Iran

Iranian soldiers supporting President Bashar al-Assad have suffered their heaviest losses in a single-day fighting Islamist Syrian rebels near Aleppo, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Trade Arabia reports: Russia meanwhile said that a truce in Aleppo itself had been extended until Monday. Islamist forces seized Khan Touman village, about 15 km southwest of Aleppo, on Friday and dozens of people were reported to have been killed in the fighting. The attack was launched by an alliance of Islamist insurgents known as Jaish al-Fatah, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Submitted by Juan Cole via OilPrice.com,

Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, 30, the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia laid out his vision for Saudi Arabia on Monday in a plan called “Vision 2030.” He wants to get Saudi Arabia off its oil dependence in only 4 years, by 2020, and wants to diversify the economy into manufacturing and mining.

In an interview with Al Arabiya, the prince said the future of the kingdom would be based on:

Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which supposed had thawed as part of Obama's landmark 2015 nuclear deal which also allowed Iran to resume exporting its oil, are once again on the fence following a statement by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which accused the United States of scaring businesses away from Tehran and undermining a deal to lift international sanctions. 

Authored by Pepe Escobar, originally posted Op-Ed at SputnikNews.com,

US President Barack Obama landed in Saudi Arabia for a GCC petrodollar summit and to proverbially “reassure Gulf allies” amidst the oiliest of storms.

The Doha summit this past weekend that was supposed to enshrine a cut in oil production by OPEC, in tandem with Russia – it was practically a done deal – ended up literally in the dust.

Iran has summoned the Swiss Ambassador to Tehran to protest the controversial supreme court ruling that $2 billion of frozen Iranian assets be used to compensate American victims of “terror”. Last week the supreme Court ruled that Iran must pay the sum to survivors and relatives of those killed in attacks blamed on the Islamic republic. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif threatened to take legal action in the International Court of Justice against the United States if the amount in frozen funds is “diverted”.