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By John Helmer, Moscow Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) announced Thursday it will not agree to extend the time for its agreement to buy Flinders Mines, an Australian iron-ore miner, after the deal deadline or quit date expires tomorrow, June 30. “Magnitogorsk’s decision on its future actions regarding the agreement will be taken only when the […]

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The inaugural award of the Russian Register for the Revival of all Reading (RRROAR) has been announced today. According to the citation, Dances with Bears is “attracting unprecedented resources to the written word. This deserves the recognition that it is doing more than any other published source in print or on the internet to revive […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow If wine were an investment, like company shares, gold, or real estate, then you would expect the Russian oligarchs to put their hands into this particular till. But hobby vineyards and French chateaux aside, there haven’t been many. Still, Vadim Varshavsky’s Croizet cognac (Charente) has not proved to be as ill-fated […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Like the metal itself, Russian Platinum is shy, but ambitious in turn to be recognized as expensive. This isn’t as persuasive as a junior miner of precious metals needs to be if it wants to raise money and find share buyers in the market, as Russian Platinum’s owners, the Bazhaev family, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow At the conclusion of a share buyback offer, Severstal has announced that 170 million of the 1.01 billion shares outstanding will be purchased. Alexei Mordashov, the control shareholder with 66% of the shares before the buyback, tendered his shares to the offer in full, as did the associated control company, Lybica […]

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  Genuine readers are invited to take a cup of coffee while they taste today’s black news. This is also a test of the website attackers, who are leaving a revealing trail for our internet detectives to follow.

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By John Helmer, Moscow When Oleg Deripaska and the Rusal group of companies attack one of their most senior executives for a nine-year old crime that wasn’t, the question that arises is: what does the target know about Deripaska and his methods that may be so dangerous, his credibility and his livelihood should be destroyed? […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa has announced new strategic targets until the end of 2021, following this week’s meeting of the Supervisory Board, as Alrosa’s board of directors is known. How much of the projected growth will depend on Alrosa getting the Kremlin to persuade Vagit Alekperov of LUKoil to do what he doesn’t want […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The personal rapport between Oleg Deripaska (left) and Sergei Stepashin (right), chairman of the Accounting Chamber, has been famously uncordial. Some say Stepashin believes Deripaska plotted to cut his term as prime minister to just three months – May 12 to August 9, 1999 – and was one of those persuading […]