Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would dent the U.S. dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market and mark another shift by the world’s top crude exporter toward Asia.

The talks with China over yuan-priced oil contracts have been off and on for six years but have accelerated this year as the Saudis have grown increasingly unhappy with decades-old U.S. security commitments to defend the kingdom, the people said.

The Saudis are angry over the U.S.’s lack of support for their intervention in the Yemen civil war, and over the Biden administration’s attempt to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Saudi officials have said they were shocked by the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

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China buys more than 25% of the oil that Saudi Arabia exports. If priced in yuan, those sales would boost the standing of China’s currency. The Saudis are also considering including yuan-denominated futures contracts, known as the petroyuan, in the pricing model of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., known as Aramco.

It would be a profound shift for Saudi Arabia to price even some of its roughly 6.2 million barrels of day of crude exports in anything other than dollars. The majority of global oil sales — around 80% — are done in dollars, and the Saudis have traded oil exclusively in dollars since 1974, in a deal with the Nixon administration that included security guarantees for the kingdom.

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China introduced yuan-priced oil contracts in 2018 as part of its efforts to make its currency tradable across the world, but they haven’t made a dent in the dollar’s dominance of the oil market. For China, using dollars has become a hazard highlighted by U.S. sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program and on Russia in response to the Ukraine invasion.

Source: https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/saudi-arabia-considers-accepting-yuan-chinese-oil-sales

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A woman holds a poster during the funeral prayers in absentia for Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed last month in the Saudi Arabia consulate, in Istanbul, November 16, 2018. (AP/Emrah Gurel)

Denmark is the latest nation to suspend arms exports to Saudi Arabia, in light of the brutal killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi operatives and the kingdom’s role in the war in Yemen, the Reuters news agency reported Thursday.

The move, announced by the Danish foreign minister, also covers so-called dual-use materials that can be applied to military purposes.

Germany and Norway have also stopped supplying arms to Saudi Arabia, and earlier this month, Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau said he would weigh doing so.

Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen gives a press conference in Copenhagen, on October 30, 2018. (Martin Sylvest/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP)

Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi government, was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in early October by agents of the Saudi government. His body has not yet been found.

US President Donald Trump, however, said Tuesday that Khashoggi’s murder would not derail the US-Saudi relationship, in a move the American leader suggested also benefited Israel.

“We may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Trump said in a statement.

“They have been a great ally in our very important fight against Iran. The United States intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure the interests of our country, Israel and all other partners in the region,” the US president added.

10-year-old Ghazi Saleh, who weighs just 10 kilograms, lies on a bed at Al-Mudhafar hospital in Taez, Yemen, on November 19, 2018. (Marzooq AL-JABIRY / AFP)

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia is leading a coalition against Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels in a war that is estimated by Save the Children to have caused
the death by extreme hunger or disease of at least 85,000 children aged under the age of 5.

After nearly four years, since the conflict began, up to 14 million people are at risk of famine, according to the United Nations.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis announced that peace talks to end the conflict would begin in Sweden next month.

Source: https://www.timesofisrael.com/denmark-joins-germany-norway-in-suspending-arms-sales-to-saudis/

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Justin Waggoner swings his combine into wheat growing outside Condon, Oregon, last August. Seven ships loaded with wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest are sailing for Yemen, where civil war has pushed over 8 million people to the brink of starvation. The U.S. Agency for International Development purchased the wheat to benefit America’s wheat farmers and people in crisis. | ERIC MORTENSON / THE CAPITAL PRESS / VIA AP

PORTLAND, OREGON – Seven ships loaded with wheat grown in America’s Pacific Northwest are sailing for Yemen, where a stalemated civil war has pushed more than 8 million people to the brink of starvation.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers the Food for Peace program, purchased the wheat to benefit America’s wheat farmers and people in crisis. It was then handed over to the U.N.’s World Food Program to be shipped and distributed in Yemen.

Stephen Anderson, the WFP’s Yemen country director, told a Friday news conference in Portland that the wheat will provide much-needed relief.

“We’re doing our best to get food assistance to those people who need it most,” Anderson said, according to the Capital Press, an agricultural publication.

Over the past two weeks, seven ships filled with 176,000 tons (159,665 metric tons) of wheat have left Portland for Yemen, two Oregon politicians said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and Republican state Rep. Mike McLane said in a joint statement they’re proud to see Oregon wheat being used in one of America’s “most effective peacebuilding tools,” its Food for Peace program.

“We see these agricultural programs representing the best of American values, culture and policy,” Merkley and McLane said in their statement published in The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Darren Padget, a wheat farmer from Grass Valley, Oregon, told the Capital Press he’s pleased the wheat is going to the needy.

Aid workers in Yemen are worried that fighting that is nearing a port where most food aid arrives could force its shutdown and potentially tip millions into starvation. WFP Executive Director David Beasley has called Hodeida Port “a humanitarian lifeline for millions who are on the brink of famine.”

Yemeni government forces, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have been trying to retake Hodeida as they battle Iran-allied rebels known as Houthis.

The Houthis seized control of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, in September 2014, and later pushed south toward the port city of Aden. The Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015 and has faced criticism for a campaign of airstrikes that has killed civilians and destroyed hospitals and markets.

The Houthis have laid land mines, killing and wounding civilians. They also have targeted religious minorities and imprisoned opponents. The stalemate war has killed more than 10,000 people.

Around two-thirds of the country’s population of 27 million relies on aid and 8.4 million are at risk of starving.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/08/14/world/social-issues-world/seven-ships-loaded-oregon-wheat-bound-starving-yemens-hodeida-port/#.W3JDJuhKhGM

The post Seven ships loaded with Oregon wheat bound for starving Yemen’s Hodeida port first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.