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Western firms plan to cash in on Syria’s oil and gas ‘frontier’

December 1, 2015

US-led coalition forces carry out a large-scale attack on Syria’s Omar oil field

Western firms plan to cash in on Syria’s oil and gas ‘frontier’

US, British, French, Israeli and other energy interests could be prime beneficiaries of military operations in Iraq and Syria designed to rollback the power of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) and, potentially, the Bashar al-Assad regime.

A study for a global oil services company backed by the French government and linked to Britain’s Tory-led administration, published during the height of the Arab Spring, hailed the significant “hydrocarbon potential” of Syria’s offshore resources.

The 2011 study was printed in GeoArabia, a petroleum industry journal published by a Bahrain-based consultancy, GulfPetroLink, which is sponsored by some of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Total, and BP.

GeoArabia’s content has no open subscription system and is exclusively distributed to transnational energy corporations, corporate sponsors and related organisations, as well as some universities.

Authored by Steven A. Bowman, a Senior Geoscientist for the French energy company CGGVeritas, the study identified “three sedimentary basins, Levantine, Cyprus, and Latakia, located in offshore Syria” and highlighted “significant evidence for a working petroleum system in offshore Syria with numerous onshore oil and gas shows, DHIs (direct hydrocarbon indicators) observed on seismic, and oil seeps identified from satellite imagery.”

France’s secret affair with Assad’s Syria

At the time, when civil unrest was sweeping across Syria, CGGVeritas was contracted to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Sources.

The French company is one of the world’s largest seismic surveyors. Backed by the French government which owns 18% voting rights in the firm, CGGVeritas had acquired seismic data on offshore Syrian resources in 2005, and since then has been the main point of contact for geophysical and geological datasets on behalf of the Syrian regime.

Yes, Turkey IS Buying Oil from ISIS

December 1, 2015

Yes, Turkey IS Buying Oil from ISIS

In response to Russia’s accusation that Turkey is buying oil from ISIS, the Turkish president said that – if that is proven to be true – he’ll resign.

It turns out that Turkey is buying oil from ISIS.

The Guardian reported this summer:

US special forces raided the compound of an Islamic State leader in eastern Syria in May, they made sure not to tell the neighbours.

The target of that raid, the first of its kind since US jets returned to the skies over Iraq last August, was an Isis official responsible for oil smuggling, named Abu Sayyaf. He was almost unheard of outside the upper echelons of the terror group, but he was well known to Turkey. From mid-2013, the Tunisian fighter had been responsible for smuggling oil from Syria’s eastern fields, which the group had by then commandeered. Black market oil quickly became the main driver of Isis revenues – and Turkish buyers were its main clients.

As a result, the oil trade between the jihadis and the Turks was held up as evidence of an alliance between the two.

***

In the wake of the raid that killed Abu Sayyaf, suspicions of an undeclared alliance have hardened. One senior western official familiar with the intelligence gathered at the slain leader’s compound said that direct dealings between Turkish officials and ranking Isis members was now “undeniable”.

ABC news Australia points out today:

In June 2014, a member of Turkey’s parliamentary opposition, Ali Edibogluan, claimed that IS had smuggled $800 million worth of oil into Turkey from Syria and Iraq, according to the Al Monitor website.

He cited oil fields at Rumaila in northern Syria and others near Mosul in Iraq, saying that IS had laid pipes allowing it to “transfer the oil to Turkey and parlay it into cash”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Bizarre Explanation For Why The U.S. Has Avoided Bombing ISIS Oil Wells

November 30, 2015

The Bizarre Explanation For Why The U.S. Has Avoided Bombing ISIS Oil Wells

Why hasn’t the U.S. bombed the oil wells that ISIS controls into oblivion by now? Would you believe that it is because the Obama administration “didn’t want to do environmental damage”? Former Deputy Director of the CIA Michael Morell has publicly admitted that we have purposely avoided damaging the main source of income for ISIS, and his explanation for why we were doing this is utterly bizarre. But at this point what could the Obama administration say that would actually make sense? Everyone now knows that ISIS has been making hundreds of millions of dollars selling oil in Turkey, and that this has been done with the full knowledge and complicity of the Obama White House. This is potentially the biggest scandal of the entire Obama presidency, and yet so far the Republicans have not jumped on it.

