Iran's Economy On The Ropes Amid Hyperinflation And Widespread Gas Shortages

Iran's Economy On The Ropes Amid Hyperinflation And Widespread Gas Shortages, As Trump Blockade Bites

TYLER DURDEN

Bessent is on a roll: first his attempt to send yields sharply lower by announcing an aggressive TSY buyback expansion, failed spectacularly, and then today, the US “economic D-Day” against Iran and unviled by Bessent, turned out to be "less Normandy and more Grenada", according to Bloomberg. But maybe, just like in the case of last week's "failed intervention", Bessent doesn't actually have to do much - in that case, all the Treasury secretary needs to do is spark a short squeeze (as noted earlier, Treasury CTA shorts are the highest on record), while Iran appears to be having some big problems of it own without Bessent even having to do much.

According to Bloomberg, Iran is facing mounting fuel shortages as the US squeezes its access to imports, stretching supplies of a commodity that previously sparked bouts of unrest in the country.

The state-run Hamshahri newspaper on Sunday reported long queues at petrol stations in Tehran because of fears of price hikes, with many drivers filling up tanks before they’re even half empty.

A top official in charge of domestic energy supply said the gasoline market had a daily deficit of 14-15 million liters due to record demand, damage incurred in the war and “changes in the national budget’s priorities.”

“We have to do something to bring consumption down to domestic production levels,” Esmaeil Saqab Esfahani, head of the Energy Optimization and Strategic Management Organization, said last week, according to the semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency.

Needless to say, growing fuel shortages - and mounting popular unrest - will test Iran’s ability to keep the economy moving as the US launches what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described on Monday as “the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary.” 

Past efforts to raise prices have led to deadly protests, most notably in 2019, when hundreds of Iranians were killed by security forces. Throw in rampant inflation and a worsening currency crisis now crushing millions of ordinary households in Iran, and a spike in gasoline prices could be the lit match that sparks a new explosion in public anger, similar to the deadly protests in January. 

For their part, Iranian officials have been warning the public for months that price hikes may be inevitable because Israeli and US strikes on fuel storage sites and other energy facilities have compounded a longstanding supply-demand imbalance. Trump's blockade on Iranian ports has only made the situation worse by preventing imports that Iran normally relies on to offset shortages. 

President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has become an impotent figurehead,  appealed to the public for support as far back as May, as he mooted the possibility of rationing and urged people to use public transport where possible. But the warnings don’t appear to have worked. 

And speaking of surging prices, Iran’s currency plummeted to new lows on Monday as the US announced further sanctions on the Islamic republic, whose citizens are now rushing to exchange lines to save their cash. 

The rial dropped to 2.02 million to one US dollar when the currency markets opened on Monday, meaning the currency is now worth about half of what it was at the start of the year.

The continued plunge during nearly six months of war has led Iranians in Tehran to sprint for the exchange markets in hopes of getting US bills before their rial falls even further.

“There is no hope for a deal and peace,” Sadegh Mahmoudi, 73, told the Associated Press as he waited at an exchange line in downtown Tehran.

Iran’s rial has been in a free fall since last November due to years of Western sanctions and persistently high inflation, factors that have only gotten worse during the war.

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Russia Complains Britain ‘Adding Fuel to the Fire’ as PM Burnham Visits Kyiv to Hand Over Missile Blueprints

Russia Complains Britain ‘Adding Fuel to the Fire’ as PM Burnham Visits Kyiv to Hand Over Missile Blueprints

Oliver JJ Lane

New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham made his first foreign visit as leader on Monday, visiting Ukraine where he spoke of a “100 year partnership” with Kyiv and handed over blueprints to an advanced Anglo-French missile, so Ukraine can build their own.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham laid flowers, gave speeches, and handed over the blueprints to a long-range bunker buster missile on Monday as he visited Kyiv to help mark Ukraine’s 35th annual independence day, marking the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. The news Britain’s Labour leader was handing over potent missile technology to Ukraine so Kyiv can produce the sophisticated deep strike weapons in their own factories triggered a protest from Moscow, which complained the UK is a full participant in the war and one that works to prevent peace.

Burnham arrived in Kyiv on Monday morning in the typical fashion for world leaders, by executive train from Poland given the danger of flying directly into the country, and met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The British leader will later chair a meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing — a group of European nations contributing to the defence of Ukraine — from Kyiv. Leaders including France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz will join in person or by teleconference.

In a speech affirming British support for Ukraine’s war aims and to mark the 35th anniversary of the end of the Soviet Union in Ukraine, PM Burnham made reference to Britain holding Nazi Germany at bay in 1940 and 1941, and said Ukraine was now doing the same to Putinist Russia. He said: “My nation, our nation kept the flame of European freedom alive in the 20th century Great Britain. You hold that flame in the 21st”, reports The Guardian.

