RUSSIA - Nov. 26 - TV-6 Ordered To Close.

A Moscow court orders the dissolution of TV-6, the last major independent TV station. It rules that the station, owned largely by Boris Berezovsky, an exiled media and automobile magnate, was financially unsound. (It agrees with a suit filed by LUKoil minority shareholder to liquidate the firm. The station was a refuge for journalists from another independent station, NTV, whose owner, Vladimir Gusinsky, was forced out last spring by Gazprom). Although the TV-6 case is decided on narrow economic grounds, employees suspect there have been political manoeuvring. Gazprom is partly owned by the government, and LUKoil deals closely with the Kremlin on important issues of export quotas and taxes. TV-6 spokeswoman Tatyana Blinova says: "It looks to me like Lukoil was told to do something". Political analyst Otto Latsis says Putin has been recently trying to portray himself as a promoter of civil society and democracy, adding: "The show is not convincing. The media is the most accessible channel for daily dialogue between state and society. We all know what the state wants. The state used a corporation it controls to destroy NTV. Another corporation is putting pressure on TV-6". (Viewers looked to TV-6 to get a view beyond Kremlin control. Newscasts on TV-6, which hardly anyone watched a year ago, shot to the top of Moscow's ratings race with the influx of NTV talent. When Gusinsky operated NTV, Kremlin officials attacked the station's hard-hitting coverage of the Putin-initiated war in Chechnya. The government barred its reporters from broadcasting from the separatist republic. In August, 2000, NTV was the first and only station to report that the submarine Kursk had sunk because a torpedo exploded inside. Other stations offered the government version of a collision with a US submarine. After Gusinsky's ouster, journalists from the station walked out and looked for work elsewhere. Berezovsky controlled the ORT station under Boris Yeltsin, and brandished newscasts and political talk shows to crush Kremlin opponents. He and Gusinsky were bitter rivals. Under Putin, Berezovsky lost his Kremlin entree and control of ORT-l. Government investigators looked into suspect financial dealings with Aeroflot and Berezovsky went into exile in France. He owns 75% of TV-6. A few months ago, when LUKoil brought the suit against TV-6, Berezovsky said: "I do not see any decisions here except those of a political nature"). On Nov. 27, TV-6 General Director Yevgeny Kiselyov claimed that Pres. Putin was personally aware of the judicial decision, which he said had been made "not in the courtroom but in the Kremlin". (TV-6 has long made losses and has failed in past efforts to find a foreign investor, although its Executive Director Pavel Korchagin said it should break even this year on a turnover of $40m, and had $36m in assets compared with $34m in liabilities). Kiselyov said that even if TV-6 were profitable, the court decision would have been identical. He said the company would appeal against the ruling, but said the chances of success were "not very great". (Meanwhile, US company Archangel Diamond, based in Colorado, on Nov. 27 sued LUKoil for $3.6 bn in triple compensatory damages for fraud and breach of contract. It claimed it was defrauded of its rights as a partner in the discovery and extraction of diamonds within the region of Arkangelsk by LUKoil and others. The action represents a fresh blow to LUKoil, which has already come under pressure from US companies during its acquisition of the US-based Getty Petroleum in late-2000 and for control of a refinery in Lithuania).