Oil chief gets Russian visa

Visa problems don't come much bigger than those facing Anglo-Russian oil giant TNK-BP's chief executive, Robert Dudley. I've had a few anxious visa moments myself, the last one being when my China visa application was turned down twice on technicalities and only turned up in the nick of time just before my departure for Shanghai in May  - but these pale into insignificance against Dudley's problems in extending his visa to remain in Russia. He's now been granted a ten-day extension until 29 July, as the boardroom battle between the joint venture's Russian and British partners rages on.

As the Russian consortium AAR, which includes TNK-BP's chairman Mikhail Fridman and chemicals billionaire Len Blavatnik, fights to oust Dudley, arguing that TNK-BP has been unable to expand outside Russia because BP has been putting its own interests first,  Fridman told a special report in TimesOnline: "There can't be any compromise and won't be any compromise. We want a new chief executive who is not from BP but hired on the open market."