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Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

China has not imported any liquefied natural gas from the United States since early February, data from Kpler cited by Nikkei has shown. 

The last LNG cargo that left the Gulf bound for China set off on February 6, the data showed.

The Chinese tariffs on U.S. goods, including energy products, and the broader trade war between the world’s two biggest economies could have long-term consequences on the ability of new U.S. LNG export projects to attract anchor offtake commitments, analysts have warned.

The United States was never a major supplier of LNG to Chinese buyers, but after Beijing slapped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. energy imports, the flow ended completely.

Following the tariff exchange, Chinese LNG buyers with long-term supply contracts with U.S. producers started reselling the cargos to Europe, Bloomberg reported in March, citing sources from the trading world. What’s more, Chinese traders have grown cold towards new long-term commitments for future supply from the United States, instead seeking long-term deals with gas producers in the Middle East and the Asia Pacific.

The latest news in that space was for a 15-year supply deal for liquefied natural gas from Emirati Adnoc, at a rate of 1 million metric tons annually. 

This made the contract the largest LNG supply deal for a Chinese company, ENN Natural Gas. ENN said the agreement will boost energy supply security and diversify its sourcing.

The outlook for Chinese LNG imports in general appears to be bearish, with BloombergNEF forecasting last month that high levels of gas inventories will push demand lower for the year, leading to the first annual decline in LNG imports since 2022.

The tariff push is now affecting the U.S. LNG industry in another way as well. 

President Trump has slapped tariffs on Chinese-built ships calling at U.S. ports, aiming to stir U.S. energy companies towards using U.S.-built vessels, of which there are none yet.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker — a far-left billionaire born into wealth as an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune — has called for "mass protest and mobilization for disruption" against the Republican Party.

"Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now," Pritzker told the audience at the New Hampshire Democratic Party's annual McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club Dinner on Sunday evening. 

Pritzker continued: "These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box."

Pritzker calls for mass protests and disruption - “Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” he says, swaying their portraits will one day be put in museums “reserved for tyrants and traitors” pic.twitter.com/BBBuL1Uz9O

Pritzker's fiery speech last night at the 100 Club Dinner in New Hampshire strongly suggests he is considering a presidential run and testing the waters: 

• New Hampshire is a critical early primary state, and the McIntyre-Shaheen Dinner is one of the biggest Democratic Party events in the state.

• Presidential hopefuls typically use speeches there to build national visibility, court party insiders, and gauge grassroots support. 

The billionaire Democratic governor is testing the waters after socialists Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders toured the country in private jets to campaign against "oligarchy" — a nationwide touring effort largely seen as a dud.

Pritzker, who is an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, has criticized the Trump administration's deportation efforts of illegal alien criminals, as well as Elon Musk's DOGE efforts to eliminate fraud and waste from the bloated federal government. 

Publicly available data shows the wealthy Pritzker family and their connection with Hyatt.

Pritzker might also be jumping into action after President Trump issued a presidential memorandum last week to target Democratic online donation platform, ActBlue, specifically cracking down on foreign contributions in American elections.

The rudderless Democratic Party can't win with common sense, so they are doubling and tripling down on more protests funded by NGOs. As the saying goes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

Authored by Mark LaBrosse via FreightWaves.com,

We’ve all heard how emerging AI technologies will optimize the freight industry in ways we can only dream about. But the scary truth is that AI is already fueling our nightmares—by supercharging freight theft.

Why aren’t more people talking about the dark side of AI? For one, most of the worries are centered on job loss and plagiarism. But perhaps it’s largely because it’s so good that it’s hard to detect. Regardless, it’s clear some strategies are already in play.

What’s critical to know: Even those highly attuned to scams can fall victim as generative AI more closely mimics real business experiences and enables crime syndicates to operate at scale.

This is an arms race. It will take good-guy tech fighting bad-guy tech and a coordinated human response to protect cargo from these modern cyber pirates.

Discerning real from fake is getting increasingly difficult

Crime syndicates can already evade detection and prosecution by operating outside the United States and creating new fraudulent documentation whenever they’re discovered. 

