By John Helmer, Moscow What to do if you are a Russian mining company with a billion dollars’ worth of asset exposure securing large debts, and your chain of production is struck at start and finish by corruption scandals, international litigation, popular protest, collapse of government authority, and homicidal violence? The solution is to pretend […]

by Editor - Wednesday, June 10th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow In the history of warfare there is nothing new in the engagement of mercenaries to do the fighting and run the risks. The mamelukes (mamluks) were the most successful at the game — they started as slaves, became a warfighting caste, and ended as the rulers of the countries they captured, […]

by Editor - Monday, June 8th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The scaffolding is going up around the walls of Chatham House in London — we shall not see it dismantled again in our lifetime. Not even if the Royal Institute of International Affairs says it is doing no more than a repaint job. According to a fresh report from inside the […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 4th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The semi-annual Russian art sales in London this week have finally responded to the laws of economics and politics. But softcore girlies and boy’s buttocks drew better than their estimated money shots, demonstrating that even on the eastern front, making love, not war, is still good for the art house.

by Editor - Wednesday, June 3rd, 2015
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John Helmer, Moscow Russia survived the threat of a homosexual boycott of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, handily. But can it survive the threatened boycott of the 2018 World Cup from a wannabe candidate to lead a minority party in the House of Commons; a British prince whose chance of becoming king is, failing accidents, […]

by Editor - Monday, June 1st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Anne Applebaum, wife of the ex-Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, has suffered a 42% drop in her earnings last year, since the war against Russia, which Sikorski and she (Siklebaum, for short) have promoted in London, Warsaw and Washington, lost the big money backing it drew in 2013. The Applebaum loss […]

by Editor - Wednesday, May 27th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow In the royal courts of olden times, the king’s favourite was showered with rewards for making the king happy, not for making the court or country happy with the king. PR was not what Barbara de Villiers did for Charles II, nor Madame de Pompadour for Louis XV. At United Company […]

by Editor - Tuesday, May 26th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The old saw about how to make a small fortune can be adapted in Vitaly Mashitsky’s case, but you must still start with a large fortune — he’ll take care of the rest. In a surprise to the amber industry of Kaliningrad, where about 95% of the world’s supply of amber […]

by Editor - Monday, May 25th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow The largest retailers in Russia are achieving revenue and profit growth at the same time as Russian consumers are suffering from falling wages, higher prices, and loss of confidence, which has dwindled to lows not recorded for the past twenty years. How the expansion of the retail business is made possible […]

by Editor - Wednesday, May 20th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, would do almost anything to get and keep power. That, in the opinion of powerful German bankers, includes making herself look ready for war with Russia in order to make her political rival, Frank-Walter Steinmeier (lead image, right), the coalition Foreign Minister and opposition leader in […]

by Editor - Monday, May 18th, 2015
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