Dinar4Dinner

Live: Oil higher as Iran and Iraq back a 9-month extension to output cap Our live blog is tracking market reaction as oil ministers meet in Vienna. More Our live blog is tracking market reaction as oil ministers meet in Vienna. We'll bring you the latest analysis below. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/25/oil-output-cap-opec-supply-fed-minutes-deutsche.html?__source=synacor&par=synacor (OK, they're not showing more info "below", but this does appear to be news! / Dinar4Dinner)

Crude oil prices surged over 3% to their highest level in two weeks after the world’s two biggest producers agreed in principle to extend a deal on output restraint through March of next year. The Energy Ministers of Saudi Arabia and Russia said that they had “reached an understanding” that it is necessary to keep surplus crude off the market “until March 31, 2018,” in order to stabilize a world oil market that is still oversupplied. The statement, made on the sidelines of an economic summit in China, is an admission that the efforts of the world’s biggest exporters to balance the world oil market by holding back 1.8 million barrels a day of crude have failed to end the current glut as quickly as they hoped. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces around a third of the world’s oil, and a group of non-OPEC countries led by Russia, had agreed in November to keep the cuts in place through June. News of the deal six months ago had provided an immediate boost to prices, but the strategy contained the seeds of the plan’s own downfall, because higher prices encouraged producers in the U.S., which isn’t party to the deal, to raise their output and invest in new production. U.S. output has risen more than 10% since the middle of last year, and data released on Friday by oil services firm Baker Hughes showed that the number of active rigs across the country rose for the 17th week in a row. Benchmark futures prices for U.S. crude rose 3.2% on the news to trade at $49.41 a barrel by 0800 Eastern Time, while shares in big shale oil and gas companies such as and Whiting Petroleum were also higher. The market reaction reflected how far the commitment went beyond market expectations: the consensus view over the weekend was that the output deal would be extended through the end of the year, while some market participants were also concerned that Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two biggest exporters, would abandon restraint completely rather than lose any more global market share to American producers. Read: All Drill, No Pump: Oil Producers Are Leaving Thousands of U.S. Wells Unfinished The declaration carried on the Russian Energy Ministry’s website said that the existing deal had had “a significant positive influence” on the market, noting that global inventories of crude had fallen faster than their historical averages in the last five months. But that glosses over the fact that inventories in advanced economies are still higher this year than they have ever been in May, and only slowly returning to their historical range. The ministers said that while they start from the assumption of rolling over the current deal, they also hoped that “a wider circle of countries outside the current group will see the benefit of this cooperation in bringing stability to oil markets, and will join the effort.” The declaration has no binding force. It will need to be confirmed at a meeting of OPEC ministers on May 25th in Vienna. However, with the world’s two biggest producers now on board, an extension now seems a near certainty. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-prices-soaring-saudi-arabia-083802201.html Might as well fill up now! Dinar4Dinner

