Radiation - Death Of Russian Spy

11-30-2006, 07:13 AM

Radiation grounds British airlinersQUOTE Radiation found on planes on which poisoned ex-spy was a passenger
â¢ As many as 30,000 passengers have ridden on the planes
â¢ British Airways making efforts to contact all affected customers
â¢ On deathbed, former agent said Russian President Putin had him killed

All three planes had been on the London-Moscow route, British Airways said. In the last three weeks the planes had also traveled to routes across Europe including Barcelona, Frankfurt and Athens. Around 30,000 passengers had traveled on 220 flights on those planes, said Kate Gay, a spokeswoman for the airline.


Do you think it will really effect passengers in plane or as usual "cold war type of scare tactics"?
How radioactive material able to pass security? European security is much better than US.

12-02-2006, 11:02 PM

Report: Dead Former Spy Had Russian Oil SecretsQUOTELONDON âÂ A dossier drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin's takeover of the worldâs richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard today as police investigate the former KGB spy's secret dealings with some of Russia's richest men.

It emerged yesterday that Litvinenko travelled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company.

He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $40 billion company.

Nevzlin told The Times that it was his âdutyâ to pass on the file. âAlexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Governmentâs direct participation,â he said.

âHe only recently gave me and my attorneys documents that shed light on the most significant aspects of the Yukos affair.â

Investigators have told The Times that Litvinenko had apparently uncovered âstartlingâ new material about the Yukos affair and what happened to those opposing the forced break-up of the company
...

Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch, who employed Litvinenko and who has accused the Kremlin of having a hand in his poisoning, is also reported to have been tested.

12-02-2006, 11:04 PM

Italian who met spy has traces of poison

QUOTEAn official at Russia's Transport Ministry said Saturday that radiation had been found on a Finnair plane in Moscow, and a flight inquiry officer at the Sheremetyevo airport said the Helsinki-bound airbus A-319 had been delayed for several hours. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, and neither would say whether the checks in Moscow were related to Litvinenko's case.

Taneli Hassinen, a spokesman for Finnair, said an initial measurement found slightly elevated radiation levels on the plane, but that they were within the permissible levels. Later measurements found no increased levels and the plane had permission to return to Helsinki with 70 passengers on board, he said.

Another airline, easyJet, said Scaramella had flown with them to London from Naples on Oct. 31 and returned on Nov. 3, two days after his meeting with 43-year-old Litvinenko. The HPA said there was no risk to the public from those flights.

Now finnair?

12-08-2006, 12:39 PM

QUOTEDec 7, 2:24 PM EST
Former Russia Spy Laid to Rest in London 
By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) -- After a Muslim prayer service, ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko was laid to rest Thursday in a rain-swept funeral at London's Highgate Cemetery attended by a Russian tycoon, a Chechen rebel leader and other exiled Kremlin critics.

In Moscow, Russian prosecutors opened their own investigation into the former KGB agent's poisoning death, and authorities said a key figure was ill with symptoms related to polonium-210, the highly radioactive substance that killed Litvinenko.

Self-exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky, Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev and some 50 mourners consoled Litvinenko's widow, Marina, and 12-year-old son, Anatoly, at the funeral. A single white rose was placed on his rain-splattered dark oak casket.

Lord John Rea, director of the Save Chechnya campaign, held up a picture of crusading Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose murder Litvinenko was investigating at the time of his fatal poisoning.

From his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed his fate on Russian President Vladimir Putin - a charge that Kremlin officials have called "nonsense." Traces of polonium-210 were found in Litvinenko's body after his Nov. 23 death.
Scotland Yard on Wednesday said it was investigating his death as a homicide, and traces of radiation have been found at more than a dozen sites in Britain and on jetliners that flew between London and Moscow.

As the investigations proceeded in both London and Moscow, Britain's Health Protection Agency said seven workers at the Millennium Hotel, where Litvinenko met two Russians on the day he fell ill, have tested positive for "low levels" of polonium.

The agency said the employees were working in the hotel's Pine Bar and that there were no risk to their health in the short-term and little danger for the general public.

The opening of a criminal case in Moscow would allow suspects in the Litvinenko case to be prosecuted in Russia. Officials there previously have said that Russia would not allow the extradition of any suspects in the death.

