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Rum Doings In Ukraine (Viktor Yushchenko Poisoning)

Mighty_Emperor

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Leader's lost looks may have toxic chemical link

November 25, 2004


Photos: AFP/Reuters

Vienna: What ails Viktor Yushchenko? As Ukraine's popular opposition leader claimed victory, the mystery surrounding an appearance-altering condition that twice prompted him to check into a Vienna hospital persisted.

Mr Yushchenko has accused the Ukrainian authorities of poisoning him. His detractors suggested he had eaten bad sushi. Adding to the intrigue, the Austrian doctors who treated him have asked foreign experts to help determine if his symptoms may have been caused by toxins found in biological weapons.

Medical experts say they may never know what befell Mr Yushchenko. But the condition has dramatically changed his appearance since he entered Vienna's private Rudolfinerhaus clinic on September 10.

Mr Yushchenko was known for his ruggedly handsome, almost movie-star looks. Now his complexion is pockmarked and a sickly green. His face is haggard, swollen and partially paralysed. One eye often tears up.

"It's becoming a puzzle," said Dr Marc Siegel, an associate professor at New York University's School of Medicine who has studied the case. "The longer it goes on, the less I think of food poisoning."
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By the time Mr Yushchenko checked out of Rudolfinerhaus last month after returning for follow-up treatment, physicians said they could neither prove nor rule out poisoning.

His doctors in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, said "chemicals not of a food origin" had triggered the symptoms.

The Rudolfinerhaus clinic director, Michael Zimpfer, and chief physician, Dr Lothar Wicke - who sought police protection after receiving an anonymous threat while treating Mr Yushchenko, asked for outside help from "a specialist in military operations and biological weapons", the Austria Press Agency reported. Mr Yushchenko's medical files have since been sealed and turned over to Austrian prosecutors.

John Henry, a toxicologist at Imperial College London, said photographs indicate Mr Yushchenko may have a condition known as chloracne - a type of adult acne caused by exposure to toxic chemicals.

"There aren't really very many other explanations. You don't just get this horrible acne-like illness out of the blue in a middle-aged man," Dr Henry said.

Steroid treatment or mercury poisoning could cause similar- looking acne, he said, but the greenish tinge of Mr Yushchenko's face is more suggestive of dioxin poisoning.

Source
 
Is the country going to be torn apart by Russia pulling it east and the US pulling it west?

U.S. Money Helped Opposition in Ukraine

Fri Dec 10, 4:23 PM ET

Add to My Yahoo! White House - AP

By MATT KELLEY, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has spent more than $65 million in the past two years to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won last month's disputed runoff election.


U.S. officials say the activities don't amount to interference in Ukraine's election, as Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) alleges, but are part of the $1 billion the State Department spends each year trying to build democracy worldwide.

No U.S. money was sent directly to Ukrainian political parties, the officials say. In most cases, it was funneled through organizations like the Carnegie Foundation or through groups aligned with Republicans and Democrats that organized election training, with human rights forums or with independent news outlets.

But officials acknowledge some of the money helped train groups and individuals opposed to the Russian-backed government candidate — people who now call themselves part of the Orange revolution.

For example, one group that got grants through U.S.-funded foundations is the Center for Political and Legal Reforms, whose Web site has a link to Yushchenko's home page under the heading "partners." Another project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development brought a Center for Political and Legal Reforms official to Washington last year for a three-week training session on political advocacy.

"There's this myth that the Americans go into a country and, presto, you get a revolution," said Lorne Craner, a former State Department official who heads the International Republican Institute, which received $25.9 million last year to encourage democracy in Ukraine and more than 50 other countries.

"It's not the case that Americans can get 2 million people to turn out on the streets. The people themselves decide to do that," Craner said.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "There's accountability in place. We make sure that money is being used for the purposes for which it's assigned or designated."

Since the Ukrainian Supreme Court invalidated the results of the Nov. 21 presidential runoff, Russia and the United States have traded charges of interference. A new election is scheduled for Dec. 26.

Opposition leaders, international monitors and Bush's election envoy to Ukraine have said major fraud marred the runoff between Yushchenko and current Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was declared the winner.

Yushchenko is friendlier toward Europe and the United States than his opponent, who has Putin's support as well as backing from the current Ukrainian government of President Leonid Kuchma. Putin lauded Yanukovych during state visits to Ukraine within a week of both the Oct. 31 election and the Nov. 21 runoff.

Yushchenko's backers say Russian support for Yanukovych goes beyond Putin's praise and includes millions of dollars in campaign funding and other assistance. Putin has said Russia has acted "absolutely correctly" with regard to Ukraine.

Documents and interviews provide a glimpse into how U.S. money was spent inside Ukraine.

"Our money doesn't go to candidates; it goes to the process, the institutions that it takes to run a free and fair election," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The exit poll, funded by the embassies of the United States and seven other nations as well as four international foundations, said Yushchenko won the Nov. 21 vote by 54 percent to 43 percent. Yanukovych and his supporters say the exit poll was skewed.

The Ukrainian groups that did the poll of more than 28,000 voters have not said how much the project cost. Neither has the U.S.

The four foundations involved included three funded by the U.S. government: The National Endowment for Democracy, which gets its money directly from Congress; the Eurasia Foundation, which gets money from the State Department, and the Renaissance Foundation, part of a network of charities funded by billionaire George Soros that gets money from the State Department. Other countries involved included Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.



Grants from groups funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development also went to the International Center for Policy Studies, a think tank that includes Yushchenko on its supervisory board. The board also includes several current or former advisers to Kuchma, however.

IRI, Craner's Republican-backed group, used U.S. money to help Yushchenko arrange meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage and GOP leaders in Congress in February 2003.

The State Department gave the National Democratic Institute, a group of Democratic foreign policy experts, nearly $48 million for worldwide democracy-building programs in 2003. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (news - web sites) chairs NDI's board of directors.

The NDI says representatives of parties in all the blocs that participated in Ukraine's 2002 parliamentary elections have attended its seminars to learn skills such as writing party platforms, organizing bases of voter support and developing party structures. NDI also has been a main financial and administrative backer of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, an election watchdog group that said the presidential vote was not conducted fairly.

NDI also organized a 35-member team of election observers headed by former federal appeals court Judge Abner Mikva for the Nov. 21 runoff vote. IRI sent its own team of observers.

The U.S. Agency for International Development also funds the Center for Ukrainian Reform Education, which produces radio and television programs aiming to educate Ukrainian citizens about reforming their nation's government and economy. The center also sponsors press clubs and education for journalists.

