Slashdot Mirror
UK Lab Traces Polonium To Russian Nuclear Plant
reporter writes "British authorities had identified polonium 210 to be the radioactive poison that killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy who defected to Great Britain. Now, according to a disturbing report, the authorities have identified the source of the poison to be Russia. Bloomberg ominously reports, 'Scientists at the U.K.'s Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, west of London, have traced the polonium 210 found in London to a nuclear power plant in Russia, the capital's Evening Standard newspaper reported today. Officials at the establishment didn't return calls.' A cold chill just fell on relations between Russia and the West." In another twist to this developing story, the shadowy Italian security consultant who dined with Litvinenko has also fallen ill with radiation poisoning.
The Second Cold War begins...
And avert anything possible from this, or will it stand by its lapdog?
liqbase
The article doesn't say... Do they know if it came from a reactor near Moscow, or if it came from a reactor on the periphery of Russia? That is, does Russia have plausible deniability by saying that rogue agents unattached to the central government did it? Or is it clear that the assassination was ordered by the higher-ups in the Russian government?
A cold chill just fell on relations between Russia and the West.
An even bigger chill will occur if we get too uppity with Russia about this. As a major supplier of European natural gas, we could be sitting freezing in our homes within a week or two if Russia turned off the taps. We have been on the verge of a gas crisis here in the UK for some time now.
Diplomacy cuts both ways, and I dare say the UK government isn't going to push this too far given the energy situation.
I had no idea they could do traces like this! I'm considering scramming my home reactor right now. Does anyone know how they accomplish this tracing technically? Could this lead to a move against people exercising their constitutional rights to home doomsday devices?
Can you be poisoned by any Alpha source entering your body or is it just a problem with certain types? I was just wondering this because there are radiation sources all around this. Im not a chemist so I wouldn't really know the answer to this but Slashdot has plenty of people who can answer this?
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
It'd be disturbing if the Polonium came from the reactor in Petten (which makes medical isotopes for most of Europe), but Russia was already suspected to be behind this assassination, so I'd hardly call this result disturbing.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
The linked article does not say anthing about the origin of the poison?
I don't suppose anybody could tell *when* this radioactive material was made in Russia. Perhaps it was actually made in the Soviet Union? If so, then nobody can say for certain that the Russian government is responsible for this... bigger things went missing when the government changed, IIRC.
I can't see a reason why the Russian government would poison the former spy so long after he defected. The death wasn't exactly instant, so if they were worried about some secret he hadn't told yet this wasn't the way to go.
Also of note is that the Russian government is perfectly aware that we can trace radioactive elements to their source. They also know that if you spray an area with mist then lead your target through the area that the person leading will *also* get sprayed with the same mist.
To me this whole thing seems just a bit wrong... while it was by no means a simple plot, it doesn't seem to have been very well thought out if it was done by the Russian government. Unless of course it *wasn't* done by the Russian government, or even by someone who wants relations between the west and the Russians to deteriorate. I'm not normally a big fan of conspiracy theories and I certainly can't think of anyone who would benefit...
The only logical thing I can think of is a rouge person or small group with a grudge against the former spy.
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
*note* I feel sorry for the families for their loss, this post is not ment to sound as thouhg I mean otherwise.
This is a terrible event for nuclear energy. Directly connecting murder to radiation poisoning to only-in-nuclear-plants-production is devistating for public opinion. It won't matter that radiation generated by polonium can't even pentrate paper, let alone paper; that it is lethal (if ingested or inhaled) is what will stick in people's mind. Worse yet, news reports other people unrelated to the victims showing signs of minor levels; one analyst called it the 'equivalent of a dirty bomb' which is ludicrous but it'll still going to stick in the public's mind just as we really need to start developing new nuclear plants and technology.
Demented But Determined.
Relations between the West and Russia (though weakened, it's still got 50% or so of the world's nukes!) are definitely an appropriate story for "Politics". If there's no section for non-US politics, perhaps the editors should start one. This may have been a predominately US site at one time, but it is no longer, and politics of other countries are fair game IMHO.
-b.
It doesn't matter whether or not Russia was directly involved now. They NOW have a DIRECT link to Russia - there is a solid connection. Whether or not it was Russia's central government that caused it now doesn't matter, the thought now exists solidly.
This is pretty obviously a KGB-style hit. It's too complex to be otherwise.
But it's so elegant. My guess is they poisoned him on multiple occasions. They probably had no good way to poison just him, and didn't want an international bloodbath on their hands. So they poison him and everyone around them multiple times, with a poison that doesn't break down and stays in the body for weeks or months (polonium-210 fits this bill perfectly.) The other people they poison don't get enough of a dose to show symptoms, but after a while, their target has a lethal amount in his blood stream, and there's not much anyone can do.
It's beautiful. Nobody other than state-sponsored assassins would have the resources (polonium 210 is not exactly easy to come by,) knowledge (it's not exactly easy to deliver either) or reach to pull something like this off. I'm starting to think they wanted to get caught too, just to prove to any critics of Russia that they are not safe anywhere.
This hit was designed to send one message to anyone who might think otherwise: don't fuck with Russia.
Before people start saying this is obvious proof of Putin's guilt, stop and think about it. Why would anyone EVER use polonium to kill someone? Radioactive substances are probably the one of the most controlled substances in the world, with only a relatively small number of places they can even be produced. I can think of fewer weapons that would leave such an obvious trail.
If someone wanted only to kill this Litivinenko to silence him, or for revenge, or whatever, there are a million easier and more convert ways to do it. Poisons that are just as effective and less traceable, bullets, hell even a car bomb would have been better. The fact that someone went to all the trouble of using polonium to do the deed makes this either a well funded and stupid assassin, or a well funded assassin whose true ends are much more complicated than simply killing a retired KGB man.
Meta, Meta, Meta
As someone that spent several years recently (2001 - 2004) in Russia, the location of the reactor doesn't much matter. The government in Moscow is just as corrupt as anywhere else (we bribed low level officials all the time for registration [simply put - people aren't paid enough and often turn to outside sources of income]).
