Europe enters winter with ‘dangerously low’ gas reserves amid Persian Gulf supply shock: Report
The Cradle | September 3, 2026
Europe is heading into winter with dangerously low natural gas reserves, Bloomberg reported on 3 September, amid high prices driven by the US-Israeli war on Iran and rising competition for supply in the global market.
According to the European Commission’s most recent update, gas storage levels in the EU are at 65 percent.
To meet its lowest storage target of 75 percent, Europe will need to purchase 100 terawatt-hours of gas before the end of the year, Bloomberg calculations show.
Such purchases would cost more than $8 billion at current prices, making stockpiling uneconomical.
Governments and utilities across Europe have delayed natural gas purchases in hopes that additional supply becomes available and prices fall in time to refill before winter.
Gas prices have doubled since February due to the US-Israeli war on Iran as the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively shut, disrupting exports of gas from Qatar, a major international supplier.
European countries have sought to build inventories ahead of each winter following natural gas shortages resulting from the Russia–Ukraine war that began in 2022.
Europe has deliberately sought to limit its own purchases of Russian gas in response to the war. Additionally, the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, which supplied cheap gas from Russia to Germany, was destroyed in September 2022 under mysterious circumstances benefiting the US, Ukraine, and Poland.
US natural gas producers have benefited from both the destruction of Nord Stream and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The US has become the world’s top exporter of natural gas after rushing to fill the gap in lost Qatari and Russian gas supplies by providing more expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipped by tankers across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans to Europe and Asia.
Germany and other EU nations are not expected to suffer gas shortages this winter, as they can pay for the needed gas supplies despite the higher prices.
However, late European purchases at high prices could cause shortages and energy blackouts in poorer countries that lack the funds to compete to purchase the same LNG cargoes.
“The potential for a global ‘fight for fuel’ is there, particularly in a colder winter,” stated Go Katayama, principal insight analyst for LNG at maritime data tracking platform Kpler.
Bangladesh and Pakistan are among those countries most vulnerable to shortages. Both countries suffered blackouts and factory closures after the natural gas crisis in 2022.
However, more expensive gas purchases will drive higher inflation in Europe and expand the risk of a long period of stagnation, sluggish growth, and de-industrialization.
Another European country transfers gold out of US
RT | September 3, 2026
The central bank of the Netherlands has become the latest country to move gold holdings out of the United States, announcing on Wednesday that it had transferred 86 tons of bullion to London. The bank described the move as “crisis preparedness” during a time of “increasing geopolitical unrest.”
The transfer was carried out between March and August. The bulk of the gold was moved from New York, with the rest coming from Canada. Only about 27 tons were physically transported across the Atlantic, while the remainder was accomplished through sales in the Americas and repurchases in London. Prior to the transfer, the Dutch central bank (DNB) had held 313 tons in North America.
“With this relocation, we have improved the tradability of our gold reserves,” according to a written statement by DNB Governor Olaf Sleijpen. “We expect that we will never need to use them, but we do need to strengthen our resilience and preparedness.”
The DNB’s move comes after France’s central bank sold its remaining 129 tons of gold held at Federal Reserve vaults in New York between July 2025 and January 2026, leaving it with no bullion in the United States. The proceeds from the sale were used to purchase an equivalent amount of gold in Europe.
In 2017, under the first administration of US President Donald Trump, Germany’s Bundesbank announced that it had completed the transfer to Frankfurt of 300 tons of its gold held in New York. During Trump’s second term, several prominent German economists have called for the removal of the bank’s remaining holdings from the US.
Venezuela under President Hugo Chavez repatriated about 160 tons of its gold reserves from foreign banks, a move that was completed by January 2012. However, some 31 metric tons of Venezuelan gold are still held by the Bank of England. Efforts undertaken by then-President Nicolas Maduro to bring the bullion home were stymied by Great Britain, which did not recognize Maduro as the legitimate head of Venezuela’s government.
The DNB praised Bank of England-held gold as being “the world’s most easily tradable gold.” The Dutch central bank reported owning 612.4 metric tons as of the end of 2025, worth about €72 billion (about $84 billion).
The Bishkek Declaration: What the SCO Signed, and Why India’s Name on It Matters
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | September 2, 2026
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation closed its 26th heads-of-state summit in Bishkek on September 1 with a joint statement — the Bishkek Declaration — timed to the bloc’s 25th anniversary and signed by the leaders of all ten member states: Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and the host, Kyrgyzstan. It is a long anniversary text, adopted alongside some 28 other outcome documents and amendments to the SCO Charter, and its language on the war in Iran is unambiguous. But the single most consequential fact about the declaration is not what it says. It is whose signature sits on it. Narendra Modi’s India — a Quad member, a US strategic partner, and a country the same declaration implicitly defends against Washington’s tariffs — put its name to a text condemning American and Israeli military action, mourning a dead Iranian supreme leader, and rejecting the sanctions architecture the United States has built. That signature is the story.
