By John Helmer, Moscow In the jungle there’s not much call for the subtle touch. So it’s not clear whether Mikhail Fridman’s announcements this week are intended as a dagger or as a club. By resigning his chairmanship of the management board of TNK-BP, and vacating the chief executive’s role, Fridman (image centre left) hasn’t […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 31st, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Judge Galina Fedina ruled this morning, after a brief, open hearing, that she is postponing until June 6 her consideration of the injunction against Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) finalizing its takeover of Flinders Mines. The action was confirmed by the judge’s spokesman at the Chelyabinsk Court of Appeal no. 18, Olga […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 30th, 2012
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In its May 23 edition, the Moscow Times has published the following item, apparently a notice from the press office of United Company Rusal, directed by Vera Kurochkina. The new statement refers to Russian media reports of six months ago, including a Moscow Times publication which appeared on November 29, entitled “Foreign Journalist Sees RusAl […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Not even the epitome of Canadian accountability and compliance, Dudley Do-Right, can remember a case when a man who has just defaulted on bank obligations of almost $75 million been allowed to sell promissory notes on his next adventure on the Toronto Stock Exchange. If Dudley is mistaken, and if Maxim […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow The penultimate move in the two-month contest to stop the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) takeover of Flinders Mines, scheduled for tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock local time, is already proving to be as bizarre as everything else recorded in the Chelyabinsk arbitrazh court to date.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska (image centre) has told President Vladimir Putin that the only way to stop the rot at Rusal is to put an internationally respected foreigner at the head of the Rusal board of directors when the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) is held on June 15. Mikhail Prokhorov and Victor […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 28th, 2012
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Every day some well-known people pay for Denial-of-Service (DOS) attacks on this website to prevent you reading what is published.

by John Helmer - Sunday, May 27th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow It’s a pity it had to wait until the Facebook folly for a lawsuit to be launched against Morgan Stanley on the double-barrelled charge — the investment bank and underwriter lies in its prospectuses and makes saps of share-buyers. According to the federal US court filing, “the [Facebook] registration statement and […]

by John Helmer - Friday, May 25th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Captain Matthew Flinders was a late 18th century British Navy captain and one of the greatest explorer navigators of his time. His circumnavigation around the southern continent he called Australia also led to the naming of dozens of places by his name, along with a species of local citrus tree. He […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 24th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Magic is a type of confidence trickery, but not all confidence tricksters are magicians. The difference is whether, when the magician pulls, the hat has got a real rabbit in it. Minerals under the ground have something in common with rabbits; that’s to say, sometimes they are there – sometimes there’s […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012
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