Oil futures slump to largest single-day drop since Sept. 1
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Oil futures settled sharply lower Monday as data showed members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries continued to pump at a breakneck pace last month, leaving crude to give back some of last week’s sizable gains.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for November delivery CLX5,-4.71% dropped $2.53, or 5.1%, to end at $47.10 a barrel. November Brent crude LCOX5, -4.94% on London’s ICE Futures exchange fell $2.79, or 5.3%, to finish at $49.86 a barrel. Both contracts saw their largest one-day price and percentage declines since Sept. 1.
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While crude seemed to find early support from OPEC’s monthly bulletin, which forecast U.S. oil output will drop in 2016 for the first time in eight years, the focus soon shifted back to OPEC output, which rose 109,000 barrels a day in September to 31.57 million.
Given a lackluster tone in the U.S. stock market and thin trading due to the Columbus Day holiday, futures were ripe for a modest setback, said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.
Flynn contends the market is likely putting in a bottom, as U.S. production falls and producers slash capital spending. But he warned that bottoms “can be messy,” with more volatility likely ahead.
Monday’s setback follows a strong week for crude-oil. Nymex futures last week saw the largest one-week percentage gain since the end of August, climbing 8.9%, while Brent registered a 9.4% increase
Baker Hughes Inc. BHI, -1.70% last week reported a decline in the active U.S. oil rig count for the fifth straight week, dropping by nine, bringing the total count to 605, the lowest since June 2010. Rig count is an important gauge of future production.
“Market confidence is up because we are hearing the same message from everywhere that market is rebalancing,” said Barnabas Gan, an Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. Ltd. oil analyst, identifying Asia, particularly China, as the main demand driver in the near term.
Oil prices have suffered a major blow due to oversupply. Moreover, major oil producers’ reluctance to curb production to protect market share has kept prices in the trough. Both Nymex and Brent prices are down by nearly half since last summer.
However, recent talk of possible collaboration between members and nonmembers of OPEC has injected some optimism into the market.
In its monthly oil report, OPEC said oil supply from countries outside the organization should decline.
“In terms of non-OPEC supply, the impact of lower oil prices on production has resulted in the supply growth forecast being downwardly revised to 720,000 barrels a day in 2015, some 600,000 barrels a day less than the initial forecast and well below the previous year,” OPEC said in the report.
Market participants are watching to see if Saudi Arabia and Russia, the biggest non-OPEC producer, will meet later this month to discuss the oil market, as some reports have indicated, said Stuart Ive, a client manager at OM Financial.
On Sunday, Qatar’s energy minister, Mohammed Al Sada, said oil prices have bottomed out and supplies from non-OPEC countries will likely turn negative next year, while demand could reach 30.5 million barrels a day from 29.3 million in 2015.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for November RBX5, -5.16% —the benchmark gasoline contract—fell 7.56 cents, or 5.3%, to end at $1.3411 a gallon. Nymex natural-gas futures for November delivery NGX15, +1.44% ended with a gain of 3.3 cents, or 1.3%, at $2.535 per million British thermal units.
--Sara Sjolin contributed to this article.
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President Obama, during an oddly confrontational 60 Minutes interview on Syria, managed to slip in a pretty good jab at Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He was responding to a question from interviewer Steve Kroft. Much of the DC punditry has hailed Putin's military intervention in Syria as brilliant and bold, complaining that Putin's predilection for action — even when that action is self-defeating — makes him a better leader than Obama.
Kroft put this criticism to Obama, saying, "You said a year ago that the United States — America leads. We're the indispensable nation. Mr. Putin seems to be challenging that leadership."
Obama: So that's leading, Steve? Let me ask you this question. When I came into office, Ukraine was governed by a corrupt ruler who was a stooge of Mr. Putin. Syria was Russia's only ally in the region. And today, rather than being able to count on their support and maintain the base they had in Syria, which they've had for a long time, Mr. Putin now is devoting his own troops, his own military, just to barely hold together by a thread his sole ally. And in Ukraine—Kroft: He's challenging your leadership, Mr. President. He's challenging your leadership—Obama: Well, Steve, I got to tell you, if you think that running your economy into the ground and having to send troops in in order to prop up your only ally is leadership, then we've got a different definition of leadership.
