Peter Jarvis, the head of EMEA at Pictet Asset Management, part of the Swiss private bank told a seminar preceding the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce Christmas Cocktails last Thursday that he despaired of finding positive articles about Russia in British media. He characterised the mind set of British journalists as being set in the Cold War.

I have just spent most of last week at World Travel Market 2011, the leading global event for the travel industry, which is the must-attend four-day business-to-business exhibition for the worldwide travel and tourism industry.  Almost 48,000 senior travel industry professionals, government ministers and international press, head to the ExCeL - London exhibition centre every November to network, negotiate and discover the latest industry opinion and trends at WTM.

It has been lonely out here battling against the tide of presumption that Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in London 2006 and the most likely suspect was Andrei Lugovoi. Another tidal wave of propaganda was unleashed by an interview with the former Director of Public Prosecutions Lord Macdonald of River Glaven published in The Sunday Times of October 2.

Our coverage has now been corroborated by William Dunkerley, a contributor to the scholarly web site, Russia: Other Point of View. A media business analyst and consultant based in New Britain, CT, Mr. Dunkerley works extensively with media organizations in Russia and other post-communist countries, and has advised government leaders on strategies for building press freedom and a healthy media sector.  In 2007 he was commissioned by the organizers of the World Congress of the International Federation of Journalists to study and report on media coverage of the Litvinenko poisoning. His forthcoming book, "The Phony Litvinenko Murder," will both reflect upon and update his findings.

His article, which separates the facts from the propaganda is here.

Just when I thought Russia was achieving the somewhat boring, self-satisfied, inexorable march to prosperity the world has convulsed. The gloom-and-doom predictions of the fiscal unsustainability of Greece leading to a collapse of the Euro and fears about the mounting level of US debt is creating ripples in the Russian economy with $50 bn of capital flight in the first nine months of the year. The fragile business climate in which investors complain of red tape and the inability to defend their rights in court is largely to blame according to Moscow officials.