Exclusive drone footage captures west Mosul in the throes of war by Kara Fox and Waffa Munayyer, CNN Updated 5:12 AM ET, Mon May 1, 2017 [ The video can be seen at this link ] Source: CNN Exclusive drone footage of Mosul emerges 01:41 (CNN)Families carry white flags and sob as they escape from their homes. A car bomb explodes. Then another. The rotting bodies of ISIS soldiers, abandoned by their units, contaminate the streets. Children walking through the rubble of what was once their home don't flinch. To them, this is the new normal. These are scenes from western Mosul as Iraqi forces wage a street-to-street battle to retake the city from ISIS, which the group has controlled for almost three years. A man carries a sick relative on his back as they flee from their home in west Mosul's al Yarmouk neighborhood on April 11. Equipped with a drone and a camera, Brazilian photojournalist Gabriel Chaim spent 20 days embedded with Iraq's Golden Division, capturing harrowing footage of the destruction and the chaos there. Chaim followed special forces as they moved through the city's narrow, winding streets, searching for signs of ISIS. The unit is the first to clear homes where the militants live among a marooned civilian population. In the raids, Chaim saw how ISIS fighters navigated through bombed out parts of homes to move around the city unseen, using a labyrinth of destroyed houses in a frightening game of cat and mouse with anti-terrorism units. Soldiers from Iraqi special forces Golden Division conduct ground raids in west Mosul's al Tank neighborhood on April 17. Chaim told CNN he had to conceal himself and his equipment to capture some of the scenes from the air, masking the drone's GPS coordinates and data to avoid being tracked. "When you are flying in the Daesh (ISIS) area you never want to capture yourself -- if they get this drone they could get all your information and position," he told CNN. "The drone provided me with a different perspective of the war," he said. "It is impossible to get that view of the severe destruction and civilians fleeing from a traditional camera." Chaim, whose work has taken him to Syria and the Palestinian territories, said the sheer number of civilians caught in the crossfire in Mosul surprised him. "In Aleppo I have seen civilians in a war zone, but not with heavy armored vehicular tanks and heavy clashes that were fought in the middle of them... it was mostly airstrikes," he said. "The fact that a huge number of civilians continue to live in neighborhoods that are under heavy clashes is what makes Mosul different." Residents in west Mosul's al Yarmouk neighborhood crowd around a food distribution truck on April 11. Chaim said he also saw ISIS propaganda graffiti, in Russian, tagged onto the walls of homes in western Mosul's al Yarmouk neighborhood. Civilians told Chaim that a growing number of Russian-speaking foreign fighters, including Chechens, are bolstering the terror group's ranks in Mosul. Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, fell to ISIS in June 2014. A US-backed coalition-led offensive to regain control of the city began in October 2016. East Mosul was liberated in January and the second phase -- clearing ISIS militants from the west -- was launched in February. Interactive: Hell and Humanity in the Shadow of ISIS In western Mosul, 382,000 civilians have fled since February 19 alone. Many of the displaced are housed in emergency refugee camps set up by the Iraqi government and international relief groups. According to recent UN estimates, as many as 800,000 civilians are still living in western Mosul -- with half of them are trapped in the Old City. Leaving the city is not an easy task. Iraqi special forces assist civilians out of their homes as heavy clashes between Iraq special forces and ISIS raged on in west Mosul's al Yarmouk neighborhood on April 9. Chaim recalls hundreds of civilians running through the frontlines to escape from ISIS, a scene he said he would never forget. As they ran for their lives, civilians told him that ISIS screamed insults at the crowd, including the word "kafir," the Arabic word for "non-believer," and fired shots into the moving mass. "They must take care of how they cross (the frontline), and make sure Daesh won't see them running," Chaim said. "But they also must take care of making sure Iraqi soldiers don't think they are Daesh," he said. "It's like running from hell." http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/01/middleeast/mosul-drone-footage?ref=yfp Peace Out, Dinars4Dinner

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/videos/the-bugatti-chiron-is-beyond-perfection/ Say no more!

Reuters VideosMarch 7, 2017 Elite Iraqi security forces dislodged Islamic State militants from the main government buildings in Mosul on Tuesday, their last major city stronghold in Iraq. Rosanna Philpott reports. https://www.yahoo.com/news/iraqi-troops-seize-mosul-government-130313889.html

Cliff Notes please. . .

