Was it the Russian secret service that was behind the poisoning?
The Kiev press reported that Yanukovich continues to be helped by Russian "Imidzhmaykery" (Image-makers) who have come on the recommendation of President Putin, and who played a major role in Yanukovich's campaign before, notes the
Sueddeutsche Zeitung also.
But
The Independent goes a step further: was it the Russian secret service that poisoned Yushchenko?
Quote:A story of power and poison is now etched on the face of Ukraine's hero
[..]
[A]s prosecutors in Ukraine reopened a criminal investigation into his illness, which struck after he dined with a senior member of the Ukrainian intelligence service, Mr Yushchenko refused to renew those accusations. "I don't want this factor to influence the election in some way - either as a plus or a minus," he said. "This question will require a great deal of time and serious investigation. Let us do it after the election."
[..] But the confirmation of the poisoning is likely to lead to further speculation that the Kremlin was involved. It also gives credence to rumours that Russian special forces had been sent to the capital, Kiev, and then hastily withdrawn.
Ukraine's strategic importance is such that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke in favour of Mr Yanukovych, who wooed the Russianised east of the country with pledges to make Russian a second state language and to offer dual citizenship.
A leading member of Mr Yushchenko's coalition, MP Yuriy Pavlenko, voiced the suspicion, held by many of his colleagues, that Russian intelligence was involved in the poisoning. "I was always convinced this was poisoning and an attempt on Yushchenko's life," he said.
Ukrainian intelligence services have said that they have no chemical or biological facilities and that during the Soviet era, when they were part of the KGB, specialised products of that sort were provided by Moscow.
There are historical precedents. Soviet intelligence agents were responsible for the shooting in a Paris church in 1924 of the leader of a short-lived Ukrainian state, Symon Petlyura. Ukraine's most prominent post-war nationalist leader, Stepan Bandera, was assassinated in Munich in 1959 by a pistol firing a poisonous mist which brought on a heart attack.
The newspaper continues the line of (admittedly speculative) thought in its editorial,
Ukraine must seize this opportunity to drain the poison from its politics:
Quote:It is important to note that Mr Yanukovich, as the Prime Minister (and the preferred candidate of the tyrannical outgoing President, Leonid Kuchma) had the powers of the state at his disposal, including the secret services. The Ukrainian state under Mr Kuchma's leadership is no stranger to accusations of murder. Several political journalists have died in mysterious circumstances in recent years, including Georgiy Gongadze, whose headless corpse was discovered in 2000.
But Mr Yanukovich's links with the Russian Government also raise disturbing questions. The Russian secret services, of which President Putin was once chief, have long been suspected of finding ruthless ways to silence opponents of the regime, including the alleged poisoning of a Russian journalist on her way to cover the Beslan hostage crisis earlier this year. In this context, Mr Yushchenko's suspicions that his political enemies, which include the Putin government, tried to kill him seem eminently reasonable.
nimh wrote:Lash wrote:He was just very rude, condescending and he threatened their memberships.
Yes he was.
How that substantiates your assertion earlier though, I dunno. After all, you wrote:
Lash wrote:nimh wrote:Lord knows the EU has used it to all its might, supporting democratic-minded civil society groups and withholding support from governments until certain conditions were fulfilled ...
Except when they don't toe Jacques Chirac's line [..] They definitely have a price tag on their support.
Chirac did not speak for the EU. He was rebuked by other EU leaders. His remarks had no impact on EU policy towards these new and future members. So your point is, apart from that Chirac personally is an unpleasant politician? What's that supposed to say about the EU?
I poked around a smidge, looking for the article I read months ago--about France and Germany running the EU show--trying to arrange things so that their countries call all the shots. Most people think (since Britain has been frozen out) that Chirac is the de facto leader of the EU. His remarks seem as though he had his cart before his horse. He knows he calls the shots, but the other members haven't yet seen the handwriting on the wall...
-----
That 'poisoning' ....may be regionalism on my part...sure does sound like a Russian op.
Lash wrote: Most people think (since Britain has been frozen out) that Chirac is the de facto leader of the EU.
Who is "most"?
José Manuel Barroso (Spain) is still the president of the EU commission, Peter Mandelson (UK) still the commissioner for trade, the Netherlands still are holding the Presidency of the Council of the EU ...
