Beyond The Fringe

With North Korea showing signs of being sorted by the 5 nation tag team, surely Russia isn’t being auditioned as its replacement on the Axis of Evul? Ongoing wars like those vociferously sought by Lon Cheney do require ongoing enemies.

Once again, the United Stupids are aggressing the Russkies despite protestations to the contrary. Do the Stupids really think North Korea would fire ICBMs over Europe when the quick route is in the opposite direction? Why would Iran, which doesn’t even have nuclear arms, fire at the Stupids over northern Europe? The Russkies have read the provocation correctly, and the Stupids must have known they would.

The new line of defence consists of a network of underground rocket silos in Poland and a radar system in the Czech Republic.

…

Moscow has also accused Washington of breaking its promise, made after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, not to deploy missiles in Russia’s former satellite states.

Here’s that not-so-subtle pressure from the US we forecast a few posts ago. Russia met this week with China and India.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Jiang Yu, emphasized in a statement that the three-party talks among Russia, India, and China were not directed against any fourth country (Interfax, Xinhua, February 15).

Russian officials sounded even more specific, saying they did not intend to alienate the West. Cooperation among Russia, China, and India is not directed against any other country, and it is definitely not anti-American, said Andrei Kokoshin, head of the CIS affairs committee of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. It also does not amount to an attempt to create a grouping of three major Asian powers, because all three countries advocate the democratization of global politics and the world economy, he said.

However, Moscow made it clear it would not accept the role of energy supplier to the booming economies of China and India. Trilateral economic cooperation should not involve only hydrocarbon supplies from Russia to China and India; it should also involve nuclear power, Kokoshin argued.

The nations also discussed Iran, all three agreeing that:

… the deadlock between the P5+ Germany and Iran can be resolved through dialogue within the ambit of the International Atomic Energy Agency …

“We have a convergence of approach on the Iranian issue.”

Following these talks, and possibly feeling its oats after the affirmation of multi-polarism and reassurance that any attempt by the US to create a war against Iran via the UN Security Council would be resisted by China too, Russia threatened to quit the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty unless the US reneged on its Polish/Czech missile shield plans.

Putin has said he does not trust US claims that the deployment of missile defense components in Europe was intended to counter missile threats from Iran, warning that Russia would take retaliatory actions.

Ivanov has rejected US arguments for deploying an anti-missile defence system in eastern Europe and insisted Russia would not be drawn into a Cold War-style arms race.

He also said Russia would upgrade its own defence systems to make sure its strategic arsenal was not rendered ineffective.”

Hmmm … sounds like some sort of arms race to us.

Nato has its own view.

… what Moscow really wanted was to be included in a European-wide anti-missile system.

“We are already talking to the Russians about co-operating on tactical missile defence for armies in the field,” said a senior Nato diplomat.”

Meanwhile, the Italians are attempting to prosecute the 26 CIA kidnappers of “Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared near his mosque in Milan on Feb. 17, 2003, says he was kidnapped. The cleric, known as Abu Omar, was freed this week from jail in Egypt, where he says he was taken and then tortured.”

Fat chance of extraditing them from Doodoo’s clutches. Yet the Italian proceedings will help highlight the prevalence throughout Europe of governments secretly colluding with the US in extraordinary renditions:

European parliamentary committee issued a detailed report into what it said were “at least” 1,245 secret C.I.A. flights in Europe, some of them involving extraordinary renditions. The report, which awaits approval by the Parliament, is particularly sensitive because it suggested forcibly that a number of governments knew of the flights.”

It may not be much longer before we can rename the United Stupids to the United States as the will of the people emerges through a viable Democratic opposition plan for disengagement in Iraq and the dismantlement of the heinous, degrading Doodoo torture facilities is proposed.

“Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on defense, will formally outline the Democrats’ plan today to antiwar groups agitating for binding action against the war. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a subcommittee member who helped arrange the Internet event, said the plan is aimed at tamping down calls from the Democrats’ liberal wing for Congress to simply end funding for the war.The Murtha plan, based on existing military guidelines, includes a stipulation that Army troops who have already served in Iraq must be granted two years at home before an additional deployment, Marines must be given 14 months at home, and any troops sent to Iraq must be those deemed fully trained and equipped under existing military standards. The idea is to slowly choke off the war by stopping the deployment of troops from units that have been badly degraded by four years of combat.

“They won’t be able to deploy troops unless they extend troops overseas. And if we limit the extension, then it’ll be very difficult for them to continue this surge, which the American people are against and the Iraqis don’t want,” Murtha said on yesterday National Public Radio.

The Democrats also intend to shut down the military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at Abu Ghraib near Baghdad by denying them funds, and to bar funds that would be used to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.

…

“The resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq that we passed in fall of 2002 was never intended to authorize the use of American troops to police a civil war,” Ramstad said.”

Not a moment too soon for the United Stupids to regain some appearance of democratic sanity. With criticism from Putin reaching a crescendo as Doodoo militarises countries adjoining Russia, the United Stupids may suffer more than a humiliating defeat in the Middle East if they continue to pursue the fundoneoziocontards’ escalation plans for extended military imperialism, which would play into OBL’s hands yet again.

Putin, monopolising on a sense of growth in Russian prestige, appears to be increasing his support for the plight of the illegally occupied Palestinian people.

During a meeting with Abbas at Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport, Putin welcomed the Mecca agreements and expressed hopes that the agreements will bring results and promote “formation of an efficient Palestinian government so that an appropriate climate could be established for the lifting of the siege against the Palestinians and for the opening of final status negotiations with the Israelis.”

“The achievement of these goals will create conditions for the lift of the blockade and further steps towards comprehensive settlement of the relations with Israel.”

Putin has also indicated his support for Saudia’s nuclear power plans. As arch-ziotard Netanyahoo preens himself for a new assault on Israhell’s top job, these two moves by Putin seem sure to ignite the Zionista lobby who will in turn pressure the United Stupids to confront Russian influence firmly.

Here’s an excellent essay on what the very near future may look like in a world dominated by a dwindling supply of oil and a thirst for nuclear power.

Michael Klare examines “energy blackmail in a great-power world and the Big-Brother-style dangers of making nuclear power a major future alternative source of energy.”

An excerpt:

“Surprisingly, there are very few energy haves in the world today. Most notable among these privileged few are Australia, Canada, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq (if it were ever free of conflict), and a few others. These countries are in an envious position because they do not have to pay stratospheric prices for imported oil and natural gas and their ruling elites can demand all sorts of benefits — political, economic, diplomatic, and military — from the foreign leaders who come calling to procure copious quantities of their energy products. Indeed, they can engage in the delicious game of playing one foreign leader against another, as Kazakhstan’s President, Nursultan Nazarbayev

– a regular guest in Washington and Beijing — has become so adept at doing.

Pushed even further, this pursuit of favors can lead to a quest for political domination — with the sale of vital oil and natural gas supplies made contingent on the recipient’s acquiescing to certain political demands set forth by the seller. No country has embraced this strategy with greater vigor or enthusiasm than Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”

Although Lugovoy has insisted that the meeting with himself, Kovtun and Sokolenko and Litvinenko occurred after Litvinenko’s rendevous with Scaramella at Itsu, it seems the timeline is being fixed by the media despite Scotland Yard not having released an “official timeline.”

“Investigations in Britain have focused on the Pine Bar at London’s Millennium Hotel, where Litvinenko held a morning meeting over tea and gin with three fellow Russians on Nov. 1 — the day he fell ill.

Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said police were testing a teacup and dishwasher at the hotel for signs of radiation.

