Iran: BRICS must condemn war against Iran

 Iranian Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei called on the members of BRICS to condemn the joint "aggression" of the United States and Israel against Iran, Iranian ISNA News Agency reported on Saturday.

"BRICS members should first condemn the violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country of Iran in accordance with international standards, especially the United Nations Charter, and take the necessary measures to prevent the illegal actions of the aggressors," Ejei said in his speech at the BRICS Judiciary Heads' Meeting in Delhi.

Ejei reminded the participants of the US "violations" in Venezuela, Afghanistan and Iraq, and of the "Zionist crimes" in Gaza and Lebanon.

https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Iran:-BRICS-must-condemn-war-against-Iran/67050881

US Gulf-China VLCC rate hits record high

 The rate for a bellwether very large crude carrier (VLCC) shipment from the US Gulf coast to China hit its highest level on record today of over $14/bl on strong Asia-Pacific demand, driven by the escalation of hostilities between the US and Iran at the start of Hormuz.

Commodity trader ST Shipping put the VLCC Helios on subjects for a US Gulf coast to Asia-Pacific voyage loading from 13-16 October at $29.75mn lumpsum, including $250,000 load-port fees, equivalent to $14.29/bl, boosting the rate for a US Gulf coast-China voyage by $1.15mn day-over-day to that level. This represents the highest level since Argus began its US Gulf coast-China assessment in November 2017.

That deal came after Japanese commodity trader Idemitsu put the Maran Apollo on subjects for a US Gulf coast-Japan voyage at $29.25mn, including load-port fees. Norway state-owned refiner Equinor and US independent producer Occidental both put VLCCs on subjects for elsewhere in Asia-Pacific at $27.65mn each, including load-port fees. Charterers have put at least 10 VLCCs on subjects for US Gulf coast to Asia-Pacific voyages since 31 August, including the four from today.

Asia-Pacific demand was also high this week for Brazilian crude, with at least eight VLCCs provisionally hired by charterers in that spot market. This was largely driven by strong Chinese restocking demand to keep up with high refined product demand from elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, as Chinese refiners burned through crude stocks, with no end in sight to largely cut-off Mideast Gulf crude flows. The higher competition for Brazilian shipments from these buyers since mid-August likely contributed to the increase in US-loading VLCC demand from Asia-Pacific buyers outside of China like Japan and Taiwan.

Midsize rates climb on VLCC spillover

The surge in freight rates for the largest crude carrier segment has helped to boost rates for Suezmax and Aframax tankers, with the former in particular benefiting from split cargoes from VLCCs in some instances.

The rate for a Brazil-Europe Suezmax voyage jumped by 16.5pc day-over-day to Worldscale (WS) 245 today, while US Gulf coast-loading Suezmax shipments into Europe rose by 11pc to WS202.5 from Thursday.

Rising freight rates for VLCCs in the west Africa spot market, which shares a tonnage pool with the Brazilian market, encouraged charterers to explore splitting these 2mn bl cargoes onto two 1mn bl Suezmax tankers on 2 September, according to a shipbroker.

Meanwhile, Aframax shipments of WTI crude from the US Gulf coast into Europe have been trading at, and even below, parity with VLCC-sized shipments of WTI on the same route on a $/bl basis. Aframax tankers typically trade at a premium to VLCCs in this context given the greater number of ports the smaller tanker can access and its ease in loading and unloading compared to VLCCs. The last time Aframax-sized shipments of WTI into Europe were cheaper than VLCCs on the same route was in February 2021.

The surge in VLCC demand from Asia-Pacific will likely encourage US Gulf coast buyers globally to increasingly consider the midsize segment in the near term, maintaining the upward pressure on rates for Aframaxes and Suezmaxes even after the long holiday weekend for US traders.

https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2874136-us-gulf-china-vlcc-rate-hits-record-high

US clears $5B in JDAMs for Saudi Arabia, other Middle East deals

 The US State Department today greenlit several potential arms deals for key Middle East partners Saudi Arabia, Oman and Iraq, totaling about $6.1 billion-worth of equipment.

By far the largest approved sale would be for Riyadh to buy just over 10,000 kits of the extended range Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) and associated equipment in a deal valued at $5 billion. The prospective transaction includes a similar number of dumb bombs — split almost evenly between 500 lb. and 2,000 lb. munitions — which when equipped with a JDAM can be used as a precision weapon. JDAMs are supplied by aerospace giant Boeing. 

Saudi Arabia’s JDAM stockpiling comes amid heavy aerial bombardment during conflict with Iran, which has depleted inventories of key precision munitions, according to an estimate by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The JDAM is often seen as a cheaper alternative to more exquisite weapons, but Boeing has previously said its extended range variant is limited to a distance of over 45 miles — requiring aircraft carrying the weapon to fly relatively closer to a target.

The State Department today additionally cleared a second potential arms sale for Riyadh covering 60 AGT-1500 tank engines, which are used to power the M1 Abrams. That deal, according to the State Department, is valued at $750 million, and the prime contractor is Honeywell. 