I don't think any higher up (in organized government) would be dumb enough to order a hit this sloppy. The FSB, underfunded and undermanned as they are, is still very professional. They (the FSB) would have known that the radioactive elements would be traced. Personally, I'd bet this was done by some elements of government that are mafia (very common and they can afford to be sloppy since they are much harder to track). The dead guy had a long history of making enemies...
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
I'm sure that I'm not the only person here from the UK who is getting sick or the way that the mass media is hyping up this. Yes the poor guy was killed with something that is radioactive. So what? It emits alpha radiation. The radiation can't penetrate the skin. If you go by what the papers are saying you would get the impression this is on the same level as a nuclear bomb. It is a sad reflection on how our society has gone that the media are hyping this up to unbelievable levels, and people are swallowing it. Simply because something radioactive was used. From what I have heard, the radiation is secondary here. The metal is toxic if you ingest it anyway. So why play up the radiation? Because people don't understand it. I hate the mass media, they play to peoples' fears and always report on what they think will get the biggest reaction. If they could just cut it out I might be tempted to actually buy a newspaper more often.
It looks as though the Italian contact with Litvinenko is safe and isn't suffering any radiation sickness, though he was admitted to the hospital with concerns of massive radiation poisoning. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,19 62535,00.html
The unexamined life is not worth living
...the first cold war never ended.
The neocons prematurely declared victory when the soviets imploded from within with their socialist disaster.
Even more salient is the fact that many of these tribal theocrats that we are fighting in the GWOT are those that our US tax dollars created and propped up ourselves are a counterbalance to the godless commies.
It seems a perfectly valid argument that we never won the cold war, we are still fighting it and paying for it, and war with Eurasia has merely been replaced with a war on East Asia.
So where did Polonium-210 come from?
I like propaganda as much as the next guy but it reminds me too much of the hysteria preceding the Iraq war.
according to a disturbing report...
What's disturbing is that this happened at all. What would really be disturbing would be if the source or vector for this seemed to come from Chechnya or someplace where, rather than Russian politics, it was cultural warfare trotting the stuff out as a weapon. In a wierd sort of way, it's actually comforting that it was out of Russia, aimed at a Russian (however stupidly).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Ok, so, Putin, former KGB officer, and VERY stupid person it seems, of all substances available to KGB had so conveniently chosen one that is easy to trace exactly to the source, even to a precise reactor in Russia. Now, had this whole thing been planned and done by his political opponents, they would have used some untracable and non-detactable poison, like it was done by the KGB in that past. But because it's APPARENTLY Putin, he used the one that is easy to trace back to him.
Since it's West/Russia realtions we are talking about there is no need for "innocent until proven guilty" concept, I see...
Vassili Leonov
Russians using their natural gas pipeline for political blackmail? You sound like Ronald Reagan.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
``A cold chill just fell on relations between Russia and the West."''
Why? Why is it so bad the reactor was in Russia? Would it have made any different if it had been somewhere else? If it had been in the UK, would a cold chill have fallen on relations between the UK and the West?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
According to Reuters...
"LONDON (Reuters) - Initial tests on an Italian contact of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko show no sign of radiation poisoning, a British hospital said on Saturday.
Mario Scaramella was admitted to hospital in London when polonium 210, the same radioactive substance that killed Litvinenko, was detected in his body.
...
"He is well. Preliminary tests so far show no evidence of radiation toxicity," a spokesman for London's University College Hospital said of Scaramella. Further tests are due to be carried out over the weekend."
It's always confirmation bias!
1. Deadly polonium traced to Russian nuclear plant
2. Plot Thickens as Spy Poison is Traced to a Nuke Plant in Putin's Russia
The second source suggests that the isotope composition is the signature that identifies a specific power plant. However, the Atomic Weapons Establishment declined to give the location of the plant.
I am sticking to my original guess of the culprit: a renegade group in Russia. Various reports have indicated that numerous factions, answering to no one, operate within the Russian government. One of these factions likely committed the crime.
Putin is just too smart to kill someone in such a blatant way. He would have known that such a gruesome murder would have serious negative consequences.
Neither of the linked articles contains the information in the summary. I was not able to find this information in any other articles during a search either. Regardless of who assassinated the man, this particular summary on slashdot seems to be nothing but a provocation. Editors, RTFA before posting!
in soviet russia the... hang on, I'm not feeling to well... /slumps over keyboarddddddddddddddddddddd...
Its just speculation but one of the London's newspapers, there were 2 places which were mentioned in other articles, 1 didn't have any nuclear plants and another doesn't produce the polonium 210 in its current form but does some preparation on the radioactive elements.
Don't follow every tabloid, especially when the official London investigation didn't post much details yet.
Visit my site @ http://www.madtorrent.com
I like the smell of propaganda in the morning.
Hard to handle? Nah - remember that it's not lethal unless you basically ingest it in sufficient quantity. You could put an eyedropper full of a polonium salt solution in his food when he was taking a leak and absorb maybe 1/10000 of the quantity that he got.
-b.
In the last paragraph, RTFA.
That's not to say it is a significant finding yet, as others have pointed out, the material is an exported good so just because they trace it to the reactor does not yet conclusively link it anywhere.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Start purchasing natural gas from Newfoundland, Canada by build LNG tankers or an undersea pipeline from Newfoundland, to Greenland, to Iceland, to England. Problem solved.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
London - Londonistan - is now home to a large Russian community as well as a simply huge floating population of "businessmen" and chancers from all over the world. It's hardly a surprise that from time to time they turn out to bring somewhat unorthodox business practices with them as well as some undeclared duty-free items fresh from the reactor core. A former British Intelligence boss has pointed out that this is about the tenth high-profile contract killing involving Russians and not a single one has been solved. Besides, poisoning is a particularly dark crime and appeals to the ghoul in most of us, hence a lot of the publicity.