Andrei Lugovoi, also an ex-Soviet agent, Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, the head of a private Russian security firm, joined the meeting in the hotel’s intimate, blond oak-paneled bar.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16122363/page/2/

Regardless whether the Millenium Hotel meeting preceded Itsu or otherwise, according to the Times, Litvinenko *still* went straight to Berezovsky’s office after Itsu.

“The documents passed between Scaramella and Litvinenko at Itsu also appear to have been contaminated.

After the meal, the Russian hurried to Berezovsky’s nearby office where he appeared, according to a well-informed source, in an “agitated” state.
He showed the documents to Berezovsky, who skimmed through them and passed them to a colleague. Litvinenko then photocopied them. Tests later found traces of radiation on the photocopying machine.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2484295_5,00.html

Why wasn’t Berezovsky contaminated? Everyone else who was associated with Litvinenko that day became contaminated including 7 staff at the Millenium Hotel, yet Berezovsky is apparently clean despite supposedly “skimming through” the contaminated documents.

Luguvoy has also worked for Berezovsky.

“Both men served in the KGB but did not know each other at the time. They met in 1996, by which time Mr Lugovoi was working as head of security for ORT, a television channel owned by the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Mr Litvinenko was also employed by the billionaire.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KWBSCAZDEKIZRQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/11/24/npoison224.xml

There’s been skulduggery in the past at ORT:

“Georgian tycoon, close associate of Boris Berezovskii. Cf. Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin, 262: “Often Berezovskii acted in Chechnya through Badri Patarkatsishvili, the Logovaz partner who, according to the Russian security services, had long served as the company’s primary intermediary with organized crime groups.” Klebnikov reports (161, cf. 331) that Moscow police heard in early 1995 from a gangster that “he had been approached by Berezovsky’s aide, Badri, with a contract for Listyev’s assassination.” (In February 1995 Listyev, the director of Russia’s most important TV network ORT, was shot dead in his apartment building.)”

http://www.satyacenter.com/news-alt_news-drugs-911

Did Luguvoy know too much? was he involved in the above assassination or does he have critical information about it?

Additionally, as evidenced in this 2005 article, Berezovsky has plenty of motive for discrediting Putin.

“Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel’s point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as “the Godfather of the Oligarchs’ and Kingmaker of Russia’s Politics’” and reports Berezovsky’s statement that “Putin’s Russia is dangerous for Israel.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html

COMMENTS FROM OLD HC BLOG:

Fringe:

Was Litvinenko poisoned more than once? If the source of contamination was the document which Scaramella gave him, possibly not. Litvinenko would however have been poisoned each time he read/touched the document. Still don’t know whether Litvinenko was a smoker though.

“The battle to besmirch or lionise the memory of Mr Litvinenko came as Scotland Yard detectives were investigating whether the former KGB lieutenant-colonel was the victim of multiple attacks on 1 November ­ the day he fell ill. The Independent has learnt that toxicology tests have revealed two separate “spikes” of polonium-210 contamination, indicating that he was attacked twice.

Detectives believe that Mr Litvinenko could have been targeted at the Itsu sushi restaurant, where he met the Italian academic Mario Scaramella, and the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, where he met two Russian business contacts ­ Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun. Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun have also been contaminated with polonium-210 and are suffering from radiation sickness in a Moscow hospital.”

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2060070.ece

“Evidence that a PR counter-attack was under way came in lengthy tape recordings broadcast by Channel One of conversations between Mr Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch who was the former spy’s ally and financial sponsor. The recordings sought to suggest that Mr Litvinenko was inventing allegations that would help his patron in return for “a fee” . The programme, The Person and The Law, alleged that Mr Berezovsky had cut his monthly allowance to the former agent from £5,000 to £1,500 and he had money problems.”

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2060070.ece

“Mr Lugovoi, who had previously shied away from all publicity, went so far as to hold a televised press conference to issue his denial of any involvement in Mr Litvinenko’s murder and promptly took his family off to be tested for exposure to the radioactive isotope.

He said afterwards: “Traces were found even on my children and on my wife. To think that I would handle the stuff and put them at risk is simply ludicrous.”"

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2060004.ece

“For the next three years, Mr Lugovoi became a vital part of Mr Berezovsky’s empire, recruiting to his security operation former KGB colleagues such as Vyacheslav Sokolenko, who was also among those who travelled to London.

When Mr Berezovsky suddenly fell out of favour and fled to Britain in 2000, Mr Lugovoi was caught in the backlash. In 2002, he was jailed for 14 months on charges related to unproven fraud allegations against his former employer.

The perception that Mr Lugovoi has “done time” for Mr Berezovsky has been highlighted as one reason why his involvement in the murder of Mr Litvinenko, a close ally of the oligarch, is unlikely.

But the Yard is understood to be looking closely at the theory that Mr Lugovoi, whether with his knowledge or not, was used as a cover by Mr Litvinenko’s assassins.

The two men met 13 times in London this year to discuss various business ventures and swap intelligence, including at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair on 1 November, the date when Mr Litvinenko fell ill.

The traces of polonium-210 found in Mr Lugovoi and at various locations such as Arsenal’s Emirates stadium, where Mr Lugovoi and his partner, Dmitry Kovtun, watched a match with CSKA Moscow on 1 November, could emanate from contact with Mr Litvinenko on that day.

But there is also evidence the polonium was in London for at least a week before 1 November and could have been brought into Britain by a member of Mr Lugovoi’s party on a previous trip. A British Airways flight and five rooms in a hotel, the Sheraton Park Lane, used by Mr Lugovoi and his party on 25 October have tested positive for polonium-210.

Mr Lugovoi has said: “Someone is trying to set me up.”"

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2060004.ece

” By 1994, Berezovsky had moved beyond dependence on mobster protection. He had forged a more potent alliance by paying for the publication of Boris Yeltsin’s memoirs, thus gaining entree to the inner circle around the grateful author/president. This court was populated with strange figures, such as the “hippie journalist” Valentin Yumashev, through whom Berezovsky obtained his entree; Yeltsin’s tennis coach, who ran a large criminal empire of his own from a Kremlin office; not to mention Alexander Korzhakov, for a while the powerful chief of Yeltsin’s Praetorian guard who later reported that Berezovsky had asked him to kill a business rival. Korzhakov performed great services to history by his assiduous bugging of everyone’s phones, leaking the tapes when it seemed useful, and by his forthcoming reminiscences once he had fallen from his master’s graces.

Once inside “the family,” Berezovsky masterfully parlayed political connections into cash. Key to his modus operandi was the realization (shared by many of his peers in the rising business oligarchy) that it was not necessary to control a business, simply its cash flow. In a remarkably candid 1996 interview with Klebnikov he termed this approach the “privatization of profit” A fascinating chapter lays out in detail, complete with the transcripts of bugged phone Calls, how this method was successfully applied to the looting of Aeroflot, the formerly profitable state airline. Thanks in part to the appointment of Yeltsin’s son-in-law as the company’s head, Berezovsky was able to siphon off huge chunks of Aeroflot’s considerable hard currency earnings through a series of shell companies in Switzerland.

