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CDI Library > Johnson's Russia List

Johnson's Russia List
 

 

February 17, 2000    
This Date's Issues: 4113 4114 4115

 

Johnson's Russia List
#4115
17 February 2000
davidjohnson@erols.com

[Note from David Johnson:
1. Reuters: Sebastian Alison, Russia can only watch as oil debate rages.
2. Dipcourier NG: Dmitry GORNOSTAYEV, THE HIGH PROBABILITY OF TRUCE. Russia, West Ready to Stop Confrontation. For How Long?
3. Reuters: Russia says no lowering of nuclear threshold.
4. Moscow Times EDITORIAL: SPS Looking Weaker Next To Yabloko.
5. the eXile: March Madness Continues! Press Review by Matt Taibbi.
6. RF Tax Collection at US Embassy in Moscow.] 

*******

#1
ANALYSIS-Russia can only watch as oil debate rages
By Sebastian Alison

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - OPEC seems to have handed Russia's Acting
President Vladimir Putin another stroke of luck in his presidential
election bid. 

The oil producers cartel will meet on March 27 and could decide to raise
output, easing the market price of crude and cutting Moscow's income from a
key export -- the day after Russians go to the polls to elect a president. 

As pressure mounts from the U.S and others for the Organisation of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries to dampen down soaring prices, Russia, the
world's number three producer, can only watch as a decline in windfall
revenues becomes likely. 

``This is a discussion between the U.S. and OPEC. It isn't something for
Russia to be involved in,'' Stephen O'Sullivan, head of research at United
Financial Group in Moscow, said. 

``Russia is a big oil producer and a moderately big exporter, but its
export flexibility is zero. It exports at the maximum.'' 

On Wednesday U.S. President Bill Clinton called for stable oil prices which
were not too high, and did not rule out drawing down oil from the country's
emergency stockpile to that end. 

OPEC member Venezuela's oil minister Ali Rodriguez said on Thursday that
OPEC should take steps against high prices. And Saudi oil minister Ali
al-Naimi said on Thursday that a price of between $20 and $25 per barrel --
well below current levels -- would be ideal. 

RUSSIA WILL SUFFER 

The consensus that lower prices are desirable is building, and Russia can
only await the consequences. Oil and gas exports account for up to half of
all Russian hard currency export earnings, and any softening of prices
translates into instant loss of cash. 

James Henderson, head of research at Renaissance Capital brokerage in
Moscow, said Russia exports around 850 million barrels of crude a year, so
each dollar off the price corresponds to a loss of some $850 million per
year. 

The federal budget for 2000 assumes a price of $17 per barrel for Russian
Urals export blend crude, which typically trades at a discount to benchmark
Brent crude. 

Henderson said that to meet the budget projection of $17, Brent would need
to average $18.50 to $19 this year. Brent so far this year has averaged $26
a barrel. 

But the budget also assumes the International Monetary Fund will give
Russia $2.6 billion this year. If it does not, Russia will need another $3
per barrel on the oil price to make up for that, taking its Brent target
price to $22 a barrel. 

``$22 looks like the number below which you need to start asking questions
about alternative sources of finance,'' Henderson said. 

NO INFLUENCE 

But Russia appears unable to influence prices at all, although in recent
years it has flirted with OPEC and even offered production cuts of its own
to help boost prices -- although statistics suggest it failed to do so. 

``Historically the Russians haven't been involved in these decisions,''
O'Sullivan said. ``When they were involved they didn't keep their end of
the bargain, and they don't have the flexibility to have any input into the
decision -- they're price takers not price setters.'' 

The lack of flexibility stems from the fact that Russia already exports as
much as it can, and cannot afford to cut exports in the hope of boosting
prices. 

Nor can it raise exports to make up losses caused by lower prices, partly
because of export capacity constraints, and partly because it already
struggles to meet domestic demand. 

So its future economic strength is now in the hands of others, a common
position for a country which depends heavily on exporting raw materials
whose price is set elsewhere. 

``Russia is going to be a price taker for some time to come until it can
either expand its export capacity or expand production further,''
Renaissance Capital's Henderson said. 

He pointed out that Russia also derived substantial revenues from a crude
oil export tax of 15 euros per tonne, or around $2 per barrel, and this may
have to be cut if prices start to fall. 

Last March, when OPEC introduced production cuts to shore up prices, the
price did not react immediately but grew steadily as inventories began to
be depleted. 

Henderson expected the same to happen this year if OPEC decided to raise
production, with any increase in supplies not appearing on the market until
May -- well after the presidential election, when prices may still be
reasonably bouyant. 

``It's quite lucky for Putin that the election is not two months after the
OPEC meeting but just before,'' he said. 

*******

#2
Dipcourier NG No. 3
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
THE HIGH PROBABILITY OF TRUCE
Russia, West Ready to Stop Confrontation. For How Long?
By Dmitry GORNOSTAYEV

