Russia's Rouble Collapsing as Oil Prices in Freefall

As the price of oil plummeted to below $60 a barrel on increased Saudi production, Russia's already sluggish economy took a significant hit when Russia's central bank announced they would increase the key interest rate from 10.5% to 17% in a drastic move announced earlier this week.

The move was done in part to halt the Russian Ruble's drastic slide against the Dollar and Euro- as of Wednesday afternoon, the Ruble was trading at just over 60 to the dollar [down from 68 prior to interest rate hikes- NANESB!] and just under 75 to the Euro.

Although Russia has been on the receiving end of lukewarm sanctions from the USA and European Union after Russia annexed the Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, it's apparent that the recently plummeting energy prices have played a role in Russia's latest economic crisis.

This leaves Putin with the difficult choice of trying to prop up the mostly resource-based Russian economy or continue his costly military campaign against the Ukraine [I'm of two minds on this- while I'm glad Putin's finally reeling after attacking a neighboring country unprovoked, let's also keep in mind that no matter how dangerous and belligerent a Kremlin flush with petrodollars was the Eastern Europe, an unstable Russia that feels it has nothing left to lose may end up being more dangerous to the region. Also, who's to say the contagion would be confined exclusively to Russia?- NANESB!].

A financial joke devised to poke fun at Putin comes true http://t.co/WNRH5tkHFo pic.twitter.com/3DigQSw7Qt

— The Political Hat (@ThePoliticalHat) December 16, 2014

Over the last several weeks, the implied rationale behind Saudi Arabia's increase in production was that they were attempting to undermine the fracking boom in the US and Canada, temporarily saturating the global market with cheap oil and making the labor intensive practice unprofitable for North American companies. While this strategy would mean the Saudis would lose money in the short-term, they would (in theory) benefit in the long run from reduced competition from oil shale in west Texas and North Dakota.

However, others have theorized that Russia was the intended target of a clandestine Saudi economic attack all along. With President Obama ignoring his own self-declared 'Red Line' in Syria and seeking rapprochement with Iran- despite the Islamic Republic's stated desire to obtain nuclear weapons- the Arabian kingdom has decided to act unilaterally and go after Syria and Iran's benefactor in Russia economically. If that is the case, then undercutting Russia's state-run Gazprom by flooding the global marketplace with cheap oil has proven devastatingly effective so far- moreso than tepid the tepid sanctions levied on Russia after invading the eastern Ukraine.

Whether it's to undercut Russia or the fracking boom in the USA, the Saudi strategy is sure to cause problems among other OPEC members who are just as reliant on oil as Russia and may not be able to ride out low prices like the House of Saud. Even more problematic for some OPEC nations such as Iran and Venezuela is that Russia is their primary benefactor.

The move by Russia's Central Bank comes a little over a month after Russia and China agreed to a lucrative $300B energy deal which would give China's quasi-state run China National Petroleum Corp a partial stake in west Siberian oil and gas fields. In October, China and Russia had signed an agreement to swap nearly $100B of currency, so China may be on the hook as well if the Ruble continues its collapse.

The rate increase has also triggered bickering amid Putin's inner circle and prompted many Russians swarming markets to buy goods before the prices went up.

Malaysian Airliner Shot Down Over Eastern Ukraine

At least 298 people are dead after a surface to air missile brought down a Kuala Lumpur-bound Malaysian Airlines flight over Eastern Ukraine on Thursday. The flight- Malaysia Airlines Flight 17- had originated in Amsterdam and was flying more than 32,000 feet over the strife-torn Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

In recent weeks, that part of the Ukraine has seen fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatist militias that are essentially Kremlin proxies along Ukraine's border with Russia. Earlier in the week, separatists boasted that they had shot down a Ukrainian military An-26 transport plane over the eastern city of Lugansk.