The PM said “we all know” that Russia cannot win in Ukraine and promised “the UK is behind you today and for as long as it takes… I want the Ukrainian people to hear it directly from me that our support will not waver”. He went on: “Russia should be in no doubt of our resolve. We will not back down until there is a just and lasting peace.”

Ukraine is supplying Europe with security by acting as a bulwark on its eastern border, Burnham said, and added: “That’s why I believe the Ukrainian people deserve not just our continued support, but our gratitude and our respect… We will continue to build the 100 year partnership between our two countries… And despite Russia’s outrageous threats to my country, we will continue our support for Ukraine’s defence”.

The visit of Burnham on Monday marked the latest step in an apparently ongoing effort not just to buttress Ukraine’s defence by giving it the freedom to build its own advanced weaponry to freely provided Western designs, but — presuming Ukraine survives the war — to become an arsenal for Europe in the future. A spokesman for the Prime Minister said “the Government has agreed that defence firm MBDA can release classified information on UK components for the long-range missile, SCALP”.

The SCALP or Storm Shadow is an Anglo-French bunker buster cruise missile. France has already said it would be permitting Ukraine to build the missile domestically, but it has many British components, and the British government surrendering its classified intellectual property will allow the project to go ahead. Ukraine has already been given complete Storm Shadow missiles and the weapon gained international attention in 2023 when the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol was destroyed in a spectacular airstrike, with footage of the weapons plunging into the headquarters building and the hardened bunkers below captured by shocked onlookers.

As is customary when a European state offers Ukraine a new military capability, the Kremlin responded with a statement warning Ukraine’s allies off. In comments that come just days after dark allusions to nuclear war and “consequences” after it was revealed Ukraine was using long-range British drones to strike deep inside Russia, President Vladimir Putin’s official spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday morning of the missle blueprints that “Britain is participating in this war. It is participating in this war on the side of the Kiev regime.”

He said at the Kremlin: “Britain methodically and regularly adds fuel to the fire [of the war]. And it methodically and regularly plots in order to prevent any development of the peaceful settlement process. This is exactly what the UK is doing.”

Netanyahu: 'Iran tried to assassinate one of my children'

Netanyahu: 'Iran tried to assassinate one of my children'

Israel National News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed this evening (Monday) that Iran has attempted to assassinate one of his children. The information was previously prohibited from being published.

In a conversation with Channel 14 News, Netanyahu said, "There is something here that is unbelievable. Iran targeted one of my children. Iran tried to murder one of my children."

When asked whether this was intelligence information that was presented to him, Netanyahu did not elaborate and repeated his words: "Iran tried to assassinate one of my children." According to him, security for his children is not a luxury: "It is something without which this attempt will simply succeed."

The Ministerial Committee for Shin Bet Affairs approved on July 16th granting Netanyahu security for life, and his wife Sara will be secured for the rest of her husband's life. The Prime Minister's sons will be secured, even if he does not continue for another term, for five years.

The Shin Bet and the Mossad determined before the decision that Netanyahu and his family were at a high level of threat for their entire lives due to the desire of Israel's enemies to avenge the assassinations of senior Iranian officials during the war.

Two years ago, it was revealed that the Shin Bet and the police arrested Motti Maman, a 73-year-old resident of Ashkelon, who had been recruited by intelligence officials in Iran for the purpose of assassinating Israeli figures. Among the targets were Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Galant, and Shin Bet head Ronen Bar.

According to the security establishment, Maman was smuggled into Iranian territory twice and received payment for carrying out missions. The background to the Israeli's actions is an attempt to obtain "easy money" after he got into debt.

Netanyahu's statement follows reports that Iranian state television aired a video threatening Barron Trump, the 20-year-old son of US President Donald Trump.

The video, titled “Where and How Barron Trump Should Be Killed," claims that Barron Trump’s movements have been “fully monitored" and that the information obtained includes the location of the university he attends, the vehicles accompanying him, and the locations of the Secret Service personnel protecting him. The video also claims that a $10 million bounty has been offered for him, although that claim had not been independently verified at the time of publication.

The broadcast comes after a similar video published in July by the Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claiming that access routes and weaknesses in Melania Trump’s security arrangements in New York had been exposed. In late May, the New York Post reported on an alleged plot to harm Ivanka Trump.

Iranian state media have also issued direct threats against President Trump himself. In July, a billboard was displayed in Tehran’s Islamic Revolution Square showing Trump apparently dead in a coffin, alongside the English-language words, “We will kill Trump.

Turkey's blood libel against Israel

Turkey's blood libel against Israel – and the record Ankara hopes you won't check

Nadav Shragai

History, as far as anyone knows, has never documented a genocide carried out by shipping in medicine and running mass vaccination campaigns for the population supposedly being "annihilated." Nor has it ever recorded a genocide carried out by building humanitarian zones or feeding the "exterminated" population in active combat areas with hundreds of thousands of tons of water, food, and medical supplies every single day, all while setting up field hospitals.