The Russian Prosecutor General's office also said it had opened a criminal investigation into the attempted killing of Dmitry Kovtun, a former agent who met Litvinenko in the Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1, hours before Litvinenko became fatally ill.

In the latest twist in the case, Russian officials said Kovtun, has developed an illness connected with polonium-210, The Russian news agency Interfax reported that Kovtun was in critical condition in a coma, but a lawyer connected to the case, Andrei Romashov, denied that.

Kovtun was questioned earlier this week by Russian investigators and Scotland Yard detectives in Moscow, although it was not immediately clear if he was considered a witness or as a potential suspect.

A scheduled interview with former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, who was with Kovtun at the Millennium Hotel in London, was postponed, his lawyer told The Associated Press. Lugovoi said he would answer all the British investigators' questions, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Kovtun and Lugovoi have told reporters in Moscow that someone is trying to frame them in Litvinenko's death.

Lugovoi was at one point a bodyguard for former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who also fell sick recently in Ireland with an illness that Russian doctors have been unable to diagnose. On Thursday, Britain's Financial Times and the Russian newspaper Vedomosti published a letter written by Gaidar with the headline: "I was poisoned and Russia's political enemies were surely behind it."
"Most likely ... some obvious or hidden adversaries of the Russian authorities stand behind the scenes of this event, those who are interested in further radical deterioration of relations between Russia and the West," Gaidar wrote in the letter.
Faint levels of polonium-210 had been found at two locations at London's Emirates Stadium, where Lugovoi and Kovtun attended a soccer game Nov. 1, officials said Wednesday.

The radiation was "barely detectable" and posed no public health risk, government health agency spokeswoman Katherine Lewis said.
Traces also were found at the British Embassy in Moscow, the Foreign Office said. Officials said the level was low and posed no risk to health.

Lugovoi is now hospitalized in Moscow for tests for possible radiation contamination.
Litvinenko, who criticized Putin's policies in Chechnya, reportedly had converted to Islam before his death, and some of the mourners were dressed in traditional Muslim robes. They left red flowers and an orange and yellow wreath at the stone gate of the famous cemetery where communist revolutionary Karl Marx is buried.
Earlier Thursday, Zakayev and Litvinenko's father, Walter, joined hundreds of Muslims who had gathered at London's Regent's Park Mosque for regular daily prayer to attend a memorial service, where the imam recited a funeral prayer.
"The imam said a special passage for him from the Quran," said Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of Britain's Muslim parliament.

Walter Litvinenko and Zakayev both insisted the former spy had converted to Islam on his deathbed, although some friends disputed the claim - saying he had merely expressed empathy with Chechen Muslims. Siddiqui said the mosque had been told Litvinenko converted to Islam 10 days before he was admitted to a hospital last month.

Vladimir Bukovsky, a friend and fellow Putin critic, said Litvinenko had asked that his body eventually be moved to Chechnya. The region in southern Russia is mostly Muslim and plagued by rebel attacks as well as violence blamed on federal troops and forces of the Moscow-backed Chechen government.

"On his deathbed, he asked to be buried when the war is over in Chechen soil," Bukovsky said. "He was a fierce defender of Chechnya and critic of the Kremlin."
Litvinenko's father told Radio Free Europe on Wednesday that his son had said he had converted to Islam two days before his death. Several friends also said the former agent had converted.

"It was a deeply personal thing, the result of a very intimate personal process, and there's absolutely no connection to his political views," said a Russian friend, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He said the Litvinenko family had decided to hold a nonreligious burial because they feared an "inevitable attempt by Litvinenko's enemies to portray him as an associate of Islamist extremists."
Zakayev said that on the day before Litvinenko died, the former spy was visited in hospital by an imam, who read a Quranic verse traditionally said over the dying.Â Â

agnivayu · 12-08-2006, 09:10 PM

Sounds like this clown is an Islamic sympathizer. I may even support Putin and the Russian government here if they are taking out Islamic terrorists and their supporters.

03-08-2007, 12:21 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article...63,00.html (excerpt)
QUOTEGuardian, Wed, Mar 7, 2007 13:00
Russian generals put old foe back into their sights

Russia is to replace its military doctrine with a more hawkish version that boldly identifies Nato and the west as its greatest danger.
In a statement posted on its website, Russia's powerful security council said it no longer considered global terrorism as its biggest danger. Instead, Russia was developing a new national security strategy which reflected changing "geo-political" realities, and the fact that rival military alliances were becoming "stronger" - "especially Nato".

