Russia

Moments ago, following last week's torrid crude oil price rebound driven entirely by now-denied hopes of some production cut consensus between oil suppliers, namely Russia and Saudi Arabia, oil halted its four-day rally as weak Chinese manufacturing data added to economic demand concern.

“The risk seems to be the greatest on the downside again” and speculation of OPEC production cuts has “faded fast,” says Saxo Bank head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen. “China and South Korea are both helping the market return to fundamental focus where it is worried about demand."

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Russia that it will have to “endure the consequences” if their jets continue to violate Turkish airspace, following the alleged infringement by a Russian Su-34 warplane.  The stern warning comes just two months after Turkey shot down a Russian jet for crossing over its territory. The incident is hotly disputed by Russia, who say they were legally flying over Syria at the time.

The US Department of Defense has ordered Russia to “respect NATO airspace” saying that it believes that a Russian Su-34 jet violated Turkey’s airspace earlier this week.  “We are aware of reports and can confirm that yesterday another Russian combat aircraft violated Turkish — and NATO – airspace,” Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright told Russia’s RIA Novosti on Saturday. Presstv.com reports: “We call on Russia to respect Turkish airspace and cease activities that risk further heightening instability in the region,” Wright continued.

Beforer we discuss The Empire of Chaos ongoing attacks on "The Assassin Putin" and The Master of the Universe attempts to topple any challenge to Washington's global hegemony, we thought the following chart may give some much needed context for where the pain really is - the drop in the oil price in local currency terms has been the least of all major nations... for Russia

A strong and deep 7.00 magnitude earthquake struck Russia’s Far Eastern Kamchatka peninsula on Saturday morning according to the US Geological Survey (USGS) The quake hit 106 kilometers north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, the capital city of Russia’s Kamchatka Krai. According to the Geological Survey the quake occurred at 0325 GMT at a depth of 160 kilometres (100 miles), about 95 kilometres northeast of the Russian town of Yelizovo in the Kamchatka Krai region.