Category: 2. World

EPA

Reuters

Saudi Aramco and Iraq’s state oil company SOMO have stopped selling crude oil to India’s Nayara Energy in the aftermath of sanctions imposed in July by the European Union on the Russian-backed refiner, three sources familiar with the matter said.

The halting of supply from the two Gulf exporters means Nayara, majority-owned by Russian entities including oil major Rosneft, relied entirely on Russia for its crude oil imports in August, according to sources and LSEG shipping data.

Nayara typically receives around two million barrels of Iraqi crude and 1m barrels of Saudi crude each month, but did not receive shipments from either of the two suppliers during August, shipping data from Kpler and LSEG showed.

SOMO and Nayara did not respond to requests for comment. Saudi Aramco declined to comment.

Two of the sources said that the sanctions had created payment problems for Nayara’s purchases from SOMO, without providing further details.

The most recent cargo of Basra crude from SOMO was discharged for Nayara by the Kalliopi, a very large crude carrier (VLCC), at Vadinar port on July 29, according to Kpler and LSEG data as well as data obtained from industry sources.

The private refiner received 1m barrels of Arab Light carried by the VLCC Georgios co-loaded with a similar quantity of Basrah heavy on July 18, its last Saudi delivery, according to LSEG data.

Nayara is receiving direct supplies from Rosneft, an official from the Russian Embassy in New Delhi said last month.

The private company is operating its 400,000 barrel-per-day refinery at Vadinar in western India at about 70-80 per cent capacity due to difficulties in selling its products resulting from the sanctions, sources have said.

Nayara Energy, which controls about 8pc of India’s 5.2m barrel-per-day refining capacity, has been struggling to transport fuel since the EU sanctions, relying on so-called dark fleet vessels after other shippers backed out, according to shipping reports and LSEG data.

The company’s CEO resigned in July. Last week, Nayara announced the appointment of a senior executive from Azerbaijan’s national oil company SOCAR as its chief executive.

Belgium will recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said on Tuesday, adding to international pressure on Israel after similar moves by Australia, Britain, Canada and France.

Under mounting global criticism for its war in Gaza, Israel has been angered by the pledges to formally recognise a Palestinian state at a summit during this month’s UN event. Belgium will join the signatories of the New York Declaration, paving the way for a two-state solution, or a Palestinian state co-existing in peace alongside Israel, Prevot said in a post on X.

The decision comes “in light of the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Palestine, particularly in Gaza, and in response to the violence perpetrated by Israel in violation of international law,” Prevot added.

Belgium intends to recognize a Palestinian state as part of a joint diplomatic initiative led by France and Saudi Arabia, Prevot said. The move is described as a political signal also aimed at condemning Israel’s settlement expansion and military presence in the territories.

US President Donald Trump has criticised Canada’s decision to back Palestinian statehood and Rubio has said the decision by France is reckless. The White House did not respond to a Reuters request for comment after Belgium’s statement.

Read More: Red Cross warns against evacuation of Gaza City

Belgium would also levy 12 “firm” sanctions on Israel, such as a ban on importing products from its settlements, a review of public procurement policies with Israeli companies and declaring Hamas leaders persona non grata in Belgium, Prevot said.

European Union foreign ministers remained sharply divided during a meeting in Copenhagen on Saturday over the war in Gaza, with some urging the bloc to exert significant economic pressure on Israel, while others firmly opposed such measures.

The Palestinians have long sought a state in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The United States says such a state can only be set up through direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Belgium, a member of the European Union, took the decision to step up pressure on the Israeli government and Hamas, Prevot said. Prevot also emphasized Belgium’s commitment to Palestine’s reconstruction, adding that the country would advocate for “European measures targeting Hamas and supporting new Belgian initiatives to combat antisemitism.”

The United States said on Friday it would bar Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from travelling to New York in September for a United Nations summit, where several US allies are expected to formally recognise Palestine as a state.

West Bank

Reuters, citing three Israeli officials, reported in August that Israel is considering annexation in the occupied West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognising a Palestinian state.

In 2024, the United Nations’ highest court ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, and its settlements were illegal and should be withdrawn as soon as possible.

Also Read: Over 1,000 dead in Sudan landslide as local group pleads for help

Israel says the territories are not occupied in legal terms as they are on disputed land, but the United Nations and most of the international community see them as occupied territory. Israel’s annexations of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights decades ago have not won international recognition.

Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, after fighters from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in control of the territory, attacked Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.

At least nine people, including five children, have been killed in an Israeli strike while fetching water in al-Mawasi, an area of southern Gaza which Israel has designated as a safe zone, health officials said.

A doctor from al-Nasser hospital shared a picture of the children’s bodies in the hospital, as well as a picture of water jugs left in a pool of blood at the site of the attack on Tuesday.

The attack came shortly after the Israel Defense Forces encouraged people to leave Gaza City for al-Mawasi, before Israel’s looming invasion of Gaza City. The Israeli military has sought to displace people from the city before its offensive and has promised that southern Gaza would be able to accommodate them, despite experts disagreeing with the suggestion.

“We wish to remind you that in al-Mawasi, enhanced services will be provided with an emphasis on access to medical care, water and food,” the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said in a post on X on Tuesday afternoon.

Israel continued to push ahead with its operation and began the mobilisation of tens of thousands of reservists on Tuesday.

At least 60,000 reservists will be called up, with the service of an additional 20,000 to be extended as the Israeli military slowly ramps up its military activity in Gaza City, which it has described as the last stronghold of Hamas.

Israel has said that the operation, known as Gideon’s Chariots II, to take over Gaza City will involve five divisions from the country’s standing army and could extend into next year.

Already Israel has pushed into the western parts of Gaza City, levelling the once prosperous neighbourhood of Zeitoun and declaring the entire city a “dangerous combat zone” last week. It has intensified its strikes, claiming to have killed the spokesperson of Hamas’s armed wing, Abu Obeida, in a strike on an apartment building in Gaza City on Saturday.

The Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least 76 people across the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, Gaza health authorities said.

On Monday, the world’s leading association of genocide scholars said Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of the crime. Aid groups have warned that an invasion of Gaza City and the forced displacement of about 1 million people could have devastating humanitarian consequences. The population of the city has swelled over the course of the last 23 months as it became a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from the near 80% of Gaza that is under evacuation order.

The city is already gripped by famine created by Israeli restrictions on aid entering Gaza, which experts say will worsen even in the absence of a military operation. Thirteen people, including three children, died from malnutrition on Tuesday, bringing the total number of people who have starved to death over the last 23 months to 361 – the majority of whom have died since July.

Israel is seeking to forcibly displace Gaza City’s residents before its operation and has tried to entice Palestinians to southern Gaza, which already is packed with other displaced people.

The head of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, said on Saturday that there is no safe way to conduct a mass evacuation of Gaza City and that no other part of Gaza had the capacity to absorb such mass displacement. Earlier in August, the UN human rights office spokesperson Thameen al-Kheetan said that Palestinians in al-Mawasi had “little or no access to essential services and supplies, including food, water, electricity and tents”.

Many residents of Gaza City have refused to leave, suspicious of what awaits them in southern Gaza after Israel has attacked so-called humanitarian zones in the past.

The Gaza City operation, pushed forward by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, under pressure from far-right members of his ruling coalition, faces stiff opposition at home. Tens of thousands of Israelis have marched across the country in protest against the war, which they say is aimless and endangers the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza.

Israeli media has reported internal opposition between the country’s cabinet and the military chief of staff. According to Israeli media’s retelling of a security cabinet meeting on Sunday, the Israeli military chief urged the government to take a ceasefire deal instead of pressing on with the Gaza City operation, which he said could harm the lives of hostages in Gaza.

Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal two weeks prior that resembled an earlier US draft which Israel had approved in prior rounds of negotiations. Israel has yet to respond to the proposal, baffling mediators.

Israel’s planned military operation in Gaza City as well as its continued systematic starving of the territory’s population has prompted a wave of global condemnation.

On Tuesday, Belgium announced it would join a growing list of European countries in recognising Palestine as a state. It also announced it would ban goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and designate Hamas leaders, violent Israeli settlers and two far-right Israeli ministers as persona non grata.

“This is not about sanctioning the Israeli people but about ensuring that their government respects international and humanitarian law and taking action to try to change the situation on the ground,” the Belgian foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, said in a post on X. He added that the EU should suspend its trade pact with Israel to further pressure it.

The move further increases the growing international isolation of Israel as its war in Gaza and subsequent famine grinds on.

At least 63,633 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the last 23 months. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on 7 October 2023.

