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By John Helmer, Moscow The Russian government’s competition watchdog is waiting for state tanker company Sovcomflot and gas exporter Novatek to clarify exactly what plan they have decided on for liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments from Sabetta, Russia’s newest gas export outlet on the eastern shore of Yamal and the Kara Sea. Sovcomflot said last […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Koros Trading Limited Liability Partnership (LLP), a false front company created in London to receive regular monthly payments of millions of dollars from Rusal, the Russian aluminium monopoly, has been struck off the UK Companies Register for failing to report its annual revenues and income. Details of Koros transactions have revealed […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow It has been known for a long time that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been intercepting millions of Russian telephone calls, SMS texts and internet traffic, along with the communications of other target nationals, including Americans and the British themselves. Older eavesdropping operations, such as ECHELON, have been documented […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow In a hearing in a Lagos court yesterday, Nigerian judge James Tsoho dismissed all charges against eight of the 15 Russian crewmen on the Myre Seadiver, a security support vessel arrested by the Nigerian Navy last October. At the time, the vessel, which had arrived with Nigerian Navy and Lagos port […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow It isn’t known whether Dmitry Shatokhin (right), the chief executive, board chairman, and apparent control shareholder of Siberian Anthracite, reads the news. Not the commodity price reports showing that the demand and price for the coal he is selling are falling. Rather, the news that President Vladimir Putin, along with the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow By the conventional polling and political measures, President Vladimir Putin ought to be the most relaxed figure at the G8 summit meeting in Ireland. If he wanted to, he might look straight at the cameras and tell the world he shares their opposition to starting another war in the string of […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Rusal’s share price collapsed through the four-dollar threshold today, as the release of results at Friday’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Rusal shareholders revealed that the company is planning to use its shrinking cash reserves to try to prop up its share price. In a dramatic warning issued in Moscow at […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow You could pack your bathing togs, sunglasses and sailing cap, and thus attired pay a call at 24 De Castro Street, in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, to drop your eighteen dollars off personally. This would be more fun than calling your stockbroker to put the money on buying a share in […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” – Jesus Christ After the ancient Jewish preachers spoke of improbability as elephants trying to navigate needles, the Christians slimmed down to camels. But there was […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Eurochem, a Russian fertilizer miner and manufacturer owned by Andrei Melnichenko, is suing the South African mine technology company Shaft Sinkers for $800 million on account of a mining technology which Eurochem says has failed in Volgograd (image right). Shaft Sinkers says the technology works perfectly well, in Yorkshire (left) for […]