Who Poisoned Alexander Litvinenko? Radioactive thallium link

[Et in Arcadia ego]

This guy was killed with the same shit they literally used as a trigger to detonate Nuclear Bombs with..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium

Applications:

When it is mixed or alloyed with beryllium, polonium can be a neutron source. It has been used in this capacity as a neutron trigger for nuclear weapons.

Use as a poison:

At a committed effective dose equivalent (CEDE) of 5.14×10−7 sieverts per becquerel (1.9×103 mrem/microcurie) for ingested 210Po and a specific activity of 1.66×1014 Bq/gram (4.49×103 curies/gram)[4] the amount of material required to produce a lethal dose of 10 sieverts would be only 0.12 micrograms (1.17×10−7g) or about 525 microcuries. The biological halflife is 50 to 30 days in humans.[5]

The polonium-210 isotope caused the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a dissident former Russian FSB spy, on November 23, 2006 according to Pat Troop, chief executive of Britain's Health Protection Agency.[4] Traces of polonium were found in several locations he had visited shortly before becoming ill, as well as in his urine.[5]

RIP.

[chiggerbit]

What the heck is going on?

Raw Story Link

The last person to meet Alexander Litvinenko before he succumbed to the agonising effects of radioactive poisoning is a self-professed expert in nuclear materials.

• In Alexander Litvinenko own words: Why I believe Putin wanted me dead...


International 'security consultant' Mario Scaramella, who joined Litvinenko for the now infamous clandestine meeting in a London sushi bar, headed an organisation which tracked dumped nuclear waste, including Soviet nuclear missiles left over from the Cold War.

Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent who became a trenchant critic of President Putin's Russia, fell ill after the sushi lunch - as exclusively revealed by The Mail on Sunday last week - and died 22 days later from poisoning by Polonium, a radioactive substance derived from uranium.

Yesterday other customers of the sushi restaurant answered an appeal by health agencies for them to undergo medical checks. Some 200 worried members of the public came forward, also including customers of a Mayfair bar where Litvinenko held another meeting on the day he was poisoned.

Sources revealed last night that renegade Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky had also been checked for radiation. His car, in which he ferried the stricken Litvinenko to hospital, was also tested. It was further disclosed that the tycoon has been interviewed twice by police investigating Litvinenko's death, but not as a suspect.

Prof Scaramella has strongly denied any involvement in the murder and Litvinenko's family, who blame President Putin, say they do not question his loyalty. Having given an interview to The Mail on Sunday earlier in the week, Prof Scaramella yesterday said he was unwilling to say any more because he was 'co-operating with the authorities'. Earlier, he had acknowledged that 'something very strange is going on'.

Our investigations have established that:

• He has a deep knowledge of nuclear materials and their whereabouts around the globe.

• Although he describes himself as an environmentalist, he has detailed knowledge of the activities of Russian agents.

• Some of the institutions listed on his impressive CV appear to have no record of him, prompting questions about a career involving a large number of posts around the globe.

Prof Scaramella agreed to meet us in his home city of Naples to respond to allegations circulating on the internet that he was an intelligence agent in the pay of several secret services. Arriving in the lobby of a hotel flanked by two bodyguards, he produced a professional-looking dossier detailing his career.

As the meeting progressed, Prof Scaramella denied he had links to any secret services and became irritated. "You are sounding like the police,' he said. "Do not use this information against me."

Prof Scaramella's knowledge of atomic materials is clear, however. The Mail on Sunday has discovered that in June last year Italian police launched an investigation into an alleged plot to smuggle uranium into the country after being tipped off by Prof Scaramella.

He told officers that the uranium was hidden in a suitcase and had originated from an undisclosed country in the former Soviet Union. Within just 24 hours, police in Rimini made four arrests.

At the time all Prof Scaramella would say was: "I was investigating the activities of former KGB activities in San Marino <\[>a tiny independent republic near Rimini]

"I was also looking into the trafficking of arms from the former Soviet Union and possible links with Italian terrorist groups. During this I was passed a document that said there were former KGB men in San Marino looking at selling nuclear military material.

"I told the police that 10kg of uranium was hidden in a suitcase and on its way to Italy on June 2; and on June 2 the arrests were made and the uranium found. It was enriched uranium 90 per cent capable of making a small atomic bomb. Also an electronic target device was seized."

The uranium plot came a year after Prof Scaramella announced that he had information that 20 nuclear warheads had been lost by a Soviet submarine in the Bay of Naples.

Prof Scaramella told the Mitrokhin Commission, which investigated KGB activities in Italy, that he had been passed the information from Russian intelligence sources.

Scaramella told The Mail on Sunday that his career began in his hometown of Naples, where he qualified as a solicitor in 1995. He set up his own company, and started specialising in environmental law.

