[images added by this website] Washington DC, Sunday, November 2, 2003   Arrested oil tycoon passed shares to banker LONDON (Agence France-Presse) -- Control of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's shares in the Russian oil giant Yukos have passed to renowned banker [the Rt Hon Lord] Jacob Rothschild, under a deal they concluded prior to Mr. Khodorkovsky's arrest, the Sunday Times reported. David Irving comments: A FRIEND inquires of me, sending me this clipping, "Are you tired of this yet?" But of course for me as a WW2 historian, the gradual onset of any new Holocaust holds a grim fascination: for is this story not the very stuff that anti-Semitism, and in the long run Holocausts, are spawned upon?     Mikhail Khodorkovsky had a "previously unknown arrangement" with Jacob Rothschild for the latter to take control of the former's Yukos stock in the event that the former could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares.    The two are said to have known one another "through their mutual love of the arts."    The exact nature of these "arts" isn't specified, as my correspondent notes: "It could be the Black Arts." That sounds like naked r*cism to me. NEWS IN BRIEF -- probably not in your own national newspaper - Leonid Nevzlin, biggest Yukos shareholder not yet in jail, has been granted Israeli citizenship, raising eyebrows even in Jerusalem over the haste in which it was done. [source] Fact: Nevzlin resigned from Yukos to head the Russian Jewish Congress. [biography] Voting rights to the shares passed to Mr. [sic] Rothschild, 67, under a "previously unknown arrangement" designed to take effect in the event that Mr. Khodorkovsky could no longer "act as a beneficiary" of the shares, it said. Mr. Khodorkovsky, 40, whom Russian authorities arrested at gunpoint and jailed pending further investigation last week, was said by the Sunday Times to have made the arrangement with Mr. Rothschild when he realized he was facing arrest. Mr. Rothschild (left) now controls the voting rights on a stake in Yukos worth almost $13.5 billion, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Moscow. Mr. Khodorkovsky owns 4 percent of Yukos directly and 22 percent through a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, according to Russian analysts. From the figures reported in the Sunday Times, it appeared Mr. Rothschild had received control of all Mr. Khodorkovsky's shares. The two have known each other for years "through their mutual love of the arts" and their positions as directors of the Open Russia Foundation, Yukos' philanthropic branch, it said. Russian authorities Thursday froze billions of dollars of shares held by Mr. Khodorkovsky and his top lieutenants in Yukos -- throwing control of the country's largest oil company into limbo and causing frenzied selling on financial markets. Russian prosecutors said owners of the shares are still entitled to dividends and retain voting rights, but can no longer sell their stakes. They said the freeze was necessary as collateral for the $1 billion that Mr. Khodorkovsky and his associates are accused of misappropriating during the 1990s. Mr. Rothschild is the British head of Europe's wealthy and influential Rothschild family, and runs his own investment empire.   Russia: The Guilty Men Berezovsky Gusinksy Khodorkovsky Abramovich      ... on the, ahem, oligarchs   Greek court rejects Gusinsky extradition Russian fraudster Boris Berezovsky granted asylum by Tony Blair's government Letter Reuters reports that The World Jewish Congress asked Interpol not to arrest Jewish Russian media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky Apr 25, 2001: Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky has flown from Spain to Israel, apparently in a new bid to escape the clutches of Moscow prosecutors Outrage in Berlin Conservative German politician claims Jews are "a Race of Perpetrators" Forward: Kremlin Targets Jewish Tycoons in War on Critics First Russian International Corporate Philanthropic Foundation (of Khodorkovsky and Rothschild): "I am launching the Foundation [First Russian International Corporate Philanthropic Foundation] in London to highlight the international nature of the Foundation's aims and to create an infrastructure from which the next generation of Russia's leaders will emerge."

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