US, Japan bolster alliance against N. Korea, keep military option open

The United States and Japan on Thursday agreed to strengthen their cooperation against North Korea and promised to respond forcefully to any attack by Pyongyang after a close adviser to President Donald Trump said that a military solution to tensions with Pyongyang is not viable.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis welcomed their Japanese counterparts - Taro Kono and Itsunori Onodera, respectively - to Washington for the first bilateral security dialogue since Trump took office in January.

Source: Reuters

Russian FM: US threats of military intervention in Venezuela are unacceptable

Russia's foreign minister on Wednesday described the threats of a military intervention in Venezuela made by the United States president as unacceptable.

Sergey Lavrov was at a joint press conference in Moscow following bilateral talks with his Bolivian counterpart, Fernando Huanakuni Mamani, as he rebuked recent comments by Donald Trump regarding a possible US military intervention in the South American country.

Source: EFE

Woman killed in Virginia attack identified as anti-racism demonstrator

A woman killed when a car slammed into counter-protesters following the cancelation of a planned white supremacist march in this eastern US city was identified Sunday by authorities as 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

The paralegal at a law firm and resident of Charlottesville, a college town of 50,000 people, was "struck down by a vehicle while exercising her peaceful first-amendment right to speech," city officials said in a statement.

Source: EFE

China should not back US in case of war with North Korea, Global Times says

China should stay neutral if North Korea initiates an armed conflict with the United States, but must prevent any attack by South Korea or the US, said Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, Friday.

In its latest editorial, the Times acknowledged Beijing's failure to persuade Washington or Pyongyang to back down, but must respond firmly if its regional interests are jeopardized by a possible conflict.

Source: EFE

Oil slides from nine-week highs as market looks to OPEC

Oil prices edged down from nine-week highs on Monday, pressured by worries over high production from OPEC and the United States.

Global benchmark Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down 67 cents, or 1.28 percent, at $51.75 a barrel at 1344 GMT. They traded as low as $51.56 a barrel earlier in the day.

U.S. crude futures CLc1 were down 67 cents, or 1.35 percent, at $48.91 per barrel, but up from the day's low of $48.78 a barrel.

Both contracts stood more than $1 below the levels hit last week, which marked their highest since late May, when oil producers, led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, had extended a deal to reduce output by 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) until the end of next March.

Doubts have since emerged about the effectiveness of the cuts because OPEC output hit a 2017 high in July and its exports hit a record.

"The market is looking for comment from Saudi Arabia signaling OPEC will meet its agreed target," Hans van Cleef, senior energy economist with ABN AMRO, said. "The possibility for (price) movement seems limited unless OPEC comes out with a statement."

Officials from a joint OPEC and non-OPEC technical committee are meeting in Abu Dhabi on Monday and Tuesday to discuss ways to boost compliance with the deal.

The doubts about the OPEC production deal outweighed the impact of a protest at Libya's Sharara oilfield, which led to a brief shutdown starting late on Sunday. The country's National Oil Corp. said production at the 270,000 bpd field was restarting on Monday.

High oil output in the United States counteracted other bullish factors, including a Baker Hughes report on Friday that showed a cut of one drilling rig in the week to Aug. 4, bringing the total count down to 765. RIG-OL-USA-BHI

U.S. weekly oil production hit 9.43 million bpd in the week to July 28, the highest since August 2015 and up 12 percent from its most recent low in June last year. C-OUT-T-EIA

Still, some analysts said strong words from OPEC could help to shore up prices.

"The negative price impact at the start of the week coming from OPEC and compliance focus will probably dissipate," SEB Markets chief commodities analyst Bjarne Schieldrop said.

"Saudi Arabia will restate that they will export only 6.6 million bpd (six-year low) in August and inventories will continue to draw down."

Source: Reuters

Putin: US Embassy in Russia to lose 755 staffers

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Sunday that 755 workers at the US Embassy and consulates in his nation - including diplomatic and technical personnel - will have to cease their work starting Sept. 1.

More than 1,000 officials work in Russia for the US Embassy and now 755 of them must stop doing so, said Putin in a interview with Russian state television Rossiya 1.

Source: EFE

Russia responds to sanctions threat, orders USA to cut its diplomatic corps

Moscow has ordered the United States to slash the number of staff at its Russian embassy in response to further sanctions being mulled over in Washington amid a growing diplomatic rift between the two countries, Russia's Foreign Ministry announced Friday.

A package of punitive measures for Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 US election and for its military venture into eastern Ukraine and the Crimea has passed through both houses of the US Congress and awaits the final verdict from President Donald Trump.

The ministry told the US to cut its Russia-based staff from Sept. 1, and mirror Russia's diplomatic corps in the US: "This means that the total number of personnel involved in the American diplomatic and consular institutions in the Russian Federation is reduced to 455."

Any actions to further reduce the number of Russian diplomatic staff working in the US would be matched tit-for-tat, the statement said, adding: "We reserve the right on other mutual measures, which can affect US interests."

Russian officials also suspended the use of US embassy storage facilities in Moscow as well as a vacation house used by US staff.

Russia denounced what it termed an entrenched Russophobia in the decision-making circles of the US and said the pursuit of further sanctions against Moscow showed that bilateral relations had become hostage to internal political struggles in Washington.

"The US is stubbornly taking one crudely anti-Russian step after another, using the utterly fictitious pretext of Russian interference in its internal affairs," the ministry said.

Moscow's decision came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin described the US sanctions bill as "anti-Russian hysteria."

Russia maintains that the sanctions being drawn up against it are illegal and baseless but the West maintains its accusation that it interfered in the US vote and of destabilizing eastern Ukraine by supporting pro-Russian rebels in the civil war that erupted there in 2014 as Moscow moved to annex the Crimean Peninsula.

It remains to be seen whether Trump will give his backing to the proposed sanctions, which also include punitive measures against North Korea and Iran.

