I was first going to post this in the Politics section, but then came the news what substance had been used to poison Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB colonel and up until today a critic of president Putin who was looking into the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, a research journalist (info here): Polonium-120, a radioactive waste product of uranium. (info here)
Litvinenko had lunch with a contact in a sushi bar four days ago. A few hours he was rushed to the hospital where doctors thought he had been poisoned with rat poison.
Today Litvinenko died and traces of Polonium-120 were found in his body. There was also radiation measured in the sushi bar where was poisoned.
Even though Litvinenko holds Putin responsible in a final statement (read here), Putin denies he has anything to do with it and blames a Russian business tycoon in exile in the UK. Bullshit. A poisoning with Polonium however, is far to complicated to be carried out by just anyone. The fact that the FSB (former KGB) is known for its sophisticated poisoning tactics and that Polonium is primarily used by the army as a detonator for nuclear weapons probably is just plain coincidence, right?
(full story)
Those who have read my post about Anna Politkovskaya being gunned down (here) know my opinion on the matter. Going deeper into that would indeed be material for Politics. But this goes further than a political murder. By using a radioactive substance who knows how many British citizens have been exposed to radioactivity? And even worse: who knows how many have been contamineted with the Polonium? (FYI: Polonium-120 radiates alpha rays which will cause cancer quite rapidly)
The Kremlin didn't cross the line with this, he went 5 miles over it! Whacking a political adversary or a nosy journalist is a crime you can expect from a guy like Putin. But releasing a radioactive substance in a heavily populated civilian area in the EU... Well that's something Al Quaida would do. My opinion on who the real "bad guys" are in Chechnya was already changing, but with this attack Putin revealed him like he really is: a terrorist in a suit lacking any respect whatsoever for human rights or life itself!
Litvinenko had lunch with a contact in a sushi bar four days ago. A few hours he was rushed to the hospital where doctors thought he had been poisoned with rat poison.
Today Litvinenko died and traces of Polonium-120 were found in his body. There was also radiation measured in the sushi bar where was poisoned.
Even though Litvinenko holds Putin responsible in a final statement (read here), Putin denies he has anything to do with it and blames a Russian business tycoon in exile in the UK. Bullshit. A poisoning with Polonium however, is far to complicated to be carried out by just anyone. The fact that the FSB (former KGB) is known for its sophisticated poisoning tactics and that Polonium is primarily used by the army as a detonator for nuclear weapons probably is just plain coincidence, right?
(full story)
Those who have read my post about Anna Politkovskaya being gunned down (here) know my opinion on the matter. Going deeper into that would indeed be material for Politics. But this goes further than a political murder. By using a radioactive substance who knows how many British citizens have been exposed to radioactivity? And even worse: who knows how many have been contamineted with the Polonium? (FYI: Polonium-120 radiates alpha rays which will cause cancer quite rapidly)
The Kremlin didn't cross the line with this, he went 5 miles over it! Whacking a political adversary or a nosy journalist is a crime you can expect from a guy like Putin. But releasing a radioactive substance in a heavily populated civilian area in the EU... Well that's something Al Quaida would do. My opinion on who the real "bad guys" are in Chechnya was already changing, but with this attack Putin revealed him like he really is: a terrorist in a suit lacking any respect whatsoever for human rights or life itself!
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