People should perhaps try to get information before starting to think .
As long as they wind up thinking what you think?
There is always a power behind the throne. Many Chirac watchers and DeGaulle watchers before--see France (now Chirac) taking step after step toward some position of leadership within the EU. He has 'spoken for them' plenty of times and led political operations against Britain and the US. Whether or not you know it, or agree with it--he is jockeying for the power position in the EU.
If we could get an honest reply...Americans: How many know the name of the current president of the EU?
Who recalls a speech by Barroso? What was Peter Mandelson's last political statement?
Lash wrote:Who recalls a speech by Barroso? What was Peter Mandelson's last political statement?
You really should inform yourself a bit, I suppose.
For instance, since when this commission in office.
Who, btw, recalls a speech of the US-American Secretary of Trade, and how many Euroepans, you think, know his name?
Obviously, he has been frozen out, using your logic.
There are a couple of EU MP's from the UK Anti-Europe Party sitting in the EU-parliament.
Freezing, I suppose.
And I must admit, I just know (a bit) of one of Barroso's speeches, namely as "President-designate at the European Commission Plenary session of the European Parliament Strasbourg on17 November 2004".
(But I sincerely doubt that there have been more.)
Lash wrote:Most people think (since Britain has been frozen out) that Chirac is the de facto leader of the EU.
"Most people" in America, perhaps ... or "most people" with your outlook on the world ... and, possibly, Jacques Chirac himself.
That would be about it.
There's Euroscepticists here too ... but I dont know anyone who seriously proposed that one of the bad things about the EU is that Jacques Chirac calls the shots. In fact, more often than not the perception is rather one of a certain quixotic quality about the French demarches. France has ... its things. Sometimes those are diplomatically built around in the EU, sometimes a compromise is made, and sometimes they're just ignored as the idiosyncracies they sometimes are. What did Chirac make the EU do or not do? If his intention was to make the EU collectively oppose Bush on Iraq, he certainly failed, alas - what, with a bunch of its members deciding to supply troops.
Seriously. The idea that Jacques Chirac is "calling the shots" in the EU I think would be strictly confined to American (and probably British) conservatives - and possibly, the mind of Mr Chirac himself. Whatever.
But, you know - any kind of specific example of something Jacques Chirac successfully made the EU as a whole toe the line on would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps agricultural subsidies? There could be a point ... cause I cant think of any other right now ... But please - just so we know what we're talking about, specifically, you know - beyond blanket assertions about how "France and Germany are running the EU show" by some conservative op-ed writer ...
Quote:Americans: How many know the name of the current president of the EU?
Prodi ring a bell? Previous president of the European Commission? Most powerful politician in the EU for the last few years?
If it doesnt ring a bell, I'm afraid it says more about American media than about power relations in the EU ...
Quote:Myth peddling Anti-Europeans have no shame.
I really like this statement.
It's from an organisation, I'm quite friendly with (and actually the only part of it, where I could join :wink: ): the closest US-ally's, Tony Blair's Labour Party's Movement for Europe:
Quote:We aim to promote public understanding of the importance to Britain of playing a leading role in the European Union.
my question was to prove a point--
Who recalls a speech by Barroso? What was Peter Mandelson's last political statement?
nimh said--
Prodi ring a bell? Previous president of the European Commission? Most powerful politician in the EU for the last few years?
If it doesnt ring a bell, I'm afraid it says more about American media than about power relations in the EU ..
-----------
...and he may have a point. Or, it may be that self-promotion of the one wants to gain name recognition, and become quoted more often than other EU players is paying off well for Chirac.
But, at any rate, I should try to find that article--or some other supporting one. But, one doesn't have to be anti-EU to at least assume from the media and Chirac himself, that he is "the most equal of equals"--as Caesar Augustus put it.
Maybe this Chirac/EU stuff could go to another thread, so we can stay somewhat focussed on doings in Ukraine here?
Lash wrote:Or, it may be that self-promotion of the one wants to gain name recognition, and become quoted more often than other EU players is paying off well for Chirac.
Yup. That works.
