[russian crisis] early news hard to get

В Москве горит здание Института государственного и корпоративного управления

Russian Corporate Affairs office in flames today but this seems to be a separate issue

12:40, London time: Nothing on BBC, Telegraph, FT or Reuters at this stage and yet it's certainly the only phone conversation over here with everyone. Updates throughout the day.

So, by now the news might be filtering through to you about the Russian bank crisis and the rampant inflation in the last few days of up to 80% on all items. I can only get the news in Russian as the west seems to be very slow to report it:

Потанин и Прохоров договорились
о механизме раздела бизнеса

Seems to be the Russian trial run of the credit squeeze which you guys enjoyed two weeks ago and as soon as anything comes through, I'll report it.

The major thing is not to panic and as I've been saying over the last few weeks - to get out of any credit debt and buy commodities, particularly silver. If you have real estate, hold onto it and ride this thing out.

My own feeling is that it's just a trial run for the real thing but there could be some major moves today, tomorrow and the blog might end. Stay tuned.