By John Helmer in Moscow Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday launched an orchestrated attack on steel prices and the profit margins of Russia’s steelmaking groups during a meeting with the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), Igor Artemyev.

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco, ticker FESH)), the Russian dry-cargo fleet operator, plans to make a public issue of new shares to pay down debt. A total of 659.6 million new shares will be issued, the Fesco spokesman Stanislav Vartanyan told Fairplay; this bloc of shares makes about 23% of […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 24th, 2010
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Link to the PDF file in Russian Alternative link Case number 3/10-74/10 Copy RULING Moscow, May 18, 2010 Savyolovsky district court of Moscow chaired by the presiding judge Tsyplakova E.N., with participation of assistant of Savyolovsky inter-district prosecutor of Moscow Kuplensky A.I., representative of citizen Helmer J. – Kuznetsov O.B., with secretary Antonova E.N.,

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 20th, 2010
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by John Helmer - Friday, May 14th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow For the first time in his career, Oleg Deripaska has faced questioning on his business practices and cashflows by a western judge in a criminal court proceeding. Spanish judge of the Audiencia Nacional, Fernando Andreu Merelles, and special prosecutor for corruption cases, José Grinda, were in Moscow on May 12 […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 13th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow Russia’s energy chief, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, has disclosed that the Black Sea oil export plan he launched in Milan last October, with much applause from Turkish and Italian interests, is going nowhere fast – err, I mean, slow. He was speaking on the sidelines of President Dmitry Medvedev’s […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, May 13th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow The question of who, if anyone, is protecting coalminers intensifies in public, following Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to the scene of the Raspadskaya mine disaster at Mezhdurechensk yesterday. The double explosion of methane in the Raspadskaya mine on the weekend has so far killed 52, with 38 still unaccounted […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
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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 […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
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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 […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 10th, 2010
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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 […]

by John Helmer - Friday, May 7th, 2010
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