Word: russia
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...saint. The former UBS private-banking executive hasn't hidden the fact that he once bought diamonds with illicit money in Europe and then spirited them to California stuffed in a toothpaste tube, all part of an effort to conceal $200 million in assets on which his client - the Russia-born, California-based real estate mogul Igor Olenicoff - owed $7.2 million in U.S. taxes. But at the same time, almost no one in the U.S. government would deny that Birkenfeld was absolutely essential to its landmark tax-evasion case against Swiss banking giant UBS. The former UBS employee turned whistle...
...State Building were to be placed smack in the middle of Venice or Jerusalem. Jutting out from the ancient streets, a skyscraper of that size would seem absurdly out of sync with the iconic beauty of the cities. Developers would likely never get such a proposal approved. But in Russia the rules are different...
...Last month, officials in St. Petersburg approved the construction of a 400-m-tall skyscraper in the historic center of the city. The city's beautiful baroque and neoclassical architecture, much of it built in the 18th and 19th centuries when St. Petersburg was Russia's capital, will soon be dwarfed by the Okhta Center, which will house an arm of the state gas monopoly Gazprom. (See pictures of Moscow...
...Observers say such an audacious plan is indicative of Gazprom's political influence, which is unparalleled among Russia's powerful state corporations. Before Vladimir Putin chose Dmitry Medvedev to succeed him as President last year, Medvedev served for six years as chairman of the natural gas monopoly, and thanks to a Putin-backed initiative, the company holds exclusive rights to export the fuel to Europe and beyond. Gazprom raked in about $140 billion in sales last year. It is easily Russia's most lucrative business...
...three members of the St. Petersburg land-use committee to vote against the plan. (Eleven voted in favor and one abstained.) "Gazprom is not the kind of organization that bribes or corrupts people from the bottom. It pushes through its initiatives from the very top," Malkov tells TIME. (Read "Russia-Europe Gas Spat Ends...