___

On the Net:

U.S. State Department: http://www.state.gov

Center for Political and Legal Reforms: http://www.pravo.org.ua/

International Center for Policy Studies: http://www.icps.kiev.ua/eng/

International Republican Institute: http://www.iri.org

National Democratic Institute: http://www.ndi.org

National Endowment for Democracy: http://www.ned.org

Source
 
Seems like the balloon has gone up on the posioning. The Beeb report he has had organ failure but they think he should recover (although his skin will take a while). The doctor on the news reckons it would have required a few gramms of material mixed into something fatty and strong tasting to give him the massive dose required (as opposed to longer term exposure). He reckons it has never been done before and hopes it doesn't give anyone else ideas (as dioxins occur in polluted environments it can be tricky to pin it down).

Ukraine's Yushchenko Poisoned by Dioxin-Doctors

Sat Dec 11, 2004 09:56 AM ET


By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) - Ukrainian presidential hopeful Viktor Yushchenko was a victim of dioxin poisoning, but it remains unclear if it was the result of a deliberate act, Austrian doctors treating him said on Saturday.

Yushchenko, who faces Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich later this month in a re-run of November's rigged election in the ex-Soviet state, has long alleged he was poisoned as part of a plot to kill him. His illness kept him out of the early stages of the campaign and left his face bloated and pocked.

"There is no doubt," Dr Michael Zimpfer, president of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic where Yushchenko is undergoing treatment, told a news conference."There were high concentrations of dioxin, most likely orally administered."

It was impossible to determine, he said, how the poisoning had taken place. "We weren't there and we will leave that to the legal authorities to decide."

Zimpfer said dioxin was soluble and would therefore be easy to administer in something like a cream soup.

"We suspect a cause triggered by a third party," he said.

Yushchenko arrived at the clinic on Friday evening and was to undergo further testing over the weekend.

In anticipation of the announcement, Yushchenko's U.S.-born wife Kateryna told reporters she was certain the doctors would confirm her long-held belief that her husband was poisoned.

"I know in my heart that he was poisoned and it will be medically established today," she told reporters outside the clinic.

Yushchenko's wife said this week in a U.S. television interview that the day before he fell ill, she tasted poison on his lips when she kissed him, but he brushed off her concern.

MASS FRAUD

--------------
Yushchenko says that after attempting to poison him, his enemies used mass fraud to try to steal the Nov. 21 run-off vote, in which Yanukovich, backed by outgoing President Leonid Kuchma and giant neighbor Russia, was declared the winner.

The Supreme Court struck down the result on grounds of irregularities and ordered a new vote on Dec. 26.

Yushchenko told reporters on Friday his health was improving and he was optimistic he would achieve victory in the re-run against Yanukovich.

"Everything is going well," he told reporters outside the clinic, his wife acting as interpreter. "I plan to live for a very long time. I plan to be very happy. I am gaining better health every day."

Earlier in the week he said it was his "growing conviction that what happened to me was an act of political reprisal against a politician in opposition. The aim, naturally, was to kill me."

Medical experts outside Austria and Ukraine have said Yushchenko's disfiguring condition appeared to be "chloracne," commonly associated with dioxin poisoning.

Chloracne is a skin condition, similar to acne, that is caused by exposure to toxic chemicals such as dioxins. It usually results from occupational exposure to compounds in fungicides, insecticides and herbicides.


-----------------------
(Additional reporting by Patricia Reaney in London)

© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Source
 
Ukraine candidate 'was poisoned'

Mods, move this to another thread if appropriate:

Ukraine candidate 'was poisoned'
Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko's mystery illness was caused by poisoning, his Vienna doctors say.
The doctors said extensive tests showed a form of dioxin had been used, leaving Mr Yushchenko's face disfigured.

They described the poisoning as serious and said that if left untreated it could have killed him.

Mr Yushchenko, 50, was taken ill in September as he campaigned for disputed elections that have now been declared invalid because of irregularities.

His supporters staged mass demonstrations against election fraud after his opponent Viktor Yanukovych was initially declared the winner.

The second round is now being re-run on 26 December.

Analysts say he would have to dispel any doubts about his health before becoming president.

'No doubt'

At the time the opposition leader accused the Ukrainian authorities of trying to poison him - a charge they reject.

Doctors were at first unable to confirm the poisoning theory but have now carried out further tests.


There were high concentrations of dioxin, most likely orally administered
Michael Zimpfer
Rudolfinerhaus clinic head doctor


"There is no doubt about the fact that the disease has been caused by a case of poisoning by dioxin," Michael Zimpfer, the head doctor of the Rudolfinerhaus clinic where Mr Yushchenko is undergoing treatment, said.
"There were high concentrations of dioxin, most likely orally administered."

It is still not clear whether the poisoning was deliberate, though Dr Zimpfer said it was likely to have been caused by "a third party".

The question of who was responsible was a matter for the judicial authorities, he said.

Dr Zimpfer said the substance was soluble and could have been administered in something like soup.

The doctors said their findings were backed by clinical observations and the study of blood and tissue samples.

This was the first time since the event that they had conducted biopsies, they said.

Large dose


Mr Yushchenko's blood and tissue registered concentrations of dioxin 1,000 times above normal levels.

There appeared to be little lasting damage to Mr Yushchenko's internal organs, though experts say it could take more than two years for his skin to return to normal.


I find it horrendous that this kind of attack can happen in a political race
Matt, Edinburgh, Scotland


Mr Yushchenko said on arrival at the clinic on Friday that his health was getting "better every day".

Dioxins are common pollutants - produced as the result of many industrial processes.

But toxicologists say little is known about the effect of such a large single dose.

"It's usually low-level, long-term poisoning," Professor John Henry of London's St Mary's hospital told the BBC.

"A very large dose, nobody has any real idea of what it would cause. Now we do know."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 088345.stm

Published: 2004/12/11 16:09:33 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
It's a bizarre way it has altered his appearance so radically. Reminds me of the alledged plot by the CIA to use some sort of powder to be dusted in the shoes of Fedel Castro which was meant to cause his hair to fall out so he would lose his trademark facial hair and some of his virile image.

I think it was mentioned in one of the People's Almanac Book of LIsts
 
If only the Ukranian President had ordered those electronic voting machines from the US, all the unpleasantness could have been avoided.

...

George Bush would be President of Ukraine by now.
 
Wow, I'm surprised that it took as long as it did to diagnose. I read the first couple posts on this thread and thought "yep, dioxin" because the symptoms so distinctly match dioxin poisoning.

I'm no doctor but there has been such interest in PCB contamination all over the world, and the effects of exposure... All the classic symptoms are definitely there. The tip-off, though, should have been the chloracne. There's not much that can cause chloracne besides dioxin exposure.
 
Yushchenko: Authorities behind plot

Diagnosis is 'rock solid,' doctor says

Monday, December 13, 2004 Posted: 0901 GMT (1701 HKT)


(CNN) -- Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko says he is convinced Ukrainian authorities were behind the attempt to poison him with dioxin, but has declined to name anyone specific.

