Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here

 The FBI Anti-Corruption Squad Was Circling Susan Collins — Until Trump Got In The Way Even Navatek’s executives were surprised at how far their money went in D.C.

Even Navatek’s executives were surprised at how far their money went in D.C. “It was eye-opening for me, frankly. ‘Oh my God, all of it is for sale. It’s all for sale,’” Eric Schiff, a former Navatek executive, told ProPublica.

Kremlin-Backed Forgery Scheme Routed 6.9bn Through Global Banks

Financial Times reports leaked A7 files show a Kremlin-backed fintech used shell companies and forged paperwork to move more than $6.9bn through banks despite Russia sanctions.An investigation by the Financial Times reveals that a Kremlin-backed fintech group utilized an extensive network of shell companies and forged paperwork to route more than $6.9 billion through major international banks in circumvention of sanctions. The scheme, co-founded by a sanctioned Moldovan oligarch and backed by Promsvyazbank, processed illicit funds through institutions such as First Abu Dhabi Bank, Standard Chartered, and DBS

Method: Utilized old-fashioned money laundering, forged invoices, and front companies to bypass sanctions. 
Purpose: Acted as a cross-border payment provider for imports and sensitive military/security purchases. 
Origins: Created in Russia and Kyrgyzstan by Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor with backing from Promsvyazbank (PSB). 

📉 Implicated Global Banks

Standard Chartered (Hong Kong): Received $1.1 billion (Late 2024–August 2025). 
DBS (Hong Kong): Received $273 million.
Citigroup Clients: Received $74 million.
Deutsche Bank Clients: Received approximately $18 million. 

Oil Executives Say the Great Fuel Crisis Is Here

Wall Street Journal gift article: “Trump officials say the oil-market disruption is temporary, but Chevron’s Mike Wirth and others warn global supplies are running low, with no respite in sight American oil executives warned for months that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz was bound to cause a fuel crisis. Now, they say it is here. Commercial fuel stocks around the world have been depleting for more than six months, and strategic crude reserves can’t be tapped much further. 

Attacks last week shut down a crucial crude pipeline in Saudi Arabia that bypassed the Strait, stranding at least 2.5 million barrels a day from an already tight global oil market, analysts estimate. “All these mechanisms helped to mitigate the price and supply risk,” Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth said Friday at an energy conference in Austin, Texas. “Those have largely now played out, and we don’t have nearly the buffers in the system that we did when it began.” It is hard to predict where oil prices will go, he added, but at the moment, it is difficult to envision prices coming back down quickly. 

“I wish I could tell you that I saw some reason why things would ease, but it’s difficult right now to see that happen,” he said. Veteran energy advisers say that with no resolution to the Iran war in sight, the situation risks spinning out of control. Diesel prices have soared to a record $6.23 a gallon and gasoline prices, which slipped below $4 a gallon this summer, have rebounded to $4.32. Some energy analysts say they have been fielding investor questions about when consumers pinched by the high prices will start pulling back on new purchases. 

The Trump administration has repeatedly promised Americans that prices at the pump would decline and that energy flows out of the Middle East would keep increasing. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at a Houston G-20 event on Monday that “the prices in the prior administration were this high anyway” and that Americans would have paid those prices permanently because former President Joe Biden was “pursuing a policy of energy subtraction and shutting down refineries.” …

See also New York Times (Gift Article): Rising Fuel Prices Set Off Anger and Protests Around the World. “The world is furious — again — over rising energy prices caused by the American-Israeli war against Iran. 

Since the latest surge pushed oil above $100 a barrel, protesters have burned tires and cars in Guatemala and Syria to express their rage. Portugal’s roads have featured cars crawling in protest with honking horns after diesel reached a record high of more than $9 a gallon. And especially in the developing countries of Asia, which are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern energy and deep in debt from earlier efforts to offset the war’s impacts, transport systems and governments are facing another round of enormous strain.”

‘DOJ seeking reporter’s LinkedIn records’ in secretive court fight

Politico: “A secret, months-long battle between tech titans and the Justice Department — over prosecutors’ effort to obtain details on a journalist’s LinkedIn interactions for use in a national security leak probe — spilled into view Tuesday during a federal court argument in Virginia. 

Though the details of the case remain sealed, a panel of the Richmond-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals described the stakes in stark terms: a fight to find balance between the government’s life-and-death national security interests and the First Amendment protections for reporters to maintain the secrecy of their sources, particularly when investigators seek to obtain them from third-party companies. Joshua Ferrentino, a Justice Department national security attorney, told the court that prosecutors are demanding details of about 1,900 LinkedIn interactions from six users as part of the unspecified probe…

The fight comes at a sensitive moment for national media, which has seen reporters targetedby subpoenas and search warrants in leak probes. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel have said they aren’t seeking to prosecute journalists but don’t view their testimony or data as off limits when pursuing leaks of national security information. Courts have bristled at investigators’ tactics, contending that they have failed to follow procedures intended to make the pursuit of reporters’ information a last resort…”

Walkouts, accusations and a blacked-out agenda

 

Walkouts, accusations and a blacked-out agenda: The council meeting where everything went wrong

Walkouts, accusations and a blacked-out agenda: The council meeting where everything went wrong 

Anthony Segaert September 22, 2026 

As if resigned to what was about to take place under his watch, Liverpool City Council chief executive Jason Breton stuck his hand in his personal lolly bowl and sat back as councillor Peter Ristevski launched a verbal attack on the mayor.

