irishgrl
11-23-2006, 10:03 PM
Russian dissident dies after being allegedly poisoned:
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Yahoo! News
Poisoned ex-Russian spy dies
By Deborah Haynes1 hour, 59 minutes ago
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital on Thursday three weeks after he was poisoned in what friends said was a plot orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Russia has dismissed the allegation as nonsense, saying it was silly to suggest the Kremlin wanted to kill Litvinenko, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 43-year-old former spy, who had been fighting for his life in intensive care, died at 9.21 p.m. (2121 GMT), said Jim Down, a spokesman for University College Hospital.
But doctors said they still did not know exactly what caused Litvinenko's death. "The medical team at the hospital did everything possible to save his life," said Down.
British police said they were investigating what they called the "unexplained" death.
If Moscow were found to have had a hand in his poisoning there could be far-reaching diplomatic consequences. It would be the first such incident known to have taken place in the West since the Cold War.
"THE BASTARDS"
"The bastards got me. But they won't get everybody," Litvinenko told friend and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov before losing consciousness earlier this week. The comments were published in an early edition of Friday's Times newspaper.
Litvinenko, who fled to Britain in 2000 with his wife and son and was granted asylum, said he fell ill after meeting two Russians at a hotel.
He had been investigating the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a vocal critic of Putin, who was gunned down at her Moscow flat on October 7.
Britain's anti-terrorism police were called in to investigate the case after doctors determined last week his illness was caused by poison.
A source in a Russian delegation with Putin, who is in Helsinki for an EU-Russia summit, told reporters: "It is a human tragedy. The man was poisoned.
"But the accusations towards the Kremlin are so unbelievable, they are too silly to be commented on by the president or anyone from the Russian side," said the source, asking not to be identified.
Litvinenko served in the KGB's counter-intelligence department and then the Federal Security Service's (FSB) highly secret organized crime group. The FSB is the main successor organization to the Soviet KGB and deals with internal threats.
In 1998, he turned on his former comrades and said at a Moscow news conference -- with men in masks who claimed to be Russian secret service men -- that senior FSB officers had planned to murder Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
He was arrested several times by his former employers at the FSB but was freed by a court and charges were dropped.
Litvinenko co-authored a book in 2002 entitled "Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within," in which he alleged FSB agents coordinated apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people in 1999.
Russian officials blamed the bombings on Chechen separatist rebels.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Send Feedback | Help
re: Anna Politkovskaya....
http://tchetchenieparis.free.fr/text/Politkovskaya-16-3-02.htm
Disquiet On The Chechen Front
Anna Politkovskaya, Russia
http://img.timeinc.net/time/europe/hero/images/politkovskaya.jpg
BY YURI ZARAKHOVICH | MOSCOW
Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the Moscow biweekly Novaya Gazeta, was in Los Angeles last October, picking out her dress for a media awards ceremony, when some staggering news came from Moscow: Chechen terrorists were holding 850 hostages in a theater. The Russian authorities tried to send in negotiators, but the Chechens refused to see most of them. They asked for Politkovskaya.
And so Politkovskaya rushed back to cover yet another episode of one of the world's nastiest and longest wars, which this time had shifted to Moscow. The terrorists, she says, "wanted someone who would accurately report things as they were. My work in Chechnya makes people there feel that I don't lie. But there wasn't much I could do for the hostages anyway." She carried water and fruit juice to them, and reported their dejection and feelings of doom to the world. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed and gassed the theater, killing 41 terrorists and 129 hostages.
Politkovskaya, 44, made her name by writing detailed, accurate and vivid reports on the plight of the civilian population in Chechnya, caught in the horrors of war since 1994. She tells stories of people who are taken from their homes at night and never come back; about extrajudicial executions; about the hungry refugees in cold and damp camps. "It was the refugee problem that started it," she now recalls. When the second Chechen war began in 1999, tens of thousands of refugees began flooding the makeshift relief camps. "It was horrible to stand among the refugees in the field in October 1999, and see cruise missiles flying over your head," she recalls.