After the Ukrainian 'Maidan' uprising ousted Kremlin allied president Viktor Yanukovych earlier this year, Russia responded by annexing the strategically important Crimea peninsula- part of the Ukraine, but home to a number of strategic Russian naval facilities. After a hastily put together 'referendum' in which Moscow claimed the populace of the Crimea wanted to become part of Russia, masked fighters claiming to be pro-Russian separatists began seizing public buildings in key cities in the eastern Ukraine. However, it's widely believed these 'separatists' are acting on direct orders from the Kremlin. In May, shortly after candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko won a special election called after Yanukovych fled the country, the Ukrainian military launched a series of counterattacks culminating in a raid on Donetsk's international airport in late May that killed dozens of pro-Russian separatists who were using the buildings as headquarters.

The 'rebels' retaliated by shooting down Ukrainian military aircraft over eastern Ukraine- the deadliest of which was when a Ukrainian Defense Ministry Il-76 transport was shot down while on approach over the eastern city of Lugansk on June 14th, killing all 49 on board. Just days prior to the downing of Flight MH17, two Ukrainian military aircraft were shot down over the restive eastern part of the country.

An hour before news broke of Flight MH17 going down, pro Russian separatist leader Igor Strelkov boasted of shooting down an aircraft on Russian social media site Vkontakte [similar to Facebook- NANESB!] complete with the ominous line 'We warned them not to fly in our skies'. Although it was quickly deleted after news of MH17 being shot down broke internationally, several online observers were able to obtain screencaps of the damning message. In addition to the Russian government caught editing the Wikipedia entry on Flight MH17 on Friday, Ukraine's SBU intelligence agency released what they claim is a telephone conversation between separatist commanders and Russian officers, with the separatists notifying them they had just shot down a civilian airliner.

It appears to capture the chaotic moments after the plane was shot down — and the realization that it was a passenger plane rather than a Ukrainian transport plane, which had been targeted in recent days by the Russia-backed separatists.

"We have just shot down a plane," says a man the SBU identified as Igor Bezler, a Russian military intelligence officer and leading commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

That call came just 20 minutes after the crash and was placed to a person identified by Ukraine’s SBU as a colonel in the main intelligence department of the general headquarters of the armed forces of the Russian Federation Vasili Geranin, according to Ukraine security officials.

But in a second tape released by the agency, two men identified as "The Greek" and "Major" discuss the debris field and the fact the the plane was a civilian aircraft.


“It’s 100 percent a passenger [civilian] aircraft,” Major is recorded as saying, as he admitted to seeing no weapons on site. “Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper.”

The Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by what U.S. intelligence sources confirm was a surface-to-air missile near the village of Chornukhine, Luhansk Oblast, some 30 miles inside the the border with Russia.

The second conversation, if verified as authentic, could dispel Russian separatist claims that it was the Ukrainian military that shot the plane down. According to the transpcript:

Major: "These are Chernukhin folks who shot down the plane. From the Chernukhin check point. Those cossacks who are based in Chernukhino."

Grek: "Yes, Major."

Major: "The plane fell apart in the air. In the area of Petropavlovskaya mine. The first '200' [code word for dead person]. We have found the first '200.' A Civilian."

Greek: "Well, what do you have there?"

Major: "In short, it was 100 percent a passenger [civilian] aircraft."

Greek: "Are many people there?"

Major: "Holy [expletive]! The debris fell right into the yards [of homes]."

In a third intercepted conversation released by the SBU — which the agency says took place about 40 minutes after insurgents seemed to realize they had shot down a civilian plane — Cossack commander Nikolay Kozitsin tells an unidentified separatist that the fact the Malaysia Airlines plane was flying over the combat zone likely meant it was carrying spies.

"That means they were carrying spies," Kozitsin allegedly says. "They shouldn’t be [expletive] flying. There is a war going on."

