In last Thursday’s Taipan Insider, I talked about the current dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas supplies.

Since this latest row began, supplies to Eastern Europe have been nearly non-existant. And major Western European countries were starting to feel the pinch, too. Some countries were even forced to dip into reserves, this being the onset of the bitter winter season.

Now, Russia says it will resume supplying natural gas tomorrow morning. This is only after a monitoring deal has been agreed to by both parties and mediated by the European Union.

Still, it may be a while, reports the BBC, before supplies return to normal.

The overnight low temperature in Prague, Czech Republic, tonight is 15 degrees fahrenheit.

I’d better change that to “Some Markets.”

While the U.S. markets are all jittery, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange actually ticked higher today. You wouldn’t know that for all the news, though.

Apparently, folks are worried that this three-day crisis between Israel and Hamas will disrupt oil supplies. Now, the oil exporting countries must be smiling at this… First, Israel and Palestine aren’t exporting oil anywhere, nor are they really close to any oil installations or major export routes.

The “threat” - if any - would come from other Arab nations protesting Israel’s bombing raids on the Gaza Strip. If Hezbollah gets involved and Israel goes back into Lebanon, or, heaven forbid, Syria, then Iran may have something nasty to say.

And that would certainly worry oil importers, as Iran could easily block the Straits of Hormuz, a major oil shipping corridor.

It hasn’t done it yet, though, and there have been other times when that was threatened. But there hasn’t been a peep from Iran, really. The International Herald Tribune reported this quote from Iran’s supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: “The horrible crime of the Zionist regime in Gaza has once again revealed the bloodthirsty face of this regime from disguise. But worse than this catastrophe is the encouraging silence of some Arab countries who claim to be Muslim.”

That’s not exactly a message of support for Palestine or Hamas.

But let’s get away from all this political hubbub for a second. Let’s look at what’s happening today on Middle Eastern stock exchanges.

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