Rape of Russia & Yukos

Rape of Russia & Yukos Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Centre) Boris Yeltsin (Right) Oligarch Vladimir Potanin (Left) Riches mid- 1990s:   via loans-for-shares mass privatisation scheme under Boris Yeltsin. Chief architects: Anatoly Chubais & Yegor Gaidar / involved 'shock therapy' reforms, resulting in mass poverty & hyperinflation. Interesting Aside/History Maria Gaidar, 32 (2015) Bolivia childhood (part) stepfather / x2 husbands Harvard (2011) advised Moscow's deputy mayor 2012-2013 former deputy governor Kirov Region 2009-2011 accepts job of:  deputy governor Odessa (Jul. 2015) led by former Georgian Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili Sounds a nasty piece of US-educated work with no loyalty to Russia  [here] Inspired by Ukie 2004  'Orange Revolution' Maria Smirnova ... errr, Gaidar co-founded 'Democratic Alternative' or 'DA!' anti-Kremlin youth group pro-Kremlin supporters rebranded 'Dam!' something to do with sexual surrender (slang) LOL ... I love the Russians  ;) Gaidar intended to apply for Israeli citizenship (2015) but changed her mind & withdrew application, although she had anticipated lining up three citizenships. Presumably Gaidar is Jewish, as Israel is a Jewish State.  Ukraine's Chocolate King granted her Ukie citizenship (2015).  Maria Gaidar renounced Russian citizenship Aug. 2015 ... but, unfortunately, she had months to reconsider before finalisation of paperwork (status unknown as at 2016, no further search completed). Maria Gaidar associated with 'non-systemic opposition' / described as: head of Social Inquiry foundation active participant in number of liberal pro-Western movements TASS  Jul 2015 Yegor Gaidar, former PM / architect post-Soviet economy father:  Timur Gaidar Timur Gaidar grew up part of Russia's communist revolution 'aristocracy' was taught he was part of elite transforming the world creating a new kind of (Soviet) future Timur Gaidar became military correspondent for Pravda / reported on Bay of Pigs Cuba 1962 Yegor Gaidar's grandfather (Timur's father): one of heroes of Russian Revolution, Arkady Gaidar / volunteered to fight Germans / killed 1941 Timur Gaidar believed in the soviet system / [system]  described as having been good for him & his family http://archive.is/GZqpK *Maria Gaidar's family connections probably explain how she got away with the fifth column protest dramas in Russia, without getting the prison sentences some of the others did? *gets a bit confusing / finding it hard to keep the generations straight. F. William Engdahl   http://www.voltairenet.org/article168007.html Correction added The Real Crime of M. Khodorkovsky by F. William Engdahl The final decision in the Russian trial against former oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has drawn dramatic statements of protest from the US Obama Administration and governments around the world labeling Russian justice as tyrannical and worse. What is carefully omitted from the Khodovkorsky story however is the true reason Putin arrested and imprisoned the former head of Russia’s largest private oil giant, Yukos. Voltaire Network | Frankfurt (Germany) | 5 January 2011 Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s real crime was not stealing Russia’s assets for a pittance in the bandit era of Yeltsin. His real crime is that he was a key part of a Western intelligence operation to dismantle and destroy what remains of Russia as a functioning state. When the facts are known the justice served on him is mild by comparison to US or UK standard treatment of those convicted of treason against the state. Obama’s torture prison at Guantánamo is merely one example of Washington’s double standard. According to the politically correct sanitized account in Wikipedia: “Yukos Oil Company was a petroleum company in Russia which, until 2003, was controlled by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky…Khodorkovsky was convicted and sent to prison…Yukos was one of the biggest and one of the most successful Russian companies in 2000-2003. In 2003, following a tax reassessment, the Russian government presented Yukos with a series of tax claims that amounted to $27 billion. As Yukos’s assets were frozen by the government at the same time, the company was not able to pay these tax demands. On August 1, 2006, a Russian court declared Yukos bankrupt. Most of Yukos’s assets were sold at low prices to oil companies owned by the Russian government. The Parliamentary Council of Europe has condemned Russia’s campaign against Yukos and its owners as manufactured for political reasons and a violation of human rights.” If we dig a little deeper however we find a quite different case. As he stepped out of his private plane in Siberia in October 2003 Khodorkovsky was arrested. He was arrested, as Wikipedia correctly states, for tax crimes. What they did not say is that he at the tender age of 40 had risen to become the richest man in Russia