In 1996, Prof Scaramella, who is unmarried with two children, says he started work as a professor of environmental law at Externado University in Bogota, Colombia, before moving the following year to the University of Nuestra Senora del Rosario, also in Bogota. At the same time, between 1996 and 2000, he also held a post specialising in environmental crime at the University of Naples.

Between 2000 and 2002, Prof Scaramella was secretary general of a little-known organisation named the Environmental Crime Prevention Programme. The ECPP describes itself as an organisation which 'provides environmental protection and security through technology on a global basis'.

It has offices at the Fucino Space Centre in Italy to deploy 'aerial surveillance to detect environmental crimes in Eastern and Southern Europe'.

On its website, the ECPP described itself as a 'permanent intergovernmental conference' with a secretariat in Naples and rotating presidencies held by countries such as Angola and Samoa.

None of the contact details listed for the organisation on its website work. When Prof Scaramella was asked where the group's head office was he said there wasn't one - you had to contact the general secretary, who currently was a Professor Papadopoulos from California's San Jose university.

A Dr Perikles Papadopoulos - listed as an assistant secretary general of the organisation - could not be reached. And last night, neither the campaign group Greenpeace, nor the Environment Investigation Agency, which campaigns against environmental destruction, could recall working with the organisation.

In 2003 he made the jump from environmental expert to KGB specialist when he was appointed as a consultant to the Mitrokhin commission. It was that work which put him into contact with Litvinenko and led to the sushi lunch, which he says he arranged to discuss a 'death list' which named both him and Litvinenko

Prof Scaramella explained that Professor Papadopoulos was key to his appointment on to the Italian parliamentary commission, facilitating a meeting in London with Italian legal officials setting up the inquiry.

Italy was a nest of CIA and KGB agents during the Cold War: Washington regarded the socialist-leaning country as the West European country most susceptible to influence from Moscow.

Vasili Mitrokhin was a senior archivist for Russia's foreign intelligence service. His records of the period have led to inquiries across the globe, including the UK. One of the conclusions of the Italian inquiry was that the former Soviet Union was behind the assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II in 1981.

Prof Scaramella explained that he had been approached by the commission because his career had given him a passing connection to Russia. "My work involved a lot of Soviet issues - the dumping of radioactive waste, which can be detected from space, and the loss of nuclear devices,' he said.

"I said to them, "I am not an expert on security services, only nuclear waste." But the commission said they wanted people from outside to investigate. So in 2003 I looked at the operations of the KGB and Eastern bloc countries on Italian soil, including the funding of Italian journalists by the KGB."

In 2004, Prof Scaramella also led an investigation on the illegal dumping of waste by the mafia in an Italian lake. Despite being only a civilian environmental consultant, he led two armed police agents to a villa where the suspects lived. They were greeted by a hail of bullets. One mafioso was arrested, and an arms cache seized.

Scaramella also told us that he also found time in 1999 to become a visiting scientist at Stanford University in California, and was made director of a university Nato programme which involved visiting Lithuania.

In 2002, at the same time as he says he was completing his duties for the ECPP, he also started a school of national security in Colombia to train local police. The same year, he says he was also based for four months at Greenwich University in London, again working on environmental law.

It is hard to corroborate details of Scaramella's career.

A spokesman at the University of Naples said last night: "There is no record of a Professor Mario Scaramella working here. He may well have been hired internally as an independent working within one of the faculties but our system has no record of him."

And Dr Maria Scaramella, a namesake at the university, said: "I used to get all this post for him but I could never actually find him. He was supposed to have an office on the third floor but I was never able to find it. He was supposed to have some sort of European funding for research but I never knew exactly what."

A spokesman for Greenwich University also said they had no record of him on its books.

None of the American or Colombian universities responded to messages asking whether Prof Scaramella had worked for them.

Internet discussion forums have buzzed with theories about Prof Scaramella this week - the most damaging claiming that he is a secret service operative with split loyalties who uses a range of political and business interests as a front for his activities. But he insisted: "I have never been to any security service headquarters or met any acting officers."

Prof Scaramella says he struck up an association with Litvinenko during his work for the Mitrokhin Commission, and they had met several times before in the Itsu restaurant to discuss intelligence matters.

He claimed that tip-off from Litvinenko had helped to foil a bizarre assassination attempt last year on Paolo Guzzanti, an Italian senator who headed the Mitrokhin inquiry. It led to the arrest of six Ukrainians who were said to have been trying to smuggle grenades into the country hidden inside hollowed-out Bibles.

"He was my friend - that is why he gave me this,' he said, brandishing a picture of Litvinenko training as a young KGB officer.

Even Prof Scaramella's father, Amedeo, was perplexed about his son's career. "I think it's best you talk to Mario,' he said. "I don't really want to say anything. He divides his time between Naples and Rome and he also spends a lot of time overseas. I don't ask too many questions."

Prof Scaramella said: "I am not willing to say anything else. I am co-operating with the authorities. If you want any information ask Scotland Yard."