I think people forget the massive loss of face the Russians suffered when communism collapsed. Perhaps the Kremlin want to repair some of that damage and get back to what they believe Russia should be doing, which is running the world and dictating its energy policies. I guess the good news is that the Russians are usually too disorganized and hung-over to be much good at that.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Why use such a bizzare method to kill someone that can be traced so easly. Why not just make him a mugging or hit and run victim.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I can't see a reason why the Russian government would poison the former spy so long after he defected.
He either knows something that has recently become sensitive, or he long ago pissed off someone who recently got enough power to get a very cold revenge.
You can't take the sky from me...
Why does someone use an exotic poison?
To send a message
Why does someone use an exotic radioactive poison?
So it can be traced
This may be a message to Russia as well. Some person or group as access to their intel and can get through their security with ease.
If they can get into a reactor to steal some Polonium and can get into their intel to kill off a spy they've been tracking, who's really in control?
Yes, and do it in two weeks before Russians shut off gas - problem solved. So simple.
Hence it was made recently.
It will even likely be possible, based on the ratios of products to Po-10, to calculate quite accurately when the Polonium was produced and refined.
Polonium works a lot better when folks with resources don't notice it. The victim turns up dead, mysteriously. In this situation it has been making regular world news, and the stuff has left a sparkly trail. Hopefully right back to whoever converted it into a poison from the less leaky compounds that it is normally kept in.
All of this could be a publicity stunt for the next Bond film? We probably won't find out who was really behind these sinister actions until........ you go see the movie
The Italian hasn't "fallen ill," he just tested positive for radiation. From the article:
It's not a very good warning if people chalk up the killing to a mugger or an accident, or perhaps to pissing off somebody else. It's very clear that he was assassinated, and the particular choice of methods greatly reduces the number of likely suspects running around.
Russian reactors make the vast majority of the world's polonium 210, and it is sold worldwide. The fact that this polonium came from Russia is evidence of absolutely nothing.
He even looks somewhat devilish.
Remember history, my friends.
Why go through all the trouble when simple arsenic will do?
It seems that many people here believe that using Polonium is "too easily traced" means that someone is setting-up Putin's government. Is it not possible that Putin's government used such a method in order to get people to say "It can't have been Putin, someone is trying to get us to attack faction-x...", thus attacking said faction and getting rid of Putin's enemies?
Of course, Putin's enemies may well have thought of this themselves. Perhaps it's faction-y, turning the world against both Putin and faction-x.
It's a messy situation in any case.
He was not just some former spy. There are plenty of those around the world after the fall of the Soviet Union. He was investigating the murder of Anna Politkovskaja and obviously got too close to the truth.
My other SIG is a Sauer.
the one where the baddies were trying to make the Russian leader look weak, but then again, I've probably got confused with some other spy movie series...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
those whacky Russians
Gerhard Schroeder once called Vladimir Putin a flawless democrat.
... tell the world what a grand transition Russia has made to "Democracy" ? Do we say nothing ... because we're scared of the Ukraine and Germany having a hard time finding natural gas ?
... I certainly *DON'T* think that Ireland or the UK can possibly support Russia in any way, so long as Vladimir Putin and his ruthless regime continue to put our citizens, Russian citizens and the citizens of state's such as the Ukraine, Georgia and Chechnya lives at risk.
... long before now.... we in the English speaking West, should have taken notice of Russia. Chechnya has been brutally repressed... and Russia didn't become a responsible Democracy... all that happened was Russia stopped being Communist.
.... am I mad ?
Indeed when Herr Schroede was booted out of the Chancellorship of Germany he was subsequently employed with the Russian state energy giant Gazprom.
All signals point toward Russia being admitted into the WTO. Oddly www.allofmp3.com was cited as a reason Russia wasn't admitted quite recently.
Given that RUSSIA IS NOW USING A TYPE NUCLEAR WEAPON TO KILL BRITISH CITIZENS, can we really continue the pretence that Russia made the transition to a "nice" Democratic state, with "Statesmen" such as Vladimir Putin ("flawless democrat" and former head of the FSB)... USING NUCLEAR MATERIALS TO KILL BRITISH CITIZENS IN LONDON ?
It's not simply a matter of covering this up. This is very, very, very public and I believe it is encumbant on Tony Blair's government to block Russian Entry into the WTO as a consequence of this incident.
FYI : You can't just assassinate British subjects contaminating parts of LONDON with radioactive material and expect the "capitalist dogs" in the West to let you into their trade clubs, it just doesn't work that way... oddly.
Can we really maintain the pretense that Putin's regime is anything but, a thinly veiled totalitarian and highly repressive state ? Schroeder's notion of bringing Russia in from the cold, into the club of "Democracies" is clearly devoid of any truth once our "friends" in Russia start to use highly dangerous RADIOACTIVE materials to murder British citizens.
Do we really need Russian gas that bad ? What happens if Russia invades Georgia for example.... do we continue to look the other way... clap the Russians on the back
How far *exactly* do the Russians have to go, before Western Europe and the United States draws a line in the sand and takes some action ?
In my mind.... killing British subjects.... endangering British subjects with radiation demands some response... economic sanctions... blocking entry to the WTO... whatever.
Hell... a former Russian Prime Minister may have been poisoned in Dublin Ireland (where I live for any FSB people reading this post)
Perhaps
The cold war may be over.... but, I don't think any of us can pretend that Russia should be accepted into the club of "Democracies" as Herr Schroeder would have liked. I think it's time to be realistic and acknowledge that Russia needs to be contained or transformed, before it is allowed to be come any stronger.
Can you imagine what would happen if the British had killed a French or German citizen in this fashion ? There would be an international crisis... The EU would be dead for all intents and purposes.
By that logic, the EU and the WTO must frustrate Russia's economic ambitions so long as Putin and/or a successor of his persue repressive and anti-Western policies.