From aviation, Berezovsky moved on to the really big money in Russia–oil. His entry into the oil business was facilitated by the most egregious of all the great ripoffs that have charactarized post-Soviet Russia, the “loans for shares” scheme by which our hero and his fellow oligarchs helped themselves to priceless chunks of the country’s resources, for pennies on the dollar, in return for financing Yeltsin’s re-election in 1996. Following that free, but hardly fair, election, the godfathers increased his political profile, taking various high-level government posts (without of course ceasing his business operations for a second). It was at this time that his interest in Chechen matters re-emerged, in the form of lavish ransom payments to kidnappers in Chechnya for the retrieval of their victims. Klebnikov points out that this flow of money to the gangs in the devastated territory effectively made it impossible for the elected Chechen leader to stabilize his country. The consequent anarchy, culminating in the invasion of Dagestan in the summer of 1999 by fundamentalist Islamist Chechens, provided the backdrop for the second Chechen war and the rise to power of Vladimir Putin. Klebnikov suspends judgment as to whether any of the leadership in Moscow had a hand in the terrorist bombings in the capital that provided the final pretext for the invasion of Chechnya last year, although George Soros has been less demure, heavily hinting in an article in the New York Review of Books that Berezovsky deliberately fomented the war in furtherance of his political intrigues.”

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_10_32/ai_66495297

http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/secchech/secchech.htm
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2002/0709.htm
http://iwpr.net/?p=crs&s=f&o=159404&apc_state=henicrs2002
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/63/251.html
http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/8359-13.cfm

“Last Sunday, The Observer carried an allegation by a Russian woman named Julia Svetlichnaya that Mr Litvinenko was a blackmailer. She went on television yesterday to repeat her claim that he had planned to blackmail an unnamed Russian oligarch.

Ms Svetlichnaya is believed to have been employed as communications manager for Russian Investors, a state-owned agency in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. Her name was removed from the company website on Sunday.

Mr Zakayev hit back at the newspaper allegation and said: “I can unequivocally state that Alexander Litvinenko has never, under any circumstances, tried to blackmail anyone. Everything that he knew, all the information that he had, he published in the two books that he wrote, in the press or on the internet.” ”

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2060057.ece

Very suss and a possible black mark on Putin.

A new story just come out with some Russian commentary.

“Experts have said that as little as three millicuries (a microscopic dose) of polonium-210 is enough to kill, and the cost of producing such a dose is about one million dollars. Mr Litvinenko’s autopsy is said to have revealed that the dose he ingested would have cost closer to $40 million to produce.

…

Before his fateful meeting at the Pine Bar, Mr Litvinenko also met with Italian security consultant Mario Scaramella for lunch at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly. Mr Scaramella had arranged the meeting to warn Mr Litvinenko that his life was in danger, based on information he had received via email. Mr Scaramella later suffered a brief illness and was admitted to hospital, where he was found to have ingested “significant amounts” of polonium-210. His condition improved and he has been released. Meanwhile, no traces of the substance have been detected in either the Itsu restaurant’s staff or premises.

Vladimir Simonov, a political commentator for the Russian News and Information Agency Novosti has questioned the murder/assassination theory in the Litvinenko poisoning. He argues that $40 million is high for any professional hit, and that Mr Litvinenko posed no real threat to the Russian government. Moreover, polonium-210 leaves an easily detectable radioactive trail that leads back to operatives and the original source.

Mr Simonov believes Mr Litvinenko may have been smuggling polonium-210 because he “badly needed money”, “made a bit on the side by smuggling toxic isotopes”, and “wanted to earn from the transaction”. Mr Simonov also states that on the day of his poisoning, Mr Litvinenko visited Boris Berezovsky, an exiled Russian businessman and “key wheeler and dealer of the Yeltsin era”, and left traces of the radioactive isotope in Mr Berezovsky’s office.

Apart from accidental self-contamination, Mr Simonov further suggests that Mr Litvinenko may have been murdered by Mr Berezovsky because he “knew too much” about fraud charges pending in Russia and “posed a threat to the exiled oligarch”. He said a memorandum of cooperation between Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General and Scotland Yard does not bode well for Mr Berezovsky, who may have figured that “a dead acquaintance is better than a living friend who talks too much”.

In an alternative scenario, Mr Simonov cites a recent television broadcast in Russia in which Mr Litvinenko was linked with “an underground London laboratory where a dirty nuclear bomb was being made for Chechen terrorists”. He also states that: (1) “One of Litvinenko´s close friends was Akhmed Zakayev, the former commander of Chechen fighters, whom Russian prosecutors want to see in Moscow in connection with cases of murder and torture in Chechnya”; and (2) “About two years ago, Berezovsky told the world that Chechen separatists had acquired a portable nuclear bomb and lacked only one minor detail. That “minor detail” could be polonium-210.””

http://www.bayoubuzz.com/articles.aspx?aid=9070

So what was the method of delivery of the polonium to Litvinenko?

It seems he did leave his food to visit the loo during the meal at Itsu.

“A waitress at the Itsu restaurant said Litvinenko had been served sushi in a sealed box, but that he did leave it to visit the toilet.

Scotland Yard pinpointed the Sushi bar after tracking the former KGB agent’s movements from his home in Muswell Hill, north London.

By using information from his mobile phone records, Oyster travel card and CCTV footage, detectives plotted his route through London to Piccadilly tube station.

Locations along the way have been tested for radiation contamination, but all proved negative.

Ela Malek, 22, a Polish waitress who said she served Litvinenko, told the Sun he arrived alone before being joined by a man - Scaramella. She was convinced Litvinenko’s meal could only have been spiked after it was presented to him.

“The food is prepared in the kitchen and is put in a box with a clear lid, which is sealed with a label.”

“I know everyone in the kitchen and there’s no way they would be involved in this. Once the box is sealed it is taken straight to the customer.”

“At one time I think Litvinenko went to the toilet, leaving his food on the table. I suppose anyone could have slipped something in then.”

This NZ story at least gets the timeline right, as opposed to the Times and BBC.

The 12 locations where traces of contamination have been discovered:

* Itsu sushi restaurant, Piccadilly - Believed to be where Litvinenko was poisoned with radioactive Polonium 210. Litvinenko met Mario Scaramella, an Italian academic, for a meal on November 1, the day he fell ill.

* Millennium Hotel, Grosvenor Square - After the sushi meal Litvinenko met two Russian contacts - Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard who runs a security company, and a man named Andrei Lugovo. (My comment: There were supposedly three men there - Lugovoi and two business associates, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko.)

* Litvinenko’s home, Muswell Hill, north London - Accommodation provided by Boris Berezovsky, an exiled Russian millionaire and critic of President Putin.

* A car in Muswell Hill, north London - Used by a neighbour of Litvinenko to take him to hospital.

* Barnet General Hospital - Several hours after his meetings on November 1, Litvinenko complained of feeling sick and was admitted to the hospital in north London.

* University College Hospital - On November 18 Litvinenko was transferred to the hospital in central London as his condition deteriorated.

* 25 Grosvenor St - Traces of Polonium 210 have been found at this address which houses the headquarters of international security company Erinys, visited by Litvinenko. (My comment: Erinys has associations with Haliburton)

* 58 Grosvenor St - Office buildings found to be contaminated, not clear what links with Litvinenko.

* 7 Down St - Traces of Polonium 210 found in the office of Berezovsky. (My comment: Lugovoy went there.)

* Sheraton Hotel, Park Lane - Low level radioactive contamination found at the five-star hotel. One of Litvinenko’s contacts is thought to have visited there. (My comment: Luguvoy has admitted this and says he’s being framed - Lugovoy may have been contaminated from Oct 25)

* Low levels of radioactive traces found on two grounded British Airways Boeing 767 aircraft at Heathrow.

Berezovsky has thrown the scent toward Lugovoy. Lugovoy says he’s being framed.

Whilst the intrigue of Litvinenko’s poisoning ti-tillates and frightens the British public, the Great Game continues quietly and malevolently elsewhere.

