Random News and Notes 9 January
The US seized yet another sanctioned oil tanker. This time it was the M/T Olina. The Coast Guard executed a VBSS operation in the Atlantic, just outside of the Caribbean.
The vessel was under sanction from not just the US. The EU, Australia, and Great Britain all blacklisted the tanker. At the time of seizure, the vessel was flying a false Timor-Leste flag. The most recent registry data says she is supposed to be flagged out of Sao Tome and Principe.
As with most vessels in the dark fleet, the ownership of the Olina is a tangled mess. According to gCaptain, the most recent registered owner is a company called Tantye Peur Limited out of Hong Kong.
Staying in the region, The Trump administration has secured the release of dozens of political prisoners in Venezuela. Among those released was Biagio Pilieri, an opposition leader who was part of Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado’s 2024 presidential campaign and Enrique Márquez, a former electoral authority and candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
Five Spanish citizens — including the prominent Venezuelan-Spanish lawyer and human rights activist Rocío San Miguel — were also released.
No comment. . .
The December jobs report is out. It looks to be a mixed bag. Fewer jobs were created than expected while unemployment ticked down.
Let’s be honest, these reports aren’t really accurate to the last job and are more generalized indicators of how things are going. That said, after the shock of the government payrolls shrinking – those jobs came off the books in the last quarter of last year – it doesn’t look too bad.
As we head into the third week of Iranian protests the regime has cut access to communications across large swathes of the country. It has also ramped up the violence. State-run TV is issuing direct threats for violence.
The unrest has spread to all 31 provinces in the country. The deadliest clashes have occurred in western regions like Lorestan, Ilam, and Kermanshah.