The Western strategists no longer seem frightened by the 
inevitable establishment of Putin in the Kremlin. They must 
stop being frightened and start thinking of ways to decode 
Putin's black box. On the other hand, one can hardly demand 
openness from the object of severe criticism. 
The Russian leadership, although proud of its disregard 
for the Western opinion over Chechnya, understands very well 
that this cannot last long. Above all because it needs the West 
in order to handle the problems of its multi-billion-dollar 
debts, task of reviving the national economy with the help of 
foreign investments, and the problem of international terrorism 
in the self-same Chechnya. 
Anyway, Russia and the West, which quarrelled over the 
NATO aggression against Yugoslavia, are on the verge of letting 
off steam over the war in the North Caucasus. In other words, 
the time has come for making up. The only question is how long 
this time will last.
There are signs of appeasement, and more signs appeared 
surprisingly frequently in the past few days. First Mikhail 
Kasyanov was given a chance -- quite unexpectedly -- to report 
to Putin (and Putin could hence report to the people) about the 
cancellation of a part of Russia's debt to the London Club. 
Then President Bill Clinton started praising Putin -- 
quite unexpectedly again. He said in an online web interview 
last Tuesday that he respected the acting Russian president and 
that Chechens are largely responsible for the heavy toll among 
the peaceful population, while the Russian authorities had the 
right to combat terrorism on their own territory. 
Barely a day later NATO Secretary General George Robertson 
came to Moscow. The surprising thing is not that he came to 
Moscow, but that he was allowed to come to Moscow. This is a 
large step forward by the Russian side. Moscow has kept silent 
for a very long time, and agreed to talk only now.
On the other hand, our sources say the Russian Foreign 
Ministry pondered ways of normalising dialogue with NATO 
already last autumn. There was one condition: This must be done 
without detriment to Russia's prestige. It appears that the 
ministry has resolved this far from the largest problem. 
A few words about Americans on the side. "On the side," 
because their attitude to Russia differs from the European 
stand in that it is much more favourable -- at least for now. 
The Council of Ministers of the European Union issues numerous 
harsh statements over Chechnya, while Clinton well-nigh 
justifies the Russian actions in the Caucasus. 
And Washington prefers to publicly gloss over the scandal 
with Radio Liberty correspondent Andrei Babitsky. Of course, 
Madeleine Albright had to mention this problem during her 
recent visit to Moscow, but it is indicative how quickly the 
Department of State announced that it had not issued any 
official statements on Babitsky or made harsh demands in the UN 
Security Council. 
It is possible that the current US administration, which 
is completing its last year in office and has been regularly 
spanked for its foreign policy flops in the Russian direction, 
decided to work on the public opinion. This is probably why it 
is nodding favourably at Putin. We have not lost Russia, the 
Clinton administration seems to be saying to American voters, 
and Putin is a step forward compared to the last few months of 
Yeltsin's rule. 
But if these actions were prompted by purely internal 
reasons, we should not believe Clinton's words about Russia.
Although being a pragmatic politician, he really wants to 
develop US-Russian relations. It appears that a temporary truce 
is just around the corner. But the respite can turn out to be 
very short.

******

#3
Russia says no lowering of nuclear threshold

MOSCOW, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Russia has not lowered the threshold for using
its huge nuclear arsenal in its revamped national security concept,
Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, reporting on a Security
Council meeting. 

Russia's new security concept, approved by Acting President Vladimir Putin
on January 6, said Moscow envisaged the potential use of atomic weapons
``to repel armed aggression,'' a statement which was interpreted as meaning
the threshold had been lowered. 

``Statements that Russia appears to have lowered the threshold for the use
of nuclear weapons are untrue,'' the ministry quoted Security Council
Secretary Sergei Ivanov as saying on Tuesday. 

Ivanov, a former KGB spy, said the use of nuclear weapons was not ruled
out. ``Russia has never stated the possibility of being the first to use
nuclear weapons. At the same time, Russia does not make a commitment to not
being the first.'' 

Ivanov met diplomats on Tuesday to clarify Russia's revamped national
security concept. 

Under the previous concept published in 1997, Russia reserved the right to
use its nuclear arsenal, the world's second largest, only if its very
existence were threatened. 

The new version seemed to reflect Russia's more antagonist view of the
world by saying Moscow's main security task was to deter any attacks,
nuclear of conventional, against Russia and its allies. 

The concept had also listed one of the main foreign threats as NATO's
eastern enlargement and own new strategy. 

But on Wednesday, NATO and Russia agreed to thaw their ties significantly
after a year of Cold War-style tensions over Kosovo and Chechnya. They made
clear that the relations, frozen by Russia after the alliance bombed
Yugoslavia last year, were still a little chilly. 

*******

#4
Moscow Times
February 17, 2000 
EDITORIAL: SPS Looking Weaker Next To Yabloko 

Boris Nemtsov declared a victory Wednesday after the State Duma installed him 
and Yabloko's Vladimir Lukin as deputy speakers. He called it a defeat for 
the Communists, who had helped block the nominations. "Centrist and 
center-right factions in the chamber have a chance in the near future to work 
constructively, without the Communists, on a range of key laws for our 
country - land and tax codes, passing a responsible and honest budget," 
Reuters quoted Nemtsov as saying. 

That would certainly be nice. Well-regulated land sales and tax reform are 
long overdue. 

But the appointment of Nemtsov and Lukin to these minor posts isn't much of a 
victory. It does not reverse the far-more-eloquent previous snub the Duma 
offered by initially denying them these posts - which, by tradition, are 
their due, as every major Duma party is supposed to have one of the deputy 
speaker's chairs. 

And the very notion that the Communists are the main obstacle to reform is 
such a worn-out fallacy that it's hard to believe someone as supposedly savvy 
as Nemtsov could still be flogging this flimsy excuse for Russia's 
stagnation. Reform stalled not so much because of truculent Communists, but 
because the Kremlin's interest in real reform - as opposed to sweet-talking 
the IMF - was less than overwhelming. 

As dysfunctional as the Communists can be, they were not the ones who created 
the current system of crony capitalism through rigged privatizations. It was 
the Kremlin, under Boris Yeltsin and Anatoly Chubais. Now, some of the same 
moguls created under Yeltsin appear to have secured a friendly successor in 
the person of acting President Vladimir Putin. 

Given that, the bargain struck by the ostensibly liberal Union of Right 
Forces with the Kremlin seems like less and less of a good deal. The Union of 
Right Forces supports the Kremlin through a cooperation deal struck with the 
Unity party. And gets what in return? A vague promise to take up, but not 
necessarily support, several reform bills. 

