Word: sovietize
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...fear "we are exploiting the bin Laden bogeyman" to gain a foothold in nations on Afghanistan's northern border. Despite that, Russians are investigating reports out of Aden that before the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, its attackers possessed containers with Cyrillic lettering. Some investigators theorize that the containers held Soviet-made military high explosives from stockpiles abandoned by South Yemen's deposed Marxist regime or Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. --By Elaine Shannon and Massimo Calabresi/Washington
Since the Soviet fall, Sakhalin Island, off Russia's eastern edge, has seen more than its share of ebullient executives from Western oil giants prospecting for black gold. But few have kept their confidence for long. Most have endured frustrating years waiting for deals to be signed, as bureaucracy, xenophobia and corruption combined to thwart their dreams of bringing Sakhalin's well-known oil riches to the outside world. But in recent months, the oilmen have turned almost giddy--buoyed in equal measure by the high price of crude and President Vladimir Putin's pledge to build a legal foundation...
...country boasts world-class oil and gas reserves, on a par with those of the largest OPEC producers. The problem is getting the oil out of the ground and to market. Years of Soviet mismanagement and underinvestment have taken their toll. Russia's oil fields are in dire need of rehabilitation; Sakhalin's north and much of Siberia are littered with rusting derricks ringed by porous labyrinths of old pipelines. Local environmentalists, pointing to the recent spill near the Galapagos Islands, worry about the potential damage to Sakhalin's rich ecosystem caused by toxic drilling waste...
...recent years, however, Russia has seen its foreign capital pool drain as wildcatters turned to more welcoming political and economic situations in Asia, Latin America and even other former Soviet republics. Since 1987, oil production in Russia has fallen from 11.8 million bbl. a day to an estimated 6.3 million...
...decline is to turn around in the near future, Sakhalin is where change will begin. Once a czarist penal colony, then little more than a Soviet air base, Sakhalin is now home to the largest foreign investment projects in Russia. These deals, totaling some $26 billion, are long-term oil and gas Production Sharing Agreements--PSAs, in the argot of the oilmen--that offer the legal framework that Western companies require if they are to make major capital outlays in developing Russia's oil, gas and mineral deposits. The deals grant foreign companies export rights and tax breaks, while Russia...