When those missiles hit a market in Grozny, it was only prompt coverage by journalists like Politkovskaya that forced the Russian commanders to let ambulances in and refugees out. "Our work is a lever to help people as much as we can," she believes. But it also causes trouble. In February 2000, the FSB (the former KGB) arrested Politkovskaya in the Vedeno district of Chechnya. They kept her in a pit for three days without food or water. "It was important not to let them kill me on the first day," she says. A year later, a Russian officer whose war crimes Politkovskaya had exposed threatened to kill her. Novaya Gazeta had to hide her in Austria for a while. The officer is now awaiting trial on charges of war crimes committed in Chechnya that Politkovskaya was the first to report. "But I don't feel victorious," she says. "I only feel that we're all involved in a great tragedy."
Her editors have had to stand up to pressure from the Kremlin, which is often infuriated by her reporting. Novaya Gazeta balances on the brink of forcible closure. "Well, it goes with the job," she shrugs. Politkovskaya has long since learned to keep her anxieties in check. As she arranges yet another trip to Chechnya, she may now be too famous to be targeted by the FSB. But she really doesn't think about such things. "If you don't have the strength to control your emotions, you're of no help to the people who are in such shock and pain. You only add to their burden," she says.
©TIME. Printed on Thursday, November 23, 2006
Anna recently lost her life under questionable circumstances.............
apparently anyone who dares to question Putin is killed???
another article:
UUTISIA - SUOMI-TSHETSHENIA-SEURA
- PÄÄSIVU - UUTISIA - ARTIKKELEITA - SEURA - MIELIPITEITÄ
Novaya Gazeta
What happened to Anna Politkovskaya?
Details about the health status of our reporter and the events of 1 - 2
September in Rostov-on-Don.
In the days of this tragedy, hundreds of our colleagues, civil servants,
readers were interested in our reporter's fate. They assumed that her
presence in Beslan could be useful. But Politkovskaya didn't arrive in
Beslan.
...First of September, evening. Politkovskaya is sent to "Vnukovo" in
the editorial staff car. Before that she had been in contact with a
number of Russian politicians and Maskhadov's representative in London,
Ahmed Zakayev. The essence of his proposals: All who can get into
contact with the terrorists are obliged to do this immediately. Without
calculating the consequences. To save the children. "Let Maskhadov go
and negotiate with them". Zakayev conveys that Maskhadov is ready to do
this without any conditions and guarantees.
At "Vnukovo", flights to Vladikavkaz are cancelled. Flights to the
nearest cities are cancelled as well. Politkovskaya is checked in three
times, and three times she can't leave. The editorial staff gives the
order: to Rostov, and from there by car. The "Karat" airline takes Anna
on board.
A necessary detail: Politkovskaya hadn't had the time to eat for the
whole day. On the aircraft (she is an experienced person) she refused
the food, she had brought her own porridge. She felt very well. She only
asked the flight attendant for tea. And ten minutes after drinking it
she lost consciousness, but had the time to call the attendant.
Later she remembers everything in fragments. The phantastic efforts of
the doctors of the aid station at Rostov Airport. They tried to get her
out of the coma and succeeded. The brilliant work of the doctors of the
Infection Department at Clinic No. 1 in Rostov. Under miserable
conditions they resuscitated her with all their improvised materiel -
they even coated plastic bottles containing hot water. Dropper, needles,
in the morning - stable consciousness.
Grigory Yavlinksy, our colleagues from "Izvestia" (Special Correspondent
Vladimir But), General Solodovnikov made all efforts so that the
physicians would manage an "almost hopeless" task, according to the
doctors. They succeeded.
On the evening of 3 September, with the help of our friends (thank you,
Messrs. bankers!), Anna was taken on a private airplane to one of the
Moscow clinics. The Rostov doctors gathered to send her on the way. The
analysis by the Rostov laboratory isn't ready yet. And the first
analyses, which were made already at the airport, were destroyed for
unknown reasons. The Moscow doctors directly stated: the toxin is so far
unknown, but it entered the organism from outside, in the aircraft.
