56 cargo ships were stuck at anchor or in drift areas off of Los Angeles and Long Beach ports. The ports are currently dealing with 140 total ship in the ports, including 87 freighters, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California. The queue is a result of COVID-19-related disruptions, and holiday-buying surges, paired with a national labor shortage. Port of Los Angeles data indicates that ships' average wait times have increased to 8.5 days. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/an-all-time-high-of-56-cargo-ships-are-stuck-waiting-off-the-california-coast-as-shipping-ports-hit-their-4th-record-backup-in-three-weeks/ar-AANTZ9J

Hungry families are taking a hit as lorry driver shortages are leaving the UK’s largest food bank charity at risk of losing nearly a third of its daily food supply. FareShare, the UK’s biggest food-bank network, said it is losing out on around 30 per cent of the food it normally receives each day due to the issues affecting the haulage industry. https://inews.co.uk/news/hgv-driver-shortage-food-bank-uk-charity-daily-lorry-supplies-1199957?ito=twitter_share_article-top

Spot propane prices at Mont Belvieu, Texas, have reached their highest levels since 2014 ahead of the winter season on fears of low inventory. Energy inflation could be problematic for commercial and residential users of the fuel that heats building structures and powers vehicles, gas grills, patio heaters, generators, among many other uses.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/eer_epllpa_pf4_y44mb_dpgW.htm
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/propane-prices-soar-inventory-concerns-mount-ahead-winter

Fertilizer producer CF Industries Holdings Inc halted two fertilizer plants in the UK. CF Industries Holdings, a top manufacturer of hydrogen and nitrogen products said the manufacturing facilities suspended operations "due to high natural gas prices." https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/major-uk-fertilizer-plants-shuttered-due-skyrocketing-natural-gas-prices

A ransomware attack that paralysed the IT systems of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development has brought the Master’s office for South Africa’s courts to its knees. https://mybroadband.co.za/news/security/414440-south-africas-legal-system-on-its-knees-after-cyberattack.html

The People’s Bank of China is pulling out all the stops to promote the e-currency to a population far more used to transacting on a daily basis using Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Alipay. The central bank has rolled out pilot programs in 11 cities and regions from Shenzhen to Hainan so far and has recruited major banks and technology firms to help get an otherwise indifferent population to make the switch to the e-yuan. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-14/digital-yuan-goes-head-to-head-with-alipay-wechat-in-beijing

The first outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF) in the Western Hemisphere in four decades began on July 28 in the Dominican Republic and was confirmed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The presence of ASF has led to massive hog culling on the Caribbean island that borders Haiti. Bloomberg notes the island may have to slaughter more than half a million pigs to prevent the deadly swine fever virus from spreading. https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-pork-exports-dominican-republic-spike-amid-pig-ebola-outbreak

The Syrian capital was thrown into darkness after an “attack” on a gas line feeding a major power plant. “There was a significant direct drop in gas pressure, which led to the failure at the Deir Ali power station... as a result of an attack on the gas line,” Minister of Electricity Ghassan al-Zamil told the Syria TV channel late on Friday, though added that few details were yet known about the purported attack. https://www.rt.com/news/535178-syria-blackout-gas-pipe-attack/

Iran is set to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia as a full member, a move experts say will give Tehran more influence over Central Asia -- including war-torn neighbor Afghanistan. https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Iran-to-gain-Central-Asia-clout-with-entry-into-SCO-security-club

Soaring natural gas prices across the UK have disrupted companies from operating. The latest is slaughterhouses that use carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fertilizer derived from natural gas. Surging natural gas prices is a massive blow for poultry companies, which frequently use a byproduct of fertilizer production -- carbon dioxide -- to incapacitate birds at slaughterhouses. https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/uk-gas-crisis-stuns-poultry-slaughterhouses

The crisis engulfing Evergrande, China’s second-biggest property company, is the greatest test yet of President Xi Jinping’s effort to reform the debt-ridden behemoths of the Chinese economy. The more extreme prophecies of doom for China may be no more correct than the assumption that Beijing will simply step in and bail out Evergrande to make sure the fallout from the failure of a property giant does not spread to other areas of the Chinese economy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/17/chinas-lehman-brothers-moment-evergrande-crisis-rattles-economy

US - An Iowa grain co-op said it was hit with a cyberattack that security researchers are linking to newly launched ransomware group BlackMatter, which the researchers said demanded $5.9 million to unlock the organization’s data. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iowa-grain-cooperative-hit-by-cyberattack-linked-to-ransomware-group-11632172945

Hungary - On the day of the first round of the opposition primaries, meant to choose one joint candidate for every electoral unit in next year’s election, the pre-election was halted early afternoon by the overload of the IT system that fed the voting, Organisers later cited a targeted cyber attack. https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/hungarian-opposition-primaries-suspended-after-cyberattack/

Brazil's coffee crop is expected to drop 25.7% this year compared with the record 2020 season, when 63 million bags were produced https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/brazilian-coffee-crop-seen-25.7-lower-in-2021-conab-2021-09-21

Indian mills are holding off on signing new sugar export contracts for the upcoming season as a rally in domestic prices to a 4-year high widened the gap between local and global rates. "Mills are not signing export contracts, as they are getting far higher prices in the local market. https://www.reuters.com/world/india/indian-mills-hold-off-signing-new-sugar-export-deals-local-prices-jump-2021-09-20/

Britain is considering offering state loans to energy companies that take on customers from firms which go bust due to soaring wholesale natural gas prices https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-may-give-state-loans-energy-companies-after-gas-price-rise-2021-09-21/

Evergrande sold Chinese retail investors around $6 billion in risky wealth management products. At a meeting with angry investors demanding their money back, executives acknowledged the WMPs were likely too risky for many retail clients. "Many people . . . might be arrested for financial fraud if investors don't get paid off," an Evergrande executive told the FT. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/evergrande-scrambled-to-sell-retail-investors-risky-wealth-management-products-amid-a-liquidity-crisis-and-fears-of-arrests-report-says/ar-AAOFrBh

Russia's Central Bank Governor, Elvira Nabiullina noted that international business is gradually switching to other currencies, while Russia has changed the structure of its National Wealth Fund to cut out the dollar, “taking into account not only economic, financial considerations but also geopolitical, including sanctions risks.” https://www.rt.com/russia/535133-nabiullina-dollar-role-will-decline/

The British government is racing to avert shortages of meat, poultry and packaged foods amid a crisis in the food processing industry triggered by soaring energy costs. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uk-hopes-restore-c02-supply-food-industry-days-80141608

“Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,” adding the experiment is being done on spinach and lettuce with both “long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens” and mass industrial production. https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/09/21/ucr-engineers-mrna-vaccines-lettuce-spinach.html?utm_medium=visiontimes&utm_source=telegram

TUVs can be created from any Smart Phone or Pre-Smart Mobile Phone, and then used for transfers, payments or other transactions worldwide between Members on the WM System. Their value can also be converted to and among any of the world’s Reserve Currencies. http://koreabizwire.com/globally-valid-multicurrency-cbdc-released-for-all-countries/199885