Ivan Safranchuk, an adviser to the Russian government, recently told the Economist that with regard to the United States, "Moscow's general policy is one of disengagement."  However others are arguing the precise opposite, that recent actions show that Russia is attempting to put an end to its longstanding diplomatic estrangement.  From Jon Haron-Feiertag in the Diplomatic Courier:

President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin preside over a country that has never been isolated, nevertheless it has for a long time been estranged. Not since the era of the Holy Alliance has Russia had the benefit of a real, reliable ally in peace time. Today Russia has been abandoned by all her confederates from the Warsaw Pact. She has proven unable to resist the NATO enlargement, or block its interventions in either Bosnia or Kosovo. Her actions in Georgia go unaided, and have become the subject of continuing

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Classic examples of Inflation: (From Wikipedia) Angola Angola went through its worst inflation from 1991 to 1995 Austria Between 1921 and 1922, inflation in Austria reached 134% Belarus Belarus went through steady inflation from 1994 to 2002. Bolivia Bolivia went through its worst inflation between 1984 and 1986. Bosnia-Herzegovina Bosnia-Hezegovina went through its worst inflation in 1993 Brazil From 1986 to 1994, the base currency unit was [...]div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:yIl2AUoC8zA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=yIl2AUoC8zA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:F7zBnMyn0Lo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:F7zBnMyn0Lo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:7Q72WNTAKBA"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=7Q72WNTAKBA" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:V_sGLiPBpWU"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:V_sGLiPBpWU" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:qj6IDK7rITs"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=qj6IDK7rITs" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:l6gmwiTKsz0"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?d=l6gmwiTKsz0" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?a=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:gIN9vFwOqvQ"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/YourFinancialFuture?i=g4FUjmMZ3TI:zSRzaPN4IPY:gIN9vFwOqvQ" border="0"/img/a /div

Reading this stark judgment on Europe's performance of leadership in the Balkan conflicts from Foreign Policy, one can see how easily Russia established its influence in Southeastern Europe (or at least enough influence to take over the gas transit).Something is terribly wrong with Joe Biden visiting the Balkans next week. It isn't his expertise that is at issue. Few Americans understand the region better than Biden, who had the temerity to call Slobodan Milosevic, the late Serbian dictator, a "war criminal," to his face. The problem is that a visit from the vice president of the United States is even needed nine years after Milosevic lost power, a decade after NATO intervened in Kosovo, and 14 years after determined U.S. diplomacy ended the war in Bosnia. Sadly, Biden's visit to Serbia, Kosovo, and, most especially, Bosnia, is all too necessary. The reason is simple: Europe ...

With the arrest of both Satyam Computer Services Ltd.'s (SAY) ex-CEO and ex-CFO, the interim management announced that it'll make all attempts to clean up its books and appoint a new auditor. A new Board has been formed to spearhead the task of salvaging the company, and three members have already been appointed by the Government of India itself.A majority stake sale is currently being undertaken, and the Board of Directors announced that it will release the Request for Proposals (RFP) to all registered bidders. Previously, the Indian government announced that it would not step up to help Satyam with any financial assistance, citing the company's current receivables of approx. $350 million.Given the recent developments, we had earlier downgraded SAY shares to a Sell and have suspended our estimates and target price. Read the full analyst report on "SAY"Zacks ...

Not much happened in gold on Tuesday. The top was in around 10:00 a.m. in London trading…just like Monday. From there it got sold off a bit…and the boyz in New York finished the job. Volume in gold yesterday was light…81,377 contracts less a switch effect of 4,870.

With some notable exceptions, gold is never allowed to rise into, or during, an FOMC meeting.

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Silver’s path was similar…and one could be forgiven if one thought that Tuesday’s price action looked suspiciously similar to Monday’s. Silver’s trading volume was extremely light.

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Monday’s gold activity brought a decline in open interest of 5,741 contracts. Silver o.i. actually rose 30 contracts. Cut-off for this Friday’s COT is today, so whatever o.i. changes are reported later this

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Equities continued to march higher during Tuesday’s session on the Canadian Markets as investors smell an economic recovery in the making. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange gained 2.06%, while the TSX Gold Index gave back 1.8% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, added 0.68% with the decliners beating out the advancers by a 358 to 343 margin on pathetic volume of 90 million shares traded.

Merger mania resumed with Lucara Diamond proposing to marry Motapa Diamonds in an all-share deal that would see Motapa getting 0.9055 of a Lucara share for each Motapa share. The move would consolidate the advanced Mothae project in Lesotho. Lucara ended the day flat at C$0.50, while Motapa added C$0.04 to close at C$0.35.

Shares of Baja Mining jumped C$0.075 to C$0.33 after the company tabled a 12 per cent decrease in capital costs for

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Shanghai-based Nong Gong Shang Supermarkets has requested its 3,500 supermarkets and convenience stores to remove baby bath products produced by the American giant Johnson & Johnson from their shelves after allegations that the products contain carcinogens. According to reports in local Chinese media, the products concerned are still available in supermarkets such as Beijing Wu-Mart, Wal-Mart, [...]