"There have been changes in the character of the threat to the military security of Russia. More and more leading world states are seeking to upgrade their national armed forces. The configuration has changed," the council said.
Although President Vladimir Putin ordered his generals to revise the country's military doctrine in June 2005, the blueprint reflects the sudden deterioration in relations with the west.

In particular Russia has been incensed by the US administration's plans to site two new missile interceptor and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Senior figures in the Russian military yesterday told the Guardian they were infuriated by what they regard as Nato's "relentless expansion" into "post-Soviet space" - the countries of former communist eastern Europe and the Baltic. Russia felt increasingly "encircled" by hostile neighbours, they said.I agree with this. Russia is surrounded by countries brainwashed into thinking they belong with Europe not Russia. But in reality, they're just tools to bring down Russia. When playtime's over, no one will care about them anymore.

As for the affair of Litvinenko's 'thallium poisoning ~> Russian Intelligence did him in' - read also:
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jsp...=20070307221143
Have your say. Russian dissident's death: Your reaction
(One comment by a psecular Indian from Mumbai shows his ignorance: thinking that the USA and UK don't assassinate traitors and turncoats...)

Ever since Litvinenko's death made headlines everywhere turning the accusation 'Russia must have done it' into 'Russia did it', the same model is being followed. Daily, new events are springing up which not only tell the same story, but are of course also repeated by the media so we all know 'Russia is becoming evil and undemocratic' again. Some of the most recent neverending stream of media reports of mysterious deaths attributed to the Putin govt and the KGB:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6426043.stm
Moscow burial for dead journalist

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0...src=rss&feed=12
Russian journalist 'sacked' for speaking on police brutality

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0...src=rss&feed=12
US pair fall ill in Moscow from thallium poisoning

Also search BBC news for: Russia thallium
Either the Litvinenko story was such a hit that they kept regurgitating it from different angles, or they really wanted everyone to see Russia the way they wanted it to be seen: a shadowy, threatening, mammoth-sized government that sneakily suppresses democracy and goes around silencing dissenters... Wait. Quite a few countries fit this bill.

agnivayu · 03-10-2007, 12:01 AM

Didn't Litvinenko meet with Chechen islamic nuts, and some say he converted to Islam ? In this case I could care less what happened to him.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-14-2007, 07:02 PM by Husky.)

Don't know if this belongs in any other thread or is best placed here:
How to make monsters of legitimate rulers - learn from international media. (Indian media has already done it with Hindu leaders in India.)

Two news reports on the 'Evil' that is Russia - according to US version of the story, of course. Some countries are obviously shaking in their boots about emerging Russia, and feeds the viewers timely reminders not to root for it.

http://au.news.yahoo.com//070414/19/133tu.html
QUOTESaturday April 14, 10:09 PM
Russian police swoop on protest, arrest Kasparov

Photo : AFPÂ
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian riot police detained as many as 200 demonstrators Saturday, including opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov, in a crackdown on a banned protest in central Moscow.

Thousands of riot police and interior ministry soldiers in camouflage battledress locked down the city centre to prevent a march by The Other Russia, a coalition of groups that accuse President Vladimir Putin of dismantling democracy.
(Oh who could have set up and be funding 'The Other Russia' front? This is such a hard question. Confused

arcasm

Kasparov, one of the leaders of The Other Russia, was detained as he attempted to lead demonstrators on to the historic Pushkin Square, an AFP correspondent saw. Scores of other activists were seen being detained and loaded on to police buses.

According to Interfax news agency, Kasparov was released about three hours later, although this could be immediately confirmed.

Opposition leaders had been warned not to gather on Pushkin Square, but said they were outraged at the massive security operation.

"What's going on with the authorities? Have they lost their minds? What's going on with this military operation?" asked former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, as paramilitary OMON police blocked him from entering Pushkin Square.

Tensions are rising ahead of the March 2008 presidential election to replace Putin, who is constitutionally required to step down at the end of his second term.

Putin, who has overseen rapid economic growth in Russia, is widely popular. Opponents say this is largely the result of a powerful state media machine and the marginalisation of real opponents.

The Other Russia -- ranging from pro-Western liberals to radical leftists -- dubbed its protest Saturday the "March of Dissent" and said the Kremlin was rattled.

