Who Poisoned Alexander Litvinenko? Radioactive thallium link

[Sweejak]

That's been suggested by a poster at Strategy talk forum.
Earlier high levels, I believe the highest, were found in the bathroom of the Millenium Hotel.

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local ... 566151.ece

Litvinenko’s accuser turns her fury on 'Aftenposten'
A Russian woman who tried to discredit the poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko has since attacked newspaper Aftenposten. Julia Svetlitsjnaja wasn’t happy that Aftenposten’s correspondent in London uncovered her links to a mysterious Russian investment company.
Julia Svetlitsjnaja consulted with her attorney during Friday's press conference in London.


A man described as a fellow student, James Heartfield (right), called Aftenposten's correspondent a "liar" and tried to fend off her questions.


Svetlitsjnaja has identified herself as a student in London who had contact with Litvinenko before he died. She told British newspapers that Litvinenko, who was a harsh critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had aimed to extort money from Russian politicians and businessmen.

Aftenposten, however, found Svetlitsjnaja listed as information chief on the web site for a company called "Russian Investors." The ownership of Russian Investors is unclear, but it's been linked to the Russian state in British media. Its chairman Aleksej Golubovitsj, a former strategic planner for the Russian oil firm Yukos that was taken over by the state, was arrested in May by Interpol and Italian police in Pisa.

When Aftenposten correspondent Hilde Harbo called Russian Investors to inquire about Svetlitsjnaja's connections to the company, her questions went unanswered and Svetlitsjnaja's name was quickly removed from the web site.

Svetlitsjnaja also refused to respond to repeated queries from Aftenposten, but she reappeared late last week at a press conference in London. When Harbo attempted to ask questions about her role at Russian Investors, she was cut off and verbally attacked. A man appearing with Svetlitsjnaja, identified as a fellow student, James Heartfield, called Harbo a "liar" and attempted to block further questioning.

Some Russian experts have suggested that Svetlitsjnaja may have been set up by Russian officials to discredit Litvinenko. She admitted she had no taped interviews or documentation to prove that Litvinenko was engaged in extortion, and said she failed to alert police about Litvinenko's alleged extortion plans because she was too busy with research work.

[Sweejak]

I guess the Putin didn't do it is now more or less mainstream. Cohen focuses on the geopolitics.

-- Who is Cohen referring to when he says " it is a fact, and I’ve heard these people talk about this, that there is an equally powerful group that under no circumstances wants to see Putin to leave office in 2008"? Only Russians or others equally powerful?

-- Nothing will save W's "legacy" short of total planetary memory erasure, and I think even Bush knows that.



NYU Russia Scholar Stephen F. Cohen Speaks Out About Litvinenko Case on PBS Charlie Rose Show

Video:
http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/blog/blog.aspx?id=397


Transcript:

The Charlie Rose Show aired on PBS December 7, 2006
Excerpt of Stephen F. Cohen's remarks

Charlie Rose (11:00): Help me understand all of this sir.
Stephen Cohen: I’m sort of an unlikely candidate…

Charlie Rose: Do you hear of any theories that you would dismiss because of your understanding of the players, or some that you would not believe because of your understanding of the players?

Stephen Cohen: The first thing I would say is, if this does not restore the study of Dostoyevsky to American universities, nothing else will …the second thing I want to say is: shame, shame, shame on the British and American media and press. From the moment this happened, they have violated every canon of objective journalism. Now they’re trying to make amends now, the New York Times in particular. But they have accused Putin - they have basically reversed jurisprudence and said, “Putin is guilty until he proves himself innocent”. They have printed this, they have literally said this, and this is a very bad lesson for us to teach the Russians, that we don’t believe in our own presumption of innocence.

The second thing I would say is, as the media points its finger towards Putin and his associates, you need to ask the question that every murder detective asks: Who had motive?

Charlie Rose (12:06): Ok, but before you…

Stephen Cohen: But wait, I’m going to tell you the answer.

Charlie Rose: But let me just say that it’s not the media that’s pointing the finger, it is the deceased who pointed the finger, and the media reporting it.

Stephen Cohen (12:15): First of all, we do know…with all respect to Yuri [Felshtinsky], when Yuri produces the Russian document that Litvinenko wrote…all we know is a man dying told two other men, who are two other men, Yuri and a man named [Alex] Goldfarb, that Putin did it.

Charlie Rose: A spokesman for [Boris Berezovsky]…

Stephen Cohen: Now, bear in mind that Litvinenko had accused Putin of every imaginable offense against mankind; not only blowing up buildings, to come to power in Moscow, but of having sex with young boys. He’s accused him of everything.

Charlie Rose: In fact he said he had pictures of him [Putin] too.

Stephen Cohen (12:55): Yeah, I think the most you can say for Mr. Litvinenko, is that he was a little indiscriminate in the accusations he made, to the point where people had ceased to take him seriously. He was a faded star.

