At a moment US officials have been boasting of more and more oil tankers making it through the Strait of Hormuz under US naval protection and support, Iran has previewed a new 'restricted zone' in the Gulf, which it says will be announced in the coming days.
The announcement is expected to include maps of the new shipping corridor through the Strait of Hormuz, likely to begin from where the US blockade of Iran starts and extending into areas of the Gulf, according to Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Sunday.
Jizan Industrial Gas Complex"The maps of a new international corridor which lies in Iranian and Omani waters and in which Iran will have management have been agreed and should be signed in the coming days," national security council official Mohsen Rezaei said.
"We will only commit to the Strait of Hormuz being open when they (the Americans) stop the sabotage, threats and attacks on Iran," he added. Per a Monday Bloomberg note:
Oil advances, with Brent futures trading above $97 a barrel, after US attacks on Iranian tankers and Tehran’s threat of a new restricted zone outside the Strait of Hormuz. European natural gas prices surge. Meanwhile, Ukraine is resigned to Russia’s war dragging on through another tough winter.
Also, in a latest Monday warning, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has put US energy firms on notice, saying they could be targeted if Iranian tankers continue to be attacked (following precisely a rare US airstrike on an Iranian civilian tanker).
According to Ghalibaf's words on X: "It's simple: the oil and gas production chain here is sprawling, accessible, and exposed. American oil and gas companies across these waters and facilities share that exposure. Strike our assets and you get struck. We’ve already proven it. Ask the bases that are no longer viable."
Brent reaches high since July 23
The top Iranian negotiator also said in a weekend speech, "The Americans must have understood that the era of proportionate responses has come to an end," adding that "any aggression against Iran's interests and security will receive a faster, more intense and more painful response.”
Across the Gulf, the UAE is voicing its frustration, vowing to establish alternative energy routes:
The United Arab Emirates is building alternative routes for its energy exports and trade to ensure they are not "held hostage" by the ongoing war between the U.S. and Iran, UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash said on Monday.
"Our energy exports will not be held hostage, nor will our trade and economic activity," Gargash said before the Hili Forum in Abu Dhabi.
Meanwhile, not helping rising energy prices is fresh reporting out of Saudi Arabia of key oil facilities hit, likely by more Houthi attacks from neighboring Yemen.
"Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities in the Saudi Arabian city of Jizan have been attacked only a month after a separate strike temporarily knocked out some production at its refinery," Financial Times reports. "The company’s oil infrastructure was hit on Monday and the damage was being assessed, said two people with knowledge of the matter."
Tehran continues to see itself as having the ability to leverage economic blowback against Washington...
It’s simple: the oil and gas production chain here is sprawling, accessible, and exposed. American oil and gas companies across these waters and facilities share that exposure. Strike our assets and you get struck. We’ve already proven it. Ask the bases that are no longer viable. https://t.co/XiHAf6KzqV pic.twitter.com/0wBf40K4D3
— محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf (@mb_ghalibaf) September 7, 2026Jizan provides a convenient targeting opportunity for the Houthis given its closeness to the Yemeni border as a significant Saudi industrial city. The Iran-linked group has not immediately claimed responsibility for any fresh attacks on the kingdom, however.
Bloomberg reports Monday, "The latest attack didn’t cause major damage, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential matters. The 400,000 barrel-a-day refinery remains shut following a strike in July, one of them said."
The Houthis have sought to impose a blockade on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports since July - and this has been coupled by sporadic major drone and missile attacks on Saudi oil sites. Ansar Allah is no doubt working in tandem with Tehran keep up the pressure on global energy markets.
Weekend & Overnight DevelopmentsAuthored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,
Indefinitely perpetuating the Ukrainian Conflict through these means indefinitely delays the full implementation of the US' planned "Pivot (back) to (East) Asia", can lead to Russia selling its natural resource wealth to China at bargain-basement prices, and maintains China's "active neutrality".
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) referenced the EU's summertime disbursement of the first €1 billion to Ukraine for drone procurement out of the €6 billion promised for this program in an article late last month about how "Ukraine's Drone War Exposes An Uncomfortable Reliance On China". They drew attention to the carve-out allowing Ukraine to purchase Chinese parts with these funds, ergo the politically incorrect observation back then that "The EU Plans To Pay China To Help Ukraine Kill Russians".
RFE/RL reported that "While Kyiv has cut back on the purchase of ready-made drones from China, components such as motors, lithium batteries, and fiberoptics are still in high demand." Additionally, "In the first six months of 2026, imports of Chinese parts had already reached around 76 percent of the total recorded for the previous year." They also cited a Ukrainian report which claimed that "38 percent of the value of drone components imported by Ukraine in the first half of 2025 came from China."
