🇻🇪🛢 Venezuela’s aging oil ports have become a bottleneck as crude production and exports recover.

Tankers are waiting up to 30 days to load, with equipment failures, power outages, slow transfers and oil leaks causing major delays and costly demurrage.

The problem could worsen as more companies gain the right to market Venezuelan oil independently.

🔗 Clash Report

🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 New damage is now visible at the Jazan Oil Refinery in southern Saudi Arabia following the Houthi drone strike on August 18.

New Sentinel-2L satellite imagery confirms that a large oil storage tank at 17°16'47.38"N 42°23'52.82"E was struck and subsequently caught fire.

🔗 Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT)

🇨🇳⚔️🇪🇺 China has dragged the EU’s foreign subsidies rules into its wider trade dispute with Brussels, just as the two sides enter a crucial stretch of negotiations.

Beijing’s Ministry of Justice has ordered Chinese companies not to hand over information to EU officials in investigations under the FSR — the bloc’s tool to ensure that players in the single market don’t receive unfair support from abroad.

The notice explicitly mentioned the European Commission’s in-depth probe into JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce giant that is trying to acquire Germany’s Ceconomy, the parent company of consumer electronics retailer MediaMarkt, in a €2 billion deal.

The move appears aimed at adding pressure on Brussels midway through a renewed trade dialogue between the EU and China, with negotiators engaged in intense closed-door discussions over how to narrow the EU’s €1 billion-a-day trade deficit in goods with China. 

The Commission is expected to hold a videoconference with the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in September that would pave the way for a trip by trade chief Maroš Šefčovič to Beijing in early October. 

“China has consistently opposed the EU’s abuse of unilateral tools such as the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) to suppress Chinese companies,” a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce told reporters on Thursday. 

“I would like to emphasize that China and the EU have established a Trade and Investment Consultation (TIC) mechanism and reached a consensus on managing differences through dialogue and consultation,” the spokesperson added.

“We hope the EU will work with China to promptly correct its erroneous practices in the FSR investigation and strengthen communication through intergovernmental dialogue. China will closely monitor the EU’s actions and will take necessary measures to resolutely safeguard national security and the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises.”

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/china-eu-foreign-subsidies-regulation-link-trade-talks/

🛢 Drop in Iranian oil offers to Chinese buyers amid US blockade

Offers of Iranian crude oil to Chinese buyers have experienced a significant decline alongside a sharp jump in prices, driven by the reimposition of the US blockade on Tehran's shipping and ports.

According to a report by Reuters, the restrictions have severely constrained shipments from Iran, which serves as a primary source of hard currency for the country.

Trade sources highlighted by Reuters note that offers for September and October delivery cargoes to China have decreased as existing barrels on maritime vessels are progressively sold off.

Furthermore, ship-tracking data from Kpler indicates that Iran's overall oil exports have fallen since mid-July, applying additional pressure on independent refiners in China's Shandong province who frequently process sanctioned crude.

As a result, Chinese traders are now fighting with Indian ones for Russian oil and may soon resort to buying from Kazakhstan and perhaps Azerbaijan, driving up prices even higher and screwing over European buyers.

🔗 The Cradle

🇾🇪⚔️🇾🇪🇸🇦 Ansarallah/Houthi drone operators manage to destroy a Saudi (Yemeni/PLC?) M1 Abrams tank by dropping a grenade from a very high altitude into the Abram's turret hatch which was open, causing the munition inside to catch fire resulting in a cookoff.

🔗 https://t.me/Middle_East_Spectator/36017

🇸🇾🇸🇾⚡️ — The Kurdish-led SDF announced that it has completed the integration of its military, security, and civilian institutions into the Syrian state, bringing more than a decade of de facto Kurdish autonomy in northeastern Syria to an end.

The agreement places former SDF forces and key infrastructure under Damascus while granting Kurds greater formal recognition, including language and national rights.