Note that if the Litvinenko affair is an attempt to discredit Putin and to restrict Russia’s power on both negotiations on supply of energy to Europe and sanctions on Iran, this would be an ideal time for Cheney to attempt his coup de grace. Cheney does have connections with Scaramella via the Environmental Crime Prevention Program (ECPP) cum black ops front Washington-based organisation which Scaramella heads.

Ugly it is, but quite credible considering the criminal machinations emanating in the past few years from the Cheney clique. Machiavelli has nothing on Cheney. Divide and conquer and perpetuate eternal war to bolster the only industry keeping the United Stupids afloat financially - armaments.

From : http://www.omidyar.net/group/community-general/news/445/703/

“A well-placed and highly reliable source has provided the following account of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Nov. 25, 2006 visit to Saudi Arabia. The report coincides with other evidence of a scheme to induce the United States to self-destruct. While the source may have missed some elements of the picture emerging from the Cheney visit, the essential details appear to be accurate.

1. The essential message delivered to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah by Vice President Cheney was that there is no basis for dialogue with Iran. The U.S. position in the region has been weakened, and therefore a new security architecture must be established, particularly in the Persian Gulf, to contain and counter Iran’s growing influence. Already, NATO has been in dialogue with Qatar and Kuwait, in pursuit of closer, upgraded cooperation. Cheney proposed to establish a new regional balance of power, through a Sunni Arab alliance with Israel, to confront the Iranian threat. Cheney argued that to negotiate with Iran at this time would be tantamount to surrender. A new military organization will be built, involving the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Egypt, and Jordan. NATO and the United States will be closely involved, and Israel will be a de facto participant. These moves led by Cheney obviously aim to preempt adoption by the Bush Administration of any recommendations from the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, to initiate diplomatic talks with Iran.

2. Cheney took the lead in proposing this new security architecture. There is, at this point, a consensus inside the Bush Administration to pursue this policy. When President Bush arrives later this week in Amman, Jordan, to meet with Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki, he may also hold secret talks with several senior Syrian officials. In that meeting, President Bush will bluntly offer Syria the opportunity to break its ties to Iran and join in the emerging Sunni Arab bloc.

3. The approach to Syria coincides with a major effort, within Lebanon, to force Michel Aoun to break his alliance with Hezbollah, in the wake of the assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel. Over the weekend, there was a meeting of leading Maronites, sponsored by Patriarch Sfeir, aimed at tightening the pressure on Aoun to break with Hezbollah, and join a Sunni Arab, Christian, Druze coalition to counter Hezbollah’s power. Were the Syrians to accept the Bush offer (highly unlikely), they would be expected to pressure Hezbollah to disarm, as a condition for negotiations to get the Golan Heights back from Israel.

4. Condi Rice’s planned meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert is aimed at kick-starting the Israeli-Palestinian talks. But the key to the Israeli policy will be to complete the construction of the wall, and to build similar walls of separation along the border with Lebanon. The argument is that both Hamas and Hezbollah represent extensions of Iran’s influence into the areas bordering on Israel, and they must be contained. The “peace” offer being put on the table will center on these walls of separation.

5. Iran is already aware of these Cheney-led initiatives. While Arab governments will assume that Iran will react and respond to the attempt to create this Sunni Arab-U.S.-Israel security architecture to confront Iran by playing for sectarian conflict in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere, sources caution that Iran is taking a more sophisticated view. Recurring statements by President Ahmadinejad are calculated to instigate an Israeli attack on Iran’s purported nuclear weapons sites. Iran anticipates some kind of attack on these sites–either by the United States or Israel. Iran would prefer an Israeli attack for several reasons. First, the U.S. has far more significant military capabilities to strike Iran than Israel does. Second, any Israeli attack on a Muslim country would trigger a revolt on the Arab streets. Iran carefully studied the response of the population throughout the Persian Gulf and Arab world to the Israeli attacks on Lebanon this summer. They anticipate massive Arab support, across the sectarian Shi’ite-Sunni divide, for Iran, in the event of an Israeli strike.”

Was it an assassination or suicide? If an assassination, who had the most to gain from Litvinenko’s death?

Britain’s intelligence agencies last night claimed that the poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko bore the hallmarks of a “state-sponsored” assassination.

A senior Whitehall official told The Times that confirmation that the former Russian spy, who had become a British citizen, had been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 and other evidence so far not released pointed to the murder being carried out by foreign agents.

…

Cobra, the Cabinet’s emergency security committee, met yesterday after toxicologists confirmed that the 43-year-old former KGB colonel had a large dose of alpha radiation in his body. The committee chaired by John Reid, the Home Secretary, considered the risk to the public after the discovery of radioactive material in a Central London sushi bar and at the Millennium Hotel, near the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, where Mr Litvinenko held meetings on November 1. Radioactive traces were also found at his family home in Muswell Hill, North London.

The quantity of polonium-210 used could only have been obtained from a nuclear instillation, scientific experts said.

…

Security sources said that MI5 and MI6 were engaged in a “joint enterprise” with Scotland Yard in what was “an unprecedented death” in Britain. Anti-terror squad Continuedetectives refused to say where the deadly element was placed, or in what quantities they found it at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly or the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, where the dissident met two Russians on November 1.

…

Mr Putin interrupted preparations for an EU/Russia summit in Helsinki to deny involvement. He criticised Mr Litvinenko’s entourage, the media, the British secret service and even the Italian Mafia. He claimed that the letter accusing him of being “barbaric and ruthless” was a forgery concocted by Mr Litvinenko’s wife and father: “If this note was produced before the death of Mr Litvinenko, I wonder why it was not published when he was alive?”

COMMENTS FROM THE OLD HC BLOG:

technologist:

“quantity of polonium-210 used could only have been obtained from a nuclear installation”

As far as I know, one can buy about 10% of lethal dose of Po-210 online for $30-70. I therefore doubt taht a nuclear reactor is necessary. More likely, KGB used a credit card.

Fringe:

Interesting thanks for that insight.

The plot thickens with a connection to Israeli ex Yukos CEO Nevlin. Nevlin is wanted by the Russian authorities.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/792436.html

“Mr Lugovoi said there was no Vladimir at the meeting, which he said lasted between 20 minutes and half an hour. He identified the second Russian as Dmitry Kovtun, a business associate whom he said he had introduced to Mr Litvinenko the previous month.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KWBSCAZDEKIZRQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/11/24/npoison224.xml

“Dmitry Kovtun, Managing Partner, is responsible for business development, company strategy and marketing. Prior to joining VFBS Dmitry worked at Gazprom and the Alfa Group.”

http://www.vfbs.ru/team.htm

More about Nevzlin:

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

About Litvinenko’s career:

“By 1997 his department, ostensibly in charge of the fight against organised crime, was, in his words, “responsible for illegal punishments or so-called extra-legal executions of “unsuitable” businessmen, politicians and other public figures. In parallel, the department blackmailed the same targets for funds.”"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=X5SDP41MSK5KDQFIQMGSFGGAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2006/11/25/npoison225.xml

xcellent commentary and revelations here:

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko.html

Berezovsky in the past has implicated himself as desiring the overthrow of the democratically elected Russian government by force.

And

“Mr Berezovsky, as we all know, is Machiavelli’s Prince in living form, a notorious manipulator who once pulled the strings at the Kremlin.”

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/litvinenko-poisoning-continued-it-pays.html

Scaramella is a shadowy character whose previous pronouncements have proved unreliable and odd.

