United States

Submitted by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

The recent National Intelligence Council report assessing the involvement of Russia in last year’s U.S. presidential elections spurred a flurry of media reports suggesting that Russia is heavily involved in anti-fracking campaigning. Some authors interpreted this involvement as a “propaganda effort”, while others claimed the Kremlin was financially backing anti-fracking groups in the U.S., without, however, providing any evidence for this claim.

With the US officially warning Iran twice over the past 24 hours in the harshest possible terms yet, when first national security advisor Michael Flynn, and then this morning Trump himself, said Iran has been "put on notice" for "destabilizing activity" after it fired a ballistic missile in defiance of UN resolutions, on Thursday a top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted by Reuters as saying the country would not yield to "useless" U.S. threats from "an inexperienced person" over its ballistic missile program.

President Trump's first counter-terrorism operation, that ended in the death of U.S. Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, was, Reuters reports according to military officials, undertaken without sufficient intelligence, ground support or adequate backup preparations.

Echoing comments made yesterday by his national security advisor Michael Flynn, Trump started his Thursday morning on Twitter by first threatening to pull UC Berkeley's funding and congratulating Rex Tillerson, and then stating that Iran is now formally “on notice” for firing a ballistic missile. 

“Iran has been formally PUT ON NOTICE for firing a ballistic missile.Should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!” he tweeted, without providing any other details.