Member Info for Only1Gibbo

That did happen. I think I posted this link sometime ago. Here it is again.

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/08/iran-us-direct-talks-trump-rouhani-new-york-unga-jcpoa.html

Am I missing something Ned? And where did you get the idea I was from The Smoke?

The new posters claiming to know nothing about WSG , but by the third post in quick succession they suddenly know all about it back to 2016, and as always after their oh so innocent questions, add a little negative remark at the end of each post.

Iran’s Zarif Holds Talks with European Diplomats , Federica Mogherini, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, Foreign Minister of Sweden Margot Wallstrom, and Danish counterpart Anders Samuelsen.

https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2018/11/03/1867452/iran-s-zarif-holds-talks-with-european-diplomats

"They also emphasized that the SPV will officially come into force in the next couple of days."

Looks like they got what they wanted from the US over Saudi https://twitter.com/boursebazaar/status/1058385442469527553?s=21

Israel was behind it all in the first place. Now they realise that the rest of the world hasn't fallen for it, they are trying every means possible to get their own way.

http://www.irna.ir/en/News/83085946

Moscow, Nov 1, IRNA -- Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets Anatoly Aksakov announced talks between Iran and Russia to use the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), Russian version of SWIFT.

He added that Russia already worked out a cooperation mechanism with Iran and mentioned the possibility of direct transactions with Iranian companies, Spunik reported.

The Russian MP also confirmed that while the Russian financial messaging system still needs to be technologically integrated with its foreign counterparts, Moscow and Tehran have already worked out the necessary cooperation mechanism.

Anatoly Aksakov, head of the Russian parliamentary committee on financial markets, has revealed that the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), a Russian equivalent of SWIFT developed by the Central Bank of Russia, is now more popular than the global network, and that Russia is already engaged in talks with Chinese, Turkish and Iranian financial regulators on integrating SPFS with financial messaging systems of these countries.

'The number of users of our internal financial messages’ transfer system is now greater than that of those using SWIFT. We’re already holding talks with China, Iran and Turkey, along with several other countries, on linking our system with their systems,' Aksakov said. 'They need to be properly integrated with each other in order to avoid any problems with using the countries’ internal financial messaging systems.'

The development of SPFS began in 2014, in response to the US government threatening to disconnect Russia from SWIFT. The first transaction on the SPFS network involving a non-bank enterprise was executed in December 2017.

Earlier in October, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that his department is currently in talks with the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) to consider disconnecting Iran from the network.

In late August, a group of US senators urged the US Treasury Department to cut off Iran’s financial institutions from SWIFT. They insisted that maximum pressure from the Trump administration’s campaign against Iran will not succeed if the Iranian government remains connected to this international payment system.

Notwithstanding that Denmark, Sweden and France are currently in a diplomatic spat with Iran, accusing the regime of sending its own operatives to assassinate exiled Iranian dissidents in Europe, as an economic bloc the EU continues to eye billions of dollars worth of trade deals with the country. Perhaps most crucially, Turkey — which imports more than half of its oil from Iran — is also seeking a waiver, as it continues to exploit the fact it has audio and visual evidence of Khashoggi’s killing. If this were released, the ensuing turmoil would force the resignation of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Few would envy Washington’s dilemma, then, as it weighs whether to call the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bluff. But it’s also increasingly clear that fewer still would be anything other than elated to witness this vindictive anti-Iran policy come back to haunt those who devised it.

a figure that plummets to 25 per cent for those between 18 and 29. Small wonder that in recent months Iran’s political and religious elites have toned down their usually apocalyptic war rhetoric. They have reason to be smugly elated at how the Saudis especially need no help in digging themselves into an ever deeper hole. The latter now have such little credibility on the world stage that when the kingdom’s Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir last week declared Saudi Arabia to be a ‘-beacon of light’ fighting ‘dark’ Iran, the entire civilised world fell off its metaphorical chair clutching its sides in laughter. Trump’s base remains as loyal to Israel as it is hostile to Iran, and he is no different from previous presidents in that his overarching concern in the Middle East is always the Jewish state’s security (and is the real reason for containing Iran). And when it comes to domestic American politics, the issue might be a moot point. The Iranian hostage crisis and 9/11 were anomalies: Americans do not decide who to vote for based on foreign policy. It’s also true, however, that Trump’s hand would be much weaker when dealing with Iran if the (pro-nuclear treaty) Democrats take back the House and/or the Senate in next week’s midterms. If that happens, Iran would be likely to struggle through until having the last laugh if Trump failed to win again in 2020. In the meantime, Iran can take comfort that the neocons are also in a terrible muddle. Their support for Israel remains steadfast. But they are calling for sanctions against Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Khashoggi affair, criticising Trump for not imposing tough enough sanctions on Iran, and ******* off pretty much every other country by insisting that they reduce Iranian oil imports to zero or likewise face sanctions. It’s classic imperial hubris. The fact is that no one but Israel is any longer willing to go along with this irrational, decades-long anti-Iran vendetta on the part of America, and renewed sanctions are therefore unlikely to have their desired effect. Trump wants Saudi Arabia and Russia to increase their own exports to help make up for the deficit caused by reduced Iranian output, but analysts are doubtful that Saudi Arabia has the capacity or that Russia — Iran’s ally — has the political will. The list of other countries seeking to waive sanctions for their major oil companies on the grounds of economic necessity (or, as with India, ignoring the threat of reprisals) is growing by the day. Already Trump has reportedly backed down under pressure from the EU from a requirement that Iran be suspended from the international bank transfer system known as SWIFT. Back in August, the EU banned its companies from complying with renewed US sanctions on Iran. Notwithstanding that Denmark, Sweden and France are currently in a diplomatic spat with Iran, accusing the regime of sending i

