Federico Bordonaro

Banca d’Italia’s governor, Mr Mario Draghi, stated this week that criminal groups may be favoured by the ongoing economic crisis, as businesses will have more troubles in getting money from the banks and may thus fall into the usury trap.

Equilibri.net’s analyst Anna Longhini predicted such an outcome in a February 2009 article.

La crisi economica sta iniziando a colpire duramente dal punto di vista dell’accesso al credito le piccole e medie imprese italiane, a causa di un mercato creditizio che presta a tassi elevati e a condizioni che favoriscono una sempre minore flessibilità nell’esercizio dell’attività imprenditoriale. Parallelamente il mercato dell’usura sta trovando un terreno sempre più fertile in cui operare, perché chi non ottiene i finanziamenti necessari dalle banche o dalle finanziarie spesso si vede costretto a rivolgersi al mercato dell’usura. Il quadro descritto emerge dai dati dell’ultimo rapporto Sos Impresa di Confesercenti del 2008, che mette in luce i numeri di quello che è soltanto uno dei rami dell’attività mafiosa nel nostro Paese.

A “New Great Game” of Geopolitical Control Surfaces in Russia’s Old Backyard. An analysis written by Nadya Ivanova for Circle of Blue, with bits of my interview on the energy issues of the South Caucasus and Caspian regions.

Last December, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) completed an intensive seven-year project to understand the ecological dynamics of the Kura-Araks. NATO convened scientists from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to propose technical solutions for ecological restoration and cleanup.

The campaign, which also involved technical experts from the United States and several European Union (EU) nations, aimed to be more than a classic environmental initiative. Instead, NATO and OSCE focused on the river basin and its cleanup as a tool for using science, collaboration and strategic investment to design solutions to equally important competition over energy and diplomacy that might thrust the South Caucasus into an international conflict.
Reducing those conflicts is essential to cleaning up the river basin and to resolving the important issues that wrack the strategic region, where the EU, U.S. and Russian spheres of influence coalesce over politics, energy and diplomacy.

Article by Bruce Pannier for RFERL with bits of my interview on the subject:

It’s been an up-and-down year for the Nabucco natural gas pipeline.

Just as work on the long-stalled project seems set to finally begin, some shift — usually at the hand of Russian energy giant Gazprom — alters the commercial landscape and Nabucco’s chances appear to recede.

But the pipeline’s supporters have just selected a big name in European politics to help push the project toward realization — Joschka Fischer, the former head of Germany’s Green Party and the country’s foreign minister from 1998-2005.

Fischer faces some serious obstacles in jump-starting Nabucco — the would-be cornerstone in Europe’s drive to kick its Russian energy habit, which has failed to attract commitments from suppliers and consumers alike.

Not least among them is the fact that Nabucco’s rival pipeline projects have a powerful lobbyist all their own — Fischer’s former boss, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has spent four years on the payroll of Russian energy giant Gazprom.