The United States on Wednesday slapped sanctions on a shipping empire controlled by the son of a top political advisor to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reports AFP. 

The Treasury Department said the sanctions were being imposed on companies and vessels operated by Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani, the son of Ali Shamkhani, who has been subject to US sanctions since 2020.

It said Hossein operates a fleet of more than 50 tankers and container ships that transport Iranian and Russian oil and petroleum products, generating tens of billions of dollars in profit.

"The Shamkhani family's shipping empire highlights how the Iranian regime elites leverage their positions to accrue massive wealth and fund the regime's dangerous behavior," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

The Treasury Department said more than 115 individuals, corporate entities and vessels were being sanctioned, including companies based in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates and other countries.

"The over 115 sanctions issued today are the largest to-date since the Trump Administration implemented our campaign of maximum pressure on Iran," Bessent said.

The Treasury Department said Hossein's network "comprises a vast fleet of vessels, ship management firms, and front companies... that launder billions in profits from global sales of Iranian and Russian crude oil and other petroleum products, most often to buyers in China."

The State Department said separately that it was imposing sanctions on 20 entities, including companies in India, Indonesia, Turkey and the UAE, for their involvement in the trade of Iranian petroleum, and 10 vessels.

The sanctions are being imposed more than a month after the United States attacked Iran's nuclear program, hitting a uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, south of Tehran, as well as nuclear sites in Isfahan and Natanz.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said the sanctions are intended to "disrupt the Iranian regime's ability to fund its destabilizing activities, including its nuclear program, support for terrorist groups, and oppression of its own people."

"As President (Donald) Trump has said, any country or person who chooses to purchase Iranian oil or petrochemicals exposes themselves to the risk of US sanctions and will not be allowed to conduct business with the United States," Bruce said.

She said the United States will continue to put "maximum pressure" on Tehran until it "accepts a deal that advances regional peace and stability and in which Iran forgoes all aspirations of a nuclear weapon."

MSH

At least 34 people, including two babies were killed when a contraband fuel depot exploded into flames in southern Benin near the border with Nigeria on Saturday.

According to Beninese Interior Minister Alassane Seidou, “a serious fire occurred in the town of Seme Podji. Another 20 people were seriously wounded in the incident.”

"I can't really give you the cause of the fire, but there is a large gasoline warehouse here and cars, tricycles and motorcycles come from morning to evening,” he added.

Nigeria is a main oil and gas producer where fuel smuggling is very common along its borders, particularly when the government maintains a subsidy to keep fuel prices low.

The majority of the victims were burnt and they could not be not be identified.

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using 'Content here, content here', making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for 'lorem ipsum' will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).