Looking under the surface in Goa for Time Out
Think of Goa, think of palm fronds, tie dye and a distinctly unwestern pace of life. But be warned, the former alternative-lifestyle havens Baga and Calangute might not quite match your expectations. Once the province of the patchouli-doused teenagers of the ‘60’s, these towns are now bustling resorts and see a constant influx of sun-seeking tourists lured to the east by the promise of exoticism and cheap package deals. Take a stroll along the beach of any town south of Vagator and, try as you might, you cannot deny that the sweaty, pullulating vibe is more Costa del Sol than karmically sound. But travel to Goa’s northernmost tip, up to the villages which line the route to the border with Maharashtra and you’ll find pockets of a wholesome paradise which have not yet been lost.
To get to India’s smallest state, you can take the easy option and fly directly to the small airport in Vasco De Gama, hop into a taxi and drive straight to the tourist packed beaches of Calangute, or take the budget backpacker option, hit the rails and take the overnight train to Goa from the North. Arriving in Thimvim, Mapusa’s tiny outpost station which is little more than a scruffy-looking waiting room and a couple of sullen guards, is something of a refreshing experience after the relentless pounding of human traffic of Mumbai. After 13 hours on a sweaty, two-foot bunk the idea of further travel is unappealing, but Anjuna, the first of the more undeveloped beach towns after the heaving southern resorts, despite being a mere 12 kilometers distant takes a further 45 minutes in a sweltering taxi.
Anjuna was to the late ’90’s rave generation what Carnaby Street was to swinging London. The scene has significantly quietened since residents’ complaints put an end to the all night trance-fuelled revels which used to be held regularly on the beach. Nonetheless, Anjuna still has something of the party vibe about it. As you approach the cliffside walk which leads you down past a hotchpotch gaggle of stalls, bars and meditation centres, the distinctive sound of Goan trance fills the air. Day or night, hybridized thumping rhythms can be heard across the town, and if you visit the Wednesday flea market your ears will be ringing with the squelchy organic beats for days to come. Trance is not the only reason to hit Anjuna on a Wednesday. The flea market has been a meeting-point and trading spot for travellers, expats and canny locals since the late ’60s, when resident hippies set the market up to trade second hand goods with passing travellers. Since then it’s grown to encompass a much larger variety of trades, with multitudes of stalls selling tie-dyed cotton shirts, fisherman’s trousers and other items of trustafarian garb which are eagerly bought up in bulk by gap-year students. Despite the tat, it’s still retains much of its original flea market character and if you wander deep into the sun-baked maze you’ll be able find anything from a second-hand scooter to a haircut for no more than a handful of rupees. The atmosphere elevates Anjuna from a slightly seedy, somewhat forgotten backwater with a decent beach and a few bars, to a vibrant, colourful and electric hub. Once the stallholders have packed up, Anjuna quietens down again, although if you are looking for a party, head to Paradisos at the town-end of the beach strip where the market vibe continues late into the night.
Anjuna has a number of slightly shabby guesthouses, both along the shoreline and, for those who prefer to be closer to civilization, along the main drag of the roads leading towards Mapusa. We stayed at the basic but clean Poonam Guesthouse which is one of the closest spots to the beach and has rooms for 900 rupees, looking out onto a rambling garden and courtyard. There are a number of yoga retreats and basic guesthouses on the backstreets off the road to Vagator, but your best bet if you are after aesthetic and creature comforts is the beautiful Hotel Bougainvilla which combines the principles of a new-age resort with the rambling architecture of the region. Next door the Purple Emerald Yoga Centre offers courses for the actively inclined. Eating in Anjuna is a little limited, with many of the beachside restaurants offering curries and snacks of dubious quality. Oasis, on the Vagator road, has a very decent German bakery and offers a tranquil spot to start the day. Across the road there are a couple of friendly, family run curry houses which offer the ubiquitous Goan prawn curry as well as less piquant dishes for a handful of rupees.
Heading north through Mapusa, Goa’s sprawling commercial hub and an hour on one of the region’s colourful clapped-out buses takes you over a wide creek to the Morjim-Arambol strip. Access to these relatively remote villages has increased significantly since the opening of a bridge across the creek (previously you had to take a ferry) and tourism is gradually making its mark on this previously untouched corner of India.
