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by John Helmer - Friday, November 6th, 2009
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by John Helmer - Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

There is no evidence currently available that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin has anything like the hot-line to God which enabled Noah of biblical fame to master the surge of the Black Sea, and with the help of the birdie — the first spy satellite on record – to make it safely to land.

What is known about Noah’s Black Sea strategy has been the subject of controversy among believers for several thousand years. More interestingly, since 1997, academics have speculated that during the glacial meltdown between about 15,000 BC and 5,000 BC, the Black Sea level dropped below the level of the Aegean and Mediterranean, causing a surge northward through the Bosphorus. The surge, according to one geological report, was a big one – 200 times the volume over Niagara Falls, each day for 300 days.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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The bad old days – 1917

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by John Helmer - Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

High River Gold (HRG:CN) is being prepared for a sale, along with other goldmine assets of the Severstal Resources group belonging to Alexei Mordashov, to a Chinese buyer.

At least, that is what Moscow sources report as the rationale behind a proposed swap of equity for loan, announced by HRG and the Troika Dialog-Standard Bank group last week. This proposal has drawn immediate opposition from independent minority investors in HRG, who have complained to the Toronto Stock Exchange that the transaction is a sweetheart deal at an advantageously low price for the new shareholder.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Russia’s state-aid agent for struggling shipyards, the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), is to have another chief executive after the current one, Alexander Buzakov (right figure), was ordered out by the chairman of USC’s board, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin (left figure).

A newspaper leak, published in Moscow on Monday, reporting that Buzakov had aroused Sechin’s ire, without identifying the cause, has mystified St. Petersburg shipyard sources. One told Fairplay that poor financial control may be one of the reasons. Another suggested that the new holding is unwieldy, and impossible to put on a sound financial footing. The shipyard union in Kaliningrad and a St. Peterrsburg shiping expert say they believe Buzakov is being scapegoated for trying to halt the diversion of state cash through the corporation.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

On June 16, 1858, in Springfield, Illinois, the young Abraham Lincoln launched his campaign for a seat in the US Senate for Illinois, with a speech that became famous for these words: “In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” Lincoln was defeated in the election by the incumbent, Stephen Douglas.

According to anonymous government sources reported by the Wall Street Journal, in August and again in early October of this year, the Obama Administration has decided to allow Oleg Deripaska, the controlling shareholder of United Company Rusal and Russia’s most indebted man, to enter the US, without an approved visa and without public disclosure – at least until now. The US State Department appears from the newspaper report either to have been unaware of, or to have opposed, Deripaska’s entry, which has been barred twice; most recently since 2006. The following US organs reportedly favoured giving Deripaska what the newspaper calls a “limited-entry permit” – the FBI, the US Department of Homeland Security, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and General Motors.
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by John Helmer - Friday, October 30th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

Alrosa’s new management, headed by Fyodor Andreyev (right picture), has announced this month that, despite one of the worst years on record for global diamond demand, the Russian company expects to sell roughly the same dollar value of diamonds this year as last, and to earn a bottom-line profit as well.

The announcements of the projected financial results have been posted by dead-drop on wire services or internet sites. Andreyev has yet to answer direct questions from the industry media since he took over the company in July. His spokesman, Andrei Polyakov, does not respond to calls.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

One celebration drink too many in Bar Vogue, in downtown Almaty, has turned out to leave a very bad taste for lawyers advising hard-rock mining and oil project start-ups in Kazakhstan.

In a 216-page judgement issued this month, after three years of litigation across half the globe, a group of Australian lawyers was found guilty of stealing clients from their employer, the Kazakhstan-based law firm of Michael Wilson (see left image) & Partners (MWP). The judge, Clifford Einstein, presiding in the New South Wales Supreme Court, ruled on October 6 that John Emmott, Robert Nicholls, and David Slater had conspired together to exploit their positions in MWP to breach their employment contracts and fiduciary duties to MWP by secretly creating a competing firm of their own, Temujin International, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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By John Helmer in Moscow

The Far Eastern Shipping Company (Fesco), owned and run by Sergei Generalov, Russia’s largest dry-shipping operator, is to receive a state guarantee for loan repayments of Rb1.5 billion ($52 million), and will apply this to a loan of Rb2.5 billion ($86 million), which is being finalized this month with state bank, VTB.

The decision to award the guarantee was made by a unit of the federal Ministry of Economic Development yesterday, and confirmed by Fesco and Moscow brokers. Separately, Fesco’s railway subsidiary, Transgarant, has received a Rb1.45 billion ($50 million) loan, also from VTB, secured by its railcar fleet. The publicly listed Fesco is the first in Russia’s shipping sector to get a public bailout from the Kremlin.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, October 29th, 2009
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