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Oil Well

What would the end of OPEC mean?

doors
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries - the oil market institution that has exerted an unyielding power over the price of crude for nearly 60 years - is now in deep crisis. The latest OPEC meeting in Vienna offered new insights into the cartel's raging civil war that is tearing it apart and threatens to ultimately make the cartel irrelevant.

In a two-year period since the group of 15 major oil producers formed an alliance with Russia, OPEC's smaller members have been marginalized, their voices have been diminished and Saudi Arabia seems to prioritize its partnership with Moscow above all else. An unlikely partnership between Saudi Arabia and Russia is causing dissension within OPEC, with one of the oldest members announcing it would withdraw from the organization in January just days prior to the talks. With Russia tightening its grip over OPEC's decisions and the United States officially reaching net oil exporting status in late November for the first time in decades, even if only briefly, the new world oil order is now dependent on three energy superpowers: Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States.

Snakes in Suits

The real reason Western media and CIA turned against Saudi MBS

Mohammed bin Salman (r) and Vladimir Putin
© Global Look Press / Ralf Hirschberger
Forces are aligning against Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, lead by elements within the CIA and strong players in the mainstream media. But what is really behind this deterioration in relationship, and what are its implications?

Following the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, western media and various entities, including the CIA, appear to have turned their back on Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS). In response to the scandal, the Guardian released a video which its celebutante, Owen Jones, captioned "Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest threats on Earth. Time to stop propping up its repulsive regime."

The Guardian was not alone in its condemnation. "It's high time to end Saudi impunity," wrote Hana Al-Khamri in Al-Jazeera. "It's time for Saudi Arabia to tell the truth on Jamal Khashoggi," the Washington Post's Editorial Board argued. Politico called it "the tragedy of Jamal Khashoggi."

Even shadowy think-tanks like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Atlantic Council released articles criticizing Saudi Arabia in the wake of Khashoggi's death.

Black Cat

Ukraine wants nukes! Will the West oblige the crazies in Kiev?

nuclear bomb


Efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation are one of the few issues on which the great powers agree, intending to continue to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and to prevent new entrants into the exclusive nuclear club.


The former Ukrainian envoy to NATO, Major General Petro Garashchuk, recently stated in an interview with Obozrevatel TV:
"I'll say it once more. We have the ability to develop and produce our own nuclear weapons, currently available in the world, such as the one that was built in the former USSR and which is now in independent Ukraine, located in the city of Dnipro (former Dnipropetrovsk) that can produce these kinds of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Neither the United States, nor Russia, nor China have produced a missile named Satan ... At the same time, Ukraine does not have to worry about international sanctions when creating these nuclear weapons."

Eye 1

Investigating Integrity Initiative: Foreign Office-funded dirty tricks organization, staffed by spies, housed by MI5

integrity Initiative headquarters
© Sputnik
Two Temple Place, the headquarters of the Institute for Statecraft
It's the afternoon of December 11 and I've just been aggressively turfed from the offices of the Institute for Statecraft, an until recently virtually unheard-of think tank, secreted in the basement of Two Temple Place - a crenellated Gothic-style mansion overlooking the River Thames.

Things started promisingly, as Simon Bracey-Lane - a research fellow at the Institute - welcomed me in the foyer with a warm hello and handshake. His demeanour shifted seismically mere seconds later when I revealed I was a journalist.

"You need to leave right now!" he intoned urgently, eyes wide and face rapidly growing pale, "you haven't arranged to see us! Go! Right now! Please leave immediately! Leave!"

Stopping short of physically expelling me from the building but invading my personal space to such a degree he may as well have done, I made for the exit, Simon shadowing me every step of the way and relentlessly repeating his menacing entreaties to depart until I was safely outside and the office's heavy oak front door slammed firmly shut.

I wasn't overly surprised by his response - despite receiving millions from taxpayers, the Institute plainly doesn't like outsiders and goes to enormous efforts to conceal its true location from public view. Still, the organization may perhaps need to become comfortable with prying eyes in short order - for it's now at the epicenter of a international political scandal of potentially historic proportions.

Comment: Russia isn't meddling the affairs of other countries. That prize goes to the UK, leading the covert Atlanticist charge to remake the world in the globalist's vision, using every underhanded ploy in the book.


Biohazard

RIP Obamacare? Texas federal judge strikes down Affordable Care Act as 'unconstitutional'

Obamacare pamhlet
© Reuters / Lucy Nicholson
A Texas federal judge has struck down the Affordable Care Act, ruling it can not be classed as a tax without a penalty for those who don't buy health insurance. Without that penalty, he wrote, "Obamacare" is unconstitutional.

The ruling is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court and the law will remain in effect until the appeals process is over. The ACA previously withstood more than 70 unsuccessful repeal attempts.

US District Judge Reed O'Connor sided with a coalition of state governments, led by Texas, that argued removing the "individual mandate" last year - a provision included in Trump's tax bill - invalidated the entire law. The Supreme Court had previously upheld the ACA in 2012 based on its classification as a tax - something within Congress' authority to impose. But without that provision, "the architectural design fails," O'Connor wrote in his decision.