Members of Trump's inner circle have been dogged by claims that they colluded with Russians to gather information on the then-Republican candidate's Democrat Party opponent Hillary Clinton.

The current White House administration denies collusion.

Source: EFE

Russia, EU bristle at proposed new U.S. sanctions on Moscow, warn of action

Russia warned it was edging closer to retaliation against Washington after the House of Representatives backed new U.S. sanctions on Moscow, while the European Union said the move might affect its energy security and it stood ready to act too.

The lower house of the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions on Moscow on Tuesday and to force President Donald Trump to obtain lawmakers' permission before easing any punitive measures on Russia.

"This is rather sad news from the point of view of Russia-U.S. ties," said Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman. "We are talking about an extremely unfriendly act."

He said President Vladimir Putin would decide if and how Moscow would retaliate once the fresh sanctions became law, while Russia's deputy foreign minister warned the move was taking bilateral relations into uncharted waters, killing off any hope of improving them in the near future.

The sanctions still need to be approved by the Senate and by President Donald Trump himself. But Bob Corker, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said on Wednesday the measure was likely to become law "very, very soon".

Trump, who has found his presidency embroiled in a distracting row over his associates' alleged ties to Moscow and is on the defensive over accusations Moscow helped him win election last year, has said he is keen to try to mend relations with Russia that are languishing at a post-Cold War low.

But most White House watchers believe Trump will reluctantly sign off on the new sanctions, given deep support for them among U.S. lawmakers, including fellow Republicans, and his desire to avoid being accused of being soft on Moscow.

The U.S. sanctions demarche has rattled Russia, which fears that its economy, weakened by a 2014 batch of Western sanctions imposed over its role in the Ukraine crisis, will now find it harder to recover and grow. Foreign investors could be scared off and the original sanctions would remain in place longer.

For its part, the European Union frets the new U.S. move could throw up obstacles to its firms doing business with Russia and threaten the bloc's energy supply lines.

The Kremlin, which flatly denies interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to the benefit of Trump - a charge that helped propel the House action - says Washington is in the grip of what it calls anti-Russian hysteria.

Moscow has called the new sanctions "an extremely unfriendly step" that would hurt bilateral ties and international trade.

Peskov complained of a blow against international law. But he said Moscow would wait until the sanctions became law before fully analyzing them and deciding how to respond.

The new sanctions legislation risks sinking Trump's own agenda to improve ties with Moscow altogether.

"Uncharted Territory"

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Interfax news agency that relations were now entering "uncharted territory in a political and diplomatic sense".

Moscow had initially hoped that Trump, who made upbeat statements about Putin before winning the White House, would work to repair the U.S.-Russia relationship.

But it has watched with frustration as the vote-meddling allegations have killed off hopes of any detente despite what it considered a positive first meeting between Trump and Putin at a G20 meeting in Germany earlier this month.

Ryabkov said the latest sanctions step in Congress left no room to improve relations in the near future.

He also made clear Moscow was growing tired of showing restraint over what it sees as a series of diplomatic slights.

The Foreign Ministry said earlier this month that too many American spies were operating in Russia under diplomatic cover and that it might expel some of them to retaliate for the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats last year by then-President Barack Obama's administration.

That warning reflected rising frustration in Moscow over the Trump administration's refusal to hand back two Russian diplomatic compounds seized by the Obama administration at the same time as the diplomats were sent home.

Putin opted not to retaliate immediately at the time, saying he would wait to see what the new Trump administration would do.

However, many Russian politicians increasingly believe Trump's political foes and Congress have successfully squeezed the U.S. president's room for maneuver on Russia to almost nil and they have nothing to lose by retaliating themselves.

Konstantin Kosachyov, who heads the foreign relations committee in Russia's upper house of parliament, urged the Kremlin to devise a "painful" response and said Russian lawmakers had already begun to discuss how best to hit back.

European Union Anger

In Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said the EU was ready to act "within a matter of days" if it felt the new U.S. sanctions undermined the bloc's energy security.

Brussels fears the new sanctions will damage European firms and oil and gas projects on which the EU is dependent.

"The U.S. bill could have unintended unilateral effects that impact the EU's energy security interests," Juncker said in a statement after a meeting of European Commissioners.

"This is why the Commission concluded today that if our concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days. America first cannot mean that Europe's interests come last."

The Commission said the U.S. House bill demonstrated that a number of EU concerns had been taken into account, but did envisage sanctions on any company, including European, that worked on Russian energy export pipelines.

That, it said, could affect maintenance and upgrades of pipelines in Russia feeding natural gas to Europe via Ukraine, or projects crucial to the EU's energy diversification goals, such as the Baltic Liquefied Natural Gas project.

"The EU is fully committed to the Russia sanctions regime. However, G7 unity on sanctions and close coordination among allies are at the heart of ensuring the full implementation of the Minsk Agreements. This is a core objective that the EU and the US share," Juncker said.

The 2015 deal mandated a ceasefire between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists, a pullback of heavy weapons and elections in rebel-held territory. But little has been done, and sporadic fighting continues.

The European Union, the Commission also said, was raising its concerns via "all diplomatic channels".

Source: Reuters

China says U.S. talks covered joint efforts on excess steel capacity

Seeking a more positive spin on U.S.-China economic talks viewed as ending in discord, China said on Thursday that the two sides agreed to "active and effective measures" to reduce global excess steel production capacity.

The statement issued a day after the talks by the Chinese embassy in Washington did not elaborate on the measures discussed by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan on Wednesday.

"In this breakout session, the two sides focused their discussion on steel, aluminum and high-tech trade," the embassy said in a statement. "The two sides had in-depth discussion on cutting excess steel production capacity in the world and agreed to active and effective measures to jointly address this global issue."

A U.S. Commerce Department spokesman declined comment on the Chinese statement and referred Reuters to a joint statement from Ross and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Their statement did not mention steel and cited only one point of consensus, a "shared objective" to work toward reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China.

