By John Helmer, Moscow

The Swedish Government’s decision that there is “still probable cause” for Julian Assange to be tried for a sexual offence committed against a sleeping woman nine years ago is a political gift to the British Government. London lawyers specializing in extradition cases say it is now up to Home Secretary Sajid Javid,  the British justice minister,  to decide whether the Swedish charge against Assange is more serious than the US charge of conspiracy to commit computer hacking, filed against Assange in London on April 11. That’s a political decision Prime Minister Theresa May will make, if she remains in power. It’s a move she is believed to have negotiated with the Swedes to avoid a judgement by British judges that American prosecutors are too prejudiced for Assange to get a fair trial in the US.    

 “When there are competing requests the Secretary of State [Javid] decides which request takes priority,” the source said. “There are various mandatory, though not exhaustive statutory considerations including when requests are received and the gravity of the allegations. Given the respective allegations, the potential time limitation issues in Sweden and the history of the matter I would anticipate that would be a strong factor weighing in favour of the Swedish request.”

Other sources believe extradition to Sweden offers Assange a better than even chance of acquittal on the Swedish charge. The sources also believe that resistance by the Swedish courts to US political pressure for extradition will be greater than Prime Minister May or the British courts want to show. (more…)

by Editor - Tuesday, May 14th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Not with a bang; almost without a whimper.

This is how the oil, real estate and banking empire of Yury Khotin (lead image, left) and his son Alexei Khotin (right) has ended. One of the two men — dubbed in 2015 the Тайнолигархи, the secret oligarchs because they kept their photographs out of public circulation and refused to answer press questions —  is now under house arrest in Moscow; their Yugra Bank is closed with capital deficiencies and liabilities of up to $4 billion; their principal oil company, Exillon Energy, has been suspended by the London Stock Exchange  since May 1.

A veteran state banker sees in this end for the Khotins a signal success of Central Bank regulators at warding off pressure from state officials for whom the Khotins have served as deposit-takers and money launderers. “The business of Yugra Bank was built on the pocket bank model to which the overwhelming majority of Russia’s privately-owned banks have adhered,” the source said. “Whatever resources become available are committed to related-party lending; that’s to say, the financing of the owners’  non-banking ventures in real estate, manufacturing, mining, etc. Nothing new — hundreds of banks have been organized that way.”

“The case of Yugra Bank once again illustrates how the institution of deposit insurance was misused and abused by unscrupulous bankers and depositors, alike. The bankers were attracting household deposits by high interest rates which they could not afford (they knew it), and probably did not intend paying. The depositors were eager to enjoy those unsustainably high interest rates because within the deposit insurance coverage limits (currently Rb 1.4 million [$21,000]) they could confidently expect a bailout by the state. The ability to raise huge amounts of private savings created a kind of ‘too big to fail’ situation.   At first the regulator did not want to sort it out simply because it lacked the capability to resolve all similar sized problem banks at once. But I doubt the Khotins, the former owners of Yugra, will be able to get away unscathed. The Deposit Insurance Agency has, over time, learned how to go after the assets of fugitive Russian bank scammers even in the world’s Number-1 Den of Thieves — by which I mean London.” (more…)

by Editor - Sunday, May 12th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The British author of a new biography of Richard Sorge (lead image, left), the Soviet spy hanged by the Japanese on November 7, 1944, disqualifies himself from being believed on the very first page of his book, and on the last.  

Sorge, reads the first line, “was a bad man who became a great spy.” On the last  page,  “Sorge was a flawed individual but an impeccable spy – brave,  brilliant, relentless. It was Sorge’s tragedy that his masters were venal cowards who placed their own careers before the vital interests  of the country that he laid down his life to serve.”

Owen Matthews (Russian family name Bibikov) reveals that after studying at Oxford University he worked as a journalist for The Moscow Times, the London Times, and The Economist. They are the well-known covers for US and British secret service employment in information warfare, as well as espionage. They aren’t credentials for understanding the history of Soviet intelligence before, during, or after World War II. Still, when a journalist like this one toes his proprietor’s and his secret service’s line, there is much that is revealing — about Matthews’ toes, and the Achilles Heel he and his masters display in this book. (more…)

by Editor - Thursday, May 9th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Every spring, when it’s certain no more snow will fall on Moscow, it helps to remember these things, and look forward with hope.    (more…)

by Editor - Tuesday, April 30th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

This is the Bangsamoro banana, and somebody is slipping on it.

