NATO official in Russia is found dead
MOSCOW - A German employee with the NATO's military mission in Moscow has been found dead, NATO officials said Wednesday.
An investigation has been opened into the death of Olaf Schmunk, who worked as an office administrator, NATO's military liaison office confirmed. NATO officials refused to provide any other details. Moscow police also refused to comment.
Interfax news agency reported that Schmunk was 35 years old.
NATO opened its long-delayed mission in Moscow in May, on the eve of the summit meeting that inaugurated a new level of cooperation between Russia and its former Cold War foe. /The Associated Press/
President Putin pardons prisoners
MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin has pardoned three prisoners and shortened the sentences of four other convicts, the presidential press service said Wednesday.
The statement said that Putin issued the order "guided by humanitarian principles."
The prisoners were all men aged between 20 and 55 years, and many have young children, the press service's statement said. Most of them had no previous criminal records, and had been given positive character references by prison authorities.
The statement gave no further details about the pardoned prisoners.
Last year, Putin dissolved Russia's 17-member presidential pardons commission, accusing it of excessive liberalism in recommending clemency for convicted murderers. He ordered it to be replaced by regional commissions, which he said would give the public more say into which convicts go free.
Human rights activists, liberal lawmakers and many prominent scholars had denounced the dissolution of the commission, which they saw as an important symbol of post-Soviet liberalism. They feared that delegating responsibilities to regional groups would foster corruption. /The Associated Press/
11:32 [Wednesday 21st August, 2002]
Group marches to mark failed ‘91 coup
MOSCOW - A group of soldiers and civilians marched through the center of Moscow on Tuesday to mark the 11th anniversary of the failed hardline coup against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that sped the collapse of the Soviet Union.
About 100 people walked from the White House government building to Moscow's New Arbat Street, where they lit candles and laid flowers at a memorial to the three demonstrators who died in street clashes on the night of Aug. 20, 1991. The soldiers placed wreaths at the memorial, and a Russian Orthodox priest blessed the site.
The coup attempt, by a group of hardline communists calling themselves the State Emergency Committee, brought thousands of people onto the streets of Moscow, who manned barricades and rallied behind Boris Yeltsin, then president of the Russian republic.
The coup plotters isolated Gorbachev at a Black Sea resort, said he was ill, and sent armored columns into the streets. The coup collapsed after three days and Gorbachev returned to power, but the coup fatally weakened the Soviet system and it collapsed in December 1991, when the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus announced the Soviet Union defunct. /The Associated Press/
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