With AI in play, these bad actors are orders of magnitude more effective.

“Generative AI makes fraud an infinitely scalable and near-automatic process,” warns BAYNCORE senior consultant Dr. Richard Paul, who earned his PhD in computer simulation and artificial intelligence.

“Anyone can now set up an AI bot to scan the internet for key fragments of information,” Paul explains. “When assembled, these simple AI tools can automatically create documents, emails, and text messages that appear legitimate.”

Monitoring a freight industry awash in phishing scams, Brittany Graft, COO of fraud prevention platform Highway, shares Paul’s concern.

“If we take phishing schemes, for example, we historically have been able to detect and avoid them because the English is broken, the grammar is poor, or a logo is misplaced. AI is going to help the bad guys create an experience that so closely replicates what brokers and carriers are used to,” says Graft, “that the discerning eye will have a harder time picking up that it’s a scam.”

“Already, we’re seeing phishing attempts work because the imitations are so good,” Graft continues. “If we click some of these links, they look exactly like the legitimate site.”

And once brokers and carriers enter their credentials into illegitimate login pages and websites, their accounts—even email inboxes—are immediately compromised. From there, it’s quick work for AI agents and those using the tools to insert themselves at every level, logging into load boards, capturing freight, and creating havoc.

Complicating matters further, bad actors can use generative AI to beat the numbers game by creating tens or even hundreds of fraudulent carriers or brokers—complete with cloned sites, identical documents, and perfectly written emails. 

One, two, even fifty fraudulent carriers could be caught, and it would barely be a dent in the coming cyber threat onslaught.

“At the same time, freight brokers are being held to ever-higher standards of accountability in the court of law,” according to FreightWaves Group President, Kaylee Nix. “The situation has reached a crisis, and it’s time for the industry to come together to address this critical problem and share best practices on how to mitigate it.”

In response, the logistics industry’s largest media platform is hosting a FreightWaves Fraud Symposium on May 14 to help brokers better protect their businesses and customers.

FBI raising the alarm on deepfakes

In December 2024, the FBI issued an alert, drawing attention to how criminals are using generative AI to scam the general public. These same tactics are also being deployed against freight industry businesses and their customers.

In addition to creating fraudulent credentials, the FBI specifically cites how vocal cloning, audio bots, and generative video can falsely confirm the identity of the person you’re speaking to.

Now classic verification methods, like a simple phone call to confirm identity, can be thwarted.

“They can convince you they are from someone you know,” Paul says. “Complete with intimate details about you, in a familiar tone, even convincingly cloning a voice you know well.”

Paul adds, “The content and messaging these custom AIs generate is near-perfect, even better than legitimate actors frequently create—and thus is very hard to detect.”

Graft shares these concerns.

“We go really deep on verifying the identities of motor truck carriers and the individuals who represent them,” she says. “We collect their driver’s license, ask them to take a live photo, and verify that their digital identity matches their physical identity.”

“We’re aware of the potential for generative AI to replicate that live photo step and potentially try to brute force the system by creating multiple attempts to see which one will work,” Graft continues. “We’re bringing machine learning into that process to detect the visual signals on AI-generated photos and monitor the number of attempts.”

It’s clear—we’ll need tech solutions like this to get ahead of AI-enabled fraud.

Building trust face-to-face: The freight industry’s human response

If you’re worried about strategic cargo theft, you’re not alone. A Freight Caviar poll found that double brokering was the leading fraud concern among brokers, topping outright theft and hijacking. 

In this threat landscape, it’s highly likely that every broker and carrier in the country has already been targeted—or will be in short order. It’s the worst-kept secret in the industry. Unfortunately, victimized brokers and carriers have experienced a shocking lack of action when they’ve turned to the FMCSA. This rapidly rising fraud simply hasn’t been an agency priority.

While the federal government has yet to take meaningful action, freight brokers and carriers aren’t standing idle. They are taking their own actions, adopting new tools, and opening up dialogue.

Partly in response to this chaos, they’ve banded together and launched the Broker-Carrier Summit to deliver critical education, build relationships, and open up the lines of communication necessary to strengthen the industry and help fend off scammers.

