Tony Hayward Being Shipped Off To Siberia
BP's sacrificial Scottish piñata, Tony Hayward, is not exactly getting his life back. BP is reportedly sending him toSiberia, to run some operation there. Haha, isn't that where the Soviets/Putin sendtraitors? And didn't Washington just trade the Sexy Spy and her yuppie buddies for some Russian scientist who had been held in a Russian Prison Camp? And didn't Vladimir Putin just spend a chill weekend with the deported Russian spies, just cold singing karaoke and keeping it real about the spy business? And didn't the reportednewBP CEO barely escape from Russia with hislife?
Yes, yes, yes and yes. Actual life is just an insane corporate-espionage Cold War thriller these days, which is too bad for dumb Hollywood movies trying to compete with Google News:
"The BP oil spill saga has suddenly turned into a weird James Bond thriller. According to media reports, BP CEO Tony Hayward has been exiled to Siberia, where he will oversee TNK-BP, a joint venture between BP and a group of Russian oil billionaires, one of whom boasts a name that even the most jaded hack screenwriter would likely think too lame to bestow on an evil master-villain: German Khan." [ Salon ]
"Arms control researcher Igor Sutyagin was detained in 1999 and five years later convicted of passing on nuclear submarine data to a British firm thought to be a front for the CIA. Sutyagin said he only provided information that was already in the public sphere. He and three other Russians suspected of providing intelligence to Western nations were exchanged for 10 men and women who admitted collecting information in the United States for the Kremlin's spy service." [ Global Security Newswire ]
"Asked whether he had sung karaoke with them, Mr Putin said: 'We did, but not with a karaoke box. We sang to live music and we sang 'Where the Motherland Begins' and other such songs.' Mr. Putin went on to say that the spy swap with the US had come about as a result of 'betrayal' .... And when asked by reporters if Moscow was planning to take revenge, he said it was incorrect to ask about it. 'It cannot be solved at a press conference. They live by their own laws, and all special services are well aware of these laws,' he said." [ BBC News ]
"Dudley, who worked for Amoco before it was swallowed by BP in a mega-merger, shot to prominence when he was at the centre of a huge row between BP and Russian shareholders inside their joint venture group, TNK-BP. An increasingly politicised dispute saw the modern version of the KGB raiding the TNK offices in Moscow and a Siberian court refusing visas to BP staff. In June 2008, Dudley left Russia in haste when his visa was not renewed, saying later he had faced "sustained harassment" from the Russian authorities." [ The Guardian ]
Finally, attractive Russian lady Anna Chapman is now said to be planning aPlayboyphoto spread, because why not. You will recall she is the "hot Facebook spy" who is so hot, because she's not a weird looking Russian guy or a fat American slob. [ Russia Today ]