India is set to import a record-high volume of Russian crude in June as the Hormuz crisis and the U.S. waivers on Russia’s barrels have pushed the world’s third-largest crude importer to gorge on Moscow’s oil again, OilPrice reported.
India has imported 2.6 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude oil so far in June, according to preliminary vessel-tracking data from commodity analytics firm Kpler cited by Indian media.
So far this month, Russian crude has accounted for as much as 53.5% of all Indian oil imports, per the data.
Russian crude now makes up HALF of India’s oil imports in June!
India is importing 2.66 million barrels per day of Russian oil — which is nearly 40% higher than May.
This has strengthened Russia’s position as India’s largest oil supplier.
Key Points:
• Russian oil share has… pic.twitter.com/A5zWie3U4B
India’s full-month imports of Russian crude are set for a record-high of 2.35 million bpd in June for any month ever, Kpler has estimated. This would exceed the previous record of 2.2 million bpd from May 2023.
Going forward, Russian crude will remain a key source of supply for India even if the U.S. does not extend the waiver for Russian crude already loaded on tankers, analysts say. Which is odd because when viewed from the other side, the picture is a mirror image: as shown in the chart below, Russian crude oil exports to India have reportedly plunged to just 555kb/d in the last week, the lowest volume in 4 years.
In other words, there is a disconnect in the data.
In any case, last week, as it announced the memorandum of understanding with Iran, the U.S. quietly let the waiver on Russian oil sales expire without renewing it.
“India’s imports remained strong through June, supported by continued discounts and steady refinery demand,” Sumit Ritolia, manager, modelling and refining at Kpler, told Financial Express.
“Regardless of whether the US waiver is extended, we expect India’s imports of Russian crude to remain robust, even if not at record-high levels.”
India turned en masse to Russian oil in 2022, when the U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Moscow due to the invasion of Ukraine. Four years later, India is a major buyer of Russia’s crude, and Russia is India’s single-largest oil supplier.
As supply from the Middle East crashes, India is also buying growing volumes of crude from West African producers Nigeria and Angola, as well as from South American producers Brazil and Venezuela.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 04:15Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,
In the latest dystopian lunge toward a total surveillance state, the London Metropolitan Police has confirmed plans to deploy static live facial recognition cameras in the West End, including Soho and areas around major theatres and retail spots, with installation targeted for the end of this year.
Six additional areas are slated for rollout in 2027. The fixed cameras, mounted on lampposts and street furniture, will operate continuously and can be repositioned based on shifting crime patterns.
Privacy campaigners warn the move creates "digital police lineups" for innocent theatregoers and shoppers in one of Britain's busiest tourist zones, escalating a technology already used to scan millions of faces.
Police expand live facial recognition to one of Britain's most touristic areas and key crime hotspothttps://t.co/cp14lziQ1C
— GB News (@GBNEWS) June 23, 2026The expansion fits a clear pattern of UK authorities layering physical biometric surveillance onto existing efforts to shape online narratives, restrict speech, and monitor public discourse under pretexts of safety and disinformation control.
During a six-month pilot in South London earlier this year, static cameras scanned approximately 470,000 faces, resulting in over 170 arrests, and they claim recording just one false alert. Police claim that non-matches have their biometric data deleted immediately.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the technology as "one of the most revolutionary technology advances in policing in recent years," adding "Public confidence in this is clear - around 80 per cent of Londoners support its use.
Rowley also stated the force wants "to build on our success by introducing this capability to the West End and Soho by December. The use of static cameras will help us continue cutting crime in high-footfall areas in central London."
Policing Minister Sarah Jones has backed nationwide expansion with record investment. Dee Corsi of the New West End Company welcomed a potential West End pilot, saying it offers "a significant opportunity" to tackle crime and boost public confidence.
Millions face having their faces scanned as Met Police expand the use of facial recognition to London's West End https://t.co/f8oCnM6y25
— Daily Mail (@DailyMail) June 23, 2026Critics see something far more intrusive. Big Brother Watch's Silkie Carlo called the fixed-camera expansion "an alarming escalation of an intrusive technology which has already scanned the faces of millions of innocent Londoners."
She further stated: "Forcing people to enter a digital police lineup in the capital's busiest and most popular destinations is an affront to the idea that you should not have to identify yourself to the police if you have done nothing wrong. To see a play, you must now pay with your privacy."
