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Russian agents came close to carrying out the perfect assassination on British soil when they killed Alexander Litvinenko... Security sources have disclosed that the former Russian spy would have died within hours had the poisoned tea he was given been served hot. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who had become a critic of the government of Russia's then president, Vladimir Putin... Security sources say that during the meeting Litvinenko took just a few sips of the tea but left the remainder of the cup because it was cold. "If Litvinenko had drunk all the tea he would have been dead...

LONDON, June 4 -- For much of the world, Sen. Barack Obama's victory in the Democratic primaries was a moment to admire the United States, at a time when the nation's image abroad has been seriously damaged. From hundreds of supporters crowded around televisions in rural Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland, to jubilant Britons writing "WE DID IT!" on the "Brits for Barack" site on Facebook, people celebrated what they called an important racial and generational milestone for the United States. "This is close to a miracle. I was certain that some things will not happen in my lifetime," said Sunila...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has urged France to distance itself from America, comparing the US to a 'frightening monster'. "How can one be such a shining example of democracy at home and a frightening monster abroad?'' Putin said in an interview with French newspaper Le Monde in Paris released on Saturday. "France, I hope, will continue to conduct an independent foreign policy,'' said Putin. He said the US was creating a new Berlin Wall in Europe by pushing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to expand into ex-Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine. The former Russian President also voiced concern...

Publisher Peter Osnos, who admits to personally working with former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan on his new book, What Happened, began his career as an assistant to I.F. Stone, the pro-communist "journalist" named as a Soviet agent of influence who was the uncle of Weather Underground communist terrorist Kathy Boudin. But the connections don't end there. Boudin's son Chesa was raised by Barack Obama associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who were Boudin's comrades in the communist terrorist group, after Kathy Boudin went to prison for her involvement in an armed robbery and assault that took the...

On February 22, 2008, Ben Smith of Politico reported a story that ran under the headline, “Obama once visited ‘60s radicals.” It concerned how, “In 1995, [Illinois] State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to few of the district’s influencial liberal at the home of two will known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.” Dr. Quentin Young, described as “a prominent Chicago physician and advocate for single-payers health care,” [1] was quoted as saying “I can remember being one of small group of people who came to Bill Ayers’ house to learn that...

Dmitry Medvedev may be Russia's president but Vladimir Putin has kept his place in the Kremlin. When Putin came to his old office in the Kremlin on Monday to propose the names of ministers for his government, the former president made for his customary seat on the left of the desk. But he paused before sitting down and told President Medvedev: "Now this is your place," Russia's Kommersant daily reported. "Oh, what's the difference?" Medvedev answered and immediately sat on the right of the desk, where Putin's guests traditionally perched for the eight years of his presidency.

Mikhail Gorbachev has accused the United States of mounting an imperialist conspiracy against Russia that could push the world into a new Cold War. With Dmitry Medvedev due to be inaugurated today as Russian president, the Soviet Union's last leader said that the White House's claims of peaceful intentions towards its former superpower rival could no longer be trusted. Delivering one of his most scathing attacks on the US, Mr Gorbachev told The Daily Telegraph that a US military build-up was under way to contain a resurgent Russia. From Nato's expansion plans in the former Soviet Union to Washington's proposals...

A Russian website alleged that Alina - seen here in one of her more provocative poses - was seen kissing Putin in a Moscow restaurant Alina Kabaeva, is one of a number of young and beautiful Russian dancers and athletes who, under Mr Putin's patronage, have lately become deputies in the Duma - Russia's lower parliament. Known as Putinskie Krasotki - 'Putin's Babes' - they were brought in with the cynical but successful aim of 'sexing up' his United Russia party. The bloc took more than 60 per cent of the vote in the December elections. One Russian spin-doctor boasted...

Russian Oscars censored24/03/2008 13:13  - (SA)    Moscow - A series of jokes about President Vladimir Putin and president-elect Dmitry Medvedev were censored from the screening of Russia's equivalent of the Oscars film awards ceremony, newspapers reported on Monday. The jokes - mild by Western standards of satire - at Friday's "Nika" awards, were cut by private television station CTC in its broadcasting Saturday of the event, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets. "All the juicy stuff from the broadcast was edited out," the daily said. One of the comments axed, the newspaper said, was an allusion to uncertainty over whether Medvedev or his...

Each year a group of KGB Commissars would get together for a weekend of bear hunting.  A helicopter would fly them to a clearing deep in the forest, leave them with their guns and camping gear, then pick them up two days later. Now the hunting weekend has ended, and the Commissars are waiting in the clearing with their equipment and with the carcasses of three bears. The helicopter swoops in and lands, the pilot steps out and takes one look at the waiting cargo. "Comrade Commissars," the pilot says.  "I'm sorry, but I cannot take all three bears on...

