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Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar is being treated in a Moscow hospital after falling violently ill on a trip to Ireland on 24 November. Speculation is rife that he may have been poisoned. He fell ill a day after former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning in London. Mr Gaidar's daughter Maria said "doctors incline towards the view that his symptoms... indicate poisoning". Mr Gaidar was rushed to intensive care in Dublin, then flown to Moscow. Mr Gaidar, 50, suffered from a nose bleed and vomiting before fainting in Dublin last Friday, during a visit to promote...

London (dpa) - Former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar, who was hospitalized after falling ill at a conference in Ireland, was poisoned, his daughter claimed Thursday. ``It was a political poisoning,'' Maria Gaidar told the BBC's News 24 channel. Doctors see ``no other grounds'' for the mystery illness, she said. The 50-year-old was initially hospitalized in Ireland and has since returned to Moscow where he remains in hospital but is said to be improving. Gaidar was acting prime minister in 1992, though Russia's legislature ultimately vetoed his candidacy. In the 1990s, he served as economics and finance minister and as...

By Guy Faulconbridge Wed Nov 29, 6:04 AM ET MOSCOW (Reuters) - Yegor Gaidar, architect of Russia's market reforms, was being treated in a Moscow hospital on Wednesday after coming close to death with a mystery ailment during a visit to Ireland, friends and family said. ADVERTISEMENT Gaidar, 50, who unleashed economic shock therapy before the dust had settled on the ruins of the Soviet Union, fell unconscious with unexplained symptoms on November 24 during a visit to Dublin to present his new book -- Death of the Empire. "He lost consciousness for three hours and was taken to intensive...

As Vladimir Putin nears the end of what he insists will be his last term as president, analysts can not help but notice how different the country is today from the one he inherited from his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, in 2000. Most critics have focused on the way the Kremlin has increased its control of the media and eliminated regional gubernatorial elections. There have also been far-reaching changes in the ownership and management of several of the country's largest and richest energy and metals companies, however. Here, too, the Kremlin once again has begun to play a more intrusive role....

<p>MOSCOW -- The allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin won a historic victory in elections at the weekend, giving the Kremlin effective control of the Duma, or lower house of parliament, for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. Mr. Putin's allies in the United Russia party gained most at the expense of the Communist Party, which continued to wither. But the elections also contained two much less savory aspects: a huge protest vote from those who have yet to benefit from his rule, and a collapse in support for the only parties committed to Western-style liberalism.</p>