THE NEWS

Record-Low Rhine Levels Disrupt Raw Material Flows To Europe’s Largest Steelmaking Plant

Thyssenkrupp’s steelmaking plant in Duisburg, Germany, is facing disruptions to raw material supplies as a “persistent and worsening low-water situation” restricts barge traffic on the Rhine River. Navigable depths along parts of this critical waterway have fallen to record lows, threatening to curb German economic growth just as the country begins to show signs of recovery.

Bloomberg cited a statement from Thyssenkrupp saying, “The persistent and worsening low-water situation is now affecting the supply of raw materials” to the Duisburg facility. The company added that it has chartered external vessels capable of operating at lower water levels, after suspending its own push-barge operations.

Germany’s inland navigation agency WSV reported that the navigable depth at the Kaub chokepoint near Koblenz fell to just 15 centimeters on Tuesday, breaking the previous record low of 25 centimeters.

The river’s actual depth is roughly one meter greater than the navigable reading, but conditions have become too shallow for most commercial cargo operations.

Burg Pfalz-Grafenstein bei Kaub am Mittelrheintal am 2.8.2026.
Der #Pegel des Rheins liegt aktuell bei 16 cm und soll noch diese Woche einstellig werden.
Bild 3 Loreley Flussabwärts.
Mit der Einstellung des Schiffsverkehrs ab Köln wird fest gerechnet. pic.twitter.com/QUrYhF6EtG
— WernerH777 (@H777Werner) August 10, 2026
“Commercial sailings through Kaub have basically stopped; it is no longer possible to book cargo shipments on the Rhine past Kaub today,” one commodity trader told Reuters. “Some vessels south of Kaub face being trapped.”

The trader added, “There is no actual rule on when sailings at Kaub should stop because of low water, so you could see a couple of empty vessels risking it, but most sailings there have stopped.”

Ongoing heatwaves and limited rainfall have forced cargo vessels to operate at roughly 20% of capacity, sharply increasing transportation costs on the waterway. Freight is being diverted to trucks as analysts warn these disruptions and higher costs could dent German economic growth.

UBS analyst Felix Huefner told clients on Tuesday to expect “modest and temporary hit to growth” in the third quarter because of the Rhine disruptions to commodity flows:

Rhine water levels: Disruptions, but likely temporary

Water levels at Kaub, the Rhine’s key shipping bottleneck, recently fell to a record low.

Reportedly, cargo ships are currently only 20% full and in response several German states are now allowing trucks to drive on Sundays to ease the transport bottleneck.

While inland waterway transport accounts for just c.4% of goods transport in Germany, the Rhine is particularly important for transporting energy products, chemicals and industrial inputs. Historical evidence from 2018 suggests that low water levels can weigh on GDP.

In Q3 2018, GDP growth was dampened by 10-20bp according to estimates. While water levels are lower today compared to history, firms have increasingly adapted through alternative transport routes and lighter vessels as our equity analyst colleagues report for the chemical sector.

So far, business sentiment indicators for the most affected sectors have given conflicting signals: while the chemical and petroleum/refining sectors reported weaker current activity in the July ifo index, the freight transport component improved markedly.

Overall, we expect only a modest and temporary hit to growth, concentrated in Q3 and largely reversed once water transport normalises.

The Rhine disruption comes as Europe confronts twin diesel and natural gas crunches, a combination that Goldman commodities analyst Samantha Dart recently identified as a key risk keeping her up at night (read the full report).

Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/12/2026 – 02:45

North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the East Sea on Wednesday, the militaries of Seoul and Tokyo said, its second such launch in less than a week.

A cargoship and containership have been hit in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman as the war inflicts a toll on the world’s critical shipping lanes.

British Youth Taught To Chant ‘Our Country Is An Arab Country’ At Pro-Gaza Camp

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,

More than 100 young people gathered in the English countryside for what organisers called a summer school. Instead of hiking and games, they were led in Arabic chants calling for victory over Zionism and declaring “our country is an Arab country.”

Footage of the event, later posted by the organisers themselves, has forced a public investigation and raised serious questions about what is being allowed to take place on British soil under the banner of “youth education.”