Or
When you have a radioactive material created in a reactor, say plutonium, by measuring the quantity of the different isotopes and their half life by product, you can determine from which reactor they come (that is if you have the data) and even "when". Now in that case that would mean they have traced a cocktail of element beside the polonium and the "ratio" match the polonium produced by that particular reactor. What make it a bit implausible for me is that we are speaking of really small quantity here from stuff which have a half life beyond a year... And especially if you refine the polonium and separate it from the rest.
I also have an opinion on that murder if it interrest anybody :
I have a conspiracy theory for you: foe of putin where seeing that putin position wasn't that bad right now, and they wanted a quick way to dredge dirt on him. So they procurated polonium then killed a resident in another country which was a vocal agaisnt Putin in a so SPECTACULAR way that it will be for a long time all over the media with all finger pointing at Putin. I do not see what Putin wins by making it so spectacular. True other vocal group might get afraid, but with it all over the media they might be emboldened to go forward and be more vocal, so that it will be even more difficult to elimnate them. No I think an old fashionned car "incident" and an old fashionned "push" in a train station at rush hour or an even more old fashionned slithing of throat would give as much a signal to the other vocal people without even being able to point finger at Russia. But polonium ??? Come on, they could have as well have tatooed "Putin killed me" on the forehead of the guy. This is why I think it is more convoluted and simply guys wanting to pee on putin did this to slime him all over. It looks like it was a total success from what I see in our media...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
So, South Park Republican, I assume. Keep that dirty foreign news away from American politics.
Sort of like an electronics tech insisting that no physics news show up on his newsfeed. They ARE related, you know.
Proud ignorance has lost your "War on Terror" because neither Bush nor his right-wing followers comprehend anything that happens outside of the United States. Listen: if you want to invade and conquer other countries, LEARN about foreign politics. It's sort of the absolute minimum requirement.
And oh yes, we won the election. DailyKos and all the rest of us in the Reality Based Community, as Rove or Cheney christened us in that famous "screw you realists" talk. Ignorant men invaded and killed a country, and lost power. Ignorant men wll refuse to care about the polonium poisoning on UK soil. Listen, if you want to be ignorant, just don't read. It's worked for you all before. If you don't care, don't comment. I'm sure Limbaugh has a rerun on somewhere.
Libertarians hate the fiscally irresponsible, interventionist, authoritarian, theocratic, fair-weather federalism of the neocons. South Park Republicans would see Goldwater more then GW as a standard bearer. Frankly SP Republicans haven't been getting much from the Republican Party these last couple of decades. And big-L libertarians proudly tout their spoiler role against these new-style Republicans.
Lots of spy vs spy stuff going on. The EU is in tough negotiations with Putin & Co over energy delivery, namely natural gas and really didn't have any kind of a lever. We seen what Russia did to one of the old Soviet satellites (forget name of country) last winter. Pinched them hard and quadrupled the price. If memory serves later discounted the price to double with an escalator clause. People where in jeopardy of freezing to death while Putin held strong. Tough negotiator. Anyway, a couple of murders in his backyard will tend to soften him up a bit. I mean if Putin wants to play hard ass tough guy .. well the picture is easy to paint.
Similar thing in Lebanon where the political assassination blamed on the Syrians (not that stupid) rode the Syrians out of town. Advantage Israel and thank you Mossad?
Then there's Iraq. Saddam nationalizes Iraq oil, snubs the U.S. and signs oil field development deals with China and Russia, then threatens to switch petro payments from U.S. Dollars to Eurodollars. Eighteen months later the U.S. is bombing, Saddam gets courted by a kangaroo with the resulting public murder but a few weeks away. Meanwhile Russia and China are out of the deal, null and void.
Of course the oil fields in the Shiite south will fall to Iran who would rather generate electricity via nuclear reactor than burn their would be oil profits keeping the home lamps lit and China has U.S. Dollars to spare. That deal has already been brokered meaning the U.S. gets no oil from Iran or the southern Iraqi oil fields IF Iran's nuclear power option is left standing. If we joint venture with Israel to pancake Iran's nuclear ambitions then oil exports to China will slow with dollar imports found likewise. That in turn means less money for missile deals between Iran and Russia who is not happy about getting their oil deal queered in Iraq and will take vengeance where ever it may be found including Britain more notably, but the entire EU if thats what it takes.
Personally I'm waiting for Russia to supply the Iraqi insurgents with Russian equivalents to the U.S. Stinger missile so aptly provided the anti-Russian rebels in Afghanistan not that long ago. That probably won't happen since the Iraqi insurgents pretty well have the U.S. on the run with IED's, mortars, RPG's and sniper fire.
Question: How is the land locked Kurds having essentially been handed Greater Kurdistan with annexation of Kirkuk upon the bloody hand of ethnic cleansing, going to get the oil out and who is going to broker it?
Have I missed something? A former spy gets killed by the country he was spying on/for/whatever... were talking about spies, they trick whomever they can to make a buck. Now, he got killed by the person he tricked. What's the big deal? This is not abnormal. If he was spying on the US we might have just offed him ourselves via the legal system.
"i stand on the edge of destruction" -shai hulud
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it seems to claim that the British scientists traced the polonium to a reactor in Russia.
But what's your interpretation?
According to journalist/senator Paolo Guzzanti, former head of parliamentary commission that examined cases of past KGB infiltration in Italy's political life and (apparently) a personal friend of Mario Scaramella, the Italian contact has been told by hospital's doctors that he will die. (AGI, http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200612021822 -1201-RT1-CRO-0-NF11).
In a statement the Italian Health Ministry declared:
"In order to avoid useless alarm, in reference to what was stated by Paolo Guzzanti about the health condition of Mr. Scaramella it is my duty to underline that currently Mr. Scaramella, according to what was reported by the British authorities, is doing well as confirmed by the tests carried out up to now. But given that he was exposed to polonium radiation, he will undergo more extensive clinical analysis and be under doctor control in the future because the radiation could have provoked disease both in the acute phase and long-term phase." (AGI, http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=20061202194I think it is funny that you think people who post on the DailyKos are even remotely linked to reality. I do enjoy reading it for a laugh even though it is a bit disconcerting when you realise that the someone actually believes what they post. I believe you are misinterpreting the past election. The Republicans lost it moreso than the Democrats won it. I think you will find out if the upcoming Congress tries to push the socialist revolution that you and your fellow Kosites want there will be a quick reinstallation of the GOP.
