The Yemeni army, backed by Popular Committees loyal to the Houthi Ansarullah movement, has targeted a Saudi-held military base in Yemen's central province of Ma'rib with a ballistic missile. The Tochka missile hit the base used by Saudi mercenaries on Saturday, inflicting heavy damage on the facility.

In another development, Yemeni snipers killed four Saudi troops in the Taval border crossing in the kingdom's southwestern Jizan region. Following the incident, Saudi warships launched missile attacks on the area. Also on Saturday, the Yemeni army fired a number of rockets and missiles at military bases in Saudi Arabia's southwestern Najran Province, and foiled a Saudi attack on the Jebel Hilan in Ma'rib, Yemen's official Saba Net news agency reported.

On Sunday, Saudi warplanes continued their aerial campaign against Yemen, pounding the Rashid industrial complex and a pharmaceutical company in the capital, Sana'a. Saudi fighter jets also targeted Hamzah military base in the central Ibb Province seven times. Yemen's al-Masirah television channel also reported that Saudi fighter jets carried out over 40 air raids on the route connecting the provinces of Ma'rib and al-Jawf.

Riyadh began its military aggression against Yemen in late March 2015. The strikes are supposedly meant to undermine the Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. More than 7,500 people have been killed and over 14,000 others injured since the strikes began. The Saudi war has also taken a heavy toll on the impoverished country's facilities and infrastructure.

Yemenis have, meanwhile, been carrying out reprisal attacks on the Saudi forces deployed in the country as well as targets inside Saudi Arabia.

The UN Security Council has crossed off Iran's Bank Sepah and its international subsidiary from its sanction list following the implementation of a historic nuclear agreement between Tehran and the world powers. The measure was taken on Sunday, a day after the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was announced by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

Bank Sepah had been on the UN's blacklist since 2007 over an alleged role in the in Iran's missile program. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that his country would repay Iran a $400 million debt remaining from the 1979 Islamic Revolution, along with an additional $1.3 billion in interest.

Earlier, Head of Iran Chamber of Commerce Mohsen Jalalpour said that Iran would re-apply to join the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) now that the sanctions are lifted.

The JCPOA's implementation and the lifting of sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear program was announced after the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that the Islamic Republic has remained committed to the nuclear agreement finalized in Vienna, on July 14, 2015, between Iran and the United States, Germany, Britain, Russia, China as well as France. Under the JCPOA, limits were put on Iran's nuclear activities in exchange for the removal of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

US Secretary of State John Kerry says that Washington is slated to repay Iran a $400 million debt, along with an additional $1.3 billion in interest.

Kerry made the announcement on Sunday, adding that the payments date back to the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, according to the AFP.

The news comes only a day after President Barack Obama signed an executive order, lifting US economic sanctions on Iran.

The repayment, arranged after an international legal tribunal, is separate from the tens of billions of dollars in frozen assets that Tehran can now access.

A Turkish court has jailed 10 Syrians over suspected links to a recent deadly bomb blast in the historic city of Istanbul. According to Turkish state media, the Syrians were among a group of 17 people who were referred to court in Istanbul on Sunday over accusations of premeditated murder and membership in a terrorist organisation. The 10 are to remain in jail pending trail while six people were freed on bail and proceedings against the 17th are still undergoing.

The blast took place in the city's Sultanahmet square, a major tourist attraction, claiming the lives of 10 German citizens and injuring 15 more from various nationalities on Tuesday.

Ankara claims that the attack was carried out by a member of the Daesh Takfiri terror group who had recently entered Turkey from Syria, although no group has claimed responsibly for the incident.

Turkey has been on high security alert since more than 100 people were killed in twin blasts in Ankara last October. The attack was blamed on Daesh terrorists. Ankara has been among the main supporters of the militant groups operating in Syria since March 2011.

Back in June of 2014, ISIS - which at the time hadn't yet rampaged its way into the world's collective consciousness - took over Mosul, Iraq's second largest city and home to more than 2 million people.

When the city fell, it became immediately apparent that the group was quite serious about its stated goal of creating a medieval caliphate and bringing Sharia Law to the entire region.

The victory wasn't purely symbolic. ISIS fighters captured 2,300 Humvees parked in the city and looted more than $400 million from Mosul's central bank.

Just like that, the brainchild of Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi that grew in post-invasion Iraq and garnered support from regional Sunni benefactors once it began to operate in Syria, was the richest, most well-armed terror group on the planet.