By comparison, the Yabloko party seems to have done better by not supporting 
the Kremlin. They're out of power, yes, but they haven't clouded what it is 
they stand for. Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky has kept open the 
possibility of making a respectable third-place run for president. If things 
go to a second round, that would put him in a kingmaker's position, like that 
of Alexander Lebed in 1996. 

The Union of Right Forces, however, seems to have little chance to have any 
real influence at all. 

- Dave McHugh 

******

#5
From: Matt Taibbi <exile.taibbi@matrix.ru>
Subject: march madness continued
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 

the eXile
March Madness Continues!
Press Review
By Matt Taibbi

Welcome back, sports fans! In case you missed the gala kickoff last issue, 
the eXile is holding its first annual March Madness Worst Journalist 
Contest. We bracketed 32 of the city's leading hacks into pairs and pitted 
them notebook to notebook in dog-eat-dog competition. Sixteen lucky winners 
advanced in our last issue; what follow are the results of round two, which 
determined who will appear in the tournament's final eight.

Unlike the first round, in which there was a great deal of close 
competition, the second round was characterized by blowouts. The match 
between the Financial Times's John Thornhill and the Globe and Mail's 
Geoffrey York, for instance, had to be stopped in the first quarter by 
officials when Thornhill was hit with a technical foul for taunting 
following a run of nine unanswered mixed metaphors. It was that kind of day 
for the underdogs. As far as we're concerned, though, the blowouts only 
ensured that there would be no weak links left in the field. See for 
yourself; here's how Round two went:

John Thornhill, Financial Times, def. Geoffrey York, Globe and Mail

Sometimes the worst part about a newspaper article is its headline. In this 
case, giant-killer John Thornhill, who knocked off #1 seed Rick Paddock in 
the first round, could have breezed past overmatched challenger Geoffrey 
York of the Globe and Mail solely on the strength of the headline from his 
Feb. 12 article, "Sale may signal business clean-up." Preposterously, 
Thornhill's article argued that the sale of some of the UK-based Trans 
World Aluminum company's Russian assets to shareholders of the Sibneft oil 
company signaled a "cleaning-up" phase in the development of Russian 
business. As in, Trans World's assets in Russia will be more honestly run 
under Roman Abramovitch and Boris Berezovsky.

This is, quite possibly, the stupidest thing to be written by a Western 
journalist living in Russia this year. A remarkable combination of 
intellectual, moral, and personal inadequacies are required to will into 
being an article such as this, and Thornhill clearly has all of them in 
abundance. For instance, take the following set of paragraphs:

'The move comes at a time when several of Russia's business oligarchs are 
making efforts to "clean up" their businesses in anticipation that Vladimir 
Putin is elected president in March.

'Mr Putin has stressed he wants to create equal rules of the game for all 
businesses in Russia and is increasing the pressure on Russia's oligarchs 
to invest at home rather than siphon their cash abroad.'

To write sentences like these without elaborating upon them, a reporter 
must be first and foremost a supremely lazy and apathetic person, for no 
diligent journalist or careful writer would ever expose to his reader to 
such an unseemly pile of unanswered questions. Which of Russia's "several 
business oligarchs" does Thornhill mean? What "efforts" can Thornhill point 
to that any of these oligarchs have made to "clean up" their businesses? 
And what, concretely, does Thornhill have in mind when he says that Putin 
is "increasing the pressure" on oligarchs to invest at home? Thornhill 
doesn't elaborate on any of this and just leaves us hanging. Even if these 
two paragraphs weren't the insane bullshit that they are, this would be the 
sloppiest of sloppy newswriting.

Which is too bad, because one cannot afford to be sloppy when one is being 
as crudely cynical and dishonest as Thornhill is being here. Thornhill does 
not answer any of these unanswered questions because, as he must surely 
know, there are no answers to them. The oligarchs are not "cleaning up", 
and there is no evidence that Putin-the man who was once the loyal chief 
deputy to Pavel Borodin, Russia's all-time leading capital exporter-- is 
pressuring anyone to invest at home rather than send money abroad. And as 
for attaching the names of Abramovich (who was once arrested for stealing 
railroad wagons full of petroleum) and Berezovsky (who was recently refused 
a visa to the Davos conference in anticipation of his indictment on 
money-laundering charges) to the idea of "clean" business? well, that's 
just disgusting. Thornhill should be fed his own testicles for writing such 
a thing.

Meanwhile, Thornhill's opponent, Geoff York, bowed out of the tournament 
with a thorough bio on Putin, including as an afterthought a fair part of 
the necessary information that the dissolute, lazy hack Thornhill elected 
to leave out of his. Here's a passage that Thornhill could have and should 
have put in his piece after his mention of Putin:

"After Mr. Sobchak lost the mayor's job in 1996, Mr. Putin moved to Moscow 
and became a senior aide in the Kremlin property department -- one of the 
most secretive and corrupt branches of the presidential administration. It 
used a closed bidding system to conceal its own business dealings, worth 
billions of dollars, and to award lucrative contracts to well-connected 
insiders."

We wanted York to advance because he still hasn't reviewed our book and we 
therefore still need the leverage, but we were helpless before God on this 
one. We could write a hundred books and it wouldn't justify getting 
Thornhill out of this tournament yet. York out; the Financial Times stays 
alive.

