In Moscow for a highly anticipated summit starting today, President Obama will find a U.S.-Russia business relationship that has barely taken off despite exceedingly hopeful beginnings 17 years ago after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Notwithstanding a few notable ventures, the U.S. is now only the eighth-largest foreign investor in Russia. The summit is intended to activate what U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden called a “reset” of relations between the former superpower rivals after antagonism deepened during the latter two years or so of the Bush Administration. Toward that end, Obama is scheduled to spend some 10 hours with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in addition to a 90-minute breakfast with the country’s über-influential Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.

While the Presidents are to initial agreements on arms control, transit of military supplies to Afghanistan, and nuclear energy, they also are supposed to drop by a simultaneous meeting of U.S. and Russian business leaders at Manezh Central Exhibition Hall. Yet on the business side, there is little sign of a thaw in the apprehensions of U.S. companies about the Russian investment environment. Indeed, analysts say one of the main summit agenda items remains establishing a better atmosphere between the two countries. “It’s far more important to clean up the atmosphere, to get rid of all those sticky fumes of anti-Americanism,” said Pavel K. Baev, a research associate at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

Source: BusinessWeek

Rioting in China Leaves Over 140 Dead

The death toll from violent clashes between Chinese security forces and Muslim protesters in the western city of Urumqi rose to 140, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Monday. The demonstrations took place in the capital of Xinjiang, a vast region in the far west of the country that is home to a separatist movement led by ethnic Uigers whom Beijing considers terrorists. According to Xinhua, the death toll in the clashes, the worst in decades, “was still climbing.”

Source: Associated Press

Surprisingly Strong Earnings Predicted at Samsung

Shares of Samsung Electronics rose in Seoul on Monday after the South Korean giant surprised investors with an upbeat earnings forecast. Samsung, the top maker of memory chips and LCD screens, said its second-quarter profits would top $1.74 billion, more than five times higher than earnings in the first quarter of the year.

Source: Financial Times

China Launches New Call to Dump the Dollar

As leaders prepare for the G8 summit in Italy, a former vice-governor of China’s central bank is the latest Chinese official to call for the dollar to lose its privileged status as the world’s top reserve currency. A newspaper published by the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, quoted Li Ruogu, now chairman of the Export-Import Bank of China, saying a proposal to replace the dollar with the IMF’s Special Drawing Right, is “a feasible plan,” with the goal to “replace the dollar at the heart of the monetary system.”

Source: Reuters

Judge Gives the OK to GM’s Bankruptcy Plan

Acting several days before a July 10 Treasury Department deadline, a Federal bankruptcy court judge on Sunday approved the sale of General Motors assets to a new, streamlined GM. Judge Robert Gerber called the plan “the only available means to preserve the continuation of GM’s business.” The Obama Administration had threatened to walk away from the deal if the court hadn’t reached a conclusion by the end of this week.

Source: CNN International

Ice Age Sequel Heats Up Box Office

Twentieth Century Fox’s animated feature, “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” proved to be a big hit with audiences overseas, helping compensate for a less-than-stirring performance in the U.S. and Canada. According a Fox estimate, the movie did $148 million in ticket sales overseas, compared to $67.5 million in North America since the picture opened last week. It’s the latest picture this year to do better abroad; others include “Angels & Demons,” “Terminator Salvation” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

Biden: Too Early to Say Whether Economy Needs More Stimulus

Vice President Joseph Biden, speaking on the Sunday morning show “This Week,” said the Obama Administration underestimated the depth of the recession after it first took office. “We misread how bad the economy was,” he said. With unemployment rising to 9.5%, Biden defended the stimulus package but was non-committal when asked if the economy would need more of a boost, calling such a conclusion “premature.”

Source: Washington Post

Will Spike in Oil Prices Doom the Recovery?

Oil’s wild ride shows no sign of ending. With prices up more than 100% so far this year, analysts worry about the impact on a still-weak global economy. “To call this extreme volatility might be an understatement,” said Laura Wright, Southwest Airlines CFO. “Over the past 15 to 18 months, this has been unprecedented. I don’t think it can be easily rationalized.”

Source: New York Times

Palin Shocker and GOP Turmoil Boost Obama

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s surprise resignation on Friday is the latest indication of Republican Party disarray that is helping President Obama. Although his honeymoon period is ending, he’s getting a lift from a series of embarrassments that have befallen potential rising stars in GOP, including Palin’s resignation and sex scandals involving South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign. According to a Gallup poll, just 34% of Americans have a favorable view of the Republicans, while Obama’s approval rating above 55% means he is doing better than Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at similar moments in their presidencies.

Source: Bloomberg