolved the issue. That change will take time, and you can't arbitrarily accelerate it.

Tuna-Fish 27 minutes ago | parent

Aren't those really easy to explain?

EU opposes the Houthis because they are a horrifying slave state that distributes children as sex slaves to their troops.

EU opposes Russia because it is a horrifying fascist dictatorship that has repeatedly invaded it's neighbors, and constantly talks about it's historical claims to EU territory.

In the NA conflicts it's harder to draw such a clear line, because the conflicts typically have about 15 sides each, but the basic algorithm you can use is generally that EU tries very hard to pick sides based on morality, not geopolitical interests.

eagleal 12 minutes ago | parent

Those can be said for other economic partners that are being used so no. That's not it, that's just rhetoric for the masses. _You'll here the same thing tomorrow, after I say the complete opposite today._

gib444 17 minutes ago | parent

> Unless they're full puppets for foreign interests

It's an open secret that Russian money is deep, deep in European politics.

throwaway198846 24 minutes ago | parent

> Japan, and South Korea have continued operations in Iran that allowed them continued passage.

1.How do they pay Iran considering the sanctions? 2.Do you think EU shouldn't sanction Iran even though they violated NNPT and their terrible record on human rights because Iran can threaten them with a sufficient price?

> a country that is a close ally of Israel

Are they? They never sent a single weapon or soldier to help israel, they have no formal or informal mutual defense agreement. Israel buy no military equipment from Greece. You mistake mutual interest because of a common enemy - Turkey to close alliance.

alephnerd 18 minutes ago | parent

1. Waivers, state owned enterprises, shell corporations, barter trades, and using their own currencies for transactions

2. I agree. I'm just being prosaic as to why European states are in the pickle they are today.

3. They are closely entwined via logistics, but Cyprus would be an even closer Israel-Cyprus ties. The reality is, the Saudi-Turkiye-Kuwait-Pakistan alliance is a direct reaction to the Israel-Greece-Cyprus-UAE-India cooperation or the now signed Israel-Greece-Cyprus trilateral.

throwaway198846 7 minutes ago | parent

I see, thank you for the prompt response, I think calling them close allies is overstating it.

briffle 1 hour ago | parent

most large tankers are too large for both the Suez and Panama Canals.

sonotathrowaway 49 minutes ago | parent

There are tankers built specifically for the Suez Canal

computomatic 35 minutes ago | parent

Suezmax tankers, panamax, etc. Anything bigger needs to go around

estearum 10 minutes ago | parent

Which are already being used to transit the Suez Canal.

jonplackett 55 minutes ago | parent

This is part of the Houthis preventing Saudi Arabia from exporting any oil at all. So no I don’t think it’s gonna make oil lower. Higher probably. But oil is doing very weird things.

markvdb 31 minutes ago | parent

No. A cynic might think a significant part of this half-arsed Iran war was:

- make sure fuel prices increase globally

- The US economy is relatively well-shielded from the fallout by its own fossil fuel sources, local and in colonies like Venezuela.

- export more US fossil fuels, especially to Europe, at inflated prices. US insiders reap the profits.

- further kneecap European competitiveness in energy intensive sectors, steal market share. Oh well, small gift to China here too, but still a net win for the US.

watwut 28 minutes ago | parent

I just dont think these guy are even capable to plan that much.

p-e-w 26 minutes ago | parent

Then you probably believe that the US government only consists of the half dozen clowns you see on TV every day.

discreteevent 19 minutes ago | parent

That's the point this time around. They went full authoritarian and purged all the competent people.

Art9681 3 minutes ago | parent

That's just the media noise. Yea there were purges. But its a big leap to go from "some" to "all" the best people. Government is the largest employer in the country. The nonsense you see constantly by politicians and other leaders is a tiny fraction of what the government workforce is. This is why despite the chaos you see in the media, life hasn't changed much for the great majority of people all things considered. The government remains functional where it needs to be.

estearum 13 minutes ago | parent

Someone hasn't been paying attention to the Pentagon or State Department purges, both of which would lead precisely to this type of mistake.

We had a retard in the Oval Office 2017-2021 surrounded by "the deep state" (i.e. career managers of the ultra-complex organization called "the government"), and politically constrained by Congress.

Now we have that same retard, but supported by vast purges of aforementioned managers, and politically unconstrained by the cultists and cowards (the two forms of GOP representative) in Congress.

fofoz 9 minutes ago | parent

We have no doubt that the best people are in US government and that they have the best tools at their disposal. Around the world, we are simply trying to figure out, while munching on plenty of popcorn, how this incredible sequence of actions will play out; a sequence clearly crafted using highly complex strategic planning tools that employ the most advanced techniques from game theory, AI, and who knows what else.

galangalalgol 7 minutes ago | parent

If you think so little of them, then imagine what the people who pay $5M for a meal with him can convince him to do. Or what people who pay his son-in-law/iran-negotiator 25M a year can call and ask him to do.

hebelehubele 28 minutes ago | parent

The US sells oil and refined products to other countries. So a supply crunch would raise prices even there too. Everyday Americans are not getting fuel for cheap.

toyg 25 minutes ago | parent

Nobody cares about everyday Americans, it's about American corporations. Exxon and friends are printing money.