Stephen Cohen (13:07): So now we come to motive. You always ask: Who had a motive, not only to kill this man, but as Ed [Jay Epstein] points out, to kill him in the way they did, not making him disappear, not killing him instantly, but a slow dramatic death for the media. The one person who had no motive was Putin - because it has been damaging to him beyond belief. (13:28) It has damaged him at home, and it has damaged him abroad. Therefore, therefore, leaving aside Ed’s theory, it’s only a theory, Ed doesn’t insist on it…

Edward Jay Epstein: It’s only a theory, a hypothesis…

Stephen Cohen: …there are reports that Litvinenko was dealing in polonium, and poisoned himself…but, leaving that aside, then the reason for this having happened was an operation against Putin (13:55). It’s clear to me. It was an operation run against Putin, probably with varying motives. One last point: if you study history, as Jack [Matlock] and I did, Jack and I can give you a list of what we used to call Cold War mysteries, things like this that have happened – not quite so terrible, but on the very eve of a breakthrough in Russia’s relations with the West. You can go back to the shoot down of the U-2; you can go down to the shoot down of the Korean airliner in 1983; you can go back to the – you [Jack Matlock] were probably in Moscow for Reagan for the arrest of Nicholas Danilov…to this day we don’t know who, but it was clearly an attempt to sabotage – I think – the relationship between Gorbachev and Reagan that was emerging.

There are people, powerful people, with vested interests, primarily in Russia but not only, who do not want a major rapprochement between Russia and the West. At the moment, the West doesn’t mean the United States, but Europe, and that’s why England was so important. (14:59) If you’re looking for motive, there it is. And then you begin to discuss these consequences for international politics, for the future of Russia, for Putin’s succession, that’s where the discussion begins.

Charlie Rose: Tell me an individual that did not want to see rapprochement between Russia and Europe (15:17)…an individual.

Stephen Cohen: But Charlie, when you study Russian politics, you don’t begin with individuals, you deal with factions. All of us know that there’s a powerful faction in Russian politics that wants Russian foreign policy oriented towards China and away from the United States; it wants Russia to become the citadel of the anti-NATO forces in the world, a NATO that’s moving in on Russia. If you had to pick the person, the people most associated with that, these names will mean nothing to anybody else – and I don’t want to defame them because it might not be entirely true – it’s the Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and the either Deputy or Senior Chief of Putin’s Staff, a man by the name of [Igor] Sechin. Those are the names associated in Russia with this anti-Western orientation of foreign policy. Did they run this operation? I have no idea. But add just this one other thing: it is a fact, and I’ve heard these people talk about this, that there is an equally powerful group that under no circumstances wants to see Putin to leave office in 2008, as he is obliged to by the constitution, because they would be finished…

Charlie Rose (28:00): Last word to you Stephen, where does this go from here?

Stephen Cohen: The case, or the relationship?

Charlie Rose: The relationship. The case we know, we’ve gotten to hear from all…well, no, you tell me this.

Stephen Cohen (28:12): The poison that has killed Alexander Litvinenko has crept into international relations, that’s clear. The event is poisoning relations, particularly Russia’s relations with England, and that’s spilling over into the relationship with the United States. I guess I think that this case will never be solved, in the sense of conclusive evidence of what happened, and therefore each person with a vested interest and a different interpretation will come away from this case with its own political conclusions.

Stephen Cohen: What worries me is that we’re coming to a crucial moment in American-Russian relations. (28:46) In January, if Russia is to join the WTO, as Bush has now advocated, Congress has to remove this restriction on Russian trade with the United States that goes back to the Cold War – Jackson Vanik. But it’s going to become an occasion for bipartisan bashing of Russia.

In addition, the American Presidential campaign is now unfolding, and every leading contender has demanded that we toughen up our policy on Russia. This case can only propel that [trend] further, I think. Then we get back to an analysis of how we achieve for our national interests from Russia what we want, and that isn’t the way. So this is bad – bad for Putin, bad for the United States.

By the way, you notice, Bush hasn’t said a peep accusing Putin, he’s the only person in the entire world, I think, who has remained silent. Because he [Bush] needs Putin, he’s his partner, he’s his last claim to having a foreign policy legacy, and he doesn’t want to see Putin go down in a welter of charges that he’s a murderer.

[MASONIC PLOT]

from

http://www.urbansurvival.com/week.htm

Message in the Spy Death

We don't usually publish contributed reports, but this one is compelling because, as it clearly lays out, there may be a very important message in the events surrounding the death recently of a Russian spy. I believe the bottom line of this report should probably weigh on your family's preparedness plans for next spring.

"On November 1, 2006, a former Russian secret agent named Alexander Litvinenko has a busy day of meetings in London. In the years since fleeing Russia, he has made a living writing books and articles blasting Russian President Vladimir Putin. His current project is investigating the recent shooting death of an anti-Kremlin Russian journalist. The first meeting is with two men he later claims are former Russian KGB agents. The second meeting is held over lunch in a sushi restaurant with Mario Scaramella, an Italian who had served on a commission investigating Russian influence and intelligence penetration in Italian political life.[1]



Litvinenko begins to feel ill a few hours after his meetings.[2] He later begins to vomit and on November 4, he checks into a London hospital.



Confusion sets in. It becomes obvious that Litvinenko has been poisoned. All of his hair falls out and his body is wracked by something that is attacking his vital organs. The hair loss feeds suspicions that someone has poisoned him with thallium. Thallium is a heavy metal and has been used in the past as rat poison. Thallium is so toxic that it has been called “The Poisoner’s Poison.”[3] Things remain curious, especially when one doctor says it might have been “radioactive thallium”. On the surface this would appear to be absurd, since most of the relatively “easy” to make isotopes of thallium have half-lives measured in minutes or seconds[4] (a half life is the time it takes for a radioactive substance to lose half of its mass by decaying into a different element).



Then on November 22, doctors determine he hasn’t been poisoned by Thallium. By the next day he is dead.



