By John Helmer in Moscow Anti-Russian allies fail to cook on hot air. Russia demonstrated on Tuesday that it retains the backing of the major Central Asian gas producers and exporters to Europe – despite public calls from UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and American figures that alternative, non-Russian supplies of Europe’s gas should be […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow The IMR takeover of Shaft Sinkers is the second major asset purchase in SA for a trio of Kazakh businessmen. THE decline in mining stocks and metal prices is unlikely to hurt SA’s specialist in shaft and tunnel excavation for mines, Shaft Sinkers MD Rob Schroder says. Johannesburg-based Shaft Sinkers […]

by John Helmer - Monday, September 1st, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow One word explains why the United States, NATO and the European Union have obliged themselves to sit on their hands, while Russia’s defends its citizens, and national interest in the Caucasus, and liberates Georgians from the folly of their unpopular president, Mikheil Saakashvili — Kosovo. Eight hundred years of Caucasian […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, August 10th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Oleg Deripaska, controlling shareholder of United Company Rusal, the world’s largest producer of primary aluminium, has reason to be an unhappy man. On Thursday evening, he called in a group of sympathetic reporters to explain how unhappy. “You can sit a cat and dog next to each other,”he said, “but […]

by John Helmer - Friday, August 8th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow The maxim that one should see, hear, and speak no evil appears to have started out in ancient China. Confucius apparently added the obvious fourth – do no evil. It was natural that the maxim should cross the water to Japan, but far from clear why three monkeys with their […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Leading Tajikistan figure ordered to testify by London judge or “evidence will fall away”. A London High Court judge warned this week that unless one of the leading figures in Tajikistan appears in London in October for cross-examination on oath, the key evidence in the high-profile Tajikistan aluminium case “will […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Russian state uranium miner now no.2 in control of world uranium resources. The structure for managing and -run capitalizing the mining of uranium in Russia, and Russian uranium mining ventures abroad, is now clear. And also large, as Russia has recently moved into the number-3 spot in the world ranking […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow Oleg Deripaska’s bid to take control of Norilsk Nickel, Russia’s premier mining company, came to an end on Monday at a meetingin Moscow. The meeting, to which Norilsk Nickel controlling shareholder Vladimir Potanin was also summoned, concluded with an unambiguous veto on Deripaska’s ambition to buy a controlling stake in […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow In Robert Louis Stephenson’s version of the way English pirates used to issue shareholder summonses for asset distributions, the Black Spot was a ink-blot, spilled on the page of a bible, and delivered by a blind-man. You could hide from the delivery, but not from the consequences. A second attack […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 29th, 2008
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By John Helmer in Moscow The collapse of Mechel’s share price (MTL:US), following a direct attack by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the company and its owner, Igor Zyuzin, for its coking coal price tactics, has generated a market-wide apprehension that strong, and stronger, measures are in store for mill profits and their proprietors’ health. […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 28th, 2008
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