Separately, Oman was approved to buy $188 million worth of sustainment services for its fleet of F-16 fighter jets. While Lockheed Martin builds the F-16 and principally runs the aircraft’s sustainment, the State Department notice says that “no principal contractor” is associated with the potential sale, and that “[s]upport will be provided by U.S. Government or contracted vendors based upon requirements as they are determined.”   

A mediator in the Iran conflict, Oman has also been the target of President Donald Trump’s ire, including threats by the president to bomb the Gulf sultanate. 

Finally, the State Department authorized the possible sale of Bell 412EPX helicopters to Iraq, which the notice says is estimated at $150 million. The primary contractor for that purchase would be Bell-Textron. 

That announcement follows a similar sale cleared by the State Department on Monday for Baghdad to buy $800 million worth of helicopters, including the Bell 412EPX and 407M. A spokesperson for the State Department declined to comment for the record on the back-to-back helo announcements.

Each sale announced today, issued in the form of a congressional notification, is not final. Quantities and dollar totals often shift during negotiations. The notifications also technically tee up an opportunity for lawmakers to block each deal within a 30-day period, though such a step would be unlikely. 

https://breakingdefense.com/2026/09/us-clears-5b-in-jdams-for-saudi-arabia-other-middle-east-deals/

Pimco's Top-Performing 60/40 Fund Bets AI's Next Winners Are In Asia, From Chips To Rare Earths

 Emmanuel Sharef, who oversees Pacific Investment Management Co.'s flagship Balanced Income and Growth Fund, spoke with Bloomberg about how the next leg of the artificial-intelligence boom could be concentrated in Asian stocks and beyond. 

Wealthy clients in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and mainland China have been piling into the $19 billion fund, which has outperformed 97% of its peers during the past three years.

The fund is underweight most hyperscalers and members of the Magnificent Seven as soaring AI capital expenditures increase debt loads, pressure free cash flow, spark credit concerns, and make already eye-popping valuations much harder to justify. 

"We're underweight the majority of hyperscalers at the moment and we're underweight the majority of the Mag seven just given their high valuations," Sharef told the outlet earlier this week.

He continued, "You don't necessarily need to own the most expensive stocks to capture a particular theme or a particular market trend."

The 60/40 Balanced Income and Growth Fund has been moving further down the supply chain toward companies that build data center components and has become overweight in Asia, where it sees stronger earnings growth, cheaper valuations, and greater exposure to the companies that should be viewed as the building blocks of a data center.

That infrastructure includes semiconductor components, cooling systems, cable interconnects, optical equipment, power supplies, construction machinery, and industrial metals.

"The AI capex build-out is enormous," he said. "It would imply significant demand for semiconductor components for chips, cooling equipment, cable interconnects, optical equipment, power supplies, construction equipment, metals, all of the things that go into building a data center."

The fund's 60% stock allocation gained exposure to AI last year by plowing billions of dollars into firms such as Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Sharef also highlighted a theme we've been developing: the importance of exposure to mining and materials companies tied to data-center construction and global rare-earth supply chains.

"Chinese resource extraction and materials companies are quite significant, not just for the data center buildup, but also for rare earths," he added.

Sharef's call to gain exposure to rare earths and critical materials reinforces a theme we have been developing: the AI trade is ultimately constrained by access to the physical inputs required to build chips, data centers, and power infrastructure. Rare earths and other critical materials are becoming a crucial component of the next AI trade as Chinese suppliers restrict some shipments to the US and US companies accelerate efforts to secure alternative sources beyond Beijing's reach. 

The takeaway from Sharef's conversation with Bloomberg is that the next AI winners will be on an ex-US basis, mostly in Asia. 

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/pimcos-top-performing-6040-fund-bets-ais-next-winners-are-asia-chips-rare-earths

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/how-tackle-domestic-extremists-foreign-enablers

Revoking NEA’s charter is a good step toward holding teachers’ unions accountable for failing kids

 A key US senator wants fellow lawmakers to consider revoking the National Education Association’s congressional charter.

What’s to consider? The union, the nation’s largest representing teachers, clearly hasn’t met its obligations under the charter; Congress should revoke it pronto.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, is urging colleagues to reconsider the NEA’s charter specifically over its links to a number of far-left nonprofits, including the Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools, and its alleged out-of-control financial mismanagement.

Those and other NEA-linked groups push agendas that actually justify the terrorism and murders committed by the Black Panther Party and push for indoctrinating young kids with gender extremism.

“Children are struggling to read and to do basic math. Instead of helping students succeed, teachers’ unions are injecting a dangerous, anti-American agenda into our classrooms,” fumes Cassidy.

“Parents deserve to send their children to school without worrying that they will be indoctrinated with DEI and taught that Americans have ‘misplaced faith’ in our institutions.”

A charter revocation wouldn’t stop the NEA from operating, but it would deliver a severe reputational blow to the group.