What the declaration says
On the war, the SCO condemned the military strikes on Iranian territory that it said caused numerous civilian casualties and significant damage to Iran’s economy, characterizing those strikes as violations of international law and the UN Charter that created serious risks to international peace and security. It expressed condolences on the death of Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei — killed earlier in the war — reaffirmed support for Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and called for the conflict to be resolved solely through political and diplomatic means. It extended the point to Gaza, calling a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian question the only path to stability in the region.
On sanctions, without naming the United States, the members opposed “unilateral coercive measures” inconsistent with UN and WTO rules and damaging to the global economy — language that simultaneously covers US sanctions on Iran, Western sanctions on Russia, and the tariff pressure on India. On the nuclear question, they upheld Iran’s position directly, affirming every member’s “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear energy and declaring that measures restricting that right are contrary to international law.
The rest is familiar SCO scaffolding, weightier for the anniversary: an open, non-discriminatory multilateral trading system; implementation of the SCO economic and energy cooperation strategies to 2030; a push to reform global governance toward a multipolar order that “excludes bloc-based and confrontational” methods; responsible use of artificial intelligence; and the ritual condemnation of the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism, with a pointed line that “double standards” in counterterrorism are unacceptable. Pakistan takes the rotating chairmanship for 2026–27 and will host the 2027 summit in Islamabad.
From the Knesset to Bishkek: the anatomy of a reversal
To read India’s signature as simple hedging understates it. Six months earlier, Modi had planted India firmly in the opposite camp — and the Bishkek text reverses, almost line for line, the position he took in February.
On February 25–26, 2026, Modi made a state visit to Israel: the first Indian prime minister to address the Knesset, honored with the Speaker’s Medal as the first foreign leader to receive it, presiding over the elevation of the India–Israel relationship to a “special strategic partnership” with 27 bilateral outcomes and a defense co-production track. Two days after he left, on February 28, the US and Israel opened their war on Iran. India’s response was conspicuous silence: it did not condemn the strikes on Iranian sovereignty, and it did not condole the killing of Iran’s supreme leader. New Delhi zeroed out its Chabahar port funding in the 2026–27 budget under US pressure, let bilateral trade with Iran collapse, and offered only a muted, “humanitarian” reaction when an Iranian frigate returning from joint exercises with India was sunk near Sri Lanka. Commentators summarized the moment cleanly — Modi had put India firmly in the Israel–US camp — while critics at home called it a strategic surrender. Among India’s BRICS and SCO partners, Russia, China, and Iran above all, the tilt bred real distrust.
What turned India back was oil. India imports roughly 85 percent of its fuel and draws a large share of its crude and LNG through the Strait of Hormuz. Under the 50 percent US tariff wall — half of it levied explicitly to punish Russian-crude purchases — New Delhi had spent early 2026 trimming Russian imports and leaning on Gulf suppliers, a quiet alignment with Washington. The Iran war detonated that arrangement: Hormuz disruption tightened supply, prices surged, the rupee came under pressure, and Modi was reduced to urging citizens to conserve fuel. With Gulf barrels suddenly unreliable and Washington’s tariffs making the alignment costly anyway, India turned back to discounted Russian crude out of straightforward energy necessity. As one analysis put it, the energy shock reordered India’s alignments — the tilt toward Washington of a few weeks earlier giving way to a familiar, interest-driven return to Moscow.
Modi was working two constituencies at once, and they pulled opposite ways. The influential Indian-American diaspora he has assiduously courted aligns comfortably with a pro-US, pro-Israel posture; against it stood the roughly ten million Indians in the Gulf and a domestic opinion for whom the image of India embracing Israel mid-war became a live political liability the opposition worked hard. Energy security and the Gulf-and-domestic pull won.
Seen against that arc, the Bishkek signature is the visible completion of a U-turn. The declaration made India condemn the strikes it had refused to condemn in February and mourn the supreme leader it had refused to mourn. The signature therefore reads less as conversion than as correction — an interest-driven snap back to the multi-aligned center after a six-month experiment in the Israel–US camp proved too expensive.
This is where strategic autonomy, not alignment, becomes the only coherent description, and the distinction matters for anyone tempted to call the SCO a consolidated anti-US front. India will lean toward Washington and Jerusalem when the terms are right and swing back toward Moscow and the Global South when its energy and standing require it, bending each forum to its own positions rather than adopting anyone’s line. Modi spent the Bishkek summit proving the point even as he signed the consensus: he demanded an end to “double standards” on terrorism in language every observer read as aimed at Pakistan, then sitting at the same table and about to take the SCO chair; he insisted connectivity projects respect sovereignty and territorial integrity, India’s standing refusal to bless China’s Belt and Road and the corridor it runs through territory India claims; and he pressed Putin directly to move from endless war toward a cessation of hostilities in Ukraine rather than echo Moscow.
