ACTION

{ thenewamerican.com } ~ Following the failure of a meeting by members of the oil cartel known as OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) in Vienna last week to extend its production cuts... Saudi Arabia’s oil company, Aramco, announced price cuts across all markets and an increase in its production. The failure came on the heels of an announcement by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that it had reversed its previous estimate that demand for oil would increase in 2020 and predicted that worldwide oil demand would drop by 700,000 barrels a day instead. That announcement was historic, the biggest drop in demand in a decade. It also occurred at a time when the concerns over COVID 19/coronavirus had reached panic proportions, leaving hotel rooms, airlines, and tour companies facing sharp declines in passenger bookings. In other words, the timing was perfect for what happened next. Oil prices dropped by more than 20 percent over the weekend, feeding concerns that the coronavirus was going to turn into a worldwide pandemic of historic proportions. This led to trading curbs being applied within minutes of the opening of the stock market on Wall Street on Monday morning as stock prices at the open fell by more than seven percent. Cartels are notoriously precarious instruments as they depend upon their members to agree to subordinate their own separate interests in the short run to gain both market share and profits in the long run. But when early overtures to Russian president Vladimir Putin by Saudi officials to extend the present agreement to restrict production and then to expand it failed, the meeting in Vienna ended suddenly. Saudi officials declared war on Russia through price cuts and promises to expand production into an already oversupplied world market, seeking to punish the recalcitrant non-member for failing to go along with the members of the cartel. The Wall Street Journal noted that “the price cuts are aimed directly at Russia’s market share, Saudi officials said … while in addition planning to boost its crude output as well.” Some are blaming the Saudis for the drop in oil prices because of its attack on Russia, while others are blaming Putin for not going along with extending the production-cut agreement. But the real cause of the drop in oil prices is the failure of the cartel to keep oil prices above free market levels. The cartel has been successful in keeping prices abnormally high since 2016, when the agreement to limit oil production was first announced. Keith Johnson, writing for Foreign Policy magazine, expressed it this way: “Friday’s collapse was a stunning setback for OPEC which has since 2016 aggressively managed the supply of oil to keep prices from falling too far.” In other words, up until Friday, the cartel had succeeded in keeping oil prices inordinately high. But with the collapse of the agreement and the acrimony following the ending of the two-day meeting in Vienna on Friday, the world is about to see what oil prices should be without the OPEC cartel’s intervention...  https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/energy/item/35090-opec-cartel-failure-drops-oil-prices-rattles-markets?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_12_2_2019_15_37_COPY_01)&mc_cid=fb120436a0&mc_eid=8ab66f2b22   

. 

{ dailycaller.com } ~ Republican Georgia Rep. Doug Collins and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz both announced Monday afternoon that they would be self-quarantining themselves... after learning that they interacted with a coronavirus-infected person in late February. The announcement comes after Collins just spent Friday with President Donald Trump visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Gaetz was reportedly on Air Force One on Monday. An NPR reporter tweeted Monday that Collins was not on Air Force One on Friday, but had other contact with Trump. “I was radio pooler on President Trump’s trip to CDC. Collins did not fly on Air Force One, but he did shake Trump’s hand when he got off the plane. He did not ride in ‘the beast’ with Trump but did tour CDC with him,” Tamara Keith tweeted. Gaetz was on Air Force One with Trump Monday, according to multiple sources.  The White House declined to provide comment to the Daily Caller. Collins and Gaetz both made contact with the infected person at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland late last month. CPAC announced over the weekend that someone attended the conference and later tested positive for coronavirus. Collins and Gaetz are joining Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar in  quarantining themselves. Both Gosar and Cruz had interactions with the same infected person.  https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/09/trump-spent-friday-doug-collins-corona-virus-quarantine/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=12176  

.

{ theconservativetreehouse.com } ~ As the U.S. stock market continues to collapse, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar appears on Fox News to discuss the latest developments in the Coronavirus effort.

.

{ washingtonexaminer.com } ~ U.S. stocks plummeted Monday as the coronavirus outbreak tests the global economy, with the disease now having spread to 30 states and taken more than 20 lives in the United States... Shortly after opening, the New York Stock Exchange paused trading after the markets dropped more than 7%. If indexes drop 20%, the markets would be closed for the day. Concerns over the coronavirus and the markets have sent yields on 10-year Treasury bonds to a new low of 0.3469% Monday. In addition, U.S. oil prices tumbled Monday by more than 30% to below $30 per barrel as Saudi Arabia flooded the market to gain market share from Russia. The market turmoil has raised anticipation for major reactions from federal lawmakers. The Trump administration is under renewed pressure to enact emergency economic policies to stem the fallout from the spread of the coronavirus within the country. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve, having already implemented one emergency interest rate cut in response to the market turbulence, is now expected to lower its interest rate target all the way to zero, as it did in the wake of the financial crisis. The central bank's monetary policy committee's next scheduled meeting is March 18. States such as New York and Oregon have declared states of emergency in response to the virus. Oregon health officials announced Sunday seven new cases of the virus in their state. In New York, at least 90 people have been infected by the virus as of Saturday. Fears that public events could further spread the coronavirus has led to several cancellations of conferences, movie releases, and concerts, including the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, between March 16-22, and the 2020 Game Developers Conference, held in San Francisco between March 16 and 20. The State Department warned Sunday against traveling by cruise ship.

.

{ clashdaily.com } ~ One of Trump’s big election promises was doing everything he could to make ISIS into Was-Was. This is what a promise kept looks like... Trump has a very simple solution to militant jihadis that threaten regional stability — bomb the hell out of them. And that’s exactly what he’s been doing with regional leaders responsible for plotting militant terrorist attacks. We’ve seen it with whose-your-al-Baghdadi. We’ve seen it with the Iranian tears shed over the death of terrorist scumbag Soleimani. There have been others along the way. Now we can add one more to the list: Bashir Mohamed Qorgab. He is — WAS, actually — a ‘senior terrorist commander’ in Al-Shabab. He was in charge of attacks on military bases, and was also involved in operations in Kenya, the report said. Qorgab was killed on 22 February in the southern Somali town of Sakow, following a joint operation by the Somali army and US military, Somali state radio reported. …Al-Shabab is linked to al-Qaeda and controls much of southern and central Somalia.

.

by clarionproject.org ~ Abductions, torture, intimidation and death threats were just some of the alleged horrors perpetrated by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum... according to a series of judgments by the High Court in London. Against the wishes of Sheikh Mohammed, the court published the judgments, ruling they were in the public interest. The judgments were part of an ongoing divorce and custody battle between the 70-year old billionaire and his sixth and youngest wife, Princess Haya Bint Al-Hussain, 45, who is the sister of King Abdullah of Jordan. Princess Haya alleged that her husband was planning to marry their 11-year old daughter to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, which would have made her the second wife of a man 22 years her senior. Basing its ruling on accounts by witnesses, the court revealed that the Dubai ruler was responsible for the abduction and continued captivity of two of his daughters from another marriage. Fearing for her life, Princess Haya fled the United Arab Emirates to the UK in April 2019. Since then, she has she has been subjected to a “campaign of fear and intimidation.” Princess Haya’s lawyer said that even before she left, his client had been threatened as she began to doubt her husband’s version of the captivity of his two daughters who he claimed had been “rescued” and returned to the family...

.