Russia suspended its participation in the grain and other agricultural products export deal from Ukraine after a swarm of drones targeted at least one Russian warship.

Following the attack, Moscow immediately suspended its compliance with the deal, known as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was formed in July and ended a five-month Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports. The United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal, allowing safe passage for cargo ships in and out of Ukraine’s ports to haul farm goods worldwide. The deal was set to expire on Nov. 19. 

According to Reuters, here’s what the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement about the “massive” drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol: 

“Taking into account… the terrorist act by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against the ships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian vessels involved in ensuring the security of the “grain corridor,” the Russian side suspends participation in the implementation of agreements on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said earlier that the drone attacks on Saturday were largely repelled, with minor damage to a Russian minesweeper.

The ministry then described the “terrorist attack”: 

“In the course of repelling a terrorist attack on the outer roadstead of Sevastopol, the use of naval weapons and naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed four marine unmanned vehicles, three more devices were destroyed on the internal roadstead,” the statement continued. 

***UPDATE***

Now beyond any reasonable doubt that the type of surface drones used by #Ukraine to attack Russian Navy in Sevastopol today were same as one previous found near the base. #OSINT

Reference https://t.co/vpJFzEniD6
And https://t.co/YWqnJzWTqc pic.twitter.com/bX0vZvC1Hk

— H I Sutton (@CovertShores) October 29, 2022

Here are alleged videos of the attack. 

#Ukraine: Remarkable video of today’s attack on the Russian Sevastopol Naval Base.
Ukrainian Uncrewed Surface Vessels (Drone boats filled with explosives) apparently managed to hit a Project 11356R frigate (presumably Admiral Makarov) & the Ivan Golubets Project 266M minesweeper. pic.twitter.com/6nJVkwvgKW

— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) October 29, 2022

Unbelievable footage from one of the marine drones used in the attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol.

(Via Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko)

Full story: https://t.co/YdtcFELiSy pic.twitter.com/Nw5YbHeQMU

— James Waterhouse (@JamWaterhouse) October 29, 2022

Massive drone attack in temporarily occupied Sevastopol. Local channels confirm damage to the frigate Admiral Makarov. Looks like Makarov might eventually follow cruiser Moskva. pic.twitter.com/AhrYF7xoVL

— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) October 29, 2022

NYT reported the UN has been in contact with Russian officials regarding the comments from the Russian Defense Ministry about suspending participation in the deal.

“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” Stéphane Dujarric de la Rivière, the spokesman for António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said.

In recent weeks, we pointed out Russia was already on the fence about extending the grain deal unless Moscow’s demands over its own ag exports were met. 

The reversal of the agreement could result in limit-up grain futures Sunday evening. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, warned that Russia would try to get out of the deal. He tweeted: 

“Now Moscow uses a false pretext to block the grain corridor which ensures food security for millions of people. I call on all states to demand Russia to stop its hunger games and recommit to its obligations.”

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday asked Russia and Ukraine to extend the grain deal, but now that appears not to be the case, and global food shortage fears are going to make a comeback in the headlines.  

Via The Epoch Times,

Data released by the city of Seattle reveals that homeless encampments are seeing a significant percentage of shots fired in 2022.

According to the latest update from the One Seattle Homelessness Action Plan, nearly 20 percent of all citywide shootings/shots fired through September were connected to an unauthorized encampment or a homeless person.

Out of 573 reports of shootings and shots fired, the city states that 101 reports were in connection to homelessness. That represents about 18 percent of total cases being near encampments throughout Seattle.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said in a statement that the 101 reports represent an average of three shots fired per week in connection to homeless camps.

The King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s “Partnership for Zero Campaign” is a collaboration of city officials to find solutions to homelessness. Its initial focus is in Downtown Seattle and the Chinatown International-District.

Felicia Salcedo, the executive director of We Are In, previously stated that the two districts represent the largest concentration of the homeless in King County.

Out of the 573 reports of shootings and shots fired through the first nine months of the year, 61 occurred in the Downtown and Chinatown districts combined, according to the Seattle Police Department’s crime dashboard. That represents 10 percent of the total number of cases of shootings and shots fired throughout the city.