Yuschenko returned to Kiev early Monday from Austria, where he underwent tests to confirm the nature of the poisoning.

"Investigation will take some time," he said, speaking at Kiev airport. Yushchenko noted Ukraine's prosecutor-general has reopened an investigation into his illness.

"If (the) General Prosecution of Ukraine will act according to the law, as I hope, Ukraine and the whole world will know who was in charge of it."

Meanwhile, the doctor who oversaw Yushchenko's treatment in Vienna said Sunday that the diagnosis of dioxin poisoning is "rock solid," but added that more information must be obtained before medical authorities can determine his prognosis.

Dr. Michael Zimpfer told CNN Sunday that he based his conclusion on a physical examination of the patient and "various blood tests" carried out at Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus Clinic and elsewhere.

Zimpfer told reporters over the weekend that the concentration of dioxin in Yushchenko's body was "1,000 times above the normal levels" and that he suspected "third-party involvement."

"We have sent samples to a lab within Europe and also to labs across the Atlantic Ocean that claim to have vast experience, and they came up with the results," Zimpfer told CNN late Sunday.

Yushchenko has "a tremendous amount of dioxin in the blood," Zimpfer said, so much that "it's beyond the scale."

Yushchenko has previously accused Ukrainian authorities of having tried to poison him in the run-up to November's fraudulent presidential election.

Ukraine's Supreme Court voided the outcome after Yushchenko lost to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, and a rerun of the contest is slated to be held December 26.

The 50-year-old, then-telegenic campaigner was taken to the Vienna hospital in September, when he first fell ill. He resumed campaigning later in the month but with a pockmarked and badly disfigured face.

"I have heard a lot of stories and legends on how this poison has been delivered, where it has been produced, which secret services were used for delivering it in Ukraine," Yushchenko said early Monday.

"I am not eager to comment (on) all this stuff, because it's a very delicate point. I do not want to put any shade on somebody, before it was established by the court."

Given what little medical information has been released publicly, Yushchenko could have been exposed to any of about 20 dioxins or dioxin-like chemicals, said Dr. Arnold Schecter, professor of medicine at the University Texas School of Public Health at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. (Dioxons background)

"I don't know if they're talking about one or all the dioxins," he said. "Some persist for decades ... some of the others start leaving the body very rapidly and will be completely gone in a few years, not a few decades."

In addition, it was not clear whether the test used to verify the presence of dioxin in Yushchenko's blood was carried out by one of the approximately 40 such laboratories certified by the World Health Organization to analyze dioxin in blood, he said.

But Zimpfer would not divulge the names of the laboratories that carried out the tests or the details of their findings, citing privacy concerns and sensitivity by some government agencies that they could be perceived to be taking sides in the political debate.

Dioxin exposure can cause a host of ills, including irritability, insomnia, headaches, cramps, lethargy, cancer, underactive thyroid and diabetes, said Schecter.

Zimpfer, who trained as an anesthesiologist and is director of Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus Hospital, which discharged Yushchenko Sunday, said: "With regard to the distribution and elimination from the body, the kinetics of the poison in the body and also the final prognosis, we still are lagging behind."

Yushchenko suffered not only liver damage but damage to his gastrointestinal tract, small and large bowel, stomach and pancreas, Zimpfer said.

Still, Zimpfer said Yushchenko is in good spirits and feels good, though he remains on pain medication, is taking topical medication for his facial lesions and a medication intended to block the reuptake of dioxin by the liver.

"He's in perfect strength, planning to go skiing in the near future and, in case he gets elected, he certainly has the strength and the mental vigor to run (the country)," said Zimpfer, who added that he supports neither side in the political contest.

In September, when the symptoms first emerged, doctors did not suspect dioxin exposure, and instead diagnosed the facial rashes to be rosacea, a common skin disorder, Zimpfer said.

But suspicions that something else was occurring grew after the rash deepened into pock marks and Yushchenko soon developed overwhelming back pain. The cause of that pain remains a mystery, though it has largely subsided, Zimpfer said.

Stumped as to the cause, Zimpfer said he appealed in early October to international colleagues for help. He recently sent blood samples to laboratories in the United States, elsewhere in Europe and Russia, he said.

Though the Russian government scientists never responded, others helped him make the diagnosis, he said.

Still, a diagnosis is not a prognosis, and a reliable one could be critical for voters who must decide this month whether to make Yushchenko their president.

"We have so little to go on that you can't make an intelligent prognosis," Schecter said. "If it's a really small amount (of dioxin), there won't be all that much damage very long. If it's a very large amount, he could be very much under the weather for years."

While only rarely used as a poison, dioxin can be easily obtained from any chemical supply house or it can be synthesized in a fairly simple procedure by a chemist, Schecter said. "One drop will do it."

The development is political dynamite in what has been a turbulent political few weeks in Ukraine, an election process that has drawn international attention with the West-leaning Yushchenko vying with the Russian-backed Yanukovich, in what has been seen as almost a proxy cold-war dispute.

State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said the United States has "seen the reports" and "are deeply concerned about these findings."

"We urge Ukrainian authorities to investigate this matter. We hope for Mr. Yushchenko's full recovery. We look forward to a free and fair election that reflects the will of the Ukrainian people on December 26th."

Source
 
Mon 13 Dec 2004

Spy chief is poisoning suspect

CHRIS STEPHEN

UKRAINIAN prosecutors will today begin an investigation into allegations that state officials tried to assassinate opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, following weekend confirmation that he was poisoned in the run-up to presidential elections.

It is an inquiry that is expected to be hugely divisive because the prime suspect is the head of the Ukraine secret service, the SBU.

The official dined with Mr Yushchenko the night he was poisoned, and medical experts say the dioxin is likely to have been administered through the food and drink.

Mr Yushchenko, expected to be elected president in re-run elections on 26 December, yesterday promised a full investigation of the case.

Leaving the Vienna clinic which confirmed, after weeks of uncertainty, that he had suffered dioxin poisoning, he told reporters: "This question will require a great deal of time and serious investigation."

His call was echoed in Washington, where state department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said: "We urge Ukrainian authorities to investigate this matter." She said US officials had also studied the Austrian report and were "deeply concerned about these findings".

Mr Yushchenko yesterday insisted his poisoning would not be the key issue in campaigning ahead of the presidential run-off contest against prime minister Viktor Yanukovich. He said: "I don’t want this factor to influence the election in some way - either as a plus or a minus."

In fact, the timing of the announcement means the issue can hardly be anything else. The poisoning allegations have been the central theme of this election battle ever since Mr Yushchenko was rushed to hospital with a mystery illness on 5 September this year.

His American wife, Ekaterina, said she knew something was wrong when she kissed him the night of the attack, and found a "medicinal" taste on his lips.

The following day, wracked with pain, Mr Yushchenko was rushed to the elite Rudolfinerhaus Clinic. Doctors there saved his life, but insisted in the weeks that followed that they did not know what had made him ill.