In fact, I was just thinking, after my post mentioning Prodi, about what you'd earlier quipped about how "there is always a power behind the throne" - about how it's all about "as long as they wind up thinking what you think". One could say there is such a kind of power division in the EU, just the other way around. That the European Commission, with Prodi (now Barroso) at the helm, lets the national leaders fight each other for their place behind the mike and in front of the TV cameras, in order to reassert to their national voters that, you know, they're still in charge - even while they, the European Commission, actually control the massive money flows in the EU, making their decisions "behind the scenes" (that is, behind rather than in front of the TV cameras). The national leaders get the status moments, the airtime, the credit - but the power over the collective purse lies with the Commission.
Of course, that metaphor has its limits too. For example, larger countries like Germany and France
are more likely to obtain some kind of exemption to the common rule - the rule setting a limit to national budget deficits, for example. But take a step back from the media fury about that, and you see that what those national governments succeed in scrambling for is already just crumbles left behind by the Commission. The budget deficit limits
have been set - the national governments, Germany and France included,
are forced to at least make strenuous, impopular efforts to live up to them - and even if they get an exemption this year, they wont get away with it four times in a row. Their success in fact is one in a rearguard action.
The end decisions over the long-term frameworks still remain with the national government leaders, united in the European Council, forsure - as testified by the successive European summits with their tortuous negotiations. But on an every day basis, its the Commission, reigning over a powerful bureaucracy little covered by any national news broadcast, that meanwhile gets to make all the funding decisions, set all the new guidelines and restrictions, accord or forbid transnational business mergers, etc.
If you do want to use this metaphor, I'd say Chirac gets to sit in his throne of media attention every once in a while, rhetorically invoking Europe in beautiful speeches even while his verdicts remain largely unheeded by the other European governments - while the nuts and bolts are controlled in discretion in Brussels.
Quote:But, at any rate, I should try to find that article--or some other supporting one.
If it's an op-ed or column, merely asserting that "Germany and France are calling the shots", don't bother, at least not for my sake. But if you can come up with actual examples of issues and decisions on which the other EU member states were supposedly successfully made to "toe the line" set out by Chirac, the discussion would rise above the merely rhetorical again.
Quote:But, one doesn't have to be anti-EU to at least assume from the media and Chirac himself, that he is "the most equal of equals"--as Caesar Augustus put it.
I think one
would have to be anti-EU to assume so - either that or, perhaps, French.
Thanks, both of you. I really appreciate it.
(not that I'm uninterested in the EU discussion, but this thread had become a little sort of reflection spot for me and a couple of friends from Ukraine who had been reading along)
Did this stuff get posted here already?
It's from Salon.com (and you have to pay - so no url will help.
"AP: Yushchenko shows record Dioxin level
By Emma Ross
Dec. 15, 2004 | London -- New tests reveal Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko's blood contains the second-highest level of dioxin poisoning ever recorded in a human -- more than 6,000 times the normal concentration, according to the expert analyzing the samples.
Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, where the blood samples were sent for analysis, said they contained about 100,000 units of dioxin per gram of blood fat.
However, the concentration could prove to be even higher, or lower, once results are in later this week from a more definitive test, said Arnold Schechter, a specialist in dioxin analysis from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Brouwer's team has narrowed the search from more than 400 types of dioxin to about 29 and is confident they will identify the poison by week's end. That, in turn, could provide clues to its source.
"From a (chemical) fingerprint, at least you can deduce what kind of sources might have been involved," Brouwer told The Associated Press. "The labs will ... try to find out whether it matches any of the batches of dioxins that are around, so that maybe you can trace it back to where it was ordered or where it came from."
Experts say Yushchenko, whose face has been pockmarked and disfigured, has probably experienced the worst effects already and should gradually recover, with no impairment to his working ability.
The 50-year-old reformist candidate, who faces Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat runoff on Dec. 26, fell ill after having dinner with Ukrainian Security Service chief Ihor Smeshko and his deputy Volodymyr Satsyuk on Sept. 5. Yushchenko reported having a headache about three hours after the dinner, and by the next day had developed an acute stomach ache.
He later reported pancreatitis and gastrointestinal pain, as well as a severe backache.
About three weeks after his first symptoms, Yushchenko developed the rough, acne-like rash on his face which is the hallmark of dioxin poisoning.
