People carried flowers to a house where she lived in downtown Moscow - and where she was murdered - and placed flowers and candles outside the offices of a newspaper where she worked.

Hundreds meanwhile rallied in Moscow's Pushkin Square to protest her murder as well as the Russian crackdown on Georgians since a spy row erupted last week.

Underneath a photograph of Politkovskaya, one poster read: "The Kremlin has killed freedom of speech."

Russia has seen several high-profile murders of outspoken journalists over the past decade. Paul Klebnikov, the U.S.-born editor of the Russian edition of Forbes who had been investigating the murky business world in Russia, was gunned down on July 9, 2004 as he was leaving his Moscow office. Two ethnic Chechens accused of carrying out the murder were acquitted earlier this year.

Valery Ivanov, editor of the newspaper Tolyatinskoye Oborzreniye in the southern city Russian city of Togliatti, was shot dead outside his home on April 29, 2002. The newspaper covered local organized crime, drug trafficking and official corruption.

Larisa Yudina, editor of the opposition newspaper Sovetskaya Kalmykia in the southern Russian region of Kalmykia, was stabbed to death and her body dumped in a pond on the outskirts of the regional capital, Elista, on June 7, 1998. Two men, both former government aides, were caught and convicted of murder.

Vladislav Listyev, executive director of the newly formed public television station ORT, was shot dead in the entrance hall of his apartment block March 1, 1995. Listyev was one of Russia's best-known TV journalists.

Dmitry Kholodov, an investigative reporter for the Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, was killed in a bomb blast at the newspaper's office on October 17, 1994. Kholodov, who had been investigating mafia connections with the military, was killed when he opened a briefcase he believed contained secret documents.

Anna Politkovskaya was found dead in her apartment block in Moscow on October 7, 2006.

The country's top prosecutor, Yury Chaika, announced that he had personally taken control of the investigation into her death. The Kremlin, a frequent target of Politkovskaya's often sharply critical reporting, again made no public statement on the death of one of the country's most prominent journalists and commentators.

Another focus of her reporting, Ramzan Kadyrov, the prime minister of Chechnya, said her killing prompted "us to think about where things stand in this issue in our country," Interfax reported. "Politkovskaya's articles were not always objective, but it was her point of view," he said. "I am sincerely sorry about what happened."

Politkovskaya, 48, was a journalist with few equals in Russia. She was a special correspondent for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta and had become one of the country's most prominent human-rights advocates, The NYT wrote.

Politkovskaya, who had two adult children, had worked for Novaya Gazeta since 1999; she had covered the second Chechen war and the terrorist siege of a Moscow theater in 2002. One of her books, "A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya," recorded her impressions of the war's unrelenting and often macabre cruelty, and the manifest corruption of many of its participants. She wrote of torture, mass executions, kidnappings for ransom and to eliminate rebel suspects, and the sale by Russian soldiers of Chechen corpses to their families for proper Islamic burial.

Politkovskaya's colleagues believe she paid the price for her vigorous opposition to the authorities on sensitive issues. "The murder of Anna Politkovskaya is a new attack on democracy, freedom of speech and openness in Russia," the Moscow Union of Journalists said in a statement, published by the Reuters news agency.

Leading Russian journalists, international journalism watchdogs and Western governments condemned the killing of Anna Politkovskaya and demanded a thorough probe into the attack though many doubt that those behind the killing will be brought to justice.

Russia has become a deadly place for journalists who run afoul of government officials or their business and political partners, The Associated Press wrote Sunday. Those behind the killings, though, are rarely brought to justice, reinforcing a sense of impunity that may have encouraged the killers of Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of the war in Chechnya.

As the European Union and the U.S. demanded a thorough probe into Saturday's contract-style killing, there was skepticism that the authorities would ever uncover the culprits of the latest in a series of killings of journalists in Russia under President Vladimir Putin, who has been increasingly accused of rolling back post-Soviet freedoms since coming to power in 2000.

