Re: A VIEW FROM PAKISTAN...(WHAT THE WORLD REALLY THINKS)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>The Russo-Chinese military alliance could assertively determine the course
of
>events in the 21st century and frustrate US efforts to colonise the rest of
>the world.

I think we'd better take a more skeptical view of things. Colonization
describes what has been happening to Russia since Yeltsin's rise to power.
Unless there is something about Putin that eludes me, he seems to be a
continuation of business as usual:

Los Angeles, March 4, 2000

RUSSIAN COURT SIDES WITH FOREIGN OWNERS OF HISTORIC PORCELAIN PLANT;
BUSINESS: IN A RULING WIDELY SEEN AS A TEST OF RIGHTS OF OUTSIDE INVESTORS,
REGIONAL PANEL OVERTURNS THE OCTOBER DECISION THAT ANNULLED THE FACTORY'S
1993 PRIVATIZATION.

RICHARD C. PADDOCK, TIMES STAFF WRITER

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia

Foreign investors in the historic Lomonosov Porcelain Factory celebrated
victory Friday after a Russian appeals court scuttled a months-long effort
to renationalize the plant.

In a case widely viewed as a test of the rights of investors in Russian
companies, a regional arbitration court Thursday overturned a lower court's
October decision that had annulled the 1993 privatization of the factory.

Investors, headed by a fund financed by U.S. taxpayers, hailed the decision
as a sign that Russia under acting President Vladimir V. Putin will try to
establish a society based on the rule of law, not on cronyism and corruption.

"In the end, the law won out after a lot of painful legal wrangling," said
a jubilant Douglas Boyce, the newly appointed director of the 255-year-old
factory. "Russia has avoided destroying its reputation."

The battle for who would control the Lomonosov factory began when foreign
investors, led by the nonprofit U.S. Russia Investment Fund, began buying
shares that the plant's workers had received when the company was privatized.

After the foreigners acquired 84% of the company, the factory managers
tried to save their jobs with a novel strategy: They sought to prove that
their own privatization of the company was illegal. A local court agreed
and ruled that the old management would retain control of the company.


Louis Proyect

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