Luke Harding has two pieces on Russian climate change in today's Guardian: an audio report on Northern-Siberia's seasonal shifts, and a special report on the Yamal peninsula.  Rumors abound that China, Japan, Russia and France have been in secret talks on using an alternative to the dollar for oil trading, but OPEC's Secretary General says that, even if there were to be a shift, it would be a long process, and that 'tradition' would make it difficult.  Serbian oil monopoly NIS, majority owned by Gazprom Neft, has signed a $100 million loan with Bank of Moscow on the back of Medvedev's Belgrade visit.  Italy, Russia, and Turkey, have signed a joint statement on the construction of the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline linking Turkey's Black Sea coast and Mediterranean coast (the New York Times has a special report today ...

“Moscow's current economic dilemma is that the old sources of growth will soon be exhausted.” Law enforcement officers have raided the Moscow headquarters of mobile phone retailer Yevroset. Mechel, Russia’s biggest coking coal producer, is seeking approval to acquire indirect control of German metals trader HBL Holding. BP’s Baku-Supsa pipeline, which transports crude from Azerbaijan to Georgia's Black Sea coast, is "undamaged", but closed for security reasons.