Energy prices started to move downward in late-2014, when Saudi oil began to flood energy markets. Variations of two main schools of thought about this emerged. One school explained things purely on the basis of business interests whereas the other school viewed the drop in oil prices geopolitically.

Some analysts viewed the Saudi move as a means of pushing out competitors in a saturated market with falling demands that have been caused by economic stagnation. Within this group of analysts, there were also those that viewed this as an attack on the growing shale industry in the US. According to RusEnergy analysts Mikhail Krutikhin, Saudi Arabia is trying to push US shale production out from the market by making extraction unprofitable and ultimately expanding its share of the market at the expense of US producers. [1] The decline in oil prices will hurt production in areas not controlled by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Nations (OPEC) and this may be a means of preventing the oil market from transforming from a «seller's marker» into a «buyer's market». [2] Others, like Lukoil's Leonid Fedun, maintained that the US shale industry risked becoming the victim of its own success. [3]

On the other end of the spectrum, there were analysts that viewed things from a geopolitical prism. It was posited by this group of analysts that the Saudi move was made to pressure Ecuador, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela by Washington and its allies over issues like the Iranian nuclear program and the crises in Ukraine and Syria. In other words, petro-politics was at play and the market was not acting «freely» or «on its own» in bringing down the price of oil; it was a US strategy of economic warfare and coercive diplomacy.

The price drop should not be viewed in either a strictly business sense or a strictly geopolitical sense. In this regard, Russian President Vladimir Putin raised important questions about it during a press conference held in Milan on October 17, 2014. After separate talks with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann on the sidelines of the Tenth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) Summit, President Putin pointed out that the price drop would also hurt US companies. He pointed out that lower oil prices would knock down the profitability of shale production, from so-called tight oil, and US-controlled hydraulic fracturing operations in North America and around the world.

Speaking in terms of US dollars, Putin told a TASS news agency reporter, which had brought up the issue, that he did not believe that any energy producers wanted major price drops. This included the US, which has steadily been positioning itself to become a major global energy exporter through hydraulic fracturing or fracking. According to Putin, the production cost of US shale-based hydrocarbons - tight oil and shale gas - break even at a rate of eighty dollars; he pointed out that the «the price drop on the world markets will deal a very heavy blow to this type of activity in the United States as well.» [4]

Putin's key point was this: «As for conspiracy theories, conspiracies are always possible. However, in this case they hit the conspirators the hardest, if they do exist. I have already mentioned that the budgets in the main oil producing countries are also based on oil prices, around $85-90 a barrel, I believe».[5]

Today the US House passed what I consider to be one of the worst pieces of legislation ever. H. Res. 758 was billed as a resolution "strongly condemning the actions of the Russian Federation, under President Vladimir Putin, which has carried out a policy of aggression against neighboring countries aimed at political and economic domination."


In fact, the bill was 16 pages of war propaganda that should have made even neocons blush, if they were capable of such a thing.

These are the kinds of resolutions I have always watched closely in Congress, as what are billed as "harmless" statements of opinion often lead to sanctions and war. I remember in 1998 arguing strongly against the Iraq Liberation Act because, as I said at the time, I knew it would lead to war. I did not oppose the Act because I was an admirer of Saddam Hussein - just as now I am not an admirer of Putin or any foreign political leader - but rather because I knew then that another war against Iraq would not solve the problems and would probably make things worse. We all know what happened next.

That is why I can hardly believe they are getting away with it again, and this time with even higher stakes: provoking a war with Russia that could result in total destruction!

If anyone thinks I am exaggerating about how bad this resolution really is, let me just offer a few examples from the legislation itself:

The resolution (paragraph 3) accuses Russia of an invasion of Ukraine and condemns Russia's violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. The statement is offered without any proof of such a thing. Surely with our sophisticated satellites that can read a license plate from space we should have video and pictures of this Russian invasion. None have been offered. As to Russia's violation of Ukrainian sovereignty, why isn't it a violation of Ukraine's sovereignty for the US to participate in the overthrow of that country's elected government as it did in February? We have all heard the tapes of State Department officials plotting with the US Ambassador in Ukraine to overthrow the government. We heard US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragging that the US spent $5 billion on regime change in Ukraine. Why is that OK?

A small human rights group refuses to let India's Prime Minister walk free for the 2002 Gujarat riots

In 2002, the Indian province of Gujarat experienced one of the bloodiest instances of religious violence in the country's history. Following a train fire that killed 59 Hindus, riots erupted across the province that targeted the local Muslim minority. More than 300 mosques and other religious sites were destroyed. Muslim women were chased through the street, raped and burned alive. After three days of unrest, at least 1,000 people died and more than 16,000 Muslims were driven from their homes and became refugees.

A 2005 report by Amnesty International revealed that police stood by or even joined in the violence. And some suggest that police may have even been ordered by their superiors not to intervene.

Some of the blame has been directed at Gujarat's then-Chief Minister, Narendra Modi. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and India's National Human Rights Commission have accused Modi of not acting to stop the riots.

The accusations against Modi were enough for the United States to deny him a visa in 2005.

