The usual suspects sat around wittering on about how unjust it all was, and how their various sons didn’t deserve to be held hostage by Iraqi terrorists, and how they’d been forgotten, and how sad it all was, especially at Christmas!

American and British soldiers are in Iraq because their political masters said it had to be done, and soldiers are paid to take risks. But such holy fools like Norman Kember, kidnapped and then unfortunately released to burden the airwaves with their so-called ‘stories’, just tend to make cynics such as myself yawn and reach for the remote to find something less grinding on the ears.

‘All we want is their safe return’, we are endlessly told in repeat slot after repeat. All I want is an end to this slightly tawdry story, played to an audience who really don’t want to know!

Putin, the Kremlin power struggle and the $40bn fortune

An unprecedented battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin’s departure from office, the Guardian has learned, with claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune.

Rival clans inside the Kremlin are embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets as Putin prepares to transfer power to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in May, well-placed political observers and other sources have revealed.

At stake are billions of dollars in assets belonging to Russian state-run corporations. Additionally, details of Putin’s own personal fortune, reportedly hidden in Switzerland and Liechtenstein, are being discussed for the first time.

The claims over the president’s assets surfaced last month when the Russian political expert Stanislav Belkovsky gave an interview to the German newspaper Die Welt. They have since been repeated in the Washington Post and the Moscow Times, with speculation over the fortune appearing on the internet.

Citing sources inside the president’s administration, Belkovsky claims that after eight years in power Putin has secretly accumulated more than $40bn (£20bn). The sum would make him Russia’s – and Europe’s – richest man.

In an interview with the Guardian, Belkovsky repeated his claims that Putin owns vast holdings in three Russian oil and gas companies, concealed behind a “non-transparent network of offshore trusts”.

Putin “effectively” controls 37% of the shares of Surgutneftegaz, an oil exploration company and Russia’s third biggest oil producer, worth $20bn, he says. He also owns 4.5% of Gazprom, and “at least 75%” of Gunvor, a mysterious Swiss-based oil trader, founded by Gennady Timchenko, a friend of the president’s, Belkovsky alleges.

Asked how much Putin was worth, Belkovsky said: “At least $40bn. Maximum we cannot know. I suspect there are some businesses I know nothing about.” He added: “It may be more. It may be much more.

“Putin’s name doesn’t appear on any shareholders’ register, of course. There is a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of offshore companies and funds. The final point is in Zug [in Switzerland] and Liechtenstein. Vladimir Putin should be the beneficiary owner.”

Given the situation of Anna Politkovskaya, Luke Harding, Stanislav Belkovsky, Yulia Latynina and others had better develop a healthy sense of paranoia.

Read it all at The Guardian.

See also Why The Chekist Mindest Matters and Putin’s Russia.

H/T The JammieWearingFool

Also at JammieWearingFool

Tescos in Soho has stripped out the fast check out services, which traditionally rely on human beings to process groceries, choosing instead to expand their computerised self service check outs.  I’m sure that store is not unique.  These systems have been oozing into supermarkets over the past 2 years. Instead of 10 or so employees they now only require one – to step in and assist when the computer shrilly advises everyone there is ‘an unidentified object in the bagging area’.

Looking for a Voice covers reports that the Monopolistic Supermarkets are to be accused of fleecing the customer to the tune of £270 million in ‘coordinating’ their pricing structure, by the Office of Fair Trading.

Tim Webb in the Indy on why, with oil running out, Middle-East countries such as Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are cashing in on the supermarket giant Sainsburys.

And Alisher Usmanov has bought 21% of Arsenal’s shares. I would say more but he has a habit of closing websites down, carrying critical reports about it.