Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya — the author of the documentary book “A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya” and “The Second Chechen War” — was born August 30th, 1958, in New York City, where her parents were stationed in the diplomatic service.

In 1980 she graduated from the College of Journalism at Moscow State University. After graduation she worked and was on the staff at various newspapers, such as ‘Izvestiya’, ‘Air Transport’, ‘Megapolis-Express’, as well as work for the publishers ‘Eskart’ and ‘Parity’. In 1999 she began work as a columnist at ‘Novaya Gazeta’. Starting in July of 1999, Anna made repeated trips into the war zones and refugee camps in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. In December of that year, she organized the evacuation of 89 patients from a nursing home in war-torn Grozny, and through her efforts got them resettled in Russia.

She was an active defender of human rights, assisting the mothers of dead soldiers in court, investigating corruption, and even participating in negotiations with the terrorists that had seized ‘Nord-Ost’.

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Planned events to mark the eighth anniversary of the Beslan tragedy were approved at a meeting of the government commission, held under the chairmanship of Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Tabolov, according to a report from the press service of regional head Taimuraz Mamsurov.

“September 1st is approaching, and we need to observe the days of remembrance for this universal tragedy as best we can. We must do everything possible so that all government agencies act in a coherent and organized manner during the memorial days,” stated Sergei Tabolov stated at the commission meeting, as quoted by the press service.

The deputy prime minister concentrated special attention on questions concerning security during the Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the terrorist attack, which occurred September 1–3, 2004 in secondary school № 1 in Beslan.

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The German government held secret negotiations with the organizers of the terrorist attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics, according to Focus — citing its own investigation magazine Der Spiegel. Journalists discovered this information from documents in the political archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Federal Archives in Koblenz.

After the terrorist attack, the German government offered to hold secret talks between the then foreign minister, Walter Scheel, and the PLO, whose members participated in the preparation for the attack.

The purpose of the meeting, as stated in the archival documents, was to create «a new basis of trust.» In this case, the German government did not require the Palestinians to guarantee that they would not resort to terror. The main precondition advanced by the Germans was a cessation of attacks within Germany.

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The Moscow regional court has decided to hear the case of the attack at Domodedovo airport in private, according to an August 20th report in Interfax. The case proceedings will begin August 27th. According to the ITAR-TASS news agency, the court has decided to keep the preliminary hearings closed. The reasons for this decision were not reported.

A suicide bombing on January 24th, 2011 killed 37 people and injured more than 160. Investigation into the crime was completed on July 10th, 2012.

According to investigators, the immediate perpetrator of the terrorist attack was 20-year-old Magomed Yevloyev. Doku Umarov, militant leader in the North Caucasus, assumed responsibility.

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