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It finally happened. After lurching from crisis to crisis - muddling through with partial reforms and quick fixes - Russia has finally crashed out of orbit. So who is to blame? Ronan Lyons looks at the key actors in the drama. Who are the seven oligarchs and were they behind the decision to devalue? What was really happening in the governments of Chernomyrdin and Kiriyenko? And what was the role of the IMF and western investors?

Foreign banks are trying to sell investment-banking services in Croatia but so far with limited success. Delays in state sell-offs and corporate restructuring aren't helping. By Charles Olivier.

Scavengers and scratchers of value

Brazilian banks continue to dominate our annual ranking of Latin America's biggest banks. But some smaller institutions top the ranking by capital, assets and profit growth, while Banespa has by far the highest return on equity. Data for the Latin 100 is supplied by Fitch IBCA.

Following in Russia's footsteps?

Russia's infamous "dark soul" is alive, if not well. In an article in a recent issue of Novaya Gazeta, Sergei Mavrodi, the architect of the MMM pyramid scheme that swindled millions of Russians out of their life savings, says that nothing would have persuaded him to invest in Russian government treasury bills (GKOs), which he calls "a low-tech version" of his own scam.

The bad times are far from over for Hong Kong. The financial crisis that has engulfed Asia is continuing to put enormous pressure on the once-vibrant local banking sector. Profits are down and bad and doubtful loans have soared. But in spite of the deteriorating operating environment, bankers are scrambling to maximize existing sources of income and to identify new ones.

The career of a Russian politician is rarely boring. The head of Russia's federal tax service from May - and for six days in August deputy prime minister in charge of debt restructuring - Boris Fyodorov was sacked along with the rest of Sergei Kiriyenko's government in August. He has had two previous stints as finance minister under Victor Chernomyrdin both of which ended with his sacking. But he may well be a player in whatever government emerges from Russia's political crisis - in mid-September he was back as first deputy prime minister in the provisional government of Victor Chernomyrdin and was credited with authoring the Plan for Economic Dictatorship - which amounted to a call for inflation. Like many other Russian leaders he also plays in the financial markets. Along with US banker Charles Ryan, he founded the United Financial Group, one of Moscow's leading investment banks. He spoke to Ronan Lyons in late August.

Before he left Turkey for the US to study civil engineering at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Husnu Ozyegin bought a notebook and started keeping his accounts.

Their mini resolution trust is named after a bottom-dwelling, scum-sucking shellfish and the promoters of the Mytilus fund indeed expect to play a very useful role extracting value from the sunken casualties that lurk in Asia's distressed-debt securities markets.

It's the job of senior managers in banks to identify, worry about and make contingency plans for future shocks. Brian Caplen asks two of them how they do it

Different ways to skin a cat