Earlier in October, Seattle announced an emergency operations center was up and running. It is located in the heart of the Chinatown District where tents are visibly prominent.

Marc Dones, the CEO of the authority, said the command center has already identified over 300 units of available housing and to date has engaged with over 650 people in need.

By John Kingston of FreightWaves

East Coast retail diesel prices are soaring relative to the rest of the country, propelled by inventories in the region that are almost half of what they normally should be at this time of year.

Retail prices recorded in the DTS data series in SONAR tell the story of how much diesel has surged. On Sept. 16, retail diesel in Allentown, Pennsylvania, a major logistics center, was $5.116 a gallon, while the Houston price was $4.513 a gallon, a spread of just over 60 cents. On Oct. 15, Allentown was $5.663 a gallon while Houston was $4.70, a 96.3 cent gap. By Thursday, Allentown was at $6.028 a gallon and Houston was $4.70 a gallon, a spread of $1.328 a gallon. 

The East Coast price blowout has been propelled largely by the tight inventory situation in what is known as PADD 1, the Department of Energy’s designation for that region.

Weekly statistical data reported by the EIA this week had PADD 1 inventories of ultra low sulfur diesel at 21.3 million barrels for the week ended Oct. 21, a more than 7% decline in just one week. But more striking was the fact that those inventories are 56.5% of the five-year average for the corresponding October weeks, excluding the pandemic-influenced data from 2020. 

By contrast, national inventories for all distillates, which are not broken down by specific grades, are running about 80-81% of the five-year average, and that is considered extremely tight by analysts.

Tight supplies on the East Coast were also driven home this week by a Supply Alert published by Mansfield Oil Co., a leading supplier of wholesale fuels to the East Coast and other parts of the country.

Mansfield, in a Supply Alert published Tuesday, said it was moving to a Level 4 alert on diesel supplies. It was not immediately clear what happens at Level 4, though it is less severe than the Level 5 alert it had implemented for Hurricane Ian. An email sent to Mansfield had not been responded to at publication time. 

The Supply Alert also said it was moving the Southeast region to Code Red. Under Code Red, the company is requesting a “72 hour notice for deliveries when possible to ensure fuel and freight can be secured at economical levels.” The step below that, which was implemented for parts of the country during Ian, is Code Orange, requesting a 48-hour window.

The data on the East Coast supply squeeze is visible in other indicators. For example, data provided to FreightWaves by a third party shows that the spread between Brent crude and ultra low sulfur diesel delivered via pipeline in Linden, New Jersey, published by S&P Global Commodity Insights, which houses its Platts operations, recently has been near $85 to $87 per barrel. But that is down from just a week ago when it broke past $100 for three consecutive days. A month ago, it was around $50 a barrel. 

Other price data, befitting a market in such turmoil, is all over the place. For example, Pilot Flying J publishes a downloadable spreadsheet of the retail prices throughout the entire 830-plus outlet system. And while prices there do show the East Coast significantly higher than the Gulf Coast, the spreads are hardly consistent.

For example, as of Friday morning, the Pilot Flying J outlet in Pasadena, Texas, a Houston suburb, was showing a price of $5.199 a gallon. But in Staunton, Virginia, along Interstate 81, a key north-south route on the East Coast, prices were only 20 cents more than that. Head on up 81 a little farther to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and a gallon of diesel would put you back almost $6.40.

The weekly Energy Information Administration data is showing little difference between the East Coast and the full country, just $5.341 a gallon nationally versus $5.379 a gallon on the East Coast, as of Monday. The East Coast numbers are embedded in the national number.

But the spread with the Gulf Coast most recently was 39.2 cents a gallon, with the Gulf still below $5 at $4.987 a gallon. That almost 40-cent spread isn’t even the highest this year; it was well over 60 cents during a similar East Coast squeeze in May. 

With those kinds of margins, East Coast refiners — a dwindling breed — are rushing to take advantage of it — those that are left.

PADD 1 refiners ran at 102.5% of capacity in the week ended Oct. 21, the EIA said, a statistical quirk as refiners find ways to exceed their nameplate capacity. However, it is generally viewed as not sustainable for lengthy periods of time.