Mandrem, a collection of huts and yoga centres which spread lackadaisically from a freshwater creek to the lapping shores of the sea, is a sleepy sort of place where tourism has yet to leave a dirty mark. Rising in an imposingly colonial fashion from the verdant shores of the river is the decidedly idyllic Villa Rivercat. This majestic edifice is the dream child of Rinoo Seghal who has invited like-minded guests into his home for the past 17 years. With a delicious garden which looks like a cross between a raver’s chill out zone and a haberdasher’s multicoloured fantasy, Rivercat is very much a place to rest, reflect and recuperate. Airy, comfortable rooms and a chilled out, sleepy air characterise the villa, which, fittingly is decorated with an eclectic range of cat paraphernalia as well as being home to several stray felines and much loved family dogs which have run of the house. A rapid clamber over a dune and you are on the wide shores of the Arabian Sea; no clamouring package tourists from the shires here, Mandrem’s lack of facilities and relative remoteness precludes holiday-makers looking for bright lights and a pumping club-scene. Most of the village’s guesthouses are tucked away beyond the dunes and aside from a few rickety bamboo huts perched picturesquely alongside a wooden bridge belonging to Merrylands, the beach is an untainted stretch of virgin sand home only to crabs and the odd beachcomber. If you are very lucky or time your trip carefully, you can even head out to the beach under the full moon to watch turtles hatch their young.
Even the most ardent peace seeker may wish for a little more action than Mandrem can offer, and for a mere 150 rupees you can hire a scooter for the day and head north to Arambol, the determinedly more lively enclave on the northernmost tip of Goa. Perched on a hill and surrounded by forest, Arambol is still home to a number of fishermen who reap the fruits of the sea whilst tapping the tourist dollar which bolsters the small town’s economy. Arambol’s a friendly sort of place and, if you stay for more than a couple of days, stallholders and restaurateurs smile and greet you as you pass by on your way to the beach to catch some rays, read a book or simply lie back and watch the gentle traffic of dread-locked Europeans meander along the sands.
The roadside market here, if smaller than the weekly market in Anjuna, is much less frenetic and you are free to browse hemp jumpers and flowery skirts at your leisure without too much attention from aggressive hawkers. Arambol is credited by many a well-wandered traveller as being home to some of the best budget food in Goa. If you’re hungry, head down to the beach for excellent Italian on the sand at Relax Inn, eye-wateringly hot spicy seafood at Blue Pearl or possibly the best nan and massala we’ve ever tasted at Om Shankar’s Beer Bar and Restaurant. Alternatively head back up the hill to Pane e Pomodoro, a Ligurian restaurant run by the charming and pally Franceso and Federica. But even Arambol, as basic as it is, feels at times as if it wears its hippy hangout status with a certain weariness, as if there hangs in the air the faintly perceptible ghost of a thousand parties, filling the casual passer-by with a certain nostalgia and longing for somewhere which is not, and has never been, part of a scene.
To really escape you need to forgo the beats, the parties, the beachside restaurants and the broadband and travel even further north, beyond Tiracol with its Portuguese fort cum heritage hotel and marvellous, tantilisingly fresh food, on to Shiroda and Vengurla where the pearly white sands and the clear blue skies are vast, uninterrupted expanses which lie, as yet, untouched.
State of mind
Venture away from the leafy mangroves and deserted beaches of the northernmost tip of Goa, and you ears will be assailed with the unmistakable thump of Goa trance. This organic, squelchy sounding music emerged in the late ’90’s and is closely related to psychedelic trance, its more metallic sounding cousin. With its roots in the early hippy history of Goa, there’s a slightly more spiritual element behind those heavy heady beats which boom from the terraces of every restaurant, hotel and bar in Anjuna. Regrettably for some, the parties which spawned the music have largely stopped due to more stringent laws being enforced in the area with regards to late night noise and drugs. Faster than mainstream trance, the beats you’ll hear pounding through the Goan night are designed to enhance an already enhanced frame of mind, making them somewhat unpalatable to those in an unaltered state of being. Goan trance has not lost any of its popularity, although strangely enough, the pseudonymous state is no longer the greatest exponent of the sound; Israel now takes that title, soldiers visiting Goa having taken the sound to their hearts and the rich organic sounds of west-Indian trance beats out the rhythm of many a rave in Tel Aviv.