And the timing is not incidental. India hosts the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12–13 — ten days after Bishkek — as BRICS chair for 2026, with Putin confirmed and Xi and Pezeshkian expected. A chair cannot antagonize the leaders it is about to receive, so part of the Bishkek signature is simply the housekeeping of a host keeping its room intact before its own showcase. Yet India deliberately themed its BRICS presidency around resilience and cooperation — a framing chosen to keep the focus on delivery rather than confrontation. The tell is in the gap: India signed a confrontational SCO text while steering its own BRICS summit deliberately away from confrontation. The New Delhi declaration on September 13 will be the better test of where India actually stands, and whether the correction that began at Bishkek holds.
The energy weight behind the declaration
A bloc’s communiqué is worth as much as the material power behind it, and on oil the SCO’s ten members carry more weight than the “regional talking shop” framing suggests. Taken together, and using the most recent 2026 figures, the member states produce on the order of 21 to 23 million barrels per day of crude and condensate — roughly a fifth of world output. Set against OPEC’s crude production of about 27 to 28 million barrels per day, the SCO membership produces somewhere near 80 percent of what the entire OPEC cartel pumps.
SCO member Crude + condensate (approx., 2026) Russia ~10.9 million bbl/d China ~4.3–5.0 million bbl/d Iran ~3.3 million bbl/d (war-depressed) Kazakhstan ~1.8 million bbl/d India ~0.7 million bbl/d Others (Uzbekistan, etc.) ~0.2 million bbl/d SCO total ~21–23 million bbl/d
Four caveats sharpen rather than soften the picture. First, Iran sits in both camps — it is the only country that is both an SCO member and an OPEC member — so the two blocs are not cleanly separable; strip Iran out to avoid double-counting and the SCO membership still produces roughly two-thirds of OPEC’s volume. Second, Russia alone, at nearly 11 million barrels per day, produces about 40 percent as much as all of OPEC combined and is the gravitational center of the SCO’s energy weight. Third, the figures are unusually soft this year because the war has curtailed Iranian output and repeatedly throttled Gulf flows through Hormuz — crude and liquids transiting the strait fell from about 21.6 million barrels per day before the conflict to under 5 million in the second quarter of 2026 — so actual regional production has swung well below capacity. Fourth, and most telling, several of OPEC’s Gulf heavyweights — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait — are not SCO members but SCO dialogue partners, drawn into the organization’s orbit since 2023. The bloc that just defended Iran and condemned the US-Iran war is steadily accreting the very Gulf producers on whom OPEC depends.
The deeper asymmetry is that OPEC is a supply cartel, while the SCO spans both ends of the oil market. Its members include not only Russia, Iran, and Kazakhstan on the production side but China and India — the world’s largest and third-largest crude importers — on the demand side. No other grouping contains both the sellers and the biggest buyers of oil under one roof, and the declaration’s commitments to an SCO energy cooperation strategy to 2030, a proposed SCO Energy Consortium, and expanded settlement in national currencies are early scaffolding for exactly that: a producer-consumer bloc that could, over time, price and clear a meaningful share of Eurasian energy trade outside the dollar and outside OPEC’s writ. That ambition is nowhere near realized. But it is the material fact that gives an anniversary communiqué more heft than its boilerplate would suggest.
The Bishkek Declaration is, on its face, a predictable statement of Eurasian grievance: condemn the strikes on Iran, defend Iran’s nuclear rights, reject Western sanctions, call for a multipolar order. What lifts it above boilerplate is the combination of the signatory and the substance behind it. India signed a text that condemns the very strikes on Iran it pointedly declined to condemn in February, when Modi was in the Knesset — not because it has changed sides, but because a six-month tilt toward Israel and Washington collided with an energy shock and a tariff wall, and snapping back to the multi-aligned center became the rational course. The anti-coercion language now shields India too, and a BRICS summit India must host in ten days makes keeping the room intact its own necessity. And the bloc doing the signing controls something close to four-fifths of OPEC’s oil output, both of Asia’s giant import markets, and a growing roster of Gulf dialogue partners. The declaration’s rhetoric is cheap. The energy and demographic weight standing behind it is not.
Belgium blocks latest EU push to seize Russian assets
RT | September 2, 2026
Belgium has rejected an attempt by Sweden, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands to resurrect the EU’s plan to seize frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine.
“This is non-negotiable,” Defense Minister Theo Francken told VRT on the weekend. “That door is closed.”
Kiev’s Western backers froze around $300 billion in Russian central bank assets following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, around $240 billion of which is held at Belgium-based Euroclear. The EU has already redirected profits generated by the funds to Kiev but has stopped short of confiscating the underlying assets.
Ukraine has warned of a €30 billion hole in its defense budget, despite receiving the first tranche of a €90 billion loan from Brussels.
Sweden, Poland, Spain, and the Netherlands urged the European Commission last week to once again explore ways of using the frozen Russian assets for Ukraine, while spreading the legal and financial risks among EU member states.
