[LINK] "An oligarch stumbles, a tiny nation suffers"

The Globe and Mail reports that Montenegro is set for an economic catastrophe.

The financial distress of Oleg Deripaska's aluminum business in Montenegro is threatening to turn the hottest economic growth story in the Balkans into the next Iceland.

The Russian oligarch, through his En+ Group Ltd. subsidiary, has told the Montenegrin government it cannot afford to keep the aluminum refinery, Kombinat Aluminijuma Podgorica, known as KAP, operating at a loss and is likely to close the entire operation unless it receives financial support in a hurry.

"We cannot pay our bills," KAP director Andrej Kuznjecov said in a phone interview from Moscow yesterday. "We're talking three to four weeks before we make the decision whether to shut it down."

KAP and its related companies, including a bauxite mine also controlled by Mr. Deripaska, form the most important industry in Montenegro, the small Adriatic country north of Albania that declared independence from Serbia in 2006. The KAP companies have 3,750 employees and account for 40 per cent of gross domestic product.

Aluminum made up slightly more than half of Montenegro's exports in 2007.

Aluminum production and exports keep the seaport, the railway and about 100 local suppliers in business.

KAP's woes provide a graphic illustration of how the credit crisis and recession are creating a domino effect around the world, hurting even robust economies farthest from the world's financial centres. Since 2006, Montenegro has been growing at 8 per cent a year as investors from Russia, Western Europe and Canada pumped up the country with construction, tourism and aluminum projects.

Growth has since fallen off a cliff.

Construction is slowing considerably. One of the country's main banks, Prva Banka, which is partly owned by the family of Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, had to be bailed out. The International Monetary Fund last month estimated growth of just 2 per cent in 2009. All growth bets are off if KAP implodes.

[LINK] [LINK] "'Barack the Magic Negro': Nope, the GOP's just fine"

You certainly can't say that John Ibbitson's column in The Globe and Mail today doesn't have an eyecatching title.

Four Republican senators have decided not to run in 2010. The party's fundraising arm doesn't understand the Internet. And one of the candidates for the leadership of the party's national council sent out a CD containing the song "Barack the Magic Negro." Nah, no reason to worry about the Republicans at all.

On Nov. 4, John McCain led the GOP to its worst election defeat since Barry Goldwater's immolation in 1964. Since then, things have got worse.

Because the Republicans are down to 41 seats in the Senate, they have no hope of regaining a majority in next year's midterm elections. No majority means no committee chairmanships or other powerful perks. Older senators, or impatient young ones, are thinking of stepping down. There will be further defections in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Each defection forces the Republican National Committee to divert limited resources to protecting what used to be safe seats. The Republicans will be defending at least 20 Senate seats in 2010, the Democrats only 17. And all four of the retiring senators are in states - Kansas, Florida, Ohio and Missouri - where Democrats are competitive.

Republicans will never be able to replicate that boggling achievement unless, and until, they can find a message and a candidate to galvanize both conservatives and swayable independents. Which is why the race for chairman of the RNC is being watched so closely.

The 168 RNC members will choose a new chairman the week after next. He (all the candidates are men) will be the voice of the Republican Party until its next leader is chosen.

One of those candidates, Tennessee party chair Chip Saltsman, circulated a CD to committee members that contained "Barack the Magic Negro," a parody of a Peter, Paul and Mary song that only those with longer teeth even remember.

Another, South Carolina party chair Katon Dawson, only recently resigned from a country club whose covenant (unenforceably) excludes blacks.

Two of the candidates actually are black. One of them, J. Kenneth Blackwell, who was Ohio's secretary of state, is favoured by the most socially conservative wing of the GOP. He could become the Clarence Thomas of the RNC.

The Republican Party is shunned by every part of the electorate that is growing - the young, Latinos, blacks, city dwellers, people in the New South.

As the base of the party dwindles, that base becomes more radical and intolerant, and its leadership devolves along with it. In a recent debate, the six candidates for the chairmanship competed to see who owned more guns. All agreed that Ronald Reagan was a greater president than Abraham Lincoln.

Last month's, Douglas Muir blogged about what he called the "fucktardification of the modern GOP," with the flight of moderates encouraging the right-radicalization of the Republicans, with a possible consequence of a very strong Democratic Party position. Can my American readers tell me--and us--if Ibbitson's on the money?

[MUSIC] Depeche Mode, "Enjoy the Silence"

"Enjoy the Silence", the second single off of Depcehe Mode's 1990 album Violator, is one of my all-time favourite songs, evocatively haunting between Dave Gahan's heartfelt vocals and the gloriously chunky synths and the romantic lyrics ("All I ever wanted/All I ever needed/Is here in my arms/Words are very unnecessary/They can only do harm"). The striking Anton Corbijn music video doesn't hurt, either.

"What Cats Taught Us About Perception" (Watch on YouTube)

Another music video of this song is a lip-sync performance, filmed for French television, on top of one of the World Trade Center towers.

"Pretenders - Don't Get Me Wrong" (Watch on YouTube)

The Towers' destruction lends the video an extra poignancy, for me at least.