Life Support.
A multi-trillion dollar business.
1. At the heart of the US retirement industry, underpinning the later-life plans of millions of Americans, is a set of financial products that hardly anyone can tell you a thing about. No one knows exactly how much money they control. No one can say how it’s all allocated. No single financial regulator is in charge of them. Yet Collective Investment Trusts are now a multi-trillion dollar business to rival mutual funds or ETFs — and are poised to become the backdoor through which more private assets are added to Americans’ retirement savings. (Source: bloomberg.com)
2. Iranian leaders are trying to dictate the terms for ending the war, which illustrates that the Iranian regime perceives that it has the upper hand in the conflict at this time. Iran’s proposed terms would require the United States to give up its leverage over Iran before any negotiations could take place, which would likely make it more challenging to extract nuclear concessions from Iran. Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Baghiyatollah Sociocultural Headquarters Commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari stated on May 11 that Iran will not enter negotiations with the United States until the United States accepts Iran’s terms. Jafari stated that Iran’s terms include an end to the war on “all fronts,” the lifting of sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian assets, compensation for war-related damages, and recognition of Iran’s sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. (Source: understandingwar.org)
3. President Trump yesterday said the U.S. ceasefire with Iran was “on life support” after he received what he called Tehran’s “garbage” response to a U.S. proposal for ending the war. “It’s unbelievably weak,” Trump said of the Iranian reply. “After reading that piece of garbage they sent, I didn’t even finish reading it. ... I would say the ceasefire is on massive life support.” His comments to reporters at the White House came a day after Trump branded Iran’s response “totally unacceptable.” The latest exchange between Washington and Tehran follows hostilities around the Strait of Hormuz in recent days that highlighted the fragility of a ceasefire the two sides reached more than a month ago. (Source: washingtonpost.com)
4. The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, people familiar with the matter said, casting the Gulf monarchy as an active combatant in a war in which it has been Iran’s biggest target. Its military is well-equipped with Western-made jet fighters and surveillance networks. And the attacks suggest the country is now more willing to use them to protect its economic power and growing influence across the Middle East. The strikes, which the U.A.E. hasn’t publicly acknowledged, have included an attack on a refinery on Iran’s Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf, the people familiar with the matter said. (Source: wsj.com)
5. Saudi Aramco has warned that the world’s stocks of gasoline and jet fuel could reach “critically low levels” ahead of the summer months if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, in a pointed intervention by the world’s largest oil company. Amin Nasser, Saudi Aramco’s chief executive, said on Monday that the depletion of “onshore inventories” was “rapidly accelerating” with refined fuels like gasoline and jet fuel showing the fastest decline. He added that since the start of the Iran war and the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the world had lost a cumulative 1 billion barrels of oil supplies, with another 100 million barrels lost every week that the strait stays closed. Inventories are “the only buffer that is available today” but they have been “materially depleted”, Nasser said. Nasser’s comments, which he made after the company reported an increase in earnings in the first three months of the year, add to a chorus of voices warning that the oil shock created by the Iran war could be on the brink of a new and more disruptive phase. (Source: ft.com)
6. Commercially available maritime data appears to indicate that some vessels may be complying with Iran’s new transit regulations in the Strait of Hormuz. Recognition of Iran’s “sovereignty” over the strait would fundamentally remake regional and global maritime norms in a manner extremely detrimental to US interests. Commercially available maritime data shows that 21 vessels have transited through the Strait of Hormuz since ISW-CTP’s last data cutoff, including nine vessels that entered the strait and 12 that exited it. Eight of the 21 vessels used the Iranian-approved transit route. (Source: understandingwar.org)
7. Eurointelligence:
The Tasnim and Fars news agencies, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, came up with a new proposal (recently), arguing that Tehran should monetize and assert sovereignty over the undersea cables connecting the Persian Gulf with the open sea. Is this just a threat, or a viable plan?
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|