If you or I even gave five bucks to ISIS, we would be arrested and hauled off to Guantanamo Bay. And yet Barack Obama is allowing ISIS to funnel massive quantities of oil through our NATO ally Turkey, and he is not doing anything to stop this from happening. It is a betrayal of the American people that is so vast that it is hard to put into words.

By now, virtually everyone on the entire planet knows exactly what is going on. For example, Iraq’s former National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie shared the following on his Facebook page on Saturday…

“First and foremost, the Turks help the militants sell stolen Iraqi and Syrian oil for $20 a barrel, which is half the market price.”

Until Russia started bombing the living daylights out of them, an endless parade of trucks carrying ISIS oil would go back and forth over the Turkish border completely unmolested.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: “Raqqa’s Rockefellers”, Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection

November 29, 2015

ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: “Raqqa’s Rockefellers”, Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection

“Effectively, we have been financially discriminated against for a long time. By early 2014, when we did not receive the budget, we decided we need to start thinking about independent oil sales” — Ashti Hawrami, Kurdistan’s minister for natural resources

In June of 2014, the SCF Altai (an oil tanker) arrived at Ashkelon port. Hours later, the first shipment of Kurdish pipeline oil was being unloaded in Israel. “Securing the first sale of oil from its independent pipeline is crucial for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) as it seeks greater financial independence from war-torn Iraq,” Reuters noted at the time, adding that “the new export route to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, designed to bypass Baghdad’s federal pipeline system, has created a bitter dispute over oil sale rights between the central government and the Kurds.”

A week earlier, the SCF Altai received the Kurdish oil in a ship-to-ship transfer from the The United Emblem off the coast of Malta. The United Emblem loaded the crude at Ceyhan where a pipeline connects the Turkish port to Kurdistan.

The Kurds’ move to sell crude independent of Baghdad stems from a long-running budget dispute. Without delving too far into the details, Erbil is entitled to 17% of Iraqi oil revenue and in return, the KRG is supposed to transfer some 550,000 bpd to SOMO (Iraq’s state-run oil company). Almost immediately after the deal was struck late last year, Baghdad claimed the Kurds weren’t keeping up their end of the bargain and so, only a fraction of the allocated budget was sent to Erbil during the first five months of the year.

This was simply a continuation of a protracted disagreement between Erbil and Baghdad over how much of the state’s crude revenue should flow to the KRG. For its part, Iraq has threatened to sue anyone that buys independently produced Kurdish oil.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Collision Course in Syria

November 29, 2015

The Collision Course in Syria

Exclusive: President Obama’s continued insistence on “regime change” in Syria and his support for Sunni jihadists not called ISIS have escalated tensions with Moscow, especially after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane along the Syrian border. This division may help only the extremists, writes Daniel Lazare.

With Turkey downing a Russian Su-24 warplane along the Turkish-Syrian border this week, dire predictions about the dangers of escalation in the Syrian conflict are coming true. Events are spinning out of control as Syria turns into a happy hunting ground for military forces locked on a mutual collision course.

Up to 50 U.S. Special Operations troops are due to enter Syria shortly in support of a hastily assembled Arab-Kurdish coalition that could easily come under Russian or Turkish attack. The U.S. is stepping up its bombing raids, destroying another 238 ISIS fuel trucks in eastern Syria last weekend. Russia is targeting tankers plus an ISIS training camp in Idlib in Syria’s far north, while France has also upped its bombing campaign since Nov. 13 in response to ISIS claiming credit for the terror attacks in Paris.

If Turkey seemed to be holding back from joining the fight against ISIS, the fact that ethnically-related Syrian Turkmen villagers have come into Russia’s line of fire – as part of Moscow’s broader attack on Islamic militants seeking to overthrow the Syrian government – may have been a significant factor in persuading Turkey to enter the fray by shooting down the Russian plane.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drone terror: Welcome to the barbarism of ‘civilisation’

November 28, 2015

Drone terror: Welcome to the barbarism of ‘civilisation’

Mass murder is fine as long we are the ones doing the killing to stop other people killing us

Terrorists like to believe they are committing mass murder for a noble political cause.

