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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (14650)	10/31/2003 6:54:48 PM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793670

not sure where this ends up... this guy made an agreement with Putin to stay out of politics and take whatever he wanted.. then I understand from tonights news he has been getting into gov affairs etc.. Putin is for growing Russia i doubt in long run he is going to do anything to screw it up.. Let's see how this plays out.

To: LindyBill who wrote (14650)	11/1/2003 5:03:29 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793670

No totally "Good Guys" over there, John. If they jail the Businessmen who are supporting private enterprise running things, they will be back to the old "Central Planning" setup. And that will be a real disaster. Khodorkovsky is no "businessman supporting private enterprise", Bill. He's a robber baron. A second-hander who, along with his fellow traveller Oligarchs, got their commanding shares of the Russian Commanding Heights through political corruption - the "too good to be honest" sale of Russian state enterprises in the 90s. These guys like Khodorkovsky are a good part of the reason Russia's economy was and is a basketcase. Derek asia.news.yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------------------- Saturday October 25, 11:46 PM Khodorkovsky arrest could mean surrender of YUKOS By Andrew Hurst MOSCOW, Oct 25 (Reuters) - The dramatic arrest on Saturday of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia's richest man, may lead to him and his associates being forced to surrender their stakes in oil company YUKOS , bankers and analysts said. "This is clearly an endgame of some sort. That's what it looks like," said one Moscow-based foreign banker who asked not to be named. "I think we have a very powerful change in the making." It was not immediately clear whether U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil , said to be interested in buying a stake in YUKOS, would want to pursue a deal with the Russian company in the current turmoil. Neither offered any comment on developments. But some believed the Kremlin may prefer YUKOS to fall under the control of a foreign multinational corporation rather than have it run by Khodorkovsky, who makes little secret he has political ambitions and has fallen foul of the Kremlin. "I think he is being pressed to give it up or sell out. People high up in administration do not want to deal with these guys. They want to cut him down to size," said an international official in Moscow. "They do not want their most powerful opponent running the most powerful company in Russia." Fadel Gheit, a New York based analyst with Fahnestock & Co who owns shares in Exxon Mobil, was more explicit. "The sooner these characters (i.e. Khodorkovsky) are out of the picture ... the better it is going to be for Russia..." Companies like Exxon, Shell and Chevron Texaco, he said, would then find the country more attractive. Chevron Texaco is also thought to be interested in buying a stake in YUKOS. Khodorkovsky has often clashed with the government, demanding that YUKOS be allowed to build pipelines so it can pump more oil to export markets. Russia's pipelines are all controlled by state monopoly Transneft. YUKOS recently engineered (more like colluded to defraud - Derek) a merger with smaller Sibneft to become Russia's largest oil firm, now called YukosSibneft. Khodorkovsky and his allies acquired control of YUKOS at a bargain price in a firesale of state assets in the 1990s. MOUNTING ATTACK The arrest comes only days before campaigning begins for parliamentary elections in December, to be followed by a presidential election in March which President Vladimir Putin is expected to win with ease. A spokesman for the General Prosecutor's office said Khodorkovsky, detained in Novosibirsk after failing to appear for questioning in Moscow on Friday, was flown back to the capital and charged on seven counts, including fraud. The move followed a mounting legal attack on YUKOS core shareholders, believed to be orchestrated by Kremlin hardliners determined to break Khodorkovsky's growing influence. "It had been escalating for some time now and Khodorkovsky failed to de-escalate it," said another senior executive with a Russian company. "It's the final move in a chess game. You cannot go any further, unless it's a warning and they let him out and he behaves compliantly." Others believed Khodorkovsky could spend months in jail and even be forced to sign away his shares in his company. Another major YUKOS shareholder, Platon Lebedev, was arrested in July and remains in detention on embezzlement charges. (Additional reporting by Carolyn Koo in New York)