Maura Reynolds (8), Los Angeles Times, def. Brian Whitmore, Boston Globe

One thing that too few journalists are censured for is the crime of blowing 
the gatekeeper to get in the gate. Whether it's in the form of 
too-enthusiastically gushing over a highly-placed official who has deigned 
to give you an exclusive interview, or (in this case), in the form of 
writing nice things about the armed force that leads you on a tour of the 
territory it has decimated, you're always screwing your reader in the end 
if you sell your soul to get him a scoop. In her February 13 piece, 
"Grozny's Basement Survivors Find Few Signs of Life", Maura Reynolds of the 
L.A. Times without a doubt screws her reader badly-- but only after 
nauseating him with her atrocious writing skills.

Here's the lead to Reynolds's piece:

'GROZNY, Russia-- The ground here in Chechnya's capital is literally 
scorched. It stretches, black and tender, between piles of concrete too 
shapeless even to be called ruins.'

First of all, what does the phrase "literally scorched" mean? Can one have 
a "figuratively scorched" ground? What would such a ground look like? 
Secondly, the inclusion of the word "tender" here sets off a virtual 
explosion of superfluous and/or ineptly-applied modifiers. By my reckoning 
there are at least 10 clearly superfluous adjectives in this article: 
"tender", "dusty", "smoky", "grimy", "filthy", "deep", "timid", "green" and 
"charred" (cruelly herded together in the positively loathsome sentence, 
"But with the dawn, some evidence of hope emerges like green shoots through 
charred earth") and "dark".

But Reynolds's poor writing is the least of her worries in this piece. The 
really disgusting part about her article is her thinly-disguised flattery 
of the Emergencies Ministry, who I would bet almost anything acted as her 
guide for at least part of this story (the tipoff being that she quotes an 
Emergencies Ministry driver). Throughout the piece, she describes the 
Ministry (the MChS) in a way that makes them out to be a sort of Russian 
Red Cross-a benevolent aid service helping war victims. Here's one example:

'?Russian officials moving in to begin the slow job of clearing the 
destruction and healing the victims find themselves debating whether the 
landscape looks more like Dresden or Stalingrad.
'``They said they would bomb Grozny to the ground. Well, they bombed Grozny 
to the ground,'' said Alexander Kudryashov, an emergencies ministry driver 
arriving in the city with food and medicine.'

And another example:

'Looking for a site for a field hospital, the emergencies ministry resorted 
to an old bus depot on the edge of town. The roof was only half missing.
'"In a couple of days, I think we'll be seeing about 300 people a day,'' 
said Serge Goncharov, the doctor running the hospital, which treated its 
first patients Saturday. ``Children will be coming back, and they will pick 
up anything. They pick up grenades and get their hands blown off. It 
happens to adults too.'''

And another, in this case casting the ministry as one of those "green 
shoots" of hope:

'The emergencies ministry has set up four feeding stations offering hot 
meals once a day.'

What Reynolds has conveniently forgotten to tell her reader is that the 
Emergencies Minister, Sergei Shoigu, has been one of the staunchest nuke 
'em-till-they-glow supporters of the Chechen war effort, right from the 
very beginning. As the head of the pro-Putin, pro-war Unity party, Shoigu 
was the driving voice behind the effort to rally the Russian population 
into a bloodlust over Chechnya. Shoigu was the one who directed the effort 
to send civilian refugees back into Chechnya so that they could have their 
heads blown off by Russian bombs. What's more, Reynolds seems to forget 
that the MChS is also an armed force which participated in the fighting in 
Chechnya. In several places she actually contrasts the MChS with the 
soldiers, a gross error. The MChS doctors and aid workers she encountered 
may be genuinely good people, but they are working for the very 
organization which brought about the emergency that required their charity. 

Leaving all of this stuff out is too high a price to pay for a guided tour 
of a bomb site.

The eXile prescribes a soaking and ten friendly minutes with a car battery 
to Reynolds's opponent, Brian Whitmore of the Boston Globe, for quoting 
wretched ex-World Bank quote whore Charles Blitzer in his Feb. 2 piece, 
"Russia's Dirty Money". Otherwise, however, Whitmore's piece on the Mabetex 
scandal was solid and thorough. He never had a chance in this one. Reynolds 
on to round three; New England's last hope bows out.

Gareth Jones (6), Reuters, def. Andrew Jack, Financial Times

Why does Gareth Jones always have that smile on his face? Because he knows 
there will always be jobs for people willing and able to write cringing, 
voluminously syrupy praise of Swine in Power. In our last visit to 
Jonesland we caught the Reuters standout tripping over himself to call 
repulsive Duma vermin Gennady Seleznyov "dapper"; in this round Jones 
contrives somehow to describe as "charming" a man who is primarily 
distinguished by his lack of personality and presence-Vladimir Putin.

Here's the lead to Jones's piece:

'MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The door opens. A short, brisk man strides out 
purposefully with a bevy of aides in tow and ushers his waiting guest 
politely into a seat.

'Vladimir Putin oozes cool confidence after barely a month as Russia's 
acting president, and on Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine 
Albright became the latest Western official to feel the force of his 
charm.'

First, the small mistakes. I'm not sure a man can be "brisk". He can have a 
brisk walk, but I don't think he himself can be brisk. Secondly, about the 
politeness of Putin's ushering of Madeline into her seat?well, what the 
hell was he supposed to do-- give her a wedgie and kick her in the knees? 
In a less routinely slavish writer than Jones, calling attention (in the 
lead!) to a politician's observance of absolutely mandatory politeness 
might be dismissed as simply an oversight or evidence of mild laziness, but 
in Jones it fits in all too nicely with the overall pattern of his 
rhetoric. As was the case with Seleznyov, he seems to enjoy giving powerful 
people credit for anything and everything they have to offer-- right down, 
in Putin's case, to an ability to not act like a slobbering beast in 
public.
Furthermore, Jones here commits the always-irritating sin of reporting as 
fact the mythical reactions and emotions of public figures during public 
events. How do we know Madeline Albright felt "the full force of his 
charm"? Even if she said she did-which she didn't, exactly-there would be 
no reason to believe her. In general this kind of extrapolation of the 
feelings of public figures has the overall effect of making them seem 
larger than life. Tell us what they said, tell us what you think they felt, 
but don't tell us what they felt, because you can't possibly know. I mean, 
who's your source, Santa Claus? That's particularly true in this case, when 
the likelihood of Albright's having been genuinely charmed by Vladimir 
Putin is? well, I'd say absolutely zero, but then again, Madeline Albright 
probably hasn't had sex with a man in a long time, so it's hard to say?