The cause of death is later determined to be radiation poisoning. Doctors say that Litvinenko ingested a highly toxic and radioactive material called Polonium 210 (Po-210).



As Litvinenko was a constant critic of Putin, most were quick to assume that the Russian government was involved in some fashion in the killing. Among other things, Litvinenko had accused Putin of everything from being a pedophile[5], to masterminding the bombing of some Russian apartment buildings – a bombing that was blamed on Chechen terrorists and used as an excuse for Putin to ramp up a war in Chechnya[6].



Oh yes, and on his deathbed, Litvinenko publicly converted to Islam. And his next door neighbor was the Foreign Minister (in exile) of the Chechen Republic Akhmed Zakayev, who came to visit him two days before his death[7].



His death seems to be a tale taken from a spy novel, and a lurid, cheap spy novel at that. Former spy who has defected later meets with other shady characters, investigating the assassination of an anti-Kremlin journalist and later winds up dead, victim of a horrible and complex poisoning plot. And apparently he was sympathetic enough to at least the Muslim cause in Chechnya that he converted to Islam two days before his death. And the poison used to take him down is an exotic material with a strange history of its own.



What is Po-210?

Doctors would soon confirm their suspicions that Litvinenko had been killed by exposure to Po-210. This raised eyebrows and set off alarm bells across the globe.



The basics don’t sound too ominous. Po-210 was isolated and named by Marie Curie back in 1898. It is found in extremely tiny amounts in soil and in more concentrated (but still extremely small) amounts in uranium ore. It is what is known as an “alpha emitter”. Radioactive materials (called isotopes) are unstable and want to find a stable state. To do this, they give off energy. Sometimes this energy is in the form of gamma rays (a very, very intense type of light). Other times the isotope will kick out what is called a “beta particle” – a small, negatively charged particle ejected from the nucleus. Some isotopes are so unstable that they eject the equivalent of a helium atom out of the nucleus. This is called an alpha particle.



On the atomic scale alpha particles are very large and are often traveling at very high energies. The good thing is that these particles can be stopped by something as thin as a piece of paper, or the upper layer of your skin. To cause a person harm, an alpha emitter such as Po-210 must be swallowed or inhaled. Once the Po-210 is in your body, it continues to throw out alpha particles which tear into the vulnerable cells of your body. In large enough quantities (a fraction of a gram) this material can eventually kill enough of the cells in your vital organs to kill you.



At this point, it doesn’t sound too scary. Just don’t eat the polonium and you’ll be fine.



However, the alarm bells going off are based on a piece of military history. Po-210 kicks out alpha particles at high energies. When alpha particles strike a [other element] atom, a neutron is ejected. In the early days of research into nuclear physics, small polonium-[other element] sources were constructed to make a “neutron source”.



And the Manhattan Project used that setup to build a trigger for the first atomic bombs[8].



You needed this neutron source to guarantee that you would get plenty of neutrons to start your chain reaction when attempting to detonate a nuclear bomb. These triggers were assembled in small golf-ball-shaped spheres (or other configurations) and placed in the heart of nuclear warheads.



To get the Po-210 in large enough amounts to make plenty of triggers, scientists developed a way to take the metal bismuth, put it in a nuclear reactor and transmute it into Po-210 and then go through a chemical processing step to pull out the Po-210.



Due to its intensity, Po-210 decays fairly rapidly. It has a half-life of 138 days. Start off with 1 gram and in a little over four months, you have 0.5 grams. Four months after that, 0.25 grams, and so on. If you want to use this material to trigger a bomb, you have to have a constant supply. The difficulty in making it means you need a nuclear reactor and chemical processing factory. This is not garage chemistry, at least to get significant amounts. Remember this.



Something else to tuck away in the back of your mind. The old Soviet Union at one time fielded a fleet of “suitcase nukes” – nuclear weapons made from the lowest amount of fissile material possible (roughly 25 pounds of plutonium 239) and constructed to fit in a carrying case small enough to be transported by a single operative. Such small devices needed a very reliable and efficient neutron trigger to make sure the weapon would not fizzle. The triggers were constructed using Po-210. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a number of these devices went missing and remain unaccounted for[9]. Without the trigger, they are just lumps of warm metal. And since the triggers would have decayed away long ago, there would seem to be nothing much to worry about.



One final point - and this has been made clear by the many news stories of contamination being found in planes, bars, Litvinenko’s home, an apartment in Germany, etc. – Po-210 is very difficult to work with. It spreads very easily and can contaminate anything it gets near. For those in the radiochemical processing industry, this is a well-known fact.



“…for reasons never satisfactorily explained by experiment, the metal [Po-210] migrates from place to place and can quickly contaminate large areas. ‘This isotope has been observed to migrate upstream against a current of air,’ notes a postwar [World War II] British report on polonium, ‘and to translocate under conditions where it would appear to be doing so of its own accord.’ Chemists at Los Alamos learned to look for it embedded in the walls of shipping containers when [the Po-210] foils came up short.”



Source: Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, pp. 579-580



So this material is toxic – but only if ingested. It is highly radioactive, but decays relatively quickly. Its main historical use has been as a trigger for nuclear weapons. It is messy beyond belief.



And Alexander Litvinenko died from having been exposed to a large amount of it.



The Mainstream Media and Litvinenko’s Death

Polonium is an exotic, toxic material with a few specific uses and odd history. Alexander Litvinenko was a former spy who spent years insulting and baiting the authoritarian president of Russia. Litvinenko died an agonizing death from Po-210 poisoning and to his dying breath accused Putin and the Russian government of being behind the murder[10].



