By John Helmer in Moscow

Two chickens were lying side by side in the refrigerator case of a Moscow shop in the Soviet year of 1988. One, American, was plump and cheerful; the other, Russian, was scrawny and sarcastic. “I’m so much fitter than you,” said the American to the Russian. “Well, at least I died of natural causes,” replied the Russian.

Not funny any more, and no more jokes like that. Today, if the American chicken is to be allowed into the Moscow shop, he will be obliged to pass a medical test which the local poultry has already passed with flying colours. Pigs, too.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
No Comments »

Si, si, pur troppo e vero: nel temerario volo
Molti gl’Ícari son, Dedalo un solo

Voli per l’aria chi puo volare
Scorra veloce la terra, il mare,
Parta, ritorni, ne fermi il pie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnFMm1-_9ew

by John Helmer - Friday, March 5th, 2010
No Comments »

The Koukidis Option

On April 27, 1941, Konstantinos Koukidis was the Greek Evzone on flag-guard duty at the Acropolis, when the German invaders arrived. When a German officer ordered Koukidis to surrender, give up the Greek flag, and raise the German flag in its place, Koukidis took the Greek flag down, wrapped it around his body, and jumped from the Acropolis rock to his death.

(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 4th, 2010
No Comments »

на постановление об отказе в возбуждении уголовного дела

Translation from Russian
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, March 4th, 2010
No Comments »

Picture-1 – see how the price of aluminium metal is rising on the US exchanges
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

In the junior goldmining business, hope springs eternal. So naturally it did, when GV Gold, the Irkutsk-based junior goldminer controlled by Sergei Dokuchayev, went before a recent Moscow miners’ beauty contest to announce a new share issue bid. Maxim Gorlachev, head of corporate development, told the Adam Smith Institute metals conference in Moscow that “an IPO is one of the options we are considering in order to fund growth.” The target for fund raising is $300 million, he said, in order to lift the volume of current gold produced from 111,000 troy ounces to four times that amount, 438,000 oz., in another four years. The shares might be listed and sold in Hong Kong, London, Moscow or Toronto, Gorlachev is also reported to have said.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Negotiations under way between Russian gas exporter Gazprom and Romania may result in a dramatic shift in the routing of the South Stream gas pipeline under the Black Sea, and in current relations between the Russian and Bulgarian governments, Bulgarian officials have told Fairplay.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, March 1st, 2010
No Comments »

Before modernization

(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 25th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

In the long history of collapsing empires, there is a golden rule. If and when the outflow of wealth to the foreign concessions or colonies exceeds the wealth that flows back to Empire HQ, the empire is on its last legs.

There is one modification of this rule; it’s for empires which export armies and war-making machines. These empires can go on losing wars abroad almost indefinitely, so long as the generals and the captains can finance their campaigns from their conquests, and don’t think of returning to replace those in charge at home. These are the warlord empires. They export the wherewithal for the establishment of new warlords in novel places almost constantly. Losing wars can be just as profitable for them as winning them, so long as they keep alive and keep moving; and their targets stay in fear and trembling.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, February 25th, 2010
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

When the Kremlin decides to privatize strategic resource assets, it makes a habit of quietly arranging the buyers in advance. Although such privatizations are always announced as serving the requirement of the state treasury to maximize the asset value and take in the largest amount of cash possible for the newly issued shares, this usually doesn’t happen. The loans-for-shares schemes, which delivered Russia’s most important oil and mining companies into half a dozen oligarch hands in the mid-1990s, is a notorious example. More recent attempts by the Kremlin at genuine auctions of mineral resources have embarrassingly caused the asset prices to go higher than the winning buyers, oligarch-sized though they may be, can afford to pay for, and then develop. Since the crash of 2008 this has produced another round of government financial bailouts for the resource-holding oligarchs, although this time the instruments — state purchases of bonds, state bank loans and share purchases, guarantees, tax relief — have looked less corrupt.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
No Comments »