President Boris Yeltsin moved yesterday to sideline his one-time confidant Boris Berezovsky, in the latest twist in a spiralling Moscow power struggle.
Yeltsin ordered the dismissal of Berezovsky as the chief executive of the post-Soviet grouping known as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) late on Thursday and then urged the bloc's leaders to ratify his decision.
CIS leaders raised an eyebrow at Yeltsin's unilateral action, but both the Kremlin and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov made it clear yesterday that Berezovsky was no longer an acceptable CIS figurehead, given his recent sharp criticism of the Russian government.
Berezovsky, who bankrolled Yeltsin's re-election campaign in 1996, has made no secret of his distaste for Primakov's cabinet.
British author Salman Rushdie, in a letter published yesterday in the New York Times, defends the "globalising power of American culture" as a remedy against insularity and backwardness.
"In most people's heads, globalisation has come to mean the worldwide triumph of Nike, the Gap and MTV," writes the author of The Satanic Verses. "Confusingly, we want these goods and services when we behave as consumers, but with our cultural hats on we have begun to deplore their omnipresence," he adds.
The confusion is especially reflected in the perception of the United States as a world policeman, Rushdie writes. "If the `international community,' which these days is little more than a euphemism for the United States, fails to intervene promptly in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, it is excoriated for that failure.
"Elsewhere, it is criticised just as vehemently when it does intervene: when American bombs fall on Iraq, or when American agents assist in the capture of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan," Rushdie says.
James Archer, 24-year-old son of millionaire British author Jeffrey Archer, has been sacked from his job as a London share trader along with two bosses in the so-called "Flaming Ferraris" dealing team, his bank said yesterday.
The sackings followed an investigation by Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) bank into sharedealing in the Swedish market by Archer. His bosses, David Crisanti and Adrian Ezra, have also been dismissed, the bank said. According to press reports last month, Archer was investigated over share-buying in a Swedish pulp company.