It makes a certain amount of sense. The Russians have a history of poisoning defectors on foreign soil[11] and Putin has certainly not endeared himself to the West with his stances on energy supplies to Europe and his tacit support for Iran’s nuclear program.



The mainstream media are especially happy to pick up this story line as Litvinenko was supposedly investigating the assassination of “one of their own” – dead Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya[12]. It makes great news – scrappy muckrakers fighting the Powers that Be and being murdered for their efforts. It plays well and it allows journalists to trot out the tired old horse of “radiation poisoning” and “potential dirty bomb” – themes that strike immediate fear, make strong headlines and sell newspapers.



The problem comes when you take a deeper look.



The number one question to ask about any crime is reflected in the ancient Roman maxim ‘cui bono’ – who benefits? The easy answer that plays well is that Putin benefits, of course. He doesn’t like people who reveal the dirty secrets of the Chechen war, or black ops by “rogue” FSB elements or his (real or imagined) taste for young boys. So he obviously killed Litvinenko.



Again comes the question, why? There is zero mileage to be gained from killing a has-been ex-agent who was part of a losing faction (Litvinenko was a protégé of Boris Berezovsky[13], a Russian oligarch who was forced to flee Russia after Putin came to power) in a Kremlin power struggle. Litvinenko’s writings were not influential in Russia. And after Putin lifted up the shirt of a young boy and kissed his belly in full public view, Litvinenko was not exactly the only person calling Putin a child molester. Why would Putin care about him? Putin is playing a bigger game, positioning Russia as a major player in the petroleum and natural gas markets in an era of high prices and trying to rebuild Russian power and influence abroad.



Maybe Litvinenko was killed to send a message? Don’t talk mean about Putin or else we’ll spend a tremendous effort in radiochemical processing, gather up a fraction of a gram of substance that easily contaminates its surroundings, then find a way to make sure this tiny amount of material is put in just the right place where you will eat or drink it and then you’ll linger over the course of many weeks, allowing you time to scream to the world that “Putin did it!”



Is it possible that this complicated process was used as a tool of assassination? Sure. Plausible or likely? No. If the Russians want you dead, you will be dead. A bullet or car bomb is far cheaper than Po-210 and, frankly, far more reliable.



Another and More Frightening Kind of Message

There are, of course, other kinds of messages such a death could send. One theory that surfaced, albeit quietly, soon after Litvinenko’s death was that he had accidentally poisoned himself while “playing around with dirty bomb material.” [14]



Litvinenko’s association with Chechen separatists has been noted above. When still part of the Soviet Union, Chechnya housed a nuclear processing and waste facility near Grozny[15] and there have been reports of the theft and attempted theft of nuclear materials by Chechen rebels surfacing and resurfacing over the years[16].



The fact of his “death bed conversion” to Islam is also a very interesting point to note. Had a KGB and later FSB agent converted to Islam years ago, publicly, one would be forgiven for assuming it was an act, a way for an agent to penetrate a large movement opposing the Soviet, and later Russian State. Instead, we have a man who waited until his time was almost out to acknowledge this part of his life. Whether it was merely to express “solidarity with the Chechen people”[17] or whether it was a final public expression of a long-held private belief, this data point should be alarming when paired with the fact that he died from intense poisoning from Po-210.



To recap, the Chechens have a known history of searching out and attempting to, or succeeding in, stealing nuclear materials for use against Russia. If the Chechens have somehow succeeded in stealing, say, a suitcase nuke, it would be useless to them, as by now the Po-210 used to make the original trigger would have decayed into an inert and useless lump of Lead 206. However, if the Chechens have succeeded in not only obtaining a nuclear warhead, but in stealing enough nuclear waste or material to run through a chemical separation process (something high in Radium content would do, as it can eventually decay down into polonium[18], skipping the need to put bismuth in a nuclear reactor), then we have moved things to a whole new level[19].



The “dirty bomb” argument will be trotted out by the media, but this is a red herring, at least where Po-210 is concerned. Po-210 is practically worthless as dirty bomb material. It barely gives off any gamma rays and can be shielded easily. For a weapon of mass disruption, which is what a dirty bomb is, you need a substance that will set off Geiger counters at a significant rate, allowing the media to record the hisses and clicks as the detection devices are run over the rubble and use that audio and video to spread terror with misinformed newscasts. You want something like Radium, Cobalt 60, or some isotopes of Cesium. Those materials are easier to obtain and play much better on TV. This is almost certainly NOT some dirty bomb story.



Running a chemical separation process on nuclear material is fairly complex and definitely dangerous when working on stolen waste or fuel rods. That said, if the chemical separation step is the only one you need to make, then your problems have been narrowed down considerably. To illustrate this point, please note that the first Po-210 mass-produced for the Manhattan Project was purified in an indoor tennis court on a private estate outside of Dayton, Ohio[20]. It can be done with limited means if you have people willing to risk intense exposure to the many other very radioactive isotopes that are in the stew of materials from which you are trying to pull your polonium.



What if Litvinenko, in support of his Chechen associates, was involved in the production of a trigger to make a currently-useless nuclear warhead once again operational? He wouldn’t have had to been involved in the actual processing – if done in crude facilities those men or women are already dead. He could have been part of a planning team for the next phase in the Muslim Chechen offensive against Russia. In that capacity, he could have been shown either a device or the trigger itself as proof that their work was yielding results. As we have seen, Po-210 contaminates everything it gets near. A speck smaller than the width of a human hair could have been picked up on his clothing or hands and later ingested. This is not unheard of. Early in the British nuclear program, two workers were found to have been exposed to Po-210. One was through lax manufacturing techniques and the other by ingesting material that was dropped on accident[21]. It can happen. It has happened.



