The following is an exclusive translation from Novye Izvestiya.  Aren't you a lucky reader...

The tail wags the dog

Judging by everything, Russia has refused to sign the Energy Charter because of the «YUKOS case»

IVAN MARKOV, «Novye Izvestiya»

Two weeks ago at a session of the government a decision undeservedly passed over by the attention of the mass information media was adopted about how Russia refuses to ratify the Energy Charter. This is one of the long-suffering international documents in the most recent Russian history. Our country first put its signature under this document our country in the long-ago year of 1994. So what happened, if after 15 years Russia has so harshly abandoned this document?

...

A few years ago, corn-based ethanol fuel was all the rage. Farmers shelved crops like wheat and soybeans and planted more corn instead in order to cash in on the new revolution. Bill Gates and Richard Branson pumped in billions in funding. And ethanol stocks soared.

But the reality couldn’t match the hype, as the raw materials and cost required outweighed the output, and people realized that it would take greater viability to truly change people’s habits, psychology and the status quo in the energy sector.

But in today’s guest editorial from The Street Authority, editor Andy Obermueller explains how a different form of ethanol biofuel could revolutionize the landscape in just a few years - and hand early investors some outstanding potential profits. Check it out below…

Martin Denholm, Managing Editor, Smart Profits Report

The Ethanol Equation

In 1976, a businessman in North Central Kansas commissioned a CPA firm to do a feasibility study

...

The U.S. news media has convinced many investors that oil consumption is falling because of the global recession. While that may be true, it’s a disservice to millions of investors because production is declining at a pace that’s actually three times faster. And that suggests higher oil and gasoline prices in coming months - perhaps as much as 50% - 70% higher, or more - particularly if a U.S. economic recovery is truly in the offing. To really see what I’m talking about, let’s start with a close look at consumption. I’m asked about this frequently in my global wanderings, most recently at the Las Vegas Money Show last week. For months we’ve been hearing about a drop in global demand. It’s a popular story and one that sounds credible: After all, it seems logical to assume that during economic chaos, consumers and businesses alike will ...

One would think that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev would be pretty pleased to receive Vice President Dick Cheney's official delegation a few weeks ago - it was after all the highest ranking U.S. politician to ever visit the country. However that's not quite how it played out. Amid numerous reports that the meetings in Baku were cool if not cold, Aliyev additionally snubbed Cheney by not showing up to the airport to welcome him, and then immediately telephoned Medvedev right after their meeting to explain what the U.S. energy strategy is for the region. This made the mercurial vice president so angry that he apparently skipped town on a dinner to be held in his honor. The Russian press has been having a field day parading the "failure" of the Cheney delegation to hardball the Azeris into energy supply commitments ...

One would think that Azeri President Ilham Aliyev would be pretty pleased to receive Vice President Dick Cheney's official delegation a few weeks ago - it was after all the highest ranking U.S. politician to ever visit the country. However that's not quite how it played out. Amid numerous reports that the meetings in Baku were cool if not cold, Aliyev additionally snubbed Cheney by not showing up to the airport to welcome him, and then immediately telephoned Medvedev right after their meeting to explain what the U.S. energy strategy is for the region. This made the mercurial vice president so angry that he apparently skipped town on a dinner to be held in his honor. The Russian press has been having a field day parading the "failure" of the Cheney delegation to hardball the Azeris into energy supply commitments ...

I consider the greatest economist of the last century to be Joseph Schumpeter, whose theory of creative destruction has implicitly underpinned the dynamism of US capitalism, at least until now. Suddenly, politicians are intervening to decide which companies are too big to fail, and stifling a necessary reallocation of capital and clearing of economic deadwood. It is essential and healthy that dysfunctional and under capitalised investment banks go bust, or that a dinosaur like GM faces Chapter 11, painful though those events would prove for many ordinary investors and employees. The system as a whole benefits from the reallocation of capital and people from sunset to sunrise industries, and the swifter the process, the more productive the economy at large. The pain suffered by California as the post Cold War peace dividend slashed defence spending in the early 1990’s is a case in point, and set the scene for …