Islamic State (IS) acolytes believe they are fighting against the evil “Crusader” states of the kuffar (disbelievers), to establish a global khilafah (caliphate).

“War on terror” proponents believe they are defending Western civilisation against barbaric terrorists hell-bent on destroying our “values” and “way of life”.

Both frames depict the enemy in sub-human terms, as barbarians outside the gate. Both justify colossal destruction of civilian life as necessary and inevitable to obtain noble political goals.

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, once again, people wondered, debated: how can people become so unfathomably evil that they deliberately commit mass violence against innocent civilians?

The answer is simple: dehumanisation. Killing is easier when those you are killing are categorised as existing somehow outside the frame of one’s own humanity, and thus, less than human, Other.

The brutal massacre of 130 people in Paris on a Friday night, in the heart of the city, when people were out with friends and family, illustrates how terror works: strike suddenly, to inflict fear and panic, to paralyse society. President Hollande rightly described the mass murders as an “act of war,” requiring a “pitiless” response.

Imagine, though, if attacks like that undertaken by IS in Paris were inflicted every other day on France and other Western countries. Imagine if a Charlie Hebdo-style massacre erupted every other week in the US, UK and France, killing a dozen or so victims at a time.

The outcry would be, rightly, deafening. Demands for retaliation would be self-evidently sensible. The need to take “all necessary measures” to crush the terrorists would be unanimously agreed on by Western leaders. Civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria might be dismissed as regrettable “collateral damage” in necessary self-defence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence

November 27, 2015

How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence

Over the course of the last four or so weeks, the media has paid quite a bit of attention to Islamic State’s lucrative trade in “stolen” crude.

On November 16, in a highly publicized effort, US warplanes destroyed 116 ISIS oil trucks in Syria. 45 minutes prior, leaflets were dropped advising drivers (who Washington is absolutely sure are not ISIS members themselves) to “get out of [their] trucks and run away.”

The peculiar thing about the US strikes is that it took The Pentagon nearly 14 months to figure out that the most effective way to cripple Islamic State’s oil trade is to bomb… the oil.

Prior to November, the US “strategy” revolved around bombing the group’s oil infrastructure. As it turns out, that strategy was minimally effective at best and it’s not entirely clear that an effort was made to inform The White House, Congress, and/or the public about just how little damage the airstrikes were actually inflicting. There are two possible explanations as to why Centcom may have sought to make it sound as though the campaign was going better than it actually was, i) national intelligence director James Clapper pulled a Dick Cheney and pressured Maj. Gen. Steven Grove into delivering upbeat assessments, or ii) The Pentagon and the CIA were content with ineffectual bombing runs because intelligence officials were keen on keeping Islamic State’s oil revenue flowing so the group could continue to operate as a major destabilizing element vis-a-vis the Assad regime.

Ultimately, Russia cried foul at the perceived ease with which ISIS transported its illegal oil and once it became clear that Moscow was set to hit the group’s oil convoys, the US was left with virtually no choice but to go along for the ride. Washington’s warplanes destroyed another 280 trucks earlier this week. Russia claims to have vaporized more than 1,000 transport vehicles in November.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Turkey Arrests Journalists Who Exposed Erdogan’s Weapons Smuggling To Extremist Syrian Rebels

November 27, 2015

Turkey Arrests Journalists Who Exposed Erdogan’s Weapons Smuggling To Extremist Syrian Rebels

One of Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s key contentions in the ongoing diplomatic spat with Russia is that everything that Russia has accused Turkey of doing, from funding the Islamic State’s oil purchases, to providing weapons for Syrian “rebels” intent on eradicating the Assad regime, is unfounded slander without a shred of evidence.

Here is the problem: evidence does exist, as we showed two days ago, when we presented the role Erdogan’s son Bilal has played in ISIS oil transit, and not only that but also proof that Turkey has been smuggling weapons to Syria as the editor and a reporter from Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper showed some time ago.