It is probably necessary to admit the remote possibility that Jones here 
is being ironic in his use of this overtly ridiculous "full force of his 
charm" phrase. If this is indeed the case, it is a very sad, very small, 
and very timid joke, one which does little more than underscore the 
humiliatingly severe limits on self-expression that must be the rule for 
chain-gang writers at places like Reuters. If it is not a joke, then Jones 
is either a fool or a mean propagandist. To call Vladimir Putin charming in 
the middle of the decimation of Grozny is inappropriate almost any way you 
look at it.

Jones goes on, as he did with Seleznyov, to throw all kinds of nice words 
at Putin: he is "firm", "alert", "healthy", a man who has "vigour" and "a 
clear grasp of his brief" (is this another joke, with a touch of Freud 
added?) and should be praised for his "measured flexibility" and 
"decisiveness". Jones also adds, incorrectly, that Putin has avoided "the 
sharp language used by some Russian officials" in talking about the Chechen 
war. Wasn't it Vladimir Putin who said, "We'll kill them even in the 
toilet"? What could be sharper than that?

But Jones's utter desperation to attach any kind of positive adjective to 
Putin is best borne out in the following passage:

'``This guy (Putin) is self-assured, but he has every reason to be, 
considering his popularity (in Russia),'' said one official in Albright's 
party, adding that ``steely'' was not an inappropriate adjective to apply 
to the former KGB spy.'

Jones here couldn't even get an anonymous official to confirm, without 
prodding, that the use of the blurry and utterly meaningless adjective 
"steely" was positively appropriate. The best he can get out of his source 
is a "not inappropriate", with prodding. These are some pretty serious 
verbal gymnastics. You'll never look far for work in this world if you're 
willing to make stretches like that.

In contrast, Andrew Jack of the Financial Times in his Feb 12. 109-word 
dispatch, "Rebels 'Surrender' to Police" used only one adjective, 
"local"-and he didn't have to stretch for it. Jones therefore advances 
easily, ending the FT's hopes for putting two writers into the final eight. 

Michael Gordon (3), New York Times, def. Owen Matthews, Newsweek

Owen Matthews hasn't filed since the last round. Michael Gordon doesn't 
have that problem. He's been filing constantly, on a daily basis almost, 
delivering detailed accounts of the war zone in Chechnya home to the 
friendly folks who read the New York Times. In fact, Gordon has been so 
prodigiously successful at filing while other big-time reporters haven't 
that he even made the news recently on account of it. A thing called 
Editors and Publishers magazine, a boosterish industry-friendly trade 
magazine about print media-a sort of Adweek for hacks-published an article 
on January 24 in which Gordon was lauded not only for being the sole 
big-market print reporter working in Russia to consistently deliver stories 
from the front, but for being the only major print reporter responsible 
enough to fully cooperate with the Russian authorities and stay within the 
"rules" in covering the war. The piece, by E & P's Joe Strupp, leads off by 
talking about the failure of certain major news organizations to gain 
access to the war because their reporters "lacked the proper credentials" 
and were detained by Russian authorities.

The reporters Strupp is talking about, seven in all, are Daniel Williams of 
The Washington Post, David Filipov of the Boston Globe, Marcus Warren of 
London's Daily Telegraph; Rodriguez Fernandez of Spain's El Pais; Ricardo 
Ortego of Spanish Antenna 3 TV; and Ortego's camera operator, Teimuraz 
Gabashvili.

Ostensibly detained for lacking the proper credentials, what these 
reporters were really detained for was doing their jobs-i.e. not 
restricting themselves to the Russian side of the war, and attempting to 
get to the Chechen side to give a more balanced picture of what was going 
on. What they did took guts and integrity; all were risking losing their 
immediate livelihoods by having permission to work in Russia revoked by the 
authorities. Furthermore, the news organizations they worked for showed 
some huevos by being willing to get beat by the New York Times from time to 
time in order to give their journalists a chance to cover the war 
correctly.
Editors and Publishers doesn't call attention to any of this, or give any 
of these journalists credit for doing the right thing; instead, it 
castigates them in not-so-subtle fashion for their poor market performance 
in comparison to Gordon's New York Times:

'A review of stories about the war published in daily newspapers over 
several days last week revealed that each news organization had taken 
decidedly different approaches to coverage.

'On Jan. 17, for example, The New York Times published a first-person 
account by Gordon of Russian officials touring the war-torn area in 
Chechnya, responding to complaints from refugees, and keeping watch for 
snipers.

'The same day, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street 
Journal, and The Washington Post each published AP stories on other events, 
with the Post offering only a world briefs item on air attacks over Grozny 
that used a Defense Ministry source...

'? Although the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post also have 
published staff-written material about the war, most of the stories have 
been datelined Moscow and have reported on issues linked to the Russian 
capital rather than inside Chechnya.'