Fighting fire with fire: The freight industry’s tech response

While emerging technologies have enabled a whole new level of criminality, brokers and carriers also leverage cutting-edge tech to protect against AI-powered scammers. In fact, tech-enabled fraud prevention tools have done more to combat this increasingly sophisticated threat than anything else out there.

Graft agrees.

“We’ll have to increasingly rely on technology to help us ascertain identities because AI is going to get better at impersonating reality,” she says.

What tools do we have at our disposal?

Digital identity wallets, like the well-established ID.me, are now taking direct aim at deepfakes, leveraging biometrics for facial verification and liveness detection. (Privacy concerns aside.)

Carrier vetting platforms, including FreightValidate and Carrier411, surface an operator’s entire history—or, in the case of many bad actors, the lack of a legitimate history.

Some carrier identity SaaS systems and plugins, like Highway, feature machine learning (ML) to monitor inbound phone calls and email inboxes, looking for various fraud signals, like spoofed phone numbers and email addresses.

As this digital war rages on, some fraud detection tools are getting into a more proactive position, now executing real-time behavioral and intent monitoring—detecting increasingly subtle patterns.

It’s a lot to take in, I realize. The growing scale of strategic freight theft—up 1,500% since 2021, according to the American Trucking Association—is enough to leave you breathless.

We’ll need every human and tech-enabled arrow in our quiver to protect our supply chain.

In an unexpected development on Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine on the occasion of Russia's Victory Day celebrations, coming next week.

This year's observance will mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. The Kremlin published a statement calling for the ceasefire to being at midnight on May 8, lasting until midnight on May 11. The Kremlin intends for all Russian military operations to be suspended.

This full three-day ceasefire would mark the longest such pause in fighting of the war, following on the heels of this month's 30-hour Easter truce, which largely held but saw accusations of repeat violations hurled between both sides in some locales.

Prior 'Victory Day' parade, via AP

The ceasefire is “out of humanitarian considerations," the statement indicated. "Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example," the Kremlin added.

"In the event of ceasefire violations by Ukraine, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will respond appropriately and effectively."

Moscow further said it "reaffirms its readiness for peace negotiations without preconditions, aimed at addressing the root causes of the Ukrainian crisis and engaging constructively with international partners."

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, was the first to respond on behalf of Kiev, and asked why there can't be an immediate ceasefire, if Moscow is willing to declare one for May 8.

"Why wait until May 8th? If the fire can be ceased now and since any date for 30 days — so it is real, not just for a parade," Sybiha wrote on X. "Ukraine is ready to support a lasting, durable and full ceasefire. And this is what we are constantly proposing, for at least 30 days.”

One Russian source has been quoted as pointing out this is largely about signaling the Trump administration:

“We are sending a signal to the outside world: we are peace-loving, and they [in Ukraine] are terrorists — referring, for example, to the recent killing of General Moskalik,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to talk candidly about the situation.

“Another intended recipient of this signal is the U.S. president himself: ‘Look, Mr. Trump, we are trying,’” the official added.

Trump has been increasing the pressure not only on Zelensky but on Russia too, warning both sides that US patience will run out, and urging the forging of a ceasefire within days.

But in reality neither side has budged, given also just on Monday FM Lavrov set forth maximalist demands to end the war: full recognition of Russian control over the four territories, 'deNazification', and a pledge for Ukraine to never joint NATO, along with protection of the Russian language in Ukraine.

New on MoA:
Russia Rejects Trump's Freeze Of The War In Ukrainehttps://t.co/Adz8e0loFS pic.twitter.com/Gxk7JTtvZ5

However, Trump has lately suggested he thinks Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea, but there's been no official confirmation of this as of yet. The Ukrainian leader would face immense pushback from many of his own military commanders if he formally relinquishes territory.

Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Daily Mail,

In my trade I have long grown used to the way governments lie and get others to lie for them. 

It is what they do.

But I have seldom seen such a cloud of lies as we face now. Hardly anyone in this country knows the truth about Ukraine. 

There has been nothing like it since we were all lied to about the Iraq invasion, with bilge about fictional ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. The liars were caught out. 

