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February 28, 2010 Ex-KGB agent Alexander Lebedev pays £1 for Indy Standard owner set to pour millions into ailing Independent newspapers James Ashton ALEXANDER LEBEDEV, the former KGB agent turned media mogul, will this week pay a token £1 to take control of The Independent — the same price as buying one copy of the paper from the newsstand. But he will pledge to invest millions in the loss-making title and the Independent on Sunday over five years. The final hurdle to a sale is close to being overcome this weekend after Independent News & Media agreed to take part...

Here is video of Glenn Beck's opening segment today where he responded to the leftwing "Spelling Police" who went berserk yesterday because Glenn Beck spelled "Oligarch" on his chalkboard without the "c". Beck was so impressed by their desire to assist him, that he went out and found the perfect part of Obama's agenda tha fits very nicely with "Oligarch" - "Czars." He's been talking about them anyway this week! . . . . (Watch Video)

Obama Loves The Rich Michael Maiello, 04.27.09, 12:00 AM EDT The president is no socialist. If anything, he's an oligarch. The tax protests are over and folks aren't picketing the homes of AIG traders anymore. Barack Obama's approval ratings remain high at 60.8% as measured by the Real Clear Politics average. Still, all the major polls tracked by Real Clear have majorities saying that the country is headed in the wrong direction, and Obama's opposition is hardening around the question of the president's socialist tendencies. Are America's most productive citizens being asked to care for the dispossessed? Are the winners...

The Quiet Coup The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent...

Billionaires Reluctant to Give Up Their Toys 10 April 2009 By Ira Iosebashvili / The Moscow Times For most of the decade, the country's billionaires spent hundreds of millions of dollars on boats, jets, expensive art and the occasional football team. But, despite strained bank accounts and public outrage, the tycoons have been loath to part with their expensive trinkets, choosing instead to hunker down and wait for better days. To be sure, these are not happy days for the country's superrich. In Forbes magazine's latest ranking of the world's wealthiest people, Russia's billionaires had an estimated collective loss of...

In the 1930s even some of the older and more intellectual Russians, including those who had seen a bit of the world in their youth, believed that the United States was the land of the Yellow Devil, meaning gold. It was said that when one American met another in the street, he greeted him as follows: “Make money?” To which the other replied, with Puritan candour: “Very much, thank you.” To those Americans, our grandfathers knew, nothing was sacred. Their tabernacles were to Moloch, their culture was as venal as their women, and needless to say their women were all...

DAS CAPITALISTS REELING By KAJA WHITEHOUSE February 17, 2009 -- Talk about a red scare. The burgeoning ranks of Russia's billionaires shrank by more than half over the past year, as the uber-rich from that country got slammed by plummeting energy and mineral prices. According to Russian business magazine Finans, Russia had just 49 billionaires this year, down from 101 the year before, as the credit crunch finally took its toll on a group that at one point had a combined net worth of $522 billion - almost half the country's gross domestic product. The resources-rich country had been benefiting...

Russians Who Invested in 'People's IPOs' See Their Savings Vanish By Philip P. Pan Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, December 12, 2008; A01 MOSCOW -- Anatoly Sisoyev always considered himself a patriot. As a child, he lost his father to an accident in the Soviet space program. As an adult, he served 30 years in the military, retiring at the rank of major. His son followed him into the army and was killed in Chechnya at the age of 18. Through it all, he said, his faith in the Russian government never waned. So when he heard radio ads two...

New York Senator Hillary Clinton acknowledges a 3-minute ovation during the Democratic National Convention 2008 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado, August 26. Democratic women Senators appears on stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, August 26, 2008. U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) is expected to accept the Democratic presidential nomination at the convention on August 28. US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama watches New York Senator Hillary Clinton addressing the Democratic National Convention on a TV screen in Billings, Montana on August 26. Vice Presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden (R) (D-DE) stand at the podium...

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) -- Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity. The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none."...

