REVIEW TOPICS:
American women poisoned in Moscow return to Los Angeles
Russian secret services try to assassinate the disgraced oligarch in Israel – local press
Former Polish intelligence chief who says report on CIA detention site part of US domestic battle admitted CIA had access to facility
New spying charges against nuncio in Slovakia
Turkmen secret services totally control internet access in the country
American women poisoned in Moscow return to Los Angeles
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| Yana Kovalevsky |
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Two West Hollywood women who were hospitalized in Moscow for suspected thallium poisoning are said to be alert and in stable condition at a Los Angeles hospital today, NBC reports.
Now investigators want to know if the poisoning was intentional, according to our sister station in Los Angeles. A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said the women were brought in for evaluation after they arrived in LA on an Aeroflot flight Wednesday night from Moscow. She said they were admitted, but it's too early to tell what may have caused their illness. The two women said they did not wish to speak with reporters as they were taken through Los Angeles International Airport by wheelchair.
A US Embassy spokesman in Moscow says Russian officials are investigating how and when the women could have come into contact with poison. Relatives said Doctor Marina Kovalevsky and her 26-year-old daughter Yana left for Moscow on February 14th to attend a friend's party. The daughter declined to discuss her condition and the mother's West Hollywood office would not release any further details about her condition or what may have happened to her. Kovalevsky's medical partner says he thinks it was all some sort of "tragic mistake" because "everyone loved her."
Upon their arrival from Moscow, Dr. Marina Kovalevsky, 49, and her daughter, Yana, 26, were taken to waiting ambulances and placed on gurneys. "We're going to the hospital straight away," Yana Kovalevsky told reporters. "We just got off a 12-hour flight. Please give us a break." Her mother said, "No statement."
The Moscow hospital where the women were treated since falling ill February 24 said Wednesday morning they were in moderately serious condition and Moscow's top public health doctor, Nikolai Filatov, was quoted by the RIA-Novosti news agency as saying that thallium poisoning had been confirmed.
The Kovalevskys are Soviet-born and emigrated to the United States in 1989. They have visited Russia repeatedly since then, relatives and colleagues said. In West Hollywood, Calif., where Marina Kovalevsky opened an internal medicine practice six or seven years ago, relatives said she left for Moscow on February 14 to attend a friend's party.
Surrounded by the cities of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, West Hollywood has a large Russian-speaking immigrant community. Oyuna Chuluun, a medical assistant at Kovalevsky's clinic, said she thought the apparent poisoning was an accident. She said her employer was divorced. "We just don't believe someone would want to poison her," Chuluun said.
A colleague, Dr. Arkady Stern, told The Associated Press that Marina Kovalevsky left Los Angeles "in a good state of health, in good spirits." Stern said that after it was suspected she was poisoned, Marina Kovalevksy was given dialysis and took an antidote and her condition began to improve. He said that since both women had the same symptoms, it led to suspicion they were poisoned, but he believed it was "some sort of tragic mistake."
There was no indication the women had business or political interests in Russia that could have made them a target for poisoning. "She (Marina) didn't have enemies. Everybody loved her. She's a great doctor," Stern said. Olga Tabarovskaya, a cousin of Marina Kovalevsky, said she spoke with her two nights ago. "She said she was tired but was very anxious to come back," Tabarovskaya said.
How the two might have ingested the poison - a colorless, tasteless substance that can be fatal in doses of as little as one gram - was not clear. Thallium is a reputed poison of choice for assassins. It was initially suspected to be the toxin used in last year's fatal poisoning in London of former Russian KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, but it was later determined he had ingested the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210.
For poisoning purposes, thallium would be in a powdery or crystallized state. The poison works by knocking out the body's supply of potassium, essential for healthy cells, and attacking the nervous system, the stomach and kidneys. Its effects are not immediately noticeable and frequently take weeks to kick in; symptoms include hair loss and a burning sensation in extremities. In the past, thallium has been used in rat poison and it continues to be used industrially to manufacture products including glass lenses, semiconductors, dyes and pigments. Thallium was used by Saddam Hussein, who poisoned several of his Iraqi opponents. It also reportedly was considered by the CIA for use against Fidel Castro, possibly by putting thallium powder in his shoes to prompt loss of his trademark beard.