Isis chief executioner Abu Sayyaf 'shot dead' in Mosul Kurdish media reported that the jihadi was killed by 'unknown gunmen' in northern Iraq stronghold By Ananya Roy January 30, 2017 08:02 GMT A notorious Islamic State (Isis) executioner named Abu Sayyaf has been shot dead in Iraq in West Mosul, Syrian Kurdish media has reported. Sayyaf is known as one of the jihadi group's main executioners and has appeared in many gruesome propaganda videos showing brutal IS killings. "Abu Sayyaf was one of the scariest executioners in Nineveh... He was a reflection of the brutality of this terrorist group," Muhammad Yawar, an Iraqi journalist, told ARA News. "He was known for his huge body and heavy arms. He was one of the notorious faces in the Isis propaganda videos." Local media activist Abdullah al-Mallah said a group of unknown assailants opened fire on Sayyaf's car, killing him. Another militant accompanying the executioner was also killed in the attack. "He was found dead in the Dawassah district west of Mosul city in Nineveh Governorate on Sunday evening. The Isis-led Hisba Police was unable to identify the perpetrators," al-Mallah added. His death comes soon after the killing of another prominent IS executioner in western Mosul under similar circumstances. Abu Abdel Rahman, a Saudi leader, was attacked by unknown gunmen in al-Askari region and killed on the spot. Western Mosul is currently the new battlefield for Iraqi government forces, who with the help of the US-led coalition force, succeeded in liberating east Mosul a week ago. IS fighters were reported to have redeployed in the western bank of the River Tigris to launch an assault on Iraqi troops advancing to liberate the city. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/abu-sayyaf-one-scariest-isis-executioners-shot-dead-iraq-1603764?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=rss&utm_content=%2Frss%2Fyahoous&yptr=yahoo&ref=yfp

Sheesh - I can't even agree with myself! And when I do, it goes to the Monkey Parliament in my head, where 3 different simians bounce around yanking on each others' tails and babbling. Then I vote on the issue at hand and usually veto them monkeys! I do see this as progress; they're talking towards finding common ground, not blowing each other up or beheading anyone.

Ditto, Bama Girl - I have plans to create a great organization to benefit youth and environmental concerns, and anything over 10 cents would help launch it like there's no tomorrow, which there better be, as that'd be a good day to RV, lol!

Article by Tom DiChristopher CNBCDecember 28, 2016 The U.S. dollar (STOXX: .DXY) has been on a tear that threatens to derail the oil price rally and OPEC's effort to balance an oversupplied crude market, the editor of The Schork Report warned on Wednesday. Dollar strength is being driven by forecasts for stronger economic growth and inflation in the United States than in other developed nations. Oil prices have so far risen along with the dollar following an agreement among producing nations to cut output. But a stronger greenback typically weighs on crude futures because the commodity is priced in the currency. When the dollar rises, crude becomes more expensive to holders of other currencies. "If we do see continued strength in the dollar that will have a double whammy on oil prices," Stephen Schork told CNBC's "Squawk Box." First and foremost, prolonged dollar strength will inevitably crimp demand for crude oil, he explained. Lower demand will make it harder for the OPEC's output cuts to reduce huge stockpiles of crude that built up around the world following a boom in oil production. That boom flooded the world with more oil than could be consumed and cratered crude prices. Low prices boosted demand for crude throughout 2016 in emerging markets, and particularly in China, the world's second biggest oil consumer, said Matt Smith, head of commodities research at ClipperData. Higher prices threaten to substantially curb China's opportunistic buying , he told "Squawk Box" on Tuesday. A stronger dollar will also tempt OPEC members and other producing countries to exceed the oil output limits they set in recent weeks, Schork said. "From a seller standpoint — from an OPEC standpoint — your propensity to cheat and increase production to take advantage of dollar-denominated sales will increase," he said. The OPEC cuts are scheduled to take effect next week. Schork said the market is making some broad-based assumptions about the effort. One of those assumptions is that investors will see something they have never seen before: 100-percent compliance by OPEC members to production cuts. The producer group has a history of cheating on quotas. Even if investors see a high degree of compliance, OPEC production will be higher than it was last year, Schork said. "But if OPEC reverts to being OPEC — that is to say 60 to 70 percent compliance — then OPEC is still going to be producing 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of oil ... more this January than last January," he said. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-faces-dollar-double-whammy-161319457.html / Dinar4Dinner