Israel poured enormous resources into evacuating Gazan residents from their homes in combat zones before the ground offensive even began, using millions of leaflets, text messages, and phone calls to warn them. None of that will spoil the blood libel Erdoğan has cultivated against Israel, quite successfully, for three years running. Even Donald Trump, his self-described "good friend," has stayed silent. So has his ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack.

History, as far as anyone knows, has never documented a genocide carried out by shipping in medicine and running mass vaccination campaigns for the population supposedly being "annihilated." Nor has it ever recorded a genocide carried out by building humanitarian zones or feeding the "exterminated" population in active combat areas with hundreds of thousands of tons of water, food, and medical supplies every single day, all while setting up field hospitals.

Israel poured enormous resources into evacuating Gazan residents from their homes in combat zones before the ground offensive even began, using millions of leaflets, text messages, and phone calls to warn them. None of that will spoil the blood libel Erdoğan has cultivated against Israel, quite successfully, for three years running. Even Donald Trump, his self-described "good friend," has stayed silent. So has his ambassador to Turkey, Tom Barrack.

What the world doesn't hear about nearly enough is that the Turkish president has turned his own country into a dark police state, one that has investigated or prosecuted more than 700,000 of its own citizens since 2016 on charges of terrorism or ties to terrorism. Ankara has slapped that label on more or less any teacher, judge, journalist, civil servant, or academic who refuses to fall in line.

Amnesty International and the UN's Middle East committee have both published detailed reports documenting torture inside Turkish detention facilities. In March 2023, a panel of international judges and legal experts submitted an evidence file to the International Criminal Court detailing brutal acts of torture, electric shocks, waterboarding, and sexual assault, against roughly 800 documented victims. That same file reportedly described how Turkish intelligence carried out illegal abductions in some 45 countries, flying Turkish citizens back home for interrogation. Some of them were never seen again.

Add to that the extensive testimony published by the UN Human Rights Office documenting war crimes and ethnic cleansing that Turkey and the militias it backs have carried out in Kurdish residential areas, expulsions, and demographic engineering, in places like Afrin in Syria, since resettled with people loyal to Ankara. It's all there in the human rights reports, for anyone who bothers to look.

The list keeps going. Documented executions. The destruction of civilian infrastructure during military operations in northern Syria and Iraq, where Erdoğan's forces deliberately bombed water facilities, power stations, hospitals, and grain silos. And that's before getting to what amounts to footnotes by comparison, like Turkey's withdrawal from the treaty protecting women from violence, or its ongoing suppression of free speech.

Any honest observer has known for a long time that the main reason civilians and infrastructure in Gaza get hit is Hamas's own use of its population and facilities as human shields, a blatant violation of the laws of war. Hamas fights from mosques, dense residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools, and has even shot to kill civilians trying to flee.

All of this is well known to us. It isn't well known, or known at all, to much of the world. If Israel is serious about confronting Turkey's campaign of incitement and hypocrisy, it needs to get this information out there, everywhere, along with the record of Turkish aid, shelter, and funding, still ongoing, for the headquarters of the Hamas terrorist organization that massacred Israelis on October 7 and would do it again in a heartbeat if it could. Erdoğan's indictment of us could easily be flipped into an indictment of him. We just need to get to work.

Britain is ‘participating in and intensifying’ Ukraine conflict – Kremlin

Britain is ‘participating in and intensifying’ Ukraine conflict – Kremlin

RT

Britain is directly participating in the Ukraine conflict and actively working to prolong it, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, after London announced it would grant Kiev access to classified technical information needed to assemble long-range cruise missiles domestically.

The UK government has authorized European defense manufacturer MBDA to release classified information concerning British-made components for SCALP, the French-produced version of Britain’s Storm Shadow. The air-launched missiles use shared French and British technology and have a range exceeding 250 km.

“The UK was the first to gift long-range weapons to Ukraine back in 2023,” he said, referring to deliveries of Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles. “I am pleased to confirm today that I have approved” Kiev’s request to share the missile-production technology as well, the prime minister added.

Responding to the announcement, Peskov said Britain is “participating in this war on the side of the Kiev regime” and is “methodically and regularly adding fuel to the fire and scheming to prevent any development of the peace settlement process.”

Moscow has maintained that the UK and other suppliers of weapons to Kiev are directly responsible for the deep-strike campaign, which it says has frequently hit civilians.

According to the Sunday Times, drones manufactured by BAE Systems and another unnamed British company have been used to hit targets in Russia over the past six months, including two oil refineries. The UAVs reportedly include the Nyan, a jet-powered drone produced by a BAE Systems subsidiary.

In a statement last week, the Russian Embassy in London called the UK “an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks” committed by Ukraine. It warned that “the deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that London will face consequences if it continues supplying drones used by Ukraine for strikes deep inside Russia.

“We have every right to regard the proudly proclaimed direct involvement of British missile forces in strikes against Russia as participation in the war, with all the consequences that entails,” Lavrov said.