At this point, the most likely scenario is that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by pro-Russian separatists who misidentified the aircraft as a Ukrainian ministry of Defense transport plane and opened fire with a surface to air missile system known as the 'Buk' SA-11 or an updated variant. The 'Buk' is a complex, crew serviced weapons platform that is mounted on a tracked or wheeled vehicle. Both Russia and the Ukraine militaries have the SA-11 Buk in their inventory, but pro-Russian separatists from the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic boasted of seizing heavy weapons- including an SA-11 launcher- from a Ukrainian air defense facility in late June. On Friday, the Ukrainian government released a brief video of a Buk missile system with at least one missile missing on a flatbed trailer purportedly heading towards Russian territory. For its part, Russia has lobbed accusations that Kiev downed the airliner [a civilian aircraft that was within moments of leaving it's airspace at an altitude of 32,000 feet, no less- NANESB], prompting one English-language RT correspondent to abruptly resign.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the flight data recorder for MH17 is almost certainly in territory controlled by the pro-Russian Donetsk militia. Should it be recovered and sent to Moscow, international aviation experts claim it will most likely be doctored and anything that incriminates Russia or their proxies in Donetsk will be removed. There is also the likelihood that MH17's descent was so abrupt and catastrophic that they black box flight recorders may yield little in the way of data. Even so, heavily armed militiamen had prevented international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe from examining the crash scene on Friday. 193 of Flight MH17's passengers were Dutch- including an American who held dual citizenship with Holland and 22 schoolchildren from the town of Roosendaal, and amid reports of militiamen compromising the crash site, pickpocketing the scattered bodies and dumping dozens of bodies from the crash site by the side of a road, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said Putin has one 'last chance' to show he's serious about helping recover the bodies and personal effects

Despite the ongoing conflict on the ground, the skies above the eastern Ukraine weren't off-limits to commercial airliners. According to online aviation tracking website FlightAware.com, other commercial carriers such as Lufthansa and Air India were routinely flying through eastern Ukraine airspace prior to the downing of Flight MH17.

Deposed Ukrainian President Yunukovych Reportedly Flees Ukraine as Masked Gunmen Take Parliament, Airport in Crimean Region

Less than a week after the closing ceremony of the Sochi winter games and Ukrainian president Yanukovych's exodus from Kiev, Russian news agency RIA Novosti is reporting that the deposed Ukrainian leader has fled the volatile Crimean peninsula to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Thursday night. Yanukovych's flight reportedly received fighter escort to the southern Russian city once inside of Russian airspace.

Meanwhile, the nominally autonomous Crimean peninsula has become the new flashpoint in the Ukraine as ethnic Russians clashed with Ukrainian nationalists in Simferopol. The strategically situated peninsula is majority Russian but still considered part of the Ukraine since the 1992 breakup of the Soviet Union. During the breakup, Russia and the newly-independent Ukraine reached an agreement to partition the Soviet Navy's Black Sea Fleet in exchange for ongoing use of the Crimean port of Simferopol.

Shortly after the 2008 Russian incursion into the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Yanukovych's predecessor- Viktor Yushchenko- announced that the lease on the Sevastopol naval base would not be leased past 2017. However, Yanukovych reversed course on Yushchenko's decision and agreed to extend to lease on the Sevastopol facility in exchange for discounted natural gas from Russia in 2010.

In the early morning hours on Thursday, dozens of masked, heavily armed gunmen seized the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol and raised a Russian flag on the roof. Later in the day, masked men in fatigues but with no insignias took up positions in Simferopol's airport- the main air hub in the region. Eyewitnesses say the men arrived in trucks adorned with the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet insignia and the road leading to the airport was now ringed with checkpoints manned by armed men in plainclothes with a Russian flag raised at each one. The takeovers come shortly after Russian President Vladmir Putin ordered troops to mobilize on the Ukraine's doorstep. Ukraine's interim president- who the Kremlin does not recognize as the Ukraine's legitimate government- has called the 'mystery troops' occupying the parliament building and airport in Simferopol a 'Russian incursion'.

Crimea's parliament had voted to oust the region's premier on Thursday and a referendum on greater autonomy from Kiev is set to take place on May, around the same time as the rescheduled Ukrainian presidential elections are slated to take place.

Meanwhile, Israel has expressed concerns that the makeup of the opposition groups and demonstrators that ousted Yanukovych includes ultranationalist, anti-Semitic and pro-fascist parties such as Svoboda. Op-ed pieces in Israeli media are calling for the Ukraine's 65,000 or so Jews to 'come home' to Israel amid concerns that racist and anti-Semitic groups could take advantage of the turmoil on the Ukraine to step up attacks on Jews and other minority groups. On Monday, a newly built Chabad facility in the southeastern Ukrainian town of Zaporozheye was firebombed- although Chabad officials say the damage was 'mostly cosmetic and the arsonists were caught on camera.

