There will be no blog Friday or Monday.
The visit of Russian Prime Minister Putin to Venezuela to discuss world affairs with Hugo Chavez sounds like an April Fool’s Day joke, but is serious. The two countries have overlapping interests beyond goading the USA and expressing anti-Americanism in different regional variations for Eastern Europe and the Americas. Both men gained power from non-democratic structures, the military and the secret security forces in their country. Both still owe allegiance to occult forces within the Nomeklatura of their fatherlands.
Despite this, both men sprout populism, nationalism, and vaguely leftish slogans and schemes to hide that they are in cahoots with corrupt oligarchic elements in their countries. Both talk the anti-imperialisy line but are in fact oppressors of religious, ethnic, native American and other minorities within their borders. Both preach stability and an iron fist.
Above all other similarities is the fact that Putin and Chavez both need higher oil prices to feed their highly concentrated energy-dependent economies. Their potential for plotting mischief is limited but it does exist.
The East End of London is soon to be graced with a twisting erector set into the sky, which visitors can ride up, designed by Anish Kapoor and financed to the tune of GBP 10.5 mn by Lakshmi Mittal of Arcelor Mittal, a steel company. It will stand 115 meters high (about 345 ft) near the site of the Olympic stadium being built.
This brings to mind another sculpture in dispute in the Docklands area, a large reclining nude by Henry Moore. It had stood in Poplar in a council estate (housing project). This is near Mudchute Manor, my London base. But then fear that it would be covered with graffiti and machinations by art critic Sir Herbert Read got the Moore moved to a sculpture garden in Yorkshire, where both Read and Moore were born.
If the same thing happens with the new tower, it will wind up in India, where both Kapoor and Mittal were born. Our local Conservative candidate for Parliament is demanding that the Moore be returned to Poplar.
There is yet another Chinese hotel group with ADRs, China Lodging, HTHT, thanks to an issue last week. It joins Seven Days and Home Inns which came to market in 2009 and 2008. All three chains aim to attract business customers with basic comfort and facilities as they work to make the country’s production go national.They all need to raise money from American and other foreign investors because there is not much bank finance available at home.
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