Late on Wednesday, a Trump administration official told Reuters that China had refused to agree to U.S. demands that it eliminate excess steel capacity and take other steps to open its economy for foreign firms.

The first annual economic summit between the Trump administration and their Chinese counterparts ended with canceled news conferences, no joint statement and no new transaction announcements.

The Chinese embassy statement also said China agreed to "deepen its cooperation" with the United States on expanding trade in services. The two sides also will start work on a one-year economic cooperation plan, determining an "early harvest" as soon as possible.

Before the latest Chinese statement, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced that China would allow imports of U.S. rice for the first time, agreeing to phytosanitary protocols.

Tougher Stances

The rocky dialogue session in Washington was a sharp contrast to U.S. President Donald Trump's rosy first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump's Mar-A-Lago, Florida estate in April.

Both sides found each other harder to deal with than expected, China trade experts said.

The Trump team's expectations that Beijing would agree to quick, substantial reforms to shrink the U.S. trade deficit and eliminate excess steelmaking capacity were dashed, while China found that further minor steps and vague action plans would no longer placate the U.S. side.

"There was a misalignment of expectations. The Americans pushed for deliverables, and the Chinese said no, everything is fine," said Scott Miller, an Asia trade expert at the Center for Strategic and Economic Studies in Washington. "These are difficult issues that don't lend themselves toward easy boxes to check."

Domestic politics contributed to both sides taking a tougher stance, said Eswar Prasad, a trade policy professor at Cornell University and former China division chief at the International Monetary Fund.

China faces a once-in-five-years Communist Party congress to set new leadership this autumn, while Trump is keen to hold to campaign promises to help ailing U.S. steel and coal industries and grow U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Prasad said that China found that the Trump administration is "no pushover" on trade and may need to offer bigger concessions to keep its relationship with its biggest trading partner on an even keel.

"The administration seems unwilling to settle for further symbolic, cosmetic victories in terms of access to China’s markets and is pressing for more specific and time-bound commitments from China about opening up its markets to U.S. exporters and investors," he added.

Source: Reuters

North Korea may have more bomb fuel than thought - U.S. think tank

Thermal images of North Korea's main nuclear site show Pyongyang may have reprocessed more plutonium than previously thought that can be used to enlarge its nuclear weapons stockpile, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.

The analysis by 38 North, a Washington-based North Korean monitoring project, was based on satellite images of the radiochemical laboratory at the Yongbyon nuclear plant from September until the end of June, amid rising international concerns over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

The think tank said images of the uranium enrichment facility at Yongbyon could also indicate operation of centrifuges that could be used to increase North Korea’s stock of enriched uranium, its other source of bomb fuel.

There were signs too of at least short-term activity at North Korea’s Experimental Light Water Reactor that could be cause for concern, 38 North said.

Reuters received a copy of the report before its scheduled release later on Friday.

The images of the radiochemical laboratory showed there had been at least two reprocessing cycles not previously known aimed at producing "an undetermined amount of plutonium that can further increase North Korea’s nuclear weapons stockpile," something that would worry U.S. officials who see Pyongyang as one of the world's top security threats.

It was unclear if the thermal activity detected at the uranium plant was the result of centrifuge operations or maintenance.

It said the thermal patterns at the plant's isotope/tritium production facility suggested it was not operational and was therefore not producing tritium, an essential isotope used in boosted yield and hydrogen weapons.

North Korea manufactures atomic bombs using uranium and plutonium and has tested five nuclear bombs. Officials and experts say it could test a sixth at any time, despite U.S.-led international efforts to curb its program.

Pyongyang said its penultimate test in January 2016 was of a hydrogen bomb, something experts have treated with skepticism.

North Korea has been working to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the United States and last week tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile, which experts said could hit all of Alaska and parts of the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Experts at 38 North estimated in April that North Korea could have as many as 20 nuclear bombs and could produce one more each month.

A report by U.S.-based nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker published by 38 North last September estimated North Korea had stockpiles of 32 to 54 kg (70 to 119 pounds) of plutonium, enough for six to eight bombs.

Source: Reuters

Oil rises above $48 as API reports drop in U.S. fuel stocks

Oil rose above $48 a barrel on Wednesday in response to a fall in U.S. fuel inventories and a cut in the U.S. government's forecast for crude output, despite suggestions from OPEC that the oil market will see a surplus next year.

U.S. crude inventories fell by 8.1 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) said on Tuesday.

Official inventory data from the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) is due at 1430 GMT. [EIA/S]

Brent crude LCOc1, the global benchmark, was up 73 cents at $48.25 a barrel by 1247 GMT. U.S. crude CLc1 gained 81 cents to $45.85.

"While further upside could be expected in the short term amid the speculations of a cut in U.S production, gains may be limited by the firm oversupply dynamics of the markets," FXTM analyst Lukman Otunuga said.

The drop in U.S. crude stocks will raise hopes that a long-awaited market rebalancing is under way. A supply glut has stuck around for three years, despite an OPEC-led output cut in 2017, keeping oil at less than half its price of mid-2014.

Also supporting prices, the EIA said on Tuesday it expected U.S. crude oil production to rise by less than previously forecast next year due to a lower price outlook.

The lower 2018 forecast of 9.9 million barrels per day will ease concerns that the OPEC-led supply cut will lead to a flood of competing U.S. shale supplies, swamping the OPEC effort.

Still, output of 9.9 million bpd would be a record for U.S. production.

The production cut led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has lent prices some support, but in recent weeks rising output from Libya and Nigeria - OPEC members exempt from the deal - has pushed supply higher.

In its monthly report, OPEC said its oil output rose by 393,000 bpd in June to 32.611 million bpd led by a rebound in Nigeria and Libya, plus extra barrels from Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

"We remain very optimistic ... (about) helping the market to rebalance itself," OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said at an industry conference in Istanbul.