MIB

FBI secretly collected data on Aaron Swartz earlier than thought - in a case involving Al Qaeda

Aaron Swartz 1
© Doc Searls/CC BY 2.0
Aaron Swartz on One Web Day, at the Berkman Klein Center For Internet & Society on September 22, 2006.
Nearly two years before the U.S. government's first known inquiry into the activities of Reddit co-founder and famed digital activist Aaron Swartz, the FBI swept up his email data in a counterterrorism investigation that also ensnared students at an American university, according to a once-secret document first published by Gizmodo.

The email data belonging to Swartz, who was likely not the target of the counterterrorism investigation, was cataloged by the FBI and accessed more than a year later as it weighed potential charges against him for something wholly unrelated. The legal practice of storing data on Americans who are not suspected of crimes, so that it may be used against them later on, has long been denounced by civil liberties experts, who've called on courts and lawmakers to curtail the FBI's "radically" expansive search procedures.

In November 2008, days before Swartz's 22nd birthday, FBI investigators were combing the internet for any information they could find on the young man fated to become one of the internet's most celebrated figures. At the time, the bureau was working to determine whether Swartz had violated any laws when he downloaded millions of court documents from an online system known as PACER.

The FBI would ultimately conclude that no crime had been committed and that the court records already belonged to the public. (Some three years later, the U.S. government charged him with crimes related to mass-downloading from another database.) But on that day in November, the investigators would leave no stone unturned.

Comment: See also:


Cult

Imposter 'patriarch' Filaret claims Ukraine's breakaway church needs 'tomos'

Orthodox church patriarchs
© Fort Russ News
SBU campaign against resistant priests intensifies

The head of the schismatic UOC-KP, the self-styled patriarch Filaret, said that the Ukrainian church needs a tomos for eucharistic communion (the possibility of serving the liturgy and the communion together) with all the Orthodox churches of the world. He stated this on the day of namesake.

"We have to do everything to unite with all Orthodox churches in Ukraine, and we do it, and we came to the conclusion that all three churches, not all bishops, but from all three churches, the Ecumenical Patriarch received an appeal for a tomos about Ukrainian autocephaly churches, " he stressed.

Comment:


Star of David

Netanyahu calls for more settlements & Palestinian home demolitions as West Bank violence continues

West Bank violence
© Ahmad Arouri/APA Images
Palestinian demonstrators clash with Israeli forces near the Jewish settlement of Beit El, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on December 13, 2018.
The ripple effects of Thursday's outburst of violence in the occupied West Bank continued to be felt on Friday, as Palestinians woke up to news of more arrests, clashes, and plans of collective punishment by the Israeli government.

Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, Israeli forces had shot and killed four Palestinians in separate incidents, while two Israeli soldiers were killed by a still unidentified Palestinian shooter, all in and around the central West Bank district of Ramallah.

By Thursday afternoon, Israeli forces had enforced vast closures across the central and northern West Bank, heavily deploying troops at checkpoints, major highways, and inside Palestinian towns and cities.

The intensified presence of soldiers across the occupied territory sparked clashes with Palestinian youth in several cities that lasted well into Friday.

Black Magic

Israel to ok thousands of unauthorized West Bank settler homes where they know Palestinians want a future state

Netanyahu
Israel is to authorize thousands of the settler homes built illegally in the occupied West Bank, some of them decades ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

The move is likely to please pro-settler members of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition while angering Palestinians, who want the West Bank as part of a future state.

"Arranging the rights for the homes allows thousands of residents to be provided with infrastructure of public buildings, educational and religious buildings," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

It did not give a specific number of homes but Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked tweeted that more than 2,000 homes would be getting permits.

Russian Flag

Russia's law makers plan to protect the country's web from foreign interference, decrease dependence on outside infrastructure

ethernet connection
© Global Look Press / Christian Ohde
Russian lawmakers have introduced legislation designed to reduce the country's internet resources' dependence on foreign infrastructure. The bill also envisions emergency measures in case the nation gets cut off the worldwide web.

The legislation, submitted to the State Duma on Tuesday, has been drafted in the wake of the "aggressive nature of US cyber security strategy adopted in September 2018." The strategy outlines Washington's desire to maintain dominance in defining, shaping and policing cyberspace, as well as to achieve "peace through strength," countering "malicious actors" like Russia and China.

The main goal of Moscow, according to the proposed legislation, is to significantly decrease dependence of the Russian internet sector on foreign infrastructure. The document envisions setting up national groundwork to keep Russia's internet functional, even if servers abroad become unavailable for any reason. This includes the creation of an entirely new system of national domain names, one of the legislation's sponsors, Duma deputy Andrey Lugovoy, explained.

Comment: Russia sees the writing on the wall. The West has designated the great country to the East as public enemy number one. And now, in addition to working on systems and currencies to foster economic strength and independence, it will seek to create an internet that is not subject to the aggressive whims of those countries that seek to dominate it.