Pope Francis concludes visit to USA

Vatican News ^ | 2015-09-28 | Vatican Radio

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Symposium: To Kill a Russian Journalist
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | November 17, 2006

The murder of internationally renowned Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in early October 2006 was yet another troubling sign of Russia’s retreat into its totalitarian past. Today Frontpage Symposium has gathered a distinguished panel of experts to discuss why Anna Politkovskaya was killed and what the tragic loss of her life symbolizes about the direction in which Vladimir Putin’s Russia is heading.

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=1490
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'PUTIN'S RUSSIA' by Anna Politkovskaya:
http://www.amazon.com/PUTINS-RUSSIA-ANNA-POLITKOVSKAYA/dp/1843430509

[ETL]

List of journalists killed in Russia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia#A_list_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia

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From 2014

Yushchenko, hero of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution warns Europe that Putin won’t stop at Crimea

by Matthew Schofield - McClatchy Foreign Staff
March 27, 2014

Many Ukrainians believe you need look no further than the face of Viktor Yushchenko to understand Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Once smooth and ruggedly handsome, it still bears the scars from an assassination attempt when someone slipped dioxin into Yushchenko’s food. ...”

Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24765781.html#storylink=cpy
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______________________________________________

From 2007

Yushchenko: Russia blocking poisoning probe
by Bonnie Malkin and agencies, September 12, 2007

"Mr Yushchenko, a pro-European politician who wanted to bring his country [The Ukraine] out of Russia's shadow, fell seriously ill on September 6, 2004 as he was competing in presidential elections against a pro-Moscow candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, now [2007] prime minister.

After months of tests in an Austrian clinic, it was determined that he had ingested a massive amount of the poison dioxin.

Although he survived, his face was left bloated and pockmarked, and he has had to undergo regular treatment to rid his body of the toxin.

In an interview with Le Figaro he said he believed the dioxin used to disfigure him was made in a Russian lab.

Mr Yushchenko did not directly accuse the Russian government of being behind his poisoning, but he did say he had 'practically put all the pieces together' and the attempt against him 'was not a private action'. ..."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562838/Yushchenko-Russia-blocking-poisoning-probe.html

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“On 10 April 2010, a Tupolev Tu-154 aircraft of the Polish Air Force crashed near the city of Smolensk, Russia, killing all 96 people on board.

Among the victims were the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria, the former President of Poland in exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, the chief of the Polish General Staff and other senior Polish military officers, the president of the National Bank of Poland, Polish Government officials, 18 members of the Polish Parliament, senior members of the Polish clergy and relatives of victims of the Katyn massacre.

The group was arriving from Warsaw to attend an event marking the 70th anniversary of the [Katyn] massacre, which took place not far from Smolensk.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_Tu-154_crash

**********************************************************

April 2014...

Did Putin Blow Up the Whole Polish Government in 2010?
A Second Look

A plane crash at Smolensk in Russia four years ago wiped out the Warsaw leadership. It used to be seen as an accident. Now, after Putin’s games in Ukraine, people aren’t so sure.

Four years ago this week, Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash near the Katyn Forest in Russia where he was flying to honor the 22,000 Polish officers, lawyers, priests and professors slaughtered there by the Soviets 70 years before. Ninety-five other military, political and public figures including his wife died on that plane. One of the more heartbreaking details to emerge was that First Lady Maria Kaczynska’s body could be identified only by her nail polish and the inscription inside her wedding ring.

Less than two years before the crash the late president had given a speech warning that if Russian aggression was not stopped in Georgia, which Russia had invaded, it would extend to Ukraine, the Baltics, and possibly Poland as well. “We are here to take up the fight,” he said. And many Poles still believe that their president died in the cause of that effort. Physicist Kazimierz Nowaczyk is one of them. ...”

(BIG SNIP)

He makes the case at the link...

Did Putin Blow Up the Whole Polish Government in 2010? A Second Look:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/11/did-putin-blow-up-the-whole-polish-government-in-2010-a-second-look.html

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From AP via FoxNews.com...