A Saudi industry source said on Wednesday that Riyadh planned to reduce shipments in August by more than 600,000 bpd, taking exports for that month to their lowest this year.

OPEC forecast the world will need 32.20 million bpd of crude from its members next year, down 60,000 bpd from this year.

Source: Reuters

Trump backtracks on cyber unit with Russia after harsh criticism

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday backtracked on his push for a cyber security unit with Russia, tweeting that he did not think it could happen, hours after his proposal was harshly criticized by Republicans who said Moscow could not be trusted.

Trump said on Twitter early on Sunday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed on Friday forming "an impenetrable Cyber Security unit" to address issues like the risk of cyber meddling in elections.

The idea appeared to be a political non-starter. It was immediately scorned by several of Trump's fellow Republicans, who questioned why the United States would work with Russia after Moscow's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

"It's not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it's pretty close," Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

Ash Carter, who was U.S. defense secretary until the end of former Democratic President Barack Obama's administration in January, told CNN flatly: "This is like the guy who robbed your house proposing a working group on burglary."

Trump's advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, had recently sought to explain Trump's cyber push.

Mnuchin said on Saturday that Trump and Putin had agreed to create "a cyber unit to make sure that there was absolutely no interference whatsoever, that they would work on cyber security together."

But Trump returned to Twitter on Sunday to play down the idea, which arose at his talks with Putin at a summit of the Group of 20 nations in Hamburg, Germany.

"The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't," Trump said on Twitter.

He then noted that an agreement with Russia for a ceasefire in Syria "can & did" happen.

Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona acknowledged Trump's desire to move forward with Russia, but added: "There has to be a price to pay."

"There has been no penalty," McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CBS' "Face the Nation" program according to a CBS transcript. "Vladimir Putin ... got away with literally trying to change the outcome ... of our election."

Trump argued for a rapprochement with Moscow in his campaign but has been unable to deliver because his administration has been dogged by investigations into the allegations of Russian interference in the election and ties with his campaign.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating the matter, including whether there may have been any collusion on the part of Trump campaign officials, as are congressional committees including both the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence panels.

Those probes are focused almost exclusively on Moscow’s actions, lawmakers and intelligence officials say, and no evidence has surfaced publicly implicating other countries despite Trump's suggestion that others could have been involved.

Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.

Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN's "State of the Union" program that Russia could not be a credible partner in a cyber security unit.

"If that’s our best election defense, we might as well just mail our ballot boxes to Moscow," Schiff added.

Separately, U.S. government officials said a recent hack into business systems of U.S. nuclear power and other energy companies was carried out by Russian government hackers, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

'TIME TO MOVE FORWARD' WITH RUSSIA

Trump said he "strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it."

He added: "We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!"

In Trump's first attempt at ending the six-year Syrian civil war, the United States, Russia and Jordan on Friday reached a ceasefire and "de-escalation agreement" for southwestern Syria. The ceasefire was holding hours after it took effect on Sunday, a monitor and two rebel officials said.

Any joint U.S.-Russia cyber initiative would have been a different matter. Depending how much it veered into military or espionage operations, it could have faced major legal hurdles.

Language in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act prohibits the Pentagon, which includes the National Security Agency and the U.S. military's Cyber Command, from using any funds for bilateral military cooperation with Russia.

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, also noted restrictions on sharing information with Russia that would clearly prohibit offering Moscow a sense of U.S. cyber capabilities. Russia would be similarly adverse to revealing its capabilities to the United States, he noted.

"It just will not happen," McFaul told Reuters.

Source: Reuters

U.S., South Korea stage show of force after North Korea ICBM test

United States Army/Handout

U.S. and South Korean troops fired missiles into the waters off South Korea, the U.S. military said on Tuesday, in a show of force after North Korea's ICBM test.

"The deep strike precision capability enables the (South Korean)-U.S. alliance to engage the full array of time critical targets under all weather conditions," the U.S. Army said in a statement, adding that the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and the Republic of Korea's Hyunmoo Missile II were utilized.

Source: Reuters

U.S. no longer a 'friend' in Merkel election program

REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

In their campaign program for the German election, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have dropped the term "friend" in describing the relationship with the United States.

Four years ago, the joint program of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), referred to the United States as Germany's "most important friend" outside of Europe.

The 2013 program also described the "friendship" with Washington as a "cornerstone" of Germany's international relations and talked about strengthening transatlantic economic ties through the removal of trade barriers.

But the words "friend" and "friendship" are missing from the latest election program - entitled "For a Germany in which we live well and happily" - which Merkel and CSU leader Horst Seehofer presented on Monday ahead of a Sept. 24 election.

Instead, the United States is described as Germany's "most important partner" outside of Europe. CDU officials were not immediately available to comment on the change in wording.

The change in wording underscores how relations between Berlin and Washington have deteriorated since U.S. President Donald Trump entered the White House in January.

During his campaign for the presidency, Trump said that Merkel was "ruining" Germany with migration policies he described as "insane".

He has repeatedly denounced Germany's trade surplus with the United States, accused Berlin and other European partners of owing "massive amounts of money" to NATO, and unsettled western partners with his decision last month to pull out of the Paris climate accord..

A survey by the Pew Research Center last week showed that just 35 percent of Germans have a favorable view of the United States, down from 57 percent at the end of President Barack Obama's term.

Merkel is due to host Trump and other leaders at a G20 summit in Hamburg later this week.

In place of the 2013 passage about strengthening economic ties, the 2017 program refers to historical U.S. support for Germany after World War Two and in the run-up to German reunification.

The new CDU/CSU election program also repeats a line that Merkel used in a speech in Munich in late May after a difficult summit of G7 leaders, where Trump resisted pressure from six other nations to stay in the Paris agreement.

"The times in which we could fully rely on others are, to a certain extent, in the past. We Europeans must take our fate into our own hands more decisively than we have in the past," the program reads.