The second paragraph above provides a rare, sickening glimpse at the true 
face of the news business. Strupp obviously doesn't know anything about the 
Chechen war; he doesn't know how loaded and ambiguous phrases like 
"responding to complaints from refugees" and "keeping watch for snipers" 
are. He also doesn't care. For Strupp, the industry analyst, it doesn't 
matter what it was Gordon got. It only matters that he got it. That's what 
modern news is all about-getting a story that contains the titillating 
superficial aspects of good reporting, regardless of whether the reporting 
is any good or not. Get the pictures at all costs; fuck up the story if you 
need to.

For all of Gordon's prodigiousness at filing, his reporting is far behind 
the pack and has been from the outset. The other bureau big shots were down 
in Chechnya much earlier and, having exposed themselves to both sides of 
the issue, are clearly better informed. Gordon came to the story late and 
hasn't once left the Russian side of the battle, and his reporting is 
obviously skewed in a pro-Russian direction as a result. His February 14 
piece, "Russian Troops Order Evacuation of Grozny", is a perfect example of 
his myopic approach to the war. The piece describes in an unemotional way 
the Russian clean-up operation, citing information that has clearly been 
spoon-fed to him by the Russian authorities. Not once does he talk about 
the civilian casualties in Grozny, or mention the senseless marauding and 
burning of remaining residences by Russian troops, or describe with any 
kind of alarm the scale of senseless destruction wrought by the Russians in 
the city. Instead, he seems more to share the mean logistical concerns of 
the Russian commanders when he writes stuff like this:

'Looting has been a serious problem. The first complement of pro-Russian 
Chechen police officers arrived Monday.'

Well, thank God for that. We're sure they'll do a good job. Here's another 
example of Gordon acting as ventriloquist dummy to the Russian military 
spokesmen:

'Col. Nikolai A. Zaitsev, a senior Interior Ministry officer, said the 
capital of the embattled province of Chechnya had become too dangerous for 
its inhabitants. It will be off-limits for two weeks
while Interior Ministry troops comb the city for weapons, unexploded
bombs and booby-traps.

'Russian officers conceded that the move was also a precaution against 
rebel infiltration. Leaflets circulated throught the city Monday warning 
residents that militants were planning a new guerrilla
campaign.'

Note the use of the word "conceded" here-there's the ventriloquism in 
action. The officials didn't "concede" anything to Gordon, not in the 
traditional sense of being presented with an independently researched fact 
and forced to admit its truth. No, what they did here is "concede" their 
pretext for evacuating the few remaining people from their homes and doing 
whatever it is they're really doing there, burying evidence or looting or 
whatever. The pretext they're "conceding" is exactly the same as the 
pretext for the entire war, namely that it was undertaken as a precaution 
against terrorist attacks. They could have just announced this pretext, but 
it seems a lot more convincing, a lot more like the truth, when you can 
"concede" it to the bureau chief of the New York Times.

How does Gordon justify sending such one-sided, biased reports home to the 
world's most influential newspaper? Amazingly, he answers that question 
himself in the Editors and Publishers article:

'"We made a different choice to follow rules and regulations and work 
within the system," said Gordon, who has filed daily dispatches from within 
the battle zone for a number of weeks. "Others didn't want to, and jumped 
the gun."'

Yes, you caught that right-that's Gordon actually bragging that he plays 
ball with the Russians to get access to war zones. No less shocking is the 
fact that Gordon here has the balls to denigrate his fellow journalists for 
"jumping the gun" in not playing along with the Russians' wishes. It's one 
thing to be a whore, but to brag about it, and worse still publicly thumb 
your nose at your colleagues for risking their lives to preserve the 
integrity of their profession-well, that's another thing entirely. This is 
a level of professional villainy I don't think Moscow's Western press corps 
has ever seen before.

eXile readers might also have noticed that Gordon has been appearing a lot 
on Russian television lately. As a reward for being so obedient, he's 
clearly being granted by the Russians the status of elder spokesman for the 
Western journalism community. Soon he'll be co-hosting Sergei Dorenko's 
show, no doubt.

I would think some kind of collective action against Gordon by his 
colleagues has to be pending-a boycott, a petition, a malevolent 
professional intrigue, something. In the meantime, Gordon remains a Menace 
II Society and is through to the next round in a walk.

Giles Whittell, Times UK, def. Alice Lagnado, Times UK

Alice Lagnado, back from her sojourn in elaborate and long-winded disguise 
in Chechnya, has apparently not filed in the past two weeks. There are some 
people who have argued that a reporter who does not file should 
automatically advance to the next round. We at the eXile disagree. On the 
contrary, in most cases, a reporter should be rewarded for not filing. 
There are lots of journalists out there who argue that criticism of their 
hack-formulaic articles is unfair, because they're just doing their jobs, 
doing what their editors tell them to do, etc. In response to that argument 
we have the following to say: hey, there's always McDonald's, guys. 
Nobody's forcing you at gunpoint to write blowjob pieces about monsters 
like Vladimir Putin, or to run around Grozny with fake beards on, angling 
for book contracts. There are other jobs out there.

Therefore it makes no sense to keep someone in the running for the title of 
worst journalist if someone has just made the best possible case against 
his candidacy, i.e. has simply stopped practicing journalism.

The question probably would have been moot in this case, anyway, for 
Lagnado's boss, Giles Whittell, put forth a strong enough effort to 
guarantee victory against anything Lagnado was likely to cough up. The lead 
to his Feb. 8 piece, "Chechen Warlords In Bitter Battle for Power", went as 
follows:

'AS SHAMIL BASAYEV's foot was amputated under local anaesthetic last week 
outside Grozny, he let the video cameras roll. The rebel warlord's flair 
for publicity may serve him well as Chechens and the wider world wait for a 
leader to emerge from the wreckage of the republic's latest war.'