Nevertheless, the sight of Mr Yushchenko’s once handsome and now pockmarked and puffy face became the key image of the pro-democracy demonstrations of recent weeks.

Finally, after a battery of tests on Friday, the Austrian clinic confirmed what opponents had long insisted - that Mr Yushchenko was struck by dioxin poisoning. That an attempt on his life was made is now almost certain, but prosecutors still face an uphill battle.

Firstly, the clinic director Dr Michael Zimpher was unable to say which dioxin had been responsible, only that the level of dioxins in Mr Yushchenko’s body were 1,000 times the normal level.

Dioxin is a generic name for toxic chemicals, any one of which may be responsible for Mr Yushchenko’s sickness.

The massive quantities of dioxin found in Yushchenko’s system caused chloracne, a type of adult acne caused by exposure to toxic chemicals. The condition is treatable, but can take two to three years to heal.

"Until recently there has been no testing available," said Dr Zimpher. "This may be one of the reasons that this kind of poisoning, if it was a criminal act, was chosen."

But tracing the exact poison, and proving that someone tipped it into his food - a cream soup is the suspected source, according to doctors - will not be easy.

Sources in Kiev say the best hope of solving the mystery has been the recent defection to the opposition of several senior SBU officials, who may bring with them details of any "dirty tricks" operations by the service.

The government, meanwhile, has been issuing furious denials. "There is no logic to this accusation," said Mr Yanukovich’s campaign manager, Taras Chornovyl.

Undercutting the government’s case has been their refusal, ever since the September attack, to admit the possibility of poisoning, or to investigate the allegation.

All this will now change. Last week a new chief prosecutor, Svyatoslav Piskun, was appointed as part of a deal between Mr Yushchenko and the current president Leonid Kuchma clearing the way for new elections.

Mr Piskun was fired by Mr Kuchma last year, allegedly for being too energetic in probing secret service links to the murder of opposition journalist Georgy Gongadze.

There is pressure for Mr Piskun to launch a wide-scale inquiry into whether there was secret service involvement in both the poisoning and the Gongadze case.

For the opposition, an investigation into the poisoning is a sound election tactic, in keeping the government on the defensive.

This investigation will also provide a rallying cry for government opponents, who characterise their fight as more than merely political.

"It shows that in this election you have a fight not only between Yushchenko and Yanukovich, not only between opposition and government, but between the truth and a lie," said Professor Olexiy Haran, director of Kiev’s school for policy analysis.

Mr Yushchenko yesterday insisted his focus remained on the achievement of his supporters in forcing the government to re-run November’s presidential elections after the supreme court and international monitors found widespread fraud.

"We haven’t seen anything like that for the past 100 years," he said. "I think it would be appropriate to compare this to the fall of the Soviet Union or the fall of the Berlin Wall."

DIOXIN - THE SYMPTOMS

DIOXINS come in all shapes and sizes, with low levels arriving in our bodies through processed foods. Other sources include paper bleach, grasshoppers and bonfires, though none of these can supply the concentrations in Mr Yushchenko’s system.

Chloracne, his disfiguring skin condition, is the most recognisable symptom of acute dioxin poisoning, but there are a variety of symptoms, ranging from gastrointestinal disturbances to metabolic disorders. The skin condition can disappear after the poison wears off, or it can persist for many years.

Mr Yushchenko also suffered back pain, acute pancreatitis and paralysis on the left side of his face.

Chronic dioxin exposure is believed to increase the risk of cancers and cause liver damage.

Source
 
New finding in Ukraine poisoning

Greets

more on this ...

New finding in Ukraine poisoning

Ian Traynor in Amsterdam and Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Thursday December 16, 2004
The Guardian

Dutch experts who have been examining blood samples from Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian opposition leader, disclosed yesterday that the politician has staggeringly high levels of dioxin in his blood, the second highest ever recorded.

And they confirmed the diagnosis of Austrian doctors that Mr Yushchenko could only have been poisoned.

Abraham Brouwer, an Amsterdam professor who runs the firm Biodetection Systems, said that he was close to identifying the specific dioxin or dioxin compound in Mr Yushchenko's body.

"The total dioxin toxicity in his blood is very high," he said, noting it was up to 6,000 times the normal level.

Professor Brouwer said that such levels of dioxin toxicity entail high risks of cancer, damage to the immune system and liver problems, as well as the skin problems already suffered by the presidential contender.

Earlier this week, Mr Yushchenko's chief of staff said that the substance ingested was T-2, a mycotoxin.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1374571,00.html

mal
 
Deadly dioxin used on Yushchenko
Tests have revealed that the chemical used to poison Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was pure TCDD, the most harmful known dioxin.
TCDD is a key ingredient in Agent Orange - a herbicide used by US troops in the Vietnam war and blamed for serious health problems.

Mr Yushchenko, who faces PM Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat poll on 26 December, fell ill in September.

Scientists say the poison could not have occurred naturally in his blood.

Blood samples taken in Vienna, where Mr Yushchenko was treated, were sent to the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, for further analysis.

"It is a single chemical, not a mix," Prof Abraham Brouwer of the Free University in Amsterdam told the Associated Press.

"This tells us... there is no way it occurred naturally because it is so pure."

He said there were some small signs which could reveal where it was made.

Initial tests had shown the level of poison in Mr Yushchenko's blood was more than 6,000 times higher than normal - the second highest level ever recorded in humans.

Blisters

Doctors in Vienna had already said dioxin poison was to blame for Mr Yushchenko's disfigured face but until now the exact chemical was not known.

They said there appeared to be little lasting damage to Mr Yushchenko's internal organs, though experts believe it could take more than two years for his skin to return to normal.

Mr Yushchenko first claimed that he had been poisoned in September, when he was admitted to a clinic suffering from stomach pains. It was only slowly that his face began to change and the blisters transformed his previously youthful looks.

Ukraine's parliament is reopening its inquiry into the poisoning claims - the first probe said the presidential contender had had a viral infection and other diseases.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/w ... 105035.stm

Published: 2004/12/17 19:17:06 GMT

© BBC MMIV
 
Yushchenko poisoned by most harmful type of dioxin

Last Updated Fri, 17 Dec 2004 14:28:48 EST

LONDON - Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned by TCDD, the most harmful known form of dioxin and a key ingredient of the Vietnam-era herbicide Agent Orange, a scientist says.

Abraham Brouwer, the toxicologist who recently tested the opposition leader's blood, told the Associated Press on Friday that the dioxin was TCDD, chemically known as tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin.

TCDD was a key ingredient of Agent Orange, a notorious herbicide blamed for many health problems in U.S. veterans of the Vietnam War and villagers in the Southeast Asian country.

The chemical can be produced as a side-effect of manufacturing processes that use chlorine, such as pulp and paper bleaching. It can also be found in incinerator fumes.

