Comment: Israel is the organ harvesting and human trafficking global ringleader, with complicit help from US and Turkey

Comment: Update: Oil Slides After Iran, Iraq, Indonesia Said To Have "Reservations" About Proposed 4.5% Production Cut

Oil has slid to LOD following headlines that just one week before the Vienna deal, one which according to the Nigerian oil minister was supposed to be finalized today, more discord has emerged, as a result of Iran, Iraq and Indonesia expressing "reservations" about the proposed 4.5% output cut which exempts only LIbya and Nigeria.

• OPEC EXPERTS RECOMMEND MINISTERS DEBATE NEXT WEEK AN OIL OUTPUT CUT OF 4.0-4.5 PCT FOR EACH MEMBER EXCEPT LIBYA, NIGERIA - RTRS
• OPEC SOURCES SAY IRAN, IRAQ, INDONESIA HAVE RESERVATIONS REGARDING PROPOSED 4.5 PCT CUT

It also means that contrary to constant media representations, Iran was in fact not to be exempt from a production cut, and suggesting that there was never a real agreement to begin with.

* * *

After the last few days melt-up in WTI because "an OPEC deal is certain," it seems Iraq is ready to spoil the party once again. Sending WTI (Jan17) tumbling from over $49 to a $47 handle, Reuters reports, Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari told reporters, "it would not be fair for us to cut oil output."
OPEC should allow Iraq to continue raising output with no restrictions, Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari told reporters in Budapest on Tuesday, commenting on a plan by the organization to limit supply in order to support prices.

"We think we should increase output. Iraq is in a special situation ...we are at war," he said, referring to the ongoing military campaign to defeat Islamic State.

And the reaction is a pullback in WTI's panic bid...

Comment: See also: 'Trump-inspired' hate crimes fabricated

Comment: Yet nothing in the report mentions the source of the need for populations to flee - western imperialism and the proxy wars it sponsors.

Comment: The liberal authoritarians are really coming out of the woodwork...

Comment: Maybe Ukraine will soon literally fall to pieces? If so, they have no one to blame but the Americans.

Comment: Hizb ut-Tahrir has been a great supporter of the "revolution" in Syria, i.e., supporting the moderate terrorists. They are relatively marginal in the United States, but their ideology shows that while they do not advocate violent means (they consider themselves a political, intellectual movement), their end goal is the same as the "rebels" in Syria: the creation of an "Islamic State" in the Middle East, thus their support of the "rebels". Gadaffi and Assad both went after this group in the years before the "revolutions" in both countries. There's a video of Ibn Thbait discussing the Syrian "opposition" with Ali Harfouch in 2013. In Part 1, Harfouch makes clear that all the fighting groups are Islamists advocating the creation of an Islamic state (the only secularists are exiles in suits living in foreign countries). In Part 2, Harfouch states:

Hizb ut-Tahrir is deeply rooted in the Syrian revolution and it is constantly coordinating with key figures, whether it's from the quote-unquote radical Islamic movement in terms of providing them advisory [sic] or with the quote-unquote more moderate movement in certain terms of warning them not to fall into neoliberal plots and so forth. [HuT's] role has been to orient the revolution ...

It's an interesting discussion, worth watching. They say that HuT maintains the "purity" of the revolution in Syria, subverting the U.S.'s aims of installing "moderate" groups in power and marginalizing the "radical Islamists" who are attempting to "uproot the political structures/neolib politics", i.e., "excluding Islam". So ironically, the very "moderate" groups we hear about in the news (e.g., Ahrar al-Sham, Noureddin al-Zenki, etc.) are ideologically opposed to those who could even remotely be considered "moderate", and actually disdain the U.S.'s alleged plans for Syria. It's kind of funny how much these guys resemble the neoliberal ideologues and social justice warriors in their apparent naivete about what exactly they are supporting with their respective "revolutions"...