Jack Ohman/The Oregonian

From the Law Offices of Paul Hurd PRESS RELEASE U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE DECLARES RECREATIONAL BOATING AND FISHING ILLEGAL ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND AMERICA’S OTHER NAVIGABLE WATERS In the case of Normal Parm, et al v. Sheriff Mark Shumate, of East Carroll Parish, (Civil No.3:01-CV2624; United States District Court; Western District of Louisiana, Monroe Division) United States District Judge Robert G. James has declared it to be criminal trespassing for the public to boat, fish or hunt on the Mississippi River and other navigable waters of America, affirming the arrest of fishermen and boaters utilizing the waters of the Mississippi River....

THE POLITICS OF PIPES Russia Courts Israel with Gas As part of its effort to increase its role in the Middle East, Russia is mulling the construction of a pipeline under the Mediterranean Sea to Israel. The deal would give mega-utility Gazprom a new market, the Kremlin new influence and Israel freedom from relying on its Arab neighbors for energy needs. Russian energy giant Gazprom has a new plan for its octopus-like network of gas pipelines: It wants to extend one of its highly lucrative tentacles to Israel. Experts at the firm -- which is 50 percent state-owned and run...

Warriors and wusses I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on. I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

Anyone would probably remember famous Stephen Sommers' movie The Mummy about the adventures of the treasure hunters in Sahara desert in 1925. When discovering an ancient tomb they accidentally freed the evil that had been hiding Mummyin the priest's body for three thousand years. Of course, that is just a fiction. To be precise it is impossible, speaking about Egyptian mummies. In order to preserve the body of the dead it was disbrained and exenterated (with the exception for the heart). After that the body was kept in saline solution. After the ritual 70 days the body was taken away...

In an impassioned and at times emotional appeal, Mikhail Khodorkovsky on Monday closed his defense with a 39-minute address to the court that left his relatives, lawyers and even reporters applauding and some supporters wiping away tears. The verdict for Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev is to be delivered at noon on April 27, Judge Irina Kolesnikova said after Khodorkovsky's speech was over. Both men face up to 10 years in prison, the maximum sentence demanded by prosecutors on charges of fraud, embezzlement and tax evasion. Addressing the court from the defendants' cage he has shared for the...

KIEV, April 4 (RIA Novosti, Tara Burnos) - Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky can visit Ukraine anytime, representatives of the Ukrainian State Border Service Committee and Security Service told RIA Novosti on Monday. "Any person having proper documents can enter our country," said Anatoly Samarchenko, spokesman for the State Border Service Committee. "If Berezovsky's visit is legitimate and Ukrainian law enforcement bodies have nothing against it, he can arrive in Kiev anytime," he noted. According to Marina Ostapenko, spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Security Council, security services have no claims against the exiled Russian businessmen. "No one, including border guards, has...

I’d love to have a talk about the current situation in the Ukraine with my left-wing friends, but I don’t think they would be interested, and probably not even capable of an intelligent discussion. Not only is the Ukraine so far off and seemingly unimportant to them, the intricacies of its politics defy the usual “left” vs. “right” stereotypes. I truly believe that many long-time lefties pine for the days of the Soviet Union. It gave them a glimmer of hope for world-wide socialism in their otherwise very comfortable, cushy, American lives. Too much guilt about living in the midst...

Mikhail Khodorkovsky (TRJ) E-Mail this article Comments to Editor Discussion Forum Printer-Friendly Advertisement The spectacle of the trial of two of Russia’s richest men has now begun in Moscow. The charges against Platon Lebedev and Mikhail Khodorkovsky are serious, laboriously documented and damning. The clumsiness of the Russian prosecutorial, judicial and prison system notwithstanding, the way in which the charges, evidence, and defence testinomy are handled by the court will have long standing ramifications. The Russian and world media, human rights groups, think tanks, foreign embassies, investment institutions, banks with loan exposure to Russia, share-buyers and speculators are all watching...