🇧🇷🌾 Brazil sounds alarm on fertilizers as price spike spurs cheaper alternatives

Brazil could face fertilizer supply problems if the conflict in the Middle East does not ease soon, ​the nation's farm minister said, criticizing sellers for sharp increases in ‌local urea prices as analysts said farmers may turn to cheaper alternatives.

Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said on Tuesday that the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran had already triggered urea price ​increases in Brazil within days, with some sellers even suspending sales ​despite holding inventories prior to the conflict.

Favaro warned that a prolonged conflict could create broader risks for the country's farm sector, which imported a record 45.5 ​million metric tons of fertilizers in 2025.

StoneX reported prices of urea delivered to Brazil jumped about 35% in two weeks, making the product less attractive to buyers and potentially pushing importers and farmers toward cheaper ​options such as ​ammonium sulfate.

The brokerage ⁠cited data that showed Brazil's urea imports in the first two months of the year fell 33% from a year ​earlier, while ammonium sulfate imports rose 19%.

Urea is one ​of the ⁠most widely used nitrogen fertilizers on Brazilian farms because of its high nutrient concentration, which usually justifies its cost. But when prices rise sharply, buyers can switch ⁠to ​cheaper, lower-concentration products.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/business/brazil-sounds-alarm-fertilizers-price-spike-spurs-cheaper-alternatives-2026-03-18/

🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷 Satellite images show the impact at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant which was targeted yesterday by the IAF.

The bomb fell just 350 meters away from one of Bushehr's nuclear reactors, a clear threat that Israel may target the plant in the future and cause a radiological disaster in Iran and beyond.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸🇨🇳 US says mainland China not planning to attack Taiwan in 2027 after threat assessment

Beijing seeks to control the island without the use of force, the US intelligence community says in its annual report on global threats

Beijing is unlikely to attack Taiwan next year, given security and economic deterrents, including its belief that an amphibious assault could fail and that the technological, supply chain and investor costs would be huge, according to a US threat assessment released on Wednesday.

The intelligence overview appeared to walk back a projection by the Pentagon last year that Beijing wanted to take the self-governing island by force as early as 2027 and comes as US President Donald Trump takes a more conciliatory tone towards China.

Trump said on Tuesday that a planned summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing set for later this month would be postponed “a month or so” given the Israel-US war on Iran.

“Beijing probably will continue seeking to set the conditions for eventual unification with Taiwan short of conflict,” noted the 34-page report released annually on global risks facing the US. China has no immediate timeline for achieving unification, it added.

Trump has credited his power and personal rapport with Xi for holding off any near-term attack on the democratic island, claiming last August that “he told me, ‘I will never do it as long as you’re president’”, a pledge Beijing has ‌never confirmed.

According to the US intelligence community, Beijing will continue working to reduce the US military presence in the Indo-Pacific region and to strengthen its conventional, strategic and space forces and technological base.

China remains highly wary of the US, the report said, convinced Washington is intent on containing the Asian giant despite Trump’s efforts to bolster ties with Xi.

“Beijing has been deeply suspicious of Washington’s intentions and has long viewed the US as pursuing a coordinated effort to contain China’s development and rise, undermine Communist Party rule, and prevent the country from achieving its aims,” the report said.

Also on the intelligence community’s radar is China’s growing muscle in the Arctic, increased missile delivery systems capable of striking the US and advances in low-cost drones “to stress US missile defences”.

🔗 https://archive.ph/zKsDw

✈️ Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) to cancel 1,000 flights in April after jet fuel price doubles in 10 days

In response to the SAS update, rival carrier Norwegian is ramping up capacity across the region.

"The price of jet fuel has doubled in ten days,” CEO Anko van der Werff told Swedish business daily Dagens Industri. “Even if we try to absorb cost increases as much as possible, this is a shock that directly hits the airline industry."

SAS had been one of the first carriers to announce fare increases to account for soaring jet fuel prices.

"We are cancelling a few hundred flights in March, but trying to protect our traffic as much as possible," said the SAS chief, who added that more cancellations were expected after Easter, when traffic normally dips.

The measures will affect "at least a thousand" flights, though he stressed this remained limited in scale given SAS operates around 800 flights a day.

Most of the cancelled flights in March were domestic routes in Norway, with only a few affecting Sweden and Denmark, according to a SAS statement sent to AFP.

In response to the SAS update, rival carrier Norwegian is ramping up capacity across the region to absorb displaced passengers, adding 120 extra departures between 25 March and 12 April, NKR reports.

The airline said the additional flights are being introduced to meet heightened Easter demand following SAS’s widespread cancellations, with most of the new services operating from Nordic countries to popular Spanish destinations.