It’s one that’s long overdue —- and not only because the union has focused on hard-left politics instead of history, geography, math and science. 

In fact, the NEA, along with the American Federation of Teachers, has presided over a decades-long effort to completely wreck any meaningful standards in education in order to shield their millions of members from any accountability.

At the same time, they fought for ever fatter paychecks and pensions, while spending millions in union dues on radical-left political causes. 

After the 2020 George Floyd riots, both the NEA and the AFT ratcheted up their leftist activism and fought to turn America’s classrooms into BLM-indoctrination factories. 

Never mind reading and math, kids were taught that America is evil, brainwashed with antisemitic tropes about Israel and shown pornography as part of their sex and “gender” education; some educators even sought to socially transition kids without parental knowledge or consent. 

The results are tragic: an increasingly illiterate and innumerate nation, with the damage concentrated among the most vulnerable kids.

In New York, almost 30% of fourth-graders score below basic on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’ mathematics test, while 41% are below on reading — about where the depressing national numbers are. 

The NEA’s charter, dating from 1906, requires union to “elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching; and to promote the cause of education in the United States.”

For decades, all evidence shows the unions have done precisely the opposite. 

Though the AFT has no congressional charter, in July, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce began probing allegations that its boss, Randi Weingarten, spent the union’s dues to write and promote a controversial, lefty-slanted book.

Congress must now take on the NEA as well — at the very least, revoking its charter, a small first step toward making sure our kids are actually learning in school.

https://nypost.com/2026/09/04/opinion/revoking-neas-charter-is-a-good-step-toward-holding-teachers-unions-accountable-for-failing-kids/

I’m on the spectrum — and so are you! Definition of autism so broad that it’s meaningless

 In another 20 years, we’ll all be on the spectrum.

That was my first thought after reading a recent report on the rise in people diagnosed with autism. European researchers have documented that over a 20-year period, from 2001 to 2020, the number of people who have some form of autism rose dramatically.

Yet they found no rise in the number of people with severe autism: autism with intellectual disability.

The number of autistic people with intellectual disability remained absolutely flat over those 20 years. But the number of people diagnosed with autism who did not have intellectual disability soared, rising 1,800% over 20 years.

In other words: for every one person diagnosed with autism without intellectual disability in 2001, 18 people were diagnosed in 2020.

Professor Uta Frith at University College London has been studying autism for 60 years. Commenting on this study, she expressed concern about “diagnostic inflation,” which has the effect of “pathologizing normal human variations.”

That’s a fancy way of saying that Professor Frith is skeptical about whether all these people with autism truly have autism. They may just be normal people who are being diagnosed with autism because they have issues with social interaction.

I have been a family physician for more than 30 years, and I think Professor Frith has a point.

Social media is part of the problem. One popular TikTok video, with more than 11 million views, presents a series of statements. If you agree with the statement, then you may be on the spectrum. One of the statements in that TikTok video is “You don’t like talking on the phone because phone conversations are stressful.”

OK, I’m a family doctor, and I can tell you with confidence that about half of the adults I see would agree with that statement.

American researchers recently studied 100 popular TikTok videos about autism and found those videos to be “unsatisfactory” and “often misleading.”

Researchers have also documented that it’s much easier to be diagnosed with autism today compared with 20 years ago: clinicians will make the diagnosis on the basis of many fewer symptoms.

But it feels good!

Professor Frith notes that teenagers and adults newly diagnosed with autism “often report overwhelmingly positive effects. They state that the diagnosis explains their lifelong struggles and liberates them from self-blame. In this way, the label itself can be therapeutic without any formal treatment.”

So what’s not to like? Where’s the harm? Why is this a problem?

It’s a problem because it turns normal human variation into a diagnostic label.

“I’m on the spectrum” is so much cooler than “I have trouble making friends; I feel myself to be awkward socially.” It also shifts responsibility.

If I say “I have trouble making friends,” then maybe I should do something about that. Maybe I should make more of an effort. But if I say “I’m on the spectrum,” then it’s not a problem anymore. It’s just who I am. It’s not going to change. “Neurodivergent” is now part of my identity.

In the new edition of my book “Boys Adrift: The Six Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men,” I explore the rise in psychiatric diagnoses in the United States. I cite a report from the CDC showing that 23% of 17-year-old American boys have now been diagnosed with ADHD, and the great majority of these boys are on medication.

As recently as 1987, the official estimate of the American Psychiatric Association was that ADHD “may occur in as many as 3% of children.”

So we’ve gone from 3 out of 100, to nearly 1 in 4, in 40 years.

Resist the temptation to medicalize, to pathologize, to put a diagnostic label on who you are.

If you feel uncomfortable talking on the phone, if you have trouble making friends, don’t label yourself as being “on the spectrum.” Find the courage to try, to make an effort, to be more human. You can change. I’ve seen it happen.

Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, is the author of “Boys Adrift: The Six Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men.”

https://nypost.com/2026/09/04/opinion/definition-of-autism-so-broad-that-its-meaningless/