As well

“The finger of blame has been pointed at the Russian government without a shred of evidence and when there are other parties who wish to see regime change in that country who might possess the means, motives and willing candidates to mount a risky smear campaign against Vladimir Putin.
A carefully orchestrated public relations campaign appears to have taken place, with the assistance of one the UK’s leading PR men; a man who appears to have had a long and close association with a person who wishes the democratically elected government of a friendly foreign power overthrown by force.”

“Mr Scaramella, who is involved in an Italian parliamentary inquiry into Russian secret service activity, said they met because he wanted to discuss an e-mail he had received.”

“By the same token Scaramella presumably had no access either to Litvinenko’s home or to the hotel where he met Lugovoi.
Of course neither might be ruled out as members of a conspiracy - but that’s a slightly different thing from being a poisoner.
Which leaves the question - who did have access to Litvinenko’s home? And to the sushi bar? And to the hotel? ”

Berezovsky owned the house in which Litvinenko lived.

“There are few trails which do not lead back to Mr. Berezovsky. The 60 year old- who is wanted in Russia on charges of fraud - finances a number of Russian factions who want Mr. Putin out of the Kremlin.
Nowhere is this more evident than in a quiet, residential street in North London.
On one side of the road is the £500,000 Litvinenko family home, where the former KGB man lives with his wife and 12 year old son.
Almost opposite is the £700,000 home of Akhmed Zakayev, who was one deputy prime minister of Chechnya and has been granted political asylum here.
Zakayev and Litvinenko would once have been deadly enemies but now, united in opposition to Mr. Putin, they are close friends.
The Land Registry shows that both their homes are owned by companies based in the British Virgin Islands - both of which are believed to be controlled by Mr. Berezovsky, who has much to gain by their occupants’ anti-Putin stance.
He gains, too, from the claims that Mr. Putin tried to kill Mr. Litvinenko. To gain maximum benefit, Mr. Berezovsky has hired Margaret Thatcher’s former chief spin doctor Lord Bell to handle the publicity.”

Another involved fellow:

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/litvinenko-poisoning-continued-it-pays.html

“And the ubiquitous Alex Goldfarb, so often described as Litvinenko’s ‘close friend’, is in fact the chairman of Berezovsky’s Civil Liberties Foundation (I would post a direct link to its website, but I can’t find one), who once indicated that he was ‘not sick and tired of being Berezovsky’s right hand’.”

Then there’s the Bush connection:

“Oddly one cannot find any reference to any comment from either Berezovsky, Goldfarb or Litvinenko in relation to Berezovsky’s having been declared persona non grata in Latvia after he visited the country - allegedly as a ‘business adviser’ to Ignite Learning, the educational software company run by Neil Bush; brother of George W. of that ilk.”

“On January 26 2006, Agence France Presse quoted Boris Berezovsky as follows -
“President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action onthe opposition’s part is justified today, and that includes takingpower by force, which is exactly what I am working at,” the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, told AFPat his Piccadilly office.
For the past 18 months, “we have been preparing to take power by force in Russia,” he said, claiming he would finance this with a fortune that had “tripled” over the last five years to billions of dollars.”
There is no reason why this man’s claim to be planning the overthrow of a friendly foreign power’s democratically elected government should not be taken seriously.
He might have much to gain by smearing Vladimir Putin for having ordered the attack on Alexander Litvinenko.
At the very least his asylum status should be reviewed.
And one must ask - given their closeness to Berezovsky, have Goldfarb, who appears to be an American citizen, Litvinenko, now a British citizen, and Zakayev, like Berezovsky a recipient of the United Kingdom’s asylum, all been aware of and perhaps involved in his parapolitical plans?”

“Until recently, news stories about the international backers for Neil Bush’s firm Ignite! have focused on Taiwanese businessmen, and Middle East billionaires, such as Defense Minister and Crown Prince of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.[92] But it was a surprise to learn in September 2005 that “Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky was in Riga along with Neil Bush, the brother of the U.S. president, to discuss an educational project with Latvian businessmen.”[93] In an interview with Interfax, “Berezovsky pointed out that he is one of the shareholders of Ignite! Inc., an educational software company. U.S. President George W. Bush’s brother Neil Bush is the company’s chairman and chief executive.”[94]”

“Much remains to be learned about Far West, Ltd., its personnel, and the American firm which co-founded it. Reportedly it was founded in 1998; and already had Surikov and Saidov as directors when they attended the meeting in Khashoggi’s villa in July 1999.

I suspect myself that the meeting did indeed have to do with destabilizing Russia, as Dunlop claimed. But I believe also that the group at the meeting was more concerned with facilitating drug-trafficking than with strengthening the Kremlin. I believe further that they also discussed the Russian presence in Kosovo, and the imminent increase in the flow of Afghan drugs through Kosovo.”

“Georgian tycoon, close associate of Boris Berezovskii. Cf. Klebnikov, Godfather of the Kremlin, 262: “Often Berezovskii acted in Chechnya through Badri Patarkatsishvili, the Logovaz partner who, according to the Russian security services, had long served as the company’s primary intermediary with organized crime groups.” Klebnikov reports (161, cf. 331) that Moscow police heard in early 1995 from a gangster that “he had been approached by Berezovsky’s aide, Badri, with a contract for Listyev’s assassination.” (In February 1995 Listyev, the director of Russia’s most important TV network ORT, was shot dead in his apartment building.)”

http://www.satyacenter.com/news-alt_news-drugs-911

“Forum.msk.ru belongs to a group of former officers and agents of the Soviet military intelligence (GRU) whose leader is said to be Ret. Leutenant-Colonel Vladimir Ilyich Filin. The group’s business face is the “consulting” agency Far West, LLC (formerly Far West, Ltd). It controls a number of periodicals, including the “nationalist” weekly Zavtra (chief editor Alexander Prokhanov) and the Moscow Institute for Globalization Studies whose director is the prominent Russian leftist Boris Kagarlitsky. In the last three years this group, which also includes the former Luthunian defense minister Audrius Butkevicius, has been alleged in press to be an organized criminal society, involved in narcotrafficking, illegal arms trade, ties with Western and Saudi intelligence, and subversive activities against Russia. The main sources of these allegations were the former officer of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) Sergei Petrov (aka Serge Rodin) and the officer of Russian military counterintelligence Armen Sarkisian who in the spring of 2005 provided over fifty pages of information on the activities and the background of the group’s leaders to the investigative group burtsev.ru. Petrov was killed in South Africa in January 2004. Sarkisian was killed and his counterintelligence unit dissolved in July 2005. Since then several anonymous author(s) have occasionally used forum.msk.ru to post bits of information on the activities of Filin’s group. The internal evidence of this information suggests that it may come from some elements in Russian secret services or/and the group’s competitors.”

http://www.left.ru/burtsev/ops/filinnervous.phtml

Putin does not benefit. Boris Abramovich Berezovsky does and so does Israel, which has been itching to unleash American firepower on Iran, and has only been held back by Putin.

What evidence is there that Putin has done anything illegal? None. In fact Putin has stood up for the law - international law - when Britain and its master the US rode roughshod over it, the end result of which has been the utter destruction and disintegration of the most advanced Arab state, 650,000 of whose citizens have been murdered by the Western criminals who have the chutzpah to stand in judgment over Russia without a shred of evidence.

Now let’s talk about Boris Berezovsky and his top - and now mercifully dead - henchman Alex Litvinenko. Forbes magazine’s Moscow editor Paul Klebnikov, the world’s leading expert on Yeltsin-era Russian robber barons like Berezovsky, wrote a book called GODFATHER OF THE KREMLIN: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia. Klebnikov described how Berezovsky colluded with the Chechen mafia to take control of the capital and the Yeltsin government, sometimes fighting street battles with the Russian mafia alliance trying to drive the Chechens out.