Accidental poisoning seems unlikely

However, the tests conducted in Brouwer's Amsterdam lab found Yushchenko was poisoned with a pure TCDD, which rules out most inadvertent sources.

It means the poison could only have come from one of three sources, according to scientists – government labs that buy and sell it for research purposes, government biological- or chemical-weapons units or a very smart chemist.

Brouwer, a professor of environmental toxicology, tested blood samples sent by Yushchenko's doctors in Vienna two weeks ago.

The tests also confirmed that Yushchenko's blood contained about 100,000 units of dioxin per gram of blood fat, the second-highest level ever recorded in a human sample.

That's 6,000 times higher than normal.

Dinner with security chief blamed

Yushchenko fell ill during an acrimonious presidential election campaign this fall, after having dinner with the chief of Ukraine's security service on Sept. 5.


His face and torso broke out in lesions that left his skin scarred and swollen, and he suffered severe abdominal and back pain. He maintains that he was poisoned at the dinner.

Yushchenko faces the Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat ballot on Dec. 26. Former prime minister John Turner is leading a team of about 400 Canadian observers to observe the election.

Source

It does seem a bit blatant.
 
This unusual in that it's a conspiracy theory, that actually seems to be true.

The total ineptness with which it seems to have been carried out, contrasts sharply with the imaginary conspiracies that preoccupy so many people.

You'd have thought they could have found some toxin that was more reliable and had less obvious signs and symptoms.
 
Timble said:
This unusual in that it's a conspiracy theory, that actually seems to be true.

The total ineptness with which it seems to have been carried out, contrasts sharply with the imaginary conspiracies that preoccupy so many people.

You'd have thought they could have found some toxin that was more reliable and had less obvious signs and symptoms.

So can we develop a counter conspiracy theory?

He arranged to have himself poisoned with something dramatic but non-fatal as he knew things would be close and he could then use it in a re-election capaign to show how nasty the opposition are and get ino power with a sizeable majority.

Something like that?
 
A destroyed face played the propadanda to its utmost.

I have some question if you can solve it for me.

1. Most poison were used to hurt victim's health, on the purpose to take their lives. A poison to destroy someone's face is rarely heard. Does Dioxin only influence the skin of victim's face? Or the skin of all body? Though I don't know what happened to Yushchenko's body, it seems the skin of his neck and hands are all right.

2. Yushchenko vigorously active in election. It seems the poison didn't hurt his health much.

3. Yushchenko and Western media beat the drum said that he was poisoned. It seems the poison was selected for propaganda much more than killing.

4. Motive is important in any case. Who benefit from this election if the victim having a destroyed face?

5. Is perpetrator an amateur who selected a wrong poison to let others know that Yushchenko was obviously poisoned? Or just want to have a propaganda?
 
kathaksung: The thing is that it has impacted heavily on his health - one of the reasons he went to the foreign medical centre was because he was potential organ failure although he should recover OK from that. The changes to his skin were just a side effect.

----------------
Election seems to have gone OK the defeated incumbent is refusing to accept the result - I wonder if it still means the country will split? It is less likely to go with the win being by a good margin but........

A report:

Ukraine's Yushchenko Declares Victory

20 minutes ago


By ALEKSANDAR VASOVIC, Associated Press Writer

KIEV, Ukraine - Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko said Monday that Ukraine will finally be free after declaring himself the winner of the rerun of fraud-filled presidential elections, while supporters of his pro-Russian opponent vowed to challenge the results in court.

The Western-leaning Yushchenko, who was disfigured by dioxin poisoning, thanked orange-clad protesters who spent weeks camped out in the capital's frigid streets for helping secure his electoral victory Sunday. Orange is his campaign color.

"Now, today, the Ukrainian people have won. I congratulate you," he told a jubilant crowd in Kiev's Independence Square, the center of massive protests following the Nov. 21 presidential runoff that was annulled after fraud allegations.

"We have been independent for 14 years but we were not free. Now we can say this is a thing of the past. Now we are facing an independent and free Ukraine."

No election-related violence was reported.

Three exit polls gave the Western-leaning Yushchenko a 15-20 percentage-point lead over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed candidate. The official vote count gave Yushchenko a narrower but unassailable lead — 52.3 percent to 43.9 percent with ballots from 98.5 percent of precincts counted.

The Central Election Commission has 15 days after the election to announce the final results.

Nestor Shufrych, a lawmaker and Yanukovych ally, told reporters the Yanukovych campaign would appeal, but he was not more specific. The campaign can appeal to either the commission or Ukraine's Supreme Court — which Yushchenko did after the Nov. 21 runoff.

Despite the huge presence of foreign observers, both campaigns still complained of some violations. Yanukovych's campaign reported problems in pro-Yushchenko western Ukraine, such as Yushchenko campaign material being found near the voting booths.

Yushchenko's headquarters, meanwhile, complained that the names of Ukrainians who died 15 years ago were included on a voter list in Donetsk.

Results were trickling in slowly from two regions in pro-Yanukovych territory in eastern Ukraine. Commission chairman Yaroslav Davydovych urged election workers to "put political issues aside" and do their jobs.

"The state is waiting for results," he said.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, whose own accession to power on a wave of peaceful protest in November 2003 inspired Ukraine's opposition, congratulated Yushchenko in a Ukrainian-language message delivered over Ukrainian television. Saakashvili, who attended law school in then-Soviet Ukraine, apparently was the first foreign leader to publicly recognize Yushchenko's victory.

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski congratulated Yushchenko on Monday, describing his victory as a "good and important choice" for Ukraine's relations with Europe, Kwasniewski's office said.

Poland's former president, Lech Walesa, told the Polish news agency PAP that Yushchenko's victory meant "Ukraine on its road to freedom and democracy made a small move toward Europe."

International observers praised the vote as calm and orderly and said Ukraine made good progress toward meeting international standards of free and fair elections.

Yushchenko was not taking chances. He called his supporters back out onto the square Monday afternoon to defend his apparent election victory, if necessary, and asked for their help in what he called the main task facing the nation: forming a trustworthy government.

Ukrainians heading to work Monday stopped at Independence Square to see the latest results on a television monitor, cheering and chanting "Yu-shchen-ko! Yu-shchen-ko!" Their cheers were punctuated by blasts from car horns.

Some 12,000 foreign observers watched Sunday's unprecedented third-round vote to help prevent a repeat of the apparent widespread fraud that sparked massive protests after Yanukovych was declared the winner of the Nov. 21 vote.

Commission member Mykola Melnyk insisted: "This repeat vote was fair and honest, especially in comparison with the second round."

Monitors said they had seen far fewer problems this round, in which 77.2 percent of registered voters turned out.