Litvinenko falls ill. As it gets worse and worse, he either realizes that he’s accidentally been poisoned or else at the time truly believes the Russians have caught him playing a dangerous game and have poisoned him. Either way, he uses his remaining days to focus suspicion not on his Islamic and Chechen ties, but on a regime most in the West dislike and distrust.



The real message, the one found by reading between the lines, not the MSM headlines, is much more frightening. This message states quite clearly that individuals with known ties to Chechen insurgents (beneficiaries of intense support from radical Islamic terrorists from around the world[22]) have succeeded in processing enough nuclear material to produce an exotic substance with one real use – as part of the trigger for a basic nuclear warhead. If these same insurgents have also acquired a nuclear warhead, especially a small nuclear device that could be easily transported, then we have entered into a new nightmare world where terrorists do have a functioning nuclear warhead.



It also means that their supply of Po-210 is almost certainly limited and that every day that passes means their trigger becomes weaker and weaker. Within a year, two at the most, the material obtained with such painstaking effort (if this scenario is true) will become worthless specks of lead. They have no reason to delay in using such a device, if that is their intent.



That’s some message.




References


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Timeline: Former Russian Spy Case. BBC News (updated 10 December 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[2] Litvinenko Was Told He Was Marked for Death. Michael Evans, et al, Times Online (22 November 2006). Retrieved on 9 December 2006.

[3] Thallium. Wikipedia article (9 December 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[4] Thallium Isotopes. GE Nuclear Energy and Lockheed Martin, Chart of the Nuclides, 15th edition.

[5] The Kremlin Pedophile. Alexander Litvinenko (5 July 2006). Retrieved on 8 December 2006.

[6] Russian Apartment Bombings. Wikipedia article (8 December 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[7] Did He Let His Guard Down? Ginanne Brownell, Newsweek (30 November 2006). Retrieved on 9 December 2006.

[8] Polonium article. Weapons of Mass Destruction at GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved on 10 December 2006

[9] Suitcase Bomb. Wikipedia article (10 December 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[10] In Full: Litvinenko Statement. BBC News (24 November 2006). Retrieved on 11 December 2006.

[11] Georgi Markov. Wikipedia article (8 December 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[12] Her Own Death, Foretold. Anna Politkovskaya. Washington Post (15 October 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[13] Boris Berezovsky. Wikipedia article (10 December 2006). Retrieved on 11 December 2006.

[14] Litvinenko and His Muslim Connections. The Islamic Threat (8 December 2006). Retrieved on 11 December 2006.

[15] Russian Nuclear Material Stolen During War in Chechnya. World Information Service on Energy (10 November 1996). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[16] Chechen Militants Have Tried To Steal Nuclear Weapons Twice. The London Independent (24 June 2005). Retrieved on 11 December 2006.

[17] Alexander Litvinenko. Wikipedia article (10 December 2006). Retrieved on 10 December 2006.

[18] Radium Isotopes. GE Nuclear Energy and Lockheed Martin, Chart of the Nuclides, 15th edition.

[19] Spy Death By Nuclear Poisoning Tied to American Hiroshima. Paul L. Williams and Lee Boyland, Canada Free Press (6 December 2006). Retrieved on 11 December 2006.

[20] The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Richard Rhodes (1986), pg. 579.

[21] Secret File Shows Risk ‘Vastly Overstated’. Ben Fenton, The London Telegraph (5 December 2006). Retrieved on 11 December 2006.

[22] Moscow’s North Caucasus Quagmire. International Relations and Security Network (1 June 2006). Retrieved on 11 December 2006."

[Sweejak]

I had previously been thinking of polonium as something like anthrax but:

‘This isotope has been observed to migrate upstream against a current of air,’... ‘and to translocate under conditions where it would appear to be doing so of its own accord.’

From this blog ... No citations for the Bilderberg info.

http://thetruthserumblog.blogspot.com/2 ... rberg.html

You will see that Bilderberg was not that interested in Russia in the 1990's, probably because Yeltsin was their pisshead-in-chief and was quite happy selling off Russian state assets at bargain prices for a shot of Vodka, and it would seem that Putin was also being groomed by Berezovsky.

But then Putin came to power in 2000, changed the plan, and is now taking back what was stolen.

The two organisations represented at Bilderberg are the Carnegies and the Moscow School of Political Studies.

The reason for Carnegie is self-evident in the name.

On the board of MSPS in 2005 was Mikhail Khodorkovsky before he was sent down. Sponsors of MSPS include Open Russia Foundation, which opened in 2001 in London, of all places. I wonder why London?

But who is on the board of ORF?

Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Dr Henry Kissinger
Lord Jacob Rothschild

According to the Yukos website, "The motivation for the establishment of the Open Russia Foundation was to foster openness, understanding, and integration between the people of Russia and the rest of the world."

Yeah, right!

One thing that does concern me though is that I think a strong Russia is required for Pike's WW3. According to Pike's plan Communism was supposed to be held in check until "the final cataclysm". I currently see Putin rebelling against the Rothschilds, the British Monarchy and their cronies. But I also see that it could also be part of the plan in strengthening Russia

That Pike quote has always stuck with me because it still seems to be describing, at least in some fashion, what is happening. Apparently earlier citations of the quote go to a French book Le Palladisme (1895) by Domenic Margiotta.

http://threeworldwars.com/albert-pike2.htm

[MASONIC PLOT]

Albert Pike's prediction about world war 3:

"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the "agentur" of the "Illuminati" between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other."

[Sweejak]

[antiaristo]

From Guy Fawkes
http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/

irritant said...
Anyone who considers LLM as sleazy obviously isn't up to speed with what's going on in the London think-tank scene. I hasten to add that this applies equally to those on any part of the political spectrum.

My favourite piece of think-tank dodgyness (that is in the public domain) from the last few years was by Rob Blackhurst. He knocked out a piece in the New Statesman mentioning what was going on in the FPC while he was Communications Manager. In short an unnamed Russian businessman requested research biased against President Putin. IMHO it was highly impolitic of the FPC agreeing to do this when thier patron is our PM.
Presumably readers would like to guess which Russian businessman sponsored the research?

6:09 PM

My former employer, the Foreign Policy Centre (patron: Tony Blair), has accepted more than £100,000 from an unnamed Russian oligarch to establish a programme on Russian democracy. The money does not come directly; it is channelled through London PR companies presided over by a retinue of former new Labour special advisers. The PR people want to shift public sympathy away from Vladimir Putin, who is at odds with several oligarchs, and they are no doubt delighted that the project has led to a paper criticising Downing Street's closeness to the Russian president.

The sad decline of the policy wonks
Rob Blackhurst
Published 31 January 2005

http://www.newstatesman.com/200501310024

[Sweejak]

Via Strategy Talk:

Kovtun’s friend speaks out to Hamburg newspaper

Alexei believes Dmitry Kovtun “would be never able of a murder”. He supposes Kovtun might have played a useful idiot for the real informants without anticipating it.

Alexei told the paper that Kovtun and Lugovoy knew themselves for more than 20 years. They had graduated from the same Moscow officers’ school, they were old pals. Kovtun came first as a lieutenant to Czechoslovakia, later as a captain to the German Democratic Republic (GDR). When the Russian troops left reunified East Germany, Kovtun stayed behind, deserted. In Hamburg he applied for asylum, lived the first years in an Asylum-seeker's home in Blankensee. Then Kovtun got acquainted to Marina W., a German Russian from Siberia know whose mother, a former psychologist, was very well-to-do. Alexei says they probably were in love, too, however, it was a matter for him to obtain a permanent stay approval from the authorities.

Asked to comment Kovtun’s business activity, Alexei smiled. To him his job title of a management consultant seemed too pompous, he called Kovtun "rather that one calls a windy profit-seeker”. The first years in Germany Kovtun had not worked at all, lived from social help. Between 2000 and 2002 he worked as a waiter in the Il porto restaurant, Grosse Elbstrasse, Hamburg. Besides, he was always in search of a big deal in export or import, but he failed every time, according to Alexei. If sometimes he had money, he invested it in alcohol or bought himself Gucci and Versace suits,

The paper’s interlocutor says Kovtun has never been a KGB agent as it has been lately over and over again maintained. "He is a show-off, one the mouth far bursts and deceives his surroundings by nice light. But nothing lies behind."

more:
http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=1164

[Sweejak]

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061213/56870155.html

German police: ex-spy death may be linked to nuclear smuggling

Berliner Zeitung quoted experts among German law enforcement officials as estimating that the dose of polonium-210 believed to have caused Litvinenko's death was worth about $25 million.

The German newspaper referred to speculation in the Russian press that Litvinenko could have been involved in plans by Chechen separatists to create a "dirty bomb" with the help of depleted radioactive materials. The reports said polonium-210 could have been transported illegally to London for the purpose.

[Sweejak]

Dignity and Honor speaks in Kommersant. A very spirited defense though to my mind not entirely convincing.

I have to love this quote:

"Europe’s attitude is weird. It looks like we’re sliding back to Cold War times.”

http://www.kommersant.com/p729074/Litvi ... _Veterans/

=================

Some info on polonium:
http://www.platts.com/Nuclear/highlight ... 120706.xml

4 December 2006
Po-210 `fingerprint’ unlikely, Russian and Western officials caution.

================

What a contradictory quote.

Question: I have no reason at all to blame anything on Berezovsky. My own life in politics was particularly active in the 1990s. I mean, I know Berezovsky. It would be a mistake to underestimate him. He is brilliant, he is smart. He thinks in strategic terms. Moreover, he is quite ruthless, and his ideas of morality are quite vague.

http://www.wps.ru/en/digests/en/wps/index.html

Sorry, no usable link.

Newsweek Russia
December 11-17, 2006
GAIDAR: THEY TRIED TO KILL ME, BUT FAILED
An interview with Yegor Gaidar
Author: Leonid Parfenov

[Yegor Gaidar: "I remember what destabilization and chaos in a nuclear power are like - from the 1990s, from the crisis and collapse of the USSR. I know how unpredictable and dangerous it is. Needless to say, the Russian leadership doesn't want history to repeat itself."]

Question: How are you feeling, physically and psychologically?

After all, it's not easy to imagine what it must be like to survive an attempt on one's life.

Yegor Gaidar: Physically, I'm much better now... As for this "they tried but failed," it may sound comical but actually it isn't.

Question: You are convinced that it was a deliberate attempt on your life, aren't you?

Yegor Gaidar: That's the only conclusion.

