By John Helmer in Moscow According to the Chinese tradition, the original Budai (aka Laughing Buddha) was an eccentric Zen Buddhist monk. He lived in the Fenghua province during the Late Liang Dynasty in the first years of the 10th century. His name translates into English as “Promise this”.

by John Helmer - Monday, September 20th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow The promoters of United Company Rusal at Bloomberg have kicked off a new marketing campaign for Oleg Deripaska’s heavily indebted aluminium company, disclosing this week that “Rusal is planning Russia’s first offering of bonds in China, spurred by McDonald’s Corp.’s debut sale in yuan.” A roadshow to test whether the […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow China’s metals giant, the Aluminum Corp of China Ltd. (Chalco aka Chinalco), tied another knot for its future mining plans in the Republic of Guinea with London-based Rio Tinto in a signing ceremony in Beijing today. But Guinea’s Mining Minister Mahmoud Thiam told Business Day this will not deter the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 29th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow A $200 million road construction project in Kenya, one of the country’s biggest infrastructure investments, is being delayed by a World Bank investigation of the involvement of Oleg Deripaska. The due diligence investigation of Deripaska now under way at the World Bank is the first acknowledgement by the multilateral global […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow After weeks of fierce, behind the scenes campaigning for votes to boost Rusal’s takeover attempt against Norilsk Nickel, shareholders of the latter struck back at Monday’s Annual General Meeting, flooring Deripaska. Rusal has issued a statement promising a counter-attack at a proposed Extraordinary General Meeting of shareholders – if, within […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow A new London investment company called Vallar is being floated by two men whose most recent claim to public trust is what they have done, or advised doing with Russian money — Nathaniel Rothschild with Oleg Deripaska’s company Rusal, and James Campbell as a director on the Evraz board — […]

by John Helmer - Monday, June 28th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow President Dmitry Medvedev is lying when he claims that his modernization slogan, under which he is running for re-appointment by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, means free and fair competition; security for foreign investment; and private ownership in place of state control. I mean lying, as in lying on the fakir’s […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
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Moscow, 15 June 2010 – UC RUSAL (SEHK: 486, EuroNext: RUSAL/RUAL), the world’s largest aluminium producer, announces the visit of a UC RUSAL delegation headed by Oleg Deripaska, CEO of UC RUSAL, to Guinea. Within the framework of the visit the company and the government of the country reached several agreements.

by Editor - Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow On Thursday evening in Conakry, the capital of the west African republic of Guinea, presidential advisor Mamadou Conde was dismissed, after he was found to have been involved in a plan to sign over bauxite concession rights to the Russian aluminium monopoly Rusal, and arrange for acting Guinean President Sekouba […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 11th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow A bold move by two of Russia’s largest companies to fly General Sékouba Konaté, the acting head of the Guinean state in Conakry, to a rendezvous at the Kremlin with President Dmitri Medvedev has failed after a blaze of publicity caused the general to get cold feet.

by Editor - Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
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