"We are pushing for change through elections. But we want real, free elections, not imitations, in our country," Kasyanov told supporters.

The demonstration comes after one of Putin's most outspoken critics, mulit-millionaire Boris Berezovsky, said he was planning a "revolution" from his exile in London.

Moscow called on London to expel Berezovsky, who has political asylum in Britain, following the comments published Friday in The Guardian newspaper.

The episode further strained ties between Britain and Russia, already badly frayed by the mysterious poisoning in London of another exiled Russian, Alexander Litvinenko.

Moscow is also at loggerheads with Washington over recent US government reports criticising the state of democracy in Russia.

The Other Russia activists had hoped to gather on Pushkin Square, a major crossroads near the Kremlin, despite a ban by the city authorities.

Kasparov was arrested because "he came and began to provoke police into taking harsh action, while knowing that the demonstration on Pushkin Square was forbidden," a police spokesman was quoted as saying by Interfax.

After being blocked, hundreds of protestors marched toward a site outside the city centre, where they were authorised to rally.

"We need another Russia!" they chanted. "Russia without Putin!"

A spokesman for Moscow police, Viktor Biryukov, told ITAR-TASS news agency that 9,000 police and troops were deployed to control both the opposition and a series of other demonstrations, including by the pro-Kremlin youth group Young Guard.

"Our colleagues have been ordered to ensure order in a calm, polite way," Biryukov said.

The last two marches by The Other Russia -- one in Saint Petersburg and one in Nizhny Novgorod -- were violently dispersed. A third, held in Moscow last December, gathered approximately 2,000 people and 7,000 police.

"This was a gross violation of human rights," the respected head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, told Interfax after Saturday's rally.

"This was a violation of the constitution, according to which Russian citizens have the right to demonstrate."

Echo of Moscow radio, considered one of the few remaining independent broadcasters in the country, reported that police were drafted in from across Russia for the event.
Yawn. 'Human rights' is becoming a laughable term when it is bandied left and right without real concern about actual humans' rights, and instead the only motive in bringing it up at all is in order to topple governments seen as a threat to continued dominance of West and further West.
How about these subversive groups funded by foreign interests stop purposefully precipitating situations whereby they know and are indeed counting on harsh government action?

http://au.news.yahoo.com/070414/15/133uk.html
QUOTESaturday April 14, 09:30 PM
Russia police arrest 170 anti-Kremlin protesters
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained at least 170 people, including chess champion Garry Kasparov, on Saturday as they snuffed out an attempt by opponents of President Vladimir Putin to protest near the Kremlin.
Activists had planned to gather at a city center square about one km (half a mile) from the Kremlin to protest at what they say is Putin's trampling of democratic freedoms and demand a fair vote to choose a new president in 2008.

Teams of riot police, acting on a ruling from the city authorities banning the protest, pounced on protesters as they appeared in small groups near the square and swiftly loaded them into buses, Reuters witnesses said.

"The authorities are afraid of their own citizens and they do not want citizens to influence what is happening in the country," Mikhail Kasyanov, a leader of the Other Russia opposition coalition that organized the protest, told Reuters.

"On the eve of the elections ... of course the authorities are terribly scared of this and today's excessive actions by the police (are proof of that)," said Kasyanov, a former prime minister under Putin.
(How much was he paid to work for the other side? I want to know. I suspect Russian turncoats are not as cheap as Indian ones.)

An aide to Kasparov, also an Other Russia leader, confirmed the former chess grandmaster was among those detained. A police source said he was likely to be charged with incitement to violence.

Later, small groups of protesters gathered at another square a few kilometers away waving Russian flags and roses and shouting "Russia without Putin." Police dispersed them and a Reuters reporter saw several being led away to police vans.

The protesters have marginal influence in Russia. The vast majority of voters back Putin, who has overseen rising incomes and political stability. But Kremlin loyalists say the protesters are dangerous extremists plotting a revolution.
(Like in India. Psecularists and their media are small in number and influence, but likes to throw at least three times its weight around.)

The protest came a day after Russian multi-millionaire Boris Berezovsky said in a newspaper interview from his London base that he was fomenting revolution in Russia. The protest organizers distanced themselves from Berezovsky.

"Thanks to the well-coordinated actions of the riot police and Moscow police, we were able to prevent an illegal gathering being carried out," said Moscow police chief spokesman Viktor Biryukov.