By Michelle Madsen, July 2006
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
The road less travelled
An interview with the Observer's chief correspondent
Generalisations irk Jason Burke. After recklessly throwing in his lot with the Kurdish Peshmerga at the tender age of 19, his interest in militancy has seen him irrepressibly progress from an enthusiastic graduate newshound, to chief reporter at The Observer, one of Britain’s best respected weekly broadsheets. To make a sweeping statement about the Muslim world is to invoke his ire.
From brutal bloodshed to animistic shrines in Islamabad, saying that Burke has seen a lot is something of an understatement. Recollections of his encounters with Islamic cultures along the path from Algeria to Indonesia confirm to him that the much-touted Western perception of a monolithic Islam simply does not exist. But how does this reconcile with Burke’s message of a common humanity?
‘This was the point I got stuck at when writing the book; its purpose is to show that we are all the same whatever broad faith or non faith box we are dropped into. I was writing about Islamic communities, which obviously poses considerable problems when you are writing a book saying that the world cannot simply be divided into Islamic and non-Islamic. Human beings across the planet are 95 per cent the same, there is only a very small element of our make up which is variable, and only a very small percentage of that which is religiously variable. I had to break up the stereotype that there is one Islamic world populated exclusively by mad, gun-toting Muslims, and show that 99 per cent of Muslims are the same as people from anywhere else.’
It’s a point which has persistently been underplayed by Western newspapers who rarely, if ever, print stories of genuine human interest from the Islamic world, preferring instead to dwell on the atrocities committed by warmongering extremists and oppressive regimes. Burke has often complained about the unfair amount of column inches given to news from conflicted areas in the Islamic world, claiming that the unremitting rhetoric of suicide bombing and Al Qaedism has stretched global empathy to breaking point.
‘Most of the time these voices, the voices of the vast silent majority, are not heard. Because they are not heard, the people in the West increasingly think that Muslim equals terrorist madman. Muslims, like anyone else, just want to get food on the table at the end of the day – they want to go home to their wives or their husbands, they want healthcare for grandma and they want their kids to get some kind of education. There is a preconception embedded in the question ‘where are the most devout Muslims?’ and that is one which equates devout with extreme. What do we in the West mean when we talk about Islamic countries? Do we mean countries in which the majority of the population are practicing Muslims? Fine, but you get into hot water when you ask what it means to be a Muslim. Take Iraq as an example: I met many people in Iraq who you could not call classically devout or practicing Muslims – they may fast during Ramadan but they don’t pray five times a day, they drink, they eat pork and few make the pilgrimage to Mecca, yet they are fiercely proud of being Muslim. Near where I lived in Islamabad there was a shrine to a local saint called Bari Imam where hundreds of people went to pray. They were the poor, the uneducated, the sick: peasants who go to ask for divine intercession or to be healed by putting out regular offerings or tying favours to trees. Effectively worshipping a saint, these practices are forbidden in classic Islam – to me these people were devout Muslims practicing a practical, functioning variety of their religion. They believe in the shrine, the saint and the power of God and they believe that they are Muslims. It is not for me to say whether they are or they are not, but then, I am not a Muslim or a Christian or a believing person. Equally there are people who I spoke with several times from northwest Afghanistan who believe in a wide range of things which are classically described as being fundamentalist. But who is the more devout Muslim? You tell me.’
Travelling up and down the Islamic world, revisiting old acquaintances and meeting new faces on each trip, Burke’s voice is one which lets the events he witnesses and people he encounters speak for themselves. It’s not easy to give a positive spin to the much-maligned members of the Taliban, a regime which has been at the heart of so much furious invective from the Western press. Burke’s impression of the fighters he meets in Kandahar, however, is forgiving – he finds he cannot accept the label of ‘mad mullahs’ which the West so rapidly gave to the members of this distant regime. ‘The Taliban always seemed to me like abused children trying, in their own damaged way, to make the world better and in doing so visiting the abuse they had suffered on others. I felt sorry for them. They were part of the tragedy that was Afghanistan, not its cause.’