"This is another country," said Stefan Mironjuk, a German election monitor observing the vote in the northern Sumy region. "The atmosphere of intimidation and fear during the first and second rounds was absent. ... It was very, very calm."

Sure of victory, Yushchenko backers appeared to be taking a rest after weeks camped out in the square. About 5,000 had gathered in the square to hear his victory speech, setting off fireworks in celebration.

"Today we began to live! Today, we rose off our knees and showed ourselves and the world that our future can't be dictated to us. We will dictate it," said Olga Drik, 21, who had festooned her purse with ribbons in the Yushchenko campaign's trademark orange.

Earlier, Yushchenko said at his campaign headquarters that Ukraine was beginning "a new political life."

"I am convinced that it is fashionable to be a citizen of Ukraine. It is stylish. It is beautiful. Three or four months ago, few people knew where Ukraine was," he said. "Today, almost the whole world starts its day from thinking about what is happening in Ukraine."

Even before the exit poll results were announced, a glum-looking Yanukovych told reporters that "if there is a defeat, there will be a strong opposition."

He did not concede, and hinted he would challenge the results in the courts.

"We will defend the rights of our voters by all legal means," Yanukovych said.

Yanukovych's headquarters had planned a rally in his hometown Donetsk on Monday, but they canceled it, a move suggesting widespread apathy among his supporters.

Voters had faced a crucial choice. Ukraine, a nation of 48 million people, is caught between the eastward-expanding European Union and NATO, and an increasingly assertive Russia, its former imperial and Soviet-era master.

Yushchenko, a former Central Bank chief and prime minister, wants to bring Ukraine closer to the West and advance economic and political reform. Yanukovych emphasizes tightening the Slavic country's ties with Russia as a means of maintaining stability.

Yushchenko, whose face remains scarred from dioxin poisoning he blamed on Ukrainian authorities, built on the momentum of round-the-clock protests that echoed the spirit of the anti-Communist revolutions that swept other East European countries in 1989-1990.

"Thousands of people that were and are at the square were not only waiting for this victory but they were creating it," he said. "In some time, in a few years, they'll be able to utter these historic words: 'Yes, this is my Ukraine and I am proud that I am from this country.'"

Source
 
so yanukovych is doing a bush-dole(?) 2000 election wrangle now ;)
 
Fraud minister 'suicide' probe

Greets

Wed 29 Dec 2004

Fraud minister 'suicide' probe

CHRIS STEPHEN
IN KIEV

UKRAINIAN prosecutors yesterday launched a criminal investigation into whether a minister at the centre of election fraud allegations was "driven to suicide" amid accusations that his death was part of a crude cover-up by the departing regime.

The body of Heorhiy Kirpa, the transport minister, was discovered on Monday night in his summer house near Kiev with a gunshot wound to the head.

The prosecutor general’s office said yesterday it thought Mr Kirpa had killed himself, but a spokesman said the inquiry was proceeding "under the article ‘driven to suicide’".

This is the second apparent suicide of a leading government figure this month. Yury Lyahk, 39, head of the Ukrainian Credit Bank, was found with a paperknife embedded in his throat.

Many in the opposition feel the two deaths are more than coincidence and point to corrupt members of the old regime trying to cover their tracks as a gathering storm of investigations promises to unleash one of the most wide-scale probes of a government ever seen.

Election fraud is only one of the activities of the outgoing government being targeted.

Second will be the attempted dioxin poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko in September, which he was lucky to survive.

Third will be allegations of corruption and undervalued privatisations. The most spectacular of these sales saw the state’s biggest steel plant, Krivorozhsteel, sold to a consortium including president Leonid Kuchma’s son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, for $800 million (£416 million), reportedly half the sum offered by US bidders.

And there is the case of the opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. His death by beheading in 2000 caused a sensation; bugging tapes apparently showed it was ordered by the governing party.

Opposition figures fear that more senior members of the former regime could die in mysterious circumstances before the corruption allegations can be properly investigated.

Both Mr Kirpa and Mr Lyahk are accused of being involved in an operation, apparently by the authorities, to rig November’s presidential election, which was re-run on Boxing Day.

Opposition chief of staff Nikolai Tomenko said yesterday there was strong circumstantial evidence that Mr Kirpa had been killed, or persuaded to kill himself, to shut him up. "I think that he as a witness would be able to tell a lot," he said.

Mr Tomenko also said there were three other top government officials he believes may be next on a "hit list" to cover up the fraud. "These men should be protected. They need official bodyguards," he said.

This protection, say opposition supporters, is to ensure they remain alive long enough to testify about their role in an election-rigging operation that saw the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, crowned president before, after weeks of street protests, it was annulled.

According to the opposition, Mr Lyakh organised payments for the fraud and Mr Kirpa, 58, had the job of arranging transport to allow a huge multiple-voting operation.

Using fleets of buses and re-routed trains on the state rail network, Mr Kirpa ensured that pro-government supporters could vote several times over by being moved, en masse, to relays of polling stations.

International monitors later estimated that the operation translated into more than a million extra ballots for Mr Yanukovich.

Later, Mr Kirpa is accused of running an operation to bring pro-government miners from eastern regions to confront opposition supporters in Kiev.

"He was considered to be one of the persons behind the falsification," said Dr Olexiy Haran, director of Kiev’s School for Policy Analysis. "He organised trains from the east part of the country and on these trains there were many people who looked like bandits."

Mr Kirpa’s death came the day after he checked out of Kiev’s military hospital, having had a testicle removed after telling doctors he had been beaten up.

He entered no details of his beating with the police.

"People who knew Kirpa personally say he was not the sort of man to commit suicide," said Yana Lemeshenko, a reporter with news agency Ukrinform. "He was not a depressive type."

The interior ministry said Mr Kirpa was found in the sauna of his country home outside Kiev."There was one gunshot wound to the head in the region of his temple. A pistol was found next to the minister," a prosecutor’s spokesman said. "This morning, the prosecutor-general launched a criminal investigation under the article ‘driven to suicide’."

Parliament has opened its own probe into the deaths. "We are gathering statements from railway employees on the [fraud] operation," said Grigory Omelchenko, deputy chief of Ukraine’s parliamentary commission on corruption and organised crime. "Some people might be fleeing abroad."

All of these probes are likely to put one man in the gun sights: Mr Kuchma.

And the prosecutions may present the incoming administration with a powerful weapon. Weeks or even months of disclosures about the extent of alleged corruption in the Kuchma regime may cement support for opposition leader Mr Yushchenko as he struggles to build a coalition from a famously fragmented parliamentary alliance.

Diplomats here say the president has been putting out feelers to Mr Yushchenko trying to secure an amnesty.

In return, he will promise a smooth transition to power, perhaps even handing over state evidence against cronies.

But such a pardon may be hard for opposition supporters to accept.

