By John Helmer in Moscow

The US has responded with a powerful SOS for reporters, setting in motion a model for similar protections worldwide. SOS stands for Sod Off Schillings.

The new American legislation will make it impossible for practical purposes for Russians to attack American reporting of their activities by suing them or their newspapers in London. Russian businessmen who have made use of the London courts in this fashion include Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Alisher Usmanov, Roman Abramovich, Sergei Frank, Gennady Timchenko, Sergei Generalov, Alexander Lebedev, Nikolai Gluchkov, Boris Berezovsky, and Oleg Deripaska. The London-based law firm of Schillings has made a great deal of money issuing threats to stop publication of investigations of the likes of them.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

According to the Chinese tradition, the original Budai (aka Laughing Buddha) was an eccentric Zen Buddhist monk. He lived in the Fenghua province during the Late Liang Dynasty in the first years of the 10th century. His name translates into English as “Promise this”.
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by John Helmer - Monday, September 20th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

It hasn’t been a golden autumn for Peter Hambro (Petro) and Pavel Maslovsky (Pavlovsk) or their London Stock Exchange mining play, Petropavlovsk plc.

First, there was a problem with falling production – and falling share price. Then there was the refusal by the Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing committee to approve the application to spin off the iron-ore and titanium assets and sell shares of their new company called IRC Limited.
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by John Helmer - Monday, September 20th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The west African republic of Guinea has never before been so important to Russian mining companies – and to the even bigger internationals. So when Guinean voters go to the polls for the runoff round of their presidential election, much is at stake – and not only for our Russian champions, Oleg Deripaska and Alexei Mordashov.
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by John Helmer - Friday, September 17th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Evraz, the most heavily indebted of Russian steelmakers, is signaling that it is about to sell a US subsidiary producing the valuable steel alloy ingredient, vanadium. But the signs are that there is no intention on the part of the controlling shareholders of Evraz – Roman Abramovich, Eugene Shvidler, and Alexander Abramov – to toss the vanadium baby out with the bathwater. The idea apparently is to take the company off the Evraz books, making the profit and loss accounts look better for banks and share markets, but keeping control of the vanadium by selling the company to a shareholder – for the time being.
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by John Helmer - Friday, September 17th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Victor Vekselberg, the chairman of the board of UC Rusal, went on trial in the Federal Penal Tribunal of Switzerland this week, charged with sharemarket violations, and facing a fine of 40 million Swiss francs ($40 million). That, according to the report of Le Temps today (see illustration), is the largest fine ever imposed by the Swiss authorities for stockmarket abuse.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, September 16th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s ports used to be run by gangsters, because it was one of the easier assets in post-Communist Russia to control by simple violence. The history of the International Longshoremen in the US and Jimmy Hoffa’s Teamsters make this feature of port life unexceptional the world over.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, September 16th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Endeavour Financial Corporation, a Cayman Island goldmine investment fund, announced on Monday that it has found buried treasure in a surprising place — in Alexei Mordashov’s pocket.

The fund, which is listed in Canada and controlled by Frank Giustra, has announced that it had sold out its 43% shareholding in Crew Gold — a junior goldminer with a sole producing mine in the west African republic of Guinea — for a cash payment of $215 million. Since Endeavour Financial had paid just $134.5 million when it started buying its stake in January, and then fought Mordashov for shareholding control in the company, Mordashov’s purchase has given Endeavour Financial a profit of $81.5 million in just eight months – a 124% rate of return on an annual basis.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

This is the year that makes five hundred since Filofei, a very clever monk of Pskov, wrote an appeal to the ambition of Vasily III, Grand Duke of Muscovy, letting him know that if he played his cards right with the Church, the Church would take care of him better than it had managed in faithless Constantinople. “Now two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and the fourth there shall never be… No one will replace your Christian Tsardom”, Filofei wrote in either of three letters, or in all three, starting in 1510; or possibly in 1525; or possibly later.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Until the Beest of Fleet Street – aka Richard Beeston, Foreign Editor of the London Times – referred to President Dmitry Medvedev as Vladimir Putin’s “diminutive partner”, none of the establishment media in the world had thought to make an issue of the physical size and proportions of either of Russia’s current rulers.
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by John Helmer - Monday, September 13th, 2010
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