By John Helmer, Moscow Turning modestly paid public office into extravagant personal wealth isn’t provably criminal, particularly not if there’s a decent interval of time between performing the first and scoring the second. It may be indecent for elected politicians or officials on the taxpayer’s payroll to intend to turn the one into the other. […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow In this thriller the evil genius (EG) is, for once, not a Russian oligarch, Kremlin grandee, Russian computer hacker – not even a Moscow muzhik trained to use Facebook and Twitter to make or join flash mobs.

by John Helmer - Sunday, January 15th, 2012
No Comments »

ERIC KRAUS & ALEXANDER TEDDY krausmoscow@yahoo.com DESK NOTE 12 DECEMBER 2011 Russian Facebook Protest – A Field of Dreams

by John Helmer - Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow On November 29, following up Russian media reports and after an investigation lasting a week, the Moscow Times published the following article, which speaks for itself. A week later, on December 7, the newspaper’s editor, Andrew McChesney, sent this letter:

by John Helmer - Saturday, December 10th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The last time Russia’s leadership assembled to listen to a piece of classical music was seventy-five years ago. It was on January 26, 1936, that Josef Stalin and the entire Politburo were at the Bolshoi Theatre to hear Dmitry Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Stalin was seen not to like […]

by John Helmer - Friday, September 9th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Just over three months after an incident at the Sofitel Hotel, at 45 West 44th Street, New York, resulted in the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the transformation of the French presidential election race, not to mention the management of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the New York City prosecutor, Cyrus Vance […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Russia, it turns out, has the only government in the world able and willing to do real damage to Rupert Murdoch – and throw him out. While the UK and US governments hold their breaths as squads of policemen poke through the Murdoch media files to find evidence of corrupt entertainments […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 22nd, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Naivety is not what the British establishment can ever be accused of. Certainly never towards Rupert Murdoch, whose British nickname has been the Dirty Digger — a reference to his business practices and to his Australian nationality. So yesterday in the House of Commons, when the Conservative Party and Labor Party […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 7th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund (IMF) often invoked its sovereign immunity to rape Russia’s governing institutions, including the Central Bank and the Supreme Soviet, in the years of collapse following the end of the Soviet Union. Michel Camdessus, a Frenchman, was the culprit then, instructed by the principal shareholders on the Fund […]

by John Helmer - Monday, May 16th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow If Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine and internet portal, tells potential share buyers and investors that it is at risk of a hostile takeover by a man like Alisher Usmanov, who owns a stake in the competing Mail.ru portal, then the charge is a serious one. And if to that, Yandex […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
No Comments »