Election chiefs said last month Kasyanov could not run because signatures he submitted in support of his bid were forged. He accused the Kremlin of barring him to slant the vote in favor of front-runner Dmitry Medvedev.

Kasyanov, a former prime minister, had no chance of winning the March 2 election but his removal from the ballot has fuelled criticism that the Kremlin will brook little real opposition.

In a judgment after a one-day hearing, the Supreme Court said it had decided to leave the Central Election Commission decision to bar Kasyanov unchanged and to reject an appeal submitted by his lawyers.

Yelena Dikun, a spokeswoman for Kasyanov said: "The Central Election Commission ignored the views of citizens ... and now the Supreme Court, which is part of the same system, has also ignored the views of citizens."

Russian President Vladimir Putin is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. He has endorsed Medvedev, a 42-year-old first deputy prime minister, to replace him.

The Liaoning Provincial Higher People's Court turned down an appeal from Wang Zhendong, who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to death last February, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Wang, chairman of Yingkou Donghua Trading Group Co., had promised returns of up to 60 percent for investors who purchased ant-breeding kits from two companies he ran.

The insects were to be used in traditional medicinal wines, herbal remedies and aphrodisiacs.

Authorities, concerned about social unrest, have come down hard on fake investments and pyramid schemes, although Wang's sentence was harsh even by Chinese standards.

Communist leaders have sought to make examples out of businessmen and officials accused of fraud and corruption, and last year executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash.

Wang attracted more than 10,000 investors between 2002 and June 2005, when investigators shut down his companies. The closure of his business set off a panic among small-time players who saw their life savings disappear overnight.

Investigators put the size of the fraud at $416 million. Only $1.28 million was recovered. Fifteen managers of the company were also fined and sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years.

Calls for a windfall tax on oil companies have been reignited after Royal Dutch Shell posted record UK company profits of almost £14 billion.

The Unite union said profits in the industry were "obscene" and urged the Government to take action, especially because of rising energy prices.

Royal Dutch Shell reported a surplus of 27.6 billion US dollars (£13.9bn) in 2007, equivalent to £1.5 million an hour and 9% higher than a year ago.

It benefited from rising crude oil prices of more than 90 US dollars, a factor which also left motorists with average petrol costs of more than £1 a litre.

Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley said: "Shell shareholders are doing very nicely whilst the rest of us, the stakeholders, are paying the price and struggling.

He added: "This Government took the brave step of putting a windfall tax on the greedy privatised utilities to fund the New Deal. With pensions injustices still to be addressed, fortune should favour the brave again and the greedy oil companies should be asked to contribute for the common good."

Shell rejected the windfall tax calls, arguing that the profits figure is almost matched by the amount of money it spends on securing new energy sources. Most of its haul comes from exploration and production, rather than UK forecourts.

Chief executive Jeroen van der Veer said: "If you get additional taxation, in the end it means you can invest less. The money has to come from somewhere and over time it will impact on our production."

The oil firms, including Shell, insist they already pay high levels of tax to the Treasury. In 2005, Chancellor Gordon Brown increased a North Sea tax on energy companies from the 10% he introduced in 2002 to 20%.

Independent charity the RAC Foundation said anger over rising petrol costs needed to be directed towards the Government, adding that a flexible fuel duty would compensate for varying crude prices.

The court upheld Spanish telecom company Telefonica SA's right to refuse to hand over information that would identify who had used peer-to-peer file-sharing tool KaZaA to distribute copyrighted material owned by Promusicae, a Spanish nonprofit group of film and music producers.

EU law did not require governments to protect copyright by forcing companies to disclose personal data in civil legal actions, the Luxembourg-based court ruled.

They could draft national rules to change this but they will then have to balance the right to privacy against property rights and "cannot however affect the requirements of the protection of personal data," a court statement said.

The ruling "raises the question of the need to reconcile the requirements of the protection of different fundamental rights, namely the right to respect for private life on the one hand and the rights to protection of property and to an effective remedy on the other," the court said.

A Spanish court had asked the European court to give guidance on the case after Promusicae complained of Telefonica's refusal to hand over details identifying the people who used the computer addresses linked to the illegal downloads.

Telefonica claimed Spanish law only allows them to share personal data for criminal prosecutions or matters of public security and national defense.

Music industry group, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, said record labels would push on with their campaign against Internet piracy and the court had confirmed the need to have effective tools to tackle illegal copying.

"Copyright theft on the internet is the single biggest obstacle to the growth of the music business today," said IFPI head John Kennedy.

"The judgment means that music rights owners can still take civil actions to enforce their rights, and it has sent out a clear signal that member states have to get the right balance between privacy and enforcement of intellectual property rights and that intellectual property rights can neither be ignored nor neglected."

The European branch of the Motion Picture Association — which represents American film studios such as Universal, Walt Disney, Paramount and others — welcomed the ruling as balanced because the court had upheld copyright as a fundamental right alongside the right to privacy.

The MPA of America claimed in a 2005 study that U.S. film industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide that year, most of it outside the United States.

Millions of people use file sharing sites to download both legal and illegal copies of albums, films, TV episodes, computer programs and even books.

The music industry has largely shunned file sharing, preferring digital tools to restrict how songs can be copied and played.