RAH, and all –look into how the old pre-Putin Gazprom was taken from private sector to gov’t. The same sort of thing is happening re BP shareholders –Kremlin use of courts to wear out the western interests and take the assets. see also Shell and Sakhelin project. see Yukos, too. If people are going into hiding on the BP lawsuits, it’s because of an already-established record of strange car accidents and street muggings among previous cast of characters. As far as BP –British Petroleum –i think the gamma-ray tea means London is not far enough away if you’re opposing the Kremlin on even a commercial issue.

One can almost hear the oil-importing land masses powering down –like a power-cut turbine, the sound sliding down the chromatic scale as the RPMs fall.