<p>1. Russians Suspected in Shooting of Kremlin Critic Near D.C.</p> <p>One year ago, Kremlin critic Paul Joyal was gunned down in the driveway of his suburban Maryland home. The case remains unsolved — but some see the hand of Russia in the shooting.</p>

<p>One year ago, Kremlin critic Paul Joyal was gunned down in the driveway of his suburban Maryland home. The case remains unsolved — but some see the hand of Russia in the shooting.</p> <p>Joyal, 53, is the former chief of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a former business partner of retired Soviet KGB Gen. Oleg Kalugin.</p>

Beating up on divorced ("deadbeat") dads makes great politics in the United States, and apparently Russian presidential candidate Dmitry Medvedev (pictured) has figured it out. United Press International says: "Medvedev has also gone hunting for votes with the forensic skill of a U.S. campaign strategist. He has targeted the women's vote by promising to increase child benefits so that the mother of a second child will get a state handout of more than $12,000, and alimony payments will be increased sharply. "While American strategists talk of 'soccer moms,' Medvedev is appealing to the 'divorced moms.' One Russian child in three...

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir V. Putin today backed First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a candidate to succeed him, abruptly snatching away the shroud of secrecy that has obscured the hunt for a new Russian leader. Still, news of Putin's surprise endorsement startled many analysts as it raced through the capital today. Medvedev, an ambitious young Kremlin bureaucrat with strong business ties, had earlier been seen as a likely successor to Putin. But in recent weeks, as an increasingly strident Putin railed against foreign influence and basked in the naked adoration of the Russian masses, Medvedev's name was hardly...

President Vladimir Putin, when he is not busy restoring autocracy to a country that has known little else, has taken on the task of refreshing Russian history with a novel perspective—his own. He is on record lamenting the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century." It was worse, apparently, than World War I, worse than World War II—worse, even, than the creation of the Soviet Union. Last year, the president informed a group of history teachers that Russia "has nothing to be ashamed of" and that it was their job to make students "proud...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — The leaders of Russia, China and Iran said Thursday that Central Asia should be left alone to manage its stability and security — an apparent warning to the United States to avoid interfering in the strategic, resource-rich region. The veiled warning came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and on the eve of major war games between Russia and China. The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security in Central Asia, but in recent years, with countries such as Iran signing on as observers, it has grown into...

THE elderly couple did not hesitate to open the door when they saw Dimitry Mukhin through their spy-hole. Mukhin, a psychiatrist who lived in the neighbouring building, had recently paid a friendly visit to ask if they needed anything. But this was no courtesy call. As Emilia Tomareva and Albert Uzikov let him into the Moscow flat where they had lived for decades, Mukhin rushed in with two men in white coats and a policeman. The shocked couple were bundled into an ambulance with their hands tied behind their backs and locked up in separate psychiatric hospital wards, even though...

For the past several years, the Russia of Vladimir Putin has been sending very clear signals that it is no longer the weakened, troubled and Western-dependent state that it was following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia is once again a proud and assertive nation, increasingly recognizable by its actions to historians of its czarist and Communist predecessors. Many will say that its recovery is based on shallow foundations, in fact that it rests almost totally upon the high price of oil and gas - and Russia's fortunate possession of vast supplies of those vital commodities. That is true....

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday that the issue of illegal immigration angered people unlike no other, including the unpopular war in Iraq, and sparked unprecedented death threats against him. "It is unbelievable how this has inflamed the passions of the American people," the Arizona senator said in remarks at The Aspen Institute, a public policy forum. In an interview, he declined to elaborate on the threats he had received. Still, McCain said, he continued to support a temporary worker program for the 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Derided by critics as amnesty, the program was...

Russian and Chinese troops are joining forces this week in the first military exercises by an international organisation that is regarded in some quarters as a potential rival to Nato. Thousands of soldiers and 500 combat vehicles will take part in “Peace Mission 2007”, organised by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia. Russian officials have also proposed an alliance between the SCO and a body representing most of the former Soviet republics. Scores of Russian and Chinese aircraft begin joint exercises tomorrow before a week of military manoeuvres from Thursday that will include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan...

