War

In a replay of yesterday's idiotic opening action, WTI crude spiked on Saudi troops headlines - running stops to yesterday's close - only to dump back below $27 once again...

A petition has been published on the White House website accusing Barack Obama of war crimes and demanding his prosecution.  “We demand conviction of a war criminal Barack Obama and trial in the International Criminal Court in [The] Hague. He is guilty of crimes not only against the USA citizens, but against the whole world,” the petition says. Farsnews.com reports: The authors also note that “one of the most dreadful prisons in history – Guantanamo – continues to function.” The US added to the de-stabilization of the situation in the Middle East, too, the petition’s authors state.

"Putin Uses The Refugee Crisis To Weaken Merkel", by Judy Dempsey as originally published at Carnegie Europe,

Back in December 2015, when it became clear that refugees from the Middle East would continue to head toward Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel reassured her conservative Christian Democratic Union party that everything was under control. All she needed, she told party members, was more time. Germany could manage the influx of over 1 million refugees and asylum seekers.

Tomorrow, John Kerry will meet Sergei Lavrov and several of his other counterparts from Europe and the Mid-East in Munich in a last ditch effort to revive Syrian peace talks, which fell apart amid an intense Russian air assault on rebel positions in Aleppo.

The UK are sending up to 6,000 British troops and five warships to the Baltic as part of an operation to buildup Nato’s military presence against Russia.  Amid escalating tensions between Russia and NATO-backed allies, the UK have decided to significantly increase its presence with other European countries in the region, including Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. NATO say the increase in military on the Russian border is a more “muscular approach” against Russian President Vladimir Putin.