The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government’s claims that he was not involved in the killing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The CIA’s assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking Mohammed to the operation and complicates the Trump administration’s efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally. A team of 15 Saudi agents flew to Istanbul on government aircraft in October and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate, where he had come to pick up documents that he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.
In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence. Khalid told Khashoggi, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so.
It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence.
Does anybody need *their* oil? I would say embargo for a couple of years. NA could be self sufficient.
In a perfect world NA/SA could supply world demand and push these freaks back to the stone-age where their minds live anyway, but since we can't even get a pipeline built the Saudi's control oil prices, The USA doesn't need them at all but they still buy a little to keep the peace.
I'm so happy Energy East wasn't killed by Quebec politicians and now supplies our eastern refineries with Canadian oil instead of buying crude from this backwards illiberal regime.
Building a 1.1 million barrel per day pipeline to displace 70-100 hundred thousand is just silly. Plus there have been some positive developments with the Transcanada Mainline that are a benefit to our gas industry.
As someone who cares not for American politics... I have a hard time believing the CIA as some sort of honest source of anything. I’d have a hard time not thinking they are just wanting people to believe a certain narrative. Saying all that I certainly don’t believe the saudis.
Saudi prosecutors will seek the death penalty for at least five people in the slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom's state media reported on Thursday as 11 suspects attended their first court hearing.
Drones claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels attacked the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia and a major oilfield operated by Saudi Aramco early Saturday, sparking a huge fire at a processor crucial to global energy supplies.
Looks like they hit more than one facility. All those smoke spots are other gas plants, from what I could see on Google. We should probably expect a fairly large reaction from Saudi on this, possibly directed at Iran. Ugh.
Saudi Arabia is shutting down about half of its oil output after apparently coordinated drone strikes hit Saudi production facilities, people familiar with the matter said, in what Yemen’s Houthi rebels described as one of their largest-ever attacks inside the kingdom.
The production shutdown amounts to a loss of about five million barrels a day, the people said, roughly 5% of the world’s daily production of crude oil. The kingdom produces 9.8 million barrels a day.
What a miserable place we’ve created for ourselves. Justice, freedom, and humanity traded so we can all order garbage we don’t need, mortgage our oversized houses, and drive flash vehicles.
Honestly, this entire thing is absolutely sickening. I expect this kind of thing from certain nations, but something so egregious being passed off in the name of economics? Condemn us to hell, and give us our big screens.
Capitalism has us in a seriously messed up place. When profiting off others is the penultimate value then other more noble values are sacrificed. We can be better.
The world would be far better off if greed and selfishness were not some of our highest values. But they are at the base of our economic systems.
It’s time for the world to grow up. But how do we move there? Hard to say.