Until the explanation of all circumstances, we don't want to voice the
"conspiracy version". However, the situation with the journalist from
"Svoboda", Babitsky, taken from the flight to the North Caucasus on
suspicion of transporting explosives (!) (of course they didn't find
any), and the case of Politkovskaya force us to assume that the attempt
was made to prevent a number of journalists who have a name in Chechnya
from shedding light on the tragedy in Beslan.
Politkovskaya is now at home under the care of doctors. In their
opinion, an unknown toxin has seriously affected her kidney, liver and
endocrine system. What will be needed for rehabilitation is impossible
to know, unfortunately.
Well, why aren't the service members who are so concerned about
Politkovskaya's activity, interested in her profession, after all? To
prevent terrorist acts, for example?
Sergey SOKOLOV, Dmitriy MURATOV, our special corr., Rostov-on-Don - Moscow
NovayaGazeta.Ru, 04.09.2004
http://www.novayagazeta.ru/sob/politkovskaya.shtml
this next bit is from a blog about Anna:
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent critic of the Vladimir Putin administration, is murdered in Moscow.
Putin Promises Politkovskaya Investigation
By Catherine Belton and Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writers of The Moscow Times
President Vladimir Putin vowed Monday to track down the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, while her colleagues at Novaya Gazeta pledged to continue her work despite dangers.
In a telephone conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush, Putin said "all necessary efforts will be made for an objective investigation into the tragic death," the Kremlin said.
I find this news ought to draw more international attention and investigation than North Korean's fart.
Of course, every Western outlet reported on the sad news. But can't UN send its blessing to instantiate an international independent investigation team for one person's death?
I believe UN should put 1 homocide at a time as such on its agenda, not dumping disproportional efforts on 1 stupid mean-little bomb by a devastated state power according to US's wish. North Korean wants direct talk with US anyway.
Back to Story - Help
Yahoo! News
Poisoned ex-Russian spy dies
By Deborah Haynes1 hour, 59 minutes ago
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital on Thursday three weeks after he was poisoned in what friends said was a plot orchestrated by the Kremlin.
Russia has dismissed the allegation as nonsense, saying it was silly to suggest the Kremlin wanted to kill Litvinenko, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 43-year-old former spy, who had been fighting for his life in intensive care, died at 9.21 p.m. (2121 GMT), said Jim Down, a spokesman for University College Hospital.
But doctors said they still did not know exactly what caused Litvinenko's death. "The medical team at the hospital did everything possible to save his life," said Down.
British police said they were investigating what they called the "unexplained" death.
If Moscow were found to have had a hand in his poisoning there could be far-reaching diplomatic consequences. It would be the first such incident known to have taken place in the West since the Cold War.
"THE BASTARDS"
"The bastards got me. But they won't get everybody," Litvinenko told friend and filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov before losing consciousness earlier this week. The comments were published in an early edition of Friday's Times newspaper.
Litvinenko, who fled to Britain in 2000 with his wife and son and was granted asylum, said he fell ill after meeting two Russians at a hotel.
He had been investigating the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a vocal critic of Putin, who was gunned down at her Moscow flat on October 7.
Britain's anti-terrorism police were called in to investigate the case after doctors determined last week his illness was caused by poison.
A source in a Russian delegation with Putin, who is in Helsinki for an EU-Russia summit, told reporters: "It is a human tragedy. The man was poisoned.
"But the accusations towards the Kremlin are so unbelievable, they are too silly to be commented on by the president or anyone from the Russian side," said the source, asking not to be identified.
Litvinenko served in the KGB's counter-intelligence department and then the Federal Security Service's (FSB) highly secret organized crime group. The FSB is the main successor organization to the Soviet KGB and deals with internal threats.