"Police acted in a proportionate way ... and strictly in accordance with the law. As of 1:30 p.m. (0930 GMT), about 170 people have been held, these were the most aggressive participants in the unauthorized actions."

Four Reuters journalists -- two photographers and two camera crew -- were detained as they covered the clashes. All four were later released without charge.

Police said they had mobilized 9,000 officers around the center of Moscow on Saturday to keep order.

There was a massive security presence around the square, in the shadow of a statue to poet Alexander Pushkin, where the protesters had planned to congregate.

At least a thousand police could be seen in the square and on the streets leading into it. A water cannon truck and several police trucks were stationed on the street leading from the square to the Kremlin.
Oh, poor victimised 'The Other Russia'. Thank goodness for Reuters relating their carefully-planned tribulations and letting them speak the words rehearsed for the interview.
What? No interview with Putin this time, edited to make it look like he's the next Stalin and major threat to the world? Not even any images of Putin next to images of Stalin? That's the shame about the media these days, they do everything by halves. They can't even go overboard wholeheartedly.
Guess either readers are more sophisticated nowadays (mwahahahaha, yeah right) or we're not as interested as in decades past.

Putin may not be the best of men, but he cares for his country and is actually doing something for it. Russia has so many people ashamed of their own country (thanks to brainwashing and 'international'/western media) you'd think they were psecular Indians. Putin is putting faith in Russia back into many people. Some brainwashed Russians can't stand it. By the time the next leader is elected - hopefully a pro-Russian too - fewer Russians may believe in badmouthing their nation, they'll certainly have even less cause then.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-26-2007, 06:18 PM by Husky.)

http://au.news.yahoo.com/070419/2/136ar.html
QUOTEFriday April 20, 09:07 AM
EU-Russia trust 'at post-Cold War low'
The level of trust between the European Union and Russia has reached its lowest level since the collapse of communism, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said in a speech prepared to be delivered on Friday.

Mandelson, a central figure in Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and in a row over Moscow's ban on Polish meat imports, urged both sides to take a long-term view.

"But relations between the EU and Russia are going through a difficult period," Mandelson said in the speech he is due to deliver at a conference on Russia in Bologna, Italy.

"Indeed, they contain a level of misunderstanding or even mistrust we have not seen since the end of the Cold War."

Mandelson said Russia and the EU suspected each other of double standards, including on the core issue of gas and oil supplies.

"Both believe the other is using the energy weapon as an instrument of politics," he said, adding EU countries too often gave Moscow mixed messages from Europe.

EU countries have criticised Moscow for shutting off supplies of oil and gas during disputes with neighbouring customers like Ukraine. They fear Russia is using its vast energy resources as a political weapon.
(Let's get this straight.
Who has the gas and oil? Russia.
Who desperately wants it? Europa.
Who then deserves to determine the asking price? Oooh, I don't know, could it be.... Russia? And to think that even I, who was dozing off during much of economics class, know the answer to that question.
See also bottom of post.)

EU leaders have also expressed concerns about the unexplained murders of dissidents and journalists critical of the Kremlin and the recent heavy-handed behaviour of police during anti-government demonstrations in Russia.

"On the key issues - pluralism, rule of law, freedom of speech, economic freedoms - I am sure that EU policies are correct and that we should say so," Mandelson said.
(I was wondering when they'd bring up 'big bad wolf Russia is awake again'. Failing to convince people that the country should have the right to determine prices for its own energy resources, the 'impartial' media has to resort to conjuring up that sinister image of Rossiya prepared earlier - 'unexplained murders of dissidents' and the other stuff - to gain our sympathy. Well, not mine.)

He urged Russia to move towards the transparent rule of law and stem the state's growing influence over the economy.
(Finally, they're hinting at what is actually bothering them.)

"Effective engagement is surely as much about understanding how you will be perceived as choosing what to say. Unless we recognise our different perceptions of what has happened since the end of the Soviet Union we risk getting the EU-Russia relationship badly wrong," Mandelson said.
(Here's what happened: Russia has finally started recovering after the devastations of war and communism, and is now asserting itself. Better get used to it.)

