Asia

Authored by Brahma Chellaney, originally posted at Project Syndicate,

Tensions over water are rising in Asia – and not only because of conflicting maritime claims. While territorial disputes, such as in the South China Sea, attract the most attention – after all, they threaten the safety of sea lanes and freedom of navigation, which affects outside powers as well – the strategic ramifications of competition over transnationally shared freshwater resources are just as ominous.

On Friday, after reading the latest shift in the ever-changing, always fluid OPEC narrative, according to which Saudi Arabia now demands Iranian oil production cuts contrary to the agreement reached at the end of September in Algiers, in which Iran was granted an exemption from the upcoming supply cut negotiation in Vienna on November 30, we were confused:

Wait so the Saudis demand Iran cuts production now after explicitly granting Iran an exemption in Algiers?

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 25, 2016

Anthropologists from Russia have discovered that Native Americans originated from Russia approximately twenty thousand years ago.  The latest study conducted by a team of American and Russian scientists found that the descendants of the North American Indians who lived 5,000 years ago are still alive today. Pravdareport.com reports: This conclusion was made by researchers after comparing the DNA of fossils found on the northern coast of British Columbia in Canada and the living people who belong to the first several tribes from this area.

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Donald Trump’s election triumph is among the more astonishing in history.

Yet if he wishes to become the father of a new “America First” majority party, he must make good on his solemn promise:

To end the trade deficits that have bled our country of scores of thousands of factories, and to create millions of manufacturing jobs in the USA.

Fail here, and those slim majorities in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin disappear.

Having soared to fresh 13 year highs in a quiet overnight session on thin liquidity due to the US Thanksgiving holiday, which sent the USDJPY just shy of 114 and the Yuan to 6.96, the dollar pared back its weekly advance with modest profit taking after traders wondered if the rally has gotten "too stretched." European shares were fractionally higher, with Asian stocks and US equity futures rising and both the Dow Jones and the S&P set for new all time highs.