EGreg 26 minutes ago | parent

This was clearly a secret attempt of Trump's to be the world's best president for getting off fossil fuels and moving to renewables. The man is playing 7 dimensional chess bro!

When all is said and done it will be he, not AOC or Bernie or any "Green New Deal" folks, that will be remembered by history as the president who did more to get people off fossil fuels than any other.

fofoz 18 minutes ago | parent

He's so clever that he's probably even playing chess in a Hilbert space. The whole world envies American voters, who will receive $5,000 if they re-elect this incredible genius.

EGreg 14 minutes ago | parent

I think the "stable" in stable genius actually refers to the points of stability under transformations. Brower's fixed point theorem. Do your own research!

27183 7 minutes ago | parent

I heard if you inject yourself with bleach you can perceive the higher dimensions. Many people say this.

noelsusman 18 minutes ago | parent

It's nice to think there was some sort of plan, but the truth is much scarier.

postsantum 2 minutes ago | parent

>some sort of plan

George Friedman, The Next Decade

Al-Khwarizmi 13 minutes ago | parent

Sure, if you make oil prices increase, US oil companies and their shareholders rake in more cash. But it's harmful for the average American because filling up the tank costs a lot more. Then that price hike spreads to everything else that relies on oil (which is pretty much everything) leading to inflation and rising interest rates (already starting to happen, the shielding you mention doesn't seem to be working, which makes sense in a relatively free-market economy). If the situation drags on, unemployment rises due to soaring costs across the board, and the economy goes to hell.

A rise in crude prices might pay off for a small country that lives almost exclusively off it (say, Saudi Arabia, in the hyphotetical case that it could keep exporting as normal) but for the US? I don't think it does. Surely, Europe is more exposed than the US and will suffer even more, but this is not a zero-sum game.

So I don't think it's an elaborate plan, it's just Trump being reckless as usual.

epolanski 8 minutes ago | parent

You're missing a key part: energy prices in US go up too. It doesn't matter if US and its colonies are net producers.

Art9681 7 minutes ago | parent

Realpolitik might just be the best way to do things after all.

skeeter2020 15 minutes ago | parent

I've never seen oil prices decrease due to any regional disruption; the market is global. If the price in Alberta went up when the Straight closed, I wouldn't hold my breathe for Europe in this scenario.

epolanski 9 minutes ago | parent

Oil is sold globally.

It doesn't matter if in Texas wells are producing it at a penny for barrel, if the global prices are high that oil is going to be sold to Philippinos, Japanese, Italians or South Africans.

So, at the same time, it doesn't matter if some new routes open or close, it doesn't particularly favor one or the other buyer, it's still sold globally on a bid.

danans 8 minutes ago | parent

> if it is too dangerous the go through bab al-mandab strait it is more lucrative to sell the crude oil to europe at a discount?

I suspect they would sooner curtail production rather then sell at a discount due to route restrictions.

talon8635 6 minutes ago | parent

Aren’t these groups working with, no against, China?

And against, not with, Western Europe?

So being prices down where, in eastern Europe?

jcranmer 4 minutes ago | parent

VLCCs are too large to fit through the Suez Canal. I don't know how much of Saudi export is using VLCCs versus Suezmax or smaller tankers, but I've heard that much of the Red Sea oil export is currently going through Bab al-Mandab, not that I have a source on hand.

newsclues 1 hour ago | parent

I find it curious that this is at the top of hacker news not this… https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/anthropic-say...

muddi900 55 minutes ago | parent

I guess we know why OpenAI and Claude went down at the same time.

qw12kl 49 minutes ago | parent

So Misanthropic is violating US export regulations. Off to prison with torrent-thief Amodei.

ActionHank 48 minutes ago | parent

Why is this noteworthy? If it's commercially available online it is reasonable to assume your enemies have access to it.

gowld 47 minutes ago | parent

Updated Sept. 11, 2026 9:49 am ET is less than 30 minutes ago

shagie 44 minutes ago | parent

Because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49658682 wasn't posted until 8 minutes after your comment.

strictnein 44 minutes ago | parent

The report was discussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49647300

pknerd 24 minutes ago | parent

Trump has decided that he'd sink along with the entire Middle east

criddell 6 minutes ago | parent

What makes you think this, out of the non-stop parade of Trump crazy bullshit, is the issue that will finally sink him?

softwaredoug 2 minutes ago | parent

My understanding is we haven’t gotten to full Hormuz apocalypse mode because the Chinese have a ton of stockpiles. And the Red Sea has been an option.

Those conditions seem to be changing.