"Give Kuchma an amnesty? No way," said 21-year-old student Alex Shovkovich, part of the opposition’s Tent City still camped in Kiev city centre. "They must bring these cases to court, the guilty must be punished."

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1471902004

mal
 
Fraud minister 'suicide' probe

Greets

Wed 29 Dec 2004

Fraud minister 'suicide' probe

CHRIS STEPHEN
IN KIEV

UKRAINIAN prosecutors yesterday launched a criminal investigation into whether a minister at the centre of election fraud allegations was "driven to suicide" amid accusations that his death was part of a crude cover-up by the departing regime.

The body of Heorhiy Kirpa, the transport minister, was discovered on Monday night in his summer house near Kiev with a gunshot wound to the head.

The prosecutor general’s office said yesterday it thought Mr Kirpa had killed himself, but a spokesman said the inquiry was proceeding "under the article ‘driven to suicide’".

This is the second apparent suicide of a leading government figure this month. Yury Lyahk, 39, head of the Ukrainian Credit Bank, was found with a paperknife embedded in his throat.

Many in the opposition feel the two deaths are more than coincidence and point to corrupt members of the old regime trying to cover their tracks as a gathering storm of investigations promises to unleash one of the most wide-scale probes of a government ever seen.

Election fraud is only one of the activities of the outgoing government being targeted.

Second will be the attempted dioxin poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko in September, which he was lucky to survive.

Third will be allegations of corruption and undervalued privatisations. The most spectacular of these sales saw the state’s biggest steel plant, Krivorozhsteel, sold to a consortium including president Leonid Kuchma’s son-in-law, Viktor Pinchuk, for $800 million (£416 million), reportedly half the sum offered by US bidders.

And there is the case of the opposition journalist Heorhiy Gongadze. His death by beheading in 2000 caused a sensation; bugging tapes apparently showed it was ordered by the governing party.

Opposition figures fear that more senior members of the former regime could die in mysterious circumstances before the corruption allegations can be properly investigated.

Both Mr Kirpa and Mr Lyahk are accused of being involved in an operation, apparently by the authorities, to rig November’s presidential election, which was re-run on Boxing Day.

Opposition chief of staff Nikolai Tomenko said yesterday there was strong circumstantial evidence that Mr Kirpa had been killed, or persuaded to kill himself, to shut him up. "I think that he as a witness would be able to tell a lot," he said.

Mr Tomenko also said there were three other top government officials he believes may be next on a "hit list" to cover up the fraud. "These men should be protected. They need official bodyguards," he said.

This protection, say opposition supporters, is to ensure they remain alive long enough to testify about their role in an election-rigging operation that saw the prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich, crowned president before, after weeks of street protests, it was annulled.

According to the opposition, Mr Lyakh organised payments for the fraud and Mr Kirpa, 58, had the job of arranging transport to allow a huge multiple-voting operation.

Using fleets of buses and re-routed trains on the state rail network, Mr Kirpa ensured that pro-government supporters could vote several times over by being moved, en masse, to relays of polling stations.

International monitors later estimated that the operation translated into more than a million extra ballots for Mr Yanukovich.

Later, Mr Kirpa is accused of running an operation to bring pro-government miners from eastern regions to confront opposition supporters in Kiev.

"He was considered to be one of the persons behind the falsification," said Dr Olexiy Haran, director of Kiev’s School for Policy Analysis. "He organised trains from the east part of the country and on these trains there were many people who looked like bandits."

Mr Kirpa’s death came the day after he checked out of Kiev’s military hospital, having had a testicle removed after telling doctors he had been beaten up.

He entered no details of his beating with the police.

"People who knew Kirpa personally say he was not the sort of man to commit suicide," said Yana Lemeshenko, a reporter with news agency Ukrinform. "He was not a depressive type."

The interior ministry said Mr Kirpa was found in the sauna of his country home outside Kiev."There was one gunshot wound to the head in the region of his temple. A pistol was found next to the minister," a prosecutor’s spokesman said. "This morning, the prosecutor-general launched a criminal investigation under the article ‘driven to suicide’."

Parliament has opened its own probe into the deaths. "We are gathering statements from railway employees on the [fraud] operation," said Grigory Omelchenko, deputy chief of Ukraine’s parliamentary commission on corruption and organised crime. "Some people might be fleeing abroad."

All of these probes are likely to put one man in the gun sights: Mr Kuchma.

And the prosecutions may present the incoming administration with a powerful weapon. Weeks or even months of disclosures about the extent of alleged corruption in the Kuchma regime may cement support for opposition leader Mr Yushchenko as he struggles to build a coalition from a famously fragmented parliamentary alliance.

Diplomats here say the president has been putting out feelers to Mr Yushchenko trying to secure an amnesty.

In return, he will promise a smooth transition to power, perhaps even handing over state evidence against cronies.

But such a pardon may be hard for opposition supporters to accept.

"Give Kuchma an amnesty? No way," said 21-year-old student Alex Shovkovich, part of the opposition’s Tent City still camped in Kiev city centre. "They must bring these cases to court, the guilty must be punished."

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1471902004

mal
 
Another version:

Who poisoned Viktor Yushchenko?

By Tim Whewell
Correspondent, BBC Newsnight

Mr Yushchenko says poison caused a sudden change in his appearance
Was President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine poisoned on the orders of a Russian "political technologist" working for the Kremlin?

That's one of the sensational claims being examined by Ukraine's chief prosecutor as he gets to grips with the new inquiry into how Mr Yushchenko - the main opposition candidate in last year's elections - apparently ingested a large dose of dioxin, severely disfiguring his face, and according to some accounts, almost killing him.

The allegation's contained in a leaked tape that's been impounded by the prosecutor. A copy's also been obtained by Newsnight, which has conducted its own investigation into the poisoning.

On Tuesday, the man at the centre of the allegation - Gleb Pavlovsky, the head of a pro-Kremlin Moscow think-tank, categorically denied the suggestion that he had thought up the idea of giving Mr Yushchenko the "mark of the beast".

"For what reason anyone would do this is hard to imagine," he told Newsnight. "And how I could have come up with the idea... it's absurd, and absurd that in Kiev it's being discussed seriously."

When the tape of an apparently tapped telephone conversation mentioning Pavlovsky was first aired on Kiev's Channel 5 television, it was widely dismissed as a falsification - a deliberate attempt by Pavlovsky's enemies in the Kremlin to discredit him after his failed attempts to promote the Kremlin's preferred candidate, Viktor Yanukovych, in the election battle.

Criminal investigation

The prosecution's decision to use it as evidence in their inquiry has surprised everyone - including Pavlovsky.

"When the tapes appeared on 5th Channel, I took it as a joke," he told Newsnight. "A bit vulgar for my taste... in the style of Orson Welles... But when I heard the Prosecutor-General had taken them, that turns a TV joke into a lie."

