Russia

Amid hope for reinvigorated auto production (after Hurricane Harvey's destruction) and yesterday's escalation in US-Russia tensions (Russia being the world's largest producer), spot Palladium is spiking today, hitting its highest since record highs in January 2001.

While the entire gamut of industrial and precious metals have been rising recently (the latter on the back of Chinese demand hype), Palladium prices exploded today out of nowhere (biggest jump in 7 months).

Pushing the precious metal to its highest in 16 years...

Just minutes after Russia was given 2 days to implement today's decision by the State Department, shuttering Russia’s consulate in San Francisco, California and two diplomatic annexes in Washington, DC and New York City, in "the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians", the Russian responses started coming in, and they were not happy. 

Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was first on the tape, saying he  “expressed regret about the escalation of tensions in bilateral ties”, noting "it wasn’t Russia that started the escalation."

Update: Russia's response was quick:

• LAVROV TELLS TILLERSON HE REGRETS ESCALATION OF TENSIONS
• LAVROV: RUSSIA TO STUDY U.S. MEASURES AGAINST CONSULATES: RIA

* * *

Tit for tat.

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

You may have thought that tensions with North Korea were abating following Kim Jong Un’s missile test stand-down earlier this month.

But as we and others outside of the mainstream media propaganda machine warned, absolutely nothing has been resolved between the United States and the rogue nation.

Authored by Peter Korzun via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

China and Russia are set to sign a milestone agreement in October on joint space exploration from 2018 to 2022, sending manned missions to the Moon for the first time.

The bilateral agreement will cover five areas including lunar and deep space exploration, developing special materials, collaboration in the area of satellite systems, Earth remote sensing, and space debris research.