OPEC Said to Agree on Output Cuts as Saudis Soften on Iran by Grant Smith, Wael Mahdi, and Javier Blas November 30, 2016 — 8:25 AM EST November 30, 2016 — 10:35 AM EST OPEC clinched a deal to curtail oil supply, confounding skeptics as the need to clear a record global crude glut -- and prove the group’s credibility -- brought its first cuts in eight years. Crude rose as much as 8.8 percent in London. OPEC will reduce production by 1.2 million barrels a day to 32.5 million a day, two delegates said Wednesday during a ministerial meeting in Vienna, asking not to be identified as the decision isn’t yet public. The breakthrough deal showed an apparent acceptance by Saudi Arabia that Iran, as a special case, can raise production. Khalid Al-Falih at OPEC meeting, Nov. 30. Photographer: Akos Stiller/Bloomberg The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is ditching a pump-at-will policy introduced in 2014 to resume its traditional role as price fixer. The shift -- aimed at draining a crude glut that’s pushed down prices for two years -- will help revive the tattered finances of oil-producing countries and reverberate in markets around the world, from the Canadian dollar to Nigerian bonds to U.S. shale equities. “This should be a wake-up call for skeptics who have argued the death of OPEC,” said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. “The group wants to push inventories down.” After weeks of often tense negotiations, the eventual alignment of OPEC’s biggest producers points to the increasing dominance of Iran among the group’s top ranks. It appears the Saudis accepted that Iran can raise output to about 3.9 million barrels a day, marking a victory for the Persian Gulf country, which has long sought special treatment from OPEC as it recovers from sanctions. Saudi Arabia previously proposed that its regional rival limit output to 3.707 million barrels a day, delegates said. The agreement, which is also likely to call for a reduction of about 600,000 barrels a day by non-OPEC countries, pushed up Brent crude by 7.8 percent to $50.03 a barrel at 3:15 p.m. in London. Prices remain at half their level of mid-2014. “Prices reacted positively, but the devil is in the detail,” said Carsten Fritsch, an analyst at Commerzbank AG. “We have to wait for a country breakdown and whether it’s reliable or not.” It’s not yet known how deep Saudi Arabia will cut and, crucially, whether the kingdom will go below 10 million barrels a day. Iraq, OPEC’s second-largest producer, has agreed to cut production, according to one delegate, who didn’t elaborate. The country previously pushed for special consideration, citing the urgency of its offensive against Islamic State. Morgan Stanley said Monday that an OPEC agreement could boost crude prices by $5 or more. While the deal is unlikely to be enough to wipe out the crude glut entirely -- OPEC’s own estimates show it needs to pump just 31.9 million barrels a day from January to June to balance supply and demand -- it clears the way for participation by non-OPEC suppliers. Russia, the biggest producer outside the bloc, has said if OPEC agrees on individual country quotas it’s ready to participate, including possibly reducing its output, a person familiar with Russian thinking said earlier. That would mark a reversal of its previous position. OPEC is likely to hold talks with non-OPEC producers next week, a delegate said. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-30/opec-decision-day-as-ministers-meet-to-salvage-deal-on-oil-cuts ~~~~~~~ Bad at the pump, good at the bank Dinar4Dinner