...as this has nothing to do with polonium nor the "general fear of radioactivity". It has grown into a scandal, and it should be investigated completely. If it were ricine (or some other dangerous poison) would it be different ? No - it would be the same scandalous event - so please: mod parent down as utter troll.
Keep in mind that Russia is currently in talks regarding joining the WTO. And don't listen to the sweet words - joining WTO is a serious blow, if not instant death for Russian industry and agriculture, and Putin knows it. He can't just plainly refuse - that would be very ill-conceived by both the West and pro-West population in Russia (actually, a significant part of it, if not the majority). That's why he's got to do something disgusting so there is at least one WTO member with a veto right which will have no other way but to block Russia's entry. I believe this was the same reason behind the sudden scandal in Russian-Georgian relations two months ago, since Georgia IIRC is a WTO member with a veto right (again, IIRC, all WTO members have a veto right on such decisions). If everything is as I pictured, this is a very smart move, since Mr.Blair look strange if he didn't veto the decision to accept Russia.
You mean, "poisoning a British citizen so he cooks from the inside-out" is the more civilized alternative usual pattern of Russian soldiers murdering , raping and torturing Chechen civilians, and running "filtration" camps where they rape 13 year old girls ?
(and the occasional retaliation?)
The Health Physics Society has produced a fact sheet (PDF-format) for Po-210. The information is fairly basic, but it's a starting point if you want to explain about the nuclide to someone who isn't very familiar with nuclear science.
I work with a guy who is an expert in radioactivity and radiation protection. So we just sat down with him to calculate how much polonium-210 is lethal to a human being. It turns out to be less than a fraction of a miligramm. Some people say on this post that alpha radiation can not penetrate skin thus it is not very dangerous. Unfortunately it is not so. If it goes inside as a part of soluable substance than it gets inside your tissues, blood, organs and damages everything around.
One way to think about radiation damage is the following: Single decay of an Polonium atom carries about million times more energy than chemical transormation of a single molecule in explosives. So one milligram of polonium is roughly equivalent to 1 kilo of explosives. If you swallow 1 kilo of dynamite and it would explode inside - than you are very unlikey to survive. After all 5 grams of explosives are enough to accelerate a bullet. Experts would probably criticise me for such comparison, and they are right, but still it gives you some feeling of damage that radiation will do to your body.
What worries me a lot in this story are traces of polonium. It is very easy to contain alpha sources as they are usually in hermetic ampules and can not be traced at all. So I see several reasons.
First is that police is lying or misinterpreting the results. It seems unlikey with the growing amout of evidence, though I can not excude it.
The second explanation is that there is one or several human beings who do not know that they carry polonium inside them and polonium leaks out of their bodies with sweat and other human liquids. But calculations show that they had to swallow lethal amounts.
The third one is that traces are done on purpose
The forth is that the killer was so unprofessional that he made spills all over the place.
My take on this story is that it is VERY strange. Very unprofessional, very public-oriented, very anti-russian. My prediction is that the whole story soon will be shut tight: no information leaks, no interviews, nothing - and there will be reason to that - real plot will be uncovered, with some dirty unpleasant stories behind it, which would have nothing to do with politics or russian secret services.
If I was a scientist claiming to be able to trace the polonium back to its source, I'd refuse to speak to anyone too.
Again
Also, I should point out that it doesn't claim they traced the Polonium found in Litvinenko , but rather the plutonium found in London . If it was found in a container, then they might be able to trace the source of the container. Proving the container came from Russia, would prove where the container came from, but not where the plutonium came from.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
"Begun, this Second Cold War Has..."
"the authorities have identified the source of the poison to be Russia. Bloomberg ominously reports,"
OK, where else would you rather have seen the polonium come from? The US? Pakistan? North Korea?
It's bad enough that this polonium got out in the wild, I don't see why it's "more bad" that it came from Russia.
Oh, he wouldn't TYPE "/slumps over keyboard," he'd just DO it.
You're a major nation, and you can't pull off a simple hit? I mean, it's pure evil, but if somebody gave me the job I don't think it would take me too long to find a mobster, tap into his network, and get a decent hit-man who could pull off a plausible "robbery" where the guy got shot, or a car "accident" or even the good old standby like a bomb wired into the ignition. But NooooOOO. They had to go scattering radioactivity that would produce collataral damage, potentially ruining international relationships, and best of all... leaving a trail of radioactive breadcrumbs leading right back to the source!
What are they going to do to the guy who came up with that idea? Send him to China and then explode a dirty bomb in his apartment in downtown Beijing?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The Russian government seems to have already been convicted in most people's minds. But it just doesn't add up. Why would they use such an obscure poison that's easy to detect? When someone gets sick really fast, and their hair starts falling out, of course the doctors are going to test him for radioactive substances, and of course they're going to find the polonium. If you don't care who knows it was an assassination, why not just use cyanide or strychnine or ricin? At least those are much easier to obtain, and wouldn't immediately cast suspicion on government labs or nuclear facilities. I think he was poisoned by someone who wanted to turn the Western public against Russia. Someone who is rich and well-connected. Someone like Boris Berezovsky or maybe Akhmed Zakayev.
Oh, yeah, the article doesn't mention how the polonium was traced to the nuclear plant. Anyone know?
