James Melville 🚜

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirms that the Pentagon is seeking $200 billion in additional funding for the war in Iran: "It takes money to kill bad guys." Families across America are struggling to make ends meet and now they will be paying their taxes to give $200 billion to fund war. Fleecing the American public to give 💰 to the military industrial complex.

Republican Congressman Jimmy Gomez: “You testified last year that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Do you stand by that statement?" And what follows is a masterclass of obfuscation by Tulsi Gabbard (US Director of National Intelligence)

China 🇨🇳 As the supply chain disruption caused by the Iran war mounts, the Chinese government has ordered domestic exporters to suspend exports of nitrogen-potassium fertiliser. The move is aimed at shoring up domestic supplies. China is one of the largest fertiliser producers in the world. This will have a huge impact on global food production.

Daffodil wood in the garden. In a world that appears to be blowing itself apart with events that are out of our control…all we can do is remember to focus on what we have and appreciate it. Enjoy the little things in life. 🌼

Gaza: Gaza. Completely flattened and destroyed. Over 70,000 dead. Over 20,000 children dead. 90% of residential buildings damaged or destroyed. There is no justification for this. None whatsoever. Thousands of men, women and children have been killed. A place in total ruin. Followed by a ‘new Gaza’ Trump corporate sales pitch at WEF Davos. A monstrosity built on the same site of destruction and mass deaths - with the likes of Tony Blair on the “board of peace”. Grotesque.

Gaza’s oil and gas reserves: Follow the money.💰

The Iran war is going to be an absolute disaster for farming across the planet. Huge uplift in fertiliser and gas costs. This will have an enormous impact on overall farm yields.

@Keithpoker1 @HDewarSport Seve is a folk hero in St Andrews because of what he did in 1984.

@JamesMelville @HDewarSport Last time I was there 1986, me on the 1st Tee with Seve in the group behind. ❤️ st. Andrew’s

Out and about with @HDewarSport in St Andrews. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

All those who contributed to this shitshow should hang their heads in shame.

Glorious spring walk on West Sands beach, St Andrews 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 with @HDewarSport.

So Donald Trump made a big play about saving US taxpayers money through DOGE. Yet he is spaffing away $1 billion a day of taxpayers money on a war while trashing the global economy in the process.

Far too much manipulative smearing of those who criticise the Israeli government by accusing them of being “antisemitic”. ▪️Smearing and discriminating against Jewish people is antisemitic. ▪️Criticising the Israeli government is not antisemitic. No government is above criticism. This includes the Israeli government.

Watching Trump teeter on the edge of blowing up the world economy because of a combination of hubris, strategic incoherence, mendacity and outright stupidity, might be the most extraordinarily depressing thing I have observed in my entire life, or read about in any other period.

👀 EXCLUSIVE- QATARENERGY CEO TELLS REUTERS: WE MAY HAVE TO DECLARE FORCE MAJEURE ON LONG-TERM CONTRACTS FOR UP TO FIVE YEARS FOR LNG SUPPLIES TO ITALY, BELGIUM, KOREA AND CHINA - From Reuters. This is bad.

Seven clocks are running. None of them negotiable. All of them counting down to the same weeks. The planting clock. Mid-April is the biological deadline for corn and soybean planting across the US Midwest. Every day that passes without nitrogen becoming affordable and available narrows the window for corn. USDA projects corn falling to 94 million acres from 98.8 million. Soybeans rising to 85 million from 81.2 million. The seeds that go into the ground in the next three weeks determine America’s grain harvest in October. The decision is irreversible. The USDA clock. March 31. Prospective Plantings. The report that converts farmer intentions into official data. Every acreage number, every corn-soy ratio, every nitrogen-dependent calculation becomes a published fact that traders, governments, and food agencies will use to model global supply for the next twelve months. The number arrives in twelve days. The FAO clock. April 3. The Food Price Index. The first global reading that captures post-Hormuz commodity prices across cereals, vegetable oils, dairy, meat, and sugar. The 2022 peak was 159.7 in March 2022 after Ukraine. This reading will incorporate oil above $100, urea at $610, LNG halted, packaging repriced, and freight surcharges of $500 to $1,500 per container. The number that determines whether the UN declares a food emergency arrives in fifteen days. The pharmaceutical clock. India’s API inventory buffers are two to three months, measured from the war’s onset on February 28. Late May is the depletion window. Methanol at 87.7 percent Hormuz exposure feeds the solvent chain for paracetamol, ibuprofen, metformin, and antibiotics. Once buffers deplete, the shortage becomes a patient access crisis for the 47 percent of US generics that originate in India. The China crude clock. FGE NexantECA confirmed China is drawing commercial reserves at up to one million barrels per day. The draw sustains refinery operations for four to six weeks from March 19. Mid-April to late April is the exhaustion window. After that, China faces three options: accelerate Russian pipeline imports, reroute at massive premium, or crack open the strategic petroleum reserve. The third option reprices every commodity on the planet. The helium clock. SK Hynix and Samsung hold two to three months of helium inventory. Late May to early June is the depletion window. South Korea imports 64.7 percent of its helium from Qatar. Ras Laffan is offline. If helium buffers deplete before alternative supply arrives, semiconductor fabrication faces rationing. The AI hardware supply chain hits a physical wall measured in months, not quarters. The insurance clock. Solvency II requires 30 to 60 days of zero incidents before P&I clubs can reinstate war risk coverage. Even after a ceasefire, the insurance normalisation takes six to sixteen months based on the Red Sea precedent of 26 months and counting. The logistics system lags the financial relief rally by the longest duration of any clock in this crisis. Seven clocks. The shortest expires in twelve days. The longest runs for over a year. The planting window, the USDA report, the FAO index, the drug buffers, the Chinese crude draw, the helium inventory, and the insurance cycle are all counting down simultaneously. None of them pause for diplomacy. None of them respond to presidential directives. None of them read sealed packets. The calendar is the only actor in this war that has never lost a negotiation. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

How predicable. If he was Epstein's best mate, however, the FBI wouldn't be interested.

@DrJColeridge @sequi_simon Actually he does. He has worked in the gulf states for many years and has a deep understanding of the economic situation.

@sequi_simon @JamesMelville You have zero understanding of the area so maybe attempt some humility before making sweeping statements and jumping on bandwagons to virtue signal. No one is buying it.

So, let's be very clear, there was no imminent nuclear threat from Iran. In other words, this war, which has brought the entire Gulf to the brink, and global economic chaos, was started by the USA on a false pretense.

$200 per barrel of oil? The impact of this on the global economy would absolutely catastrophic.

Joe Kent, the US counterterrorism chief who resigned on Tuesday over Iran, makes a ferocious attack on Trump’s policy: “Israel drove the decision to take this action… We could have told the Israelis, ‘No you will not’”.