And in order to eradicate the evidence against him, yesterday Erdogan did what every dictator does when feeling threatened: he had the editor and his reported detained, jailed and accused of espionage precisely over the controversial story about an alleged arms shipment from Turkish intelligence to Syrian rebels.

The two Cumhuriyet journalists were accused of “political or military spying” by reporting “classified information” and “deliberately aiding a terrorist organization.”

In fact, Erdogan personally sued Dundar and is requesting that he be given a life sentence, an aggravated life sentence and an additional 42-year term in prison on charges related to a variety of crimes, ranging from espionage to attempting to topple the government and exposing secret information.

What the reporters were really doing is their job.

As the WSJ reports, “Turkish authorities on Thursday imprisoned Can Dundar, editor in chief of Cumhuriyet, and Erdem Gul, the newspaper’s capital correspondent in Ankara, on charges of spying and aiding a terrorist organization, the newspaper’s attorney said. If convicted, the two men would face life in prison over the charges.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

War is Likely After Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet, Ignores Putin’s Warning

November 27, 2015

War is Likely After Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet, Ignores Putin’s Warning

It seems like full-blown war is only two seconds away with the wicked brew boiling in the Middle East. The latest?

Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border yesterday, claiming it did so after the plane violated Turkish airspace and was given ten warnings to leave which were ignored. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said they decided to shoot it down because the plane “did not answer our warning”.

Both pilots bailed out. Russian media later reported that one of the pilots was killed by fire ISIS shot at them from the ground. Turkmen forces in Syria said both pilots were shot dead as they parachuted from the plane.

The US Ambassador to Turkey then Tweeted “Understand this: Turkey is a country whose warnings should be taken seriously and listened to. Don’t test Turkey’s patience. Try to win its friendship.”

Serdar Kilic

✔@serdarkilic9

Anlayın artık.Türkiye sözü de, uyarıları da dikkate alınması gereken bir ülkedir. Sabrını test etmeyin, dostluğunu kazanmaya çalışın.

5:50 AM – 24 Nov 2015

However, the other pilot did survive, and he said that no warnings were received from Turkey before the plane was hit.

In response, Putin shot back with some pretty harsh language, saying this was a “stab in the back” by the “terrorists’ accomplices”:

The shooting of the plane, Putin said, “represents a stab in the back by the terrorists’ accomplices. I can’t describe what has happened today in any other way. Our plane was downed over Syrian territory by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16 jet.

“The plane fell on Syrian territory 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the Turkish border. It was flying 1 kilometer away from the Turkish border when it was attacked. In any case, neither our pilots nor our jet posed any threat to Turkey. That is obvious. They were carrying out an operation fighting against ISIL in Northern Latakia.” (ISIL is another acronym for ISIS.) (source)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President

November 26, 2015

Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey’s President

Russia’s Sergey Lavrov is not one foreign minister known to mince his words. Just earlier today, 24 hours after a Russian plane was brought down by the country whose president three years ago said “a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack”, had this to say: “We have serious doubts this was an unintended incident and believe this is a planned provocation” by Turkey.

But even that was tame compared to what Lavrov said to his Turkish counterparty Mevlut Cavusoglu earlier today during a phone call between the two (Lavrov who was supposed to travel to Turkey has since canceled such plans).

As Sputnik transcribes, according to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov pointed out that, “by shooting down a Russian plane on a counter-terrorist mission of the Russian Aerospace Force in Syria, and one that did not violate Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish government has in effect sided with ISIS.”

It was in this context when Lavrov added that “Turkey’s actions appear premeditated, planned, and undertaken with a specific objective.”

More importantly, Lavrov pointed to Turkey’s role in the propping up the terror network through the oil trade. Per the Russian statement:

“The Russian Minister reminded his counterpart about Turkey’s involvement in the ISIS’ illegal trade in oil, which is transported via the area where the Russian plane was shot down, and about the terrorist infrastructure, arms and munitions depots and control centers that are also located there.”