And they learned from it. They learned to lie more skillfully.

Meanwhile, many of those in our society who knew how to challenge such lies died off or retired and were not replaced.

We have never had a debate about the Ukraine crisis which started from the beginning. Did anyone in power ever tell you truthfully how, when or why this war began? No. Did anyone in power explain why Britain, crime blighted, decrepit, rubbish-strewn, rat-infested, broke Britain, had to get involved in it? Never.

You have just been fed propaganda rubbish about ‘democracy’, freedom and an invented Russian menace. Here are some of the lies you have repeatedly been told.

The war, they say, was not provoked. Seldom in history has a war been more provoked.

Russians, nice ones like the liberal, democratic politician Yegor Gaidar, and nasty ones like the bloody despot Vladimir Putin, begged the West to stop trundling its military alliance, Nato, eastwards towards Russia.

ALL Russians, including the great anti-Communist author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, had been shocked and angered when Nato in 1999 abruptly gave up its defensive posture and launched attacks on Yugoslavia – which had not attacked a Nato member.

These protests reached their peak in February 2007, when Putin made a dramatic speech in Munich. He said Nato expansion was ‘a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. We have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?’

Look, if someone as gaunt as Putin spoke to you like that in a pub late in the evening, you’d take it as a warning that he was seriously riled. And unless you wanted a fight, you’d back off. But we didn’t back off.

US President George W.Bush, the genius who invaded Iraq, deliberately raised the temperature the following year. Can it be that Bush likes wars?

In April 2008, Bush said that Ukraine should be placed on the path towards joining Nato. Even the Guardian, the Liberal Warmonger’s Gazette, conceded that this was ‘likely to infuriate the Kremlin’. And so it did. I suspect we were on the path to war from that moment.

I am always accused, when I say that, of making excuses for Putin. I am not. 

I think he was stupid as well as wrong to be provoked. Wise men ignore provocations. But to claim he was not provoked is just to lie.

Another lie we are repeatedly told is that Russia attacked Georgia later in 2008. But anyone can find, on the web, a 2009 Reuters news agency story headlined ‘Georgia started war with Russia: EU-backed report’.

The dispatch summarises an inquiry by the respected Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini. She had been asked by Brussels to look into that war. That is what she said. But, somehow or other, a lot of Western media outlets failed to find space for it. I still meet supposedly informed people who have never heard of Ms Tagliavini or her report.

And then there is the claim that this is about democracy and freedom. It isn’t. The more the West claims to care for these things, the less it does to help them.

Some examples: 

Ukraine’s elected president was lawlessly overthrown by a mob in 2014. Britain and the USA condoned this shameful event because they preferred the illegal rebels to the elected government. You just can’t do that and pretend to be the guardian of democracy. But then, we aren’t anyway.

You will search in vain for protests against the treatment of Romania’s presidential candidate, in a country that is in the EU and Nato.

CALIN Georgescu’s election was annulled by judges in December when he looked like winning the first round. And he has been banned from standing in the second round – all because he has the wrong kind of politics. And if that’s not enough, look at the West’s deep, shaming silence over the frightening, thuggish behaviour of Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan.

A few weeks ago, this Turkish Putin arrested and jailed Ekrem Imamoglu, an opposition politician who looked likely to beat him at the polls.

Mr Imamoglu joined the many journalists and democrats who already rot in Turkish prisons.

Erdogan has crushed free media, free speech and the freedom to protest. But his country is still allowed to stay in Nato, and Western states have made less noise than an angry vole guarding its nest. They’re scared of Erdogan.

I won’t even try to explain how Germany recently recalled its old, dead parliament to push through laws the newly elected parliament would not pass. This was done to allow the spending of extra billions on the Ukraine war. But I hope you get my drift.

Demand proper debate. Demand the truth. Don’t be dragged into more stupidity, or we will end up with bomb craters as well as potholes.

