By John Helmer, Moscow On November 13, Gennady Timchenko (lead image), once the oligarch controlling the greater part of Russian oil movement from well-head to market, established a new line of business. He called it Carignan, after the Mediterranean grape variety, and he put his public relations agent in charge of the company as chief […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 17th, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The Victorian state coroner Iain West (lead image) has concluded a 60-minute inquest into the deaths of Australians on board Malaysian Airlines MH17 by issuing a statement of findings contradicting the coroner’s own statements, as well as the evidence of reports from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and courtroom testimony from […]

by Editor - Wednesday, December 16th, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The Australian Federal Police and Dutch police and prosecutors investigating the cause of the crash of Malaysian Airlines MH17 believe the Dutch Safety Board (DSB) has failed to provide “conclusive evidence” of what type of munition destroyed the aircraft, causing the deaths of 283 passengers and 15 crew on board. After […]

by Editor - Tuesday, December 15th, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow On what the Paris Agreement for climate change (COP21) should have decided last Saturday, no Russian business figure has been as outspoken as Oleg Deripaska (lead image), chief executive and control shareholder of the Russian aluminium monopoly, Rusal. “Balderdash”, Deripaska said of the agreement terms during a whistlestop interview with a […]

by Editor - Sunday, December 13th, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow It isn’t exactly certain what the Turkish military saw on a foredeck deck of the Russian Navy’s landing ship, Caesar Kunikov, as it passed through the Bosphorus Strait last Sunday. What is certain is that the Turkish Foreign Ministry declared the Russians had launched “a pure provocation” at Turkey, and that […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 10th, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow If the London art market is a test of reality, then last week’s Russian Week sales demonstrate that Russian buyers are poorer, and there is now less Russian money for buying Russian paintings, jewellery, porcelain and other art objects than at any time since Russian Week started in London in 2005. […]

by Editor - Sunday, December 6th, 2015
No Comments »

By Gary K. Busch, London The most frustrating aspects of the media coverage of the current efforts to suppress the forces of Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria is that there is a dearth of ‘joined-up’ thinking behind most of the analyses. There is a lot of eyewitness reporting of daily events in the countries, […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 3rd, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund has decided to delay fresh loan payments of $3.4 billion to Ukraine. In the meantime the World Bank has given the Deposit Guarantee Fund in Kiev $500 million to keep the leading Ukrainian banks solvent. The two international agencies have also agreed to the seizure of $174 […]

by Editor - Wednesday, December 2nd, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The soybean is an edible legume native to East Asia. For Russians that means it’s a native of Siberia. Eighteen months ago, President Vladimir Putin declared Russian soybeans to be the best in the world. The president was on a tour of the Russian Far East, the region of the country […]

by Editor - Tuesday, December 1st, 2015
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Never before has the personal animosity of the heads of state of the United States and Turkey towards the President of Russia been so sharp and expressed so obviously. The consequences, too.

by Editor - Friday, November 27th, 2015
No Comments »