Slow Down… or Else By David Galland, Managing Editor, The Casey Report

On a whim following our Denver Summit – and despite truly abysmal weather – Casey Research CEO Olivier Garret and I cabbed it down to a local public golf course for a quick nine holes. Afterwards we were returning to the hotel through a neighborhood best described as poor, but not disreputable. While our cab made its way down a side street, a radar gun-wielding policeman leaped out of the bushes down the block, pulled the trigger, and waved our immigrant cab driver to the curb. The offense, we soon learned, was going five miles an hour over the speed limit in a school zone… well after school was out and with no other children in sight.

Waiting for

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Bob has an opinion article in today's edition of the Guardian stressing the importance of linking human rights with foreign relations during David Miliband's visit to Russia this week, and elsewhere in the same paper, Mikhail Khodorkovsky's mother has issued her own appeal to the foreign secretary.

At least one report confirms that Khodorkovsky's case will indeed be discussed.

Miliband has started on this path already, apparently. He met with human rights activists today where, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Libery, he "expressed his concern over the killings of activists of nongovernmental organizations in Russia and the pressure that is being imposed on civil society."

Miliband also pressed Russia to

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In a case brought to light by Hermitage Capital Management's campaign to expose state corruption in Russia, Viktor Markelov has pleaded guilty to 'fraud by prior collusion by a group of persons and in an especially large amount' in a Moscow court.  Hermitage, meanwhile, has sent out a new letter to six government agencies alleging that senior Kremlin officials have 'conspired with a private gang' to steal $230 million from the Russian treasury.  Bloomberg and The Times of London report the figure as $381 million, the Moscow Times as less than a quarter of that sum.  AvtoVAZ workers are rallying for the company's nationalization.  Swiss engineering firm ABB says it is reassessing its business model in Russia, owing to increased operating costs.  Is Russian oligarch Mikhail D. Prokhorov planning to buy a ...

Doesn't matter what you see Or into it what you read You can do it your own way If it's done just how I say

Independence limited Freedom of Choice is made for you my friend Freedom of Speech is words that they will bend Freedom with their exception

-- Metallica, "Eye of the Beholder"

I've been traveling lately so apologies for coming through a couple of days late on this but I couldn't help noticing this story from the AFP on the return of Russia's indy music scene:

Ironically, some of the leading figures in 1980s rock now perform at patriotic concerts organised by the Kremlin.

But in Saint Petersburg, a city long seen as Russia's "window to the West", a handful

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I don't typically like spending a lot of time on stories that have more coverage by blogs than actual news outlets, but this one is really too juicy to pass up and it also continues our ongoing conversation about the dollar's prominence as a global reserve currency. Two men were recently stopped by Italian authorities while trying to cross the border into Switzerland with a fake-bottomed suitcase containing $134.5 billion worth of US Treasury bonds. That's right - billion with a B. Let's take just a moment to review which of the United States' various creditors even hold that much US debt. According to the latest data from the US Treasury Department, this is what we have to work through April of this year:

China ~ $763.5 billion Japan ~ $685.9 billion Caribbean Banking Centers ~ $204.7 billion OPEC ~

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Well, with the US$ down a half a cent, and decent gains in both platinum and palladium, you have to be pretty much brain dead not to have seen the footprints of the Gold Cartel in the gold and silver markets yesterday.

It all started the moment that Sydney closed on Monday afternoon…1:00 a.m. Monday in New York. From that point on, only Hong Kong [and the New York Bullion Banks] is a player. As I’ve said before, the New York banks [or their agents] can, and do, enter the markets whenever they want.

Gold sold off about five bucks with a smallish rally starting shortly after 12:00 noon in London. That lasted until the equity markets opened at 9:30 in New York…and then it was lights out…as gold got hit for $11 bucks. Once London closed for the day, the pressure was on again [both in Globex trading and electronic trading

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Last week, the European Central Bank squared its shoulders and joined ranks of the damned. The Times of London reported that in joining up with the US Federal Reserve Bank and the Bank of England, the European Central Bank “pulled out all the stops” in their drive to revive their economies.

The ECB announced that it will cut its key lending rate to its lowest level ever and begin a form of “quantitative easing,” in which it will buy corporate debt in order to reduce commercial interest rates. Details to follow, it said. “Stops” are to central bankers what safety fuses are to electricians. You may take them out when you really want to get the juice flowing; but your house might burn down.

But thus did the European troops pull out the stops and get under-way. Reluctant allies, they set off to join the battle against capitalism…with no reliable maps…with

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A report out this past week from the Times of London that Astra Zeneca (NYSE:AZN) plans to outsource...