Russian oil company Yukos declared bankrupt by court
Moscow – OAO Yukos, once Russia’s biggest oil company, was declared bankrupt Tuesday after a three-year campaign by government tax authorities that critics called a politically motivated campaign against Yukos’ founder.
The government cast its actions as a crusade against a rotten corporate empire.
The campaign rattled Russia’s investment climate, and the bankruptcy declaration opened the way for the Kremlin to further tighten its grip on the strategically vital energy sector.
In a stuffy court hall, Arbitration Court Judge Pavel Markov pronounced the oil producer bankrupt and ruled that the liquidation of its remaining assets – including production capacity of 600,000 barrels per day – should begin.
“It is the death sentence for the company,” Yukos lawyer Drew Holiner said after the ruling.
The ruling was a muted epilogue that followed the conviction of Yukos’ billionaire founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky last summer and the sale of the company’s production unit, Yuganskneftegaz, to the state after a disputed auction in December 2004.
Many saw the battle, which rattled Russia’s investment climate, as a simultaneous drive by the state to regain control of the oil sector.
New Zealand pubs give drunk patrons the flag
Wellington, New Zealand – Inspired by the yellow and red cards flashed by soccer referees, some New Zealand bars are using color-coded cards to help curb excess drinking.
A yellow card is shown to imbibers who may be heading toward trouble during a night at the pub, while a red card removes them from the bar, said Hospitality Association of New Zealand chief executive Bruce Robertson. In a dozen bars using the cards in the North Island cities of Auckland and Wellington, a yellow card means no alcohol is served to the recipient for a specific period of time.
“If you’re giving them the red card you’re saying ‘I’m sorry, you are too affected by alcohol for us to serve you any more, or have you on the premises. I’m afraid you’re going to have to go,”‘ he said.
Patrons who leave with “good grace” are entitled to return another time and present their red card for a free drink, Robertson said.
“It wouldn’t work in all bars, but in some bars that have perhaps got a sporting focus, that may be appropriate,” he said.
ABUJA, Nigeria
Obasanjo vows nuke power plant by 2018
Nigeria’s president has pledged his oil-rich but infrastructure-poor West African nation will build a nuclear power plant within 12 years.
Despite being Africa’s leading oil producer and the fifth biggest supplier of crude to the United States, most of Nigeria’s 130 million people remain deeply impoverished.
Blackouts are common in major cities and few rural areas have steady access to electricity.
Olusegun Obasanjo said any nuclear capacity Nigeria develops would be used for peaceful purposes.
He asked the Justice Ministry to draft legislation governing the use of nuclear technologies.
KINSHASA, Congo
Presidential hopeful says elections rigged
Azarias Ruberwa, a former rebel leader-turned presidential candidate, alleged massive fraud in Congo’s historic elections, but pledged Tuesday that his protest would remain peaceful as preliminary results began to trickle in.
Official, final results from Sunday’s elections were not expected for weeks.
But a sample of results announced by U.N. radio suggested that sitting President Joseph Kabila and Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba had emerged as leading contenders for the presidency.
The United Nations tallied about 600,000 votes across Congo’s provinces – about 2 percent of votes in small towns and 65 percent in larger cities.
WASHINGTON
Docs say Bush fit as a fiddle after physical
President Bush’s doctors pronounced him healthy and in better shape than most men his age Tuesday, but the president seemed a little upset about packing on some extra pounds.
Doctors treated a small precancerous lesion on his left arm but indicated it was nothing serious. They told him to use sunscreen and wear a hat.
Bush got the works at his annual physical. It took more than four hours and was conducted by a team of nine doctors, overseen by White House physician Richard Tubb and Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the president of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas.
The group included skin, hearing, heart, eye and sports-medicine specialists. “I find him to be fit for duty and have every reasonable expectation that he will remain fit for duty for the duration of his presidency,” said a written statement.
PRAGUE, Czech Republic
Hitler bunker builder building Jewish home
The construction company that built Adolf Hitler’s bunker in Berlin is now working on a retirement home serving mainly Holocaust survivors.
The head of Prague’s Jewish community, Frantisek Banyai, seemed not to be worried by the company’s past.
“We did not examine these things,” Banyai said. “We opened a tender and they gave us the best price.” The Czech branch of Hochtief, Germany’s largest construction company, started building the $8.9 million retirement home last month.
