By John Helmer in Moscow The St. Petersburg fight over port terminal andshipping assets has taken a muscular turn, as police raiders, acting at the behest of Bank St. Petersburg, appear to be grabbing assets worth more than a bank valuation allows, and despite a court order invalidating the seizure. Vitaly Arkhangelsky’s Oslo Marine Group […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow The reason for an unexpected Chinese advertisement for a billion-dollar iron-ore and steel complex in a remote part of Siberia became clear in Moscow today. It reveals that, starved for cash as most Russian metal and mining companies currently are, they aren’t yet prepared to let the Chinese build competing […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, has named a bed in his Roman home, Palazzo Grazioli, after the Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin, according to a conversation Berlusconi had last November with a young lady he was inviting to join him in the bed. The bed itself is […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Court documents and testimony, presented recently in the Colorado District Сourt in Denver, expose substantial new evidence that LUKoil has operated a significant business in the state. The new evidence, secret until now, stretches back for ten years, and shows a flow of cash every month from an alleged front […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 20th, 2009
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Visit The Cat’s Paw Page here.

by John Helmer - Sunday, July 19th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow The President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, said Friday his country is interested in diversifying gas export routes, and will participate in the Nabucco project. His statement came ahead of the signing on Monday of an intergovernmental agreement between Austria, Turkey, Hungary, and Romania to build the 3,300-km pipeline across their […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 13th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Regional mining officials in Kemerovo and the regional coalminers’ union say that ArcelorMittal had already begun closing down two coalmines and dismissing miners, before the Kemerovo region’s governor, Aman Tuleyev (picture left), issued an ultimatum to stop last Friday. If the charges cannot be resolved in negotiations this week, the […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 13th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow After months of bluster, denials that his job was under threat, and attempts to intimidate reporting with phantom lawsuits, Sergei Vybornov has issued a lengthy interview to a Moscow reporter, in which he intimates that his ouster — made official by the Alrosa board last Friday — was the result […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 13th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow Fyodor Andreev (also spelled Andreyev — see picture) is the new chief executive officer of Alrosa, the state owned Russian diamond miner, and will take up his functions this week, a high company source told PolishedPrices.com today. It turns out that Alrosa’s CEO has a seat on the company’s Supervisory […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, July 12th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow This is the strange tale of a mining company which noone admits to owning, at least not in the fareastern Primorsk region of Russia, where it is the principal source of work and income, not to mention cancer exposure, for the village of Svetlogorye (“Clear Mountain”, population 700); and where, […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 10th, 2009
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