By John Helmer, Moscow Pug dogs don’t live long. It’s because they lack proper noses, so they suffer from difficulties breathing in and out. That accounts for what everyone meeting a pug knows – they make a lot of noise trying to breathe. Less well known is that while pugs hiss, snuffle, and snore, their […]

by Editor - Thursday, July 28th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow On August 9, in St. Petersburg, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will meet Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The moment is revolutionary. There has not been a comparable political turning-point in the 67 years since the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); not in the century since the Ottoman Empire […]

by Editor - Tuesday, July 26th, 2016
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Statement by IOC Communications Director Gerry Rice on the Managing Director’s Urine Sample July 22, 2016 In response to press queries, Mr. Gerry Rice, Director of Communications at the International Olympics Committee (IOC), made the following statement today relating to the Managing Director’s urine test in France: “As we have said before, it would not […]

by Editor - Sunday, July 24th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow As war and economic recession eat into their incomes, Russians are making fewer trips to restaurants and cafes. But because the tab is smaller, fast-drinks vendors are taking a larger share of the retail market than fast food. That ought to be good for Shokoladnitsa, Russia’s leading chain of hot-drinks and […]

by Editor - Tuesday, July 19th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow At the end of this month the Irish High Court in Dublin will consider an application for the arrest of Cyprus President Nikos Anastasiades’s (lead image, left) law partner, Theofanis Philippou, and for an order to disclose company documents produced by them both on behalf of their client, the fugitive Russian […]

by Editor - Wednesday, July 13th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow Radosław Sikorski (lead image, left), the ex-foreign minister of Poland, ousted Speaker of the Polish Sejm (parliament), and premature retiree from the Bydgoszcz constituency, doesn’t speak his mind so much as his interest. So why has he announced he is now in favour of leaving Crimea in Russia; a separate peace […]

by Editor - Wednesday, July 6th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow A week ago, Russia’s leading retailer of shoes, TsentrObuv (“Shoe Center”), was taken to the Moscow Arbitrazh Court by 99 plaintiffs, the largest group of creditors ever recorded against an insolvent business of TsentrObuv’s size and national name recognition. This is only the most recent claim to be filed against TsentrObuv […]

by Editor - Tuesday, June 28th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow In countries where sugar is grown as a consumer staple or for export, the stuff is proverbially blamed for the temptation to exaggerate and to steal. In Madagascar, they say “truth is like sugar cane. Even if you chew it for a long time, it is still sweet.” But in Malawi, […]

by Editor - Thursday, June 23rd, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow Between August 9 and 12, 1941, taking their battleships in turn to meet in a Canadian bay, US President Franklin Roosevelt (centre, left) and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (centre, right) discussed what to do about their adversaries at the time, Germany and Japan. Roosevelt had whispered, and Churchill later reporting […]

by Editor - Sunday, June 19th, 2016
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By John Helmer, Moscow An Australian coroner and a firm of Sydney, Australia, lawyers have taken the global lead in fabricating criminal charges and billion-dollar compensation claims for the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 — without producing evidence. Michael Barnes (lead image), a former tabloid journalist and now coroner for the state of New […]

by Editor - Tuesday, May 24th, 2016
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