Oleg Deripaska is a very brave man, in all likelihood. When Ernest Hemingway wrote “Death in the Afternoon,” his study of Spanish bullfighting almost 75 years ago, he made a point of appreciating the quality of bravery in both bullfighters and bulls. So does the audience at corridas today. The most common degree of bravery, […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 30th, 2004
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If anyone should know how to rig a constitution, it’s me and George Bush, Jr. You might say it runs in the family. Take my uncle, for example.As the British Empire began to break apart in the aftermath of World War II, he was one of many former military intelligence officers assigned by the imperial […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 22nd, 2004
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MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) — In Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island”, the adventure begins with the approach of Blind Pew, emissary of Captain Flint’s pirate crew, to deliver the Black Spot, the verdict of death, to Billy Bones, the crewman who held Flint’s precious treasure map. In fear of his life, Bones was always on the alert […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, September 16th, 2004
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MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) – Cash cows need careful herding, just like the lactating and the beef species. As every cowboy knows, if you don’t fence them in properly, on cloudy nights you run the risk losing then to rustlers or wolves. Gazprom, Russia’s leading resource company and the world’s largest gas producer and exporter, has been […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 15th, 2004
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Among soldiers and other hired gunmen, it is said that the bullet always tell the truth. It’s the triggerman’s way of passing moral responsibility for his deed, and his good or ill fortune, from the trigger to the target. In interpreting a national shock like this month’s killings at Beslan, in the Northern Ossetian Republic, […]

by John Helmer - Monday, September 13th, 2004
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