The fiercely emotive power of language to demarcate and condemn in sweeping generalisations is an issue which Burke doesn’t dwell on, although he’s ready to admit that the future of accurate reporting will be dictated by public interest. ‘I’ve been a working journalist on British national papers for the last 15 years – I don’t expect miracles. We have to accept that there are serious constraints on journalists throughout the world. Increasingly, papers don’t invest in hard news, preferring to focus on fashion and lifestyle and fair enough, nobody wants to read about Al Qaeda on every page of every newspaper. I’ve been in a position where I have been given the resources to go beyond the easy headline, which is something that most journalists never have the chance to do.
Many web-based forums which discuss Islam would agree that Western media-speak has portrayed Islam, particularly over the last five years, in an ill-informed and bigoted fashion. Islamonline.com argues that the British media in particular has been at worst propagandist and, at best, selective and partisan in its reporting of the Muslim world since the London bombings of July 7 2005. It’s a valid point to raise when so much of the criticism levelled at Islamic countries is focused upon the democratic issues of press-censorship and a lack of free speech. If Western papers cannot report unbiased accounts of events, how can they level such criticisms at their eastern counterparts?
‘Journalists need to know that with freedoms come responsibilities – even if you are not being censored, there is no excuse for printing rubbish. In fact, a free press means you have to take more care because you have to print the truth. I am a firm believer in free speech, free conversation and the power of reason. Particularly the latter as well written, truthful reporting will carry an argument and win the day every time. The truth will always be the strongest news you can print. One of the great problems for the press in the Middle East is that the culture of fact is so debased that no one believes anything. The result is that abhorrent, morally repulsive conspiracy theories emerge. It’s just rubbish, it belittles anyone who thinks like that and makes reasonable debate impossible. We need responsible press freedom – it’s a fundamental tenet of democracy. It’s rubbish to say that a free press is not compatible with Islam. Why not? Pakistan has a fairly free press, as does Indonesia. Even Algeria has a remarkably free press for what is essentially a quasi-military state. But you cannot just stop with press freedoms, we also need freedoms of religion association and speech as well.’
Burke’s mood is certainly more reflective than in his last book Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam which focused solely on the terrorist group and its many misinterpretations in the West. On the Road to Kandahar turns the spotlight from the radical elements and focuses on ordinary people, the crowds in the streets and the children in the schoolroom. It’s the infinitely recognisable human traits of kindness, weakness and determination which shine through the bearded surface of his interviewees. It’s these local touches, the wider view of the paths which he has travelled, which cause Burke so much trouble in reaching a resolution. Returning to Pakistan in late 2005 to revisit an extremist acquaintance he once felt nothing but amicable disdain for, he realises that his sympathies have been sharply realigned by recent events. ‘The London bombings had made it abundantly clear that in the first decade of the 21st century the world was too small a place for ideas and acts anywhere to be safely ignored. It was no longer possible to be just an observer.’
So it seems we are all participants in this global conflict which is growing to embrace every creed of humanity with alarming speed. Burke, however, views the emergent issues of the 21st century with more optimism: ‘The problem is one which is very much at the heart of the Middle Eastern situation – how do we reconcile identity with globalisation? How, when there is increasingly a single vision of how we are meant to live our lives, do we reconcile this homogenous vision with local traditions, religions values and societies? How do we combine the potential economic and political benefits of globalisation with that very human craving to feel at home and master of ones self and ones destiny? You see these questions asked everywhere, in Europe in America – it might be at the root of both religious nationalisms and political fundamentalisms, which all lead to frustrations, and sometimes, violence. This is the great challenge of the 21st century and watching how it develops will be an extremely interesting experience.’
On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World is published by Allen Lane and is available from Penguin Books online. www.penguin.com
By Michelle Madsen, July 2006 (Time Out)
Generalisations irk Jason Burke. After recklessly throwing in his lot with the Kurdish Peshmerga at the tender age of 19, his interest in militancy has seen him irrepressibly progress from an enthusiastic graduate newshound, to chief reporter at The Observer, one of Britain’s best respected weekly broadsheets. To make a sweeping statement about the Muslim world is to invoke his ire.