The Venezuelan president bonds with regimes that the rest of the world -- and his own compatriots -- shun. THE LATEST Global Attitudes survey by the Pew Foundation contains a lot of bad news for the United States, but there was one relative bright spot in Latin America: Venezuela. According to Pew, 56 percent of Venezuelans say they have a favorable view of the United States, a higher number than in Britain or Canada. Seventy-one percent say they like U.S. television and movies and a stratospheric 84 percent feel positively about Americans. Though only 23 percent say they have confidence...

PORTSMOUTH — A Russian man attempted to pass off a phony $100 bill at the New Hampshire State Liquor store shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday, according to the store manager, who said a cashier discovered the bill was bogus. No arrest was made, according to police, but the incident was the talk of the store because Russians are known to be staying in the city ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin's scheduled visit with President Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, on Sunday. Liquor store manager Mike Smith said the man, accompanied by four other Russian men, attempted to purchase two bottles...

Under Mr. Putin, the handful of people who run Russia also own it. Government officials are on the board of Russia's largest state-run companies. First Deputy Premier Dmitri Medvedev is chairman of the board of Gazprom, Igor Sechin, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, is chairman of the Rosneft oil company, and Igor Shuvalov, an assistant to the president, is chairman of Russian Railroads. The capitalization of Gazprom is $236 billion, Rosneft $94 billion and Russian Railroads $50 billion. It is estimated that the people around Mr. Putin control companies that account for 80% of the capitalization of the Russian...

Russian president Vladimir Putin called on Sunday for a radical overhaul of the world’s financial and trade institutions to reflect the growing economic power of emerging market countries – including Russia. Mr Putin said the world needed to create a new international financial architecture to replace an existing model that had become “archaic, undemocratic and unwieldy”. His apparent challenge to western dominance of the world economic order came at a forum in St Petersburg designed to showcase the country’s economic recovery. Among 6,000 delegates at the biggest business forum ever held in post-Soviet Russia were scores of international chief executives...

Early coverage of Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, has focused on the fact that the book is largely an assault on the Bush administration. But they have glossed over the most significant and alarming theme that Al Gore has taken up: his alleged defense of "reason" includes a justification for government controls over political speech. Judging from the excerpts of Gore's book published in TIME, his not-so-subtle theme is that reason is being "assaulted" by a free and unfettered debate in the media--and particularly by the fact that Gore has to contend with opposition from the right-leaning...

Chinese Fighter Jets to Reach Pakistan Russia has officially sanctioned China to re-export aircraft engines to Pakistan. The permit revives the chance of supplying 150 China’s JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan and the $238-million contract for delivering aircraft engines from Russia with the optional extension to $3.75 billion. In president’s administration, they don’t think deliveries will cloud military and engineering cooperation of Russia and India, which budget is estimated at $1.5 billion a year. It was a source with Russia’s government that leaked information about Russia’s-Chinese agreement for joint assembly of JF-17 fighter jets with RD-93 engines of Klimov works’...

AN old joke runs that even paranoids have enemies. But what can we make of the quasi-dictator of a middleweight state who insists on making enemies of those who'd hoped to be his country's friends? Russian President Vladimir Putin reminds me of the old Soviet Inturist organization: Instead of figuring out how to make a thousand bucks from happy tourists tomorrow, Inturist went to absurd extremes to squeeze an extra fiver out of disgruntled visitors immediately.....

Russia’s First Vice Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov set an unusual goal for the national defense complex, which he is personally in charge of. The official ordered to design a new air defense missile system that would guarantee air, missile and space protection at once. The development of the new Russian super weapon was entrusted to air defense concern Almaz Antei. The concern will be used for the creation of a special design bureau that is set to unite all scientific and technical air defense schools used in the Air Force, the Navy, land troops, automatic control systems and anti-missile defense....

This past week, the chief proponent of Jihadi Islam and the use of terror to force people to believe in his religion, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, traveled to Latin America to create an alliance with three atheistic Communists: Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Rafael Correa of Ecuador. This emerging "Marxist-Islamist entente," as it has been described, has caught a lot of folks by surprise. How in the world, they ask, could Chavez toast Ahmadinutjob by hailing him as the leader of "a revolution kindred to the Venezuelan revolution: the Islamic revolution." What could the imposition of...

ADAM SMITH never met Vladimir Putin, but, as with so many other things, he anticipated his appearance. Nobody can accuse the great Scot of protectionist proclivities, but he did warn that there are times when free trade takes second place to national defence. He proposed laying “some burden” on foreign commerce “when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country ... (since) defence is of much more importance than opulence”. America, Britain and other free-trading countries have long welcomed foreign investment on the ground that it enriches the nation by bringing capital, jobs and foreign...

