Geothermal energy is continuing to gain traction as a viable solution to our alternative energy needs. I recently did a a href="http://briskycapital.blogspot.com/2008/12/alternative-energy-look-at-geothermal.html"profile on one of the leaders in the geothermal space, Ormat Technologies /a(a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ora"ORA/a). Here's a roundup of some of the latest geothermal news:br /br /strongSurprising magma find captivates geothermal scientists/strongbr /Three developments in the geothermal world this month have caused more excitement in the field than these rock lovers tend to see in half a year. First up, drilling engineers accidentally tapped into a magma chamber in Hawaii while searching for new geothermal energy sites, a title="geologists" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7780873.stm"geologists/a reported last week. The exceedingly rare discovery occurred in a geothermal field that was under development for power production.br /The magma find provides an unexpected window into the process by which rock from the ocean floor forms into continental rock. Most of Hawaii is made of cooled lava, ...

Bring up “frontier markets” and most investors envision a potpourri of nations primarily located in Africa or the Middle East. Not so fast, my friend. A closer inspection of the growing number of frontier mutual funds and ETFs, for instance, shows that at least in regards to some of them, there is very little correlation to the aforementioned regions. Consider the Claymore/BNY Mellon Frontier Markets ETF (NYSEArca: FRN). The fund uses an indexing approach and seeks to more or less replicate, before fees and expenses, an equity index called The Bank of New York Mellon New Frontier DR Index. What does that mean? A close inspection of the fund’s holdings shows that Poland (25.07%), Chile (23.55%) and Egypt (14.78%) account for a majority of the top country weightings, and moreover that financials account for 41.61% of the sector weighting. Per Matthew McCall, ...

IEA predicts 2009 oil demand growth after 2008 contraction… Saudi Nov oil output complies with OPEC target-oil min… Expectations of deeper supply cut by OPEC next week

Oil rose above $45 on Thursday after the International Energy Agency predicted global growth in oil demand would resume in 2009 and Saudi oil minister said OPEC’s top exporter pumped less oil than expected last month.

World oil demand growth would return in 2009 after shrinking this year for the first time since 1983, the IEA, which advises 28 industrialized nations on energy policy, said in a monthly report. It also cut forecasts for supply outside OPEC next year.

“We knew the bad bits, demand down, but the supply downgrade was supportive,” said Rob Laughlin of MF Global.

U.S. crude was up $2.23 at $45.75 a barrel by 1152 GMT, after surging $1.45 to settle at

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Once again, I am flattering an entry with a picture taking here in Switzerland where I am currently entertaining courses at HEC Lausance. As you can see, it is a beautiful place and also, as it were, very interesting with respect to tail fume patterns from the enormous amount of airplanes moving back and forth over le Lac Léman (middle of Europe remember!). Posting is slim I know, but so unfortunately is time; I can assure that it is not out of lack of enthusiasm to write and opinion on current events.

Moving on to the topic du jour it is interesting to observe wow fast things sometimes change. We need not go back more than 5-6 months to observe how hawkish central banks across the economic edifice were busy scrambling to raise rates in order to quell inflationary pressures. Most notably, the

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We have just screened out universe for Free Cash flow yields. There are some suprising results. One of the highest FCF yields is Sanitas, a Lithuanian company. br /br /Sanitas is a Generic Pharmaceuticalcompany. It has modern manufacturing facilities in Lithuania, Slovakia and Poland, producing a variety of medicines often though of as defensive. br /br /Not much wrong with the company, other than being in a small illiquid market exposed to foreign currency risk. The compny even converted its outstanding loans from banks Bank Polska Kasa Opieki S.A. and Bank Zachodni WBK at favourable terms. Maybe there is real value out there?

There was virtually nothing in the price action of gold in the Far East on Friday that suggested that there would be an explosion in the gold price on Friday morning at the Comex open. I’d gone to bed at 5:00 a.m. New York time after filing my Thursday rant that you read yesterday morning. True, at the usual 3:00 a.m. time, gold had peaked at the lofty price of $759. But two hours later the price was still at $759.

So when I hit the ‘On’ button on the computer yesterday morning, I was hoping and praying that we would be away to the races when the Kitco gold chart came up…and we were. I’m encouraged by the fact that gold managed to finish on its highs in electronic trading after the Comex had closed for the day. The markets are very thin there…especially on Fridays…and it would have been

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by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaItaly, which is still the eurozone's third biggest economy, slipped into a recession in the third quarter. The Italian economy fell into what is now its fourth recession in less than a decade as gross domestic product shrank 0.5 percent from its level in the second quarter, when it contracted a revised 0.4 percent, the national statistics office said today. This is already Italy's worst recession since 1992, and there is evidently more and worse to come.Italy effectively followed Germany, Europe's largest economy, in posting two consecutive quarters of contraction -- the technical definition of a recession. Spain contracted on the quarter, while France narrowly avoided recession by posting a slender 0.1% expansion after contracting in the second quarter.From the third quarter of 2007 the economy contracted 0.9 percent, and this was the sharpest ...

The following is our third and final translation from the Russian press of Polish historian Adam Michnik's recent visit to Moscow (also the first and second articles). In this interview with Sergey Buntman on Echo Moskvy, which originally aired on Oct. 25, 2008, Michnik identifies the release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky would be seen as "a signal, and clear, clean, comprehensible to all" that Russia is heading in the right direction, toward democratic values and normalization of relations with Poland and other former Soviet states. Exclusive translation of interview transcript from Echo Moskvy: S.BUNTMAN: Well, it’s just today that it’s called that. Adam Michnik has come to our town [gorod – the name of the show]. Hello, Adam, good day. A.MICHNIK: Hello, good day. S.BUNTMAN: I invite all listeners to ask Adam Michnik questions about everything – about Russia, about Poland, about ...

Plunging crude oil prices and currency weakness are creating a crisis in Russia that makes the US look like a boomtown. Financial turmoil is mounting pressure on the Kremlin, says Andrew Snyder. And the resulting desperation could lead to some interesting profit plays.

This from Today’s Financial News:

If you think the situation is bleak here in the United States, you would wet your pants if you took an in-depth look at Russia’s economy.

Its stock market seems to be closed more than it is open. Its currency is plunging. And its government is running out of options and money to fix the situation. Russia makes America look like we are sitting atop a booming economy.

Putin’s downturn could lead to some easy profit potential. But more on that in a minute.

For nearly all of the last decade, Russia’s economy has been based on the country’s ability to sell its natural resources to Europe

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Today the French newspaper Le Figaro has published a lengthy interview with the president of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev. Below we present an English translation. The big news revealed in the interview is a seemingly direct offer to president-elect Barack Obama to cancel Russia's plans to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad in exchange for Washington abandoning support for the anti-ballistic missile site to be based in Poland. Medvedev Extends a Hand to Obama E. MOUGOTTE: Mr President, I would like to thank you sincerely for giving your first interview to the foreign press since the election of President Obama to Figaro Newspaper. Many observers were very surprised by your initial reaction. You threatened to deploy missiles in Kaliningrad. Isn’t there the risk that this could introduce conflict to your relations with the new American President?