From brutal bloodshed to animistic shrines in Islamabad, saying that Burke has seen a lot is something of an understatement. Recollections of his encounters with Islamic cultures along the path from Algeria to Indonesia confirm to him that the much-touted Western perception of a monolithic Islam simply does not exist. But how does this reconcile with Burke’s message of a common humanity?
‘This was the point I got stuck at when writing the book; its purpose is to show that we are all the same whatever broad faith or non faith box we are dropped into. I was writing about Islamic communities, which obviously poses considerable problems when you are writing a book saying that the world cannot simply be divided into Islamic and non-Islamic. Human beings across the planet are 95 per cent the same, there is only a very small element of our make up which is variable, and only a very small percentage of that which is religiously variable. I had to break up the stereotype that there is one Islamic world populated exclusively by mad, gun-toting Muslims, and show that 99 per cent of Muslims are the same as people from anywhere else.’
It’s a point which has persistently been underplayed by Western newspapers who rarely, if ever, print stories of genuine human interest from the Islamic world, preferring instead to dwell on the atrocities committed by warmongering extremists and oppressive regimes. Burke has often complained about the unfair amount of column inches given to news from conflicted areas in the Islamic world, claiming that the unremitting rhetoric of suicide bombing and Al Qaedism has stretched global empathy to breaking point.
‘Most of the time these voices, the voices of the vast silent majority, are not heard. Because they are not heard, the people in the West increasingly think that Muslim equals terrorist madman. Muslims, like anyone else, just want to get food on the table at the end of the day – they want to go home to their wives or their husbands, they want healthcare for grandma and they want their kids to get some kind of education. There is a preconception embedded in the question ‘where are the most devout Muslims?’ and that is one which equates devout with extreme. What do we in the West mean when we talk about Islamic countries? Do we mean countries in which the majority of the population are practicing Muslims? Fine, but you get into hot water when you ask what it means to be a Muslim. Take Iraq as an example: I met many people in Iraq who you could not call classically devout or practicing Muslims – they may fast during Ramadan but they don’t pray five times a day, they drink, they eat pork and few make the pilgrimage to Mecca, yet they are fiercely proud of being Muslim. Near where I lived in Islamabad there was a shrine to a local saint called Bari Imam where hundreds of people went to pray. They were the poor, the uneducated, the sick: peasants who go to ask for divine intercession or to be healed by putting out regular offerings or tying favours to trees. Effectively worshipping a saint, these practices are forbidden in classic Islam – to me these people were devout Muslims practicing a practical, functioning variety of their religion. They believe in the shrine, the saint and the power of God and they believe that they are Muslims. It is not for me to say whether they are or they are not, but then, I am not a Muslim or a Christian or a believing person. Equally there are people who I spoke with several times from northwest Afghanistan who believe in a wide range of things which are classically described as being fundamentalist. But who is the more devout Muslim? You tell me.’
Travelling up and down the Islamic world, revisiting old acquaintances and meeting new faces on each trip, Burke’s voice is one which lets the events he witnesses and people he encounters speak for themselves. It’s not easy to give a positive spin to the much-maligned members of the Taliban, a regime which has been at the heart of so much furious invective from the Western press. Burke’s impression of the fighters he meets in Kandahar, however, is forgiving – he finds he cannot accept the label of ‘mad mullahs’ which the West so rapidly gave to the members of this distant regime. ‘The Taliban always seemed to me like abused children trying, in their own damaged way, to make the world better and in doing so visiting the abuse they had suffered on others. I felt sorry for them. They were part of the tragedy that was Afghanistan, not its cause.’
The fiercely emotive power of language to demarcate and condemn in sweeping generalisations is an issue which Burke doesn’t dwell on, although he’s ready to admit that the future of accurate reporting will be dictated by public interest. ‘I’ve been a working journalist on British national papers for the last 15 years – I don’t expect miracles. We have to accept that there are serious constraints on journalists throughout the world. Increasingly, papers don’t invest in hard news, preferring to focus on fashion and lifestyle and fair enough, nobody wants to read about Al Qaeda on every page of every newspaper. I’ve been in a position where I have been given the resources to go beyond the easy headline, which is something that most journalists never have the chance to do.