“Mate, no wonder people call you a dirty individual. You are very dirty,” Ristevski, a former accountant who lost his registration over serious misconduct and new member of Lyle Shelton’s conservative Family First party, sneered at Liberal Mayor Ned Mannoun. “You are a very dirty individual. You are a despicable human being.”

The council meeting ended shortly after Labor councillors and an independent walked out.LIVERPOOL COUNCIL

Then he called the mayor a criminal, raising unsubstantiated (and denied) allegations from 11 years ago that the mayor had been fired from a job at the Mounties club for stealing gym vouchers.

This was an extraordinary council meeting, by name and by nature.

It was, in the administrative sense, an extraordinary meeting: the regular monthly meeting, when councillors were set to vote on who would be deputy mayor for the next year, had to be rescheduled because Mannoun and Breton will be on a council-funded trip to London for a conference about British-Australian infrastructure.

Joyfully for Breton, who so enjoys soccer that he is writing a book called The Football of Business, the conference includes an early morning tour of Everton Stadium.

But even by Liverpool Council’s low standards, the meeting was extraordinary in the ordinary sense of the word too. There were mass walkouts, accusations of criminal behaviour and last-minute redactions of reams of pages of the council agenda.

The redacted meeting agenda.LIVERPOOL COUNCIL

If the look was bad, the timing is worse. It’s a few weeks until the opening of what promises to be the most transformative piece of infrastructure the area will ever get, the new Western Sydney Airport, and the council is waiting for the findings of a public inquiry which is set to recommend Mannoun and Ristevski undergo mediation – yet here were community leaders so engulfed by infighting they could not elect a deputy leader.

The chaos began about two hours in, when Ristevski attempted to raise allegations about a former Liberal councillor who he claimed had been employed as a planner and is now taking the council to the Land and Environment Court.

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Tensions erupted between two Sydney councillors. They might have to attend mediation

Despite the motion being published in public meeting minutes, Mannoun explained that he thought airing the allegations was “unlawful in the most heinous terms”. So he had emailed his chief executive, who, after investigating, also decided it was against council rules. It resulted in pages of blacked-out words. 

Mannoun’s colleague, Liberal Richard Ammoun, then raised an urgent motion to discuss findings handed down last month from the Tax Practitioners Board about Ristevski: that he had provided and advertised his tax agent services without registration, and that he had been acting as a “shadow director” for his daughter’s accounting firm.

It took exactly 30 seconds for Ristevski to interrupt the motion with claims that this, too, was “illegal”. As before, it was less a matter of legality than strategy. It didn’t matter if the motion didn’t get up: the Liberals knew the mere mention of the allegations would rile up the man who, whenever he’s found out, goes on the attack.

As councillors sipped on full-strength Coca-Colas and Solos, Ristevski unloaded with insults offensive enough to have him expelled from the chamber and barred from putting up his hand to be deputy mayor.

That changed the numbers. Incumbent independent Deputy Mayor Peter Harle – who has a principle of only accepting nominations if votes are unanimous – was due for re-election. Ammoun walked to the chief executive’s table and dropped his nomination form for the position, abandoning a deal made beforehand.

The act of alleged political treachery triggered a walkout: Harle, along with all Labor councillors, picked up their belongings and left, leaving the meeting without enough councillors to meet quorum.

“Oh!” Breton said as he looked up from his prepared script for the running of the votes to see an almost empty chamber. Where did everyone go? And, er, who becomes deputy mayor? It was 9.45pm by this point. Rubbing his eyes and letting out a deep sigh, Mannoun called for a break. The meeting returned only to be ended. After all the fuss, nothing, not even the position of deputy mayor, had changed.

Who is to blame for the chaos engulfing the council? At all levels, there is almost no accountability. The very thing which was meant to bring real accountability – a months-long Office of Local Government public inquiry into the council – looks set to only recommend that Ristevski and Mannoun go to mediation over their differences.

After Monday’s horror show, one thing is clear: mediation isn’t going to fix much.

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Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X or email.

 Cassaniti saga: Coloured pens, allegedly rushed consent: ATO record keeper ordered to appear in court

ATO staff offered pay cut in APSC push to increase work hours

Nine extra minutes per day are proposed for agencies below the current standard threshold. One set of ordinary hours to rule them all.

Tens of thousands of public servants at the Australian Taxation Office and several other federal agencies could be required to work longer hours without specific compensation under a bid by the Australian Public Service Commission to standardise the length of the public service working day.