[Sweejak]

Detectives investigating the death of Alexander Litvinenko were last night examining the possibility that the former spy killed himself to discredit Vladimir Putin.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/ ... 016151.ece

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

LONDON (AP) - A former KGB agent poisoned in London described in interviews before his death how he was ordered to hire assassins to neutralize potential rivals and whistle-blowers who threatened the Kremlin, excerpts published Saturday showed.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world ... 58&k=98440

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

Big article in the Times:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... _1,00.html

[chiggerbit]

This seems kind of weird, out of character for the Rooskies. Only nine months, and acquitted?

In 1998, he publicly accused his superiors of ordering him to kill Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who was living in exile in London. Litvinenko spent nine months in jail from 1999 on charges of abuse of office. He was later acquitted and moved to Britain, which granted him asylum in 2000.

[chiggerbit]

Yikes, whatever it is, it must be infectious:

“Everything that is happening is fitting very neatly a particular logical chain. First, the Russian parliament passes a law in the middle of this year which allows the government, allows the president, to pursue and attack ‘extremists’ all over the world. So now it’s legal.

“Then a few days later they enacted another [law] which defines ‘extremist’. Anybody who is critical of the government falls under these broad definitions.”

[Sweejak]

Data Dump:
Just the headlines. I don't have links to some of the items, So I would have to cut and paste the whole of it in. Plus, this is from a subscription service and i should not be posting this in a public forum. I'm sure you can google up some of them. I'll cull out some snips and post them later. I can also be PM'd.

Anyway there are big PR firms now involved. Berezovsky's Lord Bell who makes an unconvincing appearance in the first or second part of the BBC doc "Russian Godfathers" and apparently the Kremlin has hired a US firm "Ketchum"?.

-- Reuters: Was spy murdered in Russian power fight?

-- BBC Monitoring: Radio talk show discusses Russia's image abroad.

-- BBC Monitoring quotes from Russian press Saturday 25
November 2006: Litvinenko.

-- National Public Radio (NPR): Russian Public Hears Little
of Ex-Spy's Poisoning.

-- The Daily Telegraph: Final interview of the poisoned former spy.

-- Kremlin.ru: Joint Press Conference...following the Russia-EU summit meeting.

-- Interfax: Russian Experts Divided On Whether Litvinenko's Death Caused By Polonium.

-- Interfax: Forensic Official: Litvinenko Statement Needs
Psychiatric Test.

-- Interfax: Coincidence Of High-profile Murders With Intl Events Attended By Putin 'Alarming' - Kremlin Aide.

-- Interfax-AVN: Litvinenko's death not in Russia's interests -MPs.

-- BBC Monitoring: Russian commentator warns of climate of fear in wake of Litvinenko death.

-- Chicago Tribune: Alex Rodriguez, In Russia, bad old days
are back.

-- Financial Times: John Thornhill, Lest cold war ghosts
impede history’s lessons.

-- The Independent: Mary Dejevsky, Boris Berezovsky:
The first oligarch.

-- Los Angeles Times editorial: PICK YOUR POISON.
From Russia with poison. Fingers are being pointed at Russia's state security services after the death of a spy turned dissident in London.

-- The Observer editorial: Behind the assassins, the grim --The Independent: Hamish McRae, The poisoning of an
ex-KGB spy must not stop us bringing Russia in from the cold.

[chiggerbit]

I'm new to the subject. How much of this has to do with various mafia groups?

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Using a rare radioactive substance that indicts Scaramella is bit obvious, isn't it?

Looks like a frame-up job on this unknown patsy with Putin as the subsequent target of suspicion just as push comes to shove over neocon urges to neutralize Iran on the way to Kazakhstan and the rest of the Caspian Sea oil and gas.

And just in time for Americans to chat it up during the holidays and thoroughly infuse it into conventional wisdom.

Not too hard to restart the Cold War, is it?

[Asta]

Maybe we should be reading "The Fourth Protocol" by Frederick Forsyth.

It was linked in the Wiki article (fictional applications of PO), and the plot summary is interesting, the book having been written in 1984, Cold War revisited.

What I don't hear anyone talking about is how the polonium was acquired in the first place. If it originated in the UK, well, that's most curious.

If it was imported, then UK has the same lousy security systems we have.

This event is bothersome on many levels.

[Sweejak]

Ok

Was spy murdered in Russian power fight?
November 26, 2006

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europ ... ysis.reut/

... Consider instead that he died in a bitter domestic power struggle which also included the murder of campaigning journalist Anna Politkovskaya last month.

The theory may sound outlandish but it is shared by opponents of President Vladimir Putin living abroad and some of his supporters inside the country.

... "We hate Putin. The man is loathsome. But he is not stupid enough to have ordered the death of Litvinenko in such a slow and public way," an influential Russian emigre told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The people who carried out this killing planned it extremely well," he added. "They knew that Litvinenko would die slowly and painfully and that this would cause a big outcry. If Putin had wanted to kill Litvinenko, do you really believe he would do it like this?"