Others reaffirmed Lavrov’s stance, such as retired French General Dominique Trinquand, who said that “Turkey is either not fighting ISIL at all or very little, and does not interfere with different types of smuggling that takes place on its border, be it oil, phosphate, cotton or people,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drudge Sends the Biggest Secret Viral: “America Has Been Arming ISIS”

November 26, 2015

Drudge Sends the Biggest Secret Viral: “America Has Been Arming ISIS”

ISIS-drudge-tweet

The biggest open secret in the world has just been tweeted by the world’s biggest news aggregator.

Matt Drudge drives so much web traffic that he basically has his own gravity, and now the often-reclusive figure has sent out a message that should be a wake-up call for those who have been broadcasting news about the threat that ISIS poses.

Following their mass murder spree in Paris, the terrorist group is supposedly planning attacking inside America, all while taking supposedly also taking on the biggest military powers in the world during their protracted struggle for an Islamic State caliphate inside Syria and Iraq.

What would the world do if it realized the truth – that ISIS is the creation of Western forces, and that the United States has in fact been arming and supporting their own worst enemy?:

A shocking truth is unfolding: America has been arming ISIS…

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 24, 2015

This bombshell tweet echoes numerous reports from inside the alternative media pointing out the sick truth behind the shocking resurgence of terrorism.

Barry Donegan of Truth in Media wrote:

Influential conservative news aggregator Matt Drudge issued a tweet on Tuesday acknowledging the growing body of evidence that suggests that the U.S. has participated in arming the terror group ISIS.

Drudge’s realization follows nearly two years of Truth in Media coverage of how U.S. foreign policy is enabling terrorism in Syria and Iraq and has led to the rise of ISIS.

In September of 2013, Ben Swann reported on how U.S. efforts to arm radical Islamist rebel groups against secular Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad were empowering extremists who were planning to create what he described at the time as an “al-Qaeda ‘super state,’ comprised of Iraq and Syria.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Turkish Shootdown of Russian Jet: What You Need to Know

November 25, 2015

Turkish Shootdown of Russian Jet: What You Need to Know

A U.S. official told Reuters that the Russian jet was inside of Syria when it was shot down:

The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Russia denies that the Russian fighter jet – which was bombing ISIS – ever entered Turkish air space, and has put out its own map purporting to prove that claim.

The Russian jet pilots who parachutted free of their burning plane were then purportedly killed by Turkish rebels inside Syria. If true, this is a war crime.

Then – when a Russian helicopter tried to save the pilots – it was shot down by American-backed Syrian rebels – using weapons provided to them by the United States – and a Russian marine was killed.

Russia is deploying a warship off the Syrian coast to “destroy any threats to Russian planes”. Many believe this is the start of World War III.

While the U.S. and NATO tried to blame Russia, German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel slammedTurkey:

“This incident shows for the first time that we are to dealing with an actor who is unpredictable according to statements from various parts of the region – that is not Russia, that is Turkey,” Gabriel said, as cited by DPA news agency. He added that Turkey was playing “a complicated role” in the Syrian conflict.

Indeed, NATO-member Turkey is MASSIVELY supporting ISIS, provided chemical weapons used in the jihadi’s massacre of civilians, and has been bombing ISIS’ main on-the-ground enemy – Kurdish soldiers – using its air force. And some of the Turkish people are also unsympathetic to the victims of ISIS terrorism.Turkey was also instrumental in the creation of ISIS.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Turkey Has Destroyed Russia’s Hope Of Western Cooperation

November 25, 2015

Turkey Has Destroyed Russia’s Hope Of Western Cooperation

UPDATE: A friend, George Abert, suggested a reason why the Turks shot down the Russian fighter-bomber over Syria. The Russians have a technology that they recently demonstrated against the newest US missile cruiser and Israel’s US jet fighters. The technology shuts down the communication systems of hostile forces, leaving them blind. He wonders if the Russian aircraft was shot down in order to encourage the Russians to use its unknown technology whenever Russian aircraft are in the vicinity of NATO and Israeli aircraft. He bets that the US has sent every Raven and ELINT specialist to the area in hopes that Russia’s use of the technology will allow them to learn enough about the system to duplicate it or learn how to block it.

