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On Thursday's Bhutto diary, de Gondi noted this item:

de Gondi:

Large explosion in a commercial center in Moscow... by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 03:30:54 PM FWT
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Re: Benazir Bhutto killed in suicide attack (none / 0) Link?

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

Reality has a well known liberal bias. by Drew J Jones (blahblahblah@blahblahblah.com) on Thu Dec 27th, 2007 at 03:38:27 PM FWT
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Re: Benazir Bhutto killed in suicide attack (none / 1) RSS feed www.agi.it/estero from agency Ria-Novosti.
Link.

But no other media would corroborate it at that time. Until yesterday:

THE EXILE - Moscow Explosion: Firecracker or Bomb?

A bomb exploded this evening in the Okhotny Ryad shopping mall next to Red Square. Authorities are trying to downplay the explosion, calling it "mere hooliganism" and the bomb a "firecracker." But the explosion shattered glass and other structures, and rattled buildings for several blocks around. Our designer, who was working at an office on Kamergersky Pereulok several hundred meters from the blast, was even thrown out of her chair.

[...]

A second explosion was reported about an hour later, and then authorities denied that a second explosion took place.

This stinks of cover-up and something possibly darker.

Explosions have been used in the past to change power. Could this be the start of a new more dangerous phase in the Silovik War?

Nice catch, de Gondi!

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 05:08:15 AM EST
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I dunno about now, but these small explosions used to be fairly common in Moscow.  I mean, not every day or anything, but not infrequent either.  They were usually attributed to organized crime, not terrorism.  (Or to gas explosions, also not-unheard-of....)  And whatever the cause, at least back then (in the pre-Putin days) it was standard practice for the authorities to downplay it or lie about it.  I don't know if I see anything new here, although it would be interesting to know what exactly got blown up and how big the blast(s) were.
by the stormy present (stormypresent aaaaaaat gmail etc) on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 05:58:53 AM EST
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I've been regarding this as a non-story.  Explosions have been common in Moscow in the past.  I suppose anyone can spin this however they like, including the authorities or the eXile...

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
by poemless on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 04:01:50 PM EST
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Thanks, and for the update on a news flash that made the threshold for a few brief seconds. It's not that I'm a newsjunkie but sometimes I'll just watch piecemeal dispatches tick off from the agencies. And then muse why a totally uninteresting item will be simultaneously reported, say, by the Hindustani Times and the Chicago Tribune. Must be a tunnel effect or REM when the world goes to sleep.
by de Gondi (publiobestia aaaatttthotmaildaughtusual) on Sat Dec 29th, 2007 at 10:57:07 AM EST
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