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
The alternative to a "cold chill" (a 'hot chill') sounds as half baked as the cold light cloaking device from manhunt in space XD
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
it is reasonable to assume, as Tom Clancy has in at least one novel, that because every reactor has differences from design-mates, and all are operated differently due to the whims of their managers, that there are differences in the "impurity" mix of any particular element retrieved from the witches' brew of used fuel rods.
so there is a "fingerprint" that overall says this Po210 came from a Crudhole type reactor, and this Po210 came from a Stinker type reactor, and it is quite possible that due to defects in shielding or a plugged cooling tube, the presence of element such-and-so means this particular sample came from Gornischt City's Crudhole reactor, possibly between 2001 and 2003.
it is also quite reasonable to assume that due to weapons inspections requirements in disarmament in the past, the atomic powers have ledgers of this information from folks who normally they don't meet in scientific conferences.
it is not required that you are "in the loop" that nobody will confirm exists that if Reuters and AP quote senior British government officials to the effect that the Po210 comes from Russia, there is a good chance they could make their case in the UN or world court.
assuming they decided it was worth releasing the background information that proves the case, which is almost certainly NOT going to happen.
what good is protecting this information? the first time some wacko bin looney decides to tape a bottlecap of Po210 to a stick of dynamite and flip it off an observation deck someplace, it will go a long way towards pinning down WHICH wacko bin looney is probably was.
and if they resist arrest, there is no trial.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Again ... they didn't. It cannot be done. Period.
Every reactor leaves a fingerprint on its produce and waste. Minor differences in the isotope ratios are present in products from separate reactors. Tracing the source of a radioisotope is neither rocket science nor brain surgery.
...in such a blatant way."
so was the USSR. the "wet work" was usually done by bulgaria or rumanian secret services. that's not blatant, it's the other guy.
meet the new boss, same as the old boss...... prove me wrong.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
it takes one alpha from one atom hitting the right cell in the right way to cause a cancer.
less than a picocurie but electically useful in a smoke detector probably means there are hundreds of alphas a minimum per minute coming from that source in the smoke detector.
that's plenty dangerous enough for me, might not be for you.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Again, they couldn't prove it. They don't have a known valid 'fingerptint' with which to compare it. Thanks for playing, though.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
To really wind some of you up one places a %.05 coin size pice of polonium 210 which is an alpha partical emitter nexr to a equal sixe pice of beryllium then a neutron emmitter has been created or in other words a trigger for the second stage of a Hydrogen bomb. The first stage is the atomic bomb but add Tridium and a neutron emmitter and you have a H bomb.
But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of Putin: is he the sort of man who would get the polonium-210 from his own nuclear reactor or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would get the polonium-210 from his own reactor, because he would know that only a great fool would put the evidence within reach. I am not a great fool, so clearly I can clearly not believe the evidence in Russia. But he must have known I was not a great fool, he would have counted on it, so I can clearly not believe the evidence in front of me.
[TMB]
At the risk of sounding like an idiot, could someone tell me how this works? Polonium 210 is a particular isotope of an atom, which should be identical to every polonium 210 isotope you find, right? So how do you trace the origin of an element which is identical to all other samples of the same element? Does the production of polonium 210 leave a particular signature? Perhaps the ratio of polonium 210 to other elements?
And every fingerprint taken needs to be compared to another. How, prey tell, did they get the Fingerprint? Presumably Russia sent them a copy? Oh no, you say ... the CIA/MI5 provided it, and the CIA/MI5 insists it is from Russia, so it must be. Hmmm ...
These data have been exchanged on a regular basis for over 30 years. Doing so was a practical necessity for strategic arms treaties.
What is everyone so concerned about? The Cold War is finally back! We've got something out there to stimulate the economy, Putin will scare the Islamists into sending us Hannukah cards. Is there anybody out there who still thinks we did ourselves a failure by eliminating the safe, reliable two faction Western dominated world?
Europe doesn't stop dealing with allies just because those allies engage in a little extraterritorial assassination. I mean, c'mon, the US has been assassinating people it doesn't like around the world for decades, and I'd be really surprised if the UK and France didn't do the same in their heyday. It's the way big powers operate.
How can one trace a quantity of polonium, presumably found in a dead body, back to a particular power plant in Russia. I am just curious to know how this is done...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If you really interesting to know "who is the killer of formal spy" that you need to think about person like Boris Abramovich Berezovskii. To understated this story you need to know just little bit more than you can read in British news paper
Electric heaters and stoves work fine -- except of course during blackouts. (The power was just out here in my neighbourhood in Montreal for 18hrs.) I think the issue is rather efficiency.
Electricity can be an OK heat source or it can be a waste. It depends on how it's generated. In the case of wind or hydro power, it's fine. (As far as efficiency goes -- there are obviously other issues involved.) The water or wind turns the turbines, and you get a stream of electrons you can send down the grid to get turned into heat in your P4s, AthlonWhatnots & WhizzBangGPUs. Aside from more efficient turbines, a superconducting grid, and more efficient space heaters, there's not much we can do to improve the picture here.
On the other hand, if you're generating electricity from hydrocarbons, you're losing energy as heat is transformed into electricity at the power plant, as it travels down the grid, and then even more when it's transformed back into heat again in our homes. Neither the generators nor our home heaters are perfectly efficient. Nuclear energy isn't all that better, since it takes a lot of resources + energy to extract and process the fuel -- not to mention the waste.
I really hate to make this a political discussion, but it kinda puts that whole "Bush is the biggest terrorist in the world" thing into perspective.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I didn't realize I was communicating with an MI5 operative :-)
In any case, no reputable news source is making the claim, fingerprinting isn't "tracing" back to a source, and the 100% thing I can guarantee is that they have no proof where the Polonium came from, since the U.S. would have already bitchslapped Russia if they did. I am also 100% certain that they may *claim* they know where it came from, but they never will actually know.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
"That's typical" of exotic radioisotopes, he said. "We can't compete with their prices." Furthermore, this substance could be extracted from off the shelf anti-static devices, and still be "traced" to a Russian source. Nothing to see here, the chill the poster felt was their own lack of understanding.
Here is a newsletter from Stratfor I've received recently, I just fully agree with what it says.
=====================
Russia's Interest in Litvinenko
By George Friedman
The recent death of a former Russian intelligence agent, Alexander Litvinenko, apparently after being poisoned with polonium-210, raises three interesting questions. First: Was he poisoned by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor to the KGB? Second: If so, what were they trying to achieve? Third: Why were they using polonium-210, instead of other poisons the KGB used in the past? In short, the question is, what in the world is going on?
