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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 Junior, has dropped all charges. He has requested and obtained dismissal of the indictment of Strauss-Kahn, and impugned the credibility of the chamber-maid charging Strauss-Kahn on almost every claim published in the case.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
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Marshal Sergei Fyodorovich Akhromeyev
“Everything I have worked for throughout my life is being destroyed.”
— August 24, 1991
by John Helmer - Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
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Soooo! much choice
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by John Helmer - Friday, August 5th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow
One thing isn’t clear about this story, and that’s whether the dog is old, and the trick is new, or vice versa. Another thing isn’t clear – and that’s whether there are any dogs at all in this story, from the point of view of a public prosecutor.
The tale concerns a piece of Moscow real estate which once belonged to the great state of Hungary, and which, despite its notorious, ancient and current hostility towards the great state of Russia, sold the asset to the federal government for the Ministry of Regional Development — at a price far below what the most implacable Russian-hating Hungarian would consider to be fair value.
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by John Helmer - Friday, August 5th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Among the Russian steel oligarchs, none is better educated in his specialty than Vladimir Lisin, who wrote his PhD thesis on metallurgical engineering and another doctoral thesis for a DSc in economics. But you don’t have to put that much study under your belt to understand how an electric arc furnace makes new steel out of melted scrap.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow
President Boris Yeltsin presided over the greatest slaughter of Russian livestock since Adolf Hitler crossed the Soviet frontier in the summer of 1941. In the five years between 1992 and 1997 19.6 million head of cattle were killed. That compares with 2 million killed during Hitler’s initial invasion, and 16.6 million culled during Stalin’s collectivization experiments in the decade before the war.
Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) was another of Yeltsin’s ideas – and with much the same purpose. If implemented, that idea would make Russia dependent on imports of foodstuffs and just about everything else the exporting countries would like to sell against their Russian rivals, after the latter were to give up their competitive price advantages, such as cheap energy, cheap land, cheap transportation, cheap fertilizer, etc. So, if Russia were a democracy, the WTO terms of accession for Russia – now 18 years in the negotiation – wouldn’t have a chance of acceptance.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK), owned by Victor Rashnikov (left image), released its second-quarter operational report today, several days behind schedule. The report confirms the Russia-wide trend, already reported here, of cutbacks by the steelmaker for most types of its domestic production.
The news may be awkward for Rashnikov, because a fortnight ago he assured Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that he was producing more steel, especially auto steel sheet, to feed growing Russian demand; because the only obvious sign of growth in production at Rashnikov’s enterprises is not at home in Russia, but across the water in Turkey; and finally, because Rashnikov’s balance-sheet is going to show that he’s making more profit on less production by driving Russian steel prices upward.
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by John Helmer - Friday, July 29th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow
Alrosa, Russia’s near-monopoly diamond miner, is for the third year running the world’s largest diamond miner.
The good news appears in a brief summary report issued by the company this week. Production by Alrosa in the six months to June 30, this year, comes to 19 million carats. That compares with 15.5 million carats attributed from De Beers; 5.2 million carats from Rio Tinto; and just 1.1 million carats from BHP Billiton. De Beers managed to stay even with its mine result for the same period in 2010, but Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton are reporting that their mine results are dwindling. On the face of it, Alrosa is not only producing 8% more diamonds by volume this year, compared to 2010; it is also widening its lead over its international rivals.
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by John Helmer - Friday, July 29th, 2011
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By John Helmer, Moscow
It’s almost August, the month when everyone knows that serious coincidences can happen in Russia – and I’m not talking about the lunar cycle or Ramadan.
In election years, the prevention of coincidences has always been Kremlin Priority Number-One. This year that’s tempered by President Dmitry Medvedev’s concern that nothing coincidental happens to his re-election campaign. And in Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s White House, it is plain that reassuring Russian workers of their job security and income against negative coincidence is also a priority effort.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, July 28th, 2011
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