MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) — Doveryai, no proveryai. It’s a hoary Russian maxim, meaning “trust but verify.” US President Ronald Reagan often used it, never managing to get the pronunciation right, during his scripted appearances with Mikhail Gorbachev, then the leader of the Soviet Union. It was Reagan’s way of convincing the diehards at home that even […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, June 1st, 2004
No Comments »

It takes times of despotism, when the best and brightest of a country’s elite are obliged to fawn, flatter, and commit crimes to make their fortunes, that a sensitive man discovers that virtues are usually only vices in disguise. At any rate, that’s what La Rochefoucauld – ducal courtier, failed plotter, brilliant aphorist in the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, November 20th, 2003
No Comments »

Oleg Deripaska, chief executive of Russian Aluminum (RusAI), Russia’s largest aluminum producer, and head of Basic Element, which holds his investments in other sectors of the Russian economy, has been feeling maligned for a long time now. A two-year-old lawsuit by smelting rival Mikhail Zhivilo in New York accusing Deripaska and his associates of using […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 14th, 2003
No Comments »

A word about the common, green, wrongly maligned toad. “Don’t play with the toad,” French mothers used to warn their children, “because if he pees in your eye, you will become blind”. The youngsters might have been forgiven for not knowing what to do, because the appearance of the ugly creature was also said to […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, August 10th, 2003
No Comments »

Never apologize, never explain. Charles de Gaulle, the French leader, made this a tactic – which many lesser, and less popular, politicians than he have followed; but none as successfully as de Gaulle. Richard Nixon tried it, for example, when he was guilty of the minor crime of spying on his opposition. The tactic became […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, March 2nd, 2003
No Comments »