United States

President Putin made an unusual and urgent call to King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Wednesday after the leader of Saudi Arabia refused to speak to President Obama on the upcoming Syrian ceasefire later this week – a situation which risked a World War if left unresolved. The Saudi king spoke to Putin about the nature of the Russian-US ceasefire agreement in Syria, before agreeing to cooperate with it. “The king of Saudi Arabia welcomed the reached agreements and expressed readiness to cooperate with Russia for their implementation,” The Kremlin reports.

CIA-backed Islamic rebels are fighting against Pentagon-backed Kurish rebels in Syria.

Buzzfeed notes:

Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S. government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another arm of the U.S. government.

 

The infighting between American proxies is the latest setback for the Obama administration’s Syria policy and lays bare its contradictions as violence in the country gets worse.

 
In light of the fact that the conflict in Syria was intentionally caused by Washington, can the Russian government trust that Washington will abide by this agreement?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address following adoption of a joint statement by Russia and US on Syria.

Following this week's ongoing demise of the US manufacturing sector, tumbling to its weakest since October 2012, Markit US Services PMI collapsed into contraction at 49.8, massively below expectations of 53.5. This is the weakest level for the last pillar standing in the US recovery since the government shutdown in 2013, and as Markit even admits, "slumping business confidence and an increased downturn in order book backlogs suggest there’s worse to come."

While the prevailing dour (or perhaps sour) overnight mood was a continuation of the weak oil theme which started yesterday after Iran said the production freeze proposed by Saudi and Russia as "ridiculous", and Saudi oil minister Al-Naimi said that Saudi won't cut supply and that high-cost producers need to either "lower costs, borrow cash or liquidate” (ideally the latter), risk sentiment was further dented when BOJ Governor Kuroda says he won’t target FX rates or stocks, which is clearly nonsense, and further spooked Japanese asset prices (Nikkei -0.85), while s