"It was very late before the rash started to develop, so if he had died it would have been a mystery illness of his pancreas, his liver or his gut and they would have said maybe it's some rare bug thing," said John Henry, a toxicologist at London's Imperial College. "He would have died within a few days and nobody would ever, ever have thought of dioxins."
Brouwer said the highest dose recorded so far was in a woman in Vienna, who was intentionally poisoned with dioxin in the mid-1990s. Tests showed her blood had 140,000 units per gram of fat, and she survived.
"We don't actually know what the lethal dose is. The only thing we do know is there's a woman who had an even higher dose, who didn't die, so it must be higher than that," Brouwer said.
The woman, who was among five people deliberately poisoned at a textile institute in 1997, was sick for two years and was in and out of hospital with various symptoms, said Schecter, who was involved in tracking the case. A second woman fell ill from the poisoning, but the other three people had no symptoms at all.
It would not be difficult to deliver the dose Yushchenko received, experts say. If the dioxin he ingested is the most hazardous type, tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin, or TCDD, it would take only a drop or two, or a tiny amount of powder mixed in food, to poison him.
Most of what is known about the health effects of acute dioxin poisoning comes from experiments on animals. Most animals would die from the levels in Yushchenko's blood.
Dioxin is a term referring to a group of substances created mostly by factories that use chlorine, such as paper, pesticide or plastics plants. It comes from burning fuels like wood, coal or oil. Natural sources include forest fires, but most often it comes from manufacturing or waste burning, whether municipal or backyard.
Dioxins are widespread in the environment and rise through the food chain from the soil and river beds to animals. They are particularly concentrated in meat, fish and dairy products because the chemicals dissolve well in fat.
Nearly everybody has some level of dioxin in their body. The normal level found in the blood ranges from 15 units to 45 units per gram of blood fat.
Evidence of the hazards comes from studies of exposed workers or from people involved in industrial accidents. The research suggests Yushchenko faces an increased risk of heart attack, cancer, diabetes, muscle aches and other less severe symptoms, but it is unclear how high that risk has risen from a single poisoning.
The disfiguring acne, while not harmful to his health, may persist for decades, experts say.
"It'll be a couple of years, and he will always be a bit pockmarked. After damage as heavy as that, I think he will not return to his film star looks," said Henry.
Dioxin, which settles in the body fat, lasts a long time in the body. Eliminating it quickly would likely reduce Yushchenko's chances of long-term ill health.
One possibility is a couple of courses of liposuction, a procedure that sucks the fat out of the body.
Another option being discussed by scientists is the use of olestra, a fake fat substance used in diet food that could act as a magnet to draw the poison out of the body fat into the gut for elimination. The technique has been proposed before for the elimination of other fat-soluble pollutants, said Diane Henshel, an environmental toxicologist at Indiana University.
Studies have indicated the body keeps the levels of dioxin in the blood and in the body fat equal, she said. When there's an imbalance, it redistributes to return to equilibrium. The idea is that olestra could be used to create a "sink" in the gut that would draw the dioxin out of the blood, forcing the body fat to release more of it into the blood, Henshel said.
"There are some studies, but the results are not very impressive. You get rid of some of the dioxins, but it's a slow process. Liposuction would probably be a better idea," Brouwer said."
I heard that last night.
We're getting anxious here, waiting to hear if P will really be part of the group to go to Ukraine for the election-monitoring. He's most interested in going to the East, and, well, it's nervous-making.
In the wake of the debacle over last month's presidential run-off in Ukraine and the Ukrainian Supreme Court's ruling that the election had to be re-run, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's office, acting at the immediate request of the Ukrainian parliament, has begun a criminal investigation into the activity of several members of the country's Central Election Commission, accused of deliberately miscalculating the ballots and deliberately announcing incorrect results.
Quote:Ukraine Launches Legal Case Against Election Officials
16.12.2004
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has launched a criminal investigation against several members of the Central Election Commission.
They are accused of activity that led to grave consequences, the deliberate miscalculation of ballots and the deliberate announcement of incorrect results in the presidential election as well as the compilation of a Nov. 24 report about the results of the election.
The office's main investigations directorate has been instructed to conduct a pre-trial investigation of the case.
The commission announced the victory of pro-Russian candidate, the current Ukrainian prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, in the second round of voting that took place on Nov. 21. However, his rival, opposition contender Viktor Yushchenko, disagreed with those results claiming they were falsified.
