Moscow's Mayor fired

[Spudulika]

This is genuinely off-topic but relevant to what is happening in Ireland. Yuri Luzhkov, the head honcho in Moscow for almost 20 years and the 2nd most powerful man in Russia after Putin, got the boot this morning. Medvedev (or Putin's mini-me) got rid of him and there is a massive doubt over who is going to step in. The official line is that he lost the confidence of the President, which is a bit rich, though it seems more that by replacing Lushkov now means the Moscow machine will ensure Putin returns as President.

For Ireland this will be very important. Lushkov's wife is the richest woman in Russia (head of the biggest construction firm) and was the local partner for 3 large projects involving Irish investors (2xQuinn, 1xSeanie and pals) in Moscow. Now the money they put in disappeared, some 245million euros, with no result and Baturina (the wife) claimed somebody had just disappeared with the money. Now 2/3's of this was borrowed from Anglo, 10% from AIB and the rest was private funding. Mary McAleese apparently raised this issue during her visit as it was brushed quickly under the carpet last year. I don't see the money being repaid any time soon, which means these loans are going to end up in Nama - ie costing taxpayers more money (they had been termed - "operational").

Now if only Mary could get rid of Biffo.....

[OneRedArmy]

This is genuinely off-topic but relevant to what is happening in Ireland. Yuri Luzhkov, the head honcho in Moscow for almost 20 years and the 2nd most powerful man in Russia after Putin, got the boot this morning. Medvedev (or Putin's mini-me) got rid of him and there is a massive doubt over who is going to step in. The official line is that he lost the confidence of the President, which is a bit rich, though it seems more that by replacing Lushkov now means the Moscow machine will ensure Putin returns as President.

For Ireland this will be very important. Lushkov's wife is the richest woman in Russia (head of the biggest construction firm) and was the local partner for 3 large projects involving Irish investors (2xQuinn, 1xSeanie and pals) in Moscow. Now the money they put in disappeared, some 245million euros, with no result and Baturina (the wife) claimed somebody had just disappeared with the money. Now 2/3's of this was borrowed from Anglo, 10% from AIB and the rest was private funding. Mary McAleese apparently raised this issue during her visit as it was brushed quickly under the carpet last year. I don't see the money being repaid any time soon, which means these loans are going to end up in Nama - ie costing taxpayers more money (they had been termed - "operational").

Now if only Mary could get rid of Biffo.....If security hasn't been perfected then NAMA will acquire the loans for nil value. Lots of examples of this already. So it won't cost the State anything.

Next question....

[Mr A]

OK. But the state owns Anglo, so aren't we caught anyway?

[Spudulika]

The Russian Special Investigator has announced his office are going to "review" deals signed with foreign companies by Baturina's company. IKEA have a suit pending against her - they were being blackmailed into using her firms services to build a permitted ramp onto the MKAD ring road - strangely the City Hall kept rejecting all plans complete this until finally they accepted her firms offer (4 times over the odds) and submitted the tapes of the final negotiations to the Police. And remember this is just one foreign country that Anglo and AIB were lending for - there will be alot more in Hungary, Poland, Montenegro and teh Czech Republic, not to mention Bulgaria!