... "Sasha (Litvinenko) was violently anti-Putin," one emigre said. "We respect what he said but we don't believe he's right."

... Litvinenko's death marked the second time that Putin had been embarrassed by an opponent's killing just before a major international meeting.

... Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted Putin's aide on EU relations Sergei Yastrzhembsky as saying: "One cannot help being alarmed by the deliberately pin-point deaths of people coinciding with international events in which Putin takes part."

... Asked who might be behind the campaign to undermine Putin, the Russian emigres suggested two possibilities.

"It could be senior security service and military people who believe Putin is dangerous for Russia because the country is collapsing and Russia is losing control of parts of its territory like the Caucasus," one said.

"Or it could be part of a battle between opposing Kremlin factions for control after Putin's term ends in 2008."

Political commentators have identified two principal Kremlin factions vying for control ahead of the presidential elections.

... One is headed by Igor Sechin, the shadowy deputy chief of Putin's administration who is believed to have a KGB background and leads a grouping of nationalistic and hardline elements in the military and security forces dubbed the "siloviki."

The other centers on Dmitry Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister and old ally of Putin, and includes some of the country's most powerful oligarchs.

As the political temperature rises ahead of the elections, the emigres predicted more sudden and violent deaths of well-known Putin opponents.

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

Radio talk show discusses Russia's image abroad
Source: Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow, in Russian 1705 gmt 25 Nov 06

http://tinyurl.com/y3qb6p

... "In the circle of light" programme hosted by Svetlana Sorokina and Yuriy Kobaladze on Ekho Moskvy radio on 25 November. Russia's image abroad was the topic discussed.

... The Litvinenko case "caused colossal damage and dealt a colossal blow to the image of Russia", according to Kobaladze. Kobaladze, a former KGB spokesman, was asked by Sorokina: "Could our special services do that [poison Aleksandr Litvinenko], is it their style?" He replied: "I don't like giving forecasts or assessments because sometimes the most obvious culprits may turn out to be innocent. So all I can say is that, irrespective of who did that and whether they had this purpose in mind, what de facto happened has definitely caused a colossal damage to the prestige of Russia."

Sorokina asked: "Why have the British reacted in this way to the death of Litvinenko?" Simonyan said: "A few days ago I had a meeting with a senior BBC official and asked her: why has this story been the top news for such a long time? What about Iraq where 200 people were killed in two days during the same period, are their lives less important? Their deaths, too, were a result of a foreign state's actions. She [the official], speaking on behalf of the BBC, gave her version of events. She said there are several aspects. Above all, there is a suspicion, and it is how they see it, that the Kremlin may be behind the poisoning and it happened on British territory. Secondly, she said: you don't understand, we are a nation obsessed with James Bond. For us the very fact, even if it sounds cynical but I am just telling you what she told me, mind you she told me that before his death when Litvinenko was in hospital, is interesting and we know that everyone will watch the story about a former spy who went to a restaurant, had some sushi and got poisoned. It smacks of a good James Bond story and we know that our viewer is extremely interested in this."

... Sorokina said: "I personally was shocked by this story. I was shocked because I suddenly realized that actions of this kind by us abroad are quite plausible... Can we indeed act in this manner?"

... Bogdanov joined in: "Do you think that it is only we, Russia, who act in this manner? It is common practice among special services everywhere."

Sorokina asked: "Does it mean that you, too, think that it plausible?"

Simonyan replied: "No, I do not want to believe in this at all. It would be a real shock to me if it turned out to be true." Bogdanov agreed with her.

Bogdanov asked Sorokina: "I would like to clarify with you the following: what do you mean by plausible? What is plausible?"

Sorokina replied: "It is plausible that our long arms reached out there."

To that Bogdanov said: "I don't think Russian special services were involved in this particular case. It is absolutely not in their interests, moreover we have been achieving breakthroughs on many positions and to ruin the state of affairs in this manner would simply be nonsense."

"What breakthroughs and on what positions do you have in mind?" asked Sorokina.

"We have had a breakthrough in our WTO [accession talks], we have had a breakthrough in relations with the EU," Bogdanov replied. "As for the EU," Sorokina interrupted, "there is no breakthrough after Poland used its veto."

"As soon as we have some positive developments not on a local scale but on a global one, so to speak, there is always a hitch. Look for yourself, it is either the death of some prominent journalist -

"Not some journalist, it was [Anna] Politkovskaya's murder if you are talking about [Putin's] visit to Germany," interrupted Sorokina.

"Okay, now it is Litvinenko [who died] on the day of the [EU] summit. It is customarily to speak good of the dead or not to say anything. But, to be honest with you, who is this Litvinenko? He was a traitor, and the attitude to traitors in any country and in any special service has always been contempt."

