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While it is all too easy to show the massive outperformance of Russian stocks (even after Carney's "sell" recommendation) as evidence that US sanctions were not 'punishing' as the mainstream media might suggest; this week's release of trade data shows the utter farce that the so-called "costs" imposed on Putin actually are. As WSJ reports, despite all the scaremongery and sanctioning, US exports to Russia in May hit $1.2 billion - a record high (up 21% from pre-sanctions). That will certainly teach them!!  As WSJ reports, U.S. efforts to penalize Russia for its actions in Ukraine appear to have done...

THE American guillotine has fallen. After lengthy negotiations, prosecutors and regulators announced on June 30th the penalties they planned to impose on BNP Paribas, France’s largest bank, for evading American sanctions on doing business with Cuba, Iran and the Sudan: an almost $9 billion fine, a guilty plea to criminal charges of conspiracy and falsifying records and a suspension of its right to clear certain dollar transactions. The bank’s dealings with and for Sudan—where Osama bin Laden found refuge and the UN’s attempt to stem the bloodletting in Darfur was resisted—lie at the heart of the charges against it. BNP...

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday his government will lift some of its sanctions on North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s decision to create a committee to investigate the fate of at least a dozen Japanese who were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Abe said he was satisfied the committee has the mandate to carry out a serious investigation into the abductions, though previous deals with the North have fallen through. Japan will continue to abide by UN-sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs. …

The EU has threatened to take action against Jewish settlers after Israel backed the building of 1,466 more homes on Palestinian land. EU countries said in a joint communique on Thursday (5 June) that the move is “unhelpful to peace efforts” and called on Israel to “reverse the decision”. They added that if it does not comply, they will “act accordingly” and “fully and effectively implement existing legislation in relation to settlements”. …

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Jed Babbin. It’s not unusual for left-wing billionaire activist George Soros to be opposed or even protested by conservatives. But when Soros is attacked by the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, it’s nothing other than political fratricide. The goal of the BDS movement is to stop investment in Israel and keep countries from importing products from Israel. There is more than a little irony in the announcement last Wednesday that the BDS Movement is supposedly boycotting Soros and his network of funds and foundations because of his investment in SodaStream and...

Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Obama administration official who went to bat for Boko Haram over the past few years. Soon after John Kerry took over as Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Terence P. McCulley, accused the Nigerian government of butchery during a confrontation with Boko Haram terrorists in Baga, a Nigerian town on the shores of Lake Chad, and in May 2013 threatened to withdraw U.S. military aid from the West African nation.

According to a Nigerian website, in 2013 the United States threatened Nigeria with suspension of military assistance following suppression of Boko Haram after an attack by the Muslim jihadist group on a military outpost outside the city of Baga.  US Ambassador to Nigeria, Terrence P. McCulley reportedly called a meeting with Soros-funded Human Rights Watch and other members of the “human rights community in Nigeria.”   THEWILL gathered from a source at the meeting who opted to remain anonymous that the Ambassador called the meeting to feel the pulse of the human rights community over the violations of basic rights...

World Leadership: In retaliation for imposing sanctions over Ukraine, Moscow will bar our use of its rocket engines in launching U.S. military satellites and deny the U.S. use of the International Space Station. It may come as news to some that the nation that once used the massive Saturn V launch vehicle to put men on the moon now imports Russian rocket engines, but we do. That supply is to be cut off in response to the sanctions imposed by President Obama in response to Moscow's annexation of Crimea and its actions against Ukraine. Also to be cut off is...

Russia will reject a US request to use the International Space Station after 2020 in retaliation for trade sanctions imposed over Russia's aggressive annexation of Crimea, its deputy prime minister announced today. The space station is maintained by both American and Russian crews. But because NASA's shuttle program was decommissioned in 2011, the only way to get there is on board Russian spacecraft. The US currently pays Russia $60 million per person to ferry its astronauts to the space station, and had planned to continue working on it until 2024. "The Russian segment can exist independently from the American one....

Moscow is banning Washington from using Russian-made rocket engines, which the US has used to deliver its military satellites into orbit, said Russia’s Deputy PM, Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of space and defense industries. According to Rogozin, Russia is also halting the operation of all American GPS stations on its territory from June 1. DETAILS TO FOLLOW

A senior Russian official held a meeting with Iran’s ambassador to Moscow on Wednesday to solicit advice on ways the Russian government can skirt U.S. sanctions that were leveled in wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev summoned Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanayee for a meeting in Moscow to learn strategies for avoiding the brunt of U.S. sanctions.

