Had everything gone according to plan, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would have spent the weekend visiting Brazil, Ecuador, and his close friends in Venezuela.  However following a carefully worded warning from Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and domestic political struggles - including a rare public rebuke from Ayatollah Khamenei, the trip was suddenly cancelled without explanation.  Given Russia's role alongside Iran and China as one of the countries whose influence is fast growing in Latin America, how is the penetration of Iran into these areas seen by Moscow - as competitors or partners?

To discuss some of these questions regarding the Russo-Iranian relationship, Grigory Pasko conducted a Q&A with Pavel Salin, Head of Research for the Russian Center for

Gold didn’t do a whole heck of a lot in the Far East yesterday. A smallish rally into the London a.m. fix [5:30 a.m. in N.Y.] got smacked, but managed to gain that back and a bit more by 9:00 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Then the usual not-for-profit seller[s] showed up, and that was it for the day. The low came in after-hours electronic trading…shortly after the Comex trading pits closed. After that, it managed to tack on a few bucks before Globex trading closed in New York at 5:15 p.m.

Volume was so-so. Only 99,266 contracts were estimated to have traded, including a switch effect of 8,734 contracts.

Silver’s action yesterday was similar to gold’s…with the exception that the ‘low’ for yesterday [such as it was] occurred in early morning trading in