He showed how Berezovsky helped start the second Chechen war by financing Basayev’s wahhabi terrorist army through a money-for-hostages deal inspired by Ollie North’s shenanigans with Iran and Hezbollah.

Litvinenko was Putin’s appointee to the FSB directorate charged with preventing the infiltration of mafiosi like Berezovsky into Russian intelligence. Litvinenko instead ensured that Berezovsky had full access to the FSB, and finally resigned when his cover was blown, immediately afterward becoming Berezovsky’s employee.

Berezovsky was at that time trying to acquire complete control of Russia’s Channel One TV station to complete his full-spectrum supremacy over Russian media. One man, ORT’s (Channel One) director and popular anchorman Vlad Listyev, stood against him. Berezovsky had him shot. Litvinenko then became “head of security” at ORT.

Paul Klebnikov, the Forbes aditor, was painstakingly gathering the facts about this latest crime of the mafia boss Berezovsky when he too was shot.

The Chechen warlord who ordered his murder - by Chechen hit men - was a former Chechen mafia leader-turned-terrorist who had worked for Berezovsky as a “security chief” and as a manager of one of his car dealerships.

Litvinenko was the guy that Berezovsky recruited from the FSB so that he wouldn’t have to call the Chechen slimebags and haggle over the hit contracts himself.”

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1957385,00.html

“Mikhail Chernoy’s brother Lev has been a prime target of the Swiss investigation into the Russian Mafiya since he attempted to take over the Russian aluminum industry—allegedly with the assistance of Marc Rich. Also, according to Robinson, Swiss investigators believe that Lev Chernoy has ties with the Mega-linked “Russian oligarch” Boris Berezovsky, who is accused of siphoning $200 million in hard currency out of Aeroflot accounts and into Switzerland. Both Chernoy and Berezovsky are suspected of involvement with the Bank of New York, which laundered billions of dollars in hard currency and state assets out of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. According to Robinson, the person behind many of these murky deals was Likud campaign contributor Grigori Loutchansky. A recent international law enforcement probe of the Bank of New York operations has turned up evidence that Marc Rich was a silent partner of Loutchansky’s in the Nordex operations, which started out as a KGB money-laundering front in the late 1980s.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1113.htm

http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=17653

“Interpol Unblocks Warrants
23rd May 2006
The Associated Press

PARIS — Interpol has backed Russian arrest warrants for self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky and several other criminal suspects wanted in Russia, Itar-Tass reported.

Deputy Interior Minister Andrei Novikov said Interpol’s move would provide Russia with “additional arguments for nations giving shelter to those who are being sought,” Itar-Tass reported late Thursday.

An official at Interpol’s Paris headquarters said in a telephone interview that the agency had just ended the legal review of its so-called “red notices” related to Russia — Interpol notifications to member countries that the country in question has issued an arrest warrant.

The legal review of the notices, conducted following a legal challenge, has concluded that there are no problems with them, said the Interpol official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said that the hold on the notices was therefore lifted. The official would not say on what basis the Russian warrants had been challenged.

Itar-Tass said the Interpol red notices referred to Berezovsky, his associate Yuly Dubov, Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin, Yukos chief legal expert Mikhail Gololobov and Menatep bank department head Natalya Chernysheva.”

The media is painting Putin black - no mention that Nevzlin has been wanted by Interpol in today’s Times story.

“A dossier drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin’s takeover of the world’s richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard today as police investigate the former KGB spy’s secret dealings with some of Russia’s richest men.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Litvinenko travelled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company.

He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $40 billion (£21 billion) company.

Mr Nevzlin told The Times that it was his “duty” to pass on the file. “Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Government’s direct participation,” he said.

“He only recently gave me and my attorneys documents that shed light on the most significant aspects of the Yukos affair.”

Investigators have told The Times that Mr Litvinenko had apparently uncovered “startling” new material about the Yukos affair and what happened to those opposing the forced break-up of the company.

Several figures linked with Yukos are reported to have disappeared or died in mysterious circumstances while its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and others have been jailed.

Originally it was Mr Litvinenko’s vocal opposition to President Putin’s rule that led to accusations of Russia’s secret service involvement in his death, but police are investigating whether he made enemies through his links with a number of oligarchs.

Detectives involved in what they admit is one of the most complicated inquiries Scotland Yard has faced say that they are working through Mr Litvinenko’s formidable list of friends and foes, which includes some of the world’s wealthiest men.

One figure close to the investigation said: “At present we have a bewildering number of theories and names put to us, and we must establish some firm evidence.””

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,170-2473385,00.html

Does Litvinenko’s death give Berezovsky & Nevzlin an opportunity to exonerate themselves? How will the police authenticate the documents given to them by Nevzlin?

Planted, accidental, or a definite clue to the villain?

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,,1958709,00.html

“Detectives have found traces of polonium 210 at the London offices of the exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, it was revealed last night.

…

Sources confirmed that traces of polonium 210 had been found at the address. Mr Berezovsky, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, refused to comment yesterday on the revelations. “I don’t want to comment anything about it,” he told the Guardian. “I don’t know anything about police at my office.”"

First he wasn’t, and now he is.

More info on this colourful individual here:

http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2006/11/19/20439/209

Make sure to read the comments in the above link - lots of tasty stuff about Litvinenko’s past.

http://ukipuncovered.blogspot.com/

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko.html

It’s looking more and more to me like a Russian mafia plot set up to discredit Putin.

Lots of motives and lots of characters with shadowy track records of fraud and murder.

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/19/20439/209/16?mode=alone;showrate=1#16

“Why Litvinenko is being called a “spy”? NPR today also used “spy”. He was working as investigator in Organized Crime Division of FSB (same as FBI investigator in the US context) where he got via the prison guard service.

At some point he seemed to realize that his career in FSB was over, as, among other things, he was under Internal Affairs investigation for beating and torture of detainees, warrantless searches and explosive trafficking allegations. That’s when he participated in political combination of Berezovsky, who at that time was one of the people effectively running the country. Berezovsky was concerned that some of the branches of the government were not enough under his control and manufactured a scandal that should have brought FSB in line.

Litvinenko and few of his fellow officers called the press conference alledging that his FSB management ordered a hit on Berezovsky. Since then courts recognized his allegations as false, but the end result was that after Berezovsky’s talk with Yeltsin Organized Crime Division was disbanded and FSB got a new head (Putin, then little known).

Litvinenko got his 1 million $ for this press conference (as alledged by the officers who participated in this conference with him), was arrested following Internal Affairs investigation results and the moment he was released left for UK, where he got political (???) asylum. Courts eventually recognized him as guilty but free on probation, so at the moment he is not even wanted in Russia.

I really doubt that he was a “friend” of Politkovskaya, and contrary to NPR reporting, Goldfarb is also not a “friend”, but a trobleshooter lawer for Berezovsky and also the source of this story and few of the stories below.

BTW, poison and conract hits, real or imagined, keeps poping up quite regulary around Berezovsky.

Allegation of imminent poisoning of Berezovsky by (you guessed it) FSB was one of reasons UK courts decided not to extradite Berezovsky to Russia in 2003; “Evidence” was provided by Litvinenko. I’m wondering how dependant Berezovsky’s de-facto immunity from prosecution on what Litvinenko done or knows.

In the same 2003 Berezovsky and Litvinenko “stopped” contract hit on Putin. Alledged would be killers were conviniently some of the same officers that participated with Litvinenko in that press conference back in Russia. They were arrested by UK law enforcement, refused (as I understand, regular in such cases in UK) political asylum and went back to Russia.