Belgium, which would bear much of the fallout because Euroclear holds the bulk of the assets, opposes confiscation. Francken said Prime Minister Bart De Wever will not change course and warned other EU members, particularly the Baltic states, against repeatedly putting Belgium “in a corner.”
“Our prime minister will stand firm,” he said.
De Wever has argued that outright confiscation would cross a dangerous legal and political line. “You cannot simply take someone else’s money. We are not at war with Russia. Europe is not at war with Russia,” he said earlier this year, adding that “immobilized money, even during WWII, was never confiscated.”
The Belgian prime minister warned that seizing the funds would amount to a declaration of war against Russia, and urged the EU to pursue negotiations instead.
De Wever was also instrumental in blocking an earlier proposal to use the assets as backing for a ‘reparations loan’ to Ukraine. EU members ultimately agreed on a €90 billion loan financed through joint borrowing.
Euroclear also opposes confiscation and warned that it could sue the EU if it attempts to seize the assets. Other EU officials have raised concerns that the move could undermine international law and damage the bloc’s reputation among global investors.
Moscow has denounced any attempt to appropriate its sovereign assets, calling it “theft” and warning that confiscation would trigger retaliation, potentially including measures against Western assets held in Russia.
EU surrenders sovereignty to US coercion, becomes accessory to economic terrorism: Iran FM spokesman
Press TV – August 31, 2026
The European Union has surrendered its sovereignty, laws, values and ethics to American coercion and turned itself into an accessory to Washington’s lawless economic war against Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said.
In a statement posted on his official X account on Monday night, Baghaei pointed to the EU’s own Blocking Statute, which prohibits European operators from complying with extraterritorial laws of third countries and treats such measures as contrary to international law.
“How, then, can the Union now support the most predatory and unlawful unilateral coercive measures against Iran?” he asked.
Baghaei contrasted today’s posture with 1996, when the EU resolved to act independently in defense of its sovereignty against the American sanctions regime and adopted the Blocking Statute.
“Today it has become an accessory to Washington’s lawless conduct,” he said.
The Union’s endorsement of America’s unlawful economic war constitutes a grave violation of international law, the spokesman added. Every EU member state will be held accountable for the consequences of its contribution to this wrongful act.
“The European Union cannot endorse Washington’s economic terrorism against Iran while claiming to seek de-escalation and regional stability. The two positions are mutually exclusive,” Baghaei stated. “This irresponsible stance is evidence of the EU’s moral decay and political incompetence.”
Iranian officials have repeatedly described US secondary sanctions and naval blockade measures as economic terrorism and a violation of the UN Charter’s principles of sovereign equality.
Tehran has long maintained that Europe’s failure to enforce its own Blocking Statute against Washington’s extraterritorial dictates exposes the gap between Brussels’ rhetoric on a rules-based order and its actual conduct.
The statement comes as the Islamic Republic continues to reject any attempt to impose terms of settlement through coercion and insists that the only viable path out of the current crisis is a return by the United States to the commitments it signed in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding.
The Islamabad MoU, brokered with Pakistani mediation and signed in June, provided for an immediate halt to military operations, the lifting of the US naval blockade, Iranian arrangements for the Strait of Hormuz, a path toward sanctions relief, and a $300 billion reconstruction framework.
However, the US violated the deal by conducting deadly aerial assaults on Iran and imposing a naval blockade of the country.
Pakistan had previously played a pivotal role in securing the April 8 ceasefire that brought an end to the 40-day criminal US-Israeli aggression against Iran.
Washington sanctions regime reaches its breaking point
By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | September 1, 2026
Trump’s desperate bid to crush Iran’s economy without military escalation places the US’ sanctions regime against Iran, Russia, China and all its other adversaries at existential risk.
So far, 2026 has been the most sobering year in living memory for the American self-image. Having at long last achieved the war against Tehran that has been sought since 1979, the Washington establishment is confronted not with the Islamic Republic’s collapse but its solidification.
Far from regaining its unquestioned dominion over the Persian Gulf region, it must now accept perpetual management by Tehran of the most critical waterway on Earth, or else face a global economic calamity. Instead of weakening Iranian leverage, the US-Israeli aggression has magnified it exponentially, needlessly handing it a level of global power and influence undreamt of in the more than five centuries of the Western world’s dominance.
As the administration flails ahead of the midterms and the imminent exhaustion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which cushioned the true magnitude of the energy shock, it is soon to witness yet another previously unchallenged instrument of its power vaporize alongside its dwindling munitions stocks. That instrument is its economic sanctions policy.
This week ushered in the so-called “Operation Economic Outcast”, through which Washington hopes to throttle every avenue of economic contact between Iran and the outside world. Announced by the hapless Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who, along with his bemusement at the rising price of oil in response to the US’ actions, is also contending with the failure of the naval blockade of Iran’s southern coast, which has still not caused either Tehran’s collapse or capitulation. By switching back to tactics of blunt economic coercion, the Trump administration signaled an unprecedented escalation in the intensity of its secondary sanctions policy, namely that any company or state engaging in economic activity of any kind with Iran will share in its exclusion from the economic and financial system underpinned by the US dollar.