This is a jab not just at Putin, but also at his ever-devoted fan base in the DC punditry. The Russian leader sure looks good doing foreign policy — decisive! action-oriented! shirtless! — but he's managed to get his country isolated, sanctioned, and mired in two foreign wars. He has no apparent exit strategy and no obvious long-term plan. Both at home and abroad, he is weaker than ever.
Now, just because Putin is doing a bad job doesn't mean that Obama is doing a good job. There is much to criticize on Obama's handling of Syria (more on this later). But it is pretty odd to suggest that American leadership is somehow imperiled because Putin is sinking ever more resources into acostly and doomed mission, or that just because Putin is now flailing around in Syria he is a brave and brilliant chess master.
As Stephen Saideman points out, Russia's record in Ukraine is a pretty good example of Putin's leadership. Yes, he annexed Crimea (which was already under heavy Russian influence), but he lost most of the country in the process; Ukraine, long a reliable Russian proxy, is now actively fighting Russian-backed forces and drifting ever closer to the Western orbit. Yes, his approval ratings are sky-high, but Russia's powerful elites, sanctioned and angry, are getting fed up. Putin expended enormous resources and came out even worse than where he was before.
We're now seeing that same Putin leadership in Syria, and his fan base in the DC punditry could not be more impressed.
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BEIRUT/WASHINGTON U.S. forces have carried out an air drop of small arms ammunition to Syrian Arab rebels in northern Syria, barely two weeks after Russia raised the stakes by intervening in the war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.
A U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday the air drop of supplies to the opposition fighters on Sunday was part of a revamped U.S. strategy announced last week to help rebels in Syria battling Islamic State militants.
Last week, Washington shelved a program to train and equip "moderate" rebels opposed to Assad who would join the fight against Islamic State.
The only group on the ground to have success against Islamic State while cooperating with the U.S.-led coalition is a Kurdish militia, the YPG, which has carved out an autonomous zone in northern Syria and advanced deep into Islamic State's stronghold Raqqa province.
On Monday, the YPG announced a new alliance with small groups of Arab fighters, which could help deflect criticism that it fights only on behalf of Kurds. Washington has indicated that it could direct funding and weapons to Arab commanders on the ground who cooperate with the YPG.
Syrian Arab rebels said they had been told by Washington that new weapons were on their way to help them launch a joint offensive with their Kurdish allies on the city of Raqqa, the de facto Islamic State capital.
The Russian intervention in Syria has wrongfooted the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama, which has been trying to defeat Islamic State while still calling for Assad's downfall.
DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES
After joining the 4-year-old war in Syria, an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to win over opponents of Russia's bombing campaign was snubbed on Monday, with Saudi sources saying they had warned the Kremlin leader of dangerous consequences and Europe issuing its strongest criticism yet.
Putin met Saudi Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of a Formula One race in a Russian resort on Sunday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that those talks, along with discussions with the United States, had yielded progress on the conflict, although Moscow, Washington and Riyadh did not agree in full "as yet".
But a Saudi source said the defense minister, a son of the Saudi king and one of the chief architects of its regional policy, had told Putin that Russia's intervention would escalate the war and inspire militants from around the world to go there to fight.
Riyadh would continue to support Assad's opponents and demand that he leave power, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
European foreign ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, issued a statement calling on Moscow to halt its bombing of Assad's moderate enemies immediately.
They were unable to agree on whether Assad should have any role in ending the crisis but they did decide to extend sanctions by essentially freezing the assets of the spouses of senior Syrian figures.
"The recent Russian military attacks ... are of deep concern and must cease immediately," ministers said in their most strongly-worded statement on Russia's intervention in a war which has claimed the lives of 250,000 people and caused a refugee crisis in neighboring countries and Europe.
"The military escalation risks prolonging the conflict, undermining a political process, aggravating the humanitarian situation and increasing radicalization," said the ministers.