worth some $15 billion by fraudulent acquisition of state assets during the lawless Yeltsin era. In an auction run by his own bank, Khodorkovsky paid $309 million for Yukos. In 2003 the same company was assessed as worth $45 billion, and not owing to Khodorkovsky’s management genius. In 1998, Khodorkovsky had been let free in a US case where he was charged with helping launder $10 billion with his own bank and the Bank of New York. He had very influential friends in the US it appeared. The then head of the Republic National Bank of New York, Edmund Safra, was murdered some months later in his Monaco apartment reportedly from members of an alleged “Russian mafia” whom he had cheated in a drug money laundering scheme. But there was more. Khodorkovsky built some impressive ties in the West. With his new billions in effect stolen from the Russian people, he made some powerful friends. He set up a foundation modeled on US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society, calling it the Open Russia Foundation. He invited two powerful Westerners to its board—Henry Kissinger and Jacob Lord Rothschild. Then he set about to develop ties with some of the most powerful circles in Washington where he was named to the Advisory Board of the secretive private equity firm, Carlyle Group where he attended board meetings with fellow advisors such as George H.W. Bush and James Baker III. However, the real crime that landed Khodorkovsky behind Russian bars was the fact that he was in the middle of making a US-backed coup d’etat to capture the Russian presidency in planned 2004 Russian Duma elections. Khodorkovsky was in the process of using his enormous wealth to buy enough seats in the coming Duma elections that he could change Russian laws regarding ownership of oil in the ground and of pipelines transporting same. In addition he planned to directly challenge Putin and become Russian President. As part of the horse trade that won Putin the tacit support of the wealthy so-called Russian Oligarchs, Putin had extracted agreement that they be allowed to hold on to their wealth provided they repatriate a share back into Russia and provided they not interfere in domestic Russian politics with their wealth. Most oligarchs agreed, as did Khodorkovsky at the time. They remain established Russian businessmen. Khodorkovsky did not. Moreover, at the time of his arrest Khodorkovsky was in the process of negotiating via his Carlyle friend George H.W. Bush, father of the then-President George W. Bush, the sale of 40% of Yukos to either Condi Rice’s former company, Chevron or ExxonMobil in a move that would have dealt a crippling blow to the one asset left Russia and Putin to use for the rebuilding of the wrecked Russian economy: oil and export via state-owned pipelines to the West for dollars. During the ensuing Russian state prosecution of Yukos, it came to light that Khodorkovsky had also secretly made a contract with London’s Lord Rothschild not merely to support Russian culture via the Open Russia Foundation of Khodorkovsky. In the event of his possible arrest (Khodorkovsky evidently knew he was playing a high-risk game trying to create a coup against Putin) the 40% share of his Yukos stocks would pass into the hands of Lord Rothschild. The crocodile tears of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the violations of Khodorkovsky’s human rights hide a far deeper agenda that is not being admitted. Washington used the Russian to try to reach its goal of totally destroying the only power left on the earth with sufficient military strike power to challenge the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance strategy—control of the entire planet. When seen in that light the sweet loaded words “human rights” take on a quite different meaning. F. William Engdahl US-German author and analyst of geopolitical and economic issues. His newest book is Myths, Lies and Oil Wars. Earlier works include A Century of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (2011, republished in a new edition) and Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century (2010). http://www.voltairenet.org/article168007.html Sputnik http://sputniknews.com/business/20160325/1036954131/khodorkovsky-yukos-shares.html Khodorkovsky De Facto Stole Yukos Shares From Russian Gov't - Investigators Business 13:34 25.03.2016  (updated 14:07 25.03.2016) Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky had de facto stolen Yukos oil company shares from the state, the Russian Investigative Committee said Friday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Arrested in Russia on October 25, 2003, Khodorkovsky spent 10 years in a prison for fraud and tax evasion before being pardoned. Following his release he left the country. In December 2015, a Russian court charged Khodorkovsky, who was then in London, in absentia for organizing the 1998 murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of the western Siberian town of Nefteyugansk. In 