ISIS’s second-in-command hid in Syria for months. The day he stepped out, the U.S. was waiting. By Joby Warrick November 28 at 6:01 PM This undated image posted online on Aug. 31 by supporters of the Islamic State shows Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the group’s spokesman and chief strategist, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike. (AP) For a man given to fiery rhetoric and long-winded sermons, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani became oddly quiet during his last summer as the chief spokesman for the Islamic State. The Syrian who exhorted thousands of young Muslims to don suicide belts appeared increasingly obsessed with his own safety, U.S. officials say. He banished cellphones, shunned large meetings and avoided going outdoors in the daytime. He began sleeping in crowded tenements in a northern Syrian town called al-Bab, betting on the presence of young children to shield him from the drones prowling the skies overhead. But in late August, when a string of military defeats suffered by the Islamic State compelled Adnani to briefly leave his hiding place, the Americans were waiting for him. A joint surveillance operation by the CIA and the Pentagon tracked the 39-year-old as he left his al-Bab sanctuary and climbed into a car with a companion. They were headed north on a rural highway a few miles from town when a Hellfire missile struck the vehicle, killing both of them. The Aug. 30 missile strike was the culmination of a months-long mission targeting one of the Islamic State’s most prominent — and, U.S. officials say, most dangerous — senior leaders. The Obama administration has said little publicly about the strike, other than to rebut Russia’s claims that one of its own warplanes dropped the bomb that ended Adnani’s life. But while key operational details of the Adnani strike remain secret, U.S. officials are speaking more openly about what they describe as an increasingly successful campaign to track and kill the Islamic State’s senior commanders, including Adnani, the No. 2 leader and the biggest prize so far. At least six high-level Islamic State officials have died in U.S. airstrikes in the past four months, along with dozens of deputies and brigadiers, all but erasing entire branches of the group’s leadership chart. Their deaths have left the group’s chieftain, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, increasingly isolated, deprived of his most capable lieutenants and limited in his ability to communicate with his embattled followers, U.S. officials say. Baghdadi has not made a public appearance in more than two years and released only a single audiotape — suggesting that the Islamic State’s figurehead is now in “deep, deep hiding,” said Brett McGurk, the Obama administration’s special envoy to the global coalition seeking to destroy Baghdadi’s self-proclaimed caliphate. “He is in deep hiding because we have eliminated nearly all of his deputies,” McGurk said at a meeting of coalition partners in Berlin this month. “We had their network mapped. If you look at all of his deputies and who he was relying on, they’re all gone.” The loss of senior leaders does not mean that the Islamic State is about to collapse. U.S. officials and terrorism experts caution that the group’s decentralized structure and sprawling network of regional affiliates ensure that it would survive even the loss of Baghdadi himself. But they say the deaths point to the growing sophistication of a targeted killing campaign built by the CIA and the Defense Department over the past two years for the purpose of flushing out individual leaders who are working hard to stay hidden. The effort is being aided, U.S. officials say, by new technology as well as new allies, including deserters and defectors who are shedding light on how the terrorists travel and communicate. At the same time, territorial losses and military defeats are forcing the group’s remaining leaders to take greater risks, traveling by car and communicating by cellphones and computers instead of couriers, the officials and analysts said. “The bad guys have to communicate electronically because they have lost control of the roads,” said a veteran U.S. counterterrorism official who works closely with U.S. and Middle Eastern forces and who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive operations. “Meanwhile our penetration is better because ISIS’s situation is getting more desperate and they are no longer vetting recruits,” the official said, using a common acronym for the terrorist group. This image made from video posted on a militant website on July 5, 2014, shows the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq during his first public appearance. (AP) “We have a better picture inside ISIS now,” he said, “than we ever did against al-Qaeda in Iraq.” The caliphate’s cheerleader The first to go was “Abu Omar the Chechen.” The red-bearded Georgian Islamic militant, commonly known as Omar al-Shishani, fought in the Russia-Georgia war in 2008 and had been trained by U.S. Special Forces when he was in the Georgian military. He rose to become the Islamic State’s “minister of war” and was reported to have been killed on at least a half-dozen occasions since 2014, only to surface, apparently unharmed, to lead military campaigns in Iraq and Syria. Shishani’s luck ran out on July 10 when a U.S. missile struck a gathering of militant leaders near the Iraqi city of Mosul. It was the beginning of a string of successful operations targeting key leaders of the Islamic State’s military, propaganda and “external operations” divisions, U.S. officials said in interviews. On Sept. 6, a coalition airstrike killed Wa’il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, the Islamic State’s “minister of information,” near Raqqa, Syria. On Sept. 30, a U.S. attack killed deputy military commander Abu Jannat, the top officer in charge of Mosul’s defenses and one of 13 senior Islamic State officials in Mosul who were killed in advance of the U.S.-assisted offensive to retake the city. On Nov. 12, a U.S. missile targeted Abd al-Basit al-Iraqi, an Iraqi national described as the leader of the Islamic State’s Middle Eastern external-operations network, responsible for carrying out attacks against Western targets. But it was Adnani’s death that delivered the single biggest blow, U.S. analysts say. The Syrian-born Islamist militant was regarded by experts as more than a mere spokesman. A longtime member of the Islamic State’s inner circle, he was a gifted propagandist and strategic thinker who played a role in many of the organization’s greatest successes, from its commandeering of social media to its most spectacular terrorist attacks overseas, including in Paris and Brussels. His importance within the organization was also steadily rising. Last year, after the U.S.