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By John Helmer, Moscow The Financial Times of London has replied in defence of its reporting on Sergei Pugachev (lead image, foreground), a Russian businessman on the run from a UK High Court conviction and two-year prison sentence. In the Moscow evening, following yesterday’s publication on the Pugachev case, two emails were despatched, a long […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Pug dogs don’t live long. It’s because they lack proper noses, so they suffer from difficulties breathing in and out. That accounts for what everyone meeting a pug knows – they make a lot of noise trying to breathe. Less well known is that while pugs hiss, snuffle, and snore, their […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow On August 9, in St. Petersburg, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will meet Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The moment is revolutionary. There has not been a comparable political turning-point in the 67 years since the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); not in the century since the Ottoman Empire […]

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Statement by IOC Communications Director Gerry Rice on the Managing Director’s Urine Sample July 22, 2016 In response to press queries, Mr. Gerry Rice, Director of Communications at the International Olympics Committee (IOC), made the following statement today relating to the Managing Director’s urine test in France: “As we have said before, it would not […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow A Russian state bond for $750 million is such an obvious target, European bankers are asking why didn’t US government warfighters against Russia shoot down last month’s Sovcomflot issue. This followed by just four weeks the campaign by the US Treasury to stop US investment banks and the international security clearance […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow As war and economic recession eat into their incomes, Russians are making fewer trips to restaurants and cafes. But because the tab is smaller, fast-drinks vendors are taking a larger share of the retail market than fast food. That ought to be good for Shokoladnitsa, Russia’s leading chain of hot-drinks and […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow At the end of this month the Irish High Court in Dublin will consider an application for the arrest of Cyprus President Nikos Anastasiades’s (lead image, left) law partner, Theofanis Philippou, and for an order to disclose company documents produced by them both on behalf of their client, the fugitive Russian […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow In “Any Old Iron”, a popular British music-hall song of a century ago, the cockney comedian Harry Champion made audiences laugh at the vanity of people showing off wealth they don’t have, and at pretentiousness in general. In our century there’s said to be a homosexual come-on in the words of […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Radosław Sikorski (lead image, left), the ex-foreign minister of Poland, ousted Speaker of the Polish Sejm (parliament), and premature retiree from the Bydgoszcz constituency, doesn’t speak his mind so much as his interest. So why has he announced he is now in favour of leaving Crimea in Russia; a separate peace […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Paul Dibb, the former head of two Australian spy organizations and a deputy defence minister, has just published a call for Australian troops to be ready to fight in Europe against “Russia’s refusal to act in ways consistent with international law and standards of behaviour.” Dibb is known in Australia as […]