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By John Helmer in Moscow The death toll at the Raspadskaya Coal Company’s principal mine is 43 dead, 47 missing, and 7 in hospital in critical condition as of Tuesday morning, Moscow time. The leading producer of coking coal in Russia suffered two methane explosions overnight between Saturday and Sunday. The first was late on […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow Strikeforce Mining and Resources (SMR), a molybdenum miner owned by Oleg Deripaska, failed last week in its second try at attracting Chinese and Hong Kong market investors. The first try was in October 2008, when Morgan Stanley and the Bank of China were the arrangers. But that month, as Deripaska’s […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow On April 12 NATO launched four large-scale war games in northern Europe. A report by Rick Rozoff for the Media Monitors Network, “Relentless Global Drive: NATO on Six Continents in Seven Days”, published on April 22, documented the official announcements from several US and NATO command sources, and the British […]

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A spokesman for the Investigative Committee, a special branch of the General Prosecutor’s office, said yesterday, after the news of the rescue had reached Moscow, that the surviving pirates would be taken to Russia and charged under the piracy article of the Russian Criminal Code — Part 3, Article 227. He and Russian Navy spokesmen […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow The horse has special talents. One is fluency in several languages; another is a knack for stock market investment. In the rarely seen comedy, the hero inherits the horse from his parents, makes some bad acquisitions on the horse’s advice, but gets out of trouble at a horse-race. Roman Trotsenko’s […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow The Russian Navy announced Thursday morning that its anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov had successfully liberated the Novoship oil tanker, Moscow University; released its 23-man crew unharmed;and killed or captured the Somali pirates who had boarded the vessel yesterday 800 kms off the coast of Somalia. The tanker had been under […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow The Lithuanians tried it more than a decade ago. The Belarussians are trying it again – noone in Moscow believes it can be done. In fact, the Russians say it’s childish to try. When the Russian noose goes round your neck, they say, you either beg forgiveness, or you choke […]

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The picture of an unknown woman has been included by the Moscow police in their evidence of the plan targeting John Helmer, which was carried out last December by Alfa Inform, a Moscow security company working for United Company Rusal. The name of Rusal, identified as the client on the title page of the Alfa […]

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By John Helmer in Moscow King Canute inherited his throne in Scandinavia from a powerful father. He is well thought of for having invaded northwestern England twice in the 11th century, and been in charge there for a relatively peaceful seven years. But if Canute’s reputation is safe onshore, it’s his offshore move that has […]