*  *  *

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

By Philip Marey, senior US strategist at Rabobank

For now, Trump’s advisors seem to have talked him out of firing Powell, easing market stress last week. The VIX fell from almost 36 on Monday to 25 by the end of the week. However, as we warned a year ago and last month, the Fed and Trump are on a collision course and we are likely to see further confrontations as the Fed’s cutting cycle is slowed down by the inflationary impact of the tariffs. At a closed door IMF meeting on Friday, Powell is reported to have stressed that central banks must be shielded from politics to ensure they can focus on keeping inflation stable and employment high. While he drew applause for these remarks, his audience can do very little to keep him safe from Trump.

On Saturday, the FOMC’s external communications blackout started. However, Powell has already made clear that May 7-8 is not a live meeting. This also means that we are not going to get Fed reactions to some interesting data points that are scheduled for this week, including Q1 GDP, March PCE inflation and April payrolls and unemployment. 

Week ahead

Today, the Canadians go to the polls. The two largest parties are the Liberals (Mark Carney) and the Conservatives (Pierre Poilievre). Justin Trudeau resigned as Prime Minister of Canada on January 6, following declining poll numbers and the resignation of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Carney has called a snap election for today. 

After Trudeau's resignation, Liberal Party support surged from 20% to 43% under Mark Carney, and the Liberals are leading polls for the first time since 2022. Carney's agenda focuses on economic growth, affordability, and global trade, including eliminating the carbon tax, ambitious housing plans, and infrastructure investment. 

You will find more infographics at Statista

Poilievre and the Conservatives, with the slogan "Canada first, for a change," aim to lower the lowest income bracket and introduce a tax cut to defer capital gains taxes when reinvesting within Canada, as their campaign gains momentum. 

For more details on the Canadian election, please read the preview of the Canadian elections by Christian Lawrence and Molly Schwartz. 

Meanwhile, the American interest in Canada has not waned. In an interview with Time magazine, published on Friday, US President Trump repeated his claim on Canada. He said: "I'm really not trolling. Canada is an interesting case.…  I say the only way this thing really works is for Canada to become a state."

Tomorrow, we get the US goods trade balance for March, which turned more negative since December due to rising imports that are likely caused by front-loading because of the tariffs. In February, the trade deficit declined a little due to a rise in exports. Trump’s intended reciprocal tariffs are proportional to the trade deficits with the various trading partners, but many are now trying to negotiate their way out of them. Trump expects some results in a few weeks. Keep in mind that the specific part of the reciprocal tariffs (i.e. above the 10% universal tariff) were delayed until early July for most countries.

We also get the Conference Board report on US consumer confidence, which has declined, also because of the tariffs. While the assessment of the present situation has fallen back to levels shortly before the November elections, the expectations index has plummeted to the lowest level since 2013. So American consumers are very pessimistic about the impact of Trump’s policies.

On Wednesday, we get the Australian CPI for March and the Chinese PMIs for April. Eurozone CPI data for April and GDP growth for Q1 are also scheduled, with separate data for individual Eurozone countries.

In the US, the advance estimate of Q1 GDP growth will be published. The consensus expectation is only 0.2% growth (this is at an annualized rate!), a substantial slowdown from 2.4% in the final quarter of last year. Strong imports, likely caused by front-loading the tariffs, have been a major drag on GDP growth in Q1.

US personal income and outlays for March will also be published. This report includes the PCE deflator, the Fed’s preferred measure of consumer price inflation. The consensus expectation is a decline in headline PCE inflation to 2.2% in March from 2.5% in February. The core PCE deflator is expected to fall to 2.6% from 2.8%, which would suggest continued stickiness. Another data point that the FOMC usually pays attention to is the Employment Cost Index for Q1, which is expected to remain at 0.9%. However, both the ECI and the PCE may now be seen as rearview mirror data points in light of the anticipated inflationary effects from the tariffs.

Finally, the ADP statisticians will publish their estimate of US employment growth in the private sector, which they think is informative regarding Friday’s payrolls. The ADP measure is expected to slow down to 128K in April from 155K in March.

On Thursday, the Bank of Japan is expected to keep the target rate unchanged at 0.50%. However, the BoJ will publish its quarterly outlook, which will extend projections through March 2028.

We also get the US initial jobless claims for the week ending on April 26. They have been moving sideways recently, hovering around the post-2021 average, so they have not been a cause for alarm yet.