Anti-Semitism is nothing new in the Ukraine- there have been vicious pogroms and purges directed at the Jews in Kiev since medieval times. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union shut down Jewish groups and synagogues, exiling many Jews in other Soviet republics thousands of miles away. During World War II, the occupying Nazis exterminated Jews and other Ukrainians- the most infamous incident was the Babi Yar massacre in which SS Officers- aided by Ukrainian collaborators- massacred more than 30,000 Ukrainian Jews in a ravine outside of Kiev over two days in September 1941.

Towards later years of the Soviet Union, many Jews in the Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR began to take advantage of Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glastnost and peristroika to move overseas to the USA or Israel.

UPDATE 2/28- Moscow has admitted the troops with no insignia that took up positions at the Simferopol Airport are in fact Russian. The troops that initially set up positions in Crimea's parliament and the airport came from the Russian naval base on the Crimea while additional troops from Russia were flown in.

Ukrainian President Yanukovych Flees Kiev as Demonstrators Overrun Presidential Compound, Topple Lenin Statues

As anti-government Maidan protestors gained increasing control over parts of the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, President Yanukovych fled his presidential compound to the majority-Russian Crimean port of Sevastopol on Friday.

While Russia denounced the ousters of Kremlin-allied Yanukovych as 'Kalashnikov-toting people in black masks', Ukraine's parliament voted to strip Yanukovych of office and issue a warrant for his arrest in the death of dozens of Maidan protestors in clashes with police last week.

Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchinov was named the interim president of the Ukraine while former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and flown to Kiev to address the victorious pro-Western Maidan demonstrators.

Tymoshenko, 53, was freed from prison Saturday after two-and-a-half years, most of them spent in a detention hospital.

Dressed in black, she later emerged at Kiev's Independence Square in a wheel chair. Cheers erupted.

Tearfully, she hailed the sea of protesters, who listened and occasionally waved.

"Today, Ukraine has finished with this terrible dictator," she said, referring to ousted President Viktor Yanukovych.

She then passed on a not-so-subtle message.

"There'll be no Ukraine but the Ukraine you want," she said. "And I'm the guarantor of that Ukraine."

The polarizing former Prime Minister has a complicated relationship with Yanukovych

Both have dominated the nation's politics for years. Both have a rivalry that dates years.

Her international popularity soared a decade ago as a result of her ardent speeches that helped overturn Yanukovych's presidential win in 2004. She's considered a hero of the country's 2004 Orange Revolution, a wave of peaceful protests that swept her and Viktor Yushchenko into power as Prime Minister and President, respectively.

The same revolution successfully overturned what many believed was a largely false presidential win by Yanukovych.

But the promise of the revolution soon turned sour. The two feuded publicly, prompting Yushchenko to fire her a few months into her term.

In 2007, Tymoshenko was back as Prime Minister. But she was dogged by accusations of irregularities and overlooking the nation's economic problems.

Her tense working relation with Yushchenko did not help their case. Analysts say it was one of the reasons she lost to Yanukovych in the 2010 presidential elections.

After Yanukovych won that election, Tymoshenko, was forced out of office and into the courtroom. In 2011, she was on trial over a costly natural gas agreement that she signed with Russia while she was Prime Minister.

In October of that year, a Ukrainian court found her guilty of abuse of authority for signing overpriced gas contracts with Russia and sentenced her to seven years in prison.

The prosecutor said the gas deals inflicted damage to the country amounting to more than 1.5 billion hryvnias (almost $190 million at the exchange rate at the time). In addition to the sentence, the court ruled she must repay the money.

Amnesty International slammed the verdict as "politically motivated" and called for the release of Tymoshenko, who was Prime Minister from January to September 2005, and December 2007 to March 2010.

The case against her was widely considered politically motivated, and the United States and other Western nations called her "a political prisoner."