Russian secret services try to assassinate the disgraced oligarch in Israel – local press
According to information obtained by close associates of disgraced Russian oligarch, former number two in Yukos oil giant, Leonid Nevzlin, during the last weeks the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has been gathering information on him and his two partners in order to assassinate him, Israeli Maariv daily reports. Newspaper’s sources in oligarch’s entourage confirmed that Nevzlin has significantly strengthened his personal security. He hired special security agency in order to trace any attempt of collecting information about him. All data received by this agency was transferred to Israeli law-enforcement bodies.
Former Polish intelligence chief who says report on CIA detention site part of US domestic battle admitted CIA had access to facility
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Zbigniew Siemiatkowski |
Former Polish intelligence chief Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, who denied Raw Story's report on a secret CIA detention site Thursday, told Polish news agency PAP in 2005 that the agency had access to two internal zones at the Stare Kiejkuty training school, the Raw Story reports.
Siemiatkowski, Polish intelligence chief in 2002, suggested the information presented by Raw Story "could be part of the domestic political battle in the US over who is to succeed current Republican President George W Bush," according to the German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur.
Polish newspapers seized on the story in Thursday's papers. Allegations of secret meetings held by Britain and the United States surrounding the detention of terror suspects - and an invitation from officials in the administrations of US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that Poland join the project in 2002 - were widely discussed on morning talk shows.
Former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller denied that Poland had housed any "secret CIA prisons" Thursday. US and British officials did not reply.
Raw Story sought comment from the Polish government three days prior to the report and received no response. The White House did not respond to two calls placed for comment Tuesday. CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to address specific allegations by British and Polish intelligence officials that the agency had operated a detention site at Stare Kiejkuty, a Soviet-era compound once used by the Russians. "The agency's terrorist interrogation program has been conducted lawfully, with great care and close review, producing vital information that has helped disrupt plots and save lives," Gimigliano said Monday. "That is also true of renditions, another key, lawful tool in the fight against terror."
Former Polish prime minister denies country had secret CIA prisons, speaking with Blair
Poland's former prime minister Leszek Miller today denied a fresh report alleging EU and NATO member Poland had hosted secret jails for terror suspects operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Raw Story reports.
'Once again I refute that there were secret prisons in Poland,' Miller said Thursday, quoted by the Polish PAP news agency. 'Tony Blair never spoke with me about this because there was nothing to talk about,' he said.
Raw Story, a US-based internet news source quoted a confidential MI-6 British intelligence document which is alleged to have said British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Miller discussed plans for a short term CIA prison for terror suspect created in a top-security Polish intelligence compound in Stary Kiejkuty, northern Poland.
Blair is to have asked that Miller not inform cabinet ministers about the facility. The Raw Story report also alleges US plans for transporting terror suspects to Poland were drawn up in 2002 in meeting between Polish intelligence officials, then CIA head George Tenet and MI-6 chief John Scarlett.
Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Polish intelligence chief in 2002, today denied any such meetings took place. He also suggested the information presented by Raw Story could be part of the domestic political battle in the US over who is to succeed current Republican President George W Bush. International media reports alleging the CIA had opened secret interim prisons for terror suspects from Afghanistan in Poland and Romania first surfaced in late 2005. A probe into the matter by the European Parliament found no concrete evidence to either confirm or deny such prisons had existed in Poland.
New spying charges against nuncio in Slovakia
Poland’s Father Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, the author of a blockbuster book about Church leaders’ interaction with the Communist secret police, has confirmed published reports that the pseudonym “Henryk” used in his new book does refer to Archbishop Jozef Nowacki, the apostolic nuncio in Slovakia and friend of Krakow’s Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, Catholic World News reports.