Turkey’s unprovoked shoot-down of a Russian military aircraft over Syria raises interesting questions. It seems unlikely that the Turkish government would commit an act of war against a much more powerful neighbor unless Washington had cleared the attack. Turkey’s government is not very competent, but even the incompetent know better than to put themselves into a position of facing Russia alone.

If the attack was cleared with Washington, was Obama bypassed by the neocons who control his government, or is Obama himself complicit? Clearly the neoconservatives are disturbed by the French president’s call for unity with Russia against ISIL and easily could have used their connections to Turkey to stage an event that Washington can use to prevent cooperation with Russia.

Washington’s complicity is certainly indicated, but it is not completely out of the question that the well-placed Turks who are purchasing oil from ISIL took revenge against Russia for destroying their oil tanker investments and profitable business.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO Is Harboring ISIS, And Here’s The Evidence

November 25, 2015

NATO Is Harboring ISIS, And Here’s The Evidence

For the better part of a year, Turkey remained on the sidelines in the “fight” against ISIS.

Then, on July 20, a powerful explosion ripped through the town of Suruc. 33 people were killed including a number of Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) members who planned to assist in the rebuilding of Kobani.

The attack was promptly attributed to Islamic State who took “credit” for the tragedy the next day.

To be sure, the attack came at a rather convenient time for President Tayyip Erdogan. A little over a month earlier, the ruling AKP party lost its absolute parliamentary majority in part due to a strong showing at the ballot box for the pro-Kurdish (and PKK-aligned) HDP. What happened in the wake of the Suruc bombing was nothing short of a largely successful attempt on Erdogan’s part to use fear and violence to scare the electorate into restoring AKP’s dominance in snap elections that took place earlier this month.

In short, Erdogan used Suruc as an excuse to begin a “war on terror.” Part and parcel of the new campaign was an invite from Ankara for Washington to use Turkey’s Incirlik air base. Subsequently, Erdogan reminded the world that the PKK is also considered a terrorist organization and as such, the anti-ISIS campaign would also include a crackdown on Kurdish militants operating in Turkey. Erdogan proceeded to focus squarely on the PKK, all but ignoring ISIS while simultaneously undercutting the coalition building process on the way to calling for new elections. Unsurprisingly, AKP put on a much better showing in the electoral redo, and with that, Erdogan had succeeded in using ISIS as a smokescreen to start a civil war with the PKK, in the process frightening voters into restoring his party’s grip on power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Presenting SocGen’s 5 Black Swans For 2016

November 24, 2015

Presenting SocGen’s 5 Black Swans For 2016

If you’re the type who likes black swans this has been the month for you.

On the political front, Portugal’s Socialists, led by Antonio Costa, formed an alliance with the Left Bloc and the Communists on the way to overthrowing the Passos Coelho government and presaging a repudiation of Berlin’s brand of fiscal rectitude. This throws the country’s austerity program into doubt and sets up not only a confrontation with the troika, but also the potential loss of access to ECB QE should a deteriorating fiscal situation prompt a DBRS downgrade.

In Spain, Catalonia is in the midst of a secession bid which, depending on Catalan political infighting and how far Rajoy wants to push things ahead of national elections set for next month, could see a fifth of Spain’s GDP separate, causing Spanish debt-to-GDP to jump by some 25%.

As far as geopolitics goes, ISIS Sinai downed a Russian passenger plane killing all 224 people on board and then, not even two weeks later, ISIS proper waged war in the streets of Paris killing 130 people. As if those two bombshells weren’t enough, Turkey decided to shoot down a Russian fighter jet this morning.

Finally, 12 month forwards for the Saudi riyal seem to indicate that the market believes the three decade-old dollar peg is about to fall under pressure from slumping crude and falling FX reserves. BofAML calls the possibility of a Saudi depeg the “number one black swan event for the global oil market in 2016.”

And those are just the black swans that have landed in the last 30 days.

In its latest quarterly Global Economic Outlook, SocGen takes a look at five political and economic black swans that could touch down in 2016 and also warns that “high levels of public sector debt, already overburdened monetary policy, still high debt stocks and on-going balance sheet clean ups in a number of economies leave the global economy will a low level of ammunition to deal with new shocks.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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