By John Helmer, Moscow Monkeys throw their excrement at their enemies – this is well-known among zoologists. But it happens only when monkeys are caged, not in the wild. The reason for this is obvious — free-ranging monkeys instinctively run away from their shit as quickly as possible, to evade predators. But if they are […]

by John Helmer - Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Arkady (right image) and Boris Rotenberg are under investigation by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) for running a cartel and price-rigging to cheat Gazprom, their longstanding business partner and patron. This is unusual for several reasons. One of them is that the Rotenbergs neither produce the goods in trade targeted by […]

by John Helmer - Friday, October 28th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow This time it seems to be clear that Transneft, Russia state-owned oil pipeline company, has had quite enough of both the Bulgarians and the Turks, and has told them it won’t build its planned pipelines across the territory of either of them. This puts an end, a temporary end probably, to […]

by John Helmer - Monday, September 5th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Faced with a Bulgarian government-ordered shutdown of its Burgas oil refinery, LUKoil, the Russian oil producer and exporter, began emergency negotiations with Bulgarian officials this morning, a LUKoil source told Fairplay. Bulgarian opposition politicians say the negotiations are being staged by Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov (image right) to protect his […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 28th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow On Saturday, while the controlling shareholders of Sky News, Rupert Murdoch and his son James, were having to eat their words and apologize for invasion of privacy, bribery of policemen, lying to parliament, and other law-breaking — losing control of Sky News in the process — one of their ace reporters […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 19th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Russia’s state pipeline company Transneft went public yesterday morning with an attack on the Prime Minister of Bulgaria for dragging his feet over the trans-Balkan pipeline proposed between Burgas and Alexandropouli, on the Aegean Sea. Transneft chief executive Nikolai Tokarev was reported by Moscow news wires as saying: “God save anyone […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 5th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow In The Long Good-Bye, private detective Philip Marlowe says of the snob column in the newspapers, “I don’t read them often, only when I run out of things I dislike.” Some people feel that way about the weekly report from Emerging Portfolio Fund Research(EPFR). That is the Boston outfit which tracks […]

by John Helmer - Friday, June 24th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Transneft, the state-owned Russian oil pipeline company, is now refusing to pay state-owned oil producer Rosneft $26 million in money Transneft claims that the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) should pay for pipeline deliveries of crude oil, but won’t or hasn’t. The conflict has also revealed discounting tactics affecting all shipborne […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Suleiman Kerimov has applied to the Prosecutor-General in Moscow with a request for an investigation of allegations that he was at one time involved in money-moving operations of Hassan Ali Khan, an Indian hawaladar. Breaking the silence of his spokesmen at the Federation Council, where Kerimov is a senator representing his […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow When self-proclaimed strategic allies like Russia and China fail to see eye to eye, they do their best to mask their differences, issuing communiqués promising amicable solutions at the next round of negotiations, or the one after that. If Moscow and Beijing fall out, the cordiality dries up, and the mutual […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
No Comments »