Last Living Beslan School Attacker Sentenced to Life in Prison
May 28, 2006

VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia — AP
A southern Russian court on Friday sentenced the sole surviving Beslan school attacker to life in prison, capping a yearlong trial that survivors and victims' relatives say has left the most essential questions about the tragedy unanswered.

They demand to know just who bore the most responsibility: Nur-Pashi Kulayev and his 31 fellow militants, or the officials whose negligence or even alleged complicity allowed them to seize hundreds of children and parents on the first day of school in September 2004.

Countrywatch: Russia

"I did not go to court to become convinced of Kulayev's guilt, but to reconstruct all the circumstances of the terrorist attack and find the truth," said Aneta Gadiyeva, whose daughter was killed. "But I did not learn anything new and did not get any answers." ..."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197093,00.html

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From the Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2008:

Dear President Medvedev
By TATYANA MOROZOV and ALYONA MOROZOV

"In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121209647875130625.html
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Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth

In 1999, a series of apartment bombings shook Russia and propelled the country headlong into the Second Chechen War. Nearly nine years after the attacks, which claimed 292 lives, many Russians remain unconvinced by the official version of events, which holds that Chechen separatists were responsible.

Two sisters, who lost their mother in the attack, have written an open letter to President Dmitri Medvedev, urging him to mount a fully open, independent investigation. The sisters, Tatyana and Alyona Morozov, currently reside in Missouri. Their appeal (below) was published in the Wall Street Journal newspaper on May 30th.

–

Dear President Medvedev

In three coordinated bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September 1999, 292 people were murdered, including our mother Lyubov Morozova. We are writing this open letter to call on you, Dmitry Anatolyevich, to order an independent, open and full investigation of these attacks.

Although these crimes were blamed on Chechen terrorists and used to justify the resumption of a full-scale war against Chechnya later that month, there are numerous indications that Russian security services may have been involved. There is also clear evidence of a cover-up by the authorities. We do not consider this case solved.

Let us remind you of some of the facts:

* On September 23, 1999, police arrested three Federal Security Service (FSB) agents who had planted a detonator and RDX – the same explosive used in the earlier bombings – in the basement of a residential building in the city of Ryazan. The FSB explained the agent’s activities as a “training exercise,” claiming the sacks of explosives actually contained only sugar. The investigation was dropped and all evidence classified “top secret.”

* At about the same time, a Russian soldier discovered RDX in sacks labeled as “sugar” at his army base near Ryazan. The incident was never investigated and the evidence classified.

* On September 13, 1999, the Speaker of the Duma, Gennady Seleznev, announced that an apartment house in Volgodonsk had been blown up – three days before the attack actually occurred.

* Mark Blumenfeld, the property manager of our house on Guryanova Street in Moscow that was blown up, told our lawyer and several journalists that FSB agents had “talked him into” changing his testimony. The agents showed him a photo of Achemez Gochiyayev, a Chechen he had never seen before, and under pressure he “identified” him as the man who had rented storage space in the basement.

* The composite sketch based on Mr. Blumenfeld’s initial description of what the real suspect looked like disappeared from the police file and was replaced with the photograph of Mr. Gochiyaev. Meanwhile, our attorney Mikhail Trepashkin, himself a former KGB agent, told reporters that he had recognized FSB agent Vladimir Romanovich from the police sketch. Romanovich was subsequently killed in Cyprus in a hit and run incident that was never solved.

* In November 2003, on the eve of the trial of two Chechens later convicted for transporting the explosives used in the Moscow bombings, Mr. Trepashkin was arrested after a gun had been planted in his car. This prevented him from submitting Mr. Blumenfeld’s statement to court that the FSB agents had pressured him to give false evidence. The trial of the two Chechens was not convincing to us or the world as it was held behind closed doors and human rights groups noted numerous violations of due process. Mr. Blumenfeld’s statement and the replacement of the police sketch with the photo of Mr. Gochiyayev was never reviewed by a Russian court.

* Four people investigating the FSB’s possible involvement in the bombings were assassinated. Duma Deputy Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead in Moscow in April 2003 and his colleague Yuri Schekochihin died of apparent poisoning three months later. Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in October 2006 in her Moscow apartment block and a month later, former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died of poisoning in London.

