“He’s here, he’s there, he’s every fucking where: Roy Kent, Roy Kent!” chants the loyal Richmond crowd in tribute to the captain of the struggling English football club at the heart of the TV series Ted Lasso. It seemed almost prophetic of what awaited Brett Goldstein, the 46-year-old actor who plays the gruff Kent. Since joining the hit Apple TV comedy’s main cast, having originally been hired only as a writer, he has gone from being virtually unknown outside the United Kingdom to starring in a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez, appearing alongside Harrison Ford in a television series, and becoming Marvel’s new Hercules.
Seven tankers made 14 trips from South Korea to Russia's Far East in July and August, carrying more than 176,000 metric tons of fuel, most of it diesel, the Guardian found in a 6 October analysis of port records and ship-tracking data. The UK and EU have sanctioned three of the ships, and one loaded its fuel from another tanker at sea off South Korea instead of at a terminal.
Ukrainian strikes have cut Russia's fuel output as Moscow scrambles for supplies, while fuel loaded at South Korean ports has flowed to Russia. Loadings began to surge in July, the same month South Korean President Lee Jae-myung pledged $100 million for Ukraine's reconstruction, the Guardian reported. That creates a tension in Seoul's policy toward the war: South Korea has provided Ukraine with humanitarian and non-lethal aid but ruled out sending weapons directly, while the fuel trade appears legal under South Korean law even though three of the tankers are under UK and EU sanctions.
Russia imported 368,000 metric tons of oil products by sea in August, 112,000 of them from South Korea, according to Kpler data analyzed by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) and cited by the Guardian. CREA's own August report gives 172,000 metric tons in total, including 18,000 from South Korea. Neither explains the gap.
Where the tankers said they were going
The Layla, a tanker under UK and EU sanctions, made two voyages from Ulsan to Vladivostok, carrying a total of 57,000 metric tons of diesel. It left South Korea on 19 July and 10 August. On the first trip, it told South Korean authorities it was bound for Vladivostok; on the second, it declared Niigata, Japan, but sailed to Vladivostok again.
The Astoria, a Russian-flagged tanker under UK, EU, and Australian sanctions, loaded nearly 11,000 metric tons of fuel at Ulsan on 1 August. It declared Japan as its destination but sailed to Vladivostok.
The Chongchon did not berth at a South Korean port. Instead, it took about 26,000 metric tons of fuel from the unsanctioned Celeste I at an anchorage off Yeosu in early August. It declared Singapore as its destination but headed to Vladivostok. The owners and managers of the four tankers did not respond to the Guardian's requests for comment.
Source: Guardian analysis of port records and ship-tracking data; sanctions listings: OpenSanctions. Map: Euromaidan Press
Why Russia needs the fuel
Ukrainian drone strikes have severely disrupted Russia's refining capacity, the Guardian reported. In July, Ukraine's General Staff said the strikes had knocked out 42% of Russia's refining capacity, costing the industry billions of dollars.
Russian refinery throughput fell in June to its lowest level in more than 20 years, and diesel output is down nearly 30% from a year earlier, the International Energy Agency said, according to the Guardian.
Russia has also restricted fuel exports to protect domestic supplies, extending its diesel export ban until the end of October; on 2 October, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Moscow could consider partially lifting the ban if there was overproduction, according to the Moscow Times.
Responses to the shipments
Seoul's non-lethal aid has included helmets, body armor, and demining vehicles, and in 2023 it pledged $2.3 billion in support, mostly in loans.
Isaac Levi, an analyst at CREA, told the Guardian:
"It is shocking that EU-sanctioned tankers loaded fuel at South Korean ports and carried it to Russia. This undermines the sanctions regime and South Korea's support for Ukraine."
South Korea's Foreign Ministry did not address the shipments or the sanctioned tankers. In a statement, it said the government supports international efforts to help end the war in Ukraine and bring about a peaceful recovery. The ministry said it was strictly enforcing its export controls and had expanded them to cover 1,402 non-strategic items with high potential for diversion to military use. The UK Foreign Office did not answer the Guardian's questions about UK-sanctioned tankers using South Korean ports, saying only that it remains committed to monitoring its sanctions.