This threat, in addition to being levelled against regional and small-to-medium-sized economic partners of the Islamic Republic, is also explicitly aimed at China and Russia. In its desperation to force Iranian submission, Washington is escalating the war to the level of global economic blackmail, including against its only near-peer economy and potential challenger. Even Bessent, by his own admission, acknowledged that actual imposition of such sanctions would “blow up” the global financial system.
In addition to threatening every state that engages in any way with the Iranian economy, the Trump administration has, at “Israel’s” encouragement, also taken to the idea of imposing a total land blockade as well. This would require strong-arming systemically important regional actors such as Turkey, Iraq and Pakistan into sacrificing their own natural economic ties with their neighbor, to achieve the objectives of the very foreign power that has thrown their economic present and future into chaos.
Before the so-called “Economic D-Day” was even launched, Beijing called Trump and Bessent’s bluffs, assuring that any US sanctions against entities facilitating Chinese-Iranian exchange would trigger “all necessary measures” in response. The effects of increasing Chinese-US decoupling, the accumulating poison of the US tariff war against the rest of the world and now the apparent collapse of the North American economic bloc (formerly NAFTA), leave Washington in no position to incur the true costs of such retaliation, let alone the simultaneous countersanctions from the likes of Russia, Turkey, India, Pakistan and any other country that depends more on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz than on trade with the US.
Neither are the Iranians anywhere near as bereft of economic weapons of their own, certainly not in comparison to the first Trump administration’s economic strangulation. Tehran has correctly greeted the US economic campaign as the desperate gamble that it is- and met it with an ultimatum of its own: that any participating state in this economic siege will be treated as an enemy.
Trump may believe that the US’ relative lesser exposure to the Strait gives him some sort of leverage. In fact, for the majority of states in the world whose economies run in whole or part due to the 20 percent of oil and natural gas, 30 percent of industrial helium, 40 percent of sulfur and 50 percent of fertilizer inputs that annually transit Hormuz, this reality gives them far more reason to accommodate the Islamic Republic than to join Washington and Tel-Aviv’s attempts to bring it to its knees.
This stunning level of economic hubris, if acted upon, will either fail and demonstrate the economic limits of US power along with those of its military, or it will succeed and split the globe into separate economic world-systems. Like almost every gambit of this unhinged presidency, success would be more damaging than failure. Washington will have so antagonized even its closest partners that whatever remains of the “global economy” centered around the Dollar will be very much less than “global” in its scope, compared to the parallel world economy its hostility will have birthed through sheer obstinate stupidity.
Economy will withstand US sanctions, Iran Central Bank governor says
Al Mayadeen| September 1, 2026
Claims suggesting Iran is heading toward an economic collapse are unfounded, said the Governor of the Central Bank of Iran, Abdolnaser Hemmati, on Tuesday, stressing that the country’s economic system continues to operate robustly despite new sanctions imposed by its adversaries every week.
Hemmati said Iran’s collection of its foreign-currency receivables remains ongoing and that its resources continue to flow, alongside domestic reserves. He added that Iran has financial resources whose details cannot be disclosed, noting that the Central Bank is fully prepared to inject $2 billion in foreign currency into the market.
In a message addressed to US President Donald Trump, Hemmati said, “I say to Trump: Iran has enough foreign-currency reserves”.
Regarding developments in the foreign-exchange market, the Central Bank governor said conditions in the currency market would stabilize in the coming period, attributing the recent rise in exchange rates more to psychological warfare than to underlying economic factors.
US economic pressure fails
This comes after the United States announced “Operation Economic Outcast” earlier this week as part of its campaign to isolate Iran economically. The US Treasury has described the initiative as an effort to target Iran’s financial links and pressure foreign entities conducting business with Tehran.
The sanctions, like previous packages aimed at choking Iran economically, have evidently failed. Chinese refiners are still importing about 1.2 million barrels of Iranian oil a day this year, a figure barely below last year’s pace.
Real volumes could be higher, since ships carrying Iranian crude have gotten better at avoiding detection. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) revealed that Iranian commercial and financial activity continues across Dubai despite Washington’s push to sharply restrict Tehran’s access to regional markets and financial networks.
According to the newspaper, Iranian banks, airlines, restaurants, and businesses remain active in the United Arab Emirates.
At one Bank Melli branch in Dubai’s old city, around a dozen tellers were continuing to serve Farsi-speaking customers, according to the report. Employees said they had received no instructions ordering the branch to cease operations. “We put our trust in God on what happens next,” an Iranian bank employee said.
The exodus Israel cannot afford
New data: Israelis heading for the exits include doctors, engineers, tech workers, and high-income taxpayers on whom the occupation’s war economy depends.