While affirming Germany's commitment to the NATO military alliance, the program says that the EU must be in a position to defend itself independently if it wants to survive in the long run.

It also adds a special section entitled "Germany and France as the Motor of Europe" which vows to "reinvigorate the friendship" between the two countries.

"We are ready, together with the new French government, to further develop the euro zone step by step, for example through the creation of its own monetary fund," it reads.

But it also rules out the mutualization of debt in Europe and says that "solidarity" will only be possible if EU countries stick to the rules of the bloc's Growth and Stability Pact.

Source: Reuters

Asia demand for U.S., Atlantic Basin oil set to jump as buyers prep for winter

Asian demand for crude oil from the Atlantic Basin and the Americas is set to rise as low prices drive Japanese and South Korean buyers to snap up cargoes to arrive ahead of peak winter consumption.

Robust appetite from the region could help soak up excess supplies in Europe and the United States, offering some support to benchmark global prices that plumbed 10-month lows last week.

The loading of oil shipments from Europe and the Americas to Asia tapered off in June after surging between March and May, but the recent price slump is pushing Asian buyers and traders to once again turn to the North Sea Forties grade of oil and to U.S. crude.

Some traders hope the value of cargoes will increase during the time spent en route to Asia, with a possible upcoming climb in prices indicated by October ICE Brent futures this month rising as much as 70 cents per barrel above the prompt month August contract.

"We know people are taking WAF (West African) and North Sea," said a trader with a North Asian refiner, declining to be identified as he was not authorized to speak with media.

A widening of Brent's premium to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude to almost $3 a barrel earlier this month has particularly buoyed the appeal of moving U.S. oil to Asia.

Japanese refiners JXTG and Cosmo Energy have bought U.S. cargoes that will arrive in September, trade sources said, ahead of the winter season when power demand jumps as people crank up electric heating.

JXTG has purchased 1 million barrels of U.S. Mars crude, while Cosmo has bought a mixture of WTI Midland and Domestic Sweet (DSW) blend, those sources said.

Both companies declined to comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, traders expect 2 million to 4 million barrels of North Sea Forties to load in July and arrive in South Korea from the end of August to early September. [O/LOAD]

More Libyan crude could also make its way to Asia as output there rises. Thailand's PTT PLC recently bought Libya's Amna crude from Chinese trader Unipec for delivery in August and September.

Elsewhere, the release of a second batch of Chinese crude import quotas has also spurred sellers to bring more oil to Asia, said an analyst at a trading company.

And shipping data shows that ExxonMobil, which operates a refinery in Thailand, chartered the Aframax Astro Saturn to take U.S. crude from Corpus Christi, Texas to Sri Racha, Thailand for end-July arrival.

"U.S. crude has high potential. We want to diversify our supply sources (and are interested)," an official from a Southeast Asian refiner said, adding that it was keen on both light-sweet and medium-sour crude but not the DSW blend because of quality issues.

Source: Reuters

Despite hacking charges, U.S. tech industry fought to keep ties to Russia spy service

As U.S. officials investigated in January the FSB's alleged role in election cyber attacks, U.S. technology firms were quietly lobbying the government to soften a ban on dealing with the Russian spy agency, people with direct knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

New U.S. sanctions put in place by former President Barack Obama last December - part of a broad suite of actions taken in response to Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election - had made it a crime for American companies to have any business relationship with the FSB, or Federal Security Service.

U.S. authorities had accused the FSB, along with the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, of orchestrating cyber attacks on the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, a charge Moscow denies.

But the sanctions also threatened to imperil the Russian sales operations of Western tech companies. Under a little-understood arrangement, the FSB doubles as a regulator charged with approving the import to Russia of almost all technology that contains encryption, which is used in both sophisticated hardware as well as products like cellphones and laptops.

Worried about the sales impact, business industry groups, including the U.S.-Russia Business Council and the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, contacted U.S. officials at the American embassy in Moscow and the Treasury, State and Commerce departments, according to five people with direct knowledge of the lobbying effort.

The campaign, which began in January and proved successful in a matter of weeks, has not been previously reported.

In recent years, Western technology companies have acceded to increasing demands by Moscow for access to closely guarded product security secrets, including source code, Reuters reported last week.[nL1N1JK1ZF] Russia's information technology market is expected to reach $18.4 billion this year, according to market researcher International Data Corporation.

The sanctions would have meant the Russian market was "dead for U.S. electronics” said Alexis Rodzianko, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, who argued against the new restrictions. “Every second Russian has an iPhone, iPad, so they would all switch to Samsungs," he said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security declined to comment. A State Department official said Washington considered a range of factors before amending the FSB sanction and regularly works with U.S. companies to assess the impact of such policies.

The lobbyists argued the sanction could have stopped the sale of cars, medical devices and heavy equipment, all of which also often contain encrypted software, according to a person involved in the lobbying effort. The goal of the sanctions was to sever U.S. business dealings with the FSB - not end American technology exports to Russia entirely, the industry groups argued.

“The sanction was against a government agency that has many functions, only one of them being hacking the U.S. elections,” said Rodzianko.

The lobbyists assembled representatives from the tech, automotive and manufacturing sectors to make the case to the U.S. Treasury Department, said the person involved in the lobbying effort.

The industry groups did not argue against the intent of the sanction but asked for a narrow exception that would allow them to continue to seek regulatory approvals from the FSB while still keeping in place the broader ban on doing business with the spy agency.

"PUNISHMENT FOR VERY BAD ACTS"  

The industry groups represent a number of technology firms with a large presence in Russia, including Cisco and Microsoft.

Reuters was unable to determine which companies were directly involved in the lobbying. Microsoft said it did not ask for changes to the sanctions. In a statement, Cisco said it also did not seek any changes to the sanction but had asked the Treasury Department for clarification on how it applied.

In order to get encrypted technology into Russia, companies need to obtain the blessing of the FSB, a process that can sometimes take months or even years of negotiation. Before granting that approval, the agency can demand sensitive security data about the product, including source code - instructions that control the basic operations of computer equipment.