The skepticism was underlined by the $929,700 reward for information that Novaya Gazeta has offered, signaling stronger faith in their own investigative efforts than those promised by the government, which has produced so few prosecutions before. Politkovskaya's editors said she had been due to publish an investigative article on Monday about torture and kidnappings in Chechnya based on witness accounts and photos of tortured bodies.

Novaya Gazeta said on its Web site it believed her murder was either revenge by Kadyrov or an attempt to discredit him.

In a recent radio interview, Politkovskaya said she was a witness in a criminal case against Kadyrov concerning his alleged involvement in the kidnapping of two civilians - an ethnic Russian and a Chechen - who were tortured and killed.

Novaya Gazeta said Sunday its reporters would conduct their own investigation, and it called Politkovskaya's slaying revenge for her coverage of Chechnya, which included the story planned for Monday. "We never got the article, but she had evidence about these (abducted) people and there were photographs," Deputy Editor Vitaly Yerushensky, told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Back in 2004, at the height of the deadly school siege in North Ossetia, Politkovskaya survived an attempt on her life. She was taken off the plane as she headed to Beslan where a group of Chechen rebels were held nearly 1,000 people, most of the children, hostage.

Then, Politkovskaya claimed the government had taken measures to keep her out of the region, but officials played down her complaints refusing to take them seriously. That attempt on her life remained unsolved, allegedly because blood samples were deliberately destroyed before the toxin could be identified, Joan Smith of The Independent wrote Monday.

Anna was recognized internationally, her books were published in Europe and she enjoyed respect of media community world over.

All leading organizations, politicians and writers have condemned her death. Only the Kremlin remained pronouncedly silent.

But her death, it appears, has had a sobering effect on the Russians. For several years now, blinded by growing economy and improving living standards, we grew to believe that Russia was becoming - albeit slowly - a more civilized, safer place to live in where disputes are taken to court rather than solved through violence.

But the recent killing of a top banker, Andrei Kozlov, and, now - Anna's death - sow strong doubts on claims of those who picture Vladimir Putin as the most devout liberal...

In an e-mail obtained by Reuters, the embassy wrote to Random House publishing imprint Alfred A. Knopf, "The Cultural Services of the French Embassy has decided to cancel its participation in a reception for 'Bad Faith,' by Carmen Callil.

"Although the French Embassy was looking forward to the presentation of a work exploring the darkest hours of French history, it could not endorse a personal opinion of the author expressed in the postscript of the book."

A source at the French Embassy's New York office said the embassy objected to the author's "opinion ... equating what was done to the Jews of France (under the Nazi regime) with what has been done to the Palestinian people."

In the book's postscript Callil writes: "What caused me anguish as I tracked down Louis Darquier was to live so closely to the helpless terror of the Jews of France, and to see what the Jews of Israel were passing on to the Palestinian people."

"Like the rest of humanity, the Jews of Israel 'forget' the Palestinians. Everyone forgets; every nation forgets."

In an e-mail obtained by Reuters from the French Embassy to Random House, one French Embassy official on August 22 said of Callil's book: "It is a masterpiece."

"The French Cultural Attache read it and he was incredibly complimentary," said Callil, who was born in Australia and moved to London where she founded feminist publisher Virago Press and ran publisher Chatto i Windus.

But Callil said Tuesday's party was canceled after "a series of letters from various Jewish fundamentalists complaining. They take a view that that no one can say anything about Jews that is not 100 percent complimentary." She did not identify the letter writers by name.

Callil defended the postscript to her book.

"I think the people in Gaza live in poverty huddled up in a very small territory ... because people don't like their government," she said. "But if you persecute people, they will rise up against you."

Asked if she feels the current Israeli government oppresses Palestinians, she replied, "Yes."

"I want people to learn from the past so the same terrible things do not happen again. If you oppress people, they will hate you and I do not want Israel to be hated," she said.

Random House spokesman Paul Bogaards called Callil's book "a significant work of history," adding, "we stand by the work in its entirety." A spokesman for the French Embassy confirmed the e-mail canceling the party but declined further comment.

