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it all rested on a bubble: in just two months last fall, aluminum prices plunged from $3,500 a ton to $1,350. Demand also went off a cliff, with more than 10 million tons—a full quarter of RusAl's 2008 production—lying unsold.

Deripaska was dangerously exposed. In March 2008, at the very top of the metals market, he had bought 25 percent of the metals giant Norilsk Nickel for $4.5 billion from his fellow plutocrat Mikhail Pro-khorov. By late October, foreign creditors were threatening to seize Deripaska's piece of the company. National pride forced Russia's finance minister to order a $4.5 billion credit line so Deripaska could refinance his piece of Norilsk.

Putin now has two options, says Dorenko: "He can nationalize everything Deripaska used to own—or he can throw Deripaska onto the people's pitchforks, like they did with barons here in the Middle Ages." That's bad news for Deripaska: cash is too tight these days for the government to bail him out. The Kremlin's sole priority is to avoid mass layoffs, possibly by letting foreign investors step in. Medvedev seems sincere in his desire to end the culture of oligarchy, says Kirill Kabanov, head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, a Moscow-based NGO. But like it or not, the president's only choice may be to have another oligarch take over Deripaska's empire, despite the old system's flaws.

During an official ceremony at the President's Residence on Wednesday, Lieberman said: "There is one document that obligates us - and that's not the Annapolis conference, it has no validity.

His speech was made in reference to a 2007 gathering in Annapolis, Maryland attended by participants from about 40 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Syria and Indonesia. Advertisement "The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did Knesset," Lieberman said. He said that instead, Israel would follow a course charted by the U.S.-backed peace road map.

The peformance-based plan made the creation of a Palestinian state contingent on the Palestinians reining in militants. It also obligated Israel to freeze all settlement activity on Palestinian land.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky opened his defence at the start of a new trial in Moscow for money-laundering by condemning the Russian government and legal system. He labelled the charges against him as “senseless”. The trial could see Mr Khodorkovsky, formerly the richest man in Russia, sentenced to another two decades in prison. On the first day, his defence team presented a list of 478 people they wanted to call to the witness stand during the trial, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials.

The former head of the Yukos oil empire has been in jail since his arrest in 2003, and was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison after a trial that was widely believed to have been punishment for breaking an unofficial deal not to go into politics.

Then, he was found guilty of tax evasion and fraud. Now, he is back on trial, together with his former business partner Platon Lebedev, facing a new set of charges involving theft and money-laundering.

ran is reportedly increasing its military aid to both Hezbollah and Hamas, according to Israeli intelligence sources. Meanwhile, Tehran is suspected of interfering in the reconciliation talks between the rival Palestinian factions.

A 20-page dossier compiled by the Israeli intelligence agencies, which has been seen by SPIEGEL, reports that Iran "has strengthened its operative help to Palestinian terror groups." The military aid is said to take the form of supplies of weapons, ammunitions and money, as well as the education and training of fighters.

The weapons are reported to include mortar shells and anti-tank missiles such as RAAD missiles, which are manufactured in Iran. They are said to be transported by land, sea and air. According to the report, Teheran has sent agents to establish posts along the smuggling routes to guarantee a smooth delivery.

Polish anti-communist leader Lech Walesa has threatened to leave Poland after a second book accused him of being a communist spy as a young man.

The former president and Solidarity leader said he was tired of defending himself against claims he collaborated with the secret police in the 1970s.

The latest book on Mr Walesa's life, which was published earlier this month, repeated a claim that he spied on his colleagues in the Gdansk shipyards in the 1970s. It also alleges he fathered an illegitimate child. It was published by historians at Poland's Institute for National Remembrance (IPN), which investigates communist-era crimes.