Did you know that Igor Sechin allegedly worked with the famous arms dealer Viktor Bout back in Mozambique in the 1980s?  Neither did I, but you probably already know we have been watching all these orders coming for more Russian tanks from Venezuela's Hugo Chavez while at the same time more and more FARC links to Caracas are surfacing.  It's just so strange to think that the key individual who somehow allegedly ties together Russian weapons to the Venezuelans and then onward to FARC is in a Thai jail, where, apparently, the authorities are under the impression that FARC is not even a terrorist organization but rather a political party.  According to this editorial in the Washington Post, the ...

TODAY: No resolution at EU-Russia summit; Putin warns against outside interference in dealings with Ukraine; Lavrov encourages dialogue with Hamas; Kremlin concerned by OSCE appointment; the activities of Patriarch KirillReuters reports that Russia's ambassador to the UN has announced that the Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to discuss North Korea's underground nuclear missile test, about which Russia has concerns.  According to the Times, relations between the EU and Russia have 'worsened' as a lack of agreement on major issues blighted the end of their summit.  The Financial Times examines why the ice in Khabarovsk refused to melt.  Paraphrasing Kremlin patriot Anton Denikin whilst visiting his grave, Prime Minister Putin has warned against intervention in Russia-Ukraine relations as ...

Yulia Latynina has a new column in Yezhednevny zhurnal (translated by RFE/RL) taking a look at the innovative idea of having the security officials of SVR and FSB secret police agencies put down the wiretaps for a moment in order to start studying history ... and to enforce the new commission in charge of making sure that nobody falsifies these important narratives.  Latynina highlights the case of Aleksei Olesinov, an activist who was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for alleged hooliganism, but more likely was targeted for his anti-facist activities.  From there, she takes on a discussion of the new forms of facism and anti-facism, or at least the presence of these terms by nearly every political movement out there....

In spite of the war against Hamas, an increasingly fragile economy and a sever water shortage, Israeli entrepreneurs are continuing to innovate (hey, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature).   VC Cafe has done a short writeup on each of the 20 19 companies presenting.  You should check out his post and his blog here.

I have a couple of favorites:

Free Way - aiming to connect existing navigation services and applications into one big shared network. Using that connection, Free Way plans to offer device agnostic, accurate traffic condition & social localized information in real time. Big idea in early stage. Founded in 2009. Qoof - brings video to the eCommerce world by producing online videos on products, inserting sales information into videos and promoting them through a distributed, multi-channel, targeted and personalized video commerce network. Qoof is one of the more experienced start ups on this list, ...

Russian gas deal, Gaza ceasefire ease supply concerns… World oil demand expected to fall in 2009… U.S. holiday leads to low trading volumes…

Oil fell more than $2 towards $34 a barrel on Monday after Russia and Ukraine signed a 10-year gas deal clearing the way for the resumption of supplies to a freezing Europe.

Implementation of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza also eased supply concerns as the market remained under pressure from expectations that the weakening global economy would erode oil demand.

“Right now the economy is dominating,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, analyst at BNP Paribas. “The market is very volatile and the signs are that demand is weakening.”

U.S. crude oil futures for February delivery dipped to a low of $33.89, down $2.62, before recovering to trade at $34.53 by 1800 GMT.

Traders said the February U.S. crude oil futures

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MSCI world equity index down 0.85 pct at 212.56… Rally after UK bank rescue package evaporates… S&P ratings downgrade on Spain hits euro

World stocks fell on Monday as optimism after Britain’s multi-billion rescue plan gave way to concerns about the banking sector after Royal Bank of Scotland reported the biggest ever loss in UK corporate history.

The euro tumbled after Standard & Poor’s cut Spain’s credit rating, following its downgrade of Greece last week. Oil fell 6 percent below $35 a barrel, hit by worries about weakening energy demand in a slowing economy.

Britain will allow banks to insure against steep losses and guarantee their debt to stop the credit crunch pushing the economy into a deep slump. The plan raises the government’s stake in RBS, which said it lost over 20 billion pounds last year, sending shares down nearly 70 percent.

“Whilst

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Goosing infrastructure companies isn’t anything new. It’s been going on since 2003, when the U.S.’ “shock and awe” offensive overwhelmed Iraqi forces and resulted in negligible casualties. It was too easy. The casualties came later.

Two things will define 2009. One is the huge $1 trillion economic stimulus package featuring “smart grids,” roads and bridges.

The other is the winding down of the war in Iraq. I believe that this will supersede handling the aftermath of the current eruption of violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The promise of ending the war helped President-Elect Obama get elected, though I believe the policy differences between the two presidential candidates were not as great as generally perceived.

Now Iran and Afghanistan are Obama’s problem. It’s not quite as urgent as the deteriorating state of the economy, but it’s close. Obama will begin withdrawing troops as soon as he can. That may

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Thursday January 15, 2009 Navivest

Today will be a critical day for the stock market. With yesterday’s 248.42-point (2.9%) drop in the Dow, we’ve now had six consecutive days in which the index closed to the downside.

Since the start of the week, we have been looking for a rebound and thought we would get one on Wednesday, but with the grim retail sales numbers from the Commerce Department before the market opened, any chances of that got eliminated.

Going back just over a year, the longest losing streak for the Dow was eight days, when from October 1, 2008 through October 10, the Dow lost 2,399.47 points from the September 30th 10,850.66 close.

But that was during the period when it became apparent that the Wall Street of old, was going to be no more. Two weeks prior, on Sunday September 14, Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank

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Wednesday January 14, 2009 Navivest

Crude oil futures prices continued falling on Wednesday, after a Department of Energy report showed that crude inventories rose by 1.2 million barrels for the week ending January 9, to 326.6 million barrels.

While the increase in stock was less than expected, forecasters had been looking for inventories to rise by 2.5 million barrels, the 326.6 million barrels inventory is 13.1% higher than in the same period last year.

Gasoline inventories meanwhile, rose by 2.1 million barrels to 213.5 million barrels, 3.6% below inventory quantities in the same period a year ago.

According to the energy department, the demand for gasoline over the four weeks that ended January 9 was 2.1% lower than in the same period a year ago, with an average consumption of 8.9 million barrels daily.

On the inventory numbers, crude oil fell for a second straight day, losing $1.02, to close at 36.26

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Iran says OPEC could cut output again in March… Russia-Ukraine gas row not finally resolved…

Oil fell more than $2 to below $39 a barrel on Monday, dragged down by widespread evidence that deepening recession was reducing global energy consumption.

The decline came despite news that Saudi Arabia planned to cut output to below its agreed target, as well as gas supply disruptions in Europe as a result of the Russia-Ukraine dispute and tensions in the Middle East.

U.S. light crude for February delivery fell $2.18 to a low of $38.65 by 1020 GMT. London Brent crude fell $1.62 to $42.80.

U.S. jobless data on Friday set the tone for the market.

A U.S. government report showed employers slashed jobs by 524,000 in December, driving the national unemployment rate to its highest level in almost 16 years.

“The U.S. unemployment numbers on Friday started

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