-led coalition began retaking cities across Iraq and Syria, it was Adnani who stepped into the role of cheerleader in chief, posting messages and sermons to boost morale while calling on sympathetic Muslims around the world to carry out terrorist attacks using any means available. “He was the voice of the caliphate when its caliph was largely silent,” said Will McCants, an expert on militant extremism at the Brookings Institution and author of “The ISIS Apocalypse,” a 2015 book on the Islamic State. “He was the one who called for a war on the West.” The CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment on their specific roles in the Adnani operation. But other officials familiar with the effort said the task of finding the Islamic State’s No. 2 leader became a priority nearly on par with the search for Baghdadi. But like his boss, Adnani, a survivor of earlier wars between U.S. forces and Sunni insurgents in Iraq, proved to be remarkably skilled at keeping himself out of the path of U.S. missiles. “His personal security was particularly good,” said the U.S. counterterrorism official involved in coordinating U.S. and Middle Eastern military efforts. “And as time went on, it got even better.” But the quality of the intelligence coming from the region was improving as well. A U.S. official familiar with the campaign described a two-stage learning process: In the early months, the bombing campaign focused on the most visible targets, such as weapons depots and oil refineries. But by the middle of last year, analysts were sorting through torrents of data on the movements of individual leaders. The information came from a growing network of human informants as well as from technological innovations, including improved surveillance drones and special manned aircraft equipped with the Pentagon’s Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System, or EMARSS, designed to identify and track individual targets on the ground. “In the first year, the strikes were mostly against structures,” said a U.S. official familiar with the air campaign. “In the last year, they became much more targeted, leading to more successes.” Watching and waiting And yet, insights into the whereabouts of the top two leaders — Baghdadi and Adnani — remained sparse. After the Obama administration put a $5 million bounty on him, Adnani became increasingly cautious, U.S. officials say, avoiding not only cellphones but also buildings with satellite dishes. He used couriers to pass messages and stayed away from large gatherings. Eventually, his role shifted to coordinating the defense of a string of towns and villages near the Turkish border. One of these was Manbij, a Syrian hub and transit point for Islamic State fighters traveling to and from Turkey. Another was Dabiq, a small burg mentioned in Islam’s prophetic texts as the future site of the end-times battle between the forces of good and evil. Adnani picked for his headquarters the small town of al-Bab, about 30 miles northeast of Aleppo. There he hid in plain sight amid ordinary Syrians, conducting meetings in the same crowded apartment buildings where he slept. As was his custom, he used couriers to deliver messages — until suddenly it became nearly impossible to do so. On Aug. 12, a U.S.-backed army of Syrian rebels captured Manbij in the first of a series of crushing defeats for the Islamic State along the Turkish frontier. Thousands of troops began massing for assaults on the key border town of Jarabulus, as well as Dabiq, just over 20 miles from Adnani’s base. With many roads blocked by hostile forces, communication with front-line fighters became difficult. Adnani was compelled to venture from his sanctuary for meetings, and when he did so on Aug. 30, the CIA’s trackers finally had the clear shot they had been waiting for weeks to take. Records generated by commercially available aircraft-tracking radar show a small plane flying multiple loops that day over a country road just northwest of al-Bab. The plane gave no call sign, generally an indication that it is a military aircraft on a clandestine mission. The profile and flight pattern were similar to ones generated in the past for the Pentagon’s EMARSS-equipped MC-12 prop planes, used for surveillance of targets on the ground. The country road is the same one on which Adnani was traveling when a Hellfire missile hit his car, killing him and his companion. The death was announced the same day by the Islamic State, in a bulletin mourning the loss of a leader who was “martyred while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo.” But in Washington, the impact of his death was muted by a two-week delay as U.S. officials sought proof that it was indeed Adnani’s body that was pulled from the wreckage of the car. The confirmation finally came Sept. 12 in a Pentagon statement asserting that a “U.S. precision airstrike” targeting Adnani had eliminated the terrorist group’s “chief propagandist, recruiter and architect of external terrorist operations.” The Russian claims have persisted, exasperating the American analysts who know how long and difficult the search had been. Meanwhile, the ultimate impact of Adnani’s death is still being assessed. Longtime terrorism experts argue that a diffuse, highly decentralized terrorist network such as the Islamic State tends to bounce back quickly from the loss of a leader, even one as prominent as Adnani. “Decapitation is one arm of a greater strategy, but it cannot defeat a terrorist group by itself,” said Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown University’s Center for Security Studies and an author of multiple books on terrorism. Noting that the Islamic State’s military prowess derives from the “more anonymous Saddamist military officers” who make up the group’s professional core, Hoffman said the loss of a chief propagandist was likely to be “only a temporary derailment.” Yet, as still more missiles find their targets, the Islamic State is inevitably losing its ability to command and inspire its embattled forces, other terrorism experts said. “The steady destruction of the leadership of the Islamic State, plus the loss of territory, is eroding the group’s appeal and potency,” said Bruce Riedel, a 30-year CIA veteran and a terrorism expert at the Brookings Institution. “The Islamic State is facing a serious crisis.” Thomas Gibbons-Neff contributed to this report. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/isiss-second-in-command-hid-in-syria-for-months-the-day-he-stepped-out-the-us-was-waiting/2016/11/28/64a32efe-b253-11e6-840f-e3ebab6bcdd3_story.html?ref=yfp Video: Islamic State says leader killed in Syria http://wapo.st/2bQ5lJh <iframe width='480' height='290' scrolling='no' src='//www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/9a759216-6f09-11e6-993f-73c693a89820' frameborder='0' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Go RV!!!! / Dinar4Dinner

