NEW YORK Oil prices shot up more than $5 a barrel Thursday, rising to the highest level in over two weeks as escalating tensions with Russia stoked fears of a disruption of energy shipments to Western countries. Crude's rally mimicked the wild price swings seen last month and have at least temporarily halted oil's slide back toward $100 a barrel. A weaker U.S. dollar and worries about tightening output from OPEC countries are also supporting prices. After days of brushing off geopolitical flare-ups, oil spiked above $122 a barrel as traders became rattled over increasingly hostile Russian rhetoric toward a U.S.-Poland deal to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe -- a move Moscow views as a threat. The continued presence of Russian troops in Georgia injected even more bullish sentiment into a market that had...
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