Question: Litvinenko died on November 23. Had the attempt on your life been successful, another similar death the following day would have blown the scandal out of proportion. That was the plan, do you think? Or was it a coincidence?

Yegor Gaidar: Well, I've seen too much to believe in
coincidences.

Question: There are actually few theories on who might be involved. The pet theory of the Western media proposes that it was carried out by Russian secret services and, by implication, their superiors from the authorities...

Yegor Gaidar: I'm convinced that the Russian authorities (meaning the national leadership, that is) were the last who could want assassination of Russians in London and Dublin in late November. Incidents like that affect relations with the West, damage the image of the country, and foment the atmosphere of insecurity... Something like the atmosphere in Ukraine when the so called
Gongadze's affair was unfolding.

Question: The assumption is that it was done by retired
officers of secret services bent on avenging "Russia's belittlers." After all, there is no law saying that men like Kvachkov (the man under arrest for attempt on the life of Anatoly Chubais, head of RAO Unified Energy Systems) should restrict their activities to Moscow
and the Moscow region alone.

Yegor Gaidar: Right, but we do not have any evidence that it is not restricted to this area, do we? People like Kvachkov are criminals. Still, even the underworld is highly specialized. People who crack safes do not pick pockets and vice versa. It takes one set of skills to ambush an armored limo near Moscow, and a different set altogether to poison someone in Dublin.

Question: There is a the third theory - suggesting the
involvement of oligarchs. In short, involvement of Boris Berezovsky.

Question: I have no reason at all to blame anything on
Berezovsky. My own life in politics was particularly active in the 1990s. I mean, I know Berezovsky. It would be a mistake to underestimate him. He is brilliant, he is smart. He thinks in strategic terms. Moreover, he is quite ruthless, and his ideas of morality are quite vague.

Question: Practically everything is regarded from the
standpoint of 2008 these days. When I hear that the murders could disrupt stability in Russia, I can't help thinking that this is a reference to Operation Successor. What if it is disrupted? Do you think Putin may agree to a third term in an emergency? As a guarantee and a guarantor? Would somebody benefit from that?

Yegor Gaidar: I remember what destabilization and chaos in a nuclear power are like - from the 1990s, from the crisis and collapse of the USSR. I know how unpredictable and dangerous it is.
Needless to say, the Russian leadership doesn't want history to repeat itself. If there is anyone reckless enough to try this scenario, it would pose a serious threat to our country and to the world in general.

Question: Andrei Lugovoi, one of the last Russians to meet with Litvinenko, used to be your bodyguard. Any comments?

Yegor Gaidar: That's interesting indeed. Lugovoi was with the Federal Guard Service. He was with me when I was in the government. I resigned from the government in January 1994 and bodyguards were recalled. I knew that Lugovoi found a job with Berezovsky's security structures in the mid-1990s. So I wasn't surprised to hear that Lugovoi and Lukashenko knew each other.

Question: Now that all this has come to pass, would you perhaps like to ask him something?

Yegor Gaidar: No. If he wants something revealed, he will tell it... I believe that Lugovoi was framed, but that's only guesswork of course. I have no evidence.

Question: What are you going to do now? By the way, no information is available on the outcome of the official
investigation. It is only known that the Union of Right Forces intends to run an investigation on its own.

Yegor Gaidar: Getting to the root of the matter would have been nice, but that's not what I consider important. I'll keep working. Life goes on, you know. I don't intend to dedicate what remains of my life to seeking out whoever tried to poison me in Dublin.
Translated

[judasdisney]

Thought you'd enjoy this: Someone over at Daily Kos insists (despite the fact of Scotland Yard investigating it as a homicide) that it's all bunk, it's just a suicide

Just goes to show (like Jeff's current blog post), there's no limit to denial (and unfortunately to denial's attendant campaigns-of-silencing)

[seemslikeadream]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6184919.stm

Litvinenko 'killed over dossier'

Alexander Litvinenko died in a London hospital
Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was murdered because of information he held on a powerful Kremlin figure, an ex-business associate has said.
Ex-spy Yuri Shvets said Mr Litvinenko was commissioned by a reputable UK firm to provide information on Russia.

Mr Litvinenko was poisoned after his dossier containing damaging details was deliberately leaked to the high-ranking Moscow figure, Mr Shvets told the BBC.

Mr Litvinenko died in London last month from suspected polonium-210 poisoning.

'Most probable theory'

In an exclusive interview, Mr Shvets told BBC Radio 4 programme The Litvinenko Mystery about his theory.

"I cannot really be 100% sure, but I am pretty sure," he said.

"Obviously there is always room for other suspicions, but in a tradecraft there is such a thing as most probable theory, and this is the one."

He said the British company wanted the eight-page dossier of commercial and political information before it invested millions of pounds in Russia.

He drank a tea which was not made in front of him

Yuri Shvets

Washington-based Mr Shvets, who advises businesses and individuals on legal and security issues in the former Soviet Union, said he talked to Mr Litvinenko in hospital.

Mr Litvinenko was convinced that he was poisoned when he met three Russians at the Millennium Hotel in London.

Mr Shvets said: "He drank a tea which was not made in front of him. He was agonised by the understanding that as a professional he failed.

"He was always saying 'I can identify my enemy a mile away'. But in this particular case, when it came to his own life, he failed."

Mr Shvets, who has been interviewed by senior Scotland Yard officers, said British detectives investigating the death now have the dossier compiled by Mr Litvinenko.

