Political detainees report being stripped naked and forced to stand outside in plunging temperatures during the night; electricity supplies to Kurdish areas are cut to suppress a simmering rebellion over…
You know my preference for buying country funds when there is blood in the streets. The corporate equivalent of that maxim has to be to buy when a lynch…
The controversy over the hydraulic fracturing process used to produce shale gas continues, with Pennsylvania and New York becoming a new battleground as development of the giant Marcellus Shale goes…
When considering the global energy sector, one of the most difficult tasks is understanding the gargantuan scale of our energy consumption. Talking about scale should be an integral part of…
An interesting chart from the Bank of Japan's latest monthly economic report. Japanese capacity utilization is way down. Around 20% of manufacturing facilities are standing idle. This is an improvement…
Ousama Hamdan used to be the go-between between Hamas and Iran, but for years has been the Hamas leader in Lebanon. He talks about problems with the peace process in…
A slow-growth real economy has been replaced with a credit-based speculative financial economy dependent on low interest rates and systemic fraud to survive. It is now imploding on a global…
Russia should tackle negative socio-economic and demographic trends in the Far East and Siberia instead of reacting to China's continuing rise if it wants to head off the chances of…
The first step in an ambitious project to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind turbines in Lake Erie was taken this week with an order to General Electric…
The implications for the oil industry from the ongoing Gulf of Mexico oil spill are already taking shape, with the administration calling for a Challenger-style investigation and rewriting the…
Anyone who believes that housing is on the rebound, and that now is the time to buy, should take a very hard look at the numbers I dredged up for…
The next attempt to shut off the flow from the leaking BP well in the Gulf is still aimed to occur early Wednesday. The attempt will use the “top kill”…
Despite the posturing of his regime, there are signs that Kim Jong-Il's hold on North Korea may be slipping and international community must be ready. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il…
The bioenergy industry has defended the use of forest plantations to create fuel for power plants, following claims by NGO Biofuelwatch that expanding wood biomass production to meet EU renewable…
Who Said the Dollar Was Going Down? I knew silver was doing well, but not that well! Possibly the oldest silver dollar in existence, a mint condition 1794 liberty dollar,…
The financial world is coming unglued again. Greece has pushed the E.U. to the brink. Global stock markets are tumbling. And yet, at the same time at least one economic…
Sometimes, China’s energy policies just make no sense at all. Consider the import and export patterns on oil products. In presumably socialist China, the oil majors PetroChina and Sinopec have…
Feel like investing in a state sponsor of terrorism? How about a country whose leaders have stolen $400 billion in the last decade and has seen 300 foreign workers kidnapped?
Canadian oil sands will probably become the No. 1 source of U.S. crude oil imports this year, and could make up more than a third of the nation’s oil…
The Istanbul Declaration, signed by Turkey, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, calls for peace and economic development in a bid for regional stability and EU integration. But there are always spoilers. The…