Plans for a post Bretton-Woods monetary system is underway at the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia 🇷🇺 October 22-24.
🔹The joint communique of BRICS 🇧🇷🇷🇺🇮🇳🇨🇳🇿🇦🇮🇷🇪🇬🇪🇹 member states support the improvement of the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) via envisaging alternative eligible currencies. The CRA is an important mechanism to forestall short-term balance of payments pressures.
🔹Members welcome the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism (ICM) focus on facilitating and expanding innovative financial practices, including finding acceptable mechanisms of financing in local currencies.
🔹The declaration recognized the widespread benefits of more efficient, transparent, safe, and inclusive cross-border payment instruments based on minimizing trade barriers and ensuring non-discriminatory access (alluding to Russia's exclusion from SWIFT).
🔹BRICS member states strongly oppose and condemn the practice of unilateral politically motivated sanctions that undermine the development of other countries. This was declared in light of October 23rd 2024, when the US 🇺🇸 stated its plans to (illegally) transfer $20 billion to the Kiev regime from the proceeds of Russian sovereign assets blocked by the West.
🔹Iran's president Masoud Pezeshkian called on member states to not continue depending on Western payment systems. This is a big threat," he said and called for "creating alternative possibilities" in this field.
🔹BRICS members support further growth in the number of countries - shareholders of the New Development Bank (NBD) and expedited consideration of applications from association members.
🔹Russia signs agreements with China 🇨🇳 and South Africa 🇿🇦 on credit lines in national currencies.
🔹BRICS countries intend to increase the turnover of precious metals between the member states.
🔹BRICS members agree to take joint measures to oppose unilateral protectionist measures not compliant with provisions of the WTO.
🔹Egypt 🇪🇬 attaches great importance to the transition to financial settlements in national currencies within the BRICS group.
🔹 Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a BRICS investment platform to assist the economic growth of member countries and the development of the Global South and East. Partner countries would benefit from a significant increase of investment in areas such as technology, education, trade, and logistics.
Video Source: RT
🇺🇸 #Oklahoma high school principal (Kirk Moore) seen charging at and disarming a school shooter.
The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Victor Hawkins, was a former student who said he wanted to shoot up the school “like the Columbine shooters did.” While taking down the shooter, Moore was shot in the leg. He is expected to recover.
When the Principal woke up that day, he never thought he would be tackling a gunman.
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🇨🇳🛢 How much strategic oil does the world actually have in reserve?
Global strategic crude oil inventories stood at ~2.5 BILLION barrels as of December 2025, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
China holds by far the largest stockpile at 1,397 million barrels, more than 3 times the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve of 413 million barrels, which itself sits at only 58% of its full storage capacity of 714 million barrels.
China added an average of 1.1 million barrels per day to its strategic inventories throughout 2025, with preliminary data suggesting it continued building stockpiles in early 2026 ahead of the Iran War.
Japan holds the 3rd-largest reserve at 263 million barrels, followed by OECD European countries at 179 million barrels.
Meanwhile, the US is releasing 172 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to suppress oil prices, part of a broader 400 million barrel coordinated release agreed by 32 IEA member nations in March.
🔗 ...
🛢 JP Morgan Warns Oil Market Out of Balance, Prices Must Rise
🔸The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil flows, has removed 13.7 million barrels per day from global supply in April alone. A JP Morgan research note warns the market has no good way to replace it.
🔸Normally, spare production capacity in Saudi Arabia and the UAE acts as the market’s shock absorber. But that buffer has effectively been removed, eliminating the system’s first line of defense.
🔸With spare capacity unavailable, markets turned to inventories
➤ Global stockpiles are now being drained at ~7.1 mbd in April, an extraordinary pace, according to the note.
🔸Meanwhile, demand is collapsing because supply simply isn’t reaching users — “forced demand destruction.”The hardest hit sectors include:
▪️ Petrochemical plants across Asia are shutting down or slashing output as LPG, ethane, and naphtha flows from the Gulf collapse
▪️ Airline jet fuel ...
🛢⛽️ Global oil inventories are heading toward RECORD LOWS:
Global visible oil inventories have fallen -255 million barrels since the start of the conflict on February 27, to 7,864 million barrels.
Total estimated oil draws, including non-OECD refined products storage, have accelerated to 10.9 million barrels per day in April, the largest monthly draws on record since 2017.
Cumulative estimated draws since the start of the war now stand at 474 million barrels, with Hormuz flows holding at ~10% of normal, or 2.0 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, even in an optimistic scenario where Strait of Hormuz flows begin recovering by late April, it is unlikely to prevent global visible inventories from reaching all-time lows, according to Goldman Sachs.
As inventories keep falling, physical oil markets are likely to require sharply higher prices for immediate delivery, since buyers cannot wait months for cheaper futures delivery when stocks are running critically low.
Goldman also warns...