1. Cargo in crosshairs
2. Doha attracts Calif. VC
3. Mubadala eyes India
4. Events on the ropes
5. FlyDubai’s possible lawsuits

Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba on how to make friends in Washington.

Hormuz becomes more violent

Two Emirati cargo ships sank in the Strait of Hormuz as Iran stepped up attacks on traffic through the narrow waterway and Yemen’s Houthis vowed further strikes against airports and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia. October is shaping up to be one of the most violent months for shipping traffic since the war began, as the battle over control of the Strait of Hormuz intensifies after weeks of rising tanker movements.

US President Donald Trump has so far resisted deepening military engagement in either conflict, but is considering using the “mother of all bombs” against Iran, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia continued, with Saudi authorities claiming interceptions of missiles and drones heading toward Medina, Riyadh, and the Eastern Province where Aramco is based. Saudi airlines also relocated planes away from the airport in Riyadh, which ceased operations after being hit multiple times by the Houthis over the weekend.

— Matthew Martin

QIA lures from the Bay Area

US venture capital firm Activate Capital will open its first office outside the US in Doha as Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund expands its effort to make the country a hub for tech and startup investors through its $3 billion Fund of Funds platform. Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) put in an undisclosed sum to become a limited partner in Activate as part of the deal, and will help the San Francisco-based growth equity firm bring some of its portfolio companies into the region.

QIA’s backing of venture firms represents a small fraction of the $580 billion fund, but is part of a broader strategy to develop the local economy and get access to emerging managers with the potential to deliver outsize returns. Once these managers are on the ground in Doha, many are investing more than they originally planned to, Haya Al Ghanim, Qatar funds director at QIA, told Semafor.

— Kelsey Warner and Matthew Martin

Mubadala prices in a split world

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala sees India as increasingly vital in the emerging world order. Global fragmentation is “a new normal for the next five, 10, or 15 years,” Deputy Group CEO Waleed Al Muhairi said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi this week.

That conviction is guiding the $385 billion Abu Dhabi fund on its investment decisions. India is “increasingly important for our capital,” Al Muhairi said, citing its market size and “massive infrastructure program” that is driving tens of billions of dollars of investment into the world’s most populous country. Asia-Pacific is still a small share of Mubadala’s portfolio, making up 13% of its holdings, against 44% for North America. But Abu Dhabi’s ties with New Delhi are already deep: UAE-India trade topped $100 billion for a second straight year in the 12 months to March and the two countries are looking to double that figure by 2032.

Conference season paused, again

Lanyard season in the Gulf is starting off with a whimper. The Future Investment Initiative, dubbed “Davos in the desert,” plans to go hybrid this month, with executives who still fly in expected to land outside Riyadh. Misk Global Forum, a youth conference run by the crown prince’s foundation, is off, and the Six Kings Slam, the Netflix tennis exhibition due to open Riyadh Season next week, moved to late December.

Events, from the mega to the quotidian, are meant to create demand for the gleaming new airports, hotels, and tourist attractions across the Gulf. To give a sense of the money on the table, Informa, the UK group that brings hundreds of thousands of visitors to Gulf trade shows, postponed 15 events at the start of the war, otherwise expected to draw $175 million in revenue.

— Manal Albarakati

FlyDubai passengers mull lawsuit

Passengers on the Dubai-Tel Aviv flight nearly hijacked last month are reportedly planning to sue the airline as new details emerge about the pilot. Around 100 of the 174 on board are consulting lawyers about compensation claims against FlyDubai, according to Calcalist.

The pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, born in the UAE to an Omani father and Syrian mother, was a failed crypto speculator who, four years ago, lived with his parents in Muscat and posted a stream of misogynist, “manosphere”-style content on a since-deleted X account, the Financial Times reported.

UAE Attorney General Hamad Saif al-Shamsi said the 29-year-old was inspired by the 9/11 attacks and was radicalized while studying in Australia — the imam in the mosque he allegedly frequented denied the claim. According to investigators, al-Hammami flew to Tel Aviv twice to scout the route and airport, and had trained in boxing with a private coach ahead of his fight for control of the plane, according to The National.

Behind closed doors, a new era of healthcare policy is taking shape. With US healthcare spending projected to hit $9 trillion annually by 2034, Medicaid cuts hanging in the balance ahead of the midterms, and increasing calls for regulation of clinical AI, the forces remaking healthcare policy are accelerating.

Introducing Healthcare from Semafor Washington, DC, your weekly briefing on the politics, policy, and business driving the industry. Delivered every Thursday from David Lim, each edition will provide essential reporting and analysis on the forces reshaping healthcare, and what comes next. Sign up to receive the first edition today.

Aviation

• Qatar Airways signed its first Japanese leasing deal, financing three Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners with Tokyo-based JP Lease Products & Services and HSBC, the first of three planned transactions covering seven aircraft.

Energy

• The UAE pumped a record 5.3 million barrels of oil a day in September, up 400,000 barrels from August, according to the International Energy Agency. ADNOC has been able to boost exports by sending its own tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, and, along with Saudi Arabia, has helped Gulf oil flows to recover to more than 75% of pre-war levels. — Bloomberg

Logistics

• Abu Dhabi-listed Agility is selling its fuel logistics firm Tristar to India’s Aegis Logistics at a $1.5 billion enterprise value, 23 years after buying it for $7 million. In that time, it grew from a Dubai trucking outfit into an energy logistics operator in 30 countries.

Technology

• Nasdaq-listed GlobalFoundries, which is majority owned by Mubadala Investment Company, plans to build two new chip plants with as much as $21 billion from the Japanese government, part of an arrangement that also includes the US taking a 4% stake in the company. — Bloomberg

Paying homage to the ancient craft of Arab storytellers, we bring you the highlights from the region’s top podcasts.

It’s well short of eavesdropping at Georgetown’s Café Milano, but UAE Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba’s first podcast interview does reveal something of one of Washington’s most effective diplomats. Speaking to Mubadala’s Brian Lott in the fund’s New York office, he said that when he first took up his post nearly 20 years ago, “my job was to make sure something like a Dubai Ports World didn’t happen again,” referring to the uproar over DP World’s ultimately scrapped US ports deal. Al Otaiba’s strategy: “The more engagement, the more exposure, the healthier our relationship will be,” he said. From the creation of the Mubadala-AMD chipmaker GlobalFoundries in upstate New York, to the arrival of NYU and Warner Bros. outposts in Abu Dhabi, those milestones have made his job, he said, a bit easier.