But that 100%-plus rate is just recent; normal levels of fall maintenance pushed that utilization rate between 85% and 90% for five weeks beginning in mid-September. 

It is also against a base capacity estimated by the EIA of 818,000 barrels per day, down from 1.22 million barrels a day through mid-2020. But the region has been hit with several refinery closures in recent years, the most notable being the giant Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery, which closed several months after a 2019 fire. That took 335,000 barrels a day of refining capacity off the East Coast market.

Not counted in the EIA figures for the East Coast is the closure of the Come-by-Chance refinery in Canada’s Newfoundland province in 2020. It is being replaced by a renewable diesel facility that will produce 18,000 barrels a day of that product, which can be consumed in diesel engines without any further processing. But if the 133,000 barrels a day refinery produced one-third diesel, which is a rough estimate for most refineries, that’s still a loss of almost 30,000 barrels a day of diesel supply on the East Coast.

The facility to replace Come-by-Chance is called Braya Renewable Fuels, and it isn’t in commercial operation yet. 

The irony in the tight market is that there are some signs of declining demand. The EIA’s most recent figure for Product Supplied, its proxy for demand, showed all distillate consumption in the week ending Oct. 21 at 3.87 million barrels a day. That is the first week less than 4 million barrels a day in four weeks, though demand had been less than that 4 million figure for 24 out of 25 weeks prior to that. 

But EIA data generally has the third week of October in excess of 4 million barrels a day, as it comes in the middle of harvest season and consumers who use heating oil filling their tanks in anticipation of winter. Heating oil, like diesel, is a distillate and weekly data does not break down different types of fuel in the Product Supplied number. 

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

So, Elon Musk completed his purchase of Twitter and the pink slips are flying. From the C-Suite to the CS desk in a few weeks Twitter will cease to be the company we’ve all loved to hate delivering a product we hated to love.

From the beginning of this saga I maintained that it didn’t matter in the end if Musk prevailed or not. What was important was his ripping the duct tape off the hairy ass of the ridiculous double standard at work.

Every stupid argument you’ve heard justifying Twitter’s behavior was invalidated during Musk’s six month quest to overpay for one of the biggest pillars of the control engine operated by the patriarchy oligarchy.

From the moment that Musk made his initial overture to his walking in and firing the leadership, this story has been equal parts hilarious and thrilling.

First, Musk makes an offer the Twitter board can’t refuse without incriminating themselves, which puts to the test all the academic poison pill theories about how to defend against a hostile takeover.

As always, academic bullshit failed the real world sniff test.

You know kinda like what’s in the process of happening to the ultimate academic egghead Klaus von Commie Schnitzel and his moronic Great Reset.

Second he outed every bit of Twitter’s leadership and middle management as a feckless bunch of Davos trolls with layers of plausible deniability who never thought they would ever get caught. And then Pieter Zatko entered the conversation, blowing up the idea that Twitter’s censorship was just rogue purple hairs revealing brown shirts underneath their playful exterior.

But that doesn’t cover the half of it. The reality is that it wasn’t some evil mandated corporate conspiracy, but rather a poorly-built internal architecture which was purposefully allowed to remain broken for plausible deniability purposes.

“ALL THAT TWITTERS IS NOT FAIRY DUST”

Ooops..

Because no one ever thought that Musk would turn his corporatist bribes, I mean Tesla shares, into weapons of mass formation psychosis destruction. Really? No one could see this coming? Then again this is the same media that can’t see anything that isn’t scrolling up the teleprompter.

Lastly, he called everyone’s bluff and just said, “Screw it, it’s just money.” And he’s more right than you can ever really imagine. Because the rise and fall of Woke Twitter is a harbinger of things to come now that Outside Money is getting its revenge against the depredations of Inside Money.

When civilization breaks down, legal claims tend towards zero value. Civilization breaks down through the systemic subversion of the agreed upon rules to the advantage of some at the expense of the other.

And what bigger subversion of the rule, “thou shalt not steal” could there be than a debt-based Ponzi scheme of inside money being used to suck up legal claims to most of the world’s valuable resources while actively suppressing the value of the competing outside money to defend people’s claims to it?