The United States has accused Russia of a growing number of cyber attacks against the West. U.S. officials say they are concerned that Moscow’s reviews of product secrets could be used to find vulnerabilities to hack into the products.

Some U.S. government officials rejected the industry groups' arguments. They openly embraced the prospect of any ripple effect that cut further trade with Russia.

Kevin Wolf was assistant secretary at the Commerce Department and oversaw export control policy when the FSB sanction was put in place. Wolf said within days of the sanction taking effect, Commerce received numerous calls from industry groups and companies warning of the unintended consequences.

But for Wolf, who was "furious" with Moscow over the alleged cyber attacks, any additional curbs on trade with Russia was a bonus rather than an unintended downside.

"I said, 'Great, terrific, fuck 'em ... The whole point is to interfere with trade'," recounted Wolf. “The sanction was meant to impose pain (on Russia) and send a signal as punishment for very bad acts."

Wolf left the Commerce Department when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20.

Other officials felt that the impact on legitimate trade was too great. “The intention of the sanction was not to cut off tech trade with Russia,” said a U.S. official with direct knowledge of the process.

The lobbyists had also argued that since the sanctions only applied to U.S. technology makers, it would put them at a disadvantage to European and Asian companies who would still be able to interact with the FSB and sell products in Russia.

"We were asking for a narrow technical fix that would give a fair deal for American companies," Dan Russell, CEO of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, said in an interview.

The advocacy worked. State and Treasury officials began working to tweak the sanction in January before Obama left office, according to people involved in the process.

On Feb. 2, the Treasury Department created an exception to the sanction, about two weeks after Trump took office, to allow tech companies to continue to obtain approvals from the FSB.

Source: Reuters

U.S. bans fresh Brazil beef imports over safety concerns

The United States halted imports of fresh Brazilian beef on Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said, after a high percentage of shipments failed to pass safety checks.

The USDA had "recurring concerns about the safety of the products intended for the American market," after increasing tests on Brazilian beef in March, according to a statement.

The agency raised scrutiny on Brazilian beef and ready-to-eat products as a precaution following an investigation into corruption involving Brazil's health inspectors that targeted meat companies JBS SA (JBSS3.SA) and BRF SA (BRFS3.SA).

JBS, the world's largest meat packer, declined to comment on the U.S. ban.

The USDA's action threatens the reputation of meat from Brazil, the world's top exporter of beef and poultry, even though the United States is not a top customer. It also could boost domestic sales in the United States.

"Product was already on the water and that's not going to be allowed in," Altin Kalo, a U.S. livestock analyst at Steiner Consulting Group, said about shipments headed to the United States from Brazil via boat.

Since March, the USDA has rejected 11 percent of Brazilian fresh beef products, compared to the rejection rate of 1 percent for shipments from the rest of the world, the agency said. The shipments, totaling about 1.9 million pounds, raised concerns about public health, animal health and sanitation, according to the USDA.

The agency said none of the rejected lots made it into the U.S. market.

The move to block Brazilian meat is a turnaround for Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who warned in March that Brazil might retaliate if the United States halted beef imports.

On Thursday, he said in a statement that "although international trade is an important part of what we do at USDA, and Brazil has long been one of our partners, my first priority is to protect American consumers."

The U.S. suspension will remain in place until Brazil's Agriculture Ministry "takes corrective action which the USDA finds satisfactory," according to the agency.

A slew of global buyers, including China, Egypt and Chile, curtailed imports of Brazilian meat after Brazilian federal police unveiled an investigation into alleged corruption in the sector on March 17.

Brazilian authorities said at the time that meat companies made payments to government health officials to forego inspections and cover up health violations.

China is not expected to follow the U.S. move as it only permits imports of frozen Brazilian beef, which has different requirements to fresh meat, said analysts.

Brazil is also China's top beef supplier, and would be difficult to replace in the short-term, said Pan Chenjun, senior animal protein analyst at Rabobank.

The United States began allowing shipments of fresh beef from Brazil last year after banning them due to concerns about foot and mouth disease in cattle.

Source: Reuters

Under pressure, Western tech firms bow to Russian demands to share cyber secrets

Western technology companies, including Cisco, IBM and SAP, are acceding to demands by Moscow for access to closely guarded product security secrets, at a time when Russia has been accused of a growing number of cyber attacks on the West, a Reuters investigation has found.

Russian authorities are asking Western tech companies to allow them to review source code for security products such as firewalls, anti-virus applications and software containing encryption before permitting the products to be imported and sold in the country. The requests, which have increased since 2014, are ostensibly done to ensure foreign spy agencies have not hidden any "backdoors" that would allow them to burrow into Russian systems.

But those inspections also provide the Russians an opportunity to find vulnerabilities in the products' source code - instructions that control the basic operations of computer equipment - current and former U.S. officials and security experts said.

While a number of U.S. firms say they are playing ball to preserve their entree to Russia's huge tech market, at least one U.S. firm, Symantec, told Reuters it has stopped cooperating with the source code reviews over security concerns. That halt has not been previously reported.

Symantec said one of the labs inspecting its products was not independent enough from the Russian government.

U.S. officials say they have warned firms about the risks of allowing the Russians to review their products' source code, because of fears it could be used in cyber attacks. But they say they have no legal authority to stop the practice unless the technology has restricted military applications or violates U.S. sanctions.

From their side, companies say they are under pressure to acquiesce to the demands from Russian regulators or risk being shut out of a lucrative market. The companies say they only allow Russia to review their source code in secure facilities that prevent code from being copied or altered. (Graphic on source code review process: tmsnrt.rs/2sZudWT)

The demands are being made by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which the U.S. government says took part in the cyber attacks on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the 2014 hack of 500 million Yahoo email accounts. The FSB, which has denied involvement in both the election and Yahoo hacks, doubles as a regulator charged with approving the sale of sophisticated technology products in Russia.