Litvinenko would seem to have cut a traditional figure in Russian and Soviet history, at least on the surface. The first part of his life was spent as a functionary of the state. Then, for reasons that are not altogether clear, he became an exile and a strident critic of the state he had served. He published two books that made explosive allegations about the FSB and President Vladimir Putin, and he recently had been investigating the shooting death of a Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, who also was a critic of the Putin government. Clearly, he was intent on stirring up trouble for Moscow.
Russian and Soviet tradition on this is clear: Turncoats like Litvinenko must be dealt with, for two reasons. First, they represent an ongoing embarrassment to the state. And second, if they are permitted to continue with their criticisms, they will encourage other dissidents -- making it appear that, having once worked for the FSB, you can settle safely in a city like London and hurl thunderbolts at the motherland with impunity. The state must demonstrate that this will not be permitted -- that turncoats will be dealt with no matter what the circumstances.
The death of Litvinenko, then, certainly makes sense from a political perspective. But it is the perspective of the old Soviet Union -- not of the new Russia that many believed was being born, slowly and painfully, with economic opening some 15 years ago. This does not mean, however, that the killing would not serve a purpose for the Russian administration, in the current geopolitical context.
For years, we have been forecasting and following the transformation of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Putin became president of Russia to reverse the catastrophe of the Yeltsin years. Under communism, Russia led an empire that was relatively poor but enormously powerful in the international system. After the fall of communism, Russia lost its empire, stopped being enormously powerful, and became even poorer than before. Though Westerners celebrated the fall of communism and the Soviet Union, these turned out to be, for most Russians, a catastrophe with few mitigating tradeoffs.
Obviously, the new Russia was of enormous benefit to a small class of entrepreneurs, led by what became known as the oligarchs. These men appeared to be the cutting edge of capitalism in Russia. They were nothing of the sort. They were simply people who knew how to game the chaos of the fall of communism, figuring out how to reverse Soviet expropriation with private expropriation. The ability to turn state property into their own property represented free enterprise only to the most superficial or cynical viewers.
The West was filled with both in the 1990s. Many academics and journalists saw the process going on in Russia as the painful birth of a new liberal democracy. Western financial interests saw it as a tremendous opportunity to tap into the enormous value of a collapsing empire. The critical thing is that the creation of value, the justification of capitalism, was not what was going on. Rather, the expropriation of existing value was the name of the game. Bankers loved it, analysts misunderstood it and the Russians were crushed by it.
It was this kind of chaos into which Putin stepped when he became president, and which he has slowly, inexorably, been bringing to heel for several years. This is the context in which Litvi
In Tennessee, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory sells dozens of types of rare nuclear materials to American manufacturers. But Bill Cabage, a lab spokesman, said it sold no polonium 210 because Russia was able to do so much more inexpensively.
Nuclear experts said the apparent origin of much of the world's polonium 210 in Russia, including quantities used in American products,, meant that investigations of the toxin's provenance would probably reveal little. What would be surprising, the experts said, was if the radioactive toxin turned out to have been made or mined outside Russia.
Stop the hysteria - someone needed to put pressure on Russia to agree to something which they refuse to do. I am sure it has nothing to do with access to Russian gas, oil or financial markets for foreign corporations.
Perhaps the attacker is dying.
The stuff is kind of volatile and easy to inhale. They had over 100x the required dose.
Nope, the GOP had six years of unfettered rule. The proved to more corrupt,less fiscally discplined and more radical than almost any Democratic controlled government of the last 100 years. While the Democrats may not have a buzzword, sound bite agenda. The GOP smells of pig shit and unless they can warp another event to evoke enough fear, they are not coming back anytime soon.
What amazes me, is that the west continues to become more and more dependant on OPEC, CIS, etc. while other countries are ratcheting up their own alternative energy (Iran, Cuba, and Brazil comes to mind).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Perhaps this was a warning to Putin, not the West. A signal that a powerful mafia group is making a power play, and that he better not stand in the way?
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Even as an ex-spy, he would still have had connections within Russia, and probably in lots of other places. Maybe he was somehow involved with the trading of some stolen nuclear material?
If a larger quantity of it passed through his hands then an accident is plausible; otherwise an associate could have used it to murder him just because it was right there.
An unremarkable death of a dissident by random accident, common crime, or seemingly natural causes makes no notoriety. It might get rid of the immediate disident, but it will not prevent other disidents from 'causing trouble'. Killing a disident via a not-so-subtle and paticularly gruesome manner sends an unmistakeable message. The message is 'obey, or this could be you'. Killing him overseas means 'we can get you anywhere, anytime'. They want people to know, because fear is an effective means of suppressing dissent.
Russia is dangerous. It is nationalistic, it is autocratic, it feels humiliated and condescended upon by the West, it is paranoid, it is jealous, and its economy is fragile and only propped up by the current run-up in oil and gas prices. It only needs a ruthless populist (read 'demagogue') to push it over the edge to full-on fascism. It already has pretext for expansion based up the plight of ethnic russian minorities in its former empire.
Just a dangerous is that for a nationalist Russia, this would be a rational and likely succesful course of action. Russia need but bluster and Europe will cower, while the US is busy elsewhere. Russia would be able to get away with suppressing internal dissent and perhaps annexing some of their neighbors, and they know it. Europe is not psychologically prepared to fight WW3 over the Baltic nations, or Ukraine, or Trans-Dneister and the Russians know this. They need not fear any UN action because they possess a veto in the Security Council (not that the UN is to be feared by anyone anyway, its last meaningful military action was Korea in the 1950s).