Many web-based forums which discuss Islam would agree that Western media-speak has portrayed Islam, particularly over the last five years, in an ill-informed and bigoted fashion. Islamonline.com argues that the British media in particular has been at worst propagandist and, at best, selective and partisan in its reporting of the Muslim world since the London bombings of July 7 2005. It’s a valid point to raise when so much of the criticism levelled at Islamic countries is focused upon the democratic issues of press-censorship and a lack of free speech. If Western papers cannot report unbiased accounts of events, how can they level such criticisms at their eastern counterparts?
‘Journalists need to know that with freedoms come responsibilities – even if you are not being censored, there is no excuse for printing rubbish. In fact, a free press means you have to take more care because you have to print the truth. I am a firm believer in free speech, free conversation and the power of reason. Particularly the latter as well written, truthful reporting will carry an argument and win the day every time. The truth will always be the strongest news you can print. One of the great problems for the press in the Middle East is that the culture of fact is so debased that no one believes anything. The result is that abhorrent, morally repulsive conspiracy theories emerge. It’s just rubbish, it belittles anyone who thinks like that and makes reasonable debate impossible. We need responsible press freedom – it’s a fundamental tenet of democracy. It’s rubbish to say that a free press is not compatible with Islam. Why not? Pakistan has a fairly free press, as does Indonesia. Even Algeria has a remarkably free press for what is essentially a quasi-military state. But you cannot just stop with press freedoms, we also need freedoms of religion association and speech as well.’
Burke’s mood is certainly more reflective than in his last book Al Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam which focused solely on the terrorist group and its many misinterpretations in the West. On the Road to Kandahar turns the spotlight from the radical elements and focuses on ordinary people, the crowds in the streets and the children in the schoolroom. It’s the infinitely recognisable human traits of kindness, weakness and determination which shine through the bearded surface of his interviewees. It’s these local touches, the wider view of the paths which he has travelled, which cause Burke so much trouble in reaching a resolution. Returning to Pakistan in late 2005 to revisit an extremist acquaintance he once felt nothing but amicable disdain for, he realises that his sympathies have been sharply realigned by recent events. ‘The London bombings had made it abundantly clear that in the first decade of the 21st century the world was too small a place for ideas and acts anywhere to be safely ignored. It was no longer possible to be just an observer.’
So it seems we are all participants in this global conflict which is growing to embrace every creed of humanity with alarming speed. Burke, however, views the emergent issues of the 21st century with more optimism: ‘The problem is one which is very much at the heart of the Middle Eastern situation – how do we reconcile identity with globalisation? How, when there is increasingly a single vision of how we are meant to live our lives, do we reconcile this homogenous vision with local traditions, religions values and societies? How do we combine the potential economic and political benefits of globalisation with that very human craving to feel at home and master of ones self and ones destiny? You see these questions asked everywhere, in Europe in America – it might be at the root of both religious nationalisms and political fundamentalisms, which all lead to frustrations, and sometimes, violence. This is the great challenge of the 21st century and watching how it develops will be an extremely interesting experience.’
On the Road to Kandahar: Travels Through Conflict in the Islamic World is published by Allen Lane and is available from Penguin Books online. www.penguin.com
By Michelle Madsen, July 2006 (Time Out)
Warring Russian oligarchs pick up pace of boardroom tussle
UC Rusal hits back against Interros dominance of Norilsk board
London (Platts)--8Jul2008
Russian mining major UC Rusal has hit back against Interros chief
Vladimir Potanin's election to the chair of Norilsk Nickel's board, voicing
"deep concern" over the independence of the nickel giant's board and
threatening legal action.
In a statement released Tuesday, UC Rusal, the world's largest aluminium
and alumina producer, said that the appointment of Potanin as chair showed
poor corporate governance and was responsible for Norilsk's share price
dipping 2.5% over the course of the day.
US Rusal said: "As a major investor in Norilsk we prefer to reach our
goal of a transparent and properly governed Norilsk via shareholder dialogue,
but in view of our large investment in Norilsk we reserve our rights to pursue
all legal remedies against the company and its board of directors."