The criminal investigation is still in its fairly early stages. But the signs are that the possibility of a Russian link is one of its main lines of inquiry.

Officials have said the poison could only have been produced in one of four or five laboratories, probably in Russia or the United States.

The Interior Minister claims he knows who brought the poison across the border, and which member of parliament accompanied it.

Viktor Yushchenko, who campaigned for more democracy and closer links with the West, was taken seriously ill on September 6th or 7th with severe abdominal and back pain.

He was flown to Vienna for emergency treatment. Doctors could find no explanation for his illness, but when he returned to Kiev he claimed he'd been poisoned by the "political cuisine" of the Ukrainian Government.

Unusual circumstances

Suspicion centred on a mysterious dinner attended by Yushchenko on 5 September 2004 - hosted by Volodymyr Satsiuk, the deputy head of Ukraine's secret service, the SBU.

Mr Satsiuk's denied any possibility of poisoning at the meal - and Newsnight's seen a photo of him embracing Mr Yushchenko at the end of the evening.

The meeting was held under highly unusual circumstances. Yushchenko gave the order to dismiss his usual security detail. But he was apparently worried about attending. And his wife claims that when he returned there was an unusual metallic taste on his lips.

But witnesses and experts Newsnight has spoken to have cast doubt on whether Yushchenko could have been poisoned at that dinner.

Mykola Katerinchuk, an MP and friend of the Ukrainian leader said: "It would have been too obvious, too unprofessional."

And Alistair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology at Leeds University in the UK points out that dioxin does not normally cause severe gastro-intestinal damage as suffered by Mr Yushchenko.

The likelihood is either that Mr Yushchenko ingested a cocktail of poisons, or that he was poisoned earlier than is generally thought - and possibly on several occasions.

The inquiry still seems a long way from the truth. No-one has yet been arrested and Newsnight has learned that some key witnesses have not been formally questioned.

But it has the potential to provoke a serious political rift between Ukraine and Russia - two countries that now say they want to work together again.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/n ... 288995.stm

If nothing else look at the back to back photos at the top of he page. :?
 
Secrets of journalist's murder cast long shadow over Ukraine

greets

Secrets of journalist's murder cast long shadow over Ukraine's orange revolution

Yushchenko regime accused of colluding in cover-up

David Crouch in Kiev
Wednesday April 6, 2005
The Guardian

Two former police officers have pleaded guilty to killing an investigative journalist five years ago, the notorious murder which began the mass opposition to former president Leonid Kuchma.

The two were arrested last month. Leaders of the old regime, including Mr Kuchma himself, are widely assumed to have sanctioned the murder.

When Viktor Yushchenko won last year's presidential election he vowed to get to the bottom of the case.

Article continues
But it is suspected that his government is reluctant to dig too deep into the case, for fear of opening Pandora's box.

Georgy Gongadze's body was found in a shallow grave in September 2000. Secret recordings later revealed that Mr Kuchma and his cronies had apparently discussed getting rid of him.

Witnesses were threatened, lost their jobs or fled the country. The "orange revolution" last year raised hope that the murderers would be brought to justice.

But a month ago a key witness, Yuri Kravchenko, formerly Mr Kuchma's interior minister, who can be heard on the secret tapes promising to do away with Gongadze, killed himself.

Some say it was more than a coincidence, and there has been widespread speculation that the authorities encouraged him to take his own life.

On March 1, Mr Yushchenko declared that the case had been solved and the killers identified.

The next day the prosecutor general, Stanislav Pyskun, announced that he intended to call Kravchenko in for questioning.

The minister can have been in no doubt that the net was closing in on him, and killed himself hours before his interrogation was due to begin.

"His death was a result of the prosecutor general's mistakes," Gongadze's widow, Myroslava, said. "He was assisted to leave this life, if not physically then morally."

Mr Pyskun has announced his readiness to re-examine the secret recordings from Mr Kuchma's office. But the tapes may be a poisoned chalice for the new leadership.

Several current ministers, and Mr Yushchenko himself, held posts under Mr Kuchma. No one knows for certain what embarrassments the recordings may contain for them.

The liberal weekly Dzerkalo Tyzhnya has called them "a weapon of mass destruction" for the new government.

Mr Yushchenko has condemned suggestions that the investigators are reluctant to admit the tapes.

But many are mystified as to why Mr Pyskun retains such a prominent role in the investigation. Originally appointed prosecutor general by Mr Kuchma, he was removed from the case just as he appeared to be making progress. In December he unexpectedly reappeared.

"I know Pyskun's work, his style and his methods, and I haven't the slightest trust in him," Andriy Fedur, the solicitor for Gongadze's mother, said. "I am concerned that Viktor Yushchenko has still not dismissed him."

Recent events have caused speculation that a deal was made guaranteeing Mr Kuchma an amnesty in return for his graceful departure from power. According to this theory the deal included a role for Mr Pyskun.

Pora, the mass youth organisation which led November's protests, has placed Mr Pyskun on a "blacklist" of old regime figures who should be banned from office.

Vladislav Kaskiv, a leading figure in Pora, says Mr Pyskun's reappointment was a mistake, but fears the root of the problem lies deeper, in Mr Yushchenko's negotiations with the old regime.

He is worried that Mr Kuchma will escape justice.

"The conditions under which Yushchenko received power were opaque," he said. "The negotiations should have been open and transparent."

Mr Kuchma is not the only figure in the Gongadze case who appears to be enjoying an easy ride. The Speaker of parliament, Volodymyr Lytvyn, is apparently also to be heard on the secret tapes discussing how to silence the journalist.

But Mr Yushchenko has invited Mr Lytvyn to join his coalition at next year's general elections.

Last month Mr Lytvyn, apparently at Mr Yushchenko's behest, asked the parliament to prevent a parliamentary commission on Gongadze publishing its findings. The commission's report had been blocked for several years by pro-Kuchma MPs.

Commenting on this development, Vasily Stoyakin, the director the Kiev Centre for Political Marketing, said: "I cannot rule out that the political will to solve the case has disintegrated."

Gongadze's widow believes his murder goes to the heart of the orange revolution.

"Viktor Yushchenko is an honest man," she said. "But if he wants society to move forward, he will have to solve my husband's murder."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1452833,00.html

mal
 
I think this fits in nicely here:

Twitter: Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en
Vladimir Makey, 64, head of Belarus Foreign Affairs Minister, is dead. There are rumors he might have been poisoned.
Makey was named as a possible successor of Lukashenko. He was one of the few not under Russian influence.
Rumors say this might be a hint to Lukashenko.

a @Andrzej94491984
Russians killed him - instead of Belarus being completely subordinated to Moscow, Vladimir Makey was a supporter of equal distance between Poland and Russia.
Just yesterday he had a meeting with the Apostolic Nuncio to Belarus, Archbishop Ante Jozić.

 
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