The ISM manufacturing report for April will also be published. Last month, the headline index fell below the neutral level again, but remains in the range it has been moving in since 2023. The employment sub-index has been sliding downward, albeit slowly, since 2021 as the Fed has tried to rebalance the labor market. In contrast, the prices paid sub-index has been on the rise since the elections.

On Friday, all eyes will be on the US Employment Report for April, featuring the nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate. The consensus expectation is a slowdown to 130K in April from 228K in March. This would still be better than the slow first two months of the year. Unemployment is expected to remain unchanged at 4.2%. Average hourly earnings are also expected to remain stable at 0.3% month-on-month, which should lead to a modest increase to 3.9% from 3.8% in year-on-year terms. A report like this would certainly not make the Fed’s May meeting a live one. However, the Fed will stay alert for signs of deterioration in the labor market that would warrant a rate cut in June.

Apart from these data points, the daily tariff news will likely move markets.

Russia on Monday made clear that it is sticking by initial demands raised by Moscow at the start of the war in February 2022, after President Putin last week issues statements which appeared open to compromise for the sake of peace talks.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has declared that Russia will never give up its hold over Crimea, as well as the annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts. He named as a condition for peace negotiations that Russia's control and sovereignty over these territories is vital and essentially non-negotiable.

"The international recognition of Crimea, Sevastopol, the DPR, the LPR, the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions as part of Russia is another imperative," he said. "All the commitments Kiev assumes must be legally binding, contain enforcement mechanisms and be permanent," Lavrov added.

Image: Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

"Russia proceeds from the premise that Kiev’s non-accession to NATO, as well as reaffirming its neutral and non-aligned status as per the 1990 Declaration on Ukraine’s State Sovereignty - these factors form one of the two pillars for a final settlement to the Ukraine crisis that would meet Russia’s security interests," he continue.

The top Russian diplomat also demanded that Ukraine enact legislation that restores and protects Russian language, culture, and churches and monasteries in Ukraine. Some one-third of the country has long spoken Russian as their first language, and many more know it as a second language.

Zelensky has been waging a state persecution campaign against the largest Orthodox Church in Ukraine, because it has not broken spiritual communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, at times outright seizing monasteries and churches, and arresting bishops and priests. Russian media broadcasts and media have also long been banned.

Lavrov detailed of Moscow's demands, "The second pillar consists of overcoming the legacy of the neo-Nazi regime which took power in Kiev after the February 2014 putsch, including the initiative by its perpetrators to eradicate and cancel, in both physical and legislative terms, everything Russian, be it the Russian language, media, culture, traditions, or the canonical Orthodox faith," as conveyed in TASS.

"Demilitarizing and de-Nazifying Ukraine is also on the agenda, along with lifting sanctions, withdrawing lawsuits and cancelling arrest warrants, as well as returning Russian assets subjected to the so-called freeze in the West," he emphasized.

Of course, there's also the ban on Ukraine ever becoming a member of NATO, which is a key compromise already being offered by the Trump administration.

Again, all of this is essentially identical to the demands articulated by Putin at the very beginning of the full-scale war. President Trump, coming off the brief Rome meeting with Zelensky, thinks he's ready to give up Crimea:

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks Volodymyr Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea, despite his Ukrainian counterpart’s previous assertions on the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.

Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey on Sunday a day after meeting with Zelensky at the Vatican, Trump said “Oh, I think so,” in response to a question on whether he thought Zelensky was ready to “give up” the territory.

But is the Ukrainian leader really ready to do this and face attacks - possibly even assassination attempts - from within his own far-right paramilitaries and even army commanders? 

A Ukrainian Army brigade commander openly threatens Zelensky on a Ukrainain TV show.

He warns him not to negotiate with Russia, not to concede territory, or he will "Regret it"

Open threats to the commander in chief from his own troops, Ukraine is a lawless basket case. pic.twitter.com/McN1GjlkIM

While the common Ukrainian populace is likely more willing to find compromise for the sake of peace, there are still Azov militants and their associates running the show in many places - and their position remains that no compromise whatsoever should be made and the fight must continue, even as Ukrainian forces are being beaten back.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned in a media interview that if Washington imposes more sanctions on Russia, this basically assures more war for years to come. "The minute you start doing that kind of stuff, you're walking away from it, you've now doomed yourself to another two years of war and we don't want to see it happen," he said.

He added: "There is no other country, there is no other institution or organization on the Earth that can bring these two sides together, no one else is talking to both sides but us and no one else in the world can make something like this happen but the president."

* * *

More headlines via Newsquawk... Geopolitics: Ukraine

• US President Trump met with Ukrainian President Zelensky at the Vatican for 15 minutes which Zelensky’s staff said was constructive, covered a lot of ground and they agreed to meet again, while the White House said the meeting was very productive.
• US President Trump said the meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky went well and we'll see what happens in the next days, while Trump is very disappointed with Russia and wants Russian President Putin to stop shooting and reach a deal. Furthermore, Trump said the confines of a deal are there and that Zelensky is calmer now and wants to make a deal, while it was separately reported that President Trump said he thinks Ukrainian President Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea, according to Al Arabiya.
• US President Trump said there was no reason for Russian President Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns over the last few days which makes him think that Putin doesn’t want to stop the war and is just ‘tapping’ him along, while Trump added too many people are dying and this has to be dealt with differently through banking or secondary sanctions.
• US Secretary of State Rubio said Russia and Ukraine are generally closer to a peace deal than in the last three years and a peace deal needs to happen soon, while he added that the US has options to hold responsible those that don’t want a Ukraine peace deal, according to NBC.
• Russian President Putin confirmed Russia’s readiness to negotiate with Ukraine without preconditions during a meeting with US envoy Witkoff, according to IFAX.
• Russian President Putin said Kyiv’s adventure in the Kursk region completely failed and Chief of General Staff Gerasimov said Ukrainian saboteurs in Russia’s Belgorod region have been liquidated. Furthermore, Russia’s military commander told Russian President Putin that scattered remnants of Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region will be destroyed soon, according to RIA.
• Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said Russia will continue to target sites used by Ukraine’s military, foreign fighters and military instructors sent by Europe, while he added that Russia would be willing to store Iran’s enriched nuclear material if both the US and Iran believe that was useful.
• Ukrainian military said Moscow’s assertion it has ended Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region is not true and operations inside Kursk continue, while its forces are still on active operations in the Belgorod region.
• French President Macron said he had a very positive exchange with Ukrainian President Zelensky and that Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire, while the coalition of the willing will continue working on a ceasefire and lasting peace in Ukraine.
• German Defence Minister Pistorius said US demands for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia are going too far.
• North Korea confirmed troop deployment to Russia and said it will faithfully implement its agreement with Russia, according to Yonhap. Furthermore, South Korea said North Korea's confirmation of Russia troop deployment is an admission of a criminal act and the US State Department noted it is concerned by North Korea's direct involvement in Russia's war in Ukraine, while it added that North Korea's military deployment to Russia and any support provided by Russia to it in return must end.

Authored by Ciaran Lyons via CoinTelegraph.com,

SEC Commissioner and head of the crypto task force, Hester Peirce, says US financial firms are navigating crypto in a way that’s similar to playing the children’s game “the floor is lava,” but in the dark.

“It is time that we find a way to end this game. We need to turn on the lights and build some walkways over the lava pit,” Peirce said at the SEC “Know Your Custodian” roundtable event on April 25.

The lava is crypto, says Peirce

Peirce explained that SEC registrants are forced to approach crypto-related activities like “the floor is lava,” where the aim is to jump from one piece of furniture to the next without touching the ground, except here, touching crypto directly is the lava.

“A D.C. version of this game is our regulatory approach to crypto assets, and crypto asset custody in particular,” she said.

Peirce said that, much like in the game, firms wanting to engage with crypto must avoid directly holding it due to unclear regulatory rules. 

“To engage in crypto-related activities, SEC-registrants have had to hop from one poorly illuminated regulatory space to the next, all while ensuring that they never touch any crypto asset,” Peirce said.

