RUSSIA: The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, met the son of murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya while on a diplomatic visit to Russia in a move unlikely to have gone unnoticed by the Kremlin.
Dr Rice, who was in Moscow to get support for sanctions against North Korea, also criticised a new law on foreign non-governmental organisations that has resulted in the suspension of a number of groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Dr Rice met Politkovskaya's son at her hotel in Moscow on Saturday in what US officials said was an emotional meeting. She also met colleagues from the newspaper where Politkovskaya worked, Novaya Gazeta, giving an interview to the editor, Dmitry Muratov.
Politkosvkaya, one of the fiercest critics of President Vladimir Putin and of the war in Chechnya, was shot dead in her apartment building on October 7th in a killing thought to be connected to her work as a journalist.
"The fate of journalists in Russia is a major concern," said Dr Rice, who met the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and Mr Putin on the one-day trip. "Anna Politkovskaya was a particularly well-known and well-respected journalist, so I think it's important to note that."
Mr Putin, who has dismissed Politkovskaya's work as "extremely insignificant", has not met any of her family and did not say anything about her murder until two days after her death.
The Kremlin has turned the screw on independent media since he came to power. Independent television stations have come under state control; print media, though read by only a small percentage of the country, are coming under increasing pressure.
US officials denied that Dr Rice's meeting was a rebuke for Mr Putin but rather an attempt to boost what was left of independent media in Russia. Dr Rice had said she wanted to meet independent journalists before she came to Russia. Russian television stations did not mention Dr Rice's meeting with Politkovskaya's son or former colleagues.
Politkovskaya was the 13th journalist to have died in a contract-style killing since Mr Putin came to power in 2000.
Dr Rice, who travelled from Beijing, was on the last stage of a four-day trip to bolster support in east Asia and Russia for sanctions imposed on North Korea after the rogue state tested a nuclear device on October 9th.