ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Oct. 16, 2018. (Leah Millis/AP) The controversy around the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi continues to develop. In summer 2018, Saudi Arabia promised the Trump administration $100 million for the stabilization of areas in Syria liberated from ISIS. Coincidentally, that money was wired to the US State Department on October 16 th , just as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo landed in Riyadh for discussions regarding the missing journalist with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “The timing of this is no coincidence,” said an unnamed American official involved in Syria policy, cited by NYT. On the same day, US President Donald Trump in an interview said: “Here we go again with you’re guilty until proven innocent.” Furthermore, ABC reported that according to an unnamed Turkish official, Mike Pompeo heard an alleged audio recording of Khashoggi’s murder inside ...

Illustrative image: Reuters Iran sent a record amount of crude oil to China. Tankers carrying approximately 22 million barrels of Iranian oil are en route to the Chinese port of Dalian, according to an unnamed Iranian shipping source and data on Refinitiv Eikon cited by Reuters. This comes ahead of the US sanctions that are due to hit the Iranian energy sector and oil exports on November 4 th . Reuters cited an unnamed source in the National Iranian Tanker Company who claimed that the country is shipping the record amount. “As our leaders have said it will be impossible to stop Iran from selling its oil. We have various ways of selling our oil and when the tankers reach Dalian, we will decide whether to sell it to other buyers or to China,” the source said, without providing any more details. According to data that dates back to January 2015, Dalian usually receives 1 to 3 million barrels monthly from the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC). However, the amount of approximatel...