By John Helmer, Moscow

This morning Signor Enzo Caderni, the Director of the Grand Hotel & Pace Spa at Montecatini Terme, a well-known establishment in the Tuscan mineral waters resort, has confirmed that the wife of the outgoing president of Russia, Svetlana Medvedeva , has taken his hotel for a personal visit. The entire hotel, but not all of its 140 rooms.

Details of her stay appeared first in the Italian newspapers, then in the Russian media. Since the hotel is currently closed for its seasonal break, and will not reopen to regular guests until March 23, it’s possible that the First Lady’s party will benefit from a substantial discount for their accommodation. Otherwise, her presidential suite would cost about €600 per night, and the full complement of connecting or accompanying rooms and suites about €12,000 per night, not counting nourishment, treatment, water, etc.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When British prime ministers borrow horses to ride from Rupert Murdoch’s employees, and Scotland Yard inspectors are entertained on their tab, it has been natural for Murdoch to expect he could tie a bridle on prime ministers and policemen and lead them in whatever direction he wanted. And so he has.

Still, the bribery, invasion of privacy, perversion of justice, and corruption troubles which Murdoch and at least one son, James Murdoch, are in at the moment in London show signs of being remedied at a price Murdoch can afford to pay.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 6th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

For three years, between 2008 and 2010, Rupert Murdoch and his subordinates in charge of the Russian asset he owned, News Outdoor Russia (NOR), were under the investigation of the Moscow city prosecutors, the city Duma, and other government agencies for alleged bribery of municipal officials in exchange for business favours.

NOR’s business was erecting billboards in public space on city or state property, and advertising products to passers-by. The less NOR managed to pay in rent for the land and permissions on which the billboards depended, the more profit Murdoch took from the advertising charge. Maybe Murdoch shared his profits with city officials, maybe he didn’t – that was the crux of the corruption enquiries.
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by John Helmer - Monday, March 5th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Russia is big, so when people make mistakes about Russia, they make big ones.

Take this one, for example, by the self-proclaimed genius of the opposite of investigative journalism – advertising. Asked if he planned to open one of his international ad agency offices in Russia, David Ogilvy responded: “what are we going to sell? Fur hats!”

There’s no permanent damage to reputation in making mistakes if you can recognize them later on, acknowledge them, learn from them. It also stands to reason that the bigger the mistake, the bigger the concession, and maybe the more valuable the lesson.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, March 4th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Does the Russian vodka lobby fear or hate beer so much, it’s thought up a devious customs regulation to make the latter more expensive, and thus less drinkable among penniless Russians? And are the vodka schemers so devious, they have hidden their intention by introducing the customs regulation in the guise of standardizing (harmonizing is the bureaucrats’ term) the different customs rules of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, which together comprise a single customs union these days?
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by John Helmer - Friday, March 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

It isn’t known whether Alexei Mordashov is religious enough to have studied the Proverbs section of the Old Testament. But as a guide to mining in Africa, he ought to have read this one: “Whoever digs a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolls a stone, it will return on him.”

The reason this might have occurred to Mordashov and his Severstal mining division is that the pit he dug for himself in the Republic of Guinea at the LEFA goldmining concession, he is now about to fall into at the Putu iron-ore project in Liberia.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, March 1st, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

There once was a young man called Marko Papic (centre), living in Austin, Texas. Each morning he went to work at a desk paid for by an older man named George Friedman (right), the owner of a company called Stratfor. That was a money-for-secrets scheme hatched by Friedman and his friends (left) in the US Government.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, February 28th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

When the archaeologists of the next millennium excavate, they will find the evidence of a tectonic shift and turning-point in Russian history that took place in the two months between December 28 and February 25. That’s from the day Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed government order number VP-P13-9308, and instructed Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin to supervise compliance; to the day when Alexei Navalny listed the most powerful oligarchs in the country (Switzerland too) as the target of the political opposition — after Putin wins the presidential election.

Navalny’s speech at last Saturday’s St. Petersburg rally marks the first time the oligarch system, and the oligarchs as individuals rather than Putin, have been made the public focus of the opposition movements. Navalny himself named the lines of business to identify the individuals, though he didn’t name names.
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by John Helmer - Monday, February 27th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Eating sheep’s balls is an acquired taste, though if you’re from the Caucasus or Azerbaijan, the taste comes with your mother’s milk, so to speak. If you are an Australian politician, complaining in public that someone else is biting yours is an everyday thing.

Australia has always been sensitive below its belt, where the colonial and imperial powers – Great Britain, the United States, Japan (briefly), and China for the next millennium – like to keep a tight grip. The former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has a hands-on relationship with China, too – his brother Greg operates a fortune cookie business in Beijing. That hasn’t inhibited Kevin from promising Washington he is ready to go to war with China if the US Government thinks that’s a good thing.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow

I know, I know. It’s old fashioned to regard the celebration of February 23 as Red Army Day. And for all the awards heaped on my head for defending the Fatherland from its enemies, foreign and domestic, on this anniversary I plead paucity of means, and defer to those who have recently written to the Prime Minister promising to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in the Fatherland’s furthest reaches – the Arctic seabed, no less. Even when they are so severely wounded financially that they lack the money to honour their promises, I honour their intentions.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
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