In 1998, he turned on his former comrades and said at a Moscow news conference -- with men in masks who claimed to be Russian secret service men -- that senior FSB officers had planned to murder Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
He was arrested several times by his former employers at the FSB but was freed by a court and charges were dropped.
Litvinenko co-authored a book in 2002 entitled "Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within," in which he alleged FSB agents coordinated apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people in 1999.
Russian officials blamed the bombings on Chechen separatist rebels.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Send Feedback | Help
re: Anna Politkovskaya....
http://tchetchenieparis.free.fr/text/Politkovskaya-16-3-02.htm
Disquiet On The Chechen Front
Anna Politkovskaya, Russia
http://img.timeinc.net/time/europe/hero/images/politkovskaya.jpg
BY YURI ZARAKHOVICH | MOSCOW
Anna Politkovskaya, a correspondent for the Moscow biweekly Novaya Gazeta, was in Los Angeles last October, picking out her dress for a media awards ceremony, when some staggering news came from Moscow: Chechen terrorists were holding 850 hostages in a theater. The Russian authorities tried to send in negotiators, but the Chechens refused to see most of them. They asked for Politkovskaya.
And so Politkovskaya rushed back to cover yet another episode of one of the world's nastiest and longest wars, which this time had shifted to Moscow. The terrorists, she says, "wanted someone who would accurately report things as they were. My work in Chechnya makes people there feel that I don't lie. But there wasn't much I could do for the hostages anyway." She carried water and fruit juice to them, and reported their dejection and feelings of doom to the world. Two days later, Russian special forces stormed and gassed the theater, killing 41 terrorists and 129 hostages.
Politkovskaya, 44, made her name by writing detailed, accurate and vivid reports on the plight of the civilian population in Chechnya, caught in the horrors of war since 1994. She tells stories of people who are taken from their homes at night and never come back; about extrajudicial executions; about the hungry refugees in cold and damp camps. "It was the refugee problem that started it," she now recalls. When the second Chechen war began in 1999, tens of thousands of refugees began flooding the makeshift relief camps. "It was horrible to stand among the refugees in the field in October 1999, and see cruise missiles flying over your head," she recalls.
When those missiles hit a market in Grozny, it was only prompt coverage by journalists like Politkovskaya that forced the Russian commanders to let ambulances in and refugees out. "Our work is a lever to help people as much as we can," she believes. But it also causes trouble. In February 2000, the FSB (the former KGB) arrested Politkovskaya in the Vedeno district of Chechnya. They kept her in a pit for three days without food or water. "It was important not to let them kill me on the first day," she says. A year later, a Russian officer whose war crimes Politkovskaya had exposed threatened to kill her. Novaya Gazeta had to hide her in Austria for a while. The officer is now awaiting trial on charges of war crimes committed in Chechnya that Politkovskaya was the first to report. "But I don't feel victorious," she says. "I only feel that we're all involved in a great tragedy."
Her editors have had to stand up to pressure from the Kremlin, which is often infuriated by her reporting. Novaya Gazeta balances on the brink of forcible closure. "Well, it goes with the job," she shrugs. Politkovskaya has long since learned to keep her anxieties in check. As she arranges yet another trip to Chechnya, she may now be too famous to be targeted by the FSB. But she really doesn't think about such things. "If you don't have the strength to control your emotions, you're of no help to the people who are in such shock and pain. You only add to their burden," she says.
©TIME. Printed on Thursday, November 23, 2006
Anna recently lost her life under questionable circumstances.............
apparently anyone who dares to question Putin is killed???
another article:
UUTISIA - SUOMI-TSHETSHENIA-SEURA
- PÄÄSIVU - UUTISIA - ARTIKKELEITA - SEURA - MIELIPITEITÄ
Novaya Gazeta
What happened to Anna Politkovskaya?
Details about the health status of our reporter and the events of 1 - 2
September in Rostov-on-Don.
In the days of this tragedy, hundreds of our colleagues, civil servants,
readers were interested in our reporter's fate. They assumed that her
presence in Beslan could be useful. But Politkovskaya didn't arrive in
Beslan.