The purpose of their piece appears to be to instill a sense of urgency in Ukraine and the West alike to radically ramp up domestic drone production in order to reduce what one of their cited experts described as Ukraine's "hostile interdependence" on China. They explained that "Beijing remains Kyiv's largest trading partner, while Ukraine is a key supplier of agricultural goods to China." That's true, and it's one of the reasons why China won't cut Ukraine off from drone-related sales, but there's more to it.
While Sino-Russo ties are better than at anytime in history, it was suspected as far back as early 2023 that "China Doesn't Want Anyone To Win In Ukraine", the reason being that a supposedly manageable forever war would indefinitely delay the full implementation of the US' planned "Pivot (back) to (East) Asia". Moreover, resource-rich Russia could become disproportionately dependent on China, thus leading to Moscow selling its natural wealth to Beijing at bargain-basement prices.
In pursuit of this cynical end, China has simultaneously played an irreplaceable role in providing Ukraine with drones, parts, and fiber optics (even if only indirectly through intermediaries like apologists have speculated) while serving as an irreplaceable valve from sanctions pressure for Russia. Ukraine is therefore able to keep pace with Russia's military-technical advancements, the Russian economy avoids the crisis that the West sought to catalyze through sanctions, and China maintains its "active neutrality".
The last point refers to China actively helping Ukraine and Russia, thus making it neutral in the sense of not taking either side. China financially profits from Ukraine's drone-related purchases, its economy continues growing due to the large-scale import of heavily discounted Russian energy, and it relatively reduces the overall Western pressure upon it by proving that it's not secretly "allied" with Russia. This policy, for whatever one might think about its merits, indisputably contributed to prolonging the conflict.
Had China cut Ukraine off from its drone-related sales in the spirit of its "no-limits" partnership with Russia that was declared several weeks before the start of special operation, then Russia might have attained more of its stated objectives in the conflict by now, if not outright achieved maximum victory. The US' military and intelligence support for Ukraine is more important than China's drone-related sales, but since there's no end to US support in sight, Russia should try to get China to finally cut Ukraine off.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 03:30Europe's industrial base faces yet another setback, with Bloomberg reporting that Jaguar Land Rover plans to cut 4,000 jobs over the next two years. Britain's largest carmaker is confronting intensifying Chinese competition and adding to the broadening wave of planned and ongoing layoffs across European automakers.
The job cuts represent about 10% of Jaguar Land Rover's global workforce and is part of a $2.3 billion savings plan, Chief Executive Officer P B Balaji said Monday. The layoffs are not expected to begin immediately.
The workforce restructuring comes as the struggling automaker faces a sharp deterioration in earnings. Revenue fell 10% in the latest quarter, while pretax profit plunged 69% to 109 million pound sterling.
On Monday, CEO P B Balaji said, "The automotive industry faces significant challenges, with technological change amidst intense competition and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty."
It's not just a BYD Motors invasion of Europe that is pressuring Jaguar Land Rover. As the Tata-owned automaker warned, pressures are developing from several directions. Higher tariffs have complicated business in the US, its largest market. A fire at a key parts supplier and disruption from the Middle East conflict have compounded the damage caused by the cyberattack.
In recent weeks, Europe's automotive industry has continued its death spiral, with news that Volkswagen pushed ahead with its plan to eliminate another 50,000 jobs, adding to soaring job losses across the industry.
A sustained downturn in Europe's automotive industry raises risks across the broader industrial base. Lower vehicle output would weaken demand for steel, aluminum, glass, chemicals, semiconductors, batteries, and other components, putting pressure on supplier margins and investment. If prolonged, that weakness could trigger additional production line closures and worker losses. That spiral appears to be already underway, eroding manufacturing capabilities that also support defense production.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 02:45Authored by Paul Homewood via The Daily Sceptic,
Greenland's icecap is melting away thanks to global warming, at least that is what we are told. According to the EU's European State of the Climate 2025 Report, the ice sheet lost 139 Gt last year. They say that is equivalent to about 1.5 times the amount of ice stored in all the glaciers in the European Alps, and raised global mean sea level by 0.4 mm. (A gigatonne is one billion tonnes.) Since 1972, losses have amounted to 5,747 Gt. The rate of ice loss has increased by around five times since the 1980s and is expected to continue increasing beyond the end of the century.
These amounts sound terrifying, which is of course the object of the exercise - at least until you realise that at present rates it would take Greenland 27,000 years to melt away.