The reviews are also conducted by the Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC), a Russian defense agency tasked with countering cyber espionage and protecting state secrets. Records published by FSTEC and reviewed by Reuters show that from 1996 to 2013, it conducted source code reviews as part of approvals for 13 technology products from Western companies. In the past three years alone it carried out 28 reviews.

A Kremlin spokesman referred all questions to the FSB. The FSB did not respond to requests for comment. FSTEC said in a statement that its reviews were in line with international practice. The U.S. State Department declined to comment.

Moscow's source code requests have mushroomed in scope since U.S.-Russia relations went into a tailspin following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, according to eight current and former U.S. officials, four company executives, three U.S. trade attorneys and Russian regulatory documents.

In addition to IBM, Cisco and Germany's SAP, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co and McAfee have also allowed Russia to conduct source code reviews of their products, according to people familiar with the companies' interactions with Moscow and Russian regulatory records.

Until now, little has been known about that regulatory review process outside of the industry. The FSTEC documents and interviews with those involved in the reviews provide a rare window into the tense push-and-pull between technology companies and governments in an era of mounting alarm about hacking.

Roszel Thomsen, an attorney who helps U.S. tech companies navigate Russia import laws, said the firms must balance the dangers of revealing source code to Russian security services against possible lost sales.

"Some companies do refuse," he said. "Others look at the potential market and take the risk."

"WE HAVE A REAL CONCERN"

If tech firms do decline the FSB's source code requests, then approval for their products can be indefinitely delayed or denied outright, U.S. trade attorneys and U.S. officials said. The Russian information technology market is expected to be worth $18.4 billion this year, according to market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC).

Six current and former U.S. officials who have dealt with companies on the issue said they are suspicious about Russia's motives for the expanded reviews.

"It’s something we have a real concern about," said a former senior Commerce Department official who had direct knowledge of the interaction between U.S. companies and Russian officials until he left office this year. "You have to ask yourself what it is they are trying to do, and clearly they are trying to look for information they can use to their advantage to exploit, and that’s obviously a real problem."

However, none of the officials who spoke to Reuters could point to specific examples of hacks or cyber espionage that were made possible by the review process.

Source code requests are not unique to Russia. In the United States, tech companies allow the government to audit source code in limited instances as part of defense contracts and other sensitive government work. China sometimes also requires source code reviews as a condition to import commercial software, U.S. trade attorneys say.

"CLEAN ROOMS"

The reviews often takes place in secure facilities known as "clean rooms." Several of the Russian companies that conduct the testing for Western tech companies on behalf of Russian regulators have current or previous links to the Russian military, according to their websites.

Echelon, a Moscow-based technology testing company, is one of several independent FSB-accredited testing centers that Western companies can hire to help obtain FSB approval for their products.

Echelon CEO Alexey Markov told Reuters his engineers review source code in special laboratories, controlled by the companies, where no software data can be altered or transferred.

Markov said Echelon is a private and independent company but does have a business relationship with Russia’s military and law enforcement authorities.

Echelon’s website touts medals it was awarded in 2013 by Russia’s Ministry of Defense for "protection of state secrets." The company’s website also sometimes refers to Markov as the "Head of Attestation Center of the Ministry of Defense."

In an email, Markov said that title is only intended to convey Echelon’s role as a certified outside tester of military technology testing. The medals were generic and insignificant, he said.

But for Symantec, the lab "didn't meet our bar" for independence, said spokeswoman Kristen Batch.

“In the case of Russia, we decided the protection of our customer base through the deployment of uncompromised security products was more important than pursuing an increase in market share in Russia,” said Batch, who added that the company did not believe Russia had tried to hack into its products.

In 2016, the company decided it would no longer use third parties, including Echelon, that have ties to a foreign state or get most of their revenue from government-mandated security testing.

"It poses a risk to the integrity of our products that we are not willing to accept," she said.

Without the source code approval, Symantec can no longer get approval to sell some of its business-oriented security products in Russia. "As a result, we do minimal business there," she said.

Markov declined to comment on Symantec’s decision, citing a non-disclosure agreement with the company.

TRUSTED LABS

Over the past year, HP has used Echelon to allow FSTEC to review source code, according to the agency's records. A company spokesman declined to comment.    

An IBM spokesman confirmed the company allows Russia to review its source code in secure, company-controlled facilities "where strict procedures are followed."

FSTEC certification records showed the Information Security Center, an independent testing company based outside Moscow, has reviewed IBM’s source code on behalf of the agency. The company was founded more than 20 years ago under the auspices of an institute within Russia’s Ministry of Defense, according to its website. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, McAfee said the Russia code reviews were conducted  at "certified testing labs" at company-owned premises in the United States.

SAP allows Russia to review and test source code in a secure SAP facility in Germany, according to a person familiar with the process. In a company statement, SAP said the review process assures Russian customers “their SAP software investments are safe and secure.”

Cisco has recently allowed Russia to review source code, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A Cisco spokeswoman declined to comment on the company's interactions with Russian authorities but said the firm does sometimes allow regulators to inspect small parts of its code in "trusted" independent labs and that the reviews do not compromise the security of its products.

Before allowing the reviews, Cisco scrutinizes the code to ensure they are not exposing vulnerabilities that could be used to hack the products, she said.

Source: Reuters

Gunman wounds several at congressional baseball practice in Virginia

A gunman opened fire on Republican members of Congress during a baseball practice near Washington early on Wednesday, wounding several people including House of Representatives Majority Whip Steve Scalise before being taken into custody, police and witnesses said.

Five people were transported medically from the scene in Alexandria, the city's police chief, Michael Brown told reporters. Two of the wounded were Capitol Hill police who were at the scene, witnesses said.

In a dramatic blow-by-blow account, Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama told CNN the gunman was armed with a rifle and appeared to be a white male.

