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By John Helmer, Moscow Alrosa has been attempting to boost its share price, following the start to regular share trading on the Moscow MICEX exchange at the beginning of this month. On December 13, the company released a forecast for next year of rising mine volumes and higher revenues and profits. But four days earlier, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Shipments of Norwegian salmon and trout to Russia, the biggest global consumer of Norwegian fish, have been illegally restricted by the Russian government veterinary and phyto-sanitary inspectorate, Rosselkhozdnadzor (RSKN), according to a report by the government’s competition watchdog, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS). The FAS told Fairplay that regulations issued by […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Russia’s competition watchdog believes that a merger between two of the country’s top steelmakers, Evraz and Severstal, is a “pipe dream”, and will veto it if it is attempted. The swift, explicit reaction from one of the Russian government’s top market regulators indicates there has been no preliminary signal from the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Investbank, the Russian banking group which was formerly the property of Vladimir Antonov, was asked to clarify its position in relation to the charges now pending against Antonov in Lithuania; the extradition case under way in London; and balance-sheet examinations of banks associated with Antonov in Lithuania, Latvia, and elsewhere. Here […]

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ERIC KRAUS & ALEXANDER TEDDY krausmoscow@yahoo.com DESK NOTE 12 DECEMBER 2011 Russian Facebook Protest – A Field of Dreams

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By John Helmer, Moscow While Boris Berezovsky, Roman Abramovich and Oleg Deripaska are hard at work changing the British courts’ interpretation of the law on corruption, Vladimir Antonov has come along to challenge the British law on asylum and extradition. Antonov, along with his Lithuanian partner Raimondas Baranauskas, were arrested in London on November 23, […]

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Krissy, November 1994-December 9, 2011

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By John Helmer, Moscow On November 29, following up Russian media reports and after an investigation lasting a week, the Moscow Times published the following article, which speaks for itself. A week later, on December 7, the newspaper’s editor, Andrew McChesney, sent this letter:

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By John Helmer, Moscow BHP Billiton (BHP), the world’s dominant producer of manganese, last week slashed the price of manganese for delivery to China, the world’s dominant consumer, by 14%, arousing the suspicion that the Big Australian is aiming to drive rival producers from the business, and when Chinese steelmaking is expected to revive next […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow After the episode of the Louis Vuitton fountain-pen given in San Francisco in friendship, not favour, Dmitry Rybolovlev (left) has redirected his generosity to another seaport, this time Monaco. There the welcome appears to have been decidedly warmer than he got in California, where Rybolovlev said he was thinking of investing […]