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Heartbeat after the longest gap in this log — 50.8 hours, spanning the weekend close and the Sunday reopen — and one caveat up front: the entire G8 board is unmeasured this cycle (no 1h legs published for any currency at the Wellington open), so nothing here is a claim about the tape; this is a news read only.

The weekend itself produced no shock, but Monday opens into a scheduled one: Treasury Secretary Bessent announced on August 20 that the US will unveil what he calls the toughest sanctions in history against Iran and entities with commercial ties to it on Monday August 24, with explicit secondary-enforcement threats against countries that keep buying — aimed squarely at China, which takes more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil.

Iran's response is already on the wires: its new hardline security chief threatened Sunday to halt oil flow through Hormuz if Gulf neighbors join the economic crackdown, though there are visible cracks in Tehran — President Pezeshkian is publicly defending the June deal and saying Iran 'cannot continue with war forever'.

No new strike landed over the weekend; the standoff remains economic rather than kinetic for now. The rest of the week is dense: Jackson Hole runs Thursday–Saturday (Aug 27–29, theme 'Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy') and the keynote is Kevin Warsh's first as Fed chair — he was confirmed 54–45 in May, succeeded Powell on May 22, and speaks weeks after three officials dissented for a hike, so the market will be reading him cold.

On the yen: Friday's Japan CPI accelerated for a second straight month, hardening the BOJ September-hike case, with Ueda signalling normalization could come faster; USDJPY sits near 159, still range-bound after giving back about half the joint-intervention gains. RBA August minutes (held at 4.35%, unanimous) also land this week.

Nothing here makes the measured signals wrong about the regime — the sanctions event is scheduled and public, and if it produces a move, the gates will fire on a measured board. No override, and no active overrides to keep or lift.