Both Tymoshenko and Yankukovych have been accused of being oligarchs who have consolidated their power and used the presidential office for personal gain. On Saturday, Maidan demonstrators made their way to Yanukovych's hastily-abandoned presidential mansion. According to watchdog website opendemocracy.net, Yanukovych's presidential salary as the equivalent of US $25,000 per year- yet Yanukovych's mansion in Mezhyhirya is worth an estimated US $75 million and features a private zoo, antique car collection and life-size mock galleon and marina.



Meanwhile, the nationalist Svoboda Party used the collapse of the government to start tearing down statues built to honor Vladmir Lenin that date back to the Cold War- some statues in the eastern and central part of the Ukraine were never torn down with the collapse of the USSR either due to the high Russian population or lingering nostalgia for the old Soviet union by die-hard communists.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg-based steelmaker Arcelor-Mittal [NYSE- MT] announced that they would be removing a Lenin statue and temporarily relocating foreign workers on the grounds of their facility in the Ukraine.

The next round of presidential elections were scheduled to take place in February 2014, but with the ousting of Yanukovych the parliament has now moved election day up to May 25th, 2014.

Russia has said they do not recognize the interim government and there are concerns that the turmoil in the Ukraine will provide Russia with the pretext to change previously negotiated prices for natural gas imported from Russia. Although the Ukraine has sought to diversify its imports of natural gas- as well as exploit their own shale reserves- due to previous disputes with Russia- by early 2014 Energy and Coal minister Eduard Stavytsky said that the Ukraine was importing natural gas almost exclusively from Russia due to a clear price advantage.

Death Toll Climbs as Police and Protestors Clash in Ukrainian Capital

At least 77 people were killed in Kiev on Thursday after Ukrainian officials claimed that riot police opened fire on antigovernment demonstrators advanced on their positions around government buildings.

Ambulances ferried dead and wounded to hospitals after a truce that had been declared Wednesday night fell apart hours later. At a makeshift medical center inside a cathedral, some two dozen doctors from across the country treated those they could as a steady stream of cars delivered medicine, food and other supplies.

Medics working with the opposition said that most of the casualties were civilians, clad in motorcycle helmets and carrying homemade shields fashioned from wood and metal, apparently shot by snipers.

Several corpses, some covered in sheets, others in Ukrainian flags, were laid out on Kiev's main street and in the lobby of a downtown hotel, which served as a first-aid station and a morgue.

The death toll for the week climbed to 77, according to the government; opposition representatives put it at more than 100. Ukraine's Interior Ministry said 16 police officers were among the dead.

Independence Square in Kiev in April 2009, left, when a Ukrainian student group formed a smiley face, and on Thursday, as protesters inspected damage from recent clashes with government forces. .

Both sides braced themselves for more fighting. On Kiev's Independence Square, protesters buttressed their defenses and their chants against the president turned from "Get the criminal out" to "Death to the criminal."

In addition to the 16 police officers the Ukrainian Interior Ministry claimed were killed in clashes with demonstrators while the antigovernment protestors who had been camped out in Kiev's Independence Square to demonstrate against President Yanukovytch's vote against closer ties with the European Union claimed that police snipers shot and killed 20 in the demonstrator's camp. The EU decision by Yanukovytch's cabinet prompted fears that the Ukraine would fall back into the Kremlin's sphere of influence barely 20 years after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Protestors also seized the central Post Office in Kiev and the interior ministry claimed that they had also overrun a police station in suburban Kiev and were able to loot the armory. Ukrainian television networks showed video of some of the protestors being cut down by police gunfire while demonstrators claimed to have hindered reinforcements from arriving by blocking streets and captured 67 police officers amid clashes.

Ukrainian Leader Takes Leave of Office Amid Escalating Clashes Between Police and Demonstrators in Kiev

Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych announced on Thursday that he was taking 'indefinite' sick leave on Thursday amid ongoing clashes between riot police and antigovernment demonstrators- the biggest domestic turmoil in the former Soviet republic since the 2005 'Orange Revolution'.

The official line is that the 63-year-old Yanukovych has an acute respiratory illness and a high fever.