By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | August 31, 2026
In the early hours of 7 October 2023, an Israeli journalist identified only as Asaf booked flights for himself, his wife, and their two daughters. The next day, carrying only hand luggage, the family boarded a flight to Berlin. What began as an emergency exit became permanent. Two years later, they had not returned.
Asaf told +972 Magazine that he already believed Israel’s education and healthcare systems were deteriorating. But that morning destroyed his remaining confidence in the state and its military: “By the afternoon of 7 October, we understood that even this wasn’t true.”
His story reflects a larger structural trend. Israel is disproportionately losing the doctors who staff its hospitals, the engineers who sustain its technology sector, the academics who reproduce its scientific capabilities, and the taxpayers who finance its wars.
The numbers Israel struggles to define
Emigration cuts against the Zionist claim that Israel offers Jews security and permanence. Hebrew itself reflects the tension: immigration is aliyah, or “ascent,” while emigration is yerida – “descent.”
An August 2026 Tel Aviv University study, based on Central Bureau of Statistics data, found that 90,922 Israeli citizens remained abroad for at least three consecutive months in 2025, following 91,499 in 2024 and 86,509 in 2023. In total, 268,509 Israelis left for at least three months between 2023 and 2025 – 47 percent more than during 2013–2015.
The three-month measure is not equivalent to permanent migration. But the researchers found a correlation of 0.96 between three-month departures and remaining abroad for at least one year. On that basis, they estimated that 45,000–50,000 Israelis became long-term emigrants in 2025 alone.
Citing official and research data, +972 Magazine put the long-term total above 150,000 over two years and suggested it may have surpassed 200,000 since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government was formed.
Israel’s National Insurance Institute reported 35,625 residency terminations in 2025; 6,651 were requested voluntarily. This administrative measure is neither a count of citizenship loss nor a clean measure of permanent emigration, but it shows that thousands were formally loosening their ties to the state.
Follow the taxpayers
The Israeli Tax Authority has documented a deeper demographic and fiscal shift. Until 2019, emigrants earned approximately the national average. By 2024, their average pre-departure income had reached around 200,000 shekels – 50 percent above the national average and 60 percent higher in real terms than before the pandemic.
As the study’s authors put it: “The pace of emigration among the strong and affluent strata increased, while among the weaker strata it remained almost unchanged.”
According to the Hebrew-language economic daily Calcalist, the departure rate among Israel’s highest income decile rose from approximately 0.3 percent in 2015–2019 to more than 0.5 percent in 2023–2024 – an increase of around 80 percent. That decile accounted for 67 percent of emigrants’ combined income and 86 percent of the income tax they had paid before leaving.
Compared with the 2015–2019 period, the number of people leaving high-tech increased by approximately 150 percent in 2023–2024, while the number departing healthcare more than doubled. Among people aged 40–50, the share of adult emigrants rose from 13 to 20 percent, and their combined pre-departure income tripled to 2.7 billion shekels.
Established professionals, rather than mainly younger workers at the outset of their careers, are increasingly taking their skills, families, savings, and capital abroad. The number reporting overseas transfers exceeding 500,000 shekels quadrupled in 2023–2024.
A new geography of exit
Official statistics record absence more reliably than destination, but a new geography is visible. A Haaretz investigation found a growing demand for relocation to Portugal, Cyprus, and other European states. Cyprus has become a contingency base for some: in the first days after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, Reuters reported that more than 2,500 Israelis sought refuge there.
Greece is another destination. According to Le Monde, Greek authorities reported an approximately 70-percent rise in “golden visas” issued to Israelis after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Not every visa or property purchase becomes permanent migration, but each relocation lowers the informational, social, and financial barriers facing the next family considering departure.
The fiscal cost of a shrinking base
Each annual cohort that emigrated in 2023 and 2024 had paid approximately 1.2 billion shekels in income tax before departure, compared with around 500 million shekels for cohorts before 2019. The Tax Authority estimates a potential loss of about 700 million shekels per cohort. Some emigrants retain Israeli tax residency, but if similar cohorts accumulate, annual revenue at risk could approach 3.5 billion shekels within five years.
Israel’s high-tech sector produces roughly one-fifth of GDP, more than half of exports, and about one-third of salaried income tax. It also provides expertise in cyberintelligence and military technology. Sustained outflow could weaken both commercial innovation and capabilities central to Israel’s security doctrine.
Israel’s war economy rests heavily on a relatively small, highly productive section of the population, even as its policies push more of these workers and taxpayers abroad. Their departure leaves fewer people to shoulder a growing fiscal and military burden.
The Bank of Israel has separately warned that low labor-force participation among Haredi men and the need to broaden military service remain structural challenges.
For some, relocation is a silent political withdrawal – a vote with their feet against a state increasingly defined by religious polarization and permanent mobilization. Economist Itai Ater warns: “If there is no change, emigration could increase in a way that endangers Israel’s security and economy.”
