A senior religious leader in Iran has threatened to execute Saudi Arabia’s royal family in response to the killing of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr on Saturday.  Senior Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami promised to exact revenge on the Saudi royal family on Iranian television on Saturday, stating: “I see no reason to doubt that his pure blood is going to color the Saudi royal house and obliterate them from the history books.” Speisa.com reports: “The execution of Sheikh Nimr is part of a criminal pattern that this faithless family stands for.

By EconMatters

The bigger news in the cable industry is that the U.S. Justice Department's threat to block the purchase/merger of Comcast (NASDAQ: CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) did result in Comcast withdrawing its stock-swap proposal to acquire TWC in April, 2015. However, TWC soon afterwards entered into an agreement to be acquired by Charter Communications in May.

ISIS have issued a terror threat to the UK in a new video which purportedly shows the execution of five alleged British spies. In the video, which is as yet unverified, a masked gunman speaking in a British accent describes the Prime Minister David Cameron as an “imbecile” before apparently shooting the hostages accused of spying for the British security services. There are also threats made against the UK government and its citizens.

A NASA whistleblower has come forward claiming that there is extraterrestrial activity on the moon, and that NASA have been hiding this fact for years.  George Leonard is one of the latest NASA personnel to come forward suggesting such a theory. He and others claim that there are alien bases on the moon, and that photographs and film footage were hidden or destroyed by NASA in an attempt to coverup this information from the public. Collective-evolution.com reports: Multiple NASA personnel have made some pretty shocking claims about the Moon.

With hedge fund short positions near record highs and speculators at their least bullish in almost five years, oil prices have spurted higher in the early trading as the diplomatic gloves come off in The Middle East. Despite record levels of crude inventory around the world, WTI Crude is trading above $38, up over 3% from its $37.07 close on New Year's Eve. Algos ran the stops above last week's highs ($38.32) but for now prices are not as excited as many would have expected.

WTI tags last week's highs but is holding for now...