Day: January 6, 2016

    Brent crude resumes sell-off as Iranians says oversupply, rather than a new Middle East war, is the biggest threat to prices. Brent crude has slumped to a fresh 11-year low as the world's record oil supply glut weighs on traders. The price of a barrel of the world's benchmark fell by more than 2pc to $35.66 in early trading on Wednesday, extending a third consecutive day of losses and hitting lows not seen since 2004. The sell-off resumed after escalating tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia - two of the world's biggest rival producers - saw Brent spike briefly in Monday trading. But traders shrugged off the prospect of a new bout of geopolitical risk in the Middle East. West Texas Intermediate - the US benchmark - also declined 1.5pc to $35.44. An Iranian official from ...

    At first, the images didn't look very different from the raft of other ISIS propaganda on the internet, but within minutes, it occurred to me that this was definitely no ISIS propaganda video. The trademark flag-waving masked gunmen I'd expected to see were replaced with clean-shaven, technically adept and highly trained weapons specialists giving expert tuition in how to turn obsolete munitions and ammunition into state of the art weapon systems. Without doubt, the most chilling aspect of watching this training video was the unprecedented levels of technical expertise and ingenuity of those weapons engineers. During my career I have pitted my wits against some of the world's most prolific bomb-makers. I personally began fighting against the IRA's bombmakers in 1999 - duri...