Controversy surrounding the Romanian economy is nothing new, nor, as a href="http://globaleconomydoesmatter.blogspot.com/2008/11/romania-votes-under-new-electoral.html"Manuel points out in his post on the recent election/a, are Romanian politics strangers to tumult. Nonetheless the intensity of controversy has grown considerably of late, with a wide variety of assessments being offered concerning the likely impact of the intensifying international credit crisis on the short to medium term outlook for the Romanian economy. National Bank of Romania (NBR) governor, Mugur Isarescu, has been consistently arguing that the country should be able to avoid an excessively "hard landing"as the bank attempts to cool its evidently overheated economy and engages of fire-extinguising activities in the banking sector trying to control the impact of set of adverse external circumstances that are largely beyond its control. But most of these comments (or at least the more convincing ones) preceded the meltdown in the international financial markets which followed the Lehman Brothers ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Controversy surrounding the Romanian economy is nothing new, nor, as a href="http://globaleconomydoesmatter.blogspot.com/2008/11/romania-votes-under-new-electoral.html"Manuel points out in his post on the recent election/a, are Romanian politics strangers to tumult. Nonetheless the intensity of controversy has grown considerably of late, with a wide variety of assessments being offered concerning the likely impact of the intensifying international credit crisis on the short to medium term outlook for the Romanian economy.National Bank of Romania (NBR) governor, Mugur Isarescu, has been consistently arguing that the country should be able to avoid an excessively "hard landing"as the bank attempts to cool its evidently overheated economy and engages of fire-extinguising activities in the banking sector trying to control the impact of set of adverse external circumstances that are largely beyond its control. But most of these comments (or at least the more convincing ones) preceded the meltdown in the international financial markets which ...

An interesting piece from The New York Times last month touches upon a theme explored a few months ago. Namely, Montenegro, and specifically its Adriatic coastal towns (e.g., Tivat, Budva), is becoming the next Monaco.  Montenegro receives more foreign investment per capita than any other country on the Continent, and it’s mostly thanks to wealthy Russians.  Needless to say, the country’s tax base and development is also improving.  The price of land in Budva, for example, where Russians are building a $310 million hotel and condominium complex on a rocky peninsula, is already more expensive than in the French-speaking tax haven.  And huge investments have also been made in the country’s industrial sector. Moreover, the Russian Bear also has its paws extended nearby: In neighboring Serbia, Gazprom, the Russian state energy monopoly, recently bought a majority stake in ...

There are some who unfairly complain that the Kremlin just uses its state-owned energy monopolies Gazprom and Rosneft as political instruments to threaten Western-leaning governments of Eastern Europe with supply cuts. That's just not true! Clearly as we've seen from Belarus in the past and most recently in Serbia, Gazprom is willing to cut off virtually any country to force lopsided business transactions - even staunch allies of Russia. In its abuse of competitive markets, no one could accuse the Gazprom of not being impartially ecumenical.

Green Star Alternative Energy Inc. is in the business of producing clean, restorative, and profitable energy from wind power. Headquartered in San Diego, California, Green Star is working to develop over 300 megawatts of clean wind energy. The Company is focusing their efforts on the development of wind energy, the import, and export of electricity, the cultivation of agriculture on their wind farms, and the supply of greenhouse-gas emission credits.

Green Star is currently working on evaluating wind energy developments in Europe, the United States, and China. They are pursuing a significant opportunity to provide clean power to the Republic of Serbia and neighboring European countries. The Company is working on their pending acquisition of wind farm and power trading company Notos.

With this acquisition, Green Star will become one of a few companies licensed to trade electrical power into and out of Serbia. They will also be the only company

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As every woman who has ever had dealings with a man knows only too well, it is a lot easier for people to make promises than it is for them to keep them. And when Europe's leaders met in Paris on the 12 October, a lot of fine promises (which were all, surely, very well intentioned) were made. The reality of having to live up to them, however, is turning out, as might only have been expected, to be much more complicated.Basically, the kernel of the plan which is now being operationalised seems to have been thrashed out in Washington on 11 October, when key G7 leaders met with Dominique Strauss Kahn of the IMF, and it was decided to try and erect two great firewalls (corta fuegos) - at least as far as Europe is concerned. One of these was to be co-ordinated by the EU governments, ...

I've been talking recently about how the credit crunch may slow project development in both energy and gold. Here are two examples ...Credit Crisis May Block, Delay 20% of Deepwater Rigs, Slow Petrobras Boom As many as 20 of the 100 deepwater oil rigs on order worldwide may be delayed or canceled as loan availability erodes, possibly slowing developments including the biggest petroleum discovery in the Americas in three decades.AngloGold, Gold Fields, Harmony May Spend Less as The Metal's Price Falls AngloGold Ashanti Ltd., Gold Fields Ltd., and Harmony Gold Mining Co., Africa's biggest gold producers, may review spending plans after metal prices tumbled and credit availability tightened. And here are some more stories of interest ...Gold Rises as Equities Pare Losses, U.S. Dollar's Rally Stalls Versus Yen Gold rose in Asia, erasing earlier losses, as equities pared losses and the dollar's rally against ...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaHungary's agony continues with both currency and stock markets falling sharply yesterday while bankers continue to report acute credit shortages. At the same time contagion has started to extend its ugly reach right across eastern Europe, with Ukraine, the Baltics and Serbia (at a minimum) all in ongoing negotiations with the IMF, with the credit crunch which has followed in the wake of the global financial turmoil really starting to bite.

"Many central and eastern European countries simply don't have either the financial strength or the technical expertise to bail out banks,'' said Lars Christensen, a senior emerging-markets analyst at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. "It's like an Iceland look-a-like contest and there are a number of candidates looking very fragile at the moment.''

Emerging-market banks plunged this morning after Standard & Poor's warned that Korea's lenders will struggle to refinance ...

by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaSerbia has also decided to ask the International Monetary Fund for additional support, according to a stament from senior government officials last Monday cited in Reuters."We are certainly not in a group of emergency cases, such as Hungary," a senior official who asked not to be named told Reuters. "But we need the agreement for longer-term stability."So, to be clear, Serbia is not an "emergency case", like Hungary for example - although it should be noted that the Hungarian government are stating that they are not an emergency case like Iceland, who are themselves not an emergency case, like Ukraine, for example, who are in no way to be considered as being in need of support in the way in which, let us say, Latvia is. And Latvia according to Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis is not any kind of ...

The Irish TimesJASON CORCORAN in Moscow Saturday, October 11, 2008EU MONITORS in Georgia have confirmed that Russian forces have dismantled 17 checkpoints, one signals post and one military base in zones adjacent to breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia.But, while EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said yesterday Russian troops have completed their withdrawal from the areas in line with yesterday's deadline,French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner complained that Russia still occupies three disputed pockets of land - Akhalgori and Perevi in South Ossetia, and the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia - areas that were under Georgian control before hostilities broke out.Col Dorcha Lee, a former army officer and veteran of UN peacekeeping missions in Lebanon, the Middle East and Serbia who heads the Irish group in the 200-strong European Union Monitoring Mission (EUMM) admits that their work is difficult and breaking ...