The four-day residential, organised by Palestinian Youth Movement Britain, took place at the Youth Hostel Association’s Edale Activity Centre in the Peak District over the late May bank holiday.

British children taught to sing ‘our country is an Arab country’ at pro-Gaza summer camphttps://t.co/n9WcsC0ggi
— GB News (@GBNEWS) August 8, 2026
Participants recited anti-Israel slogans and discussed the “next phase of our national liberation struggle.”

Classroom sessions featured lectures on Ghassan Kanafani, the former spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.

A banner in Arabic declared “Our revolution is for victory.”

In videos shared by the group, a woman leads the attendees in chants that include “We will crush Zionism” and “Young people, rise up, our revolution is an Arab revolution.”

“We will crush Zionism.”
“Young people, rise up, our revolution is an Arab revolution.”
Children attending a Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) summer camp shouted these chants in footage posted to the organisation’s Instagram account.
During the four-day summer camp, which… pic.twitter.com/FLhmgiGpK1
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) August 5, 2026
One version captured by The Telegraph translates as: “We will have victory over Zionism, we will return, young people rise up, our country is an Arab country.”

The same organisation later organised a community football tournament in North Kensington. Photographs showed children wearing shirts numbered 7 and 10, widely interpreted as a reference to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

An organiser appeared in a shirt bearing the number 40 and the slogan “The future is decolonial.”

Palestinian Youth Movement Britain describes itself as a grassroots movement organising Palestinian and Arab youth “to struggle for Palestinian liberation.”

Its own Instagram post about the Peak District gathering stated: “Together we discussed what the last two years have looked like in our region, and our role as diaspora youth in the next phase of our national liberation struggle.”

The event mixed political and historical sessions with a hike and a cultural night of “revolutionary songs and poetry.”

The Youth Hostel Association has opened an investigation. A spokesman confirmed the booking was private and that YHA “was not involved in organising, delivering or supervising the group’s programme or activities.”

The organisation stated: “We are aware of the concerns raised regarding footage reportedly recorded during the group’s stay. The views or activities of private groups using our facilities do not represent YHA’s views or values. YHA is committed to providing welcoming, inclusive, and respectful spaces for everyone. We are actively investigating the circumstances surrounding this booking, including whether any of our terms and conditions or policies may have been breached. We will consider any appropriate action once that review has been completed.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism has written to the Charity Commission. The group said: “British summer camps should be places where children build friendships, not where they are exposed to political indoctrination and extremist ideology. Encouraging children to chant slogans calling for the destruction of Zionism is fundamentally at odds with the values of tolerance and mutual respect.”

Heidi Bachram, whose family members were murdered and taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October, responded: “It is deeply chilling to see young people in the UK being programmed to hate and inspired by terrorists. Our family was murdered in Israel by those who act on this violent ideology. I fear where this will lead. We need urgent action to stop this vile brainwashing and shut these organisations down.”

The Peak District episode is not an isolated curiosity. It sits against a backdrop of rising concern that parts of Britain’s diaspora activism have shifted from protest into the systematic transmission of rejectionist ideology to the next generation.

When young people in the heart of England are taught to chant that “our country is an Arab country” and to celebrate figures linked to designated terrorist groups, the question is no longer whether something has gone wrong.

The question is how long authorities will continue treating it as someone else’s problem.

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Tyler Durden
Wed, 08/12/2026 – 02:00

The race for the Democratic nomination for Wisconsin’s governor between Francesca Hong and David Crowley was too close to call early Wednesday

Oil prices rose on Wednesday after deadly attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman heightened concerns over risks to global shipping routes.

A cargoship and containership have been hit in the Red Sea and Gulf of Oman as the war inflicts a toll on the world’s critical shipping lanes.

Investors are bracing for an important inflation report that could determine the near-term direction for interest rates.

Koray Kavukcuoglu is taking charge of Google DeepMind as it tries to keep Gemini competitive with OpenAI and Anthropic.

The Japanese yen has erased about half of the gains from an unprecedented U.S.-Japan intervention less than two weeks ago.