The state’s attempt to buy time
In March 2026, the Knesset Finance Committee approved a graduated five-year income-tax exemption for qualifying immigrants and long-term returning residents. The ceiling reaches one million shekels in 2027 and 2028; the Finance Ministry initially estimated the five-year cost at 560 million shekels.
Officially, the measure promotes immigration and growth. In practice, it also reveals the scale of the concern: Israel is losing some of those it can least afford to lose and must pay a premium to recover or replace them.
Tax incentives cannot easily compensate for prolonged war, repeated reserve mobilization, political instability, institutional polarization, or an increasingly militarized future.
Physical war damage can be repaired with money. Buildings can be reconstructed and weapons replenished. But when a state loses the people who generate its technology, operate its hospitals, staff its universities, and finance its military, the damage becomes cumulative and structural.
Israel’s most consequential wartime losses may ultimately be the people who quietly conclude that their future lies elsewhere.
Arab states call US sanctions on Iran unrealistic: Report
Press TV – August 31, 2026
Leaders of the Arab Persian Gulf states have reportedly told Washington that sanctions imposed on Iran by the US Treasury Secretary are “unrealistic” and difficult for the countries to accommodate, citing their geographic proximity and close ties with Iran.
Officials from the Persian Gulf states formally conveyed to the US side that the directive issued by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as part of an economic war against Iran, was “not realistic” and could not be tolerated given their geographic circumstances, neighboring status and proximity to Iran.
The regional newspaper Rai al-Youm reported that Western diplomatic circles believe the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Qatar are unlikely to show the same willingness as European countries to comply with decisions and memoranda issued by the US Treasury Department.
According to the report, some foreign governments, including Qatar, may not adhere to US threats of economic sanctions, viewing them as unrealistic and evidence of the continued escalation of tensions in the region.
Such measures, the report said, could also undermine efforts to pursue scenarios aimed at reducing regional tensions.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the new “economic terrorism” campaign, absurdly comparing it to the D-Day Normandy landings of World War II.
Bessent claimed the measures target Iran’s financial networks worldwide and warned that no partner is beyond Washington’s reach.
He said the Trump administration has identified entities dealing with Iran and will impose deadlines for them to cut ties or face exclusion from the US dollar system.
China, Russia and Pakistan have also opposed US threats of sanctions against countries trading with Iran.
Abdolamir Rabihavi, director general of the West Asia Office of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, said Iran’s trading partners had largely disregarded the announcement of new US sanctions and that trade with these countries was continuing.
Rabihavi said expanding trade with neighboring countries as well as major Eastern economies could provide an opportunity to strengthen Iran’s foreign trade.
“One should not be overly influenced by unprofessional remarks by US officials, as many countries need Iranian goods and the country’s products are competitive in target markets in terms of quality and price,” he said.
The official said trade was a two-way, mutually beneficial relationship, noting that just as Iran seeks markets for its goods, its trading partners are also looking for suitable suppliers to meet their needs, and Iran can supply part of those requirements.
Rabihavi also stressed the need to diversify Iran’s export markets, saying Africa, with around 50 countries and a population of nearly 1.5 billion, represents an important and relatively underdeveloped market for Iranian exports of goods and services.
Alongside African countries, Rabihavi said, Central Asian states could also provide suitable markets for Iranian goods, particularly given their existing capacities and the opportunities offered by free-trade agreements, which Iran should seriously seek to utilize.
Hydrocarbon Reserves in Russia’s Far East Comparable to World’s Largest Basins – Rosnedra
Sputnik – 30.08.2026
MOSCOW – The Russian Far East’s hydrocarbon reserves are comparable in volume to the world’s largest oil and gas basins, Russian Federal Agency for Mineral Resources (Rosnedra) head Oleg Kazanov said in an interview Sputnik ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum.
“The Far East’s hydrocarbon resource volumes are comparable to the world’s largest provinces,” he said.
The Persian Gulf basin is the world’s largest oil and gas province. Other major basins are the West Siberian, Mexican, Permian and Venezuelan.
Kazanov said that Russia’s Far East is often called a geological “gray spot.” He argued this was not entirely accurate since more than 7,800 mineral deposits have been discovered there.
At the same time, much of the territory is indeed less explored than Western Siberia. The main reasons are remoteness, lack of infrastructure, challenging climate and terrain, and the historical priority of investment in Western Siberia, the Rosnedra head said.
The Eastern Economic Forum will be held in Vladivostok from September 1-4. Sputnik is a general media partner of the forum.
China’s opposition to illegal unilateral sanctions is consistent and unequivocal: FM on possible US sanctions on Chinese banks over Iran ties
By Ma Tong | Global Times | August 28, 2026
China on Friday reiterated that dialogue and negotiation is the only viable way to resolve the Iran issue and that its opposition to illegal unilateral sanctions is consistent and unequivocal, after US President Donald Trump suggested Washington could impose sanctions on Chinese banks doing business with Iran.