Many Russians have come to the conclusion that the bombings may have been the work of Russian security services. As for our family, our initial trust in the official version of a “Chechen trail” is long gone. We have come to believe that our mother and neighbors were sacrificed for a political end: To justify the war in Chechnya and help Vladimir Putin become president the following year. Only an objective investigation could make us change this view.

Mr. President, we are writing this open letter because we would like to believe that your ascent to the presidency will end this dark period in Russian history. You were not involved.

We realize that you owe the previous regime a debt of loyalty and gratitude. But the powers of the state were entrusted to you not to protect possible murderers. You are now in control of Russia and your position imposes a higher responsibility. Before history, the people and the memory of innocent victims, you have an obligation to find and tell the truth about these crimes.

Related articles:

* A Record Harvest of Spies

* An Open Letter to the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia

* Opposition Activist Revealed as FSB Agent

* Beslan Rights Group Charged With Extremism

* Russian Immigration Agency Knew Nothing About Morar’s Deportation

* Investigative Journalist Barred From Returning to Moscow

* Kasparov on His FSB Interrogation

Source: Russian Terror Victims Ask for Truth:
http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/05/31/russian-terror-victims-ask-for-truth/

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Blowing Up Russia: The Secret Plot to Bring Back KGB [Power]
Alexander Litvinenko & Yuri Felshtinsky

This book, co-authored by Alexander Litvinenko, the victim of the notorious 2006 London polonium poisoning, attempts to demonstrate that modern Russia's most fundamental problems do not result from the radical reforms of the liberal period of Yeltsin's terms as president, but from the open or clandestine resistance offered to these reforms by the Russian special services. It was they who unleashed the first and second Chechen wars, in order to divert Russia away from the path of democracy and towards dictatorship, militarism, and chauvinism.

The authors alleged that the Russian apartment bombings and other September 1999 terrorist acts were committed by the Federal Security Service. Litvinenko and Felshtinsky wrote that the bombings were a false flag operation intended to justify Second Chechen War and bring Vladimir Putin to power.

Originally published in 2002
(223 pages)

http://www.libertypublishinghouse.com/Blowing_up_Russia_E.aspx

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Putin's Poison?
by Peter Brookes, November 27, 2006

The death of former Russian spy, Alexander Litvinenko, last week from radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning is the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on the outspoken opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

http://www.heritage.org/Press/Commentary/ed112706a.cfm

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“Over the next six years, Litvinenko became an anti-Kremlin journalist, accusing the Russian government of abuses during their battles with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the FSB’s alleged 1999 bombing of 300 people in explosions at apartments in Russia that was used to justify its second war against Chechnya.

He also claimed two of the Chechen separatists who took hostages at a theater in Moscow in October 2002 during which 162 people died were working for the FSB. He also pointed the finger at the FSB for having trained al Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/237045/long-awaited-investigation-alexander-v-litvinenkos-arnold-ahlert

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Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium [poisoned by Putin?...case now concluding]
BBC - Magazine ^ | July 28, 2015

"The polonium trail started on 16 October 2006 when Litvinenko met Lugovoi and Kovtun in London. ..."

"When Lugovoi and Kovtun's movements were mapped against the sites of polonium contamination, there was an exact match. The evidence of guilt was strong. In May 2007, the then Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald announced that Andrei Lugovoi was to be charged with murder and his extradition would be sought from Russia. Kovtun was charged in 2010. ..."

Prof Norman Dombey, a physicist who has a deep knowledge of Russian nuclear sites, gave evidence at the public inquiry.

Dombey says there is only one place where it can be produced in the quantities used in the murder - a military nuclear reactor at the Avangard plant in the closed city of Sarov. Sarov was where Russia produced its first nuclear bomb in the days of Joseph Stalin. This is a clear link to the Russian state.

But why would the Russian state want him dead? ..."

It is clear that Alexander Litvinenko had powerful enemies in Russia. ..."

The first red line concerns a book he co-wrote called Blowing Up Russia about a terrorist attack in Moscow in September 1999. Chechen separatists were blamed.

"Litvinenko claimed that Russia's own security services carried out the attack to give Putin the cover to launch a new Chechen war. Some 300 people had died. ..."