Republicans are signaling that when they take control of the Senate in January, they'll try to change the way a key government watchdog does math. If they get their way, it will effectively put a thumb on the scale of all future legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) informs virtually all of our political debates. Made up of non-partisan career technocrats, the CBO's most important function is to "score" proposed legislation, projecting how a bill would impact future budgets if it were passed. When the CBO concludes that a piece of legislation will increase future deficits, it provides a powerful argument against the measure. When they project that a proposal will shrink the government's debt, it allows proponents to claim that it's the "fiscally responsible" thing to do. Key findings from the CBO's reports are eagerly consumed and broadly disseminated by politicians, pundits and political reporters.

A number of Republicans have called for the CBO to incorporate what US News & World Report calls a "gimmick" that would result in tax cuts magically paying for themselves in future CBO scores. In fact, it would likely result in the CBO claiming that even deep tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy would result in more revenues coming into the government's coffers. We could have our cake and eat it, too!

New federal restrictions on racial profiling will still allow some officials to use the controversial practice along the southwestern U.S. border and in screening of airline passengers, the Washington Post said.

The rules will ban racial profiling from national security cases for the first time and will bar the FBI from considering religion and national origin when opening a case, the newspaper said.

The guidelines have been the subject of sharp debate within President Barack Obama's administration concerning which agencies would be covered, the Post said. The FBI was concerned that they would hamper investigations while Department of Homeland Security officials argued that airport screeners and immigration and customs officials needed to consider many factors for the sake of security.

Blockbuster drugs like Viagra, Lipitor, Prozac and Nexium have made Big Pharma one of the nation's top industries. Even before direct-to-consumer advertising on TV, there were blockbuster drugs like Ritalin, Valium, Tagamet and Premarin. To be a blockbuster a drug has to 1) be usable by almost everyone; 2) be used every day; 3) be used indefinitely; 4) solve an everyday health problem like heartburn or high cholesterol; 5) have a fun or memorable ad campaign; 6) get social buzz; and 7) be sold to a large number of people quickly.

The last qualification - quick sales to millions - is crucial because Big Pharma has a small sales window before a patent runs out. But it's also dangerous because many risks don't emerge until millions take the drug so the public serves as unwitting guinea pigs. In fact, the "early user/guinea pig" factor is what sunk Vioxx 10 years ago.

Because of patent pressure, minor drug risks are often only admitted when the patent runs out, a ruse AlterNet has written about. But when risks can't be ignored, even if the drug is selling briskly, the drug will be unceremoniously withdrawn and seldom mentioned again. Here are some blockbusters in the drug graveyard that Big Pharma hopes we will forget about.

Turkey has banned the entry of over 7,000 suspected foreign jihadists en route to Iraq and Syria, the country's Foreign Minister has announced.

At a two-day Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) conference in Basel, Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu told his counterparts that Turkey's "no enter" list now includes some 7,200 names, reports the Andalou Agency. Turkish authorities have deported more than a thousand suspected foreign terrorists since 2011, the Minister said on Friday.

Cavusoglu noted that despite Turkey's efforts at keeping Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militants out, they continue to breach the country's borders. IS leaders claim to have created an Islamic caliphate across large swaths of Iraq and Syria over the past year.

Syria's government and opposition will hold talks in Moscow on the resolution of the Syrian crisis, advisor to the Syrian president Bouthaina Shaaban told RT Arabic.

Syria and Russia agreed that the "intra-Syrian dialogue will begin in Moscow," Shaaban told RT Arabic during an interview in Damascus on Thursday.

She elaborated that Damascus has been in consultations with Moscow regarding "the starting point of this dialogue, its objectives, and mechanisms for its implementation, as well as the composition of its participants".

Prospects for using Moscow as a venue for contacts between the two sides of the Syrian conflict were in focus of talks between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary General's special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura on Thursday, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry. During the meeting which took place in Switzerland's Basel the two parties agreed the top priority in the intra-Syrian talks anti-terrorism efforts.

The US defense secretary Chuck Hagel on a visit to the Afghan capital Kabul has said that up to 1,000 US troops will not be withdrawn from Afghanistan as planned.


The extra troops will cover a temporary shortfall in NATO forces as the vast majority of them leave Afghanistan for good at the end of 2014.

"President Obama has provided US military commanders the flexibility to manage any temporary force shortfall that we might experience for a few months as we allow for coalition troops to arrive in theatre," Hagel told reporters.

Hagel's visit, which was unannounced, came just weeks before the official end to the NATO-led combat mission in the country, which began in 2001.The call comes during the worst spike in violence since 2001 and a number of bloody attacks on the capital.

"I have confidence that the Afghan security forces have the capacity to defend Kabul," Hagel told reporters before landing in Kabul.

The Uruguayan president has restated his offer to assume responsibility for six detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention center, while urging the White House to end the decades-long embargo on Cuba.

In an open letter published on his presidential website, Uruguayan President Jose Mujica called on President Barack Obama release the prisoners at Guantanamo, many who are being held without any charges, saying it would be a humanitarian gesture for "human beings who were suffering an atrocious kidnapping at Guantanamo."

Mujica initially made the offer in March that the South American country would receive the detainees, thus helping Obama fulfill his long-delayed pledge to shutter the facility, which Amnesty International once dubbed, "the Gulag of our times."