THE INS AND OUTS OF WHOSE MONEY IS IT, ANYWAY?

What the credit bubble giveth on the way up — empowering billionaire Satanists to providing welfare jobs to harpy millennial chicks and the soyboys who simp for them — taketh away twice as fast on the way down.

What was that about Elon top-ticking Tesla again for FU Money?

I have to believe that part of Musk’s decision to finally just buy Twitter despite the fictitious valuation (and userbase) was the grief he got publicly for going against the war orthodoxy of the collective West (and specifically Davos’ enforcement of a single point of view) over, of all things, using Twitter to engage in discussion about what the outcome in Ukraine should look like.

I guess advocating for peace and to stop angry Slavs from murdering each other is no longer a core “European value.”

Actually, now that I type that out, it never was.

Musk could have dragged this out for months and proven in court that Twitter was a cesspit. But, we’re edging closer to a point of no return over Ukraine; a point we are being railroaded towards by psychopaths and solipsistic assholes who never met a dead member of the hoi polloi, especially of the wrong ethnicity, they didn’t give a second thought to.

And note which entity at the last tried to stop his taking over Twitter, the “Biden” White House who tried to claim it was a National Security issue.

For fucks’ sake.

All these Davos ninnies can do now is talk about the EU’s rules for hate speech. The shakedown and the finger-wagging has already begun. It’s important to remember that free speech in the US is a matter of law. In Europe so is hate speech.

So, Europe is now testing another academic idea in the real world. Can they dictate to the world their speech rules to an international company and force everyone onto its standard?

Of course it will fail, but that’s exactly what this tired EU apparatchik believes he can do.

I hate to break it to Thierry, Musk can and will just hive Europe off on its own servers with their own sanitized feeds and see how long the EU can maintain control over that. The technology is simple the only thing missing previously was the will to implement it.

So, if Europe doesn’t want to participate in open dialogue with the rest of humanity, they are free not to do so.

Say hello to North Korea for me, Thierry.

I mean for pity’s sake even Vladimir Putin is laughing at us and our fragile widdle egos needing to protect ourselves from unpure thoughts…. unless it’s child porn or ISIS calls for violence.

But as happy as I am to see Twitter begin the process back to something resembling a communications platform interested in all of its customers, I’m even happier to write the following open letter to those Musk is about to put on the unemployment line.

Dear Tumblrina von Safespace,

This is what the real world looks like when someone takes away the punch bowl and the easy money engine goes into reverse gear. It’s not your fault, it’s just that the grown ups have finally looked at the credit card bills and said, “Um.. no.”

So, if I were y’all at this point I’d lose the nose ring, shave the purple hair and throw them in the circular file right next to your unsustainable and egregious sense of entitlement. Because this isn’t a small setback on the road to woke serfdom, it’s the first step away from the abyss the society was staring into.

Honestly, we only tolerated it because we had no real other choice. But, the bribes were good enough for most of us. Now, the cost is a little bigger than just silencing a bunch of self-marginalizing bigots who LARP as neo-Nazis on /pol.

The costs now involve normalizing nihilism, grooming children for sex slavery and nuclear war.

Not one cell in my body this morning feels one erg of regret or sympathy for you or the violence you did to the square of public debate.

You happily acted as thought enforcers for globalists who hate you. When you could have performed real acts of rebellion by not enforcing the Terms of Service, approving blue checkmarks for non-Marxists, and using your root priv to sabotage the algorithm rather than reinforcing it.

But I will concede that some of you are simply victims of false expectations created by a society grown careless and sloppy thanks to decades of the corrupting influence of fake money sending the false signal that anything you had to say was worth one moment’s consideration by anyone with a pulse.

So, and I mean this with all the violence and metaphor my words can muster…

Learn. To. Fucking. Code.

Kek

*  *  *

Join my Patreon if you know how to code

EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said Wednesday that natural gas price caps could limit excessive price spikes but only if countries give Brussels the power to impose such a measure. Norway’s top energy firm responded to the proposal in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, saying price caps won’t solve Europe’s supply crunch. 

Earlier this week, Simson, the bloc’s energy chief, said a NatGas price cap would limit price spikes this winter. The official said the measure would be a “last resort measure” if prices uncontrollably soared.