Potanin was voted chairman of the company's board of directors at the
meeting on Monday, firming his hold over the world's largest nickel miner at
the new board's first meeting, which Rusal claims was held at too short notice
for shareholders to be present.
The board also appointed Interros' deputy general director, Sergey
Batekhin, as chief executive, replacing current incumbent Denis Morozov.
Batekhin will take up his new role on July 21.
Morozov said in a statement that he had achieved the primary goals set
when he became general director a year ago: "I requested the new board to
confirm my authority as chief executive of Norilsk since my continued ability
to lead the company at the time of competing interests of major shareholders
required the full support and cooperation of the entire board of directors."
Morozov, who joined Norilsk 10 years ago, said in an interview with a
Russian newspaper in June that the battle for control over the company had
distracted attention from production at Norilsk.
A spokeswoman for Norilsk told Platts that Morozov would step down on
July 18, but could not comment on his next move.
Potanin's appointment as chair of the company's new board on Monday comes
a week after Norilsk's shareholders voted four Interros members to the
company's board, alongside three independent directors and three
representatives from UC Rusal, which bought a 25% stake from former Norilsk
owner Mikhail Prokhorov in April.
UC Rusal, owned by oligarch Oleg Deripaska, has expressed an interest in
a full merger with Norilsk which would see the two companies combine to form a
diversified mining giant worth an estimated $100 billion.
Potanin has resisted any tie-up with Rusal by pursuing a merger with iron
ore and steel group Metalloinvest.
Rusal said that it planned to consult with Norilsk's minority
shareholders over the coming days and push for the election of independent
directors to an enlarged board of thirteen, adding that Interros' boardroom
conduct was "unsuitable."
--Michelle Madsen, michelle_madsen@platts.com
London (Platts)--8Jul2008
Russian mining major UC Rusal has hit back against Interros chief
Vladimir Potanin's election to the chair of Norilsk Nickel's board, voicing
"deep concern" over the independence of the nickel giant's board and
threatening legal action.
In a statement released Tuesday, UC Rusal, the world's largest aluminium
and alumina producer, said that the appointment of Potanin as chair showed
poor corporate governance and was responsible for Norilsk's share price
dipping 2.5% over the course of the day.
US Rusal said: "As a major investor in Norilsk we prefer to reach our
goal of a transparent and properly governed Norilsk via shareholder dialogue,
but in view of our large investment in Norilsk we reserve our rights to pursue
all legal remedies against the company and its board of directors."
Potanin was voted chairman of the company's board of directors at the
meeting on Monday, firming his hold over the world's largest nickel miner at
the new board's first meeting, which Rusal claims was held at too short notice
for shareholders to be present.
The board also appointed Interros' deputy general director, Sergey
Batekhin, as chief executive, replacing current incumbent Denis Morozov.
Batekhin will take up his new role on July 21.
Morozov said in a statement that he had achieved the primary goals set
when he became general director a year ago: "I requested the new board to
confirm my authority as chief executive of Norilsk since my continued ability
to lead the company at the time of competing interests of major shareholders
required the full support and cooperation of the entire board of directors."
Morozov, who joined Norilsk 10 years ago, said in an interview with a
Russian newspaper in June that the battle for control over the company had
distracted attention from production at Norilsk.
A spokeswoman for Norilsk told Platts that Morozov would step down on
July 18, but could not comment on his next move.
Potanin's appointment as chair of the company's new board on Monday comes
a week after Norilsk's shareholders voted four Interros members to the
company's board, alongside three independent directors and three
representatives from UC Rusal, which bought a 25% stake from former Norilsk
owner Mikhail Prokhorov in April.
UC Rusal, owned by oligarch Oleg Deripaska, has expressed an interest in
a full merger with Norilsk which would see the two companies combine to form a
diversified mining giant worth an estimated $100 billion.
Potanin has resisted any tie-up with Rusal by pursuing a merger with iron
ore and steel group Metalloinvest.
Rusal said that it planned to consult with Norilsk's minority
shareholders over the coming days and push for the election of independent
directors to an enlarged board of thirteen, adding that Interros' boardroom
conduct was "unsuitable."
--Michelle Madsen, michelle_madsen@platts.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
