'A Biko Holding шукати нэ будеш...'

'A Biko Holding шукати нэ будеш...':
The $32 billion for Kirgizstan minus $22 billion for Skolkovo = $10 billion in who’s pocket?

Australian mining tycoon Ken Talbot goes missing over Africa. Britons reportedly among 11 on chartered flight from Cameroon to Congo-Brazzaville. Sunday 20 June 2010 23.38 BST. Australian mining executives and one of the country's richest men are feared dead after their chartered plane went missing over central Africa. Some reports said Britons were also aboard. Ken Talbot, who made his fortune in coal mining in Queensland, was among nine passengers on the plane chartered by Sundance Resources, a Perth-based iron ore company, the firm said in a statement. The plane disappeared yesterday as it flew from the Cameroon capital, Yaoundé, to the neighboring Congo-Brazzaville, where the firm has mining interests. Talbot is a non-executive director of Sundance and his investment company, Talbot Group, owns almost a fifth of it. Also on the plane were Sundance's chief executive, chairman, company secretary and two other non-executive directors. Separately, Talbot's company named a seventh passenger as one of its own executives, Natasha Flason Brian, who is from France but lives in Australia. The plane is said to have had two crew. Some local reports said British nationals were believed to be among the others missing. The Foreign Office in London said it was aware of the reports. A search was launched this morning involving planes from Cameroon and Congo. "The families of the missing have been notified and are being supported during this deeply distressing time," Sundance said, adding that the company had asked Australia's stock market to halt trading in its shares. Australia's foreign minister, Stephen Smith, said six Australians were confirmed as being on the flight, which was travelling over a region of dense jungle. "We are seriously concerned about their safety and wellbeing," he said. A spokesman for Talbot Group said they had not heard from Talbot for 24 hours and "we're keeping our fingers crossed". He told the Sydney Morning Herald: "It's a very remote part of the world, where communications are at very best satellite communications only. Until the search party gets out there, which has just happened, we're not sure."
Talbot, the son of a New South Wales truck driver, was a mining executive for decades before setting up his own venture, Macarthur Coal, in 1995. Just seven years later, it floated on stock markets with a value of almost £2bn. He later sold his stake and has a personal fortune estimated at nearly AU$1bn (£585m), with luxury homes in locations including Paris and Lake Como, Italy. Rather than retire, he set up Talbot Group to look for new investments, saying: "All I know is the coal industry. If I was not working in the coal industry I would get bored." Talbot hit controversy when a Queensland state MP, Gordon Nuttall, was accused of corruptly accepting about £175,000 from him. Nuttall was jailed in 2009 for seven years. Talbot was due to appear in court this August charged with making corrupt payments, which he denied.
Sundance's main business venture in the region is the huge Mbalam project in the far south of Cameroon, stretching into Congo-Brazzaville.

Australia and China sign over $8bn worth of deals. SYDNEY/CANBERRA, June 21 (Reuters) - Australia and China signed commercial deals worth more than $8.8bn on Monday, largely in mining, in another sign that a new Australian mining tax has failed to dampen inward Chinese investment.
The signings, witnessed by visiting Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, included deals for state-owned China Development Bank to provide financing for several major mining projects, including a $1.2bn loan for an iron ore development. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who is fighting a fierce mining backlash against the 40 per cent mine-profits tax, highlighted that seven of the 10 bilateral deals signed on Monday covered the resources and energy industries. “The Chinese are still active partners with all of our resource companies. There is a lot of good stuff going on out there,” Mr Rudd told reporters after the signings.
“It is important to separate the facts of what’s going on from some of the fear that is being pushed by some companies who object to paying a bit more tax.” Miners have threatened to axe more than $20bn in new Australian projects if the tax is introduced in its current form. The world’s second biggest iron ore miner, Rio Tinto, has said that Australia is now its top sovereign-risk issue worldwide. The miners’ warnings, backed up by a multi-million-dollar industry ad campaign, has unnerved the public ahead of a general election expected to be held late this year, with opinion polls showing almost half voters against the new tax. But the industry’s campaign has begun to be undermined by a continued wave of investment into the sector since the tax was first unveiled on May 2. Even while campaigning against the tax, miners have announced project advancements or deals with foreign investors worth more than $10bn.
Far from being spooked by the new tax, due to apply from mid-2012, Chinese firms could see it as a chance to strengthen their grip on Australian raw materials, especially iron ore, by providing financing in return for long-term supply agreements. The China Development Bank agreed on Monday a $1.2bn loan facility for the $2bn Karara iron ore project in west Australia, which is being developed by Australia’s Gindalbie Metals Ltd and China’s Angang Steel Co. The bank also inked a preliminary deal to help fund projects for miner Aquila Resources, including its $3.45bn West Pilbara iron ore project, also in west Australia. Mr Rudd, who aims to use the mining tax to help fund his re-election platform this year, oversaw the signings along with Mr Xi, regarded as heir apparent to China’s President Hu Jintao.
Monday’s agreements also included an expanded partnership between Australia’s dominant phone company, Telstra Corp, and China’sZTE Corp, whereby Telstra would become preferred telecoms supplier to ZTE worldwide. In addition, Australian airline Qantas also announced on Monday an expanded code-sharing alliance with China Eastern Airlines.