?Breaking: Met Police to expand Orwellian FIXED live facial recognition cameras into London's West End by Christmas & six other areas in 2027
"Expanding the use of live facial recognition to static cameras is an alarming escalation of an intrusive technology which has already... pic.twitter.com/pSaMkJCh3D
Jack Coulson, Head of Advocacy at Big Brother Watch, echoed the concern: "Legislation to regulate the police's use of facial recognition is expected in the Autumn. Yet the police are rushing ahead with AI monitoring of the public under their own rules. We are calling on the Met to stop this experiment until, at least, Parliament has spoken. Policing by consent is a cultural inheritance we must protect. Permanent biometric surveillance of the public square is incompatible with that ideal."
??The Government is expanding the use of Orwellian facial recognition surveillance
Here's why YOU should be worried & join the fight to #StopFacialRecognition
??Take action: https://t.co/KIFHRGsYLj pic.twitter.com/qz6a3G4EF9
Liberty director Akiko Hart described the West End move as a "major escalation" and urged the Met to pause expansion until proper legal safeguards exist. A joint civil society push, including Article 19 and Big Brother Watch, has already written to the Home Office demanding future facial recognition laws protect privacy rather than enable unchecked state power.
?Stop the uncontrolled use of facial recognition
Together with leading rights groups, we've just delivered this message to the @ukhomeoffice calling on the Government to rein in this Orwellian tech
Read the joint statement??https://t.co/SueHOsuwcH pic.twitter.com/KydCl6e7rW
Previous deployments underscore the rapid creep. Big Brother Watch highlighted live facial recognition operations in Waltham Forest and Islington in mid-June, labeling them an "enormous expansion of the surveillance state" that sets a dangerous precedent.
??Police are deploying Orwellian live facial recognition in #WalthamForest and #Islington today.
This tech is an enormous expansion of the surveillance state & it sets a dangerous precedent worldwide.
Sign our petition to #StopFacialRecognition??https://t.co/9do8SIF81t
Earlier warnings detailed government moves to broaden the technology's use nationwide and documented cases of innocent people wrongly targeted, including shoppers ejected from stores via facial recognition systems.
??An innocent man was WRONGLY kicked out of a Sainsbury's shop using facial recognition
This dangerously authoritarian surveillance is a threat to our privacy and freedoms — it has no place on the streets of Britain.#StopFacialRecognition pic.twitter.com/ACnmZE8GrB
This street-level biometric dragnet does not exist in isolation. It forms part of a wider architecture of control.
The facial recognition technology is presented as essential because root problems - including crime linked to failed integration and lax border policies - remain unaddressed. London's West End, long a symbol of British openness and culture, now risks becoming a permanent testing ground for mass biometric monitoring of ordinary citizens who have committed no offense.
Permanent AI enhanced surveillance infrastructure in public spaces undermines the principle that the state must justify intrusion, not assume it. Real security comes from competent policing, secure borders, and addressing the policy failures that create high-crime environments in the first place - not from turning every street corner into a digital checkpoint.
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 03:30After weeks of daily protests, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is digging in to defend two luxury resort projects backed by Jared Kushner's investment company that have resulted in thousands of people protesting in the streets of the capital Tirana and on the southern coast, where one of the resorts is slated to be built.
Protesters opposed to two planned resorts in ecologically sensitive areas, in Tirana, on June 12.Photographer: Atdhe Mulla/BloombergThe opposition has dubbed itself the "Flamingo Revolution" due to the impact on a protected wetland home to flamingoes, seals, and sea turtle nesting sites - with protesters hoisting inflatable pink birds and signs opposing the projects.The demonstrations began late last month as site preparations began on the Zuvernec peninsula - while Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump, went on a podcast and discussed plans to develop the island of Sazan.
The resort development he champions is the brainchild of Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, who described falling in love with Albania a few years ago while visiting on a boat. Rama met them on that trip and found them to be "very nice, humble...humanly good people."
Now, Kushner's investment firm Affinity Partners is involved in the €1.4 billion ($1.6 billion) project near the Vjosa-Narta protected area, and another one on nearby Sazan Island.