... The discussion moved to the article "Nationalization of the future" by Putin's aide Vladislav Surkov which was published in the Ekspert magazine. In the article, Surkov explains the concept of "sovereign democracy". According to Bogdanov, no-one in the West in interested in sovereign democracy.

... All the participants in the debate agreed that delayed reaction to a major event or the wrong tone chosen by commentators were harmful for Russia's image abroad. Sorokina said: "Particularly in critical situations I often wish I could hear the patriarch with his word of wisdom, particularly when some nationalist attacks are taking place, I wish I could hear the president's reaction the same hour the news of Politkovskaya's murder was known, I wish I could hear the opinion of [Defence Minister Sergey] Ivanov the same hour there is a major military development."
==============

Quotes from Russian press Saturday 25 November 2006: Litvinenko

The following is a selection of quotes from articles published in the 25 November editions of Russian newspapers, as available to the BBC on 25 November

Novoye Vremya [liberal weekly journal] www.newtimes.ru - "For the authorities, the physical elimination of dissenters and troublemakers is becoming the main means by which to resolve their problems...

"Lately, assassination has altogether become almost the only way in which a whole host of problems can be tackled: why bother with them when their sources can be done away with? There was, for instance, a woman journalist, who was well known but who was disliked by the authorities. She was shot dead in the entrance hall of her block, also in the centre of Moscow. Of course, the problem has not gone away, but if it is not talked about aloud it is almost as though it does not exist. It is also a lesson to others..

"And so Aleksandr Litvinenko, formerly a lieutenant colonel in the FSB, ends up in intensive care... It could be that it was because he gathered information about those who killed Anna Politkovskaya or trod on someone else's toes, or it was decided in general to make it clear to all our enemies and defectors, whether real or potential, that retribution is inescapable, that 'ours are long hands' that will reach you even in London."

[from article by Vladimir Voronin, headlined "Mercader's way"]

Kommersant [business broadsheet; recently purchased by Alisher Usmanov, owner of the Metalloinvest and Gazprominvestholding companies] www.kommersant.ru - "Mr Litvinenko's death became the main political event both in Britain and outside it... It was not possible to avoid the discussion of the subject even at yesterday's Russia-EU summit in Helsinki...

"Western experts, meanwhile, have been unanimous that Mr Litvinenko's death will affect Russia's image... But not all Western analysts think that the ex-colonel in the FSB was thus made to pay for his criticism of the Russian regime... The idea of a plot against Vladimir Putin was also supported yesterday by the Russian Federation president's aide, Sergey Yastrzhembskiy...

"Indeed, almost all of the Russian president's recent visits to the West have been overshadowed by the reports of high-profile deaths. Ahead of Mr Putin's visit to Germany on 10-11 October, journalist Anna Politkovskaya was killed... Finally, Aleksandr Litvinenko's death coincided with a Russia-EU summit, a key event for Moscow."

[from article by Alvina Kharchenko in London, Dmitriy Sidorov in Washington, and Mikhail Zygar and Vladimir Solovyev, headlined "Poisoned closure"]

"I do not see it as a plan of some sort to discredit Russia. Because we have gone back on democratic reform, our image is at an all-time low, so much so that there is no need to think up anything else."

[Yevgeniy Yasin, of the High School of Economics, in 1994-96 Russia's economics minister; from a selection of interviews in brief, entitled "Who orchestrated the plan to discredit Russia?"]

Rossiyskaya Gazeta [government newspaper] www.rg.ru - "As one of the theories, the elimination of a traitor by the Russian special services is, of course, a possibility. It is, however, greatly flawed and could altogether prove untrue...

"The theory that Litvinenko was poisoned by his former colleagues is a logical one and uncomplicated. It also looks good. But that is precisely where, however, its vulnerability lies. What kind of secret operation by the special services is it, about which the journalist learns with such ease?"

[from article by Timofey Borisov, entitled "In whose way stood Litvinenko"]

Komsomolskaya Pravda [popular tabloid controlled by businessman Vladimir Potanin] www.kp.ru - "The potential list of those who stood to benefit from Litvinenko's death is a long one. One thing is certain, however: A scandal such as this one was not something in the interests of the Russian authorities in the run-up to the signing of a new agreement between Russia and the EU. It is now being used to put pressure on the Kremlin...

"The poisoning of a dissident who'd almost been forgotten has kicked up a tremendous fuss. If the truth is ever learnt, however, it will be only once the hoo-ha dies down, although it was precisely for a scandal to erupt that this crime was committed."

[from article by Aleksandr Kots, entitled "Who killed Litvinenko?"]

"Revulsion is the feeling one is left with given the hullabaloo in the West to do with Aleksandr Litvinenko's illness and death. The man's body has been turned into a virtual battering ram with which Russia's standing is being pounded for all it is worth."