So in the short space of a decade, the US managed to take a largely stable (if autocratic) state and turn it into a smoldering wasteland partially occupied by a brazen group of terrorist desert bandits who Washington and its regional allies were simultaneously using to destabilize neighboring Syria.

Just yesterday, shortly before the Iranian nuclear deal went into implementation. I asked

How long until the U.S. will, one way or another, transgress against it - if not in letter then in spirit?

The answer is in. It took the U.S. less than 24 hours to break the spirit of the deal and to again promote hardliners in Tehran:

The US Treasury says it is imposing new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran after Tehran released five American prisoners. The move also comes less than a day after some of the sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program were removed by the US and EU.

Washington has imposed sanctions on 11 companies and individuals for helping to supply Iran's ballistic missile program, the Treasury Department stated.

"Iran's ballistic missile program poses a significant threat to regional and global security, and it will continue to be subject to international sanctions," Adam J. Szubin, acting Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a press release.
...
The US move comes after an Iranian missile test carried out in October that broke a UN Security Council resolution restricting the development of missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The nuclear agreement makes sure that Iran does not have and can not develop nuclear warheads. What sense then does it make to restrict its ballistic missile capabilities?

Following an epic stock rout to start the year, one which has wiped out trillions in market capitalization, it has rapidly become a consensus view (even by staunch Fed supporters such as the Nikkei Times) that the Fed committed a gross policy mistake by hiking rates on December 16, so much so that this week none other than former Fed president Kocherlakota openly mocked the Fed's credibility when he pointed out the near record plunge in forward breakevens suggesting the market has called the Fed's bluff on rising inflation.

All of this happened before JPM cut its Q4 GDP estimate from 1.0% to 0.1% in the quarter in which Yellen hiked.

To be sure, the dramatic reaction and outcome following the Fed's "error" rate hike was predicted on this website on many occasions, most recently two weeks prior to the rate hike in "This Is What Happened The Last Time The Fed Hiked While The U.S. Was In Recession" when we demonstrated what would happen once the Fed unleashed the "Ghost of 1937."

"She's not doing the big rallies because she can't get the big crowds," said the Iowa Clinton ally. "Maybe people are too anxious over this, and that anxiety is spilling over into cautiousness and overthinking decisions. Everyone's on edge given how much we've invested in Iowa."

- From the Mashable article: Bernie Sanders is Surging in Iowa and Hillary Clinton's Campaign is Freaked

Hillary Clinton's campaign is absolutely imploding right now. When people get desperate, they do desperate things, and the latest move by the Clinton campaign reeks of putrid, panicked desperation.

After a hiatus from the Ukraine and Russia file for much of 2015, the editor of Canada's largest daily newspaper has opened the year 2016 with sharp words for Russia, notably the "lightning annexation of Crimea" and the "Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine" which Russia is said to have sprung on the world in early 2014. Olivia Ward pens an article in the January 10, 2016 edition of the Toronto Star loaded with grim predictions for Russia's economy in 2016 and of "swelling grassroots outrage" against the rule of President Vladimir Putin.

The Star editor explains, "In 2014, Russia's lightning takeover of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula was a shock that reverberated around the world. Within a month, a Moscow-backed separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine convinced western leaders that the Russian bear was on the prowl, and its appetite for territory was growing."

Looking forward, Ms Ward writes, "In 2016, the question is not how much Putin's geopolitical ambitions might expand, but how long it will be before they are curtailed by harsh economic realities at home. The answers will have serious consequences for the future of the Middle East and beyond."

Several weeks ago, we presented a list of CEOs and corporations who have had the highest number of direct visits to the White House and, by implication, president Obama. As we said, these are the corporations (and CEOs) who own the White House, and the US presidency.

One name oddly missing was that of George Soros: the billionaire liberal donor whose fundraising efforts have been critical for the Democratic party in recent years. Which is surprising considering the substantial backing, mostly financial, Soros provided in 2007 and 2008 to a then largely unknown Senator from Illinois.

Or perhaps it is not surprising: a 2012 New Yorker profile of the relationship between the US president and one of the left's most generous donors reveals stormy clouds:

"although he still supports Obama, Soros has been disappointed by him, both politically and personally. Small slights can loom large with wealthy donors. When Soros wanted to meet with Obama in Washington to discuss global economic problems, Obama's staff failed to respond. Eventually, they arranged not a White House interview but, rather, a low-profile, private meeting in New York, when the President was in town for other business. Soros found this back-door treatment confounding. "He feels hurt," a Democratic donor says."