mine too! And I gotta tooooina boat! (ok, a hybrid but not as much fan as saying "Tuna" a la Carly)

Bad for my tuna boat's gas tank; good for da RV! Oil prices could be facing a significant jolt after Federal Chair Janet Yellen, in her annual speech at the Jackson Hole economic symposium in Wyoming, said that the case to increase interest rates had strengthened. The extent of the jolt that may be felt is far from certain however. Due to the quotations of crude oil in U.S. dollars, there is often a bind between the fate of the greenback and the costs of oil per barrel, as the balance of oil trade and the effect on market psychology can be hugely influential. There are, however, other significant factors in the oil price equation, including high production rates and inventories. Spencer Welch, director of downstream energy consulting at IHS Markit explained that “a rate hike would strengthen the U.S. dollar, which would make oil more expensive globally, so this would tend to reduce oil demand slightly, but it takes a while for this effect to play out, and would therefore likely reduce oil market price.” “By how much? That depends on the size of the interest rate increase. It is likely to be less than $1/bbl in oil price impact, but that is not based on historical statistics.” Different nations Welch believes, are effected by a rate rise in varying ways, depending if they are net exporters or importers of oil. Importers are more likely to be hurt by a rate rise as oil would become more expensive due to a rising dollar, net exporters of oil would benefit as a result of selling oil in dollars, with the dollar being stronger. “I would say yes, rate rise impacts are smaller compared to other oil market impacts, such as declining U.S. oil production, high oil inventories, high oil production rates in other countries, including production in Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Iran, and in the North Sea.” Spencer Welch continued. A recent paper by Morgan Stanley highlighted that the correlation between trade weighted U.S. dollars and oil was high until May this year, when large supply outages and then product market concerns subsequently brought oil back into focus, due to the increased market anxiety. The investment bank also points out that in July, the oil and dollar price association was disrupted by fears of product overhang, although recently there are signs that the correlation is returning. If this relationship stays firm, then Morgan Stanley believes that this could help support oil prices in the near term. Overall the bank’s forex team sees the dollar weakening further, before resuming an upwards trajectory next year. The paper also points to how global market factors can have a huge impact on oil prices, outweighing the influence of a rising or falling dollar, as evidenced by the influence of the upcoming OPEC meeting taking place alongside the International Energy Forum in Algiers. Any production deal to combat oversupply in the market must engage with Iran’s conditional demands, that OPEC will have to agree to allow it to return to its pre-sanction production levels. Morgan Stanley also said that even if the meeting is a successful one, an OPEC freeze would likely be a short term positive but a medium term negative for oil prices. Other factors such as the United States’ burgeoning production of shale oil has also been mentioned as a game changer for the oil price and dollar relationship, as argued by Goldman Sachs’ Jeffrey Currie in a study published in 2014. He said that in 2008 the U.S. was importing on a net basis nearly 12 million barrels per day of oil and products. Today, owing largely to shale technology, that number is less than 5 million barrels per day, disturbing the oil price and dollar correlation. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the volume of shale oil production peaked at 4.5 million barrels of oil per day in early 2015, before falling to 4 million a day this year. It’s uncertain by how big a margin shale oil production has transformed the oil price and dollar relationship, as the United States remains a net importer of oil. Read the original article on OilPrice.com. Copyright 2016. http://www.businessinsider.com/a-rate-hike-will-give-oil-prices-a-significant-jolt-2016-9?ref=yfp