[from article by Andrey Baranov, entitled "Sacrificial offering"]

Moskovskiy Komsomolets [mass-circulation Moscow daily; pro-mayor Yuriy Luzhkov] www.mk.ru - "Yesterday, our newspaper managed to get in touch with one of those that have been named in the scandal. He is former head of security for ORT [Russian Public TV] 'under Berezovskiy', Andrey Lugovoy...

"[Lugovoy] On Thursday [23 November], I met representatives of the [British] police in the British embassy and gave evidence. We agreed on further cooperation in the inquiry into this case."

"A Chechen separatist website asserts that, before he died, Litvinenko adopted Islam. 'Litvinenko adopted Islam... Aleksandr Litvinenko will be buried at a Muslim cemetery...'."

[from an interview and article by Oleg Fochkin, Aleksey Nishchuk and Andrey Yashlavskiy]

Grani.ru [prominent news and analysis website said owned by Boris Berezovskiy] - "It is a catastrophe. I think that it is one of those turning points as regards Russia's image in the world, which is plummeting as it is. It is very difficult to talk to a country which poisons political opponents with thallium or something else...

"Russia is becoming a different country. Whereas previously it was a quasi-democratic state, we are now quickly turning into [President Alyaksandr] Lukashenka's Belarus, where people disappear."

[from comment by journalist Yuliya Latynina, in the "Opinion" slot on the subject of "Who murdered Aleksandr Litvinenko"]

==================
The Daily Telegraph
November 25, 2006
Final interview of the poisoned former spy

... The epitaph for Alexander Litvinenko might read "he was caught up in events bigger than he understood". This ordinary boy from Voronezh never shone at school, never went to university and ended up in the KGB only via his national service in the Soviet army.

... But by the time he ended his life, apparently the victim of radioactive poisoning, he was a disillusioned exile in London, a defector who seemed unable to plan for the future and whose conversation often darted from one subject to another in bewildering fashion.

... We talked to Litvinenko to pursue our academic research into Chechens in Moscow. But he always wanted to return to the subject of the conspiracies that fascinated him. Eventually, one of those conspiracies caught up with him.

-->> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... xml&page=2

==================
Kremlin.ru
November 24, 2006,
City Hall, Helsinki
Joint Press Conference
excerpt


QUESTION: Mr Putin, you mentioned this affair of Anna Politkovskaya’s and Prime Minister Vanhanen talked about this as well, and it seems that there are concerns about how the investigation is being carried out. Mr President, please answer this question and comment on how the investigation is proceeding.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: I have already said that we should not forget that such crimes do not only happen in Russia. In other European countries there are well-known political murders that have not yet been resolved. This is our common problem and if we look at what is happening with the mafia in several EU countries which, not in an isolated incident but systematically, destroys representatives of law-enforcement agencies, judges, prosecutors, investigators, journalists and political figures. These Mafiosi have been caught for decades in European countries. This is a common problem. Maybe this problem is somewhat sharper in Russia with respect to our country’s present level of development. We are not about to deny this and together with our European colleagues we are preparing to fight against this and to change the situation. I am confident that we will be able to do so. It would be unfortunate if we endlessly politicised these issues or stigmatise only Russia for this. The same thing happens in many other countries. Ms Politkovskaya was a critic of the Russian authorities, that is true, but Mr Paul Khlebnikov was also an American journalist, as I said before. Ms Politkovskaya had American citizenship and Paul Khlebnikov was of Russian origin but was also an American journalist. He criticised precisely those people who are leading an armed struggle against the federal authorities. He was also killed. Is it correct to forget about him? I think not. Let us not politicise these questions but join our forces in the struggle against this evil. And as to the investigation into this affair, hundreds of people are being interrogated, hundreds. I want to express my hope that the work is not only being conducted in the most active way but will also be brought to completion.

================
Russian Experts Divided On Whether Litvinenko's Death Caused By Polonium

MOSCOW. Nov 24 (Interfax) - Russian experts in radiation security have diverging opinions as to whether former Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko could have been poisoned with radioactive polonium, an opinion British experts voiced recently.

"I believe poisoning with polonium-210 is some journalistic invention. It was first said it was thallium, and now it is polonium-210. Then they could come up with some other exotic types of isotopes." Vladimir Kuznetsov, director of nuclear and radiation security programs with the environmental organization Green Cross and a former chief of the State Atomic Control Agency Gozatomnadzor, told Interfax on Friday evening.

"Polonium-210 is a gas, an alpha-emitter, which can be easily detected. For a person to get poisoned and die in such a brief time, he has to breathe in this isotope in an enclosed space for a week," Kuznetsov said.

There are also other types of polonium, but they are less dangerous, Kuznetsov said. "And besides, very large doses are needed for a lethal outcome, even if the substance is taken inside. If there were large qualities of polonium, I wonder why doctors didn't discover it earlier. I can't understand why they can't conduct a spectroscopic analysis, too," he said.

Meanwhile, Co-Chairman of the Ekozashchita environmental group Vladimir Slivyak, a specialist on radioactive substances, told Interfax Litvinenko could well have been poisoned with polonium.

