The Chinese government issued its first petroyuan-denominated long-term oil trading contracts in the spring of 2018, with the move posing an audacious challenge to the petrodollar - the powerful instrument of global trade and finance ensuring the US dollar's status as the de facto world reserve currency for over 50 years now.
Saudi minister of industry and mineral resources Bandar Al-Khorayef told the South China Morning Post this week that Riyadh is ready to “do what’s in its best interest” and “try new things,” including as far as the use of the petroyuan in settlements for crude oil are concerned.
The comments, made on the eve of Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the UAE starting Wednesday to discuss expanded cooperation with the oil rich Gulf kingdoms, signal a "new dawn" in relations between China and Gulf powers, Dr. Wang Zhimin, director of the Institute of Globalization at China’s University of International Business and Economics, told Sputnik.
“In energy cooperation between China and the Middle East, settlements using the yuan have become an important topic. The expansion of the use of the currency in settlements for energy transactions is a gradual and long-term process that requires step-by-step reforms, opening up, and natural market selection. In addition, given the relationship with the United States, the process of using the yuan to settle cross-border oil transactions by countries such as Saudi Arabia may encounter certain difficulties,” Wang said, pointing to US efforts to shore up the petrodollar as Washington’s global economic hegemony fades.
Pointing to the trend of “dedollarization” in China-Middle East trade, Wang cited the currency swap agreement reached between Beijing and Riyadh last year, and interest in using the yuan for oil payments as a reflection of a “growing trend of diversification of the international monetary system, including the decline of the dollar’s share in international payments.”
Russian economist Nikita Maslennikov says the petroyuan has good prospects as a major alternative to the petrodollar, which could leave it accounting for up to 8% of global transactions by 2030, notwithstanding “strong pressure, including political pressure, from other market players," and other factors.
“Sooner or later a single BRICS settlement system will emerge, and Saudi Arabia is also going to be part of it,” Maslennikov said, noting that it’s “extremely difficult” to predict the future status of the petroyuan amid plans by some countries to forge ahead with an “energy transition,” and take other steps, like launching digital currencies, which could lead “to a significant adjustment of settlements in national currencies.”......more below
The recently-released tranche of additional documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein include remarks by a woman identifying as one of the victims of the late disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker, in which she refers to Donald Trump as a witness to the killing and disposal of the body of her infant.
The US Department of Justice released the documents numbering tens of thousands, which include FBI tips and complaints implicating Trump, on Wednesday.
Reports emerging on Friday across various outlets, including the UK edition of American online newspaper The International Business Times, pointed to inclusion in the documents of an FBI intake form dated March 3, 2020 recording a complaint from the unnamed woman.
The complainant said she had been trafficked at age 13 in the early 1980s and described an incident in 1984 involving the killing of her newborn child aboard a yacht in Mona Lake, Michigan.
According to the document, the woman said her uncle had carried out the killing and disposed of the ...
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has warned that the United States cannot turn the sovereign Latin American country into a colony and steal its natural resources.
Speaking on the television channel Venezolana de Television on Friday, Maduro called on American politicians gathered in Washington, DC, to abandon the failed projects that the White House has been trying to implement in his country for the past 25 years.
Maduro said if US politicians are ready to engage in dialogue on a respectful basis, “we will always find here a president who represents his people, to reach out, to seek paths to peace, cooperation and prosperity.”
In the meantime, he said, the nation will never believe the lies the US is fabricating.
“It is impossible for the US government to fabricate such a virtual reality,” Maduro repeated in English, emphasizing that the Venezuelan people have demonstrated the ability “to lead the country on the right path.”
US seizure of oil tankers
This episode reveals the ...
The Russian leader said in 2008 that it could lead to “long-term conflict” with Washington, according to transcripts of the talks
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned his then-US counterpart, George W. Bush, almost two decades ago that attempts to make Ukraine a member of NATO could split the country apart and result in a confrontation between Moscow and Washington, records of conversations between the two leaders have revealed.
On Tuesday, the US National Security archives published verbatim transcripts of several exchanges between Putin and Bush throughout the 2000s.
During their first meeting in Slovenia in June 2001, the Russian president questioned the need for NATO’s enlargement, but stressed that he “can imagine us [Moscow and Washington] becoming allies,” according to the files.
His tone stiffened significantly by the time of their last meeting in the Russian city of Sochi in April 2008, a year after Putin delivered his famous speech at the Munich Security Conference, ...