His co-author, Felshtinsky, stands by their conclusions and says: "This [attack] helped Putin...the reaction of the population was we now have to have a strong leader. ..."

The inquiry will now hear secret evidence from intelligence agencies in special closed sessions. It will report back at the end of the year and, until then, the mystery will rumble on."

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...

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BBC, 27 July 2015

Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect 'cannot testify'

“UK officials believe Dmitry Kovtun and another man, Andrei Lugovoi, poisoned Mr Litvinenko in 2006, which they deny.

Mr Kovtun had been due to appear by videolink from Moscow on Monday, but said he had been unable to get permission from Russian authorities.

Mr Litvinenko’s family lawyer said it seemed the case was being manipulated.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33674469

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Where’s your Chechen friend? You know, the guy who tag-teams with you?

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Russia and Islam are not Separate:
Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda

By Konstantin Preobrazhensky

Americans generally believe that Russia is afraid of Islamic terrorism as much as the U.S.A. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the Beslan School in 2004 and at the Moscow Theater in 2002, and of the apartment house blasts in Moscow in 1999, where over 200 people were killed. It is clear that Russians are also targets of terrorism today.

But in all these events, the participation of the FSB, Federal Security Service, inheritor to the KGB, is also clear. Their involvement in the Moscow blasts has been proven by lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB Colonel. For this he was illegally imprisoned, and is now suffering torture and deprivation of medical assistance, from which he is not likely to survive.

A key distinction between Russian and American attitudes towards Islamic terrorism is that while for America terrorism is largely seen as an exterior menace, Russia uses terrorism as an object as a tool of the state for manipulation in and outside the home country. Islamic terrorism is only part of the world of terrorism. Long before Islamic terrorism became a global threat, the KGB had used terrorism to facilitate the victory of world Communism.

This leads to the logical connection between Russian and Islamic terrorism. The late Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned in London in November, 2006, told me that his former FSB colleagues had trained famous Al-Qaeda terrorists Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Juma Namangoniy during the 1980s and 1990s. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, has been responsible for the murder of U.S. nationals outside the United States. Before his death, Juma Namangoniy (Jumabai Hojiyev), a native of Soviet Uzbekistan, was a right-hand man of Osama bin Laden in charge of the Taliban's northern front in Afghanistan.

In 1996, Alexander Litvinenko was responsible for securing the secrecy of Al-Zawahiri's arrival in Russia, who was trained by FSB instructors in Dagestan, Northern Caucasus, in 1996-1997.

At that time, Litvinenko was the Head of the Subdivision for Internationally Wanted Terrorists of the First Department of the Operative-Inquiry Directorate of the FSB Anti-Terrorist Department. He was ordered to undertake the delicate mission of securing Al-Zawahiri from unintentional disclosure by the Russian police. Though Al-Zawahiri had been brought to Russia by the FSB using a false passport, it was still possible for the police to learn about his arrival and report to Moscow for verification. Such a process could disclose Al-Zawahiri as an FSB collaborator.

In order to prevent this, Litvinenko visited a group of the highly placed police officers to notify them in advance. "If you get information about some suspicious Arabs arriving in the Caucasus, please report it to me before informing your leadership", he told them.

Juma Namangoniy was once a student of the Saboteur Training Center of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB in 1989-91. The school was notorious for the international terrorists who matriculated from it. It now belongs to the FSB, and since only KGB staff officers were allowed to study there, Juma Namangoniy's presence clearly suggests that he was much more than a civil collaborator.

Mohammed Atta, the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, Czech Republic, five months before the attack. But Iraqi intelligence was just a client of Russia's intelligence service. It brings a new understanding to the fact that President Putin was the first foreign President to call President Bush on 9/11. One may conjecture that he knew in advance what was to happen.

Muslim Name and Communist Heart

Tartars have always been patriotic to Russia. Their independent kingdom was conquered by Russia in the 16th century, but their gentry were allowed to join the Russian upper class and enjoy all its privileges. Even today, many Russian families of noble origin have Tartar origins. Russia has a half-millennium of experience in turning conquered Muslim nations into obedient citizens by bribing their elite.