2007, former Yukos security head Alexei Pichugin was convicted of planning the mayor's killing. "At the current stage, we cannot speak about all the evidence gathered by the investigation, but there is enough to conclude that Khodorkovsky, having obtained shares from the government without investing anything, de facto stealing them, is now once again trying to deceive the state by claiming a further $50 billion from it," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said. "Khodorkovsky, having acquired undervalued Yukos shares, was deceptive in pledging an investment of $350 million towards the company's development, which he did not go through with," he added. In February, Russia sent a request to the global police service, Interpol, asking for Khodorkovsky to be placed on the international wanted list. The 1995 privatization of now defunct energy giant Yukos was carried out in violation of antitrust laws, Russia's Investigative Committee said. "According to the investigation, the 1995 privatization of Yukos was carried out in violation of competition and antitrust legislation. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's team falsely presented two firms de facto belonging to him — JSC Laguna and JSC Reagent — as independent legal entities for the investment competition," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said. Companies that filed lawsuits to The Hague arbitration court over the Yukos case had no right to do so due to fraud, making the court's decision unenforceable, Russian Investigative Committee said Friday. According to committee spokesman Vladimir Markin, after Yukos shares were "de facto stolen" by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his accomplices, they repeatedly changed hands between Russian and foreign legal entities before eventually being acquired by Hulley Enterprises Ltd, Yukos Universal Ltd and Veteran Petroleum Ltd. "All these companies were also controlled by Khodorkovsky and payments were only made on paper, they did not in fact take place" he said. "These companies were not investors and they had no right to file a lawsuit with the international arbitration court in The Hague, claiming their rights as investors were violated. Therefore, the court's decision is not enforceable," Markin underscored. http://sputniknews.com/business/20160325/1036954131/khodorkovsky-yukos-shares.html Seattle Times Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky Re:   Yukos oil company (dismantled) decisions pending -- dispute relates to 2003 Khodorkovsky arrest on charges of financial wrongdoing -- Khodorkovsky seeking to seize Russian assets abroad, incl. France Netherlands: 2014 arbitration ruling decision: payment of $50 billion to ex-shareholders of Russia -- decision not recognised by Russia Khodorkovsky -- then takes the fight to several European courtrooms France -- Russia has won x3 court cases -- x4 more rulings expected, Paris Netherlands -- decision due next week http://www.seattletimes.com/business/french-courts-caught-up-in-yukos-vs-russia-assets-fight/ ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT This is pretty much the first I've really read anything about the rape of Russia in the 1990s.

Perversion and Poetry

PERVERSION & POETRY 1.  US Surveillance of entire foreign populations US spies on multiple, whole populations worldwide ... depriving entire nations of their privacy & freedom. USA spying on Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, Philippines + one other (likely violent unnamed) >>  Article Data Pirates of the Caribbean: The NSA Is Recording Every Cell Phone Call in the Bahamas https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/05/19/data-pirates-caribbean-nsa-recording-every-cell-phone-call-bahamas/ 2.  US Criminal Activities - Gladio B "... Pentagon, CIA and State Department maintained intimate ties to al-Qaeda militants as late as 2001." [ceasefiremagazine.co.uk] "... memoir, Classified Woman: The Sibel Edmonds Story, published last year, charged senior [US] government officials with negligence, corruption and collaboration with al Qaeda in illegal arms smuggling and drugs trafficking in Central Asia." [ceasefiremagazine.co.uk] "In interviews with this author in early March, Edmonds claimed that Ayman al-Zawahiri, current head of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s deputy at the time, had innumerable, regular meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, with U.S. military and intelligence officials between 1997 and 2001, as part of an operation known as ‘Gladio B’. Al-Zawahiri, she charged, as well as various members of the bin Laden family and other mujahideen, were transported on NATO planes to various parts of Central Asia and the Balkans to participate in Pentagon-backed destabilisation operations." [ceasefiremagazine.co.uk] Source - Article - ceasefiremagazine.co.uk: Special Report | Why was a Sunday Times report on US government ties to al-Qaeda chief spiked? FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds was described as "the most gagged person in the history of the United States" by the American Civil Liberties Union. Was the Sunday Times pressured to drop its investigation into her revelations?  