Mandelson said the EU needed guarantees that Russia will not cut off oil and gas supplies, and both sides would benefit from rules for energy investments on both sides of the borders.
(No. Russia gives discounts for friends, like it did to Ukraine before it broke off to join against Russia.
EU is desperate. Beggars can't be choosers. There are no guarantees. Be a trustworthy friend to Russia and I'm sure it will return the favour, like it still does to Belarus/Witrusland. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out.)

Russia also needed to diversify its economy to avoid being "trapped in the false strength of a petro-state" and its attempts to join the WTO was essential in that sense.

"Russia needs to be in the WTO and we have a duty to assist this which is why I am frustrated by our continuing bilateral disagreement on a number of issues," Mandelson said.

The EU is hoping to negotiate a new sweeping cooperation and trade pact with Russia but Poland is blocking the process due to Russia's 16-month ban on Polish meat imports.

Senior EU and Russian officials are due to meet on Saturday to seek a solution to the meat row.Again: it's Russia's own energy resources. The country can do what it likes with it.
Russia was selling it to Ukraine for far far cheaper than its price for Europe. Then, when Ukraine aligned with Europe against Russia, Russia increased the price for Ukraine, bringing this on par/close to prices for Europe. Ukraine went crying to Europe. Europe made sure the media blazoned the news into my tv-set and bothered me <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' /> with it on late night BBC. BBC and local news went gaga over how '(1) Russia's energy prices have become unreasonable and (2) its neighbours like Ukraine fear the formerly totalitarian country is turning into a dictatorship once more.'
Note how those two are actually unrelated accusations, but the news makes it seem like (1) is but a consequence of (2) and that therefore Putin is 'evil' and 'must be' deposed and replaced. It's in the media's interest to tie the two together and in the west's interest that you believe it.

For goodness sake. If the news wants me to support the west in this, please *have a good reason*. Tell us that Russia stole the energy from Ukraine and now has the audacity to sell it back to Ukraine at a very high price. That would be a total lie, of course, but at least it will sound like Russia is behaving badly.
Else the whole thing merely reminds me of a primary school playground: the US-and-Europe clique stole Russia's friend Ukraine who has now turned against her old friend and is yet crying that it's no longer invited to Russia's birthday party. Get over it, pigtails.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-26-2007, 06:18 PM by Husky.)

http://au.news.yahoo.com/070426/15/1392m.html
QUOTEThursday April 26, 10:03 PM
Putin hawkish in final state-of-nation address

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed U.S. foreign policy and urged a revival of traditional values on Thursday in a hawkish speech that aimed to set out Russia's direction long after he steps down next year.
Putin, making what he said would be his last annual address to lawmakers, said he was suspending Russia's commitments under the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty -- linking the move in part to U.S. plans for a missile shield in Eastern Europe.

He gave no clear answer to question preoccupying Kremlin-watchers and investors: who he would endorse to replace him when his second and final term ends next March.

But he set the tone for Russia's next presidency, announcing a huge spending splurge on housing, pensions, defense and mammoth infra-structure projects including a canal to link the Caspian and Black Seas.

In a swipe at opposition groups who have taken to the streets alleging he is backtracking on democracy, he railed at "extremists" and said foreign cash was being funneled into upsetting Russia's political stability.
(Note media's use of 'railed'.)

The thread though that ran through his 72-minute address was what he called Russia's moral state.

"Our nation's spiritual unity and the moral values which unite us are as important a factor in our development as political and economic stability," he said, urging more effort to preserve Russia's culture and language.Â
(<!--emo& Smile

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /> True for every country)

Putin announced a minute of silence at the start of his address for his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, who died of heart failure aged 76 this week and was buried in a state funeral.

First deputy prime ministers Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev -- the men seen as front-runners for Putin's job, sat side by side listening to the speech along with lawmakers, religious leaders and ministers in the Kremlin's Marble Hall.

Putin confirmed that the address next year would be read by a different president. But he added to applause from his audience: "It is premature for me to come out with political last wills and testaments."

In his seven years as Russian leader, Putin has overseen steady growth in incomes and a return to political stability after years of turmoil.

But relations with the United States have soured dramatically and his critics say he is turning Russia away from the West and tightening state control over all areas of life.
(Wonder why this could be...)

On the arms treaty, he said it made no sense for Russia to observe the pact when NATO signatories were ignoring it.

"(NATO countries) are ... building up military bases on our borders and, more than that, they are also planning to station elements of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic," Putin said.