"The doses of a radioactive substance that could have a lethal effect after getting into the body are so small that it is even hard to imagine. You don't even need several grams of polonium for a lethal effect," Slivyak said.

Any radioactive substance, once it gets inside the body, affects it in a very dangerous manner, as there are no screens to protect inner organs from ionizing radiation, he said.

"You cannot feel the presence of this element in food, because radioactive substances don't taste or smell. In addition, it is very difficult to quickly discover the presence of a radioactive substance in a body without special tests," Slivyak said.

=================
Forensic Official: Litvinenko Statement Needs Psychiatric Test
MOSCOW. Nov 24 (Interfax)

... "A psychological and psychiatric examination of the person's condition before their death is always made in a situation like this," Tatyana Dmitriyeva, director of the Serbsky Research Institute of Social and Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow, told Interfax.

"In cases of this kind everything is tested in order to find out whether the letter is authentic and can be used as evidence," she said.

In Russia such tests are normally ordered by a court, Dmitriyeva said.

Deathbed letters normally undergo such tests all over the world, she said.

"In their last few days of life, people very often sign all kinds of deeds or donation, or wills. Then come litigations between relatives. Forensic tests are always ordered - whether he was in sound mind, what effect the medicines the person was taking had on him. A very detailed investigation is carried out, all the nurses are interrogated, entries to his disease record are studied," Dmitriyeva said.

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

Coincidence Of High-profile Murders With Intl Events Attended By Putin 'Alarming' - Kremlin Aide
HELSINKI. Nov 24 (Interfax)

... "What is alarming is the eye-striking excessive number of deliberate coincidences of high-profile deaths of people who positioned themselves as opponents to the existing Russian government with international events in which the Russian president takes part," Yastrzhembsky told journalists following an EU-Russia summit in Helsinki on Friday.

"I am far from being a champion of conspiracy theory. But it looks like we are facing a well-orchestrated campaign or a plan to consistently discredit Russia and its leader," he said.

"If we were in Ancient Greece, we could wonder who benefits from these sacrifices," Yastrzhembsky said. "The press has no right to ignore this question," he said.

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

Litvinenko's death not in Russia's interests - MPs
Interfax-AVN

... chairman of the Duma committee for veterans' affairs and former FSB Director, Nikolay Kovalev, believes that Russian special services could not have been interested in Litvinenko's death. (Passage omitted)

"We must ask ourselves the most important question: who will benefit? Undoubtedly, this brought no benefits for Russia and its special services, because, even if they had been involved in the crime, they would have been the prime suspect, which is absolutely not to our benefit," Kovalev told Interfax today.

He stressed that Litvinenko is not a significant enough figure to warrant such revenge. "Even such defectors to the West as (former KGB officers) Oleg Kalugin and Oleg Gordiyevskiy, who inflicted incomparably more damage on Russia than Litvinenko, enjoy good health in the West," Kovalev said.

... Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, said there is an unwritten agreement among the intelligence services of the world about the elimination of so-called defectors.

"There is an agreement among special services and it was MI6 (British intelligence - Interfax) which killed this scoundrel in London," he told journalists.

Zhirinovskiy said he had only one theory about Litvinenko's death - "Litvinenko was killed as a traitor".
=============

Source: Ekho Moskvy radio, Moscow, in Russian 1605 gmt 25 Nov 06

... Latynina began by noting that whereas this is the top story on newscasts around the world leading Russian TV companies Channel One and NTV are leading their bulletins with a story about a bomb at the Moscow State University.

State terrorism

She then focused on Scotland Yard's statement that the killing of Litvinenko is "state-sponsored terrorism". She repeated this sentence a number of times during the programme.

She went on to say that regimes can now be divided into the following categories: those who torture their enemies with polonium-210 and those who do not.

She reminded viewers of her scepticism about the Litvinenko poisoning, when the story broke two weeks ago, but indicated that there is no doubt about what happened to him now.

... "This is state terrorism, Scotland Yard has announced," she intoned again.

"Why did this happen? I really don't know if Putin gave the order for this or not. If he did, then it is to do with the third-term and a fundamental change in Russian foreign policy," she observed

If he did not, she continued, then what is being decided by him in this country, if Litvinenko can be liquidated with polonium-210 without the need to ask for his instructions.

It would show just what is meant by the hierarchy of power in this country, she added.

Irrespective of whether Putin actually gave the order, the system is such that instructions of this kind are possible, she declared.

... the Kremlin and President Putin live is very different from the world where Condoleezza Rice lives.

"This is a paranoid world. It is the world where the Jews poisoned Arafat, Saakashvili liquidated Zhvania, where comrade Nevzlin wants to kill Putin, and where Bush personally sentenced Saddam," she continued.

