Europeans and Asians have positive views of President Barack Obama, according to the latest Quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of investors and analysts. Americans, on the other hand, are split down the middle.

According to the study, 87% of respondents in Asia and Europe rate Obama favorably. In the United States, only 49% share this perspective -- a number that drops to around 25% when only his economic policies are considered. Much of this difference comes from an overseas distaste for the previous White House resident, but it seems people in this country are less interested in distinctions: 43% of respondents favored Bush's policies to Obama's (compared to 80% overseas).

Thanks a lot, Vladimir Putin. The former Russian president (now prime minister) signed an anti-vice law in 2006 that has led to the closure of most casinos in the struggling nation. This move quickly killed more than 400,000 jobs as of July 1 in a country already in the throes of an economic crisis. More than 40,000 casino workers were impacted in Moscow alone, which was home to 30 major casinos and 500 smaller operations.

Four remote Russian regions have now been established as special gambling zones, and gambling is now illegal anywhere outside of these locations.

This post is part of a feature in which he wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, Russia's first billionaire, now lives in exile in London. "I am really thinking of returning to Russia after Putin collapses," Berezovsky told the BBC earlier this year.

Former mathematician turned media tycoon, Berezovsky was one of the first Russian oligarchs, as well as a member President Boris Yeltsin's inner circle, or "family," in the 1990s. He even served as deputy secretary of Russia's security council and was also a member of the State Duma. He helped introduce Vladimir Putin to the "family," only to have Putin turn around and try to curb the political ambitions of Russia's oligarchs, including wresting control of the country's main television channel, ORT, from Berezovsky. After Putin became the Russian president, Berezovsky fled to the United Kingdom to escape charges of defrauding the government, where he was granted political asylum. In 2007, a Moscow court convicted Berezovsky of embezzlement in absentia and sentenced him to six years in jail.

The U.K. has denied all attempts to extradite Berezovsky, who continues to be a vocal critic of Putin and his administration. He has publicly stated his mission to bring down Putin, and has antagonized his opponent by traveling to Georgia in 2003 and Latvia in 2005, as well as investing in and public ally supporting a business run by Neil Bush, the younger brother of U.S. President George W. Bush.

There are times when you need an archive of information and evidence to make an argument.

Then there are times when one simple fact or incident makes the case by itself. (Which, incidentally, may very well be the genesis of the adage "A picture says a thousand words.")

Evidence item of consequence: a lunch that global trade consultant Edward Goldberg, a colleague of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, had with a Russian trade attaché.

The Russian trade attaché, Friedman relates, years ago was delighted to hear from Goldberg that the Bush administration wanted to drill for oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The reason? The amount of oil derived would be negligible in terms of the U.S.'s needs, and it signaled that the Bush Administration was not planning to do anything to establish an alternative energy program, "which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia."

Russian business runs on different rules. News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) Rupert Murdoch, who has been doing business in China for years, is nervous about his Russian enterprises. This morning, the FBI announced it had rounded up a ring of data thieves, many from former Soviet Union countries. And then there's the little matter of BP-TNK, a joint venture between BP (NYSE: BP) and a Russian company, whose Russian shareholders are booting out its Western executives so they can take over the operation.

Here's what Silicon Alley insider reports Murdoch had to say about doing business in Russia: "We have great growing business there but just -- this is purely me, I'm sorry, I'm -- the more I read about investments in Russia, the less I like the feel of it. The more successful we'd be, the more vulnerable we'd be to have it stolen from us, so there we sell now."

In case you missed it, The Detroit Free Press reports that an international ring of data thieves used wardriving -- the practice of stealing data from unprotected Wi-Fi networks -- to take 40 million identities, use the information to print fake ATM cards, and steal millions of dollars. The corporate victims include customers of TJX (NYSE: TJX), Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), and OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX). Five of the 11 defendants are from former Soviet Union countries -- "one is from Estonia, three are from Ukraine, and one is from Belarus."

"Analogous actions by the Soviet Union, when it deployed missiles in Cuba, prompted the 'Caribbean crisis,'" Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday, using the Russian term for the Cuban Missile Crisis, in reference to the United States' Europe-based missile defense plan.

Putin's statement that U.S. plans to put a Europe missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic can perhaps be best interpreted as a rhetorical overstatement before Putin negotiates new economic and political agreements with the West, particularly with Europe.

Russia's oil and natural gas resources, foreign currency reserves, commercial development and +5% annual GDP growth rate have enhanced the nation's negotiating stance, on both economic and geostrategic issues. Sensing his stronger hand, Putin has used the increased leverage to propose, among other measures, European economic/commercial agreements that would be more favorable to Russia, while also making clear that international political agreements among the U.S., Europe and Russia on such issues as the Iraq War, Iran nuclear technology -- and a potential European missile shield -- would also reflect Russia's concerns.

We have been expecting to see this for a few days now, and today oil was finally able to close the session above the psychological $70 mark at $70.55, gaining $0.98 on the session. Earlier in the day prices were able to trade as high as $71.06 before settling down a bit to head into the weekend.

Today's close above $70 marks the first time in almost a year that prices have been at this level, with the last time oil was above $70 being back in August '06. The primary reasons behind the move today were more of the same that we have seen lately... concerns over gasoline surprises and political tensions around the globe.

American refineries have been the center of attention over the past couple of months with concerns over how well refineries are going to be able to keep up with the growing demand during the peak summer driving months. This week those concerns were once again brought to the surface after the weekly inventory numbers out of the Energy Department showed n unexpected decline in gasoline supplies. Analysts had been expecting to see a rise of 1.1 million barrels when in fact the numbers showed that gasoline stocks fell by 700,000 barrels.

I was recently asked about a potential value opportunity in a certain Russian stock and thought I would share my current view. I am not ready to invest in Russian stocks. I do not trust the current government to protect investors. I do not expect the court system to play fair. I do not expect the rules, be they legal, banking, ethical, politcal or anything else to stay the same two days in a row. I have no confidence in Russia and everything I know about the subject leaves me with too many questions and not enough answers. The government of Vladimir Putin practices it's own ambiguous economic system.

From the International Herald Tribune: "President Vladimir Putin sought to reassure investors and foreign leaders that Russia remained committed to free trade and investment for businesses that work here, in spite of a chill in political relations with the West. But Putin said "Russia would integrate with the world economy on its own terms - and possibly not by embracing the current rules of the global economic order."

In China we aquired the stocks of four companies: Aluminum Corp of China ADS (NYSE: ACH), Huang Power International ADS (NYSE: HNP), PetroChina Co Ltd ADR (NYSE: PTR), and Shanda Interactive Entertainment (NASDAQ: SNDA). In India we own ICICI Bank (NYSE: IBN) and last week acquired Tata Motors (NYSE:TTM) We only buy stocks of companies listed on U.S Exchanges.