Enslave
Profiteer
Rule
Don’t go there!
Perhaps ironically, one of the most famous 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse paintings is by a Russian:
- Pestilence (on a White Horse -> COVID !?)
- War (on a Red Horse -> PUTIN !?)
- Famine (on a Black Horse -> HYPERINFLATION !?)
- Death (on a Pale Horse -> TOO LATE !?)
- Meduza
- DW
- Ahead
Heavy rains triggered widespread flooding across Russia’s North Caucasus in recent days. Dagestan bore the brunt: tens of thousands of residents lost power, roads were disrupted, and railway infrastructure was damaged. Many streets in Makhachkala were submerged completely. In Chechnya, torrential rains and landslides damaged 17 bridges and destroyed dozens of homes, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency. Power and water outages were reported in Ingushetia, while officials in Kabardino-Balkaria warned of avalanche risk. Meduza shares photos and videos of the damage.
Over the past week, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly veered off course and entered the airspace of NATO countries bordering Russia. Authorities in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland all reacted with understanding, stating that whether the drones were Russian or Ukrainian, the incursions were a result of Moscow’s full-scale war. Meanwhile, Russian propaganda outlets quickly took advantage of the situation to spread false claims that the Baltic states had opened their skies to Ukrainian drones targeting Russia. Meduza sums up the latest developments, drawing in part on reporting by BBC News Russian.
As mobile Internet blackouts spread from Russia’s regions to Moscow and the authorities continue throttling Telegram, opinion polls paint an uncomfortable picture for the Kremlin. Eighty-three percent of teenagers have reacted negatively to the shutdowns. Pro-government pollsters have avoided publishing analogous survey data on adult Russians, not wanting to draw attention to the scale of the discontent. Meanwhile, the security services pushing for the blocks have faced virtually no resistance from the politicians who privately oppose them. Meduza spoke with sources inside the Kremlin, regional governments, and the Putin administration’s political team to find out why.
In recent weeks, a series of articles with near-identical headlines has appeared across Russian state-controlled regional media, warning readers to delete Telegram from their phones before March 31. At the same time, the pro-Kremlin tabloid Baza published a piece claiming that Russians’ iPhones have been overheating and breaking down because VPNs (often used to access Telegram) put too much load on the processor. All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of Telegram’s slow but apparently irreversible blocking by the Russian authorities. Meduza teamed up with the fact-checking project Provereno Media to make sense of this wave of warnings.
In just a matter of weeks, the Middle East war has taken on enormous significance for Russia’s leadership. After the first two months of the year, the country’s federal budget deficit had already spiraled out of control. But the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 27 percent of global seaborne oil and petroleum products trade passes — triggered a sharp spike in commodity prices. This could allow the Kremlin to hold the annual deficit to its target of 1.6 percent and keep military spending at the top of its priorities. Even so, this windfall won’t resolve the deep structural problems plaguing a war-battered economy. Meduza explains what the high price of oil means for Russia’s pocketbook.
2026.03.28
Phase 1 of exploration has begun at Orestone Mining’s (TSXV:ORS) Francisca Gold Project in Salta province, Argentina.
The program will consist of detailed mapping and sampling of a 200 by 500-meter grid covering the surface exposure of the South Zone. Sampling will consist of 600 rock chip, channel and grab samples including the resampling of the 11 existing trenches which crosscut the zone along its 500-meter strike length.
2026.03.28
Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has had a profound impact on the prices of oil, natural gas, and other key industrial commodities.
Before the war started, 20 million barrels of oil flowed through the strait daily, or about a fifth of global oil consumption. Significant volumes of aluminum, LNG, distillates such as gasoline, fertilizer, and sulfuric acid used in metal refining, also normally transit the narrow waterway, but are trapped in the Persian Gulf due to the conflict.
From Bloomberg
Amid US President Donald Trump’s threats to take Greenland, melting polar ice caps opening up new shipping routes, a desire by North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries to secure the Arctic and a growing appetite for a broad range of critical minerals, places such as the Northwest Territories are getting a surge of attention.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Mark Carney visited the capital of Yellowknife to announce C$32 billion ($23 billion) to shore up Arctic defenses.
From Bloomberg
The Horne Smelter, about 390 miles northwest of Montreal, is one of small number of facilities in North America that can process copper concentrate and recyclable materials such as electronic waste. The Swiss resources company said last month it was suspending plans to invest nearly C$1 billion ($720 million) in its Quebec copper operations after hitting an impasse in talks with the province over measures to reduce harmful arsenic emissions.
Without a deal, the facility would have to be wound down, impacting North America’s already constrained capacity to process copper into useful products.
Continue reading Glencore, Canada Near Deal to Save Threatened Copper Facility at Ahead of the Herd.
By Carly Cassella – ScienceAlert
What’s good for your aging gut may also be good for your aging brain.
A first-of-its-kind study in twins found that taking daily protein and prebiotic supplements can improve memory test scores in people over age 60.
Published in 2024, the findings are food for thought, especially as the same visual memory and learning test is used to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
2EMMA Featured Stories
Mandela’s Kiss Endures
The 2024 Global Elections Super-Cycle
Stay tuned for continuous updates on elections around the world. Click on a country for the latest elections data and analysis.
- Number of national elections to be held in 2024 18 of 68
- Overall turnout (based on registered voters) 63%
- Total number of ballots cast in 18 elections 467,094,737
Pulled conclusions from pooled data compilations
Using some of the world’s largest companies by market cap & some of the most quoted indices + two most sung alternatives: data for this millennia where available
- At 134x, Apple is the absolute stock price growth winner; with Amazon at 45x and Google at 32x
- Despite the lack of interest or dividends, gold at 6.6x looks good compared to any other stock or index!
- Barrick Gold on the other hand seems to be poorly correlated to anything including the gold metal itself!?
- But Barrick is the only stock producing negative correlations with most of the indices including a relatively high -0.77 with the Euronext100 index
- If one wast trying to get something totally uncorrelated on purpose- it would be hard to beat: gold and the Euronext100 index at -0.03; or Barrick and the Hang Seng index at 0.04; or gold and Merck at 0.16; or BTC and the FTSE index at 0.19
- Correlation against a basket of indices & alternatives is best in Disney and Google (0.81-0.82), albeit at different growth multiples
- If an average historical P/E is somewhere in the 20x range, then the current S&P quoted average which is in high 30s is as warned high, BUT: only Amazon and Visa seem to be widely out of range (justified by growth in online transactions?), with many below current & historical averages
- In the current world of no interest & no inflation, maybe the higher P/E averages are justified..? For how long, that is a different question…
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