US authorities are to examine Roman Abramovich’s ties to the Kremlin as part of a national security review of a $2.3bn (£1.18bn) bid for Oregon Steel by a company controlled by the Russian billionaire. Experts in Washington say the US government panel that reviews foreign deals will scrutinise the proposed takeover, announced last month, more closely if Mr Abramovich is found to be acting with the backing of the Russian government. Mr Abramovich is believed to be close to Vladimir Putin, Russian president. The Russian steel company, Evraz, is controlled by Mr Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, group director. Evraz and...

Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Ariel J. Weinmann is expected to plead guilty Monday to several of the charges, including espionage related to the compromise, said his attorney, Phillip Stackhouse. U.S. defense officials familiar with the case said Petty Officer Weinmann supplied Russian intelligence with a manual labeled "secret" that contained information about the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Albuquerque. He had worked as a fire control technician on the submarine before deserting in July 2005. The manual is considered sensitive because it reveals capabilities of Los Angeles-class submarines, like the Albuquerque, that could allow the Russians to locate and track...

German spymaster buried in Berlin Nov 26, 2006 Several hundred people gathered at a cemetery in east Berlin on Saturday to bury Markus Wolf, the legendary East German spymaster who died earlier this month at the age of 83. As head of the elite foreign intelligence division of the communist state's Stasi secret police, Wolf masterminded some of the Cold War's most audacious operations. He planted an agent close to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, a move which led to Brandt's downfall when the spy was exposed in 1974. "Markus Wolf was a true and loyal friend of my country,"...

Alexander Litvinenko, who died horribly in a London hospital on Thursday, is only the latest critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet a brutal death. On Oct. 7, another critic, the journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in the lobby of her Moscow apartment building. Two years earlier, in July 2004, the U.S. journalist Paul Klebnikov was murdered as he emerged from the offices of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine. These killings and many others are linked to the deepest mystery of the Russian state. The mystery is the rise of Vladimir Putin. In 1998, Vladimir Putin was...

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...

LONDON - A former KGB agent turned Kremlin critic who was poisoned three weeks ago was moved into intensive care Monday after his condition deteriorated, and his doctor said the toxin has attacked his bone marrow. Prominent Russian exiles claimed Litvinenko was poisoned at the behest of the Kremlin... Thallium causes hair loss and interferes with the cardiovascular and nervous systems, attacking the vital organs. Litvinenko's white cell count is down to nearly zero, said Dr. John Henry, a clinical toxicologist treating him. "It shows his bone marrow has been attacked and that he is susceptible to infection," Litvinenko, who...

While Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan in 1980, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) worked in close concert with high level Kremlin officials to alter the direction of U.S. policy, according to documents made available through a KGB defector.

Ortega's Return? By Frank J Gaffney Jr. FrontPageMagazine.com | November 1, 2006 This Sunday, the people of Nicaragua will cast votes that may elect their next president in the first round of balloting. Depending on their choice, that exercise in democracy may be the last for some time to come – if the winning candidate reverts to form and ushers in a new era of authoritarianism in a country too long afflicted by his misrule. According to the polls, all other things being equal, Daniel Ortega – the communist revolutionary whose repressive regime ruled in Managua in the 1980s –...

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kolesnikov) - Public unrest recently swept through Hungary. Triggering it were revelations by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, which revealed that the Cabinet had been lying to the nation about the economic situation. As often happens with public action, Hungarians chanted diverse, and often mutually exclusive, mottoes. The activists were also a motley crew, including hoodlums. The figure "1956" loomed behind the drama. Hungary possesses a dynamic civil society, which exploded with indignation at the revelation that the government was telling it fairly tales-an instance of politics shrugging off morals. The public thirst for the...

European leaders on Friday night pressed Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to honour contracts with western oil companies, amid fears in the EU over Moscow’s tightening grip on the energy sector. In a strained summit dinner in the Finnish town of Lahti, EU leaders also chided Mr Putin on questions of human rights, press freedom and Moscow’s tough treatment of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The meeting with Mr Putin served as a reminder to European leaders that their attempt to build a more equal energy partnership with Russia has so far yielded few positive results. Instead of encouraging European...

In his book, which came out this week, Kengor focuses on a KGB letter written at the height of the Cold War that shows that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) offered to assist Soviet leaders in formulating a public relations strategy to counter President Reagan's foreign policy and to complicate his re-election efforts.