With foreign Kurdish fighters also withdrawing, Mazloum Abdi says the next struggle will be securing those rights in Syria’s constitution.

READ THE FULL STORY

🇺🇸🙏🇨🇳 U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, is pleading with China to accept his new sanction package against Iran and help the U.S. topple the Iranian economy

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday urged China to join Washington’s latest efforts to economically pressure and isolate Iran after negotiations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the six-month conflict collapsed.

“Keep in mind, the Chinese get 50 per cent of their energy from the Gulf. So, it would do them a big service to get with the programme,” Bessent told CNBC when asked whether the new economic sanctions would include China.

Bessent also said that “many conversations are best to have in private”, underscoring the sensitivity of the issue ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s expected visit to Washington in September.

Bessent added that both allies and adversaries will be forced to choose sides in Washington’s latest campaign to isolate Iran economically, and he will share more details at a press conference next Monday.

“This is going to be the greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world. And we are going to them and saying you are either with us or against us,” he said.

“It is going to work in Iran, and we are going to collapse this regime.”

Bessent is the administration’s lead on negotiating economic ties with China and is currently working with the Chinese side to finalise the agenda and key deliverables for Xi’s likely trip.

In a response to the South China Morning Post, the Chinese embassy in Washington said that “sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem”.

“China calls on the relevant parties to take responsible actions and resolve the issue through political and diplomatic means,” embassy spokesman Liu Chang said.

🔗 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3364734/us-urges-china-back-its-most-crushing-economic-operation-against-iran

🇨🇳 China jails Evergrande founder for life, fines firm more than US$2 billion

A Chinese court ordered all of Hui Ka Yan's personal property confiscated.

China sentenced the founder of embattled property giant Evergrande to life in prison and fined the group more than US$2 billion on Thursday (Aug 20) for offences including fraud, five years after a high-profile default.

Evergrande Group was once the face of Chinese real estate, surfing a decades-long property boom as it peddled home-ownership dreams.

But its access to credit dramatically narrowed when the government introduced curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation.

The company defaulted in 2021 after struggling to repay creditors.

On Thursday, a court in southern China fined the firm and its real estate arm a total of 15.82 billion yuan (US$2.4 billion).

It issued a life sentence against founder Xu Jiayin, also known as Hui Ka Yan in Cantonese, for crimes including "large-scale financial fraud", the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong province said in a post on its WeChat account.

"Xu Jiayin was sentenced for multiple crimes and fined, received a life sentence, with political rights revoked for life and all his personal property confiscated," it said.

Between 2016 and 2021, Evergrande and Xu as its boss "violated national laws by engaging in continuous, large-scale financial fraud and other means to inflate assets and conceal liabilities", the court said.

It added that the parties "gained control of financial institutions" through bribery, without naming the institutions.

Xu pleaded guilty in April to charges that also included embezzlement and bribery, the court said at the time.

Five other senior executives of Evergrande Group were also sentenced Thursday to prison terms ranging from six to 18 years for crimes including fraud, the Shenzhen court said.

A total of 56 people were given jail sentences - including Xu's two sons - with the shortest term just one year and 10 months, China's state news agency Xinhua reported.

The court also ordered that remaining shortfalls from illegal gains be returned.

📝: Donald Trump rugpulled his supporters with Trump and Melania coins from which he reportedly earned $2.2 billion. He sold Trump iPhone cases which have not been delivered to a single buyer more than a year later on top of all the money he made selling stocks. He signed a deal with the IRS gifting him immunity from being investigated for tax evasion.

🔗 https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-evergrande-founder-hui-ka-yan-sentenced-life-in-prison-6330256

🇸🇪🌹☪️ Sweden’s Social Democrats have launched Arabic-language digital adverts ahead of the September 13 election.

The campaign features party leader Magdalena Andersson promising to “improve families’ finances” and urging Arabic-speaking voters to back the party.

🔗 Europa