More Litvinenko

Another read here on Litvinenko's poisoning. The Brits are saying the act was state sponsored. The Russians, of course, say they didn't do it. Next move, England.

Mystery solved?

The Brits seemed to have figured out how Alexander Litvinenko was murdered. According to AP, the polonium was in his tea pot. The other two men who were drinking tea with him also suffered radiation poisoning but neither one died. So why didn't they die? As one question is answered, more questions arise.

He never had a chance

Today's NYTimes has an interview with Marina Litvinenko, the widow of Alexander Litvinenko.

Marina Litvinenko, the widow of the former K.G.B. agent who died of radiation poisoning in London, said Friday that he began to worry about the safety of Russian exiles like himself in July, when the Parliament in Moscow, with little overseas fanfare, approved a law legalizing strikes beyond Russia’s borders against those the Kremlin considered to be extremists or terrorists.

Mea culpa

I finally got my Time mag today and was immediately immersed in the article about Alexander Litvinenko. It is a long, thorough article about the spy vs spy story involving, basically the whole world. A while back while writing about this story, a reader questioned what Putin's motive was if he, in fact, had Litvinenko murdered.

I responded with a typically American response, "Of course I know what I am talking about." In fact, I know only what I read from a multitude of sources. Time pointed out the error of my ways. I can count to 100 in Russian, I don't speak the language. I have read many books and seen a great deal of Russian art, I have never been to Russia and seen Russian art in the Tretyakov museum.

This blog has given me a chance to remember how much I like to write, what in fact, I learned in college. Many people in the blogosphere are experts in areas of great concern. Glenn Greenwald is a lawyer and writes about the law. I am an expert only on what I find of interest. That is not to say I am an expert on everything I am interested in but merely an expert on what I pursue in knowledge.

Thus, I have become a student of hockey. I can now carry on a conversation about icing, boarding, fighting and whether a player is playing well or my team sucks. I even read "Ice Hockey for Dummies" this summer. Any chance I get, I'm off to see the Sharks.

Ask me a question about politics and I can probably have a pretty informed opinion unless you ask me about the politics of Columbus, Ohio. National, state and local I can pop up with something to discuss and explore. I have spent hours on the phone with Ms Marinucci. She gets her payoff this month for being such a good friend with a dozen home made tamales.

Yeah yeah what's the point? I don;t know if I have one but I have been taught to make amends when wrong. So I doing the public, national and international flagellation for acting like a know-it-all American. I guess there is more to learn.

Latest Litvinenko

My head is spinning from all the developments of the Litvinenko poisonings. Here's the latest from the NY Times. London, Moscow, Hamburg, where will this go next?

spy vs spy

More information about the Litvinenko poisoning indicates more clues pointing towards Moscow as the source of the radioactive materials used. According to WaPo, there was a press conference held in Germany shedding more light on this puzzle.

Now Moscow is investigating the death in London while the Brits are in Moscow investigating. The Germans have found traces of the polonium 210 in Hamburg. From yesterday's press conference:

German radiation experts said Sunday that they had confirmed the presence of polonium-210, the substance that killed Litvinenko, at two locations in Germany and were 95 percent certain that traces found at other locations had come from that radioactive isotope. Final tests were needed to confirm its presence at some locations, German officials said. Officials did not specify exactly where the polonium-210 had been found.

Since I watch CSI all the time, I am wondering if there is a fingerprint identification to the polonium. Can the traces which have been found be tracked back to the same contamination that Litvinenko died from? So if it is the same element, does it have the same exact composition as what was in Litvinenko's body and can only be made at a particular nuclear plant, say in Russia? Where is Gil Grissom when I need him to answer my questions?

More Litvinenko

Anne Applebaum has a must read column on the Russian poisonings, the current state of the KGB and various details about former KGB agents. She provides this description of the mystery of Russia:

In other words: Though we don't know who killed Litvinenko, we have learned that London is a more exciting place than we thought it was. We have learned that the complex plots of Dostoevsky novels merely reflect Russian reality. And we have learned that the old KGB lives on in new guises.

The country that spans 11 time zones, brought us Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin, Stalin and Putin remains a mystery for those of us who are non-Russians.

Miami

So I have no job, haven't had one in over 7 months now. But here I am in Miami at my friends Jorge and Dylan's house.

Thanks to the magic of electronic communication, I have now listened to the Sharks game in Detroit, finally got on to my blog and am up-to-date with my email. And I have a tan, had key lime pie and sat on Miami Beach the last two days.

Miami has a special tropical beat to it. There are so many nationalities and cultures here, it just vibrates at a different speed than other places I've been to. Driving is an adventure. Jorge says you don't make signal changes because that would give away your strategy. Red lights are just a suggestion.

Today was also the 50th anniversary of Castro's revolution in Cuba. He was not sighted at the military parade celebrating both his birthday and the revolution. Yesterday I was at the beach and was thinking what if Castro is declared dead, how would I know? Yes, in MIami I had that rocket scientist thought. Like there wouldn't be a massive explosion from the Cuban emigre community in the streets of Miami. Duh. From the Miami Herald coverage about the

There is more on the Russian poisoning in London. I'm still following it but, hey I am in Miami and will get back to this on Monday with pics.

