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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with All the well-known plague novels make the same mistake. So unexpected, inexplicable, incurable, and comprehensively lethal was the plague for those telling its story, their conclusion has been that there can be no getting back to normal.   Not so in Russia. “Over the past week”, President Vladimir Putin declared last […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Cardiology doesn’t expire when people die of heart attacks. Just so, no one should expect that when a man dies of the corona virus, or hundreds or thousands of men, the sociology of their pre-existing health, race, ethnicity, income, education, ideology – in short, their class in the old- fashioned meaning […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Death can be a coincidence, but not in the Russian aluminium business. So when Dmitry Bosov died of a pistol shot at his home near Moscow on the evening between May 5 and May 6, and Anatoly Bykov was arrested by federal agents in Krasnoyarsk on May 7, everyone with well […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Roula Khalaf (lead image, right) is the only editor of a major London newspaper about whom next to nothing important is obvious, not even her name. She was appointed last year by Tsuneo Kita (left), chairman of Nikkei, the Japanese media group and owner of the paper, to succeed Lionel Barber […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with It’s embarrassing to be caught publicly with a case of the crabs, especially if you are a media celebrity. That is, unless you are in the business of selling your celebrity status to advertise other people’s crabs, not your own. This is the case of Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite from St. […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with After the episode of the sermon by the Jesuit priest, blaming the plague on the sinfulness of his congregation – “a calamity has befallen you, my brethren; you have deserved it…no earthly power – not even, note this well , vain human science – can shield you from His hand as […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Every spring, when it’s certain no more snow will fall on Moscow, it helps to remember these things, and look forward with hope.   

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with Armed British police, plus ambulance and medical crews, drone and helicopter pilots,  firefighters,  and the head doctor of the Salisbury District Hospital’s emergency department were preparing for the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal just four days before Russian military assassins arrived from Moscow allegedly carrying a lethal chemical weapon in […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with A new ruling by three Dutch judges in the trial of Russia for having shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 will allow the Ukrainian secret service, the SBU, to present fabricated witness evidence without investigation or cross-examination by defence lawyers representing one of the four military officers accused of launching a […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with One nurse and two doctors have testified that they were in charge of the medical treatment of Sergei and Yulia Skripal when they were admitted to Salisbury District Hospital in the early evening of March 4, 2018. Sarah Clark (lead image, left) was the senior sister in charge of the shift […]