It took thirteen years of negotiations for Russia to ink a deal with Bulgaria and Greece to build a 178 mile overland pipeline, and President Putin was obviously pleased that it fell under his watch, using the presidential quill to kick start this three year project. The pipeline will feed Europe’s thirst for oil, negating the bottle necking problems that Russian tankers experience navigating the narrow and very busy Bosphorous Straits.

And the Chinese government is starting to free up property rights for its civilians, which will quell some of the discontent being voiced by their rural population, who are being left behind in their booming economy. In the town of Zhushan, near the city of Yongzhou, twenty thousand rioters went on the rampage, burning cars and buses and damaging government buildings? It turns out that a local company had taken over the town’s bus routes and increased the bus fare from $0.50 to $1. Well their voices were heard and the price has been reverted back to $0.50.

Meanwhile the Angolan government is flexing its oil muscles: They expect to produce 585 million barrels of oil this year generating about $30 billion. They turned down China’s $3 billion finance package and have told the IMF to take a hike. They claim they do not need China’s help, nor do they need them looking into Swiss bank accounts where most of the money will end up!!

Still in Africa, Zimbabwe would appear to be close to a melt down with continued riots and inflation at 1,700%. President Mugabe is attempting to change the constitution to stay in power until 2010, and his police force arrested fifty people last weekend, torturing them whilst in detention. The leader of the opposition party, Morgan Tsvangarai was beaten so badly that he suffered a fractured skull and remains in intensive care. Mr. Mugabe has said that his critics can “Go Hang”, whatever that means?

And our MEND buddies in Nigeria have just released two Italian oil workers that were held captive for three months, again stating that no oil workers are safe in the region. I believe that will remain true if we keep paying them ransom dollars to fund their operation. Kidnapping is their main form of revenue, so unless the oil companies refuse to pay nothing will change.

On the home front the political race is already heating up, but I don’t care what the polls are telling us now, the primaries are a long way off. Meanwhile President Bush went walk about to several South American countries, paying particular attention to Brazil and their ethanol success. He is said to have signed some trade agreements in this regard, and Brazil is hoping that the punitive tariffs imposed on the import of their ethanol will be waived.

And finally, the price of oil has eased to the $58 range, but there would appear to be no relief at the pump. The world stock markets are still in ‘roller coaster’ mode with the fear that there will be more repercussions from the faltering sub-prime mortgage market, but I suspect that the beer companies are having a run on their shares, because it’s March Madness time again, and the bookies in Vegas are flexing their wallets.

More on March Madness soon, that’s it for now. Stay tuned.