Politkovskaya was “poisoned” in 2004, too;

Yushenko was poisoned when Berezovsky became interested in his campaign. 2 years later and Yushenko being the president, the crime (?) still not solved.

Anyone remembers story of presidential run by Ivan Rybkin? The guy was scared to hell, and did not look like it was due to FSB or Putin.”

“Italian reports said that Mr Scaramella had made regular visits to the FSB in Moscow and was a close associate of Viktor Kolmogorov, deputy head of the FSB.

Mr Scaramella claims that his Moscow visits were connected to his work for the Mitrokhin Commission, and that far from working for the FSB he is as much a potential target as Mr Litvinenko.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2462162,00.html

“The shoot out in March 2004 had hilarious developments for Guzzanti’s ridiculous Mitrokhin commission. Scaramella, a self-styled “professor” later claimed that he was actually checking out an antenna which he alleged was to be used by the evil Ruskies to contaminate the Bay of Naples by setting off a dozen atomic weapons (apparently without a nuclear explosion) that had been dumped there by a Russian submarine. Supposedly this event would be blamed on the NATO. The Russians thought the accusations were a bad joke.

The four camorra members involved in the shoot out were actually involved in transporting weapons. They did not shoot at Scaramella to take him out but apparently shot at the two penitentiary cops who were there to meet Scaramella for reasons as yet unknown. One of the members of the camorra was wounded and quickly arrested. The arms were sequestered.

As far as the Mitrokhin Commission goes, what can I say. You can download the audiences on the parliament’s site and sit back for riotous laughing. Guzzanti is best known for having sired the two comics and political satirists, Sabina and Paolo. He does his best to compete with them but is basically a hallucinated psychotic with a strong tendency to go into fits of obscenity. It’s no wonder he’s a senator for Berlusconi’s personal political entity.

As for Scaramella, he is along the lines of Rocco Martino (Niger forgeries) and Igor Marini (Telekom Serbija), con artists that work around the secret services. He has a track record of putting together unsubstantiated claims of Russian nuclear weapons traffic. Thanks to Guzzanti his claims end up in the papers as the usual scare tactics.”

http://www.eurotrib.com/comments/2006/11/19/20439/209/2?mode=alone;showrate=1#2

“Security analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who met Mr Litvinenko several times, said the media focus on the Kremlin was “lazy” and bore the hallmarks of a John Le Carre novel.

“We have to put this in a historical context,” he said.

“Litvinenko’s last job within the FSB was heading up the anti-corruption unit and he discovered a lot of corruption there and made a lot of enemies within the KGB.”

When Yeltsin broke the KGB into different agencies such as the FSB and the SVR, the majority of its members stayed on but some went into the Duma and a third group went into legitimate business, he said.

But a “murky bunch” went into what was known as the Russian mafia.

Sophisticated poison

“My own belief, and this is speculation, is that it’s not inconceivable that Anna Politkovskaya in her search for murderers within the Russian bank system discovered the contract killings were these former KGB people.

“She was killed and if Litvinenko indeed was privy to her investigations then it could well be that they will emerge as his killers.”

Although the sophisticated nature of the poison suggested it could have come from the state, there was no motive, he said.

The case has caused huge interest in the UK
“There was no benefit to Putin or Russian intelligence services to have a highly publicised operation like this.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6180432.stm

“Since 1995, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has maintained a database on the illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials.

As of last year, the database contained 827 confirmed incidents. Of these, 224 incidents involved nuclear materials and 516 involved radioactive materials.

The IAEA said it had not received confirmation of polonium finding its way into this underground market, but there have been a number of unconfirmed reports.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6190144.stm

Maybe as you say the clumsy footprints left by the material were intentional. Yet if I were Miss Marple, I would be casting a very close eye over Berezovsky (Litvinenko’s landlord and long time associate with a very shady past and plenty of motive and contaminated) and Nevzlin (associate of Berezovsky, also with plenty of motive). I would also be asking how Scaramella (associate of Berezovsky) had become contaminated.

“British health authorities and the police have said polonium 210 cannot be transmitted through the skin and is not harmful unless it is swallowed, breathed in or passed through an open wound.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/world/europe/29spy.html?em&ex=1165035600&en=455087075151ebe4&ei=5087%0A

Curiouser and curiouser.

Scaramella’s lawyer said that since his client was poisoned, he could not be a suspect.

Yet now it seems he hasn’t had a toxic dose.

Additionally -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2473384,00.html

“La Repubblica yesterday published interviews that it conducted last year with Mr Litvinenko and Evgeny Limarev, another former Russian intelligence officer, in which both men claimed that Mr Scaramella used his status within the commission to run a shadowy parallel intelligence operation with right-wing aims.”

Limarev was the source of the hit list email - the discussion of which was the purpose of the sushi bar lunch.

And there’s a Cheney connection to Scaramella:

“[La Repubblica Nov. 26-27]

A CHENEY CONNECTION EMERGES IN THE LITVINENKO CASE.

Yevgeni Limarev, a former FSB official whom Mario Scaramella indicated was his source for the story that Litvinenko was on an FSB hit list, gave an interview to Italy’s La Repubblica denying Scaramella’s version and adding a few elements on Scaramella’s networks.

Scaramella, Limarev says, has boasted connections to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

Scaramella works for the Washington-based Environmental Crime Prevention Program (ECPP), which, according to Limarev, “has institutional support in military intelligence.”

Limarev reports that Scaramella told him that

“they could rely on Dick Cheney’s team at the White House.”

“It is enough for you to know, Mario and [Italian parliament Mytrokhin committee head] Guzzanti told me, that behind the ECPP there are Italians and Americans, for security reasons. Once in a while, they talked, in my presence, about Dick Cheney, but I never saw Cheney papers.

“They explained to me that ECPP acts officially as an environmental protection agency, and a section of non-official activities whose organizational level does not include offices, base, protocols, etc., financed with tens of million dollars partially in Italy (through the Carabinieri environmental protection fund, they told me once) and partially through the Republic of San Marino-based holding, Finbroker.”

Through the ECPP, Scaramella tried to involve both Limarev and Litvinenko into fabricating dossiers against Italian anti-war politicians, which were channelled to the Parliament Mytrokhin investigating committee.

Limarev mentions Prime Minister Romano Prodi and current Foreign Minister Massimo D’Alema as top targets,
but the list includes also several leaders of the PdCI, Rifondazione, and Green parties.

Scaramella tried to get from both Litvinenko and Limarev dossiers proving that these politicians had been KGB agents.

Allegedly, when Litvinenko and Limarev realized that Scaramella and his boss Guzzanti were not interested in harming Putin, they withdrew their collaboration.”

Interestingly

“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.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976850175

and even more background on Litvinenko’s recent activities

“Alexander Litvinenko may have been killed after a deal that went wrong with associates involved in the ruthless world of Russian business.

According to security sources, investigators are looking at the former spy’s dealings with Russian businessmen involved in the lucrative energy sector and the shadowy world of private security. “We are looking at a very long list of Mr Litvinenko’s friends and foes since he has been in London,” one source said.

The list includes exotic figures ranging from billionaire businessmen, former Kremlin spies and KGB agents to underworld bosses.

In the six years that he was in Britain, Litvinenko appeared to have acquired a formidable collection of friends and enemies. Although he described himself as a journalist, Litvinenko tried unsuccessfully to muscle in on several lucrative business deals with Russians.

On the day that he fell ill he was attempting to broker a gas and oil exploration deal involving a British conglomerate that he claimed to represent. He was envious of the money that many of his former colleagues were making.

