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By John Helmer, Moscow For the first time Alrosa, the state-owned diamond miner, has come out in public and said it wants to buy Grib, the only commercially developed Russian diamond mine owned by LUKoil and its chief executive, Vagit Alekperov. Why it should say so now, when earlier announcements by Alrosa have veiled the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Russian justice being what is, it is exceptional when the chief executive of a company owned by Oleg Deripaska (right) is arrested and carried off to prison on charges of fraud. As the days lengthen through which Deripaska’s man must spend behind bars – 16 as of today — interrogated by […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Victor Pinchuk, the owner of Interpipe, the Ukrainian steelmaker which defaulted on its debts on November 1, has called his first-ever public business meeting. The date is December 9, and the meeting will be telephonic. Deutsche Bank, which is acting as trustee for Interpipe’s $200 million Eurobond issue, is promising to […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow Following a fresh investigation of its business practices in the former Soviet Union, TeliaSonera, the Stockholm-based telecommunications company, reported Friday that it has dismissed four senior executives, including the chief financial officer and the head of its mobile telephone division. A company statement claims that the objective of the investigation was […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow According to Colin Russell, an Australian who was the radioman on board the Greenpeace vessel, Arctic Sunrise, he’s “a good man”. Arrested by Russian coast guards after barricading himself in the radio room on September 19, he was imprisoned in Murmansk and St. Petersburg, until he was granted bail and released […]