Chechnya's Prime Minister Hospitalized

MOSCOW (AP) - The prime minister of Chechnya was flown to a
Moscow hospital Monday after apparently suffering food
poisoning, and he said investigators were trying to determine if it
was an assassination attempt.

Prime Minister Anatoly Popov arrived in Moscow shortly after
midnight and was hospitalized in serious but stable condition,
Russian news reports said. He later told the NTV network that he
felt better and that he would return Tuesday to Chechnya, about
1,000 miles south of Moscow.

``My condition is normal,'' Popov told the network by telephone.

Popov was hospitalized in Chechnya on Saturday evening after
complaining of stomach pain as his motorcade was returning to the
capital, Grozny, from Gudermes, Chechnya's second-largest city,
following a ceremony to open a new gas pipeline.

Guardian