I am always suspicious when 'scientists' present trends since the 1970s, a time when the Earth had gone through three decades of cooling and there were genuine fears among both scientists and world leaders about the return of the Little Ice Age. I am even more suspicious when I discover that official data about the Greenland ice sheet is publicly available back to 1840.
In 2021, a peer-reviewed study calculated the annual changes in the ice sheet mass balance since 1840. (The heavy black line represents the net changes, which is of relevance to this discussion):
The graph confirms that the ice sheet has been losing mass since the 1980s. But crucially, we can see that the melting began around 1900. During the period 1920 to 1970, ice loss was running at similar levels to the last three decades - this is hardly surprising, as temperature records across Greenland show that it was just as 'warm' then as now. In between times, there was a sharp decline in temperatures in the 1970s and 80s.
In other words, this is not a new phenomenon, as we are expected to believe. It is part of a much longer process, which began long before so-called man-made global warming began.
Scientists have long established, with the help of ice cores and other evidence, that the 19th Century was probably the coldest era in Greenland since the Ice Age. During warm eras, such as the Middle Ages, Roman times and earlier millennia, the ice cap was smaller than it is now. Any reduction in the ice cap in the last century must be viewed as part of these longer-term cycles.
Ice mass data is still regularly published and provisional data is now available for the year ending August 2026 - Greenland ice data is normally presented by "hydro-year", September to August.
Since the 2021 study, ice loss has continued to slow down and is back to 1920s levels. The 2025/26 season actually saw a small increase of 6 Gt in ice mass. Greenland never really had a summer this year. Whereas the summer melt usually begins in early June, cold, snowy weather persisted well into July. As a result, summer melt was around 200 Gt less than normal.
It is worth noting that the poor summer in Greenland was part of the wider jet stream setup, which brought our hot summer. While we had a summer dominated by high-pressure systems, the rainy weather stayed out in the Atlantic, battering Greenland.
6 Gt is of course a tiny amount, given the massive uncertainty in how these things are calculated. There is no way to directly measure ice cap changes; instead, the numbers are calculated from computer models fed with data such as precipitation and temperature. The experts accept that they can often be wrong by as much as 100 Gt.
Nevertheless, it is abundantly clear that Greenland's icecap is doing just fine. It is still much larger than it has been for most of the last 10,000 years and, if it is shrinking at all, it is doing so no faster than a century ago.
Tyler Durden Tue, 09/08/2026 - 02:00By Abishek Vishnoi, Bloomberg Markets Live reporter and strategist
A rotation from growth to value stocks is more pronounced in Asia than anywhere else globally, as doubts grow over the chip rally’s staying power.
MSCI’s gauge for value stocks in Asia Pacific has risen about 6% this quarter, compared with a 2% drop in its growth counterpart, on track for its biggest outperformance since January-March 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gap is wider than the swings in the US and Europe over the period.
The divergence shows how Asia’s growth trade had come to rely on a handful of chip stocks, with their reversal now prompting investors to look for cheaper options. Asian value stocks remain inexpensive relative to both growth shares and global peers. A nearly 20% weighting of financials in the regional gauge offers another potential tailwind from higher yields.
“The value rotation in Asia is set to expand and extend as semiconductor’s downtrend is not yet finished,” said Hao Hong, chief investment officer at hedge fund Lotus Asset Management in Hong Kong. “The market has clearly entered a new phase as funds will favor those names with solid growth and track records.”
Value stocks in Asia are trading at 10.8 times their one-year forward earnings estimates, compared with 17.9 times for the US and 12.3 times for Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The multiple for Asian growth stocks is 13.
A rise in bond yields across major markets can potentially support bank earnings by widening lending spreads. That gives the region’s value trade an additional earnings lever at a time when higher yields and Federal Reserve rate-hike bets are putting pressure on long-duration growth stocks.
MSCI’s financials gauge has climbed 12% in Asia this quarter, while information technology, which comprises about a third of the regional index, is down 5.6%. It was dragged by a recent selloff in some of the global best performers of the past year, including SK Hynix Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Among value stocks, Genscript Biotech Corp. has surged more than 150% this quarter in Hong Kong.
More recently, value has been Asia’s best-performing investment style even on a long-short basis. The strategy buying cheap stocks and shorting expensive ones returned about 1% over one week ending Sept. 5, while growth was the worst performer with a negative return of -1.3%.
“The encouraging story is the valuation gap and regional stickiness as Asian value stocks remain cheap relative to global peers, giving investors both a defensive buffer today and a coiled spring for when risk appetite rebuilds,” said Hebe Chen, a senior market analyst at Vantage Global Prime in Sydney. “And in Asia, when the tide turns, it rarely walks — it runs.”
Tyler Durden Mon, 09/07/2026 - 23:34