He also had talks about providing trained personal protection guards recruited from Russia, and claimed to represent a number of British interests wanting bilateral deals with Russian investors.

Police will look at investigations that his friends say he claimed to be involved in at the time of his death, including smuggling rings for nuclear material and prostitutes.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2482861,00.html

[Corriere della Sera, wires Nov. 29]

ITALIAN PARLIAMENT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE LITVINENKO-SCARAMELLA CONNECTION.

The Parliament Intelligence Oversight Committee (Copaco) has announced hearings with Interior Minister Giuliano

Amato and Scaramella’s boss, Sen. Paolo Guzzanti, for next week, to “make clarity on a story which has assumed

grotesque aspects,” said Copaco chairman Claudio Scajola.

The Committee wants to find out the truth about the “permanent working group” led by Mario Scaramella and

Guzzanti under the cover of the former Mytrokhin Parliament Investigating Committee.

As reported by former FSB official Yevgeni Limarev in a newspaper interview, Scaramella and Guzzanti boasted of

having ties to Dick Cheney.

In the meantime, Scaramella has again been accused of being the person who poisoned Litvinenko.

Yuri Felshtinsky, co-author of Litvinenko’s book “Blowing up Russia”, told the Sun:

“When I talked to Alexander around 12 November about who poisoned him … he was sure at this time it was

Mario. He was telling me that he was in a scheme.”

Scaramella was interrogated in London on Wednesday as a witness by Scotland Yard and found to be not

radioactive.

[Source: Ha’aretz, Nov.25,2006]

ALEXANDER LITVINENKO WAS IN ISRAEL SEVERAL MONTHS AGO WHERE HE MET EXILED RUSSIAN OLIGARCH LEONID NEVZLIN.

Nevzlin was a shareholder in the Yukos oil company and is wanted in Russia for tax evasion, budget

irregularities, and for connection to the murder of the mayor of a Siberian town.

Nevzlin claims Litvinenko gave him documents containing classified information possibly damaging to the

leadership in Russia.

He claims he turned the documents over to the British Metropolitan Police.

[Source: Russian and other media]

Nov. 30–GAIDAR’S ILLNESS FEEDS FRENZY OVER POISONINGS.

Former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, the radical liberal economist who presided over “shock therapy” in

the early 1990s, collapsed during a conference presentation in Ireland last Friday, Nov. 24.

Hospitalized in intensive care in Dublin, after vomiting blood, Gaidar was then flown to Moscow and is being

treated at an undisclosed hospital.

While the Irish hospital initially put out that his symptoms appeared to be related to diabetes, today Gaidar’s

press secretary said that doctors consider them the result of poisoning by an “unnatural” substance, i.e., not

food poisoning.

Media rushed to make connecto links to the Litvinenko case, insofar as ex-KGB man Lugovoy, who met Litvinenko

in early November, was Gaidar’s former security chief. But, no official diagnosis of Gaidar’s condition has

been announced.

Yesterday, he was well enough to take a phone call from President Vladimir Putin.

Anatoli Chubais, Gaidar’s political ally (though on good terms with Putin, as CEO of the national power

company), said yesterday that Gaidar had nearly died, according to RIA Novosti.

He suggested that the incident was part of an attack on the regime, saying that, “The deadly triangle –

Politkovskaya, Litvinenko, and Gaidar — would have been very desirable for some people, who are seeking an unconstitutional and forcible change of power in Russia.”

“Boris Abramovich Berezovsky is a Russian Jewish billionaire who was head of Russian National Security under Boris Yeltsin. When Putin came to power he opened investigations into Berezovsky’s business activities, including money laundering. Berezovsky responded by fleeing to the UK where he was granted political asylum.
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky

Berezovsky has been accused of money laundering by the French authorities.

Berezovsky either holds or has held, Israeli citizenship.

In its Dec. 30, 1996 issue, Forbes Magazine published an extensive article called “Godfather of the Kremlin?,” in which it charged Berezovsky with responsibility for the 1995 killing of popular television journalist Vladimir Listev. The magazine also accused Berezovsky of having numerous mafia connections and embezzling $50 million collected by his company from thousands of Russians who purchased AVVA shares-allegedly to start producing a new passenger car.

Boris Berezovsky has admitted that he is plotting the violent overthrow of the Russian government and was “warned” by Jack Straw, (who was subsequently sacked from his position as British Foreign Secretary) not to “abuse” his asylum status in Britain. Putin has demanded that Berezovsky be extradited to Russia. Blair had refused to do so.

Boris Berezovsky’s lawyer is Alexander Goldfarb. Goldfarb helped Berezovsky secure asylum in the UK. Goldfarb is a Russian dissident who now holds American citizenship.Goldfarb was also a close friend of Litvinenko. Litvinenko’s death bed accusation that Putin was being his killer was publicly read out by Goldfarb in a recent BBC broadast. Goldfarb claims that the document was dictated to him by Alexander Litvinenko. ”

http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20061124_LitvinenkoByWayOfDeception.php

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c1eb2990-8158-11db-864e-0000779e2340.html

The rabbit hole does indeed go deep.

“Do Berezovsky’s dual loyalties really matter? Yes. In the realm of global dominance, Israel’s interests and Russia’s are considerably divergent. It is in Israel’s interests to bring to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than the current one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its enemies. Not long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly disturbing to Israel.

Having an Israeli citizen at the highest levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel’s point of view. In Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as “the Godfather of the Oligarchs’ and Kingmaker of Russia’s Politics’” and reports Berezovsky’s statement that “Putin’s Russia is dangerous for Israel.” Berezovsky goes on to assert that Putin “supports terror” in the Middle East through Russia’s previous relations with Iraq and current relations with Iran. [7]”

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html

A hero in the pariah state and a wanted crim elsewhere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/weekinreview/03broad.html

““You can get it all over the place,” said William Happer, a physicist at Princeton who has advised the United States government on nuclear forensics. “And it’s a terrible way to go.”

Today, polonium 210 can show up in everything from atom bombs, to antistatic brushes to cigarette smoke, though in the last case only minute quantities are involved. Iran made relatively large amounts of polonium 210 in what some experts call a secret effort to develop nuclear arms, and North Korea probably used it to trigger its recent nuclear blast.

Commercially, Web sites and companies sell many products based on polonium 210, with labels warning of health dangers. By some estimates, a lethal dose might cost as little as $22.50, plus tax. “Radiation from polonium is dangerous if the solid material is ingested or inhaled,” warns the label of an antistatic brush. “Keep away from children.”

Peter D. Zimmerman, a professor in the war studies department of King’s College, London, said the many industrial uses of polonium 210 threatened to complicate efforts at solving the Litvinenko case. “It’s a great Agatha Christie novel,” he said. “She couldn’t have written anything weirder than this.”

…

Industrial companies found polonium 210 to be ideal for making static eliminators that remove dust from film, lenses and laboratory balances, as well as paper and textile plants.

…

Manufacturers of antistatic devices take great pains to make the polonium hard to remove. Even so, Dr. Zimmerman of King’s College said it could be done with “careful lab work,” which he declined to describe.

…
An antistatic fan made by NRD, of Grand Island, N.Y., contains 31,500 microcuries of polonium 210 — or, in theory, more than 10 lethal doses. The unit often sells commercially for $225.00. Repeated calls to NRD were not returned, but the company in sales literature describes its products as unusually safe.

…
Still, several experts held out the possibility that close examination of polonium 210 residues from Mr. Litvinenko’s body or from the multiple sites where it has been found around London might reveal nuclear fingerprints that could throw light on the baffling case.

“What they’ll be looking for