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Politics : Is Secession Doable? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (1887)	12/17/2004 5:24:58 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1968

1 - "Missile Defense" does not just equal "missile defense against a nuclear strike on the US homeland". 2 - In addition to non-nuclear missiles and nuclear attacks on targets other then the US homeland (including non-American targets, and American targets overseas), we have to worry about more countries being able to threaten nuclear attacks. What if Saddam had nuclear tipped ICBMs when he invaded Kuwait? He probably would be deterred from nuking the US, but we may have been deterred from kicking his army out of Kuwait. We don't have to worry about Saddam anymore but I doubt he is the last of his kind. Tim

To: combjelly who wrote (1887)	12/19/2004 3:41:38 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1968

Pretty amazing stuff! *********************************************************** Yukos ruling opens ‘a whole barrel of worms'** By Patti Waldmeir Published: December 19 2004 17:25 \| Last updated: December 19 2004 17:25 Many foreign companies wish they could flee to the US to escape their creditors. And more may try to do so after the Russian oil company Yukos stunned the legal world last week by successfully filing for bankruptcy protection in Texas. Bankruptcy experts in the US said they were astonished at the ruling last Thursday by a federal bankruptcy judge in Texas, which claimed jurisdiction over the bankruptcy of Yukos based largely on the fact that the company paid a retainer to a US law firm to represent it in the proceedings. Judge Letitia Clark used her power under bankruptcy law to enjoin global investment banks and Gazprom, the Russian state-controlled gas monopoly, from participating in Sunday's sale of Yukos assets, and a district court on Saturday refused an emergency appeal against that ruling. According to the Russian government, the sale was held to pay Yukos's back taxes. Legal experts said it was highly unusual for a US bankruptcy judge to try to intervene when a foreign government was exercising its regulatory authority in this way, especially in a tax matter. “Normally we think long and hard before we do that,” said Jay Westbrook, an expert in transnational bankruptcy at the University of Texas law school. Judge Clark said she took the action because “participants in international commerce, in Russia, in the United States, and elsewhere, need to have an expectation that when they invest in foreign enterprises they may do so without fear that their investments may be the subject of confiscatory action by agencies of the foreign government.” “That goes pretty far,” remarked William Schorling of the law firm Klett Rooney Lieber & Schorling and past chairman of the American Bar Association's Business Bankruptcy Committee. “If that is truly a statement of the court's view of the law then a lot of countries are going to be concerned about the reach of US law. How far do we think we can reach?” Legal experts said the ruling raised the prospect that any firm in financial distress, anywhere in the world, could open a small bank account in the US and use that to claim bankruptcy protection under US law. “This is open sesame for foreign debtors,” says Prof Westbrook. “This is not just a can of worms it is a whole barrel of worms.” Even before the Yukos filing, legal experts said, it was not unusual for foreign companies to file parallel bankruptcies in their home country and the US. But though the US is quick to claim jurisdiction in such cases requiring only what Judge Clark called a “nominal amount” of property in the US American courts have balanced that by letting the home court lead the way in such parallel bankruptcies. Yukos is different, because there is no Russian bankruptcy under way. Up to now, courts have been reluctant to allow foreign companies to avail themselves of the US bankruptcy shield without filing at home. Avianca, the Colombian airline, managed to do so but in that case the airline's creditors consented to the process, which is not the case with Yukos. Judge Clark's order appeared aimed at allowing Yukos time to hold a shareholders' meeting to authorise a bankruptcy filing in Russia. But that meeting, originally scheduled for today, was cancelled after it was banned by a Russian court. Rhett Campbell of law firm Thompson & Knight forecast: “You're going to see more of this as international capital markets are globalised.” He said the filing was the first step in what could prove a long litigation, but added: “If the outcome is that Yukos manages to leverage this to their benefit, then everybody and their brother will use it in future.” news.ft.com