Together the projects are worth up to €5 billion, Rama said. -Reuters
According to Rama, the protesters are not engaging in genuine demonstrations - rather, it's "political theater," he told Bloomberg on Tuesday - claiming that the protests are backed by "an enormous digital amplification ecosystem that is clearly not organic," and has blamed Iran and others due to the fact that Albania is home to 3,000 members of an exiled Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama (REUTERS/Florion Goga)"Neither a loud minority, joined by every opposition force, nor a wave of digitally amplified outrage fueled by the global fascination with the Trump name attached to what I believe is an extraordinary opportunity for Albania (and further amplified by the interference of malign foreign actors) will divert us from implementing our Albania 2030 Vision," he told the outlet.
Abandoned former military housing on Sazan island, Albania.Photographer: Atdhe Mulla/Bloomberg"Our standard is clear: law, science, transparency and European obligations - not hysteria," Rama told Bloomberg. "We are opening the country, protecting its natural assets, attracting serious investment and moving steadily toward EU membership."
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 02:45Authored by Aaron Hanscom via PJMedia.com,
Half a million.
That's the number that made headlines in April when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialist government approved plans to grant legal status to 500,000 illegal migrants.
But a leaked police report warned that the true number could be much higher, estimating that between 750,000 and 1 million illegal migrants living in Spain could apply for amnesty, in addition to 250,000 to 350,000 asylum seekers.
The report described the amnesty plan's "very intense media impact, especially in Latin America" and warned of a "highly relevant pull factor," which we will return to in a moment.
The conservative Popular Party (PP) also disputed the government's estimates, saying the true number could be double and calling the plan an "outrage." Sánchez, whom The Economist has called the leader of Europe’s anti-Trump resistance, anticipating such criticism, wrote in a New York Times op-ed in January that "MAGA-style leaders may say that our country can’t handle taking in so many migrants — that this is a suicidal move, the desperate act of a collapsing country."
Well, the numbers are starting to come in and, just as Joe Biden's weak border enforcement in the U.S. created a "pull factor" that led to average monthly border crossings of over 100,000, Sánchez’s policies are having a similar magnet effect, far exceeding his government’s estimates.
Even though the asylum application window remains open until June 30, 900,000 applications have already been submitted, a record number for Spain. The European Conservative reports that "approximately 350,000 additional applications have been submitted since the start of June, a surge that has caught authorities off guard." The publication notes that these numbers are much higher than the last time mass amnesty was tried in Spain, in 2005 under the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who these days spends his time in court as the subject of a graft probe. Zapatero's program granted 576,000 residence permits from 691,000 applications received.
Sánchez, of course, looks at every new immigrant as a potential future voter who won't care about the mind-boggling corruption within his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). As increasing numbers of Spaniards take to the streets to demand the prime minister's resignation, Muslim migrants are among his most loyal supporters. In the video below, we meet a Muslim store owner a minute in, with a poster of Sánchez on his shop wall, who says Muslims are “100%" going to vote for the prime minister if they become citizens. Why? Because he "stands with Iran and Palestine." Indeed he does.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a poster of Santiago Abascal, the leader of the rising populist/conservative Vox party, in any Muslim-owned shops in Spain. Abascal, who has said that it is "inhumane to tell all of Africa and all of America that they can fit into Spain," warned in April that mass amnesty will increase crime in the streets of Spain and accelerate the country's housing and public healthcare crises.
And it's not just Spanish politicians who are criticizing Sánchez's policies.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Sánchez in a closed-door meeting in Brussels last week that his amnesty plan negatively affects all EU countries. It was at that EU leaders' meeting in Brussels that Sánchez opposed, along with French President Emmanuel Macron, plans for offshore migrant deportation hubs. Politico reports:
The disagreement comes days after the EU approved legislation allowing members to establish deportation hubs in third countries as part of a push to ensure failed asylum-seekers leave the bloc. While it’s still unclear how many capitals could take advantage of the rule change, 19 of the EU 27 signed up to a joint Danish-Italian letter, first reported by POLITICO, calling for swift action on deportations.
“Countries are now working … to implement the new possibilities, including hubs in third countries. We will personally lead the way to make sure our visions are brought to life,” the letter circulated Friday morning reads.
Spain opposes EU plans for offshore deportation hubs, arguing they raise legal and humanitarian concerns, while other countries including Italy and Denmark view the hubs as a key tool to deter irregular migration and speed up removals.
What Sánchez calls a humanitarian immigration policy, an increasing number of European politicians, including Abascal and Meloni, see as an invitation to invasion.
Watch the video below and decide for yourself:
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/25/2026 - 02:00