Parliamentary Leaders Decline to Discipline Opponents of Sanctions, Military Monitoring BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts to pressure Russia aren't facing only resistant businesses and skeptical voters. Her own party is now having misgivings too. Ms. Merkel threatened Moscow with sweeping economic sanctions after meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington on Friday. Yet on Tuesday, the parliamentary leadership of her conservative parties declined to discipline its foreign-policy spokesman—an opponent of sanctions against Russia—for attending a birthday party alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg last week. Another senior conservative lawmaker, who criticized a German-led military-monitoring mission to eastern Ukraine...

The Kremlin has expanded a secret list of Americans banned from entry to Russia, and campaign bundlers tied to the LGBT community are on it. The Kremlin has expanded its secret “black list” of Americans banned from Russia to include Obama campaign fundraisers tied to the LGBT community and senior Congressmen, diplomatic sources tell The Daily Beast. Moscow’s list, these sources say, was expanded in retaliation to the Obama administration’s attack on the assets of key business associates of Vladimir Putin in March. The Russian government has been working for months to expand the list in response to the three...

From Yahoo News: Lugansk (Ukraine) (AFP) - Fresh violence erupted in eastern Ukraine Tuesday as thousands of pro-Russian protesters stormed key buildings, escalating the crisis after Moscow hit back at "Iron Curtain"-style Western sanctions. A mob spearheaded by around 30 men carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and grenade-launchers attacked the regional police headquarters in Lugansk, raising the heat in the worst East-West confrontation since the Cold War. They had earlier seized the regional prosecutors' office, tearing down the Ukrainian flag and replacing it with that of Russia, which the West blames for stoking the violence in the ex-Soviet Republic. More than...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior Russian diplomat sharply criticized a new round of U.S. sanctions on Monday, saying the measures were illegitimate and uncivilized and that restrictions on high-tech exports from the United States marked a return to Cold War practices. "We decisively condemn the series of measures that has been announced in an attempt to put sanctions pressure on Moscow," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in comments posted on the ministry's website. "Unilateral extraterritorial sanctions are by nature illegitimate. They do not just fail to correspond to the norms of civilized interaction between states ... they contradict the...

Lawmakers from the ruling United Russia party are preparing a bill that would enable the dismissal of foreign courts' "unjust" decisions on cases that could have been heard in Russia, a top State Duma official said. This initiative, which is being spearheaded by Vladimir Ponevezhsky, the Duma's representative at the Supreme Court, would also allow Russian citizens and legal entities to seek compensation from the Russian government in the event that a foreign court rules against them, Interfax reported Thursday, citing Vladimir Pligin, the chairman of the Duma committee for constitutional legislation.

The United States and the European Union are expected to impose fresh sanctions on Russian individuals on Monday as a result of Moscow's alleged efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine, sources familiar with the matter said. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the EU was expected to name 15 previously unidentified individuals to be sanctioned and would focus on those whom it believes are responsible for the unrest in Ukraine.

While the White House has continually threatened further sanctions against Russia for non-de-escalation (even as it un-de-escalates itself), the specifics of the additional sanctions have been sparse. German CEO warnings over blowback from economic sanctions... the "nonsense" of replacing Russian gas with US gas... the Russian warnings of "interdependence" and "boomerangs"... all reduce the West's arsenal of financial sanctions. But, as The Times of London reports, perhaps the US has found a crucial pain point for Putin - a sanctions regime that would target Putin's personal wealth, which includes a reported $40 billion stashed in Swiss bank accounts. As The...

On Tuesday morning, a plane owned in trust by the Bank of Utah showed up in a very visible area of the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What was it doing there exactly? Nobody knows, reports The New York Times. Under President Barack Obama, the United States has eased some of the long-standing punitive economic sanctions against Iran. Still, very little American — or European — economic activity is allowed inside the religious theocracy. The Bank of Utah is certainly no Wells Fargo. The Ogden-based community bank has all of 13 branches including...

Russia is rolling out two major projects—a gas pipeline and a Crimea deep water port—with China, as EU countries and the US weigh options on economic sanctions. Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told EUobserver on Wednesday (16 April) that work on the “Power of Siberia” pipeline and the Chinese construction of a 25-meter-deep port in Crimea are proceeding as normal despite the Ukraine crisis. Describing the pipeline as a “mega-project”, he said it will pump 60 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year from the Kovykta and Tchayandinskoe gas fields to Russia’s far east, with a branch...