Russia

Nations representing almost 60%of the world’s oil production will gather in Doha on April 17 to discuss "freezing their output at January levels" in an effort to stabilize prices. According to Bloomberg, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Venezuela made a preliminary deal in February and are seeking to add more producers and extend the recent price recovery, but, despite the exuberant squeeze early this week, oil prices are fading modestly as D(oha)-Day looms.

Despite the day's rampacious rally in stocks and crude aftwer "unidentified sourtces" said a Russia-Saudi deal was done, Russia's Dmitry Peskov just issued a statement that "there is hope" for a deal at Doha. This sent stocks and crude jumping once again... even though we suggest "hope" for a deal is not "a deal."

Over the past year, the US State Department had repeatedly objected to the proposed Russian delivery of S-300 missile defense systems to Iran. One year ago, the issue first came up when as CNN reported then John Kerry raised objections with Moscow over a plan to sell advanced missile defense systems to Iran. The White House said Kerry made the US opposition clear in a phone call to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

As I wrote on Monday, ever since I started reading about the Panama Papers “leak” something kept rubbing me the wrong way. From the absence of any well known, politically powerful Americans on the list, to the anonymous nature of “John Doe” as whistleblower and the clownish reporting from Soros and USAID affiliated organizations, the whole thing stunk from the start.

Submitted by Angela Borozna via OrientalReview.org,

Do Russians want another war? If you are Russian, you would be surprised by the question. Why would anyone want war (hot or cold)? But if you are an American, and grew up fearing ‘bad Russians’ such question does not surprise you a bit. After all, the whole Cold War was based on the main assumption – Russians/Soviets want war!