🇺🇸🛢🇪🇺 U.S. crude oil and LNG exports surge as European and Asian buyers secure supplies lost from the Gulf, with the number of empty tankers bound for the U.S. to fill up with crude oil, refined fuels and other petroleum products at an all-time high — FT

📝 KobeissiLetter: "For the first time in history, there are 60+ large crude oil tankers bound for the US.

US crude exports are up by +2.5 million barrels per day since the Iran War began.

US big oil will see its most profitable year on record in 2026."

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸❌🇮🇷❗️ — United States President Trump tells Fox News that he has unilaterally cancelled Witkoff and Kushner’s trip to Pakistan to meet with the Iranians.

"I've told my people a little while ago they were getting ready to leave, and I said, 'Nope, you're not making an 18 hour flight to go there. We have all the cards. They can call us anytime they want, but you're not going to be making any more 18 hour flights to sit around talking about nothing'."

@BellumActaNews

🇭🇺🤝🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈 Hungarian PM Péter Magyar appoints “gender equality” activist and researcher Judit Lannert as new Minister of Education

📎 https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/lgbtq-activism-hungary-education-minister/

🔗 Daily Romania

🇫🇷🇬🇷🇪🇺 France and Greece call for the EU to extend COVID debt repayments!

"We got indebted during Covid. Today some tell us that we need to reimburse fast. It is idiotic," Macron said during a press conference at the Maximos mansion in Athens alongside Mitsotakis. "Let's extend that debt or let's have some new debt issuance," he said.

In the latest sign of the financial hardship which hit the Eurozone, Mistotakis and Macron, who lead the most-indebted and third most-indebted respectively, countries in the EU, are expected to defend their position in tense negotiations around the EU's €1.8 trillion multi-annual budget for 2028-2034.

The option of rolling over the Recovery Fund debt was mentioned by several EU leaders on Friday during an informal meeting in Cyprus as the EU is due to start repaying €25 billion a year from 2028 on the joint debt it issued to tackle the economic fallout from the Covid pandemic.

But frugal countries have pushed back strongly. “This is not going to happen,” one EU diplomat said on the sidelines of the Council meeting. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday also spoke against more EU debt.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/it-is-idiot-france-and-greece-call-for-delaying-covid-debt-repayment/

🇺🇸❌🇮🇶 The U.S. wants to seize a mansion in the elitist Beverly Hills neighbourhood belonging to Mansour Barzani, a senior Kurdish/Peshmerga official and brother of current prime-minister of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Masrour Barzani.

The U.S. Justice Department has filed a civil forfeiture complaint which says that a Virginia-based defense contractor and others obtained more than $700 million from the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency between 2016 and 2020 through fuel delivery contracts linked to Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS.

The Justice Department alleges that the contractor’s officers agreed to pay General Mansour Barzani, a senior Peshmerga official, a bribe of $0.25 per liter in exchange for exclusive access to deliver jet fuel through Erbil International Airport. Competing contractors were allegedly blocked from accessing the airport, while the company received noncompetitive contracts at inflated prices.

Prosecutors say around $30 million from the scheme was transferred to a trust established for Barzani’s private benefit and later used to buy and renovate the Beverly Hills property between 2018 and 2022.

The civil complaint comes after Kurdish/Peshmerga officials resisted American and Israeli pressure to make land incursions into Iranian territory as part of the 3rd Gulf War.

🔗 https://www.theamargi.com/posts/u-s-seeks-to-seize-beverly-hills-mansion-allegedly-linked-to-bribery-of-mansour-barzani

🇱🇾🏴⚔️🇲🇱🇷🇺 Mali: quick map of the situation in Kidal. Following the FLA/JNIM takeover of the city center, Malian Army and Russian Africa Corps troops have withdrawn to the former MINUSMA base outside of town.

They are currently being besieged in the facility.

🔗 Thomas van Linge

🛢 The 1973 oil embargo first had no effect on the market, it even gained ~2% within the first week.

Then slowly reality hit.

Over the next six months the S&P lost ~15% until the embargo was lifted... just to crash another ~40% afterwards.

Everyone anticipates a rally when Hormuz reopens.

But what if the damage to the global economy is already so severe that it kicks off the next stagflationary period?

🔗 Lukas Ekwueme

🇱🇾🏴⚔️🇲🇱🇷🇺🇧🇫 Map of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) territory in the wider Sahel region, following the successful Kidal-Gao offensive.

🔗 Clément Molin

🏳️🏴⚔️🇲🇱🇷🇺 Most of northwestern Mali has fallen under the control of the Tuareg separatist FLA and JNIM.

There are several towns still with a Malian military presence in the region but are cutoff from Bamako and support from the Malian capital is unlikely to arrive any time soon.

@CIG_telegram

🇲🇱 ❌️ 🇲🇱 Tuareg rebels inside of the governor's office in Kidal, earlier today.

📎 Thomas van Linge

🇺🇸🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷 At least 12 U.S. Air Force KC-135/KC-46 tanker aircraft have been deployed to Eilat Airport in southern Israel since the ceasefire began.

Satellite imagery also appears to show two U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft at the airfield, visible as white objects.

🔗 Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT)