Betty MacDonald. Join fans and friends of the beloved writer Betty MacDonald (1907-58). Betty MacDonald. A Fan Club and literary Society. Welcome to Betty MacDonald Fan Club and Betty MacDonald Society - the one and only Fan Club in the world with members in 40 countries. Betty MacDonald, the author of The egg and I and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Series is beloved all over the world. Don't miss Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald biography and the very funny and witty interviews on CD and DVD!
Who is the winner of Betty MacDonald fan club ESC contest?
More news are coming soon! We are very curious who will be the winner of Betty MacDonald fan club
treasure collection with several new Betty MacDonald fan club items.
Betty MacDonald Memorial Award Winner Wolfgang Hampel
is going to share his fascinating interviews with world famous artists
and writers and some of his new very witty poems for future Betty MacDonald fan club newsletters .
Regarding Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov,
who was shot dead in Moscow on Friday evening I agree with Ulla who posted her thoughts some time ago:
There are several dictators on this planet. There is one who hates
Twitter. There is one who invades a neighbour state. I'm convinced this
behaviour means the beginning of their end.
People want democracy and freedom and you can't stop them with these very oldfashioned methods and intruments. What these dictators
are doing all the time is democrazy instead of democracy!
I totally agree with Ulla and many Betty MacDonald fan club fans from 40 countries.
World leaders led by David Cameron and Barack Obama have condemned
the killing of prominent Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov,
who was shot dead in Moscow on Friday evening.
Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister and a sharp critic of the
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was reportedly shot four times in the
back by a killer in a passing car.
Cameron said the callous murder must be “fully, rapidly and
transparently investigated, and those responsible brought to justice”.
“His life was dedicated to speaking up tirelessly for the Russian
people, to demanding their right to democracy and liberty under the rule
of law, and to an end to corruption,” the prime minister said. “He did
so without fear, and never gave in to intimidation.”
The body of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov lies near St Basil’s cathedral.Photograph: Dmitry Sereryakov/AFP/Getty Images
The US president called on Russia’s government to conduct a “prompt,
impartial and transparent” investigation, describing Nemtsov as a
“tireless advocate” for citizens’ rights and fighting corruption.
‘Assassination’
A spokesman for German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said she was
dismayed by Nemtsov’s killing and praised his courage in criticising
government policies.
The office of the French president, François Hollande, described the
killing as an “assassination” and described the politician as a
“courageous and tireless defender of democracy and a dogged fighter
against corruption”.
The killing took place in the very centre of Moscow late on Friday
evening on a bridge near St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin, two days
before Nemtsov was due to lead a major opposition rally in Moscow.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the president would take the
investigation into Nemtsov’s death under “personal control”, and that he
believed the killing to be a provocation.“Putin noted that this cruel killing has all the signs of a hit, and
is a pure provocation,” said Peskov. He said Putin offered condolences
to Nemtsov’s family.
Advertisement
Former
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev echoed the suggestion that the killing
was a provocation: “It’s an attempt to push the situation into
complications, maybe even to destabilising the situation in the
country.”
Russia’s investigative committee was pursuing several lines on
inquiry, including the possibility it was an attempt to destabilise the
political landscape.
The committee, which reports to Putin, said the killing could be
linked with events in Ukraine or have been carried out by radical
Islamists. Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the committee, said Nemtsov
had received threats in connection with his position on the Charlie
Hebdo shootings in Paris last month.
Nemtsov, 55, was deputy prime minister during the 1990s in the
government of Boris Yeltsin. He had written a number of reports in
recent years linking Putin and his inner circle to corruption, and was
one of the most well-known politicians among Russia’s small and
beleaguered opposition.
Nemtsov attending a rally in memory of killed Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2009.Photograph: Xinhua /Landov / Barcroft Media
‘Shot four times in the back’
Footage from the scene showed police experts examining the corpse of a
man, dressed in jeans and lying on the tarmac, with the domes of St
Basil’s in the background. Fellow opposition politicians confirmed the
news, while a police spokeswoman said a manhunt was under way for the
killer.
“He was shot four times in the back, as a result of which he died,”
Elena Alekseyeva told Russian television. She added that the killer
escaped in a light-coloured car.
Other official sources told Russian media that Nemtsov had been
walking with a female companion, who was unharmed, at the time of the
killing. The woman was reportedly a Ukrainian national and was taken for
questioning by police. One report described her as a model who was 30
years his junior.