🔗 https://www.euronews.com/travel/2026/03/18/sas-to-cancel-1000-flights-in-april-after-jet-fuel-price-doubles-in-10-days

🇮🇷❌🇫🇷 Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, on X/Twitter:

Macron has not uttered one word of condemnation of the Israel-US war on Iran. He did not condemn Israel when it blew up fuel storage in Tehran, exposing millions to toxins. His current "concern" didn't follow Israel's attack on our gas facilities. It follows our retaliation. Sad!

🔗 Abbas Araghchi

🇫🇮⚔️🇮🇷 Europe could offer to help Trump on Iran — if he backs Ukraine, Finland’s Stubb suggests

Finland’s President Alexander Stubb says he can see real potential in offering Trump what he wants: European military support to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial oil shipping route that Iran has effectively blockaded in response to American and Israeli bombing.

Europe’s condition for providing such assistance? That the U.S. president delivers all the help Ukraine needs to reach an acceptable peace deal with Russia.

Officials — including Stubb — fear the longer Trump’s war against Iran continues, the more it could constrain Ukraine’s fight against invading Russian forces. Soaring global energy prices — and Washington's decision to loosen sanctions on Russia’s oil industry — will significantly boost Vladimir Putin’s income from Russian fossil fuel sales.

📝: The idea proposed by the Finnish president is inherently unfeasible. With the U.S. exhausting its stockpile of interceptor rockets and cruise missiles, it won't have anything to help Ukraine with and every previous peace deal attempt fell apart when the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, with the entirety of the EU behind him, refused to make any territorial concessions.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-help-donald-trump-iran-war-ukraine-finland-alexander-stubb/

🇪🇺 European gas prices surge 30% after Qatar said the world’s largest LNG export plant was damaged in an Iranian attack

Still TTF futures are far from the record highs of 2022 but the longer Qatar LNG remains offline, the higher prices will go

🔗 Stephen Stapczynski

🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷 Satellite images show the aftermath of the Israeli attacks on the Shahran Oil Depot near Tehran on March 8th which caused massive plums of toxic smoke carrying hydrocarbons and other toxic chemicals into the atmosphere which later fell down as acid rain and soot on the Iranian capital and the surrounding area, poisoning 14 million people.

The winds later carried this toxic smog to the northeast into Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and much of Central Asia.

No countries condemned Israel for this attack.

🔗 Soar (@SoarAtlas)

💻 The Iran War is putting the semiconductor industry on high alert:

The shutdown of Qatar's Ras Laffan facility, the world's largest LNG export plant, has knocked out ~33% of global helium supply, as helium is a byproduct of natural gas processing.

With the facility offline, the global market is losing ~5.2 million cubic meters per month, while there is almost no spare capacity as helium must reach end users within ~45 days before it evaporates.

As a result, Helium spot prices have risen over +100% since the Iran War began.

Notably, in 2025, Qatar produced 63 million cubic meters of helium, making it the 2nd-largest producer in the world after the US.

If the disruption lasts 60 to 90 days, prices could surge another +50%, potentially exceeding $2,000 per thousand cubic feet, according to AKAP Energy.

Helium is essential for semiconductor manufacturing, MRI machines, fiber optics, and space exploration, with no viable substitutes, meaning higher helium prices will directly raise the cost of making every chip in the world.

Chipmakers hold ~6 months of inventory, but Samsung and SK Hynix are already scrambling to find alternative sources, with 64% of South Korean helium imports coming from Qatar alone.

The Iran War is sending shockwaves well beyond the energy market.

🔗 Global Markets Investor

🇮🇷⚔️🇰🇼 Kuwait was hit by two Iranian kamikaze drone targeting its oil refineries.

First, a drone struck the al-Ahmadi port refinery, one of the largest in the Middle East, with a production capacity of about 730,000 barrels per day.

A second attack then sparked a fire at the nearby Abdullah port refinery, which produces around 454,000 barrels per day.

🔗 Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT)

🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷🇮🇶🇮🇶🇱🇧 Israeli Defense Minister Katz announced that Israel is changing the tactic and is going for an assassination on every Iranian official:

“Significant surprises are expected today across all fronts that will escalate the war to a new level.

We have authorized the IDF to eliminate any Iranian official once a “targeting circle” has been closed on them, without the need for additional approval.”

📝: Israel has not engaged in genuine diplomacy since returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982

With US “cover”, its been shielded from the consequences of over-aggression

Thus Israel knows only offense, escalation. The “ceasefire” is a tool to slow the enemy as Israel regroups for more attacks

🔗 Megatron (@Megatron_ron)

🇮🇷🛢 On March 17, Iran exported over 4mm barrels of oil, double the pre-war average.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸⛽️ JD Vance's way to save face in front of the American public that has to deal with rising gas and food prices is to say that the rest of the world has it worse than they do.

🔗 Europa.com (@europa)