Ties between Kyiv and Seoul are also strained over Ukraine's disclosure of its transfer of two North Korean prisoners of war to South Korea, which Seoul said should have remained private.
A Minor Hotels quer abrir “pelo menos dois ou três hotéis” na Comporta, vê oportunidades de expansão no Douro e procura levar a marca Anantara para Lisboa, revelou Laia Lahoz, diretora de ativos e desenvolvimento da Minor Hotels para a Europa e Américas, em entrevista ao TNews.
President Trump is facing low approval ratings, and voters are blaming him for rising costs. Republicans are likely to pay the price at the ballot box next month.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a snap election for late November after two housing bills were defeated in a parliamentary vote on Friday, October 2. The bills came amid widespread mass mobilizations demanding urgent action on the country’s housing crisis, following the eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of approximately 50 cities over the weekend in support of these demands.
“It is true that there are still many injustices to correct, many social goals to achieve, and many problems to solve – above all in the areas of inequality, public services, and access to housing,” Sánchez said in his speech on Monday, as he appealed to voters to give progressive forces more decisive electoral support to allow them to implement reforms more easily.
Real estate speculation drives housing crisis
While Sánchez’s administration has profiled itself as one of the more progressive governments in Europe in terms of international policy, national movements remain frustrated by the lack of decisiveness it has approached making changes at home – including in housing policy.
For years, tenants unions have been warning against the different ways house-owners, particularly real estate speculation funds, have exacerbated housing insecurity for the general population.
Existing anger spilled over as Maricarmen Abascal, an elderly tenant in Madrid, faced eviction from the home she had lived in for 70 years. After the development company Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión SL acquired the house Abascal lived in, they imposed a 275% rent increase that she was not able to meet, leading, after a lengthy legal process, to her eviction at the end of last month.
The mobilizations that followed addressed a wider set of problems. “Maricarmen’s situation reflects a housing model that prioritizes real estate profits while abandoning the very people who built our neighborhoods over the decades,” Madrid Tenants’ Union (Sindicato de Inquilinas e Inquilinos de Madrid) warned.
“Most serious of all is that this situation cannot be understood without considering the weight of laws inherited from the Franco regime that denied women basic rights,” the union emphasized in May. “The original contract was signed solely by Maricarmen’s father because the legal system of the time rendered women invisible within the family. Had that same contract been signed today, both parents would have been named as holders, and Maricarmen would remain fully protected.”
“Yet an extremely restrictive interpretation of the regulations has ultimately weighed more heavily than social reality, than the desire to protect those who rent, and more than seventy years of roots in a neighborhood,” they added. “For the Madrid Tenants’ Union, the position is clear: no formalistic interpretation of the law can justify evicting an 87-year-old woman from the home where she has lived her entire life simply to boost the profitability of a real estate investment.”
Unions promise building general strike for housing
The protests formulated several demands to the government, including a ban on eviction of vulnerable tenants where alternative housing is not available; a limit to short-term and room rentals; a rent freeze; and an extension for contracts ending in 2026 and 2027.
Such demands were generally by the public, as well as by trade unions. “Housing and work are not separate struggles,” unions wrote, pledging to work towards a general strike for housing. “The rise in rents is a direct transfer of wealth from the working class to rentierism. Our wages end up, month after month, in the pockets of the rentiers who control our homes.”
The uproar pushed Sánchez’s government to reflect these demands in two bills it presented to parliament. Most considered this a significant breakthrough for the housing movement despite the official texts not fully corresponding to the protesters’ vocabulary and the vote taking place on two separate proposals.
Watered down or not, right-wing and far-right parties voted against both bills.
“We have a democracy held hostage by rentiers and speculators,” the progressive party Podemos wrote as protests rolled out over the weekend. “The housing mobilization must keep growing and move toward a general strike until the speculators and those who defend them in the institutions have nowhere left to hide.”
“Between now and November 29, the voices of all of us who want peace must be heard,” Irene Montero from Podemos added after the snap election announcement. “Those of us who want our sons and daughters to avoid war and to have healthcare and education, instead of money being spent on weapons; who want homes to live in; who want jobs and time to spend with our loved ones; and who want the cost of living to go down.”
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