The Litvinenko Mystery, presented by Tom Mangold, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 1030 GMT on Saturday 16 December.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainfram ... litvinenko

Link to the radio programme (30 minutes)

[Gouda]

Would that "reputable UK firm" be Erinys International Ltd?

Fun fact: In Greek mythology, the Erinys were three goddesses, attendants of Hades and Persephone, who guarded the Underworld.

http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewt ... 3040#93040

(I posted a bit on Erinys about half-way down that page)

More:

Exclusive: Murdered ex-KGB officer was working for British security company
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Exclu ... _1211.html

Now, they are certainly not the only dirty firm interested in Russia - and I doubt this whole thing, the whole methodology and timing would be come down to one shady business deal - but the corporate media is kind to simplify things for us.

[Sweejak]

Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1213/p01s02-woeu.html

Timeline

Oct. 7: Journalist Anna Politkovskaya is murdered.
Oct. 16: Former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi introduces Dimitry Kovtun to Alexander Litvinenko in London.
Oct. 19: Litvinenko says President Putin was involved in Politkovskaya case.
(1) Oct. 28: Kovtun travels via Aeroflot from Moscow to Hamburg.
Nov. 1: Litvinenko meets Italian Mario Scaramella for lunch at a sushi bar in London. Scaramella gives Litvinenko a supposed hit list with their names on it.
Afternoon: Litvinenko has tea at the Millenium Hotel's Pine Bar with Lugovoi and Kovtun, who flew in earlier that day from Hamburg on a Germanwings flight. Litvinenko also apparently met that day with Vyacheslav Sokolenko, another former agent, possibly at the same hotel.
Evening: Litvinenko becomes ill.
Nov. 3: Litvinenko is admitted to Barnet Hospital.
Nov. 11: Litvinenko tells BBC's Russian service he's been poisoned.
Nov. 17: Litvinenko is transferred to University College Hospital and placed under armed guard.
Nov. 21: Kremlin dismisses as "sheer nonsense" that Russian authorities were behind the poisoning.
Nov. 23: Litvinenko dies.
Nov. 24: British officials say Litvinenko was poisoned by polonium-210. A statement said to have been dictated by Litvinenko on Nov. 21, accusing Putin of ordering his murder, is made public by his friends.
Speaking at an EU-Russia summit in Helsinki, Putin says Litvinenko's death was "not the result of violence" and extends his condolences to the family.
(2) Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar falls suddenly ill at a conference in Maynooth, Ireland. He recovers quickly, but later blames poisoning.
Nov. 27: British government opens an investigation.
(3) Nov. 29: Small traces of radiation found on two British Airways jets that flew Lugovoi between London and Moscow on Oct. 25 and 31.
Nov. 30: Trail of radiation in London expands to four new sites, including a hotel Litvinenko did not visit, bringing the total to 12.
(4) Dec. 3: Nine British investigators go to Moscow to interview Lugovoi and others. Lugovoi is then quoted as saying he was exposed to radiation, contrary to his previous claims.
Dec. 4: The visiting investigators barred from interviewing Mikhail Trepashkin, an ex-FSB agent in jail on treason charges.
Dec. 5: Russia says no suspects will be extradited to Britain.
Dec. 6: Scotland Yard declares the case a murder. Kovtun questioned by Russian officials, in the presence of British investigators, at a Moscow clinic where he was undergoing tests for radiation. The British agents are blocked from questioning Lugovoi. Meanwhile, Scaramella is released from hospital.
Dec. 7: Litvinenko's funeral takes place at London mosque; conflicting reports on whether he converted to Islam on his deathbed. Britain says seven Pine Bar employees tested positive for radiation. Russian prosecutors open a criminal investigation.
Dec. 9: German police disclose that they have found traces of polonium-210 at Hamburg locations that Kovtun visited in October.
Dec. 10: Marina Litvinenko says she suspects Russian authorities in her husband's poisoning, though not Putin himself.
Dec. 11: British investigators meet with Lugovoi in Moscow hospital. Scotland Yard liaison arrives in Hamburg.
Dec. 12: Interpol joins the investigation.
===============


BERLIN, December 13 (RIA Novosti) -

"Who told you that the contamination took place on Nov. 1? It took place much earlier, on Oct. 16," Lugovoi was quoted as saying by the paper. Lugovoi is himself undergoing radiation checks in a Moscow clinic.

Litvinenko, 43, a former Russian agent and a Kremlin critic, died Nov. 23 of poisoning from polonium-210.

Lugovoi supported his claim by saying that he and Litvinenko visited a London-based security firm where traces of polonium were later found only in mid-October, but did not go there on Nov. 1, meaning that the contamination couldn't have taken place on that day.

Lugovoi's comments echo those made by another associate of Litvinenko, Russian businessman Dmitry Kovtun, who claimed in an interview with Germany's Spiegel TV that he must have been contaminated during meetings with Litvinenko and Lugovoi in London in mid-October.

Meanwhile, German investigators are also probing Kovtun on suspicion that he may have illegally handled radioactive material. German authorities have found traces of polonium-210 in locations visited by Kovtun before he traveled to London on Nov. 1.

They say Kovtun flew to Hamburg from Moscow on Oct. 28 and departed for London on Nov. 1. Traces of polonium-210 have been confirmed in the passenger seat of the BMW car that picked up Kovtun from the Hamburg airport.

That makes German officials believe that Kovtun already was contaminated with polonium-210 when he arrived in Hamburg _ but how that happened is unclear.