This is not exactly a lead-o-matic lead, but close, an affectionate salute 
to one. The "As something happened near something located next to something 
else last week, something happened" structure of the lead sentence is 
classic lead-o-matic language. Two elements are missing, however. One is 
the lead-o-matic byline. The standard form insists upon (EXOTIC CITY, 
Foreign Country) as the byline location, but Whittell couldn't do that one 
because, as you knew if you looked closely, he wasn't at the exotic scene 
of the crime. The actual byline reads, "FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW', 
which actually could have been amended to read "FROM GILES WHITTELL IN 
FRONT OF HIS TELEVISION SET." That Whitell wrote this piece from TV is no 
crime, but his lead sure leaves readers the impression that he was in the 
same general vicinity of Basayev when he had the foot amputated.

The second problem with this lead is that Whittell violates the simplest 
grade-school rules of composition by not giving his far-less informed 
reader the slightest clue as to how this Basayev person came to be having 
his foot amputated. I must confess to having read this article before I 
knew the amputation story in full, and was therefore totally baffled as I 
continued reading down this piece and discovered that Whittell doesn't 
anywhere elaborate on the basic news elements of the amputation story. In 
fact, Whittell goes a full six paragraphs after the lead without returning 
to his introductory subject, and even then only to say:

'?Mr Basayev, a former computer salesman and Soviet Army fireman, now ranks 
as Chechnya's best-known warlord, loathed by the Russians but admired for 
his military daring. Minus a foot, he is more popular than ever among 
diehard separatists. But as a potential figurehead Mr Basayev is hamstrung, 
since Russia will not include him in talks.'

Is Whittell kidding, having a little private laugh with himself, when he 
describes someone who's just lost a foot as being politically "hamstrung"? 
I sure hope so.

In sum, Whittell's article goes something like this: "I saw someone get his 
foot amputated on television and I either don't know or don't care to tell 
you why. There is a vicious power struggle going on between warlords in 
Chechnya, and I know this because Russian television, which has an interest 
in furthering this idea, told me. The Chechens claim they're okay and 
united behind one guy but I don't believe them because analysts working for 
Western think-tanks tell me not to. I also don't believe him because even 
here from my seat in Moscow I, Giles Whittell, know what the Chechen people 
are really thinking ("The problem for Chechnya is that few people believe 
this," Whittell writes). Meanwhile that guy is still missing his foot and 
is therefore hamstrung politically. Moving on, there is another guy out 
there who is a candidate to be a rebel leader [Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev] but I 
don't have any additional information about him so that's where my piece 
ends."

Whittell at least left the Moscow Times alone in this piece, but it didn't 
help much. Boss Giles advances; Alice Lagnado goes back to the costume 
room.

Helen Womack (5), Independent, def. Marcus Warren, Electronic Telegraph

Womack tried to worm her way out of the tournament by going on "vacation" 
over the last two weeks, but she advances anyway because Warren did 
absolutely nothing to deserve advancing. His laid-back Feb. 15 
letter-from-Moscow piece, "TV puppets come under fire from Putin court", 
hits all the cylinders; it supports a cause worth supporting in the Kukli 
people, doesn't try to do too much, is wittily and entertainingly written, 
and even manages to skillfully weave into the text an impressively prete 
ntious term, "lese-majeste", without showing any strain on the surrounding 
sentences. Warren obviously has full control over the "letter from afar" 
genre-toss in a bunch of interesting news flashes, keep the segues short, 
keep it light and chatty, don't over-dramatize the distance from home, etc. 
Pieces like this are what British reporters are designed for.

Womack didn't file, but the strength of her previous work carries her past 
Warren on this one. In looking back at her work over the last year it was 
hard to avoid noticing that Womack has for some time (since the departure 
of Anna Blundy) been establishing herself as the Western press corps' most 
fearsome anti-Russian-female terrorist. This paramilitary force of Russian 
women-haters to which she belongs has been operating above ground for about 
ten years in Russia, or ever since the mini-skirt arrived here. One of its 
most malicious practices involves calling Russian women whores for not 
being as ugly or badly-dressed as they are. In Womack's piece from October 
3 of last year, "Russian Dolls"-ostensibly a homage to Raisa Gorbacheva but 
really an assault on cute Russian girls-- she shows 'em how:

'But to a young woman, dressed in skin-tight silver jumper and heavy 
make-up like a model going to a party (despite being a secretary on her 
lunch break), Gorbacheva meant nothing?'

Note Womack's frustration at the girl being dressed up "despite being a 
secretary", whatever that means. Later on, she goes to the extreme lengths 
of quoting a Western p.r. consultant to get her real message across:

'Lawrence McDonnell, a British businessman who runs a public relations 
company, Pravda, in Moscow, puts it more succinctly. "The look of a typical 
Russian woman in her twenties can be summed up in one word: sex," he says. 
"Frankly, if they were in Britain there'd be a danger of being thought of 
as tarty."'

I don't know why Western female reporters persist in writing these stories. 
When they do, they're as much as announcing to the world that they're 
bitter, sexually-frustrated, unhappy people. And their stories are mean and 
petty to boot. Womack's vacation tactic ineffective; she advances to round 
three.

Matrin Nesirky, Reuters, def. Celestine Bohlen (7), New York Times

Technically an upset, but not really-sort of like Tennessee beating the 
spread over the Rams. After two weeks of competition, we can definitely say 
this about Martin Nesirky: the man has his game face on. His February 3 
piece, "Russian Security Chief Says No Need to Fear KGB", was one of those 
rare articles which can bring the whole crowd to its feet. After about four 
graphs of it, actually, you could hear the fans stamping their feet and 
howling "We Will Rock You" at the doomed Bohlen.