On April 4 two young business partners, a Russian named Lev Dengov and a Turkmen, Merdan Gurbanov, with no known source of capital or past business record, signed an agreement to invest almost $600 million in the Bangsamoro region of the Philippines island of Mindanao. Their agreement commits them to creating one of the largest plantations on the island to grow bananas and pineapples for export;  the development of the regional  port of Polloc for storing and shipping the fruit; and the supply of Russian fertilizers to Filipino planters.

Presiding at the agreement signing was Emmanuel Piñol, the Agriculture Secretary and minister in charge in the Philippines Government. Two weeks later, Piñol publicized the extraordinary deal to the Russian press. Since then, however, he refuses to say how the deal was arranged; where the money will be coming from; and how the investment will be protected in an area which has been a battleground  between government forces and Islamic secession movements for the past fifty years.

Dengov and Gurbanov have also gone incommunicado, leaving behind them a trail of plans for corporate registrations around the world, a six-month old company on the register of UK Companies House;  and a prospectus for a $400 million investment in a self-service crypto-currency payment system in Russia and the CIS states.

Planters Products Incorporated (PPI), the Filipino fertilizer importer which signed in the deal with Piñol,  Dengov and Gurbanov, has cut off its telephone line; its executives don’t answer their emails.

Five of the leading banana importers to Russia, which source most of their fruit from Central and South America, won’t say what they know about the Bangsamoro Banana project, or even if they think a new scheme of importing bananas and pineapples from the Philippines might be commercially viable at any price. (more…)

by Editor - Sunday, April 28th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The Reuters news agency has published a retraction of an “exclusive” report on operations between the Venezuelan and Russian state oil companies, PDVSA and Rosneft, after disavowing the US-supplied source. Reuters has also acted after Rosneft applied for a criminal investigation of the media company’s operations in Russia by Moscow prosecutors.

The acknowledgment of misreporting has exposed evidence that Reuters’ reporters and bureaux in Caracas, Venezuela, Mexico City, Houston, London and Washington are routinely relaying disinformation supplied by US Government agents in their attempt to damage Venezuelan, Russian, Indian and Chinese operations in the international oil market.

According to a publication by Reuters issued on Tuesday, April 23 –  but made to appear to have been published on April 18 – the news agency has admitted it “could not determine” its earlier allegation that a “scheme uncovered by Reuters” was true. The new Reuters claim also disavows the charge that Rosneft was acting illegally with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) to bust US sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan company  in January;  and on Evrofinance Mosnarbank, a state bank, sanctioned on March 11. 

Now, Reuters says, “experts see no violation of sanctions.”  The “scheme uncovered by Reuters” reported on April 18 has been reprinted this week as a “new approach described to Reuters.”

The unprecedented retreat by Reuters followed a Rosneft press statement issued  on April 19. The company called the Reuters report an “outright lie…purposeful misinformation, legalization of rumours…invent[ed] information fabricated for the purpose of causing damage to the Russian economy, Russian companies, and the Russian state.” Welcoming the correction in Moscow, Rosneft calls it “an unprecedented admission that we were right in our evaluation of Reuters’ article.”  

International journalist sources express concern that the reputation and ability of Reuters to report internationally has been damaged by what they call the “Americanization” of the news agency. This is a reference to the editor in chief of Reuters, Stephen Adler, who is based in New York.

Reuters’ spokesmen in New York and in London have yet to clarify the sources of the now repudiated allegation. So far, they also refuse to correct an earlier Reuters “exclusive” with allegations against PDVSA and Rosneft, whose sources were also from Washington, and whose veracity was challenged at the time as propaganda for the US sanctions war against Venezuela and Russia. (more…)

by Editor - Wednesday, April 24th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Chrystia Freeland (lead picture, centre), the Ukrainian-Canadian who is Foreign Minister of Canada, was at a loss for words at the outcome of the Ukrainian presidential election on Sunday. Instead, she re-tweeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s statement. 