“This Dutch TTF gas benchmark cap, we can introduce this winter already if we get the mandate,” Simson told a committee of EU lawmakers.

Responding to the EU mulling over the idea of a price cap on wholesale NatGas, Equinor Chief Executive Officer Anders Opedal told Bloomberg:

“Any price cap is not really solving the fundamental problems. 

“In fact, it can be counterproductive increasing demand while supply is not increasing.” 

Since the war in Ukraine and dwindling Russian NatGas supplies to Europe, Norway has displaced Russia as the top NatGas supplier. Rejiggering energy supply chains away from Russia will mean the EU must increase investments in the grid — though price caps deter such investments by energy firms. 

And it’s not just investments. Price caps can also cause demand for NatGas to artificially rise or leave some countries struggling to attract supply from global markets. These measures, if implemented, could cause undesirable disruptions to global energy markets. 

For Europe, there is good news (for now). Temperatures are expected to be warmer than normal through at least mid-November. Also, NatGas storage in the EU is 91% full despite reduced NatGas flows. 

However, the EU is just one cold snap away from drawing on inventories. 

Which would mean EU NatGas prices could reverse after falling more than 63% since August. 

If energy prices do erupt again because of cold weather and supply woes, then EU leaders might feel compelled to do something to appease voters as discontent is growing amid a cost-of-living crisis. If price caps on NatGas are implemented, it could send shockwaves across energy markets. 

To say the working conditions at Apple’s largest iPhone plant probably aren’t incredible to begin with would likely be an understatement. But then when you lock down most of your 200,000 workers because of a Covid outbreak, those conditions likely get much worse.

This is what seemed to be the case this week, with Bloomberg reporting today that Covid cases at Foxconn Technology Group’s main factory in the central city of Zhengzhou have resulted in the facility going into a “closed loop” lockdown.

The lockdown means that employees can’t leave the campus and are tested regularly for Covid, the report says. But after the lockdown, “food has become a source of unrest”, according to the report. “Scuffles” have even broke out amongst employees over food. 

As a result of the lockdowns, cafeterias at the manufacturing site were shut down and workers on assembly lines were given “meal boxes”. Some employees who have remained locked down in their dormitories were given items like bread and instant noodles. 

The origins of Covid on the compound are unknown, but workers in numbers up to a dozen can share “cramped living quarters”, the report says. Bloomberg said that conflicting reports indicated that isolated workers may have been deprived of proper meals. 

Recall, just days ago we wrote about Foxconn implementing health restrictions after a flare up of Covid. 

Foxconn’s Zhengzhou campus has about 300,000 workers — all have been banned from eating in public and must take meals back to their dorms for consumption, the South China Morning Post reported days ago, citing a notice on the factory’s official WeChat account.  

“Foxconn’s Zhengzhou workers are only permitted to commute along certain routes within the campus, with many entrances closed in a de facto lockdown,” SCMP said. In another notice, workers living off campus were advised to move into on-site dormitories. 

At least for now, production of iPhones at the Zhengzhou campus remains normal despite the newly enacted Covid restrictions, according to a Foxconn spokesman. 

“Production in the Zhengzhou campus remains normal, without a notable impact [from the Covid-19] situation,” the spokesman said. 

China has yet to capitulate on its long-standing Zero-Covid policy (despite being a convenient scapegoat for Xi to deflect anger at the slowing economy during this month’s 20th party Congress). More than one million people were ordered to stay at home earlier this month in the metro area surrounding the iPhone campus.  

Authored by by Kyle Anzalone & Will Porter via The Libertarian Institute, 

Officials in Washington say the United States has not abandoned its effort to find a country to lead a United Nations rapid response force to quell unrest in Haiti. The White House has proposed a multilateral security deployment to the Caribbean nation, with the State Department saying it expects to have a country prepared to lead the mission by early November.

On October 18, the US and Mexico announced an upcoming UN resolution to authorize a military deployment to Haiti, where chaotic protests have blocked major ports and disrupted the flow of goods and sorely needed humanitarian aid. According to a report in the Miami Herald earlier this week, the initiative was likely to fail as no country wanted to lead the force. 