Brooks said he saw the man only for a second, and that he was shooting from a chain link fence behind the third base position on the field where the congressional group was holding an early morning morning practice ahead of a game against Democrats this week.

"There must have been 50 to 100 shots fired," he told CNN. "I hear Steve Scalise over near second base scream. He was shot," said Brooks, adding he helped apply a tourniquet with his belt to a congressional staffer who was shot in the leg.

"One of our security detail was shooting back, but it was our pistol versus the shooter's rifle," Brooks said. "The only weapon I had was a baseball bat."

Republican Senator Jeff Flake told local ABC-TV Scalise was shot in the left hip. Flake said the gunman was shot.

U.S. President Donald Trump said in a Twitter message that Scalise, "a true friend and patriot, was badly injured but will fully recover. Our thoughts and prayers are with him."

Scalise's position as whip in the Republican-controlled House makes him one of the most senior figures in Congress. He is a representative from Louisiana.

The group were practicing for the annual Democrats versus Republicans congressional baseball game that was scheduled to be played on Thursday.

'GOING AFTER ELECTED OFFICIALS'

"It's pretty well known in the neighborhood who those folks are on the baseball field," Brooks said. "It's not a secret we are practicing ... He was going after elected officials."

Democrats were also practicing at another field at a different location, CNN reported.

Reba Winstead lives across the street from the parking lot of the park where the shooting occurred.

"I was on my front porch and that is when I heard the first round of shots. There was about a dozen shots. There was a pause. Then there was more shooting. I called 911."

Trump, a Republican, said in a statement that he and Vice President Mike Pence were monitoring developments closely.

"We are deeply saddened by this tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with the members of Congress, their staffs, Capitol Police, first responders, and all others affected," he said.

Steve Scalise is the third-highest ranked member of the Republican leadership in the House, and has the difficult job of trying to keep order in the fractious party ranks and rounding up votes for bills.

Source: Reuters

Saudi, Egypt lead Arab states cutting Qatar ties, Iran blames Trump

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed their ties with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting terrorism and opening up the worst rift in years among some of the most powerful states in the Arab world.

Iran -- long at odds with Saudi Arabia and a behind-the-scenes target of the move -- immediately blamed U.S. President Donald Trump for setting the stage during his recent trip to Riyadh.

Gulf Arab states and Egypt have already long resented Qatar's support for Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood which they regard as a dangerous political enemy.

The coordinated move, with Yemen and Libya's eastern-based government joining in later, created a dramatic rift among the Arab nations, many of which are in OPEC.

Announcing the closure of transport ties with Qatar, the three Gulf states gave Qatari visitors and residents two weeks to leave. Qatar was also expelled from the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

Oil giant Saudi Arabia accused Qatar of backing militant groups -- some backed by regional arch-rival Iran -- and broadcasting their ideology, an apparent reference to Qatar's influential state-owned satellite channel al Jazeera.

"(Qatar) embraces multiple terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at disturbing stability in the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS (Islamic State) and al-Qaeda, and promotes the message and schemes of these groups through their media constantly," Saudi state news agency SPA said.

It accused Qatar of supporting what it described as Iranian-backed militants in its restive and largely Shi'ite Muslim-populated Eastern region of Qatif and in Bahrain.

Qatar said it was facing a campaign aimed at weakening it, denying it was interfering in the affairs of other countries.

"The campaign of incitement is based on lies that had reached the level of complete fabrications," the Qatari foreign ministry said in a statement.

Iran saw America pulling the strings.

"What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance," Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff of Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted in a reference to Trump's recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

Trump and other U.S. officials participated in a traditional sword dance during the trip in which he called on Muslim countries to stand united against Islamist extremists and singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for militant groups.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Sydney on Monday that the spat would not effect the fight against Islamist militants and that Washington has encouraged its Gulf allies to resolve their differences.

A split between Doha and its closest allies can have repercussions around the Middle East, where Gulf states have used their financial and political power to influence events in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

(For a graphic on trade balance between Qatar and its diplomatic critics, click reut.rs/2rsbaTi)

FALLOUT

The economic fallout loomed immediately, as Abu Dhabi's state-owned Ethihad Airways, Dubai's Emirates Airline and budget carrier Flydubai said they would suspend all flights to and from Doha from Tuesday morning until further notice.

Qatar Airways said on its official website it had suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia.

Qatar's stock market index sank 7.5 percent with some of the market's top blue chips hardest hit.

The measures are more severe than during a previous eight-month rift in 2014, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, again alleging Qatari support for militant groups. At that time, travel links were maintained and Qataris were not expelled.

The diplomatic broadside threatens the international prestige of Qatar, which hosts a large U.S. military base and is set to host the 2022 World Cup. It has for years presented itself as a mediator and power broker for the region's many disputes.

Kristian Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at the U.S-based Baker Institute, said if Qatar's land borders and air space were closed for any length of time "it would wreak havoc on the timeline and delivery" of the World Cup.

"It seems that the Saudis and Emiratis feel emboldened by the alignment of their regional interests - toward Iran and Islamism - with the Trump administration," Ulrichsen said. "(They) have decided to deal with Qatar's alternative approach on the assumption that they will have the (Trump) administration's backing."

Qatar used its media and political clout to support long-repressed Islamists during the 2011 pro-democracy "Arab Spring" uprisings in several Arab countries.

Muslim Brotherhood groups allied to Doha are now mostly on the backfoot in the region, especially after a 2013 military takeover in Egypt ousted the elected Islamist president.

The former army chief and now president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, along with the new government's allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, blacklist the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Egypt, the Arab world's most populous nation, said on its state news agency that Qatar's policy "threatens Arab national security and sows the seeds of strife and division within Arab societies according to a deliberate plan aimed at the unity and interests of the Arab nation."

Oil prices rose after the moves against Qatar, which is the biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a major seller of condensate - a low-density liquid fuel and refining product derived from natural gas.

Source: Reuters