In the most audacious move by the APSC in the current bargaining round so far, the public service’s workplace enforcer has lobbed a new “common condition” across the entire public service that proposes to extend the working days of employees of agencies who now have daily hours below the majority threshold of seven hours and 30 minutes.

“Currently, around 80% of agencies have ordinary working hours of seven hours, 30 minutes per day,” the APSC’s preliminary Commonwealth position on APS working hours, released on Monday and obtained by The Mandarin, states.

“The chief negotiator is proposing to make seven hours and 30 minutes the standard working hours for all agencies, impacting approximately 20% of agencies. These proposed changes will impact each agency differently.

“Agencies currently with working hours above or below seven hours and 30 minutes will be required to adjust to the new common standard in their next enterprise agreement.”

While most of the APS uses the 7.5-hour working day definition, the Australian Taxation Office retains a seven-hour, 21-minute workday. So do the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, Geoscience Australia, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and the Australian Skills Quality Authority.

The ATO will easily be the biggest and hardest battleground for the APSC to try and get any increase in working hours from public servants without commensurate compensation, especially with the Australian Services Union Taxation Officer’s Branch bringing an audit lens and hard numbers to any fuzzy language.

“The APSC is proposing a common condition of a seven-hour, 30-minute day across the APS, with no exceptions. The ATO has a seven-hour, 21-minute day. This is equivalent to taking one week of leave for all ATO staff,” branch secretary Jeff Lapidos told The Mandarin.

“The ATO also wants to prevent any early shutdown by any APS agency on the last business day before Christmas. The ATO closes at 12.00 on the last business day before Christmas.”

The proposed increase in hours at the ATO could also sink a ‘yes’ vote for any new EBA, potentially excluding agency-specific wage talks if they are declared intractable and sent to arbitration.

Part of the problem APS leaders and the APSC face is that the combined front to achieve uniform, service-wide agreements and wage deals suits some APS employees and unions far better than others, especially where there is a market premium on specialist rather than generalist skills.

However, smaller unions within the APS have little or no hesitation in decoupling from a broader uniform push and taking their chances at arbitration, because of the often large discount compared with labour-discount specialists like lawyers, auditors, scientists, and technology professionals who opt to become public servants.

The Commonwealth’s initial wage offer to its public servants is slated to hit the table on October 13, with offers to agencies bound by determinations, rather than bargaining, already coming in at just 3% a year.

 

Coloured pens, allegedly rushed consent: ATO record keeper ordered to appear in court

TAX 

Questions of alleged coercion and inaccurate records have been raised during a Federal Court hearing against the Commissioner of Taxation. 

21 September 2026 • By  Carlos Tse  

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A director’s release of documents to the Commissioner of Taxation also raised the question of consent at an interlocutory hearing on Thursday, 18 September 2026. 

Justice Cameron Moore ordered a member of the ATO staff to appear for cross-examination to determine whether his record of events was contemporaneous and accurate. 

During the hearing, it emerged that the applicant, Marginata Securities director Thi Linh Trinh, signed a consent form to release documents on 9 September. The court heard this consent form may have been signed under alleged coercion. 

Justice Moore heard that Trinh was given the option to supply certain documents to the commissioner either through an “image option” or a “search option” and was given an opportunity to seek legal representation.

Justice Moore said that Trinh was told words to the effect of: “If you don’t consent to it being imaged, we will be here for days.” 

She was also told words to the effect of: “You can get legal advice… would you like to give [your husband] a call now.” 

Her husband and director of accounting firm Capital Financial Advisory, Sam Peter Cassaniti, was allegedly on his way to the premises at the time.

The applicants’ barrister, David McGovern SC, alleged that Trinh was rushed to sign the consent form before Cassaniti arrived.

The Commissioner of Taxation submitted the notes taken by the ATO employee at the time, which were time-stamped, allegedly provided a play-by-play record of events.

The barrister for the commissioner, Luke Livingston SC, stressed that the employee provided a “precise, comprehensive, and detailed” note of the events.

Despite this, Justice Moore said it was “not a very expansive note”. 

According to the timestamps, Trinh provided consent within 12 minutes, and the employeemerely noted that she was “happy” to sign the consent form.

Different coloured pens

McGovern submitted that in the notes, some further timestamps appeared to have been inserted with a different coloured pen, and questioned the contemporaneousness of the notes due to the use of different pens.

In response, Livingston called McGovern’s claim “tenuous”, asserting that the concept of reasonable doubt should apply to the contemporaneity of the notes.

“It may not be a different pen [colour]; it could be a different pressure,” Livingston said.

The judge found a substantial factual dispute over whether Trinh consented on the day of signing, and because the employee was the only one with a written record of events, the judge ordered that they be cross-examined so the court could determine the notes’ contemporaneity.

Justice Moore listed the next hearing for 30 September 2026, with the employee and five other witnesses set to appear.

The case citation: NSD2344/2025 - Kerrigan Law Pty Ltd (ACN 620 231 432) (Formerly Known as McEvoy Legal Pty Ltd) & Ors v Commissioner of Taxation & Anor