OIL prices and the fate of the dollar look like being two pot boilers in the weeks ahead.

Beleaguered Russian oil company Yukos lost its desperate bid for shelter in American courts when a Texas judge dismissed its bankruptcy case, saying the company did not have enough of a presence in the United States to establish US jurisdiction over a Russian company.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has cut back on the duties of a top economic adviser who has been outspoken critic of Kremlin policies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin strongly defended the purchase of Yukos oil company assets by a state-owned firm, saying today that the state was getting its due.

Russian President Vladimir Putin today scheduled a news conference that is expected to be overshadowed by the controversial sale of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s core unit and the Kremlin’s course toward Ukraine.

The plot thickens over the mysterious backroom deals that have quietly handed the Kremlin control of the embattled Yukos oil giant’s most important production unit – an apparently secret, no-bid sale to Russia’s state-owned oil company Rosneft.

A previously unknown Russian company called BaikalFinansGroup bought the core production unit of oil giant Yukos at auction for €7bn today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets for a fraction of what Yukos executives say it is worth.

Russia’s obscure Baikalfinansgroup bought Yukos’ core production unit at auction for $9.3bn (€7bn) today, gaining control of one of Russia’s most prized oil assets.

A bankruptcy judge in Texas granted a “last resort” request by collapsed Russian oil giant Yukos for a temporary injunction to block this weekend’s auction in Moscow of its main production subsidiary.

A Moscow court has barred the embattled Russian oil giant Yukos from holding an emergency shareholders meeting next week.

The Russian government plans to sell a majority stake in the main production unit of the embattled Yukos oil company at an auction on December 19, the Interfax news agency reported today.

Russian oil giant Yukos’ chief executive officer Stephen Theede said today that the company would call an emergency shareholders meeting to consider a possible bankruptcy.

More than 75% of the beleaguered Yukos oil company’s 2000 tax debt has been recovered from the company, a Russian Justice Ministry official was quoted as saying today.

US stocks soared today as investors welcomed strong earnings from financial services companies, upbeat economic data and some reassuring news from the Federal Reserve.

Another jump in oil prices pre-empted a strong rally on Wall Street today, though stocks managed to post modest gains on the strength of the latest consumer price report, which put many investors’ inflation fears to rest for the near term.

Another surge in oil prices sent US stocks plummeting today, with the Dow Jones industrial average shedding more than 160 points and the Nasdaq composite index and Standard & Poor’s 500 recording new lows for the year.

Russia expects beleaguered oil giant Yukos to pay its crushing back taxes bill within a month, a Justice Ministry official said today in an apparent indication that the company’s feared collapse is not imminent.

Russia’s largest oil producer, battered by a gigantic overdue back taxes bill, says it may have to halt its main production units within a few days because of a bailiffs’ order, the Interfax news agency reported in Moscow.

Russia’s richest man, ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges that could jail him for 10 years, while authorities tightened the grip on the beleaguered oil company’s key production assets.

Russia’s richest man Mikhail Khodorkovsky pleaded not guilty to all charges against him today, nearly eight months after his arrest at gunpoint at a Siberian airport.

In the first sign that the government might compromise to save the Yukos oil company from bankruptcy over back taxes, Russian news agencies reported today that the Cabinet was considering a Yukos proposal to pay £5bn (€7.5bn) over a three-year period.

The plain clothes officers who searched the headquarters of the Russian oil giant Yukos, beleaguered by a 99.4bn-ruble (€2.6bn) back taxes claim, were looking for evidence of tax-evasion by a Yukos subsidiary, a company spokesman said today.

Russia’s richest man, billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and another major shareholder in his Yukos oil conglomerate, went on trial in Moscow today in a case that will delve into the murky privatisation process that accompanied the dismantling of the Soviet Union

Russia’s richest man, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, appeared in a Moscow court today for the first substantive hearing in a case that threatens to bring down the business empire he built.

A Moscow court ruled today that prosecutors can keep Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest man and former chief of the country’s largest oil company, jailed another three months during an investigation on charges widely seen as politically motivated.

Turning up the heat on the embattled Russian oil giant Yukos, a Cabinet minister warned today that the government may strip it of licenses to develop some oilfields.

Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion, has announced his resignation from Yukos, saying the move is a bid to save the oil giant from an escalating criminal probe that has seen top shareholders imprisoned and a large chunk of its stock frozen.

The Russian prosecutor-general’s office today brought tax evasion charges against Platon Lebedev, one of the country’s richest men.

Prosecutors began searching the archives at Russia’s biggest oil producer today in what appeared to be the latest legal manoeuvre against the oil giant.