ISLAMIC STATE
Moscow says it targets only banned terrorist groups in Syria, primarily Islamic State. In its briefings, it describes all of the targets it strikes as belonging to Islamic State.
However, most strikes have taken place in areas held by other opposition groups, including many that are supported by Arab states, Turkey and the West in a war which has also assumed a sectarian dimension with Shi'ite Iran at odds with Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers.
For the first time since World War Two, Russian warplanes are flying combat missions in the same air space as Americans, who are leading a military coalition of Western and regional countries that is also bombing Islamic State, with all the accompanying risks.
Those countries say Assad's presence makes the situation worse and he must leave power in any peace settlement. They accuse Moscow of using Islamic State as a pretext to bomb other enemies of Assad, a charge denied by Russia.
Syrian forces and their allies from the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Hezbollah, backed by Iranian military officers, have launched a massive ground offensive in coordination with the Russian air support.
They fought their fiercest clashes on Monday since the assault began, advancing in strategically important territory near the north-south highway linking Syria's main cities.
Russian warplanes carried out at least 30 air strikes on the town of Kafr Nabuda in Hama province in western Syria, and hundreds of shells hit the area.
The Syrian army announced the capture of Kafr Nabuda and four other villages in Hama province. It also said the army had seized Jub al-Ahmar, a highland area in Latakia province which will put more rebel positions in the nearby Ghab Plain within range of the army's artillery.
But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group which monitors the war in Syria, said fierce clashes raged in both Kafr Nabuda and Jub al-Ahmar.
The Observatory's director, Rami Abdulrahmman, said the army and allied forces had taken part of Kafr Nabuda, and were fighting insurgents for full control of the town.
The U.N. diplomat trying to convene talks to end the war said he would hold talks in Russia on Tuesday and then in Washington.
(Additional reporting by William Maclean in Dubai, Tom Perry in Beirut, Gabriela Baczynska in Moscow and Robin Emmott in Luxembourg; Writing by Peter Graff and Giles Elgood, editing by Peter Millership)
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Published on Oct 12, 2015
The human rights group Amnesty International has accused the Saudi-led coalition of war crimes in airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Henry Ridgwell reports the group says hundreds of civilians have been killed in strikes on residential areas.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/am...
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/am...
The human rights group Amnesty International has accused the Saudi-led coalition of war crimes in airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Henry Ridgwell reports the group says hundreds of civilians have been killed in strikes on residential areas.
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/amnesty-accuses-saudi-coalition-of-war-crimes-in-yemen/3002540.html
Originally published at - http://www.voanews.com/media/video/amnesty-accuses-saudi-coalition-of-war-crimes-in-yemen/3002540.html
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe is no longer pressing for the extradition of James Walter Palmer, an American dentist who killed a well-known lion called Cecil, a Cabinet minister said Monday....
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The US military air-drops more than 45 tonnes of ammunition in north-eastern Syria to rebels fighting the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
ALGIERS/TRIPOLI (Reuters) - After months of stalled negotiations, the United Nations has handed Libya's warring factions a unity government proposal in what it calls a major step towards ending the crisis, but the applause of Western officials cannot disguise serious obstacles.
Saudi Arabia's king rejects Iranian suggestions his country should give up management of the Hajj pilgrimage after last month's deadly stampede.
Family members of the dead are looking for answers after a suicide bomber killed 97 people in Turkey on Saturday. 
Funerals and memorials were held in the wake of the deadly twin bombings at a peace rally in Ankara.
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Ayoub Kara says Yemen's Jews are being told to “convert or leave the state."
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Alerted by a passer-by that bearded men with a black flag were acting suspiciously at a castle ruins in southern Sweden, police found to their relief that it wasn’t a group of Islamic State sympathizers but a meeting of hirsute do-gooders.
The U.N. envoy on Syria is urging that the utmost be done to avoid civilian casualties as he tries to bring warring parties together to find a political solution in the country.
The Power Vertical Briefing is a short look ahead to the stories expected to make news in Russia in the coming week.
The EU has criticized Russia's military intervention in Syria with the bloc's top diplomat calling it a worrying "game changer."
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