On Wednesday, however, Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols said Washington is still seeking a country willing to take the reins, and suggested Canada was a top candidate. “I’ve talked to dozens of partner nations around the world about the situation in Haiti, and there is strong support for a multinational force. The desire to contribute in whatever ways that nations feel that they can be helpful I think is very widespread in our hemisphere and beyond,” he told reporters, noting that Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to discuss the issue with Canadian officials later this week.

“Canada is an incredibly capable partner across a whole host of areas. Canada has incredible development skills, and has a very capable armed forces as well as a national police force. Those are important skills in the international community, and more broadly, it is a respected nation and leader on the full range of issues,” Nichols added.

Washington and Mexico City proposed the security mission following a request for foreign intervention by Haitian Prime Minister and President Ariel Henry. The leader previously called upon other nations to help restore order amid wide-scale protests and gang violence, sparked by a recent cut to government fuel subsidies – a decision urged by the IMF.

.@USCG Cutter Northland patrolled Port-au-Prince Bay #Haiti, yesterday.
🇺🇸 🇭🇹
Regular #USCG presence was requested by the Gov’t of Haiti thru @USEmbassyHaiti & @StateDept as a sign of continued U.S. resolve w/ the #Haitian people amid instability caused by cholera & civil unrest. pic.twitter.com/eBGFgofVqF

— USCGSoutheast (@USCGSoutheast) October 26, 2022

Armed groups have sized control of several key trade and distribution hubs in Haiti, creating dire shortages in basic necessities, such as water, and even forcing a significant number of hospitals, businesses and other institutions to close their doors.

Haiti’s descent into chaos accelerated in July 2021 after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. In the weeks following his death, then-acting PM Claude Joseph briefly took over as president, but was soon forced from power under international pressure after a bloc of countries led by the United States declared their support for Henry. The new leader reportedly has close ties to a suspect in Moise’s assassination, and even continued contact with him after the murder.

Should the White House find a suitable nation to lead a UN security mission, Beijing and Moscow could ultimately stifle the effort. Both countries are permanent members of the UN Security Council – meaning they hold veto power over any resolution that might authorize action in Haiti – and have each questioned the wisdom of such a deployment.

Exclusive: No let-up in the unrest in Haiti as the US pressures the UN to intervene. The latest protests outside the UN’s HQ on the island are a clear rejection of Western interference.#Haiti #US #UN #NATO pic.twitter.com/bZp2XhEyJR

— African Stream (@african_stream) October 26, 2022

Some Haitians have also voiced objections to any Western military presence in their country, likely given a long and often violent history of foreign intervention there – including a US invasion and military occupation between 1915 and 1934 following a previous presidential assassination.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

Eurasia is about to get a whole lot larger as countries line up to join the Chinese and Russian-led BRICS and SCO, to the detriment of the west…

Let’s start with what is in fact a tale of Global South trade between two members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). At its heart is the already notorious Shahed-136 drone – or Geranium-2, in its Russian denomination: the AK-47 of postmodern aerial warfare.

The US, in yet another trademark hysteria fit rife with irony, accused Tehran of weaponizing the Russian Armed Forces. For both Tehran and Moscow, the superstar, value-for-money, and terribly efficient drone let loose in the Ukrainian battlefield is a state secret: its deployment prompted a flurry of denials from both sides. Whether these are made in Iran drones, or the design was bought and manufacturing takes place in Russia (the realistic option), is immaterial.

The record shows that the US weaponizes Ukraine to the hilt against Russia.

The Empire is a de facto war combatant via an array of “consultants,” advisers, trainers, mercenaries, heavy weapons, munitions, satellite intel, and electronic warfare. And yet imperial functionaries swear they are not part of the war. They are, once again, lying.

Welcome to yet another graphic instance of the “rules-based international order” at work. The Hegemon always decides which rules apply, and when. Anyone opposing it is an enemy of “freedom,” “democracy,” or whatever platitude du jour, and should be – what else – punished by arbitrary sanctions.

In the case of sanctioned-to-oblivion Iran, for decades now, the result has been predictably another round of sanctions. That’s irrelevant. What matters is that, according to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), no less than 22 nations – and counting – are joining the queue because they also want to get into the Shahed groove.

