By John Helmer, Moscow The commodity supercycle made an offshore fortune for Oleg Deripaska, control shareholder of United Company Rusal, the Russian aluminium monopoly, and for Glencore, the Swiss combine which has financed and managed Rusal’s trade. But the cycle is now in reverse, as the markets accept that China’s economic performance will now trigger […]

by Editor - Friday, October 23rd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Yury Trutnev, the Kremlin’s special representative for the Russian Fareast, has come up with a scheme, starting this month, for storing the world’s most valuable art works in Vladivostok, one of the world’s smallest art markets, with the personal backing of President Vladimir Putin; and on the advice of Dmitry Rybolovlev, […]

by Editor - Wednesday, October 21st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Tjibbe Joustra (lead image, right), chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, wants it to be very clear that Russia is criminally responsible for the destruction of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 on July 17, 2014; that a Russian-supplied ground-to-air missile, fired on Russian orders from territory under Russian control, exploded lethally to […]

by Editor - Monday, October 19th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) conclusion on the missile detonation which caused the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 is based on a report of the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR), based in Amsterdam. The 66-page NLR report can be found as an appendix to the main DSB report. Combined in their […]

by Editor - Friday, October 16th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) reported yesterday that its evidence for concluding that a single ground-to-air Buk missile caused the crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was an explosive blast of sound on the cockpit voice recorder lasting 2.3 milliseconds; a spray pattern of damage to the cockpit area of the […]

by Editor - Tuesday, October 13th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Between buying his bank from Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004 and losing it to the Central Bank of Russia at the end of December, 2014, Ilya Yurov, chairman of National Bank (NB) Trust, made a fortune. How much of it he has kept for himself, at the expense of his depositors, shareholders […]

by Editor - Monday, October 12th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow “I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages,” former US president Jimmy Carter said at one of his farewell appearances in Atlanta recently, “and we would’ve rescued them, and I would’ve been re-elected.” Compared to his predecessors and successors Carter was intellectually superior. He also didn’t suffer […]

by Editor - Thursday, October 8th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow A fight over fees by Australian lawyers claiming to launch a compensation claim on behalf of one of the victims of the MH17 shoot-down revealed last week in an Australian state court that the top officials of the Australian Government are unable to confirm evidence of what crime was committed, or […]

by Editor - Tuesday, October 6th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Australian Government is sure the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) investigation of the downing of Malaysian Airlines MH17 will fail to identify the precise cause of the crash, and will be inconclusive on who and what were responsible. A report, termed final by the DSB, is scheduled for release on October […]

by Editor - Tuesday, September 29th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Samvel Karapetyan (lead image) had a fortune last week of $4.6 billion. This, according to profiles in Forbes Russia, he made all by himself from Russian property development. The dollar number puts Karapetyan at No. 26 on the ladder of fortunes in Russia, where he lives and works; number 1 in […]

by Editor - Monday, September 28th, 2015
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