Authored by Dan Dicker via OilPrice.com,
The OPEC meeting is over and the cartel has extended production cuts throughout 2018. The decision is obviously crucial to supporting oil prices, but perhaps an even bigger story is the relentless strategy from the young Saudi Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, being played out both inside OPEC and in his own country. And oil is the key to it all.
It's deja vu all over again in Saudi Arabia. Al Arabiya reports that a ballistic missile from Yemen has been intercepted on Thursday by Saudi air defense forces in southern city of Khamis Mushait in the south western province of Assir.
The missile attack is the second this month since the November 4 missile intercepted near King khalid International Airport in Riyadh.
Notably, Huthi TV is claiming that the missile "hit the target"...
We own gold bullion to "support national security" - Russian Central Bank
On the same day that New York Times columnist Thomas "suck on this" Friedman penned what reads like a fawning hagiography of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and which glowingly presents the soon to be king as a modernizing reformer intent on liberalizing Islam, Human Rights Watch issued a report exposing a new Saudi counterterrorism law as little more than a dictator's tool for crushing dissent.
Via Moon Of Alabama blog,
The Saudi clown prince Mohammad Bin Salman is an impulsive tyrant. But what accounts for his urge to purge the country of any potential competing power center? Why does he run a such an activist foreign policy? The answer might be Iran. Not Iran the country, but Iran the system.