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sanctions
Treasury warns foreign banks of no-notice Iran sanctions
The US Treasury Department said on Monday, October 5, that foreign financial institutions still doing business with sanctioned Iranian banks could be sanctioned "at any time without advance notification." The alert tells banks to cut those ties right away and…
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Iran’s oil minister Paknejad resigns amid US blockade
Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad resigned on Sunday. President Masoud Pezeshkian accepted the resignation and put Hamid Bovard, chief executive of the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), in charge of the ministry as acting minister, Iranian state media reported.…
Trump weighs Iran decision: ‘easy way or hard way’
President Donald Trump said on Saturday, Oct. 3, that he has "a decision that I'll make about Iran." Speaking to reporters at the White House before leaving for midterm campaign stops in Ohio, he said Iran had been "decimated" and…
EU rejects Kyiv’s early loan payout bid, demands reforms
The European Union has turned down, for now, Ukraine's request to speed up loan payments that would cover an unexpected gap in this year's military funding. People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Brussels wants Kyiv to carry out…
Iran denies offering inspector access for sanctions relief
Bloomberg News reported Thursday that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told diplomats in private that Tehran was willing to let nuclear inspectors back into its bombed facilities if sanctions were eased. Within hours, Iran's state news agency called the report…
Putin rejects strike truce, says Russia lost 1% of GDP
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, October 1, that Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have cost the country about 1% of its gross domestic product. Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow, he also rejected the…
Iran receives US response to Hormuz proposal via Qatar
Iran said Wednesday it received an official US response to its proposal to end the seven-month war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but sources close to the negotiations warn the two sides are drifting further apart, raising the prospect…
Trump offers Iran sanctions relief for nuclear steps
President Donald Trump is willing to offer Iran sanctions relief and release frozen funds in exchange for concrete progress on Tehran's nuclear program, U.S. officials told multiple news outlets on Monday, marking a conditional shift just days after Washington rejected…
FT investigation exposes $6.9B Russian sanctions evasion through global banks
A Kremlin-backed fintech company called A7 used forged invoices, shell companies, and an industrial-scale document forgery operation to funnel more than $6.9 billion through the international banking system despite Western sanctions on Russia, according to a Financial Times investigation published…
Oil prices rebound as Iran airline sanctions take effect Wednesday
Oil prices snapped a four-session losing streak on Tuesday after new U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian airlines and continued security threats across the Middle East renewed concerns about global crude supply.
Carlyle’s $22B Lukoil deal idles European refineries after 10-month US approval delay
Carlyle Group's The Carlyle Group Inc. proposed acquisition of Lukoil's overseas oil business has been stuck in the US government approval process for nearly 10 months, leaving roughly 400,000 barrels a day of European refining capacity underutilised while global fuel…
Trump administration prepares sweeping sanctions on ICC
The Trump administration is preparing to impose a new round of extensive sanctions on the International Criminal Court that would restrict most financial dealings with the institution, the Wall Street Journal News Corp reported on Sunday, citing officials familiar with…
Russian ESPO crude tops $120 as China races to secure supply
Russia's ESPO Blend crude oil surged above $120 per barrel this week for the first time since April, driven by a scramble among Chinese state-owned refiners to secure supply as Middle Eastern disruptions threaten to leave refineries short of feedstock…
Russia, China veto UN panel monitoring Iran sanctions
Russia and China on Thursday vetoed a UN Security Council draft resolution that would have extended the mandate of the Panel of Experts monitoring sanctions on Iran, blocking the measure despite 11 votes in favor, according to Anadolu Agency. Pakistan…
Raiffeisen shares tumble after short-seller alleges Russia sanctions evasion
Shares of Raiffeisen Bank International fell as much as 9% in Vienna on Thursday after U.S. short-seller Grizzly Research disclosed a short position and alleged the Austrian lender has served as a key channel for circumventing Western sanctions on Russia,…
Iran’s overland trade workaround falters at borders amid Hormuz blockade
Iran's pledge to counter the U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by expanding overland commerce is running into trouble at nearly every border crossing, according to the Wall Street Journal News Corp. Iranian truck drivers are stranded at…
Leaked files show ICBC financed sanctioned oligarchs from London hub
A trove of 4.8 million confidential records from inside the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has exposed how the world's largest bank used its London operations to finance companies linked to sanctioned oligarchs, autocrats and China's political establishment, according…
EU fails to extend Russia sanctions a day before they expire
European Union ambassadors failed on Monday to reach the unanimous agreement needed to extend individual sanctions against Russia, leaving asset freezes on more than 3,000 people and entities at risk of lapsing when the measures expire on Tuesday, September 15.
Chinese AI firms refused to meet US delegation over sanctions fears
China's artificial intelligence sector is moving away from the race to build ever-larger language models and toward the deployment and commercialization of AI agents, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing a new industry report. The shift reflects a broader trend that…
Iran quietly tolerates crypto for trade settlements, FT reports
Iran's central bank has quietly loosened foreign-exchange controls over the past several months, tolerating the use of cryptocurrency for cross-border trade settlements as the country seeks workarounds to mounting U.S. sanctions pressure, the Financial Times News Corp reported on Wednesday.
China’s independent refiners face crude supply crunch as US blockade chokes Iranian oil
China's independent oil refiners are bracing for further cuts to processing runs as a US naval blockade on Iran and Washington's broader sanctions campaign choke off the discounted crude supplies that have long sustained their operations.
UK, France and Canada ban goods from Israeli settlements
Britain, France and Canada on Tuesday announced coordinated trade bans on goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a move that drew immediate criticism from both Israel and the United States but marks one of the most concerted…
Italian tech collective shuts down after U.S. terror listing
Autistici/Inventati, an Italian technology collective that spent 25 years providing free email, blogs, and websites to activists, announced on Sunday that it would shut down its services. The closure came 11 days after the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets…
Hong Kong’s Russian gold imports triple to record in 2026
Hong Kong imported close to 100 metric tonnes of Russian gold in the first seven months of 2026, a record for the period and roughly triple the volume shipped during the same stretch last year, according to a Financial Times…
Hong Kong bought $35B in Russian gold since 2022
Hong Kong absorbed 92.1 tonnes of Russian gold in 2025, worth roughly $10.5 billion, as Western sanctions continued to reshape global bullion flows and push the trade toward Asia's most permissive free port.
Iran says it’s finding ways around US naval blockade
Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said this week that Tehran's oil industry is actively working to circumvent the U.S. naval blockade that has crippled the country's crude exports, even as data from vessel-tracking firms shows Iranian shipments have plummeted to…
Chinese refiners pay record premiums for Russian crude as Iranian supply dries up
Chinese refiners are paying record premiums for Russia's East Siberia-Pacific Ocean crude blend as the loss of cheap Iranian barrels reshapes Asia's oil market. November-loading ESPO from Russia's Kozmino port is trading at more than $7 per barrel above Brent,…
Bessent says EU, UK, UAE back US Iran sanctions push at G20
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told finance ministers at the G20 summit in Asheville, North Carolina, on Tuesday that he had secured broad backing from allies to intensify Washington's campaign to strangle Iran's economy, warning that new sanctions targeting banks would…
Iran says it has enough reserves after Bessent warns of economic collapse
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Monday that Iran's economy could collapse "within weeks or months" under mounting American sanctions pressure, as he opened the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, seeking to rally the world's…
U.S. blockade halts Iran crude exports for record 7 weeks
For the first time on record, Iran has gone approximately seven weeks without shipping meaningful crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz, as a U.S. naval blockade achieves what years of sanctions could not: cutting off Tehran's primary source of…