There are many Soviet Muslims, therefore, who seem to face no conflict of spirit. One can be a Muslim in name only, whose heart belongs to Communism. There have been a lot of such people among Russian Muslims, especially among the Tartars. The Soviet Union has typically preferred to appoint them as ambassadors to Muslim countries. Their Muslim names give them a pass to the local society, but their Communist hearts order them to serve world Communism and not the world of Islam.

In the Soviet period, the highest leadership of the Muslim republics like Uzbekistan were unofficially allowed to practice Islam under the guise of folk rites, even though their Russian colleagues were severely reprimanded for participating in such Christian "rites" as Christmas or Easter. Unlike today, Soviet cartoonists were able to mock Islam as they mocked all other religions and it didn't bring any special reaction.

Muslims of the Uzbek and other Central Asian republics' elite joined the KGB intelligence in order to spy on fellow Muslim countries. In the KGB, I have met a lot of such quasi-Muslim officers.

Russia Grows Muslim

Putin continues the traditional Russian policy of giving privileges to the Muslim elite. Today's Russian Minister of Healthcare, Mikhail Zurabov, is a Chechen. His political agenda includes the total destruction of the Russian healthcare system, looking like revenge for the war in Chechnya. Putin shows no concern over that.

Strategically Russia is surrendering to the Muslim world. The Russian population is declining rapidly, being undermined by 70 years of Communist experiment and the cold indifference of post-communist rulers. Annually, Russia is losing 900 thousand people who are being replaced by Muslims from the Caucasus and Central Asia. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Russia, where it may total up to 28 million adherents. Because of this, Russia was able to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 2003.

Russia's great qualitative population change represents both a departure from the past and a strengthening link with it. The synergies between the history of Russia's national policies of terrorism and the radical Islamic terrorism that it is spreading around the world are natural partners that may severely impact on America's own future.

_________________

Konstantin Preobrazhensky, a former Lt. Colonel in the KGB who defected to the United States in 1993, is an intelligence expert and specialist on Japan, about which he has written six books. His newest book Russian-American, A New KGB Asset will be published in late 2007. This article was first published by Gerard Group International, Intel Analyses, 31 August 2007.

Russia and Islam are not Separate: Why Russia backs Al-Qaeda
http://web.archive.org/web/20091001203229/http://cicentre.com/Documents/russia_islam_not_separate.html

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Is she still taking care of Putin and his KGB/FSB thugs?

[jsanders2001]

> Good riddance. Shut your Socialist mouth and go back to your nice safe little ‘country’ where criminal invaders are kept out.

And sit on your gold throne, sleep in your cool well air-conitioned residence while being protected by a large group of bodyguards carrying assault rifles and firearms.

[ETL]

I’m not supportive of terrorism, but the guys you and your Putinista pals go all out protecting and covering for here every single day have a long history of supporting it. In fact, they are strongly suspecting in committing or at least cooperating in on the early attacks in Russia in order to justify the war and retake areas once controlled by the Soviet Union. Putin, your hero, publicly stated in 2005 that the worst thing that happened in the 20th century was the *fall* of the Soviet Union. He also is on record saying he believes (communist Soviet Union leader/mass murderer) Stalin deserves staues in his honor.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

I’m not supportive of terrorism, but

lol..."but"...

[ETL]

He also is on record saying he believes (communist Soviet Union leader/mass murderer) Stalin deserves staues in his honor.

staues=statues

[ETL]

Yes, a-hole, BUT..the guys you and your Putinista pals go all out protecting and covering for here every single day have a long history of supporting it. In fact, they are strongly suspecting in committing or at least cooperating in on the early attacks in Russia in order to justify the war and retake areas once controlled by the Soviet Union. Putin, your hero, publicly stated in 2005 that the worst thing that happened in the 20th century was the *fall* of the Soviet Union. He also is on record saying he believes (communist Soviet Union leader/mass murderer) Stalin deserves staues in his honor.

[ETL]

So not only do you support and defend KGB Putin and his obvious expansionist actions in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, you also support the current pope. No surprise.

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Yes, a-hole, BUT..

You sound worried. I don't blame you. It's only a matter of time before Russia sends in the tanks to flatten Chechnya again. All those tin shacks your relatives worked so hard on... sad to see them go.