It is unprecedented in corporate takeover practice for white knights to beg to pay more for the privilege of rescuing those who appeal for help; and positively quixotic for them to accept less for their chivalry. However, Russian steelmaker Alexei Mordashov appears so keen to sell out his assets, and ride his rapidly thinning charger […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
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By John Helmer in Moscow Francois, the Duc de la Rochfoucauld, came to his famous book of maxims after a career in regular soldiering, and then in warfare between factions of the French court in the mid-17th century. He lost his home, his health, his love, and his fortune, but not his courage or wits. […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
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Lithuania, the little state on the shore of the Baltic Sea, has a proud, and under Adolf Hitler, an unpleasant history of hostility towards Russia. If its accession to the European Union was an understandable attempt to conserve, and build on its post-Soviet independence, Lithuania’s application to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) sharpened […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, April 13th, 2006
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By John Helmer in Moscow The two dominant Australian vices are not indigenous. Envy came with the Irish Catholics, who were at first the convict, then the indentured, and finally the working class. Hypocrisy came with the English Protestants, who began their economic enterprise in the country by declaring the land unoccupied (“terra nullius” was […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, December 21st, 2005
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MOSCOW (Mineweb.com)-Despite the visit this month to Moscow of a 64-person delegation of South African government and corporate officials – the largest ever to come to Russia – the outcome appears to be a cooling in mutual sentiment. One-sided lobbying by Russia’s natural resources minister, Yury allies is one of the reasons. Reluctance to challenge […]

by John Helmer - Friday, October 21st, 2005
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MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) –Among the world’s top producers of aluminium, all are public companies regulated by the laws, securities market and anti-trust regulations, and disclosure requirements of the United States and the European Union, save one. The exception is Russian Aluminium (Rusal), which is owned by Oleg Deripaska, a young Russian. What Deripaska allows to be […]

by John Helmer - Friday, October 14th, 2005
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By John Helmer Richard Cheney, the outgoing vice-president of the United States, is the modern version of Mime, second in command of the Niebelungs, the bad dwarfs of the mythical German underworld. It was Mime who forges a magical helmet to give his brother Alberich, the chief dwarf Niebelung, the power to change into anything […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 30th, 2005
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By John Helmer in Moscow The English comedian, and co-founder of the Goons, Spike Milligan, once said that Americans are the new Germans. He wasn’t exactly joking, but he was being selective. Not every American, he meant, was susceptible to the type of fascism that everyone who has ever been jack-booted by the Germans recognizes. […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 10th, 2005
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By John Helmer in Moscow Laundering a man’s reputation is a little like laundering money. The more you churn the facts, the harder it is to remember them; the less damage they can do; and the whiter the outcome. It is for this reason that Russia’s oligarchs have spent so much effort bringing defamation cases […]

by John Helmer - Monday, November 22nd, 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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