But the opposition isn’t buying it. Some say he is looking for an excuse to avoid further discussions with opposition leaders, which have done nothing to resolve the tensions.

Vitali Klitschko, a leading opposition figure, has a more ominous theory — the president could be pretending to take himself out of action in preparation for imposing a state of emergency. That has been a persistent worry of the opposition since violent clashes two weeks ago killed three protesters.

‘‘I remember from the Soviet Union it’s a bad sign — a bad sign because always if some Soviet Union leaders have to make an unpopular decision, they go to the hospital,’’ Klitschko said.

Yanukovych has faced two months of major protests that sometimes paralyze central Kiev and have spread to other cities. The protests started after he backed out of a long-awaited agreement to deepen ties with the European Union in favor of Russia, but quickly came to encompass a wide array of discontent over corruption, heavy-handed police and dubious courts.

The protests escalated in mid-January when Yanukovych signed a series of strict anti-protest measures into law, but the president agreed to scrap the anti-protest laws of Jan 16th earlier this week.


The antigovernment demonstrators see the current government's rebuff of closer ties to the European Union as a sign that the Ukraine is falling back under the Kremlin's sphere of influence. During Soviet times, millions of Ukrainian were killed in an engineered famine under Josef Stalin and the northernmost part of the nation was irradiated with the 1986 explosion and meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

The protests aren't limited to the capital of Kiev- protestors are occupying regional government office buildings in the western part of the Ukraine and have even forced the resignation of Lviv's governor Oleg Salo.

At least four demonstrators have been killed in the ongoing protests in Kiev this month. Reports are circulating that riot police have been firing lethal munitions at some demonstrators, including buckshot and a sabot round designed to stop vehicles. European officials fear that the ongoing clashes could escalate to a full blown civil war within the Ukraine.

Sour Grapes: Much to Miss France's Chagrin, Miss Angola Wins 2011 Miss Universe Pageant

25 year old Leila Lopes, an Angolan presently living in the UK, won the Miss Universe title at the 2011 pageant in Sao Paulo Brazil this week. The business student, originally from rhe seaside city of Begeula, is the first Angolan to win the pagent's title.


Miss Ukraine- 22 year old law student Olesya Stefanko from Odessa (above), was named the pageant's runner-up.

Ms Lopes replaces last year's Miss Universe winner Jimena Navarette (Miss Mexico- above) .

The decision to crown Lopes Miss Universe didn't sit too well with some of the other contestants pageant. Miss France (above)- 20 year old Laury Thilleman- was particularly critical in comments to French magazine Premiere.

“She was the only girl I didn’t know very well. We didn’t see her much; she was very discreet. She was often in jeans and not wearing makeup. We were all surprised by her win. Many girls made efforts that were not rewarded. I don’t know, something is missing in her temperament. The fact that the competition was held in Brazil surely played a role.”

Miss Brazil- 25 year old Priscilla Machado (above)- was actually named second-runner up in the 2011 Miss Universe tournament.

Iron Horse Roundup- October/November 2010 Edition

BBC Photo

INDONESIA: At least 36 people were killed in an October 2nd collision between two trains at the Petarukan station on the island of Java.

Officials believe that a signalling error one one of the trains was what led the Jakarta-Surabaya train to collide with the rear cars of the stopped Semarang-bound train.

That same day, another accident in nearby Solo resulted in at least one fatality.

UKRAINE: At least 43 people were killed when a train collided with a bus packed with commuters in the eastern part of the country on October 12.

Officials from Ukraine's interior ministry said eyewitnesses reported that the bus ignored warning lights and bells from the level crossing in the town of Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region that indicated an approaching train.

All of the fatalities were on the bus.

Doyle Massey

UNION PACIFIC: Aside from it's regularly featured stint of hauling visitors between Denver, CO and Cheyenne, WY for Cheyene's annual Frontier Days, Union Pacific's 4-6-6-4 Challenger #3985 also got to stretch its legs hauling the Ringling Bros. Circus train from Cheyenne southbound to Denver at the end of September. The #3985 then continued on with the scheduled Missouri River Eagle excursion to Kansas City and St. Louis after briefly returning to Cheyenne.