Just hours before his death, Nemtsov had appeared on Ekho Moskvy
radio calling on Muscovites to attend an opposition march planned for
Sunday. The march against Putin’s government and the war in Ukraine was
due to take place in a suburb of Moscow.
On Saturday opposition leaders said they wanted to cancel the rally
and hold a memorial event in the centre instead. Authorities said this
would not be permitted.
Opposition figure Leonid Volkov later tweeted that a march had been
sanctioned by the Moscow mayor’s office. It would go from Kitay-Gorod
metro station to the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, where the politician
was killed.
One of the other organisers of the march, Alexei Navalny, was jailed
on 19 February for 15 days. Nemtsov himself had been detained briefly a
number of times in recent years for taking part in political rallies,
and was seen as one of the old guard of the Russian opposition.
“Today before the programme he asked me if I wasn’t scared to have
him on air,” Alexei Venediktov, the editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy,
tweeted. “It wasn’t me who needed to be scared.”
“We will answer Nemtsov’s murder with everyone coming out to the
rally on 1 March, it’s the best thing we can do for now,” wrote Gennady
Gudkov, another opposition politician, on Twitter.
The immediate reaction in Moscow was one of shock and amazement.
While there has been a noticeable crackdown on opposition since Putin
returned to the Kremlin in 2012, and especially since the conflict in
Ukraine, no major political figure has been killed in Russia
for a decade. Many previous contract killings, such as that of the
investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, were never solved.
‘Rolling into the abyss’
On Saturday morning, people came to lay flowers at the site of the murder.
Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister now also in
opposition, said: “In the 21st century, a leader of the opposition is
being demonstratively shot just outside the walls of the Kremlin.
“The country is rolling into the abyss.”
Russian pro-democracy activist and former world chess champion Garry
Kasparov said on his Facebook page: “Devastated to hear of the
cold-blooded murder of my long-time opposition colleague Boris Nemtsov
in central Moscow, quite close to the Kremlin. “Shot four times, once for each child he leaves behind. A man of Boris’s quality no longer fit Putin’s Russia.
“He always believed Russia could change from the inside and without
violence; after 2012 I disagreed with this. When we argued, Boris would
tell me I was too hasty and that in Russia you had to live a long time
to see change. Now he’ll never see it. Rest In Peace.”
Michael McFaul, US ambassador to Russia from 2012-2014 and now a
Stanford University professor, called the shooting “one of the most
shocking things that I can remember happening in Russia for a long, long
time”.
Earlier this month, Nemtsov gave an interview in which he said he was
scared that Putin would try to have him killed. A self-assured and
colourful character, Nemtsov enjoyed the media spotlight and never
minced his words. He came to prominence as a reform-minded governor in
the Nizhny Novgorod region during the 1990s, before he was named deputy
prime minister under Yeltsin.
He had criticised Putin and his regime both for corruption and for
the recent war in Ukraine, which he said was manufactured by Putin. He
was featured in a number of lists of traitors and members of a supposed
“fifth column” inside Russia published by pro-Kremlin and nationalist
figures.
Putin himself has spoken of a “fifth column” in the country and, in
recent weeks, politicians and nationalists launched an “anti-Maidan”
movement in Russia and said they would not allow opposition politicians
to create a Ukrainian-style uprising in Moscow, suggesting that the
opposition was working at the behest of foreign enemies of Russia.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club, founded by Wolfgang Hampel, has members in 40 countries.
Wolfgang Hampel, author of Betty MacDonald biography interviewed Betty MacDonald's family and friends. His Interviews have been published on CD and DVD by Betty MacDonald Fan Club. If you are interested in the Betty MacDonald Biography or the Betty MacDonald Interviews send us a mail, please.
Several original Interviews with Betty MacDonald are available.
We are also organizing international Betty MacDonald Fan Club Events for example, Betty MacDonald Fan Club Eurovision Song Contest Meetings in Oslo and Düsseldorf, Royal Wedding Betty MacDonald Fan Club Event in Stockholm and Betty MacDonald Fan Club Fifa Worldcup Conferences in South Africa and Germany.
Betty MacDonald Fan Club Honour Members are Monica Sone, author of Nisei Daughter and described as Kimi in Betty MacDonald's The Plague and I, Betty MacDonald's nephew, artist and writer Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald fans and beloved authors and artists Gwen Grant, Letizia Mancino, Perry Woodfin, Traci Tyne Hilton, Tatjana Geßler, music producer Bernd Kunze, musician Thomas Bödigheimer, translater Mary Holmes and Mr. Tigerli.