"In this connection, I consider it expedient to declare a moratorium on Russia's implementation of this treaty -- in any case, until all countries of the world have ratified and started to strictly implement it."

Russia's windfall from oil and gas exports -- until now kept in a rainy-day fund and spent sparingly -- should be mobilized to improve citizens' quality of life, Putin said to applause from his audience.

He said pensions would rise by 65 percent through to 2009, and that proceeds from the state-forced auction of bankrupt oil company YUKOS should go towards a massive house-building drive.

Russia needs to increase its power-generating capacity by two thirds by 2020, Putin said, including by building 26 new atomic reactors.

Putin said a parliamentary election in December, widely seen as a dress rehearsal for the presidential race, should ensure "continuity." He attacked unnamed political forces he said wanted to upset stability.

"There is a growing influx of foreign cash used to directly meddle in our domestic affairs," Putin said.

"Some people are not averse to using the dirtiest methods, trying to foment interethnic and religious hatred in our multinational country."

"In this respect, I am addressing you with a request to speed up the adoption of amendments to the legislation toughening punishment for extremist actions," he said.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-04-2007, 08:23 PM by Husky.)

Neighbouring Ukraine:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070504/19/13cky.html
QUOTEFriday May 4, 11:25 PM
Ukraine president, premier agree early elections

Photo : AFPÂ
KIEV (AFP) - Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych agreed Friday to hold early parliamentary elections, signalling an end to a bitter power struggle in the ex-Soviet republic.

"Today we reached agreement in principle on holding early elections," Yushchenko said after meeting with Yanukovych in Kiev, Interfax news agency reported.

Speaking to a crowd of several thousand of his supporters who have rallied on Independence Square in central Kiev for weeks, Yanukovych confirmed that a deal had been reached.

"We have reached the same conclusion that there is no other way to resolve this crisis than to organise honest and democratic elections," Yanukovych told his supporters.

There was no immediate indication of the date when elections would be held.

Ukraine has been in crisis since Yushchenko issued an order on April 2 to dissolve parliament and hold early elections after months of dispute with his arch rival Yanukovych, who heads up a pro-Russian coalition in the parliament.

Yanukovych defied the order and brought thousands of his supporters into central Kiev, who held round-the-clock protests against Yushchenko outside key government buildings.

The power struggle has paralysed political life in Ukraine and led to heated debate in the country's constitutional court, which Yanukovych supporters appealed to against Yushchenko's order.

10-18-2007, 02:54 PM

2 recent news bytes on Russia in Yahoo. Forgot to put it up earlier. Don't know if someone already has (and if so where).

12 or 13 Oct 2007
QUOTEPutin says missile plan risks relations 
By ROBERT BURNS and MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writers

In a tense start to talks on a range of thorny issues, President Vladimir Putin on Friday warned U.S. officials to back off a plan to install missile defenses in eastern Europe or risk harming relations with Moscow.

Addressing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Russian president appeared to mock the U.S. missile defense plan, which is at the center of a tangle of arms control and diplomatic disputes between the former Cold War adversaries.

"Of course we can sometime in the future decide that some anti-missile defense system should be established somewhere on the moon," Putin said, according to an English translation. "But before we reach such arrangements we will lose the opportunity for fixing some particular arrangements between us."

Putin also said Russia might feel compelled to pull out of a 20-year-old arms control deal unless it is expanded.

Later, at the start of a meeting with Rice and Gates, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov referred to the Americans having presented "detailed proposals" in the Putin talks to address U.S.-Russian differences on missile defense and arms control. He offered no details but said the Russian government is ready to seek compromise.

"We have differences and there is no need to hide them," Lavrov said.

But both he and Rice said the two countries were committed to bridging those gaps.

"I know that we don't always see eye-to-eye on every element of the solutions to these issues, nonetheless, I believe we will do this in a constructive spirit, that we will make progress during these talks as we continue to pursue cooperation," Rice said.

The Russian government sees the U.S. missile defense plan, which Washington describes as a hedge against the threat of missile attack from Iran, as a worrisome step toward weakening Russian security. It has been a longstanding dispute, and Putin's remarks seemed to raise the level of tensions.

Rice and Gates appeared taken aback at the firm tone and forcefulness of Putin's remarks, which were made from notes in the presence of American and Russian news media before they began a closed-door meeting around an oval table in an ornate conference room at his country house outside the capital.

