Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are ROMAN ABRAMOVICH (main picture), with GENERAL JOHN DE CHASTELAIN, SYLVIA HARDY, CHERIE BLAIR and DAVID HOCKNEY.
ROMAN ABRAMOVICH
The sale of his oil company, Sibneft, has this week made Roman
Abramovich, even by his own stratospheric standards, a very wealthy man.
Already the richest man both in Britain and Russia, Roman
Abramovich has just dropped a few more pennies in his piggy bank. The
sale of Sibneft to Russia's state-owned gas group, Gazprom, has earned
him a personal moneybag of an estimated £7.4bn.
On interest alone, this would earn the entrepreneur nearly £1m a day. If
you can't picture that, try this. Laid out end to end in dollar bills,
this week's treasure chest would stretch to the moon and back - twice.
| Two of the Chelsea team celebrate with their benefactor
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So what do you do with such a windfall? Roman Abramovich already has
properties ranging from an English country pile to a villa in St Tropez.
He hits the water in his £72m Pelorus, the 5th largest yacht in the
world - he has two others - and slums it the rest of the time in one of
his Boeing 767s. Not forgetting his biggest hobby, which happens to be
England's beautiful game.
Like Victor Kiam, "Bram" liked Chelsea Football Club so much, he bought
everything from the gates to the goal posts. Unlike Victor Kiam, he
evidently has yet to purchase a razor.
Chukotka's champion
Such trappings are a far cry from Abramovich's harsh childhood. An
orphan by the age of four, he was raised by his Jewish family in the
unforgiving environs of the Arctic Circle, in a remote northerly part of
Russia. He dropped out of college and began his business career selling
plastic ducks from a grim Moscow apartment.
His mentor, oligarch Boris Berezovsky, acquired his oil assets at a
knock-down price during the chaotic sale of dozens of the country's
national assets, which came towards the end of Boris Yeltsin's rule.
Abramovich followed in his path. Within a few years, his already vast
wealth had spread from conglomerates to pig farms, and secured his place
within Mr Yeltsin's inner circle.
| Abramovich with his glamorous wife Irina
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When Russia's current leader, Vladamir Putin, came to power, Abramovich
entered politics himself, becoming the governor of remote Chukotka in
Siberia. After winning the election with 92% of the vote, he pumped
millions of pounds into the area, building houses and hospitals, and
sending thousands of schoolchildren on holiday to the Black Sea.
In 2003, he paid a cool £140m to extend his Roman empire west to
Stamford Bridge, in the biggest takeover in footballing history.
At the time, MP Tony Banks questioned whether, with his big but
Byzantine asset-portfolio, Abramovich was a "fit and proper" owner for
Chelsea, but chairman Ken Bates welcomed the chance to fill the club's
coffers, as well as his own.
Russian responsibilities
Since then, the Russian's deep pockets have ensured a run of success for
the West London team. Last season saw them become league champions for
the first time in 50 years, and their manager Jose Mourinho has
continued to throw around a fat cheque-book in pursuit of more
championship glory.
| Politics may keep Abramovich in Chukotka
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On the other hand, Abramovich may have cut his financial ties with the
east, but the Russian government may want more than oil for their money.
Rumours abound that a large proportion of his bulging new wad may have
to be reinvested in Russia - Putin has stressed that he wants the
oligarchs to be "socially responsible" to the country that made them
rich.
For Mr Abramovich, this may involve staying in charge of Chukotka, too.
Although he has previously said he will be standing down as governor at
the end of the year, only this week his name topped the Kremlin's list
of new candidates.
Selling his assets back to the state may help Mr Abramovich avoid the
fate of fellow businessman and arch-rival, Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
recently prosecuted for fraud and jailed for eight years. But he will
want to stay on the right side of his president, for whom
"oligarch-bashing" is a guaranteed vote-puller.
Meanwhile, this media-shy tycoon may be living the life of an English
country squire, but his task force of bodyguards and armoured Mercedes
testify to the high-octane nature of capitalism in post-Soviet Russia.
Both on the pitch and off, Roman Abramovich, it seems, still has
everything to play for.
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JOHN DE CHASTELAIN
It was a dramatic week for General John de Chastelain, head of the
Independent International Commission on Decommissioning. The Canadian
former ambassador announced that the IRA had put all of its weapons
beyond use. De Chastelain said he and his team had handled every gun and
rifle, some dating back to the 1930s, and that it was likely even the
IRA itself no longer knew what arms it had been keeping.
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SYLVIA HARDY
Sylvia Hardy spent 36 hours behind bars as a defiant pensioner, a former
social worker jailed for non-payment of her council tax bill. She was
happy to spend a week in prison, but had her freedom forced back on her
by a mysterious benefactor, "Mr Brown", who paid her fine. Disappointed
Miss Hardy expects to be back in jail next year. She said, "I told some
of the girls I'd see them again."
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CHERIE BLAIR
Cherie Blair grew misty-eyed when she attended an Ordnance Survey stall
in Liverpool. The bridge on the map, she confided, was where she'd had
her very first kiss, with one Stephen Smerdon. Mr Smerdon, now a Hitchin
publican, also remembers the moment, though they were all of 11 at the
time. He said he would return to the bridge but, this time "I suppose
I'd better take my wife along".
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DAVID HOCKNEY
Artist David Hockney expressed his horror at government plans to ban
public smoking by 2008. At the Labour Party Conference, he called these
proposals "a step too far", and on radio he clashed with a Labour MP.
Julie Morgan talked of the "overwhelming evidence" of the dangers of
smoking, and the need to protect children and asthmatics. Hockney called
her "bossy" and "dreary" and said to her, "You destroy bohemia."
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Compiled by BBC News Profiles Unit's Caroline Frost |
