Man of the year, or scandal of the decade?

Biotechnology must become plat principal

A chat over breakfast hardly matches the urgent needs of a hungry world.

Cutting out the Ukrainian middleman

To connoisseurs of financial euphemism, the RosUkrEnergo website is without peer. A company that appears to own no reserves or pipelines made a stonking $785 million (€537m) in the gas business in 2006 (the last year recorded) and more than doubled its assets, from less than $2 billion to more than $4bn.

The perils of disparate interests in Russia

It would be nice to think that the harassment of the British Council by the Russian authorities would prompt a united, imaginative European response. Perhaps in a parallel universe it will.

Organise, co-operate and watch out for Russia

Russia longs to join the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a club of mainly old rich countries that is anxiously trying to expand and stay relevant as the global economy's centre of gravity shifts south and east.

Democracy needs allies to beat mob rule

What could be more democratic than an election that reflects the majority's will? Opinion polls consistently give Russia's president Vladimir Putin an approval rate of more than 80%. So his party's thumping election victory simply shows that Russia is being governed as its people wish. If the rest of the world does not like it, then the rest of the world had better mind its own business.