That's just awful :(
I have read yesterday and today on MSN news about Litvinenko but wasn't sure how exactly they managed to poison him with polonium...salt during the meal , ex? though ..who take salt when eating sushi ??

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what do you make of it ? Putin?

I'm willing to bet Putin nor any part of the Russian Goverment is involved. It'd be kid of silly of them to do so, since of course they'd be the first one people would point fingers at. Basically what's happening now is they (the Russian Goverment) have been caught with a smoking gun, eventhough they more than likely didn't fire it.

If anything I think it's more than plausable that someone else set Putin up. It certainly doesn't do their international reputation any favours. First Anna Politkovskaya murder, now this. Both incidents widely believed by the general public to be the doing of Russian Goverment (or even by direct orders of Putin).

I remember reading that Anna Politkovskaya wasn't the first journalist to be murdered from that newspaper. At least one other person has been killed while investigating organised crime.

I don't think Putin was involved with this. It all seems too convenient and he has more to lose than gain. I can't help thinking he's been set up. I believe there's quite a long list of people who would wish to do that. The question is who has the means to kill Litvinenko with something like polonium-210 ?

More things I can't help thinking - why didn't the Italian bloke eat anything in the sushi place ? Why have traces of radiation been found in other places ? Had Litvinenko gradually been poisoned ?

Offtop:
I was a bit alarmed to see that polonium-210 is found in cigarettes, I'm so glad I stopped smoking !

Well, i don't know who's done it but…

First, i don't think Putin would have any problem ordering an assassination, he wouldn't even blink.
Second, i don't think Putin cares at all what foreigners think, he's holding everybody by the balls with an efficient energy blackmail, he can do whatever he wants with no repercussion.
Third, the FSB (ex-KGB) is a state within the state, it conducts operations on its own. Several ex-KGB defectors have been assassinated in the past years around the world, and it's no secret that the FSB is behind them, it's a general clean-up after the loose years of the Yeltsin era.
Fourth, everything goes back to a series of dodgy terrorist attacks that happened in Russia and were officially blamed on Tchetchens with no proof and even contradictory elements, everybody who has come too close to that affair has been eliminated one way or another, Politkovskaya and Litvinenko are just the last names of a long list.
Finally, polonium 210 is not something you can buy at your local pharmacy, it has to be produced in a nuclear reactor or a particle accelerator (and i've read that only 100g of polonium are produced globally every year), only state organizations can obtain that kind of products.

I was watching a thing yesterday on BBC News 24 about this. There was this guy was an expert on this. According to this guy no one other than government sources would be able to get hold of this kind of thing. There is record of every mg of this produced. Either it was Putin and he's trying to get the guy to shup up about Politkovskaya (which is most probably the case) or he's being set up by another countries government. Either way, it will do no halm to Putin. People have to keep him happy as he can use oil as a weapon. He is pretty untouchable.

It makes no sense to use Po210, which is extremely expensive and even extremely dangerous to handle for the assassinator and would immediately point with the finger at Putin himself. If he wanted to kill Litvinenko, he could have done it much smarter. As far as I could follow, Po210 is only supposed to be the poison, because of it's almost non-detectibility, but not proved. Anyway Russian dissidents die like flies nowadays, creepy times!

Yeah it's all extremely fishy. If Putin doesn't care what people think of him or his regime, then why would he bother assassinating an ex-spy who was investigating a murder of a journalist (of which Putin couldn't give a damn just as well). If Putin was so careless and uninterested about what the world thinks of him he'd just leave the ex-spy be - no one would take him seriously anyway and everything would be shruged of as another one of those crazy consipracy theories (like it always has been).

Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not saying some people who're associated with Russian politics aren't involved. But if anything I'd point my finger at the opposition. My suspect? Vladimir Zhirinovski. He publically stated a spy who goes abroad, decides to trade goverment secrets and thus turns it's back on the motherland deserves to be shot.

If Putin had ordered the murder, he would have a strange sense of humour. First he let kill Politkovskaya on his birthday, shaking hands with numerous foreign politicians and diplomats, then he let kill Litvinenko just before the EU - Russia summit, strange behaviour in foreign policy.

The last people Litvinenko met, was a CIA-man and two Beresovski-footmen, so there could be some quite different speculations.

if the speculations, that the murders of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya are directly connected, which is supported by 'Novaya Gazeta', the employer of her and one of the very few really independent newspapers, then there is evidence that the de facto 'president' of Chechnya, Ramsan Kadyrov is involved ("Those, who I had to kill, I have already killed, and those behind them I will kill - to the last man, as long as I am not killed myself or arrested. I will kill as long as I live!"). He is now old enough to be president and can't be interested in revelations of Politkovskaya or her murder.

Another possibility is the power struggle of the wannabie future presidents. Putin will not prolong his presidency and in 2008 there will be a new one. A dissident ex-FSB man could be quite dangerous for a not so 'clean' candidate.

thrilling whodunnit-quiz!