Trump’s anti-Iran vendetta is starting to backfire https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/11/why-trumps-anti-iran-vendetta-cant-succeed/ Sunday, 4 November, marks the 39th anniversary of the storming of the US embassy in Tehran by Ayatollah Khomeini’s militant student thugs, beginning a 444-day hostage crisis that probably cost Jimmy Carter a second presidential term and took a toll on the collective American psyche since equalled only by the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Coincidentally, it’s also the day America ratchets up already devastating economic sanctions against Iran, following Washington’s unilateral withdrawal in May from the nuclear treaty brokered by Barack Obama. No doubt Donald Trump will exploit the propitious timing to highlight how, four decades on, Iran remains, in his view, entrenched in its hostility to US interests in the Middle East. How ironic, then, that casting Iran as a uniquely rogue state just got a lot more difficult for President Trump because of another notoriously undiplomatic act inside a diplomatic mission — this one by a 15-man Saudi hit squad on a murderous mission to silence a dissenter in neighbouring Turkey. Officially, Trump is imposing sanctions on the heart of Iran’s economy because of the country’s alleged nuclear treaty violations and its failure to curb its ballistic missile programme. This is despite the fact that the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the European Union, Britain, Russia and China all remain convinced that Iran is abiding by the strictest monitoring programme ever imposed. The endgame for Trump, though, is regime change. It’s a strategy based not on military intervention — the US would never dare to attack Iran — but on the hope that oppressed Iranians will rise up against the mullahs as they face the indignity of starvation without meaningful representation. The history of sanctions on regimes suggests a different outcome, because they provoke nationalist outrage among the population directed not so much at the ruling elite inside the country as at those who in a distant land so cruelly impose them. Trump’s Middle East policy — anchored on supposed ally Saudi Arabia getting into bed with Israel to contain their common erratic foe Iran — isn’t gaining much traction at home either. Even before the Saudis finally admitted that the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi had died in a ‘fistfight’ in its Istanbul consulate, a poll revealed that only 4 per cent of Americans considered Saudi Arabia an ally. (Given the margin of error and the widespread revulsion caused by news of Khashoggi’s killing, there could now be literally no one in the US who holds such a positive view.) An Economist-YouGov survey last week also made for sober reading. Only 37 per cent of Americans now consider Israel to be an ally, a figure that plummets to 25 per cent for th

http://www.irna.ir/en/News/83083148

Beijing, Oct 29, IRNA- News sources reported that the Chinese government is planning to allow foreign banks to operate and set up branches in the country, which could largely eliminate banking restrictions by expanding banking ties between Iran and China.

Experts say the realization of this move is a strategic change in China's financial and banking sector, which is the second-largest economy in the world and intends to end the US trade war in various ways.

According to media reports, banks that are authorized to set up a branch in China can take out a bank deposit of over 500,000 yuan ($72,000) from Chinese citizens.

This action could be useful for developing Iran's banking activities in China, so that business-related activities can be done through these banks or through the establishment of branches in China and provide an extraordinary opportunity to develop new banking channels with Iran.

Nearly four years ago, it was announced that the Bank of Commerce and Industry of China, including the country's largest and most prestigious banks, intends to create branches in Iran. At the same time, it was emphasized that the entry of this bank to Iran could promote the level of technical banking services. Establishment of the bank was not realized, but maybe now the Chinese government has an opportunity to set up branches of Iranian banks in the country.

The Bank of Tejarat (Commerce) of Iran is among the banks that are calling for the opening of a branch in China. In 2002, the bank obtained a license to operate in China, and since then it has been seeking to open a branch in Beijing and continues to pursue it, but with difficult circumstances and the laws of the Banking Supervision Commission in China and some other cases, the bank has not yet been licensed.

Passenger numbers may well fall, but

1. The €24m is just phase 1, a subset of the £35m+ total deal. That £35m was based on PAX when the MOU was signed in early 2016, just after the last sanctions were lifted.
2. We know PAX numbers since then have increased about 22%, so there is room for them to fall a fair amount before we are in a worse position.
3. We have no idea whether a revised passenger fee forms part of the addendum or not.
4. All information from the company has maintained that it is a €24m phase of the deal despite the known sanctions looming.

Yes terribly sad news Ned. Glad to hear you are okay, I had assumed you managed to get away safely judging by the timing of your posts last night.

Ned, I see you've been preaching the gospel on the dark side. Well done my friend.

Don't know about Mike Ned, but I'd go for 10.

Slipperz you are absolutely correct that the US could do that, but why leave them connected if you will sanction anyone that uses it?

It would certainly help companies that do not have exposure to the US for them to sanction, and those carrying out non sanctionable activities. They should probably avoid using USD though.

I think three things are in play at the moment, first the realisation that if they turn off the oil from Iran completely, oil prices will rise even further with the knock on economic consequences of it. Particularly given the recent actions of SA. There has already been talk of giving some oil waivers. Second, that a new alternative system to Swift will threaten the global dominance of USD and Swift. Third, The US is isolated, it can't sanction everybody in the world, and sanctions against Iran will have no impact if everybody else ignores them.

I suspect it will be too late now to stop the new system, although they may be hoping that Europe loses interest.

There would be an RNS to that effect.

Judging from your earlier posts, you timed it much better than most.

Cheers Mike, quack quack quack

We wish !!!