Even Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gleefully joined the fray, commenting on how the Shahed-136 is no photoshop.

The race towards BRICS+

What the new sanctions package against Iran really “accomplished” is to deliver an additional blow to the increasingly problematic signing of the revived nuclear deal in Vienna. More Iranian oil on the market would actually relieve Washington’s predicament after the recent epic snub by OPEC+.

A categorical imperative though remains. Iranophobia – just like Russophobia – always prevails for the Straussians/neo-con war advocates in charge of US foreign policy and their European vassals.

So here we have yet another hostile escalation in both Iran-US and Iran-EU relations, as the unelected junta in Brussels also sanctioned manufacturer Shahed Aviation Industries and three Iranian generals.

Now compare this with the fate of the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone – which unlike the “flowers in the sky” (Russia’s Geraniums) has performed miserably in the battlefield.

Kiev tried to convince the Turks to use a Motor Sich weapons factory in Ukraine or come up with a new company in Transcarpathia/Lviv to build Bayraktars. Motor Sich’s oligarch President Vyacheslav Boguslayev, aged 84, has been charged with treason because of his links to Russia, and may be exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners of war.

In the end, the deal fizzled out because of Ankara’s exceptional enthusiasm in working to establish a new gas hub in Turkey – a personal suggestion from Russian President Vladimir Putin to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

And that bring us to the advancing interconnection between BRICS and the 9-member SCO – to which this Russia-Iran instance of military trade is inextricably linked.

The SCO, led by China and Russia, is a pan-Eurasian institution originally focused on counter-terrorism but now increasingly geared towards geoeconomic – and geopolitical – cooperation. BRICS, led by the triad of Russia, India, and China overlaps with the SCO agenda geoeconomically and geopoliticallly, expanding it to Africa, Latin America and beyond: that’s the concept of BRICS+, analyzed in detail in a recent Valdai Club report, and fully embraced by the Russia-China strategic partnership.

The report weighs the pros and cons of three scenarios involving possible, upcoming BRICS+ candidates:

• First, nations that were invited by Beijing to be part of the 2017 BRICS summit (Egypt, Kenya, Mexico, Thailand, Tajikistan).

• Second, nations that were part of the BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting in May this year (Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Thailand).

• Third, key G20 economies (Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye).

And then there’s Iran, which has already already shown interest in joining BRICS.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has recently confirmed that “several countries” are absolutely dying to join BRICS. Among them, a crucial West Asia player: Saudi Arabia.

What makes it even more astonishing is that only three years ago, under former US President Donald Trump’s administration, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) – the kingdom’s de fact ruler – was dead set on joining a sort of Arab NATO as a privileged imperial ally.

Diplomatic sources confirm that the day after the US pulled out of Afghanistan, MbS’s envoys started seriously negotiating with both Moscow and Beijing.

Assuming BRICS approves Riyadh’s candidacy in 2023 by the necessary consensus, one can barely imagine its earth-shattering consequences for the petrodollar. At the same time, it is important not to underestimate the capacity of US foreign policy controllers to wreak havoc.

The only reason Washington tolerates Riyadh’s regime is the petrodollar. The Saudis cannot be allowed to pursue an independent, truly sovereign foreign policy. If that happens, the geopolitical realignment will concern not only Saudi Arabia but the entire Persian Gulf.

Yet that’s increasingly likely after OPEC+ de facto chose the BRICS/SCO path led by Russia-China – in what can be interpreted as a “soft” preamble for the end of the petrodollar.

The Riyadh-Tehran-Ankara triad

Iran made known its interest to join BRICS even before Saudi Arabia. According to Persian Gulf diplomatic sources, they are already engaged in a somewhat secret channel via Iraq trying to get their act together. Turkey will soon follow – certainly on BRICS and possibly the SCO, where Ankara currently carries the status of extremely interested observer.

Now imagine this triad – Riyadh, Tehran, Ankara – closely joined with Russia, India, China (the actual core of the BRICS), and eventually in the SCO, where Iran is as yet the only West Asian nation to be inducted as a full member.