 “Canada and Ukraine are united by a strong relationship, rooted in close people-to-people ties,” Trudeau declared, referring to the mostly western Ukrainians – now numbering three million, ten percent of Canada’s population. They had sided with Adolph Hitler and the German Army in World War II; after their defeat they were accepted by Canada as refugees.  Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Michael Chomiak from a village near Lviv, had served in the German Army as a spy and as press editor and propagandist for the administration of Galicia, which then included both Ukrainian and Polish territory, headed by Governor-General Hans Frank (lead image, left).

“We are unwavering in our support of Ukraine’s sovereignty and our enduring commitment to the rules-based international order,” Trudeau announced, and Freeland re-tweeted  in a formula broad enough to accept terms with Russia to end the five-year war in the east of Ukraine.  “I look forward to working with President-elect Zelenskiy to deepen our relationship and build a more secure, more prosperous future for people in both our countries.”

The only region of Ukraine in which the majority did not vote for Vladimir Zelensky was Lviv region and adjoining areas of old Galicia. There, if Freeland, who has tried but failed to challenge Trudeau for the Canadian prime ministry, were to run for election, she would be the favourite to be President of Galicia. (more…)

by Editor - Monday, April 22nd, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

US prosecutors pursuing Julian Assange continue to add evidence for the British courts that they are concealing charges in a dummy indictment they intend to change as soon as Assange is extradited. This means the Americans are turning the Assange case for freedom of the press into a cause for British freedom from American domination.   

Read the legal issues at stake in this report.  Listen to today’s Gorilla Radio interview. (more…)

by Editor - Thursday, April 18th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

On April 16, 2019, the New York Times made a mistake. The newspaper acknowledged it swiftly, publishing a three-line correction. “Correction: April 16, 2019 – An earlier version of this article misstated the C.I.A. tenure of Nicholas Dujmovic. He served as an intelligence officer for 26 years, not 23.”

The mistake was in an unusually lengthy profile of the CIA Director Gina Haspel, written by an unusually large group of five journalists based on sources they claim to have been “more than a dozen current and former intelligence officials”.  The problem they identified in the relationship between President Donald Trump and Director Haspel (she was Deputy CIA Director, February 2, 2017 – May 21, 2018)  is that he doesn’t always believe what he’s been told. “Her voice,” the newspaper sums up, “is not always heeded. For all of Ms. Haspel’s ability to stay in Mr. Trump’s good graces, there is little evidence she has changed his mind on major issues…Unusually for a president, Mr. Trump has publicly rejected not only intelligence agencies’ analysis, but also the facts they have gathered. And that has created a perilous situation for the C.I.A.”

Miscounting an ex-agent’s career by three years is the only mistake the journalists and the newspaper’s management admit to making in their analysis of the facts Haspel presented to Trump, and of  the “perilous situation for the CIA” resulting from the president’s disbelief.

The newspaper editorializes through an ex-CIA analyst source in the final paragraph of the publication: “as [Haspel]  continues to present facts and analysis that differ from what the president wants to hear, especially on high-profile issues like Russia and North Korea, her influence will wane.”

The newspaper claims that in one case, in March of 2018, Haspel overcame Trump’s scepticism by presenting evidence that in the Skripal case, “Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia’s attack. Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives…Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong [sanctions] option.”

“The outcome was an example, officials said, of how Ms. Haspel is one of the few people who can get Mr. Trump to shift position based on new information.”

The problem is obvious. The “new information” – dead ducks, sickened young children in hospital, British Government photographs – was false and the photographs faked.  Haspel knew before she presented to Trump. She then lied to Trump.

The five reporters – Julian Barnes, Adam Goldman, Eric Schmitt, Michael Schmidt, Matthew Rosenberg – did not check the details. Questioned since their publication, they will not clarify what they reported as true. The newspaper management refuses to publish a correction. (more…)

by Editor - Wednesday, April 17th, 2019
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Emmanuel Macron does not recognize that he has been elected to be the president of a secular state.

France, according to Article One of the French Constitution,  is “ a Republic indivisible, secular (laïque),  democratic and social.”

Though he often mistakes the same constitutional point, Vladimir Putin made no mistake when he sent his message of condolence to Macron on the catastrophic fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral this week. (more…)

by Editor - Tuesday, April 16th, 2019
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