Here, the 3985 is seen racing southbound through Platteville, CO with the circus train on its way to Denver on September 28, 2010.

Cody Zamostny

FT. WAYNE RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY: The gem of the FWRHS's collection, 1944 Lima-built Berkshire Nickel Plate 2-8-4 #765, has been pretty busy since Labor Day. In September, she was deadheaded over the Norfolk Southern and Wheeling & Lake Erie to Akron, OH where she operated a series of excursions over the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

In October, the 765 powered a series of excursions out of Owosso, MI for the Steam Railroading Institute while their own Berkshire- Pere Marquette #1225- is being disassembled for it's 15 year FRA boiler inspection.

Upon completion of her whirlwind tour through the Buckeye and Great Lakes State, the 765 returned to the FWRHS facilities in New Haven, IN where she'll go into storage for the winter.

NORTH CAROLINA: The Aberdeen, Carolina & Western has acquired a pair of former Canadian National, nee Wisconsin Central SD40-3 locomotives for service on it's line between Gulf and Charlotte, NC.

CONNECTICUT: Six cars of an 80 car unit ethanol train derailed in the late night hours of November 9th at the Providence & Worcester yard in Willamantic, CT. The derailment took place within yard limits, which meant that the train was travelling at a slow speed. None of the derailed cars ruptured, and the contents of the tank cars were transloaded from the two that had actually hit the ground. The train had arrived from Rail America-affiliated New England Central and Brattleboro, VT.

There were no injuries and the FRA continues to investigate the cause of the derailment.

NORTH DAKOTA: Officials from the Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western are disputing the FRA's findings regarding a March 2010 derailment in Washburn, ND that killed DMV&W conductor Jeff Heitzmann and injured the train's engineer. The FRA's report stated that an obstructed drainage ditch contributed to that saturation and undermining of the roadbed which in turn sent the lead two locomotives down an embankment.

The DMV&W, however, said that the stretch of track where the derailment took place had been inspected regularly in the weeks prior to the derailment and hasn't been a problem in their nearly 20 years of operating the line between Bismarck and Max, ND. Railroad officials insist that it was an underground spring located some 6 or 7 feel below the roadbed that undermined the track, causing the derailment.

Secretary of State Clinton: Economic Propserity Needs to Be 'Equally Spread Among the People' in Irony-Rich Speech at Ukraine's Capital

Sadly, The Ukraine is no stranger to attempts at wealth redistribution.

Speaking at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in Kyiv, Ukraine, on July 2, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the audience the biggest issue facing the world today is how to spread the most wealth around to as many people as we can:

It’s important, too, that we look at how to promote broadly-based prosperity. One of the problems in societies around the world today is that too much of the productivity of the economies are going to too few. Too few people, the political and economic elite, are realizing the vast majority of benefits from economic activity.

It’s true in my own country where, unfortunately, economic inequality is increasing. And it’s true in Ukraine. It’s true in Europe and Asia and Africa and South America.

So part of the challenge of economic growth and prosperity is to make sure it gets down and equally spread among people. And we have to work towards spurring investment and long-term growth in Ukraine. And we have to work together to end corruption in both the public and the private sectors

OK good NANESB! readers- you're in for an unexpected little bonus. I'm going to teach you a new word to add to your vocabulary today:

Holodomor- A famine in the Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union) during 1932-1933 which millions of inhabitants died of starvation during peacetime (lit. translation from Ukrainian meaning 'death by hunger').

The timeline of the Holodomor also happens to coincide with Stalin's purges, forced collectivisation of farms, five year plans and 'dekulakization' (the liquidation of "rich" peasants and their entire families). Apparently Stalin relished the challenge of economic growth and prosperity being "equally spread among the people" as well....just not the Ukrainian people.

By the way, I also love how Secretary of State Clinton refers to the "political and economic elite" in the third person. If you're really concerned over the lack of equitable distribution of wealth and assets i your own country, you could always start by setting the example and parting with some of yours.

[Hat tip: Townhall.com; The Lonely Conservative]