They stood together like old friends, heads thrown back in jovial laughter, clutching one another’s hands affectionately. Except this was no ordinary gathering of three men, but a meeting of three of the most powerful non-western leaders: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi.

The overt displays of intimacy were widely regarded by observers as a telling message of defiance aimed at their western counterparts, in particular Donald Trump, who just a few days earlier had slapped India with 50% import tariffs, among the harshest of the US president’s trade penalties.

“India likes other great powers to know that New Delhi has options,” said Christopher Clary, an associate professor of political science at University at Albany, State University of New York. “One advantage of being in lots of clubs is you can make high-profile entrances to those clubs if you’re upset with how things are going in other relationships.”

This was Modi’s first visit to China in seven years and yet the hostilities that had come to define the India-China relationship in recent years were nowhere to be seen. Instead, as the Indian prime minister arrived in China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, he received a far more effusive welcome from the Chinese premier than most guests were granted.

The leaders’ brotherly encounter in the city of Tianjin did not go unnoticed by the Oval Office. Hours after the meeting, Trump went on another tirade against India, calling trade with the country a “one-sided disaster” while his trade adviser Peter Navarro said in a social media post: “It is a shame to see Modi getting in bed with Xi Jinping and Putin. I’m not sure what he’s thinking.”

Even just a year ago, such a scene between Modi and Xi would have been difficult to imagine. The two countries had remained in a hostile military standoff since 2020 after China’s rapid encroachments and troop incursions along its mountainous Himalayan border with India led to a violent clash between soldiers on the two sides.

It was followed by a mammoth mobilisation of military personnel, infrastructure and weapons along both sides of the border. Anti-China sentiment ran rampant in India, with hundreds of Chinese apps – including TikTok – banned and Chinese companies prevented from investing in India.

The US, meanwhile, had seized upon the tensions to cultivate its close ties with India even further, viewing the country as a critical counterweight to China’s rise.

Yet Trump’s own foreign policy position has accelerated something of a geopolitical repositioning. The US, once seen as an unshakable ally to India, is now viewed in the corridors of New Delhi as a turbulent, even hostile adversary.

The double tariffs on India, which were announced with no warning, appear to largely be a punishment after falling out with Modi, who refused to credit the US president with halting possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan in May. Particular umbrage was also taken in New Delhi at Trump’s attempts to use tariffs to shape India’s own policies.

Meanwhile China has observed the alienation of New Delhi and Washington with overt glee and made it clear their priority now is for a complete normalisation of Indo-China ties. During Modi’s China visit, he and Xi agreed to friendlier relations, which include stabilising their border and reopening their economies to each other. Speaking on Sunday, Xi said it was “vital to be friends, a good neighbour, and the dragon and the elephant to come together”.

As analysts emphasised, the beginning of a rapprochement between India and China had pre-dated Trump’s second term. Nonetheless, the prospect of a second unpredictable Trump term had been seen by many as a primary driver for China’s sudden willingness to discuss disengagement with India.

“This meeting was a partial response to Trump’s tariff tantrum,” said Clary. “The core reality for India is that it does not have enough military capability to be confident of how an India-China fight would go. In this Trumpian world, India may not be able to find an outside ally that it can depend on and so it needs to make sure the India-China relationship is calm.”

Prior to the 2020 clashes, Modi had been seen as very gung-ho in strengthening the India-China relationship, hosting Xi in India just a few months after being elected prime minister. Harsh V Pant, a professor of international relations at the India Institute of King’s College London, said it was likely the two leaders would try to revert the relationship to how it had been five years ago, despite the border remaining an ongoing challenge.

Even with the risk of infuriating its western allies, analysts emphasised India had a lot to gain from bettering ties with China. Much of India’s manufacturing, which Modi is trying to boost, is reliant on materials and rare earths from China. China, meanwhile, stands to gain economically if it regains access to India’s market.

However, Pant emphasised that there were still significant limitations on the India-China relationship beyond the border tensions. China remains a major backer and supplier of weapons to Pakistan – widely seen as a way to keep India’s regional power in check – and it was Chinese jets and weaponry that were used against India during the India-Pakistan hostilities in May.

“It would be a mistake to view this as some kind of a grand rapprochement between India and China,” he said. “In India, the trust deficit with China is still very, very high and there are enough pressure points that will keep the relationship a bit tenuous.”