The crux of his piece was that KGB veterans like Vladimir Putin are okay 
because a friendly KGB veteran who (just like you and me!) reads spy novels 
in English says so. Here's how it leads:

'MOSCOW, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Russia and the outside world need have nothing 
to fear from Soviet-era KGB agents such as Acting President Vladimir Putin, 
according to the secretary of the influential Security Council.

'Sergei Ivanov, who spent 20 years in intelligence himself and reads
English-language spy novels, told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in an 
interview published on Thursday there would be changes to the security
services but no major shake-up.'

Nesirky's lead sentence reads at first like a declarative statement of 
fact-the world has nothing to fear from Soviet-era ex-KGB agents. This is a 
standard straight-news rhetorical device, the leading off with a 
declarative assertion that actually belongs to an interview subject (for 
straight news reporters are not allowed to simply declare their own 
opinions), but even within the muddled ethics of wire-service writing 
Nesirky fails miserably here. For the usual practice with these sorts of 
leads is for the reporter to balance the lead assertion with a 
hastily-interjected antithesis a few paragraphs down, i.e. "But while 
Ivanov says X, others maintained that he is totally full of shit because of 
Y?"

Nesirky doesn't do this. The entire article flows freely from the lead 
assertion, leading one to believe-and I actually do believe this-that 
Nesirky personally agrees with the idea that the world has nothing to fear 
from ex-KGB agents like Vladimir Putin. That this idea is transparently 
ridiculous on its face-obviously the world has lots to fear from ex-KGB 
agents, some of the world's leading experts on torture, surveillance, and 
repression-doesn't seem to bother Nesirky. In fact, the Reuters chief 
correspondent seems to be totally pacified, charmed even, by the glaringly 
irrelevant fact that Ivanov reads Frederick Forsyth novels. This fact is 
introduced at the beginning and the end of the piece as a means of 
enhancing Ivanov's credibility with Western readers, despite the fact that 
intelligence service vets who speak foreign languages usually learned them 
in service of official enmity of their subject countries. Ivanov knows 
English because he learned it in order to spy on us! And now that he's 
telling us we shouldn't worry about his former colleagues, we're supposed 
to simply believe him, because he says so? Nesirky seems a fool for buying 
into this idea, but he doesn't stop there; he wants also to convince us 
that KGB veterans should simply be admired in general, because they are 
highly qualified professionals:

'Ivanov, who worked as a spy in Europe and Africa, said those who harboured 
such fears should remember the KGB had employed only the best people.

'``It was done in an extremely demanding and strict way,'' he said. ``They 
only took the cream.'''

Best people? Best at what? Snitching on their friends? Nesirky doesn't 
elaborate, or offer any evidence to debunk this increasingly popular 
argument, that having a KGB vet as President of Russia is not only not 
necessarily undesirable, but actually desirable, for the very reason that 
KGB people are such consummate professionals. Vladimir Putin is okay, the 
argument goes, because spies are good people. Nesirky appears to actually 
believe this himself; his text reads like an article written by a British 
spy frustrated by the lack of respect for his profession. Who knows, maybe 
he is.

One last thing about Nesirky's piece; the entire thing was taken from 
Komsomolskaya Pravda. Not a single phone call in there. This just 
demonstrates what desperate lengths he was willing to go to to make his 
point. For a wire-service baron like Nesirky to run a full-fledged news 
analysis based on something with such minor news value, he had to have been 
either very hard up for a story or very excited about the theme personally. 
You be the judge.

In contrast to Nesirky's article, Celestine Bohlen's Feb. 2 piece, "Mothers 
Teach Art of Draft Dodging," reads like Shakespeare. In it she distances 
herself from her vile colleague Gordon by writing in great detail, through 
the vehicle of Russian war mothers, about what a tremendously evil pile of 
shit the Chechen war effort is. Like most of the contests in this round, 
this was a rout. Nesirky moves on.

David Hoffman (2), Washington Post, met Gary Peach, Moscow Times (late)

This one went into overtime. At the eXile deadline, there was still no 
winner. Peach was about to advance automatically on the strength of 
Hoffman's failure to file for two weeks, but then a rumor reached us that a 
piece of his was coming out soon, and we elected to wait. We can't have too 
many forefeits; it wouldn't be fair to the ticket holders. You'll therefore 
see the results to two contests in this space in the next issue. Stay 
tuned. It's March Madness, baby!

********

#6
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2000
From: x
Subject: RF Tax Collection

On 1 February 2000, Russian nationals employed at the US Embassy Moscow
suffered an approximately 40% pay cut as part of a payroll deduction plan
to provide income tax payments directly to the government of the Russian
Federation. Previously there had been a great deal of argument between the
embassy and the government about the failure of these employees to make
their own tax payments. While one can understand the desirability for all
citizens to pay taxes, the Russian government seems to go after those most
vulnerable, easiest to intimidate, and least likely to solve the financial
crisis. As is the case with multinational corporations, these foreign
nationals do not receive a wage which is even comparable to that which
would have to be paid to an expatriate. Additionally, these individuals
which are to some extent vetted, so that there is some degree of certainty
regarding their loyalty. They are then harassed by their own government for
being politically unreliable and they are marked adversely for life. If
the US government is to make an example of their own employees, should we
not also have insisted that the Russian Federation Government also collect
taxes from pop stars, Mafia, oligarchs, and their own apparatchiki also?
Why should we penalize those Russians which are struggling to establish the
middle class and which have served us so well? If the Clinton
Administration feels so strongly about setting an example which subsidizes
the well known corruption within the Russian government, perhaps they could
also provide a salary increase for these employees in order to partially
offset the withholding tax loss. A happy employee is a productive,
reliable employee!

*******

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