Suspicious death of Georgian PM

By Aussiegirl

Now here's an ominous and curious development from Georgia, which recently underwent its own "Rose Revolution" similar to Ukraine's Orange revolution, in which a fraudulent election was overturned by massive protests in the streets.

Yushchenko and Tymoshenko need to be very careful.

Accident or no, these people play for keeps, whether this has Putin's paw prints on it, or the local mafia which does not take kindly to having its toes stepped on. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, who helped lead Georgia's revolution that toppled the corruption-tainted regime of Eduard Shevardnadze, died early Thursday in a friend's apartment from what officials claimed was an accidental gas leak from a heater.

Georgia's interior minister said there was no reason to suspect foul play, but a lawmaker reportedly pointed the finger at "outside forces." His remark appeared to be aimed at Russia, which has ties with Georgia's separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and prompted a terse response from Moscow.

The lawmaker, Amiran Shalamberidze, noted that the death of Zhvania, 41, came days after a car bombing that killed three policemen in Gori, the city nearest to South Ossetia. Zhvania, considered a moderate influence in the government of this former Soviet republic, had been trying to negotiate settlements with the separatist regions. "There is the impression that that these tragic facts didn't occur by chance but were the results of interference from the side of certain outside forces," Shalamberidze was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.