🇺🇸 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 USTR data compiled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee shows countries that’d be subject to tariffs under the Senate-passed Russia sanctions bill

China tops all 3 categories: crude oil imports, natural gas imports, sanctions evasion

NATO allies Hungary/Turkey on list

📎 Andrew Desiderio

🇺🇸 🇮🇱 🇬🇧 Randy Fine on X:

The UK spent years demanding Israel be carved up.

Now they’re talking about breaking up their own country.

I say: From the river to the sea, let Scotland, Wales, and Ireland be free!

If that logic is good enough for the Jewish state, it’s good enough for them.

📎 Congressman Randy Fine

⚡🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia has loaded 8.7 million barrels of crude oil today (2026-09-15) at its east coast terminals according to satellite imagery.

@medmannews

🇺🇸🛢⚡️- "The next 24 hours will see staggering increases at the pump for both gasoline & diesel. Fuel margins have yet to catch up with previous wholesale hikes. Watch for huge increases in Great Lakes and Rocky Mountain states in particular." - Gulf Oil Chief Energy Advisor Tom Kloza.

👮‍♂️ 🇺🇸 🇷🇺 Members Of Russian Intelligence Services Network Charged With Conspiring To Finance Terrorism And Commit Murder For Hire In The United States

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, Attorney General for the United States, Todd Blanche, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John A. Eisenberg, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), Kash Patel, Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the FBI, James C. Barnacle, Jr., and Assistant Director in Charge of the Washington Field Office of the FBI, Darren B. Cox, announced today the unsealing of charges against five individuals working for the intelligence services of the Russian Federation to conduct attacks and murders around the world, including in the United States. As detailed in the unsealed indictment, the network is alleged to have, among other things, paid and attempted to pay individuals within the United States and elsewhere to conduct pre-operational surveillance and carry out targeted killings, and commissioned associates to commit and attempted to commit acts of terrorism against civilian and military infrastructure in European countries that are aligned, or perceived to be aligned, with Ukraine. The defendants remain at large.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/members-russian-intelligence-services-network-charged-conspiring-finance-terrorism-and

🇾🇪🇪🇷 - In 2016, the UAE established a military base at Eritrea's Assab Airport (at 13.07976, 42.6385). The base was used to launch its Yemeni Southern Transitional Council project, which began on the Island of Socotra, and was used to attack Ansarullah positions within the Aden-Ta'izz-Ad Dali triangle.

Later that year, Abu Dhabi requested a second 'secret' base on Eritrea's Dahlak Island, right in the middle of the Red Sea. The exact location of the base was supposed to be here: 15.75158, 39.97345. Asmara rejected the request, and its Foreign Ministry would several years later admit the UAE planned to use the 'secret' base with Israel to effectively control one of the world's most important waterways. Which indicates the UAE and Israel had strong relations well over four years before the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020.

Ironically, just a year later, the UAE would begin the construction of a 'secret' military base with the assistance of Tareq Salah's forces on Yemen's Mayun Island (at 12.66661, 43.40925). The location of the base was vital, sitting right at the mouth of the Red Sea. Tareq Saleh, commander of the National Resistance Forces, was propped up by the Emirati state for one reason only, to combat al-Islah Party's influence in the Ta'izz region (which at the time, the rest of the Arab Gulf countries believed were backed by Qatar). It has long been believed that Israel had access to the Mayun Airbase, and were present at times on the base as well.

Relations between Eritrea and the UAE have since cooled considerably. Asmara revoked Emirati access to its military infrastructure and later joined Sudan in suspending agreements involving UAE's port giant DP World. Years later, Abiy Ahmed would win the elections in Ethiopia, and, backed by the UAE and Israel, eyes the Assab region.

🇪🇷🇦🇪🇮🇱⚡- "The UAE is pursuing port imperialism across Africa. The UAE has port facilities everywhere in the region, and African countries have to ask why. Is it just for economics? No.

We didn’t want [UAE's] DP World [in Eritrea]. We do not want any foreign power to have a hub in Eritrea.

We have to ask why Israel is running to control the Horn of Africa? Why do they need a base in Somaliland? The UAE and Israel have already converged on Somaliland. [Ethiopian Prime Minister] Abiy Ahmed has a two-waters strategy like Israel. Only for him it is from the Nile River to the Red Sea [referring to Israel's expansionist policies from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River].

We decided we didn’t want their [Israeli] embassy here. We are not antagonistic to Israel, but we just decided we didn’t want any relations," - Osman Saleh, Eritrea's Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Note, UAE's DP World and AD Ports have stakes in ports in Egypt, Tanzania, Somaliland, and Puntland.

🚢 Global shipping rules are collapsing, say maritime nations

The rules governing global shipping are breaking down, the world’s largest maritime nations have warned, disrupted by wars and a growing shadow fleet that operates beyond western oversight.

The shipping industry has for decades been protected by laws that ensure free navigation and the neutrality of commercial vessels, but the collapse of those principles is posing a severe risk to global trade, according to a group of 18 shipping superpowers.

“Without maritime trade, supply chains would fragment and the global economy as we know it would come to a sudden halt,” the group said in a statement published on Tuesday.

The battle to control the Strait of Hormuz, the Covid-19 pandemic and the shadow fleet created as a result of US, EU and UK sanctions are not “episodic shocks” but “signals of a structural shift in the operating environment of global trade”, said the Consultative Shipping Group, whose members represent more than a fifth of global trade by tonnage.

The statement is the first public intervention from the CSG since it was established more than 60 years ago. The group’s members include Greece, Singapore, Denmark, Japan, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and South Korea.

“Shipping routes are increasingly instruments of leverage and risk,” the CSG warned, adding that recent events show how “fragile” the system of maritime trade can be.

Brian Wessel, director-general of the Danish Maritime Authority, which chairs the CSG, told the FT the seafaring nations made this rare statement because of deepening concerns about the fragmentation of the maritime sector and the undermining of standards set by the International Maritime Organization, the UN body that regulates the shipping industry.

“For decades, we have built global trade on the assumption that ships can move freely across borders. That assumption is now under pressure,” he said.

“The global level playing field [and] the global regulations that we’ve made for many, many years in the IMO have been taken for granted,” he added.

Because of their role in global trade, vessels have become an increasingly prominent target and pawn in geopolitical machinations.

Russia, Ukraine, the US and Iran have all hit civilian shipping targets during conflicts this year, while the vulnerability of maritime chokepoints has been underscored by Iran’s efforts to try to establish a fee-paying regime in the strait.

https://unwall.app/www.ft.com/content/c6517e52-b855-487c-8408-7071936cf3b0?syn-25a6b1a6=1