The Thailand Coup – Creating A New World Order David J. Jonsson September 28, 2006   The Sword of Islam may not take on the form of war and or terrorism, but take the form of political action, bloodless coups, finance and media propaganda. The actions are to achieve the same goal—the establishment of the Islamic Kingdom of God on Earth and implementation of Shariah law. In the case of Thailand it was a ‘bloodless’ coup led by Muslim Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin ostensibly to remove a corrupt democratically elected government. As Time Magazine (Asia) on September 25 reported Gen....

Drive down Victory Boulevard in Grozny, and you'd never think there had been a war in Chechnya. Five years ago this broad avenue looked like Stalingrad after World War II. Now it's flanked with new apartments and boutiques selling Italian clothes -- snip--- The rest of the world may not have noticed, but Russia's president has won the Chechen war. He did not start it, but he prosecuted it with the full might of Russia's military. The conflict was as brutal as any Europe has known in the last century. Grozny was bombed flat, along with half of Chechnya's towns....

The "Yukos Affair", its Motives and Implications Key points 1. When interpreting the "Yukos affair", it is hard to focus on any single particular motive or explanation that would easily rationalise the government's actions against the company. The "Yukos affair" is a multi-layered process with a number of different reasons for its cause. When one scrutinises the events around the company, the impression may be obtained that the Kremlin seemed at first not to have had any ultimate strategy; the authorities' position evolved as time went by. At first, the conflict was mainly of a political nature; economic factors did...

Some highlights from the Nonaligned Movement summit's final declaration. TERRORISM: Denounces the brutalization of peoples under foreign occupation as the gravest form of terrorism. Asks that terrorism not be associated with any religion, nationality or ethnic group and that it be recognized that the struggle of peoples under colonial or alien domination does not constitute terrorism. MIDEAST CONFLICTS: Strongly condemns "the relentless Israeli aggression launched against Lebanon." Promotes a revival of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Supports the Palestinian people's "inalienable right to self-determination in their independent and sovereign State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital." NUCLEAR IRAN: Defends...

The radio host asked, "Which is a greater national security threat to the United States, the insecurity of America's southern border or Iran's nuclear ambition?" It wasn't a trick question. True, Iran poses an international apocalyptic sort of threat; one JINSA takes most seriously. But at the end of the diplomatic day, we - and even our reticent allies - will know what to do with a country threatening us with nuclear weapons. Mexico, our friend and neighbor, poses a different kind of problem. Mexico has been roiled by strikes and protests since July, when Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador claimed...

HUGO CHÁVEZ, the ardently anti-American President of Venezuela, arrives in Russia today to sign a billion-dollar arms deal that has infuriated and alarmed the US. The self-styled leftist revolutionary will sign an agreement with President Putin to buy 30 Sukhoi Su30 fighter jets and 30 military helicopters worth $1 billion (£540 million). The two leaders will also discuss plans to build two Kalashnikov factories in Venezuela — to add to the 100,000 Kalashnikov AK103 assault rifles that Venezuela has bought from Russia in the past year. The arms deals — and the visit by Señor Chávez — are the latest...

Mr Chavez said he wanted to conclude "a unity pact" in Minsk Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Belarus "as a model social state" like the one he and his government are building. During a visit to Belarus, he called for joint efforts to counter what he described as "hegemonic" capitalism. Mr Chavez later met Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko, accused in the West of crushing fundamental rights. Mr Chavez is on a world tour, partly to win support for a Venezuelan seat on the UN Security Council. From Belarus, he will travel to Russia, Qatar, Iran, Vietnam and Mali....

Oracle Commentaries 7/22/2006 Urgent Intelligence Update UNCOVERED: RUSSIAN-SYRIAN-IRANIAN AXIS For students of Bible prophecy, even the title of this communiqué should set off alarm sirens. I just received some electrifying intelligence data. First, from the Debka-Net-Weekly’s briefing. And second, from some personal intelligence sources (I carefully guard) that confirm Debka’s report. Russia, Iran and Syria have entered a defense pact that is in the process of altered the balance of power in the entire Middle East. Russia’s part in the pact has been kept relatively secret for a long time. But the facts reveal a long steady Russian commitment...

Russia signs $1bln aircraft contract with Venezuela-Ivanov 18:01 | 21/ 07/ 2006 MOSCOW, July 21 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has signed a contract on supplies of military planes and helicopters to Venezuela worth over $1 billion, the defense minister said Friday. Sergei Ivanov said 30 Su-30 Flanker air-superiority fighters and 30 helicopters would be supplied to Venezuela. The Russian Su-30 Flankers will replace a Venezuelan contingent of U.S. F-16 multi-role fighters after Washington imposed an embargo on arms sales to the country May 15, which it says poses a threat to regional stability. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has moved...