I've read the Po210 was in his tea, and according to the newspaper the British police was investigating the hotel, I think it was Millennium. Besides, an Italian man who had met Litvinenko the day he was poisoned was contaminated as well, so the article explained that rests of Po210 were likely to find in everything the man touched. About the "wannabe future presidents" as Argos well said, what do you think of Kasparov? I don't know much of him, only he's a great chess-player :D (Maybe his strategies help him, hehe)

Gagged babies in Yekaterinburg hospital. You'd think that with the collapsing birth rate, the rare babies would be treated better.

haku, oh my god, that is horrible... makes me sick :none:

Russian opposition demo quashed

Russia slowly sinking back into authoritarianism.

woah, poor babies..
A russian kid is on my mind to adopt
later in the future. As well as an African kid.

How do you figure that? You cannot organize an Anti-Government rally anywhere in the world. It's entirely subversive to the country you're living in! Protesting is one thing - but rallying for an overthrow of the Government is another.

It was a simple protest against the government, which is perfectly legal in any democracy.
Those people weren't out there to "overthrow the government", give me a break. :rolleyes:

A similar protest met the same response in Belarus actually.

What are the requirements to adopt a Russian kid?

Months of paperwork and checking and cross referencing to make sure you can provide a nice atmosphere and that you are financially able and all that happy stuff. it's extremely complicated - i dont think anyone here has specific detail. try googling it or finding a russian adoption agency site.

Police beat protestors in Belarus and Russia

Riot police used fists and batons against peaceful demonstrators in Minsk on Sunday making 30 to 60 arrests. The events come one day after similar scenes in Russia, with Russian president Vladimir Putin sending the EU a barbed birthday message.

The Belarus violence broke out in mid-afternoon when a column of some 3,000 to 5,000 protestors tried to break through a police cordon to get to October Square. No serious injuries were reported but a Polish MP, Malgorzata Gosiewska and a PAP reporter, Bozena Kuzawinska, were each punched several times.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people came out in total, making the rally the biggest since last year's protests against the fake elections that kept Europe's "last dictator" president Aleksander Lukashenko in power. Polish MEP Janusz Onyszkiewicz and the German ambassador to Belarus were also in the crowd.

Many of the protestors carried blue EU banners and flags, a revolutionary symbol in Belarus, and chanted "Belarus to Europe!" as well as German chancellor Angela Merkel's words - "Europe is with you" - which had been relayed by media from the EU 50th birthday party in Berlin.

The two people in charge of the riot squads, Dzmitry Paulichenka and Yury Padabed are already on the EU's 35-strong visa ban list, which was unanimously extended for one more year just a few days before the weekend's events.

"Today despite all the obstacles we have proved that we are one people that want to live in Europe in a free and independent state," one of the opposition youth leaders, Mikita Sasim, told crowds gathered outside Minsk's library, NGO Charter97 reports.

"Despite a campaign of fear, people came out on the streets to protest. It's disturbed the authorities, which answered the only way they know how, with violence," one of the opposition leaders, Aleksander Milinkevich told Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

Mr Milinkevich and his wife were also punched and kicked to the ground on Sunday. The night before, his car was doused with acid by unknown vandals. His ally, Aleskander Kozulin, is in jail. Other opposition leaders, such as Kristina Shatsikava, have been put into mental asylums.

Belarus authorities said the number of protestors was just 4,000 people, Russian media report. "The suppression of any political action associated with violating public order, posing a threat to people's security and resisting the authorities is a quite appropriate policy in any democratic state. I am certain that the fuss over such actions will weaken," Lukashenko spokesman Alexander Konovalov said.

Russian violence day earlier
The events in Minsk mirrored Saturday's violence in the Russian town of Nizhny Novgorod, where riot police beat crowds protesting against president Vladimir Putin's roll back of democratic reforms in the run-up to next year's presidential elections. About 30 arrests were made.

Similar protests were also handled roughly by police in St Petersburg in recent weeks, with some western powers - but not the EU - recently voicing concern about the internal drift back to pre-perestrojka days in Europe's largest country.

"The trends, unfortunately, are not going in the right direction," senior US diplomat David Kramer told EUobserver in Brussels last week, citing pressure on free media and independent NGOs as key problems.

The EU is less keen to publicly criticise Moscow, with the German EU presidency recently burying a UK proposal to try and send OSCE election monitors to the parliamentary elections this December.

Brussels and Moscow's relationship is not an easy one since 2004 enlargement, with trade commissioner Peter Mandelson this weekend saying the EU may block Russia's WTO entry bid if it does not lift an embargo on Polish meat exports.

The meat issue and wider energy gripes have seen Poland veto talks on a new EU-Russia treaty since late last year. Lithuania is threatening to do the same.

Happy birthday Russian style
Russian president Vladimir Putin on Sunday sent a birthday message to Berlin on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the EU's founding treaty. His words spoke of the European Union as a "growing authority" in global security problems.

But the increasingly autocratic leader also called for "mutual respect" and warned the EU27 leaders that "every interruption to dialogue is counter-productive" in an apparent reference to the stalled EU-Russia treaty negotiations.

"We cannot allow new dividing lines to appear in Europe, allowing unilateral projects to be realised that endanger the interests and security of neighbours," he added, on Poland and the Czech Republic's plans to host a US missile defence system in the future.

EU Observer

Someone enlighten me about Beslan, that attack that happend back
in Sept 1st of 2004. To my knowledge, i really dont remember hearing anything
about this on the news. So i really dont know what went on.

Wikipedia has a page about it, it's rather detailed.