Strangely Perfect

Oleg Deripaska? Oleg is one of the world’s richest men.  Getting his Physics degree as the old USSR collapsed, then buying up shares in Aluminium smelters, getting an Economics degree and then setting up Basic Element, a vast metals empire, he somehow rid the company and industry of the Mafia, but no-one knows how. But [...]

In the news today, although you’d hardly think so because of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict, is the story that the Ukraine can’t pay their gas bills.  I apologise for it being a bit buried amongst the profits’ statements etc, but hey!, I didn’t write it. BBC – Gazprom sees profits jump by 85% GazProm [...]

Today’s news at the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) meeting in Moscow, is the final card played in a long game of bluff and revenge started several decades ago by Vladamir Putin. I’ve been banging on about this for over a year now in these pages. But hey!  It’s only me! So whatever the current [...]

Ahoy there! Now we are fully sated in our lust for fresh information on the Credit Crunch and the US Presidential elections, we can now see what’s really going on in the world as the news organs adjust focus for something else to talk about as Ross and Brand are old hat now. Apart from [...]

It’s True! Record profits at Gazprom as it forms Opec-style gas cartel The news that yesterday,… (new bad guy?) Russia (aka Putin Inc), Iran (axis of evil?) and (our friend?) Qatar have decided to collude together like OPEC to drive up gas prices (sorry, control the market in a uniform way beneficial to suppliers and [...]

The Sirens, and others like The Harpies, are mythical creations designed to remind us that all is not what it seems.  Their allegorical presence is there to make us realise that we can be drawn into bad actions as if hypnotised, even though we know and are aware of exactly what is happening around us. [...]

Following on from the two bombers landing in Venezuela only 11 days ago (which I reported here when talking about the decreasing effectualness of Bush and USA power in the world), they will shortly be joined by a mean and capable looking ship called Peter the Great as well as a few others. They are [...]

The “news”, Phone taps ‘prove Georgia’s case’ that Georgia’s President Saakashvili has discovered phone tap evidence that “proves” he was trapped or lured into his Invasion of South Ossetia by the Russians would be more credible if it had come out at the beginning of August.  But really, I mean; even I, with no Eastern [...]

As a follow up to my earlier post us-nationalises-banks-while-russia-devalues-the-rouble-total-irony pointing out the sharp reversal in political and economic fortunes of the (former) two world superpowers, I remembered something from last month. An American friend decided to post a present for my family here in the UK.  I (and then we) ended up having to pay [...]

Two apparently contradictory stories from two opposing viewpoints tell the same story in a way. Georgian president vows to reclaim 2 provinces – (Associated Press) Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said yesterday that he’d “regain control of the two breakaway provinces with the help of the rest of the world.” He said the West would “help [...]

It’s important that in these times of tit-for-tat diplomacy which have replaced common sense and dialogue, that the correct order of statements and actions is recorded. Otherwise, in a short time, a different history will be seen as people’s views and memories get clouded in the mists of time.  Eventually, a whole new history appears [...]

BBC News, this morning: Russian MPs back Georgia’s rebels (paraphrasing Mandy Rice-Davies) – well they would, wouldn’t they! Putin, the hand rocking the Russian cradle, must be happy, but not surprised…  It was he who set the current format of the Upper House, the Federation Council in 2004 when, following the Beslan School Hostage Crisis [...]

Or Does it Mean, Ignoring History? Key Links: US, Poland OK missile defense base, riling Moscow Russia condemns US missile deal I can agree with US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, for her statement, “Missile defence, of course, is aimed at no one. It is in our defence that we do this.” And it sounds [...]