The strategic blow to the Empire will go off the charts. The discussions leading to BRICS+ are focusing on the challenging path towards a commodity-backed global currency capable of bypassing US dollar primacy.

Several interconnected steps point towards increasing symbiosis between BRICS+ and SCO. The latter’s members states have already agreed on a road map for gradually increasing trade in national currencies in mutual settlements.

The State Bank of India – the nation’s top lender – is opening special rupee accounts for Russia-related trade.

Russian natural gas to Turkey will be paid 25 percent in rubles and Turkish lira, complete with a 25 percent discount Erdogan personally asked of Putin.

Russian bank VTB has launched money transfers to China in yuan, bypassing SWIFT, while Sberbank has started lending out money in yuan. Russian energy behemoth Gazprom agreed with China that gas supply payments should shift to rubles and yuan, split evenly.

Iran and Russia are unifying their banking systems for trade in rubles/rial.

Egypt’s Central Bank is moving to establish an index for the pound – through a group of currencies plus gold – to move the national currency away from the US dollar.

And then there’s the TurkStream saga.

That gas hub gift

Ankara for years has been trying to position itself as a privileged East-West gas hub. After the sabotage of the Nord Streams, Putin has handed it on a plate by offering Turkey the possibility to increase Russian gas supplies to the EU via such a hub. The Turkish Energy Ministry stated that Ankara and Moscow have already reached an agreement in principle.

This will mean in practice Turkey controlling the gas flow to Europe not only from Russia but also Azerbaijan and a great deal of West Asia, perhaps even including Iran, as well as Libya in northeast Africa. LNG terminals in Egypt, Greece and Turkiye itself may complete the network.

Russian gas travels via the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines. The total capacity of Russian pipelines is 39 billion cubic meters a year.

Map of Russian gas route via Turkey

TurkStream was initially projected as a four-strand pipeline, with a nominal capacity of 63 million cubic meters a year. As it stands, only two strands – with a total capacity of 31,5 billion cubic meters – have been built.

So an extension in theory is more than feasible – with all the equipment made in Russia. The problem, once again, is laying the pipes. The necessary vessels belong to the Swiss Allseas Group – and Switzerland is part of the sanctions craze. In the Baltic Sea, Russian vessels were used to finish building Nord Stream 2. But for a TurkStream extension, they would need to operate much deeper in the ocean.

TurkStream would not be able to completely replace Nord Stream; it carries much smaller volumes. The upside for Russia is not being canceled from the EU market. Evidently Gazprom would only tackle the substantial investment on an extension if there are ironclad guarantees about its security. And there’s the additional drawback that the extension would also carry gas from Russia’s competitors.

Whatever happens, the fact remains that the US-UK combo still exerts a lot of influence in Turkey – and BP, Exxon Mobil, and Shell, for instance, are actors in virtually every oil extraction project across West Asia. So they would certainly interfere on the way the Turkish gas hub functions, as well on determining the gas price. Moscow has to weigh all these variables before committing to such a project.

NATO, of course, will be livid. But never underestimate hedging bet specialist Sultan Erdogan. His love story with both the BRICS and the SCO is just beginning.

We’re noticing some electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft designs are beginning to look more like cars — where they could one day fly across town and then maneuver around city streets. The first view of this revolutionary design was revealed earlier this week by California-based Alef Aeronautics. However, another company based in China actually flew one. 

Chinese tech company XPeng mounted a drone onto the roof of a vehicle and called it a flying car. While the eVTOL isn’t as sleek as Alef’s, it actually flew. 

The company shared footage of the first flight on YouTube.

“Unlike most other “flying car” concepts that we’ve seen before, this one actually does look a bit like a normal car. But, unlike most normal cars, this one appears to have a drone strapped to its roof,” said auto blog Jalopnik. 

Regardless of how viable this flying car is, XPeng wins the award for actually flying one. 

One would assume there would be an easy, quick release to separate the car from the drone so it can maneuver around city streets. 

So the trend now is to put wheels on eVTOLs so they can also drive around streets. Just imagine if the Pentagon got their hands on something like this — an eVTOL hummer — now that would be wild and useful for special forces operations on the modern battlefield (we’re sure DARPA already has a design).