Source: US Securities and Exchange Commission

Peirce said that investment advisers are often unsure which crypto assets qualify as securities, what entities count as qualified custodians, and whether “exercising staking or voting rights” could trigger custody violations.

Peirce also said that a broker or ATS that cannot custody or manage crypto assets will struggle to facilitate trading, making it unlikely for a “robust market” to develop.

Echoing a similar sentiment, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said at the event that as more SEC registrants work with crypto assets, it’s essential that they have access to custodial options that meet legal and regulatory requirements.

Uyeda said the agency should consider letting advisers use “state-chartered limited-purpose trust companies” with the authority to hold crypto assets as qualified custodians.

Meanwhile, the recently sworn-in chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins, said that he expected “huge benefits” from blockchain technology through efficiency, risk mitigation, transparency, and cutting costs.

He reiterated that among his goals at the SEC would be to facilitate “clear regulatory rules of the road” for digital assets, hinting that the agency under former chair Gary Gensler had contributed to market and regulatory uncertainty.

“I look forward to engaging with market participants and working with colleagues in President Trump’s administration and Congress to establish a rational fit-for-purpose framework for crypto assets,” said Atkins.

After three consecutive days of reports of mutual gunfire at army outposts along the Line of Control (LOC) disputed border area, Pakistan's defense minister declared Monday that a military incursion by India is imminent.

"We have reinforced our forces because it is something which is imminent now. So in that situation some strategic decisions have to be taken, so those decisions have been taken," Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Reuters from Islamabad. This confirms Pakistani Army build-up along the border.

Protest against the suspension of Indus Waters Treaty by India, in Karachi, Pakistan, via Reuters.

A severe war of words has been on since last Tuesday's deadly militant attack on tourists in Kashmir, which saw 26 Indian tourists get executed after the gunmen sought to identify Hindus among the group. The Indian government promptly accused Pakistan of harboring the Islamist terrorists which committed the atrocity, which Islamabad angrily rejected.

The nuclear-armed neighbors have already fought two historic wars over the Kashmir region, and fears are rising that another one may soon be on the horizon - also after both sides have sent military reinforcements to the respective regions they administer. Amid a massive manhunt, India identified two detained suspected militants as Pakistani.

"Asif said India's rhetoric was ramping up and that Pakistan's military had briefed the government on the possibility of an Indian attack," Reuters continues of the defense chief's statements. "He did not go into further details on his reasons for thinking an incursion was imminent."

And very alarmingly, the question of use of nuclear weapons was broached in the interview:

Asif said Pakistan was on high alert and that it would only use its arsenal of nuclear weapons if "there is a direct threat to our existence".

Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan’s defense minister

The Indian army over the weekend announced there has been "unprovoked" firing "initiated by Pakistan" along the Line of Control (LOC) which divides Kashmir into two. Pakistan in the aftermath of the accusation neither confirmed nor denied.

The New York Times described Saturday that "Pakistani solders fired at an Indian position first and India responded in kind, according to local news reports, which said that "the exchange was brief and that there were no casualties." Precise locations of these live fire incidents have not been disclosed.

Soon after the crisis land borders were been shut, visas and military exchange programs mutually canceled, and a landmark water treaty was suspended. Pakistan blasted India's cancelation of the Indus Water Treaty as an "act of war" and warned it would respond accordingly if water flows are violated among the two rivals' shared rivers.

Unverified videos like the below have been widely circulating online:

Non stop Pakistan military movement to India’s border. pic.twitter.com/tUDsmhhHnI

But if gunfire continues to be exchanged between the two militaries, also amid reports that Pakistani visa holders are being promptly booted from the country amid the diplomatic crisis - clashes could accelerate toward open war. 

India's Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah has meanwhile said there must be a "decisive fight against terrorism and its origin." Indian officials have continued to heap accusations that ultimately Islamabad either supports these groups or at least turns a blind eye.

Air Force and army activity along the border ramping up?

Pakistan has activated its Swat & Skardu airbases amid tensions with India. The Airforce were seen conducting sorties today. pic.twitter.com/U5GK17xLAd