Just because I was digging into the whole thing. On question arises, as it seems the whole radiation investigation seems to be centered around the planes and certain locations in england. But not the airports. But the Polonium must have passed certain focal points in the airports of moskwa and london as well (especially the normal luggage areas for the hand or the normal luggage) Just a minor question regarding this, how much possibility is there that some contamination in a long term bad dosage still can happen on russian or london airports through to luggage contamination or whatever. I assume by now the chances are close to zero due to cleaning and natural influences, like wind etc... But can anyone with a clue share more insight into this. It seems strange to me that only the planes were really constantly in the news, while I heard nothing about having certain areas on the affected airports being deconaminated.
"I told you to do a job, who can't look like a job, but suddenly it really starts to look like a job".
[The Boss - Lucky Number Sleven]
(not quite a correct citation, I know, but could not look it up in hurry)
There are already lot of wild speculations - who can be done this, why this is done, etc. etc. - but what mostly strikes me is that lot of people in the West and Russia itself (and don't give me ironed out shit that no one cares - they do, they simple continue to live like in U.S.S.R. - don't piss on government and you will be fine) in matter of seconds would say that it is murder. And it is ordered by Putin. Because of revenge and anger atmosphere Russia have created around ANY criticism of ANY thing they do it feels really plausible. It is not like they first started to do it, it feels the same in US too, but at least there is no killings of opposition, just lot of character assassination.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, in the age of Fear.
Why it is always that big nations wants that someone (neighborhood, small countries in their nearest location etc.) loves them? For Christ sakes, we are no enemies, let's first get over the past (one thing what Russia definitely doesn't want, because they don't see that U.S.S.R. was a totalitarian, murderous regime) and let's start trading, cultural exchange (what common crowd usually wants, they are simply tired of politics). But hell no, Russia uses economical tools to punish it's neighbors, like Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukrainia... For what sake? It is the way to earn friends? It feels like Russia still have not gotten out of "strong hand" syndrome. Putin is very big evidence of that.
I fear for Russia future, because it is not definitely future that Russia would like to have. And I fear for rest of us, because if Russia won't be strong (strong hand syndrome "and let's be friends, then you will get a cookie" isn't evidence of strong country), there will be serious problems for all of us.
p.s. I'm living in Latvia
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
"Hard to handle? Nah - remember that it's not lethal unless you basically ingest it in sufficient quantity. You could put an eyedropper full of a polonium salt solution in his food when he was taking a leak and absorb maybe 1/10000 of the quantity that he got."
./ers will have done their homework, but if you aren't one of them, here goes:
I'm glad that someone wrote this - not that it is wrong, but it does underline how hard it is to get to grips with the quantities involved. The implication (probably unintentional) is of waiters rushing around with bottles of polonium salt solution. This may indeed have been how this element was ultimately administered, but it's certainly not as trivial as the above would suggest, due to the extreme chemical and radiological toxicity.
Here in the UK, this story been a source of fascination for many. It's been of particular interest to those 33,000 of us who travelled on one of the contaminated planes (in my case, back from Moscow) even though the risk of contamination is essentially negligable, especially given that the planes are now in service again.
Many
'A milligram of polonium-210 emits as much alpha radiation as about 5 grams of radium, and enough gamma radiation to cause a blue glow in the air around it. Polonium has found use in small portable radiation sources and in the control of static electricity. However, it is an extremely toxic substance and must be handled with great care. Polonium was the first element to be discovered because of its radioactivity; it was discovered in pitchblende in 1898 by Marie Curie and named for her native country, Poland.
Polonium (in common with Plutonium-238) has the ability to become airborne with ease. More than one hypothesis exists for how polonium does this; one suggestion that that small clusters of polonium atoms are spalled off by the alpha decay.
The maximum allowable body burden for ingested polonium is only 1,100 becquerels (0.03 microcurie), which is equivalent to a particle weighing only 6.8 × 10-12 gram. Weight for weight, polonium is approximately 250 billion times as toxic as hydrogen cyanide. The maximum permissible concentration for airborne soluble polonium compounds is about 7,500 Bq/m3 (2 × 10-11 Ci/cm3). The biological halflife of polonium in humans is 30 to 50 days.'
It's also expensive to produce by neutron capture from a reactor , in Russia or anywhere else. It has been estimated that the amount of Po-210 used in this poisoning would cost about $20 million to make. So, any eyedropper would have contained an extremely dilute solution. It would still be a risky business, since such small quantities are needed and the killer(s) used a relatively massive dose (according to the post-mortem).
What's interesting to me is the way the media have mangled the story ("Geiger counters cannot be used to detect alpha-particles", for example, in the Guardian and then put on to the BBC website). Most of the public have, sadly, no idea what's scientifically plausible and many of those who have rung official sources for health advice seem to have had no joy there either.
At the same time, we do have the expertise (at the AWRE in Berkshire) to determine the source of the polonium from its isotopic spread. (I visited there once, whilst working with neutron-irradiation: very interesting place).
As for the politics - when did any Government let the facts get in the way of a good deal (for them)? Even in my own working life, insistence on the data hasn't done me any favours - and most of that was in science!
I remember vaguely that in the seventies there was a Russian defector who checked every meal and drink for radiation. Russians have a long history of killing their enemies with radioactive stuff. For example a President of Romania was killed this way by the Russians in the early sixties.
Litvinenko was a professional spy, he betrayed his country and knew what are the risks involved in defecting, he should have checked EVERY THING HE PUT IN HIS MOUTH for radiation. Probably he was too lazy to do it and paid the price for his negligence. He is the first to be blamed for his death. The assasins only did their job and patriotic duty, for them it was business as usual.
More importantly, I really doubt Putin has the time and interest to order individual assasinations. He has much more important issues to deal with than such micro management.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
You are sliding back into an authoritarian regime.
Those never work in the benefit of the people.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
All nuclear energy so far is heavily subsideized by the state, even in the US.
It is not panacea because it is expensive and sprouts materials that are so dangerous it is not funny.
Other sources of energy in combination with widespread reductions in the consumption of energy is the only sutainable solution.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
New stoves use a similar system to the one you are describing...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
With so many politicians in the West parroting about the threat of terrorism, the UK would get the cold shoulder from other countries if proben unreliable when it comes to the handling of radiocative materials.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.