More Litvinenko

In this story from AP, the Brits are on Alexander Litvinenko death like white on rice. My favorite part fo this story was the suggestion that Litvinenko had done this himself, slipped himself a radioactive cocktail.

This substance, polonium-210, is a highly toxic material that can only be produced in a nuclear reactor thus limiting the places in the world it can be produced. So how does Litvinenko bring it into Britain and hold on to it until just the right time, whatever that may be? I read some blog comments today trying to blame this on the Israeli government, too, which I thought was astounding.

Litvinenko has a history with a Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. Supposedly Litvinenko, when he was with the FSB, was ordered to kill Berezovsky. Instead, Litvinenko told Berezovsky about his orders and the oligarch fled the country. They had both relocated to London. Putin's buddies in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian alleged legislature, started pointing fingers at Berezovsky right away as the culprit in this sordid mess.

In this little tidbit from Moscow News, the plot thickens even further, with links showing up to the Kremlin takeover of Yukos oil. Berezovsky was one of the owners of Yukos before the Soviet style takeover. The principal owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is now freezing his ass off in a Siberian prison. (Wikipedia on Yukos here.)

So now we have Yukos, Putin, the murders of Anna Politskovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian emigre community in London and the British security forces all involved in a real life spy story.

Too bad real people are dying in this story.

More on poisoning

The Washington Post has more to say about the Litvinenko poisoning. Apparently the St. Petersburg Russian mob is subbing for the FSB as Putin's Poisoners. From WaPo:

Mario Scaramella, the Italian who had lunch in London with a former Russian spy on the day the man was poisoned, said Tuesday that he showed the Russian e-mails during the meal that warned their lives might be in danger.

I guess Scaramella was right. Again the connections to Anna Politkovskaya surface.

In a separate interview later, Scaramella said the e-mails mentioned "dangerous people" behind the killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose unsolved murder last month in Moscow has caused an international outcry. He said the e-mails indicated that those responsible for her death were members of the Russian mafia from St. Petersburg.

Next Russian chapter

Oh this just keeps getting better. An AP report tonight says that the latest Putin poisoning may have included some sort of radioactive material along with the already diagnosed rat poison. This may explain why Litvinenko lost all his hair and has suffered damage to all his internal organs. No ordinary rat poison for Kremlin enemies, no siree. Gotta add a little hot stuff to the mixed drink.

From the AP story, I guess Mr Litvinenko really pissed off Putin the Poisoner:

"Somebody has asked me directly, who is guilty of Anna's death? And I can directly answer you: It is Mr. Putin, president of the Russian Federation," Litvinenko told the Frontline media club in London in October.

Deny, deny

I am shocked and stunned. The Russian secret police, the FSB, are denying any poisonings. According to Moscow News they are saying it is all lies. What a laugh. Like they were going to come right out say, "Yes, this is our weapon of choice. We punish our enemies with secret liquids in their foods to maim and kill them." That's exactly the response I would expect from Putin the Poisoner.

Alexander Litvinenko was moved yesterday into critical care as his health took a down turn. But the FSB says it is "nonsense" that they would be involved. Russia must be the most ironic place on earth if all these enemies of the Kremlin just happen to get poisoned.

This reminds me of how the boyars tried to get rid of Rasputin in 1916. Rasputin was invited to the palace of one of Nicholas's cousins, Felix Yusopov. They first poisoned him and when that didn't work, they shot him. Even after being poisoned and shot, Rasputin was still alive. Sos Yusopov and his buddies dragged Raputin to the Neva River, chipped a hole in the ice and threw him in. When his body was discovered three days later, there was water in his lungs showing that he was still alive when he was tossed in the river.

I guess the modern Russian assasins have gotten more efficient.

Poisonous Putin

Since the name Vlad the Impaler has been taken, Vladimir Putin is going with Putin the Poisoner.

In further developments from the Anna Politskovskaya murder, a former member of the FSB (the modern KGB), Alexander Litvinenko, has been poisoned in London. According to the WaPo, Litvinenko has been investigating Politkovskaya's murder in Moscow last month. Now Litvenenko has been in a London hospital for two weeks and could die from the rat poison slipped to him during a meal.
Remember Politskovaya said she had been poisoned on her way to Chechnya last year. And here is where the circle gets completed in this Russian web: Litvinenko had written a book saying Putin had authorized the bombings of apartment buildings in Chechnya which started the second Chechen war. Politskovskaya had been covering both wars and had always maintained that Putin was responsible for starting the second Chechen war.

Also there was the case of the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko, the current President of Ukraine. Yushcenko, who was the anti-Kremlin candidate in the election, was taken ill during the campaign in what was later diagnosed as poisoning. Yuschenko's face was disfigured from the poisoning and remains scarred today.

In the Tuesday Post, the editorial board takes a well deserved whack at Putin and his buddy Bush not to mention Tony Blair who all happened to be together this weekend, dressed in their finest Vietnamese wardrobes.

We trust that the British authorities will vigorously investigate the attack on Mr. Litvinenko -- who is now a British citizen -- and that Prime Minister Tony Blair will take seriously the possibility that a colleague in the Group of Eight sanctioned a political murder attempt in London.

I guess now I will never get to go to Russia after writing all this online. Oh well, at least I can continue to honor Anna Politskovskaya and share the news. Too bad Putin, you poisoner, I hope you are about to get caught with your hand in the rat poison.