Airstrike Kills ISIS Minister Responsible for Some Execution Videos, Pentagon Says Airstrike Kills ISIS Minister Responsible for Some Execution Videos, Pentagon Says (ABC News) More An airstrike has killed a senior ISIS leader who, as the group's minister of information, produced some of its gruesome execution videos, the Pentagon announced today. A U.S. official described "Dr. Wa'il" as one of ISIS's top leaders who had special access to ISIS's senior leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The confirmed death of "Dr. Wa'il" is the second strike in the last two weeks targeting a senior ISIS leader involved in ISIS's media operation. "On September 7, coalition forces conducted a precision strike near Raqqah, Syria, that targeted and killed 'Dr. Wa'il,' also known as Wa'il Adil Hasan Salman al-Fayad, one of ISIL's most senior leaders," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a statement today. "He operated as the minister of information for the terror organization and was a prominent member of its Senior Shura Council -- ISIL's leadership group," he added. ISIS is also known as ISIL. "Wa'il oversaw ISIL's production of terrorist propaganda videos showing torture and executions," Cook said, and was "a close associate of Abu Muhammad al-Adnani." Al-Adnani was known as ISIS' top spokesman and responsible for the plotting of the group's overseas terror attacks, such as last November's attacks in Paris and the airport attacks in Brussels and Ankara, Turkey. A U.S. official described Wa'il as outranking al-Adnani as one of ISIS senior leaders, possibly number three in its hierarchy, who had special access to the group's top leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Al-Adnani was targeted by an airstrike on Aug. 30 as he rode in a vehicle near the Syrian town of al-Bab. Earlier this week, the Pentagon confirmed its initial assessment that al-Adnani had been killed in the airstrike. A U.S. official said it has been confirmed that Wa'il was killed in the airstrike, which another official said was carried out by a drone targeting his home in Raqqah, ISIS's de facto capital in Syria. "The removal of ISIL's senior leaders degrades its ability to retain territory, and its ability to plan, finance, and direct attacks inside and outside of the region," Cook said. "We will continue to work with our coalition partners to build momentum in the campaign to deal ISIL a lasting defeat." One U.S. official said it was unclear if Wa'il outranked al-Adnani in ISIS's hierarchy. https://www.yahoo.com/news/airstrike-kills-isis-minister-responsible-execution-videos-pentagon-193644526--abc-news-topstories.html