"The ISC still broadly intends to redact comments that it deems prejudicial to foreign relations" Why? Trump swears and calls the Pope an idiot. Who cares if the ex British ambassador to the U.S. said the same or worse about Trump? Anyway, we're sure he did!
www.politico.eu/article/mand...?
Ukraine continues to hammer Russian oil infrastructure hitting the Tuapse Oil Refinery overnight in southern Russia's Krasnodar Krai region, about 200km's (125 m's) east of Crimea. Tuapse is one of the most important ports for Russian oil exports on the Black Sea.
The relentless positive narrative out of The Gulf appears to be unravelling "U.A.E. Central Bank Gov. Khaled Mohamed Balama raised the idea of a currency-swap line with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent" - currency-swap line being financial speak for 'we're running out of money!'.
Much talk about the extreme prices being paid for delivered crude to Asian ports and the Brent futures price. Oil futures are FOB prices (free on board at loading); delivered prices are CIF (cost insurance freight) it's all those prices that have blown out, for obvious reasons.
Maintain Iran’s 'Strait open' announcement conditional on a Lebanon ceasefire, caught Trump on the hop. He reacted using his ‘flooding the zone’ tactic, most of it either outright lies or unconfirmed ‘agreements’. Wall Street anyway decided war was over a while back.
Iran update: this is all over the place - typical Trump - he's pumped out about 10 Truth Social posts in the last few hours, and will be making numerous 'insider' quotes to favoured journalists. It's too hard to know exactly what is going and would wait until it becomes clearer this weekend.
"Iran declares Strait of Hormuz completely open to commercial traffic during Israel-Lebanon ceasefire" - still in the game, and very neatly lobbing the ball into the US court. What now the US blockade? <via CNBC>
"President Donald Trump on Thursday said that “the war in Iran is going along swimmingly.” - must be all those fish in the Strait of Hormoz, since not much else floats through. <Via CNBC>
Russia used 19 ballistic missiles, 25 cruise missiles and 659 drones in overnight attacks on Ukraine cities - hard to believe Russia continues to fire ballistic missiles at civilians and nobody, but really nobody, cares. OK Ukraine did hit a major Russian oil refinery at Tuapse.
Edelweiss Air, the main Swiss charter airline, has removed with immediate effect two US routes from its network in this summer's flight schedule, Denver and Seattle. Bodes well for the FIFA World Soccer Cup, what with Seattle being a host city.
'Spain’s Repsol wins back control of Venezuelan oil operations...Repsol is one of the largest foreign investors in Venezuela'. How did one that slip past Trump, seeing we all know as he loves the Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez so much? <via the FT>
The US administration at the IMF and Semafor World Economy Conference is desperately pushing the narrative 'War's over. Nothing to see here!'. Only at the same time everyone is whispering: 'but wait! Hormoz was closed, only it's now even more closed 'cos you're blockading it!'
More of the markets 'dislocation' narrative "LIV Golf Facing Imminent Closure as Saudi Backers Weigh Pulling Funding". Overwhelmingly the Gulf States plus Saudi Arabia are projecting a financial view of 'business as usual' and 'War!? What war?'. Right, time to cut the excesses.
Financial markets/oil have concluded 'Wars over - nothing to see here'. Trump's moved on from insulting the Pope/Meloni and making out he's JC, back to harassing Starmer and UK oil policy. At the same time a ‘systemic’ jet fuel shortage is brewing in Europe. It's NOT NORMAL!
Southern Europe is wiring up as the internet’s new front door to Africa’s youth boom—and Brussels has finally clocked the opportunity, not just the refugees. <Via The European Correspondent> europeancorrespondent.com/en/2026-04-15
"Donald Trump says Giorgia Meloni lacks courage". No one in Italy is even doing the GOP 'let's keep quiet' thing. Even the leader of the opposition, who never misses an opportunity to dump on Meloni, stood up in Parliament with a rousing speech of support. <Headline via the FT>
"Oil falls as IEA predicts ‘demand destruction will spread’ and hopes for fresh Iran talks grow". Oil prices will go down as we're all screwed and heading into a recession (great) and talks are on again with Iran (really?). Talk about being pessimistically optimistic. <via CNBC>
Unconfirmed open source reports: USS George H.W. Bush is now transiting Cape of Good Hope to join CENTCOM ops in Middle East. Departed Norfolk Mar 31, ETA Apr 22–28.
If Trump could go any lower it would be hard. There are nearly 1.5 billion Catholics in the World. A sitting US president criticises and insults the head of a religion that makes up 17% of the entire human race, with as usual no real pushback from anyone of substance within GOP. Amazing.
The Hungarian election landslide and Ukraine. The EU has an unanimity rule for budgetary and major financial decisions. One member can veto, as did Orbán over the €90 billion Ukraine War funding. Logically this should now change only it will take time.
What with running away from Islamabad with his tail between his legs after disastrous Iranian 'negotiations', and his beastie Orban conceding defeat seemingly minutes after the polls closed, it can't be fun being JD Vance right now.
"Orbán on course to lose Hungary’s election, according to early results" - Good one, JD! <via Politico Europe>
Islamabad in Pakistan, where Saturday's Iran War conference will take place, is not an obvious city to locate on a map. If they weren't being flown there directly, get the feeling Vance & Co could easily have gone somewhere else, like Karachi, only 800 miles south, but who's counting.
All too true - at the next Adminstration change these guys will need to be living in Argentina.
Neither the brilliant negotiating team of Witkoff and Kushner, nor Trump were involved in this ceasefire discussion, Zelensky has been pushing for an Orthodox Easter truce for a week. Says a lot about the strain Russia is up against right now. kyivindependent.com/putin-announ...
Vance on leaving for Islamabad “I actually wonder how good he is at understanding English, because there are things that he said that frankly didn’t make sense in the context of negotiations that we’ve had” he told reporters as he departed Hungary. Wait? So he's not talking about Trump?!
If one of the main reasons for the Iran ceasefire was to open the Straits of Hormuz to desperately needed oil for South East Asia, it's not going well at all: nearly two day's later at the most 2 fully loaded oil tankers have exited the Straits.
"Live updates: Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon, per Iranian state media " Gee, that didn't last long, and that was the whole point! <via AP News>
We have an Iran ceasefire, in reality it's a near complete capitulation to Iran's demands. Only now there will be 10 more days of yet more ranting, raving and nonsense as it becomes obvious the Iranian conditions are unacceptable. How he so loves to hog the limelight.
Great headline in the Swiss Watson news site today "Vance believes the EU is interfering in Hungary's elections – and then does it himself. " And don't forget Vance's live phone call to Trump when he was on stage at the rally - wouldn't tTrump had other things on his mind?