“On the Iran situation, we always believe that dialogue and negotiation is the only viable way out. China opposes illicit unilateral sanctions. This position is consistent and clear,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular press briefing on Friday.
Trump on Thursday hinted at possible sanctions on Chinese banks when asked whether Washington would punish them for doing business with Iran. “Who said I’m not? You don’t know if I’m doing it … I don’t have to announce everything, do I?” Trump said, according to Reuters.
The remarks came as the US has intensified economic pressure on Iran, broadening the sectors and actors targeted by its sanctions campaign after months of military strikes and diplomacy failed to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Friday that the latest US push to tighten sanctions on Iran reflects a clear expansion of US’s unilateral sanctions approach, which had previously focused more heavily on traditional sectors such as energy and oil and gas.
“What we are seeing is a continued broadening of both the sectors covered and the entities targeted,” Zhou said. He described the trend as a further “generalization” of US restrictions, with the US extending unilateral measures into new areas and to a wider range of actors, in some cases beyond the scope of previous international consensus on Iran-related sanctions.
Washington has already targeted Chinese mainland and Hong Kong entities in previous rounds of Iran-related sanctions. But it stopped short of blacklisting major Chinese banks and refiners, the South China Morning Post reported on Friday.
Zhou warned that extending such measures to financial institutions would sharply magnify the fallout, given the broad, complex and two-way nature of cross-border financial networks. “If such sanctions were actually imposed, the impact would be extensive and may significantly escalate tensions in China-US relations,” he said, adding that such a move would be detrimental to both sides.
The latest threat comes as the US expanded its sanctions on Iran. On Monday, the US Treasury launched “Operation Economic Outcast,” expanding the categories of Iran-related conduct potentially exposed to secondary sanctions and sanctioning nearly 60 entities, individuals and vessels across multiple jurisdictions. It also warned that entities facilitating certain Iran-related activities could risk being cut off from the US financial system.
China has repeatedly rejected such pressure. Lin said on Tuesday that economic warfare and maximum pressure “provide no solution” and would instead fuel tensions and lead to risk spillover, disrupting the global economic and financial order, and harm the legitimate rights and interests of other countries. Lin also stressed that China will do everything necessary to firmly safeguard its rights and interests.
Zhou emphasized that the latest US threats also run counter to efforts to translate the consensus reached by the Chinese and US heads of state into concrete actions and build a more constructive and stable bilateral relationship.
“China’s door to negotiations has always been open,” Zhou said. “If the US genuinely wants to implement the consensus reached by the two sides, it should stop resorting to threats and take concrete steps toward mutually beneficial cooperation, or at the very least, reasonable and fair competition, rather than continuing to rely on unilateral measures.”
US cuts Banque Misr UAE from financial system over Iran sanctions
Al Mayadeen | August 28, 2026
The United States has cut Banque Misr’s UAE branch off from the US financial system over alleged violations of Washington’s sanctions on Iran, the US Department of the Treasury said Friday.
The move comes days after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced “Operation Economic Outcast”, a campaign aimed at isolating the Islamic Republic and countries accused of supporting it by targeting potential sources of revenue available to Tehran.
On Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sent a letter to the UN leadership and member states, calling on them to condemn what he described as an attempt at economic coercion.
Experts say the US move to cut Banque Misr’s UAE branch from the US financial system falls well short of the broader measures threatened by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent under “Operation Economic Outcast,” limiting its impact to a single branch rather than imposing sanctions on the bank itself.
Banque Misr UAE targeted under US sanctions campaign
Under the latest measures, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed revoking Banque Misr UAE’s access to correspondent banking services provided by US financial institutions.
“Under Operation Economic Outcast, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) proposed a rule that would revoke Banque Misr UAE’s correspondent banking access to U.S. financial institutions,” the Treasury said in a press release.
The department alleged that the UAE-based banking institution had worked with front companies used by Iran’s Ministry of Defense and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps to circumvent US sanctions.
Treasury alleges Iran sanctions evasion
The Treasury also announced separate sanctions targeting Reza Mohammad Taeedi, manager of Bank Melli’s branch in Dubai, and Hong Kong-based Kameng Trading Limited.
According to the department, Taeedi and the trading company aided Iranian nationals who were already subject to US sanctions.
Iran vows no surrender
In response to Washington’s economic war, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that economic pressure is an American strategy aimed at subjugating Iran and forcing it to surrender, as Tehran warned that any pressure targeting the Iranian people’s livelihoods and security would be treated as part of the war.
Pezeshkian made the remarks during a meeting with Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council President Faiq Zidan, saying Iran’s adversaries had recognized their inability to subdue the Iranian people militarily and had therefore shifted toward creating social and economic problems inside the country.
“Iran will not surrender,” Pezeshkian stressed, rejecting economic pressure as a means of forcing Tehran to submit.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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