...First of September, evening. Politkovskaya is sent to "Vnukovo" in
the editorial staff car. Before that she had been in contact with a
number of Russian politicians and Maskhadov's representative in London,
Ahmed Zakayev. The essence of his proposals: All who can get into
contact with the terrorists are obliged to do this immediately. Without
calculating the consequences. To save the children. "Let Maskhadov go
and negotiate with them". Zakayev conveys that Maskhadov is ready to do
this without any conditions and guarantees.
At "Vnukovo", flights to Vladikavkaz are cancelled. Flights to the
nearest cities are cancelled as well. Politkovskaya is checked in three
times, and three times she can't leave. The editorial staff gives the
order: to Rostov, and from there by car. The "Karat" airline takes Anna
on board.
A necessary detail: Politkovskaya hadn't had the time to eat for the
whole day. On the aircraft (she is an experienced person) she refused
the food, she had brought her own porridge. She felt very well. She only
asked the flight attendant for tea. And ten minutes after drinking it
she lost consciousness, but had the time to call the attendant.
Later she remembers everything in fragments. The phantastic efforts of
the doctors of the aid station at Rostov Airport. They tried to get her
out of the coma and succeeded. The brilliant work of the doctors of the
Infection Department at Clinic No. 1 in Rostov. Under miserable
conditions they resuscitated her with all their improvised materiel -
they even coated plastic bottles containing hot water. Dropper, needles,
in the morning - stable consciousness.
Grigory Yavlinksy, our colleagues from "Izvestia" (Special Correspondent
Vladimir But), General Solodovnikov made all efforts so that the
physicians would manage an "almost hopeless" task, according to the
doctors. They succeeded.
On the evening of 3 September, with the help of our friends (thank you,
Messrs. bankers!), Anna was taken on a private airplane to one of the
Moscow clinics. The Rostov doctors gathered to send her on the way. The
analysis by the Rostov laboratory isn't ready yet. And the first
analyses, which were made already at the airport, were destroyed for
unknown reasons. The Moscow doctors directly stated: the toxin is so far
unknown, but it entered the organism from outside, in the aircraft.
Until the explanation of all circumstances, we don't want to voice the
"conspiracy version". However, the situation with the journalist from
"Svoboda", Babitsky, taken from the flight to the North Caucasus on
suspicion of transporting explosives (!) (of course they didn't find
any), and the case of Politkovskaya force us to assume that the attempt
was made to prevent a number of journalists who have a name in Chechnya
from shedding light on the tragedy in Beslan.
Politkovskaya is now at home under the care of doctors. In their
opinion, an unknown toxin has seriously affected her kidney, liver and
endocrine system. What will be needed for rehabilitation is impossible
to know, unfortunately.
Well, why aren't the service members who are so concerned about
Politkovskaya's activity, interested in her profession, after all? To
prevent terrorist acts, for example?
Sergey SOKOLOV, Dmitriy MURATOV, our special corr., Rostov-on-Don - Moscow
NovayaGazeta.Ru, 04.09.2004
http://www.novayagazeta.ru/sob/politkovskaya.shtml
this next bit is from a blog about Anna:
Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent critic of the Vladimir Putin administration, is murdered in Moscow.
Putin Promises Politkovskaya Investigation
By Catherine Belton and Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writers of The Moscow Times
President Vladimir Putin vowed Monday to track down the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, while her colleagues at Novaya Gazeta pledged to continue her work despite dangers.
In a telephone conversation with U.S. President George W. Bush, Putin said "all necessary efforts will be made for an objective investigation into the tragic death," the Kremlin said.
I find this news ought to draw more international attention and investigation than North Korean's fart.
Of course, every Western outlet reported on the sad news. But can't UN send its blessing to instantiate an international independent investigation team for one person's death?
I believe UN should put 1 homocide at a time as such on its agenda, not dumping disproportional efforts on 1 stupid mean-little bomb by a devastated state power according to US's wish. North Korean wants direct talk with US anyway.