"We will try to find ways to cooperate," Rice said in response. "Even though we have our differences, we have a great deal in common because that which unites us in trying to deal with the threats of terrorism, of proliferation, are much greater than the issues that divide us."

After Putin addressed further comments about U.S.-Russian military cooperation to Gates, the American defense secretary responded by saying the Pentagon was ready to intensify a dialogue on military relations.

"We have an ambitious agenda of security issues that concern both of us, including, as you suggest, development of missile systems by others in the neighborhood â I would say in particular, Iran," Gates said.

Gates did not directly comment on the missile defense dispute.

After keeping Rice and Gates waiting for 40 minutes, Putin began the session with a lengthy monologue in which he also said that Russia may feel compelled to abandon its obligations under a 1987 missile treaty with the United States if it is not expanded to constrain other missile-armed countries.

Referring to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty that was negotiated with the United States before the breakup of the Soviet Union, Putin said it must be applied to other countries, including those "located in our near vicinity." He did not mention any by name, but in response, Gates said Washington was interested in limiting missile proliferation in Iran.

Putin said the treaty must be made "universal in nature."

The pact eliminated the deployment of Soviet and American ballistic missiles of intermediate range and was a landmark step in arms control just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall and later the breakup of the Soviet Union.

"We need to convince other (countries) to assume the same level of obligation as assumed by the Russian Federation and the United States," Putin said. "If we are unable to obtain such a goal ... it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of the treaty in a situation where other countries do develop such weapon systems, and among those are countries located in our near vicinity."

Putin also has threatened to suspend Russian adherence to another arms control treaty, known as the Conventional Forces in Europe pact, which limits deployments of conventional military forces. Moscow wants it to be revised in ways that thus far have been unacceptable to U.S. and European signatories.

On missile defense, Putin was particularly pointed in his remarks, in which he sought to lay out his view of what Rice and Gates should be discussing later Friday with Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.

"We hope that in the process of such complex and multi-faceted talks you will not be forcing forward your relations with the eastern European countries," the president said. He then made his remark about the possibility of one day putting a missile defense system on the moon.

Shortly before the talks with Putin began, Lavrov strolled into the house's billiards room, where American reporters had gathered, for a cigarette break. He was asked whether he expected any breakthroughs in the talks.

"Breaks, definitely. Through or down, I don't know," he said.

The Pentagon plans to install 10 missile interceptors in Poland, linked to a missile tracking radar in the Czech Republic. The Pentagon says the system will provide some protection in Europe and beyond for long-range missiles launched from Iran, but Russia believes the system is a step toward undermining the deterrent value of its nuclear arsenal.

Rice told reporters on Thursday on her flight to Moscow that the U.S. would go ahead with the program as planned.

"We've been very clear that we need the Czech and Polish sites," she said, although there's "considerable interest" in Russian ideas for cooperation such as sharing a Soviet-era tracking station in Azerbaijan.

"We're going to keep exploring ideas, we want to explore ideas," she said. "We are interested in other potential sites as well and we may be able to find ways to put that together."
And 14 or 15 Oct 2007
QUOTERussia divulges Putin assassination plot
By LYNN BERRY, Associated Press Writer

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been told about a plot to assassinate him during a visit to Iran this week, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Sunday.

The spokeswoman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, refused further comment.

Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia's special services, said suicide terrorists had been trained to carry out the assassination.

A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, denied any such plot had been uncovered, characterizing the news as disinformation spread by Iran's adversaries.

"These sort of reports are completely baseless and in direction with psychological operations of enemies of relations between Iran and Russia," Hosseini said in a statement.

Putin is to travel to Tehran on Monday night from Germany after meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel.

During his visit to Iran, Putin is to meet with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and attend Tuesday's summit of Caspian Sea nations.

He will be the first Kremlin leader to travel to Iran since Josef Stalin attended a 1943 wartime summit with Britain's Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt.

Officials have reported uncovering at least two other plots to kill Putin on foreign trips since he became president in 2000.

Ukrainian security officials said they foiled an attempt to kill Putin during a summit in Yalta in August 2000. And in 2001, Russian security officials said a plot to assassinate Putin earlier that year in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, had been uncovered by the Azeri special services.

Russian officials linked both alleged plots to Chechen separatists. Putin had sent troops back into the southern Russian republic to crush resistance to Moscow's rule.

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