The King told the new cabinet to work with "honesty" to bring the country out of crisis, help people affected by the current flooding disaster, and to restore the country's good image among the international communities, new Defense Minister Boonrawd Somtat was quoted by news network The Nation as saying after being sworn in.

Chief government spokesman Yongyuth Mayalarp earlier announced that the King has approved the cabinet line-up late Sunday night.

According to Yongyuth, the first cabinet meeting is to be held Tuesday morning, in which ministers will discuss division of work between the two newly appointed deputy prime ministers, Pridiyathorn Devakula, the finance minister, and Kosit Panpiemras,the industry minister.

New government policies would also be discussed at Tuesday's meeting, said the spokesman.

The new cabinet will exist for about one year, pending the completion of a new constitution, according to the draft by the Council for National Security, the military authority body led by army commander Sonthi Boonyaratkalin and other generals who staged the Sept. 19 coup to oust former PM Thaksin Shinawatra. When the new Constitution was put in place, a general election will be held,hopefully in October 2007.

Ancient Roman treasures found under Vatican car park

Barbara McMahon in Rome
Tuesday October 10, 2006
The Guardian

Archaeologists yesterday unveiled a 2,000-year-old burial ground discovered by chance inside the Vatican City.

The necropolis, which traces pagan Rome to the birth of Christianity, was discovered three years ago while excavations were being carried out for an underground garage to ease the Vatican's parking problems.

It contains more than 40 elaborately decorated mausoleums and 200 individual tombs. Headstones, including one that belonged to a slave of Nero, funerary urns and elaborately decorated frescoes and mosaic floors have also been uncovered on the site.

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The historical importance of the find is being described as second only to the necropolis below St Peter's Basilica, which is believed to contain relics of St Peter, the first pope.

Giandomenico Spinola, director of the project, described the necropolis as being in an excellent condition because it had been protected by a landslide at the end of the second century. "We found the kind of things that have usually been lost in past excavations in Rome," he said.

Most of the tombs date from between the era of Augustus (23BC to 14AD) to that of Constantine (306-337).

The necropolis is unusual because the rich were buried alongside the poor. Next to tombs of middle-class Romans - one a tabellarius (letter carrier) and another a hortator (circus horse trainer) - are elaborately carved sarcophagi of Romans with more money. The headstone of a young nobleman called Publius Caesilius Victorinus indicated his love of hunting. The headstone of Nero's slave Alcimus reveals that his job included designing sets for the theatre at Pompeii.

Terracotta tubes inserted into graves through which mourning family would pour honey to nourish the dead have also been uncovered.

The necropolis is being restored as part of the Vatican Museum's 500th anniversary celebrations. The public will be able to visit from next week.

Viktor Klochko, head of the excavation, said the discovery was of international significance. "This is the first monument of its age and kind found in eastern Europe," he told the Guardian. "It changes our whole conception of the social structure and the level of development of the cattle breeders and farmers who were the direct ancestors of most European peoples."

There are about 100 pyramids in Egypt, and the remains of Mesopotamian pyramids are preserved in Iraq and Iran. Ziggurats are also found in Mexico, and the Nubians built pyramids as burial sites for monarchs in the Nile valley. But pyramid structures are rare in Europe. One of the few is a Roman-era pyramid near Nice, France, that may have been built by legionnaires involved in an Egyptian cult.

Although graves have been found at the Lugansk site, archaeologists think it was used for sacrifice by burning, rather than as a burial ground. "People lived in the surrounding valleys and climbed up it to carry out their ceremonies," said Mr Klochko. "They had a pagan cult that bowed down to the sun, as did the ancestors of the Slavs."

Remains of sacrifice victims, ashes and ceramics have been found at the site, but no jewellery or treasure. The complex, which covered three-quarters of a square mile and was around 60 metres (192ft) high, was probably used for 2,000 years.

"What surprised me most is the scale of this enormous complex," Stanislav Mogilny, a student working on the excavation, told Russian television. It's just incredible - a titanic feat."