She characterized the reaction from the Russian state to accusations about the Litvinenko death as follows: "You forgive Saakashvili for Zhvania and you forgive the Jews for Arafat and you raise a cry against us".

... A caller took her to task for rushing to judgment in assuming the Russian state or special services were behind Litvinenko's death. She countered by quoting Scotland Yard's statement that this was "state-sponsored terrorism".

She concluded the programme as follows: "Finally, one of the main and practically inevitable consequences is the mounting atmosphere of the witch hunt: an atmosphere in which every person will be forced to choose who he really is. Does he think that everything that goes on is done by the enemies of Russia to put Putin in an awkward position and ruin Russia, and that this is being done by Nevzlin or Berezovskiy? Or will he call a spade a spade and say that Russia is going down a path on which stands the signpost to a Dictatorship, a road with one end, including for the current authorities? If he does, then this man will himself risk being an enemy and be subject to liquidation. And it will be very easy to say who liquidated him: The enemies, of course!"
================

In Russia, bad old days are back
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... nworld-hed

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

Lest cold war ghosts impede history’s lessons
By John Thornhill
Published: November 24 2006 19:41 | Last updated: November 24 2006 19:41
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b7fbe82a-7bef-1 ... e2340.html
=================

Boris Berezovsky: The first oligarch
A film based on his adventurous life drew gasps from Russian audiences for the opulence showed

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/pr ... 013286.ece

There are signs, though, that his power is waning. His ability to mesmerise the great and good went into decline after the Chechen attack on Beslan. He is not confident enough in English to dominate a platform alone. And earlier this year, the then foreign secretary Jack Straw took the unusual step of warning him publicly that he must cease to advocate the violent overthrow of Putin or risk forfeiting his refugee status.

Russia would dearly love to get its hands on Berezovsky. Even after six years away, in Russia his name is still synonymous to many with the great privatisation swindle of the 1990s. And Putin would surely see his downfall as a personal triumph. Berezovsky, though, for all his scheming is a shrewd and cautious survivor. He keeps at arm's length from the action - a puppeteer invisibly pulling fewer and fewer strings.

===============
From Russia with poison
Fingers are being pointed at Russia's state security services after the death of a spy turned dissident in London.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printeditio ... 4844.story

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

Behind the assassins, the grim truth of Putin's Russia

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/leaders/ ... 92,00.html

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

[smiths]

with regard to moving polonium, i read that because it is a very low alpha particle emitter it wouldnt be detected by any kind of radiation sensors in airports,
i have no way of knowing what this actually really means,
but in practical terms a person could conceal an amount of it and move through airports at will,
the slowness of the effects would give ample time for escape of assassin,

with regard to framing up putin for larger plans,

people do at times veer into giving these hidden puppeteers god-like qualities of planning and omniescence,
sometimes i wonder if the neocons are getting there ideas from HMW who seems far more creative and intelligent than they do

[Et in Arcadia ego]

sometimes i wonder if the neocons are getting there ideas from HMW who seems far more creative and intelligent than they do

Oh man..

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

sometimes i wonder if the neocons are getting there ideas from HMW who seems far more creative and intelligent than they do

Oh man..

You stick around this board, ok smiths? You're alright!

On a more serious note, I would expect that this would be a good board for cyber-warriors to study for both open source intelligence and as a barometer for assessing future psy-ops needs based on a higher-than-average awareness set.

I know that we only figure out the tip of the iceberg here but all levels of awareness are targeted for custom disinfo and the best disinfo synthesizes all levels of awareness at once.

smiths re-mention of the polonium is apt.

That is a huge 'sparkle,' isn't it? Just to kill someone? Plenty of other ways, I'm sure.
But an element used in satellites? That just screams a coupla things:
1) Major government lab source.
2) *Radiation* hot button fear of the masses.
3) Undetectable radiation easily smuggled.

What else had these qualities?....the Anthrax Mailings of 2001 which created a widespread anxiety along the lines of "that could even get me!"

I think this is not just anti-Putin. It is meant to re-terrorize the American people while the Iraq mess is reshuffled to maintain justification for the post-9/11 police-state.

[Et in Arcadia ego]

I think this is not just anti-Putin. It is meant to re-terrorize the American people while the Iraq mess is reshuffled to maintain justification for the post-9/11 police-state.

Especially when you take into consideration recent laws passed in Russia that give the the 'right' to assert themselves over anyone critical of the Russian Government.

Even Foreigners..

[Sorry, no link, saw it in a quickie at DU]

[Et in Arcadia ego]

Yikes, whatever it is, it must be infectious:

“Everything that is happening is fitting very neatly a particular logical chain. First, the Russian parliament passes a law in the middle of this year which allows the government, allows the president, to pursue and attack ‘extremists’ all over the world. So now it’s legal.

“Then a few days later they enacted another [law] which defines ‘extremist’. Anybody who is critical of the government falls under these broad definitions.”

*poof*

Where'd you get that from? Do you have a link handy?