The Supreme Court of Ukraine forbid the publication of the results and ordered a rerun of the elections to be held on Dec. 26. The outgoing Ukrainian leader, Leonid Kuchma, later fired the Central Election Commission staff. The new commission was formed without the participation of possible Yanukovich's supporters, according to a decision by the Ukrainian parliament.
Source
Just a short item in today's
Volkskrant (apologies for any broken English in the translation):
Quote:Blood Yushchenko turns out to have been poisoned even more strongly
AMSTERDAM - The amount of dioxin in the blood of poisoned Ukrainian opposition leader Victor Yushchenko is not a thousand times, but six thousand times higher than the normal value. This has become clear from tests done by Abraham Brouwer, professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University of Amsterdam. The concentration is the second highest ever found. (AP)
nimh wrote:Was it the Russian secret service that was behind the poisoning?
Now we have a pause before the “third ballot” in the Ukraine on December 26 and I think it is good time to stop and look back at what has happened. I suspect my vision of the situation is somewhat different to the views expressed here but I do hope that I won’t be regarded as a Russian who dreams to oppress Ukrainians and keep them away from the route to the paradise (which is undoubtedly at a maximum distance from Russia)
Frankly speaking the presidential elections in the Ukraine interested me at first no more than the colour of wallpaper at my neighbours’ living room. It used to be so until the second ballot when these elections drew attention of so many people. Unfortunately I do not observe any competition of programs and ideas, I only see a war of interests inside the Ukraine as well as outside the country. I hear lots of allegations and abuses all the time from the both sides. I wish there were some Ukrainians (preferably from both camps) here who could explain why they are going to vote for Yushchenko or Yanukovych. As to me I could only share my impressions of what Ukrainians write on some Russian-language Internet forums.
However everything and everybody have been labelled very quickly. Yushchenko who declared himself to be “democratic” and “pro-Western” immediately became a “good guy” while “pro-Russian” Yanukovych turned to a “bad guy” and I suspect this is only because one has close contacts with certain figures in the West while the other has close ties with the current Russian government. Is it such a bad thing for a presidential candidate to have strong contacts with the government of a friendly neighbouring country whose language is so widely spoken in his own country and with whom they have so much in common? And I was unpleasantly surprised to read here many posts from people who only know about the life in Ukraine from the media and readily repeat all the simplistic clichés.
I also feel a bit strange now to defend Mr.Putin here because I have never been among his supporters, but could somebody please explain to me: what crime has he committed as regards Ukraine? I think his behaviour was not at all politically correct, absolutely non-diplomatic and was simply not wise though I do not understand how it could prevent Ukrainians from expressing and implementing their will. He clearly demonstrated his preference to the voters and sent advisors to Yanukovych. So what? His two early congratulations to Yanukovych which, I guess, intended to support his protégé, were a silly thing given the dubious situation there, and I think it only damaged Putin’s own image in the Ukraine, but when I read this thread I have an impression that everybody is already expecting Russian tanks to invade Kiev and squelch the pro-Yushchenko protesters to enthrone Yanukovych. Weird! People keep talking of Russian planes full of soldiers landing in Ukranian airports, Russian riot police etc. I wonder if the Ukrainian state lacks riot police to have it imported from Russia! Putin is capable to do things which can be both cruel and stupid, but he still does not seem crazy enough to send troops to the place where just ANY outcome for them will be disgraceful. The only good option for such soldiers would be to get out of there undiscovered as soon as they can. If so, why send them there? Yet another cliché that reminds me of the cold war period: Russia is to blame for everything! When the Soviet Union seized to exist I was too naïve to think that all the nations that used to comprise it would live together in a sort of equitable union and nobody would see Russia as the only reason of their problems. Naïve I was!
I am really happy that the Ukraine proved to be a mature state and seems to sort out this very difficult situation on herself. Whoever will be their president they found a solution within the law and prevented both violence by the state towards its citizens protesting against the government that had lost its credibility and use of force by one of the conflicting sides to illegally seize the power. And I hope the constitutional reform they have adopted can consolidate their checks and balances system and will not allow any future leader to harm the nation willingly or unwillingly.
Well, that should be interesting.
(Thanks for posting btw SerSo, its always good to hear an alternate take on things.)