According to documents from the Institute of National Remembrance, Archbishop Nowacki agreed to collaborate with the former secret service in 1977. Cardinal Dziwisz has been outspoken in his defense of Archbishop Nowacki. Earlier this week he charged: “To attack this man is to attack all Poles who worked with John Paul II, and therefore it is to attack the Servant of God John Paul II himself.” In related news, more than 500 priests of the Diocese of Rzeszow have signed an open letter to Father Zaleski after his book identified their ordinary, Bishop Kazimierz Gorny as a Communist collaborator. The priests’ letter called the accusation hurtful and demanded an apology from the Polish priest-author.
Turkmen secret services totally control internet access in the country
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| Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov |
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Turkmenistan’s new, government-sponsored Internet cafes were initially hailed as a potentially important step away from the repressive policies of the late President Saparmurat Niyazov. But less than three weeks after their official opening, the centers are stifled by erratic connections, heavy fees and most discouragingly of all - soldiers at the doorways, Eurasianet reports.
In the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat, the Turkmen Internet Café, located across the road from the bustling Gulustan bazaar, promises an unfiltered connection with the outside world. The reality proves somewhat different. Inside, two Turkmens stare somewhat blankly at the blue screen of one of the café’s eight computers, while the cashier ponders the question of whether or not there will be a connection tomorrow. Few Turkmens are aware of the cafe’s existence and fewer still believe they will be able to afford it. The café’s hourly rate is a stiff 50,000 manats; just under $10 using the official exchange rate, or about $2.50 using the black market exchange rate.
"I know there is an Internet café near here, but I haven’t seen it," one stallholder in the nearby market said. An assistant in a neighboring post office recommended trying one of Ashgabat’s many four-star hotels; dead-end directions for Turkmen nationals as only hotel residents are allowed to use the facilities, primarily intended for foreigners.
Turkmenistan’s new President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov made improved Internet access a key part of his election campaign. Ashgabat’s two new Internet cafés opened within days of his February 19 inauguration; an additional 15 have been promised, along with Internet service for every school in the country. The idea was to speed up modernization of this reclusive, gas-rich Central Asian state. But, in reality, that desire for modernization has to do battle with the government’s long-ingrained desire for highly centralized control over information.
Turkmenistan plans to hire Chinese technical specialists to install networks and monitor Internet usage in the country, reportedly. The move may be designed to protect Turkmens from pornographic and gambling sites, or a deliberate maneuver to prevent access to sites authored by Turkmen political refugee groups, human rights organizations and media outlets critical of the Turkmen regime.
The technical and security issues surrounding Internet access will be a measure of the new government’s actual commitment to implementing promised educational and social reforms, said Erika Dailey, director of the Turkmenistan Project at the New York-based Open Society Institute (OSI). "There has been a lot of hopeful rhetoric and encouraging remarks from President Berdymukhamedov, but these have mostly concerned economics and a few social reforms . . ," Dailey said. "The Internet is a test of how far the government is willing to go."
According to the United States Department of State’s 2007 Country Report on Human Rights Practices, the government-run Turkmen Telecom, Turkmenistan’s sole Internet Service Provider, has not set up an Internet account in Ashgabat since 2002. Cable television has been banned since 2002; satellite TV has become an increasingly popular way for Turkmens to gain information about the outside world, though the relatively high cost of antennae has limited use outside of Ashgabat. State-run television and radio channels and newspapers largely dominate the remaining choices; some international radio broadcasts are reportedly available through shortwave or satellite.
Statistics about Internet usage in Turkmenistan are dodgy at best. In 2005, some 36,000 people, or just 0.7 percent of the country’s estimated total population, had Internet access, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook. "Some people have regular easy access to the Internet but that’s because they work at foreign firms," commented one Ashgabat city resident. "Even then you would never use it for anything really personal or controversial. Everybody knows it is monitored."
The soldiers stationed outside Ashgabat’s Internet cafes only underline that situation. Said the OSI Turkmenistan Project’s Dailey: "It sends a clear message to the public about what the government wants: They don’t want people using the Internet."
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