http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/whistleblower-al-qaeda-chief-u-s-asset/ 3. Operation Gladio > Secret Stay-behind Fascist Paramilitary - Europe Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine NATO "stay-behind" operation in Europe during the Cold War. Its purpose was to continue armed resistance in the event of a Soviet invasion and conquest. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all stay-behind organizations. [Wikipedia]  The role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in sponsoring Gladio and the extent of its activities during the Cold War era, and its relationship to right-wing terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the "Years of Lead" (late 1960s to early 1980s) and other similar clandestine operations, is the subject of ongoing debate and investigation. Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter. [Wikipedia] Source:  Wikipedia >>  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio 4. Gary Webb - CIA-backed Contra Drug Ops - Media Corruption ‘The New York Times’ Wants Gary Webb to Stay Dead | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/blog/181940/new-york-times-wants-gary-webb-stay-dead … GARY WEBB >"dead from 2 gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide" >exposed CIA-backed Contra drug ops - #USA #USA >> Contras, CIA, crack cocaine, crimes of state, media power & media corruption >> Power of the Internet >> http://www.whale.to/b/mighty__wurlitzer.html … >>Collusion b/w the press & the powerful: "national news orgs. have had a long .. history of playing footsie with the CIA" WashingtonTimes (.. helped finance ..Contras, hosting fund-raisers & speaking engagements 4 .. leaders while supporting .. cause editorially) 5.  US Whistle-blower Harassment MUST READ: Applebaum, WikiLeaks, Snowden & USA harassment - http://www.exberliner.com/features/people/jacob-appelbaum-on-the-usa-and-nsa/ What they did to Applebaum's mother is disgusting. 6.  Australia - Absence Accountability & Transparency, Extension of Govt (& Govt agency) Powers, Suppression, & Threat to Free Press >>> Brandis ... an easy 'out' not commenting on anything. Not a good look. Busy ducking behind 'inaccurate' paraphrasing. #Auspol >>> Edward Snowden a traitor, Attorney-General George Brandis tells Washington think tank >>> http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/edward-snowden-a-traitor-attorneygeneral-george-brandis-tells-washington-think-tank-20140409-zqsgp.html … >> Snowden had the guts to take on the biggest criminal enterprise in the world: USA. Snowden's a hero. Note:  Centre for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) - Washington foreign policy 'think tank' is where Brandis made the Snowden pronouncements.  7.  'Democracy' Lobbying Propaganda - Europe "Khodorkovsky for caution in anti-Russian sanctions in Prague Prague - The EU and the USA can influence the situation in Russia, but their use of sanctions should be cautious, Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was recently released from prison, said at the opening of the 18th Forum 2000 international conference in Prague today. The EU and the USA can help Russia on its road to democracy, Khodorkovsky said. Rather, the Russian democratic movement needs a cultivated influence of the Western countries, he added. International sanctions can be a precarious instrument, said Khodorkovsky, who now lives in Switzerland from where he supports opposition and democratic changes in Russia. In the summer, the EU imposed sanctions against Russia over its policy in the Ukrainian conflict. The conference, initiated by the late Czechoslovak and Czech president Vaclav Havel (1936-2011), is this year entitled "Democracy and Its Discontents: A Quarter-Century After the Iron Curtain and Tiananmen" to mark 25 years of the communist regime collapse and the massacre on Tiananmen Square in Beijing." http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/zpravy/khodorkovsky-for-caution-in-anti-russian-sanctions-in-prague/1134199 "The EU and the USA can help Russia on its road to democracy, Khodorkovsky said." [ceskenoviny/cz]  "Democracy & Its Discontents: A Quarter-Century After the Iron Curtain & Tiananmen" > Not USA, Kissinger, Contras + Cocaine?  >>Given above was @ Forum 2000 international conference in Prague, this fits in very nicely:   http://www.chomsky.info/letters/19900301.htm On Vaclav Havel Speech Noam Chomsky Excerpted from Alexander Cockburn, The Golden Age Is In Us, Verso, 1995, pp. 149-151 [March 1, 1990] " ... It's also unnecessary to point out to the half a dozen or so sane people who remain that in comparison to the conditions imposed by US tyranny and violence, East Europe under Russian rule was practically a paradise. Furthermore, one can easily understand why an oppressed Third World victim would have little access to any information (or would care little about anything) beyond the narrow struggle for survival against a terrorist superpower and its clients. And the Pravda hack, unlike his US clones, would have faced a harsh response if he told the obvious truths. So by every conceivable standard, the performance of Havel, Congress, the media, and (we may safely predict, without what will soon appear) the Western intellectual community at large are on a moral and intellectual level that is vastly below that of Third World peasants and Stalinist hacks -- not an unusual discovery.  Of course, it could be argued in Havel's defense that this shameful performance was all tongue in cheek, just a way to extort money from the American taxpayer for his (relatively rich) country. I doubt it, however; he doesn't look like that good an actor." [Source:  http://www.chomsky.info/letters/19900301.htm] COMMENT Although I knew there was NSA and FVEY mass surveillance, I must have missed the bit where the NSA conducts surveillance on entire populations of FOREIGN (non-FVEY) nations, as I was of the impression that surveillance was kept it 'in the family'.  Wrong. Surveillance extends to the USA spying on the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, Philippines and another country (likely violent if named).  But the odds are it's not limited to these countries. Why on earth would they be conducting surveillance on the population of Kenya?  Which country is the mysterious 'unnamed' country? No idea about the interest in Kenya, but I'm going to go with Pakistan for the unnamed country. Anyway, the enormity of this revelation totally blew me away.   The populations of entire nations are subject to US surveillance and are not only deprived of privacy, but are also, therefore, deprived of liberty. So how is it that this is swept under a rug and that nobody's concerned about a deed that, in my view, amounts to worldwide criminal activity by a major government? Take into consideration the 'Operation Gladio' and US 'Gladio B' activities, and the US government attempts to suppress that information.   Find the information difficult to absorb and might need to revisit the topic some time.  Nonetheless, here we have yet another example of  the US engaged in what amounts to criminal activity.  Judging by earlier disclosures (eg Gary Webb), the US has a long history of involvements in criminal activity, exposure, persecution of whistle-blowers and suppression of press and whistle-blower disclosures. Yet we have Australia's attorney-general, George Brandis, addressing a US 'echo chamber' 'think tank' (Centre for Strategic & International Studies) earlier in the year, pronouncing a whistle-blower, Snowden, a 'traitor', according to the screaming SMH headline. Brandis is the same guy who is aggressively ducking Senator Ludlam's questions in a parliamentary committee (video above), doing democracy a disservice in more ways than one, in my view. Meanwhile, in Europe, we have a stripped Russian oligarch speaking about the holy grail of 'democracy' to be installed in Russia by Europe and USA, broadcast from some US agenda NGO platform, before a rapt audience of Cuban dissidents and assorted other US ass-kissers. I don't have the mental skills, the language skills or the patience to sit here trying to find the words to articulate just how perverse I find all of the above. As I see it, you have a criminal, or rogue, gargantuan, super-government seeking to control the rest of the world by whatever means and without any limits; you have those within its trade and military treaty sphere (which is enormous), not only standing by without question, but also aggressively smearing those that stand up and disclose wrongdoing; there's a long a pattern of those beyond control or influence (or dissidents) and members of the press that dare reveal the truth, being vilified, hunted down, harassed and shut down; there's a corrupt or fearful press, that is either part of the established order, or else otherwise controlled, by authorities; there's a topsy-turvy world where 'good' is 'bad' and 'bad' is 'good'; a thousand sly GO and NGO platforms from which to evangelise about the holy grail of 'democracy', had by none but to be exported to all;  there's the abuse of power and totalitarianism (that's hypocritically decried elsewhere), and this abuse is pervasive and entrenched. Somewhere along the line, there's also denial of the important role whistle-blowers play -- or are supposed to play -- in keeping the crooked straight. And Australian whilstle-blower publisher, Julian Assange, is still held without charge by the Sweden-UK-US trio blocking his political asylum to Ecuador, while his nation stands by unconcerned about this injustice. Noam Chomsky's letter was the only breath of fresh air.  It's beautiful.  Poetry.