Archive

April 15, 2008

Tom Nicholls: Petrobras hits the jackpot, again

Brazil’s upstream prospects continue to brighten, as the state-controlled company makes another massive find Petrobras’ latest find could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to Haroldo Lima, head of upstream regulato...
April 14, 2008

Russia Continues its Attack on Lawyers

Perhaps Russia’s prosecutors and their silovik owners are packing in the fun before Vladimir Putin moves over to the premiership and Dmitry Medvedev assumes the presidency – but whatever is happening, legal nihilism appears to be deepe...
April 14, 2008

Old and New Spheres of Influence

In tomorrow’s Financial Times, columnist Gideon Rachman visits Georgia, and argues that “It would be nice to believe that the argument about extending Nato membership to Georgia and Ukraine was purely about principle. But, in reality, ...
April 14, 2008

Energy Blast, April 14, 2008

A Gazprom meeting considered the prospects for cooperation in Slovenia and discussed the Republic’s possible participation in the South Stream project. Iraq’s oil ministry has published a list of 35 companies qualified to bid in the first li...
April 14, 2008

Today in Russian Business – April 14, 2008

Russia’s metals oligarchs are feuding over company shares – but at least the disputes are non-violent, points out one journalist. It is being reported that Alisher Usmanov and Vladimir Potanin will try to block Oleg Deripaska from amassing a...
April 14, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – April 14, 2008

TODAY: Putin to lead United Russia? Japanese Foreign Minister in Russia. GM activists; Supreme Court judge shot; Moscow to spend $64 on stray dog castration. Vladimir Putin’s acceptance of United Russia’s invitation to be its leader would “signifi...
April 11, 2008

Clinton and Obama Should Discuss Russia’s Political Prisoners

Next Wednesday, April 16, ABC’s Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos will moderate a debate between U.S. Democratic Presidential Candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The time will be ...
April 11, 2008

Chubais the Survivor vs. Sechin the Cancer

Quo vadis, Anatoly Chubais? It is with morbid fascination that I observe the tenacity and staying power of this politician’s career, somehow surviving, sometimes laying low, and then thriving yet again throughout all the dramatic reversals o...
April 11, 2008

Look at Gas, Not Just Missiles

Edward Lucas of the Economist has some suggestions for Europe to lessen its dependence on Russian natural gas. 1) They should push for more non-Russian pipelines like Nabucco, 2) drive a harder bargain on the gas that it does buy, and 3) start tre...
April 11, 2008

Russia’s German Spy Goes on Trial

Today prosecutors filed espionage charges against Werner Franz G., a 44-year-old man from Bavaria who is alleged to have sold highly sensitive information and technological secrets to Russian intelligence between 2004 and 2006. The feds state that...