We interrupt this news bulletin to bring
you a broadcast from Captain Obvious
on location live above the Kremlin
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by John Helmer - Monday, April 12th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

A senior Russian industry ministry official has come to the defence of domestic steelmakers, warning that an attempt to roll back or penalize their recent price increases could lead to the ultimate bogeyman — a flood of cheap Chinese-made steel into the Russian market. Andrey Dementiev, a Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, made a public statement, reported Thursday by Reuters, that if a price-rigging investigation now under way by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) leads to sanctions against the steelmakers for lifting their prices, “it is possible that we would choke the metallurgists to death, but in such a case, we will have to use Chinese steel. Today, internal prices are in any case lower, but it is not possible to support them artificially.”
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by John Helmer - Friday, April 9th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has requested that the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) open an investigation of price rigging in the domestic sale of steel products. It is the first direct intervention by the prime minister against the profit-taking by oligarch-owned companies since August of 2008, when his last, if temporary victim was Igor Zyuzin, owner of the Mechel steel and mining group.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
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In 1855, the English photographer Roger Fenton took these photographs of what the invading British Army called Cossack Bay, at Balaclava, during the Crimean War (in Russian, the Oriental War).

By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin reported a huge number last month, which, if true, would mean that Russian shipbuilding is booming, and the yards will be full to overflowing for the decade to come.
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by Editor - Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

If Alexei Mordashov (right figure), owner of the Severstal steelmaking and mining group, has genuinely decided to let the stock markets lift the share value of High River Gold (ticker HRG:CN), then delaying the public release of the company’s financials and blaming the auditor are a funny way of going about it.

But then according to insiders at Severstal Resources – the mining division which owns the majority stake in HRG – Mordashov is preoccupied at the moment with another problem. That is the resistance he and his men are facing, but failed to anticipate, for their attempt at taking over another goldmining property, Crew Gold, owned until recently by Jens Ulltveit-Moe (Tweety, left figure). With Crew, Mordashov is at risk of getting stuck up the high river without his paddle.
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by John Helmer - Monday, April 5th, 2010
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September 24, 1950-April 3, 1988

by John Helmer - Friday, April 2nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The Evraz Group, Russia largest steelmaker, has started a $440 million project to reconstruct the Novokuznetsk Metallurgical Combine (NKMK) mill to produce 25-metre and 100-metre rails for high-speed railway lines being built in Russia.

A company announcement says the new mill at Novokuznetsk city, in the Kemerovo region, will be commissioned in 2012, and will have production capacity for about one million tonnes of high-speed rails, including 450,000 tonnes of the 100-m type. At present, this type is not produced in Russia. According to Evraz, reconstruction of NKMK will involve a new automatic rail-rolling line, as well as rail hardening and straightening equipment to bring the product up to the quality standard of imports.
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by John Helmer - Friday, April 2nd, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow

China has joined an English peer, a Bush Administration retiree, and a special Kremlin envoy in the attempt to persuade or pressure the Guinean Government into halting its court proceedings and fraud and tax audits of international mining companies, and restore concession rights, corruptly acquired, to Guinea’s resource treasure. At stake for China is access for Chinalco, the state-owned metals and mining company, to the Simandou iron-ore concession — one of the largest unmined reserves of iron-ore in the world.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
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By John Helmer in Moscow and Conakry

Alexey Vasiliev, a Russian professor specializing in the history of Saudi Arabia, flew to the west African republic of Guinea last week in a bid to lobby the Guinean Prime Minister, Jean-Marie Dore, on behalf of United Company Rusal, the bauxite and alumina producer in Guinea. Rusal is the largest Russian company currently operating in Africa.

Vasiliev’s mission was also to make it appear that the Kremlin wants Guinea to take its teeth out of Rusal, whose mines and an alumina refinery in Guinea are under threat of licence revocation, and of a billion-dollar damages claim currently being prepared by Guinean government auditors and international experts.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
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March 30, 2010

Stephanie Baker and Yuriy Humber for the athletic feat of reporting Mikhail Prokhorov’s all-win business career without detecting a single foul, penalty, or loss.

Link: http://johnhelmer.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Mikhail-Prokhorov-May-2010.pdf
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
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