The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko, Continued - Weirder And Weirder

Radiation has now been found at 12 different London locations, and two British Airways planes have been grounded at Heathrow Airport after traces of radiation were detected.

As Tim Worstall put it, 'Unless someone started stuffing the polonium 210 into your tea, you'd have got more radiation from simply being on a plane at 30,000 feet than anything else.'

But what we do have now is a health scare; confusion; possibly alarm.

Possibly someone trying to panic the public.

Meanwhile, Yegor Gaidar has been taken ill in Dublin, and David Frum has already started with the insinuations and conspiracy theories.

Except in Gaidar's case, they don't seem to wash...

The bilocative Super Mario Scaramella is pleased not to be suffering from Polonium-210 poisoning, while David Clark warns that '(we) cannot let Russia use its domination of energy supplies to bully its neighbours across Europe'.

Call me an appeaser if you like, but I don't feel bullied by Russia- I just want the heating to come on.

It's a rare issue indeed that brings Eric Margolis (who fails to mention the unverified allegation that Berezovsky paid Litvinenko $1.5m to hold the press conference at which he claimed he had been ordered to murder him) and Victor Davis Hanson together, but the ability to proclaim Putin's guilt seems to be one of them - while Andrew Sullivan has taken a break from discussing the intracies of Mormon underwear to warn of 'The Russian Danger', provide a 'useful, if scary primer' on Polonium-210, and asks,

"Now former Russian PM Gaidar, another Putin foe, is sick - possibly from some kind of poison. Polonium again? Has Putin launched a micro-nuclear war against his opposition?"

No, dude. Firstly, according to xymphora Gaidar could hardly be described as a Putin foe, and secondly he might have been handling one of the $71 GE Osmonic Labstores static eliminators which contain Polonium-210 and whose existence has been known about since Sunday.

Actually, we now have an advance on $71.00 - according to Life Style Extra, there's a lab that will do you Polonium-210 for 69 bucks plus shipping and handling.

Oddly, its website seems to be down...

Here's another reason why the Russian state probably had nothing to do with Gaidar's illness.

After he got sick at his speaking engagement at Maynooth College, he went to the Russian Embassy in Dublin- and made it out alive.

Here's another reason - he seems to be recovering; a luxury not afforded poor old Alexander Litvinenko.

Here's another reason - according to the Radio Free Europe report linked to directly above,

"Gaidar's daughter Maria told RFE/RL's Russian Service on November 29 that her father did not describe the illness to her as the result of a poisoning. She said that "such conclusions [that he was poisoned] can be drawn from conversation with witnesses, with people who saw him in Dublin [where he suddenly became ill], so such allegations are indeed being made. But I did not hear him make any such allegations." She added that "I am worried and concerned and would not rush to conclusions on this matter. I'm waiting for the medical report and then will be prepared to think about this subject."

So it isn't even clear whether he has been poisoned at all.

Never mind, Sully - if what's left of his hair starts falling out within 2-4 weeks of him getting sick, it's thallium poisoning.

But prominent journalists making assumptions has been the order of the day in this story since it broke.

Here's a poser...

According to MosNews,

"Anatoly Chubais, head of Russian power monopoly Unified Energy Systems of Russia doubts that the ailment affecting Russian economist and politician Yegor Gaidar was caused by natural factors...

Chubais said it couldn`t have been a natural disease. He also refuted the version that said Russian special services could be involved in Gaidar’s poisoning. “It is unquestionable for me that a mortal construction of Politkovskaya, Litvinenko and Gaidar, which did not come into being by miracle, would have been exceedingly attractive for supporters of unconstitutional scenarios envisioning a change of power in Russia by force,” Chubais noticed."

Anatoly who?

According to 'Oligarch' he's, well, an oligarch.

According to Wikipedia - well,

"Anatoly Borisovich Chubais... is a Russian politician best known for his role in Russian privatization and the creation of Russian oligarchs. Although the exact amount of his personal wealth (estimated according to rumors at one billion dollars) is not known, he is often considered to be an oligarch himself. The 2004 survey by Price-WaterhouseCoopers and Financial Times named him the world's 54th most respected business leader...

Chubais allegedly gained his personal mostly from non-salary sources through his participation at key executive positions in Yeltsin's government during the time of anarchy that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Chubais is primarily known for his role under Yegor Gaidar as the vice-premier of the Russian Government. Gaidar and Chubais were the principal "young reformers" associated with shock therapy, privatization, and the rise of the Russian oligarchs. Both Gaidar and Chubais are former members of the communist party, and Gaidar was the editor of CPSU journal "Communist". In 1992 under the guidance of Chubais the State Property Committee designed a privatization program, according to which the state property was supposed to be fairly distributed between the citizens. In actuality, ordinary citizens gained pieces of paper ("vouchers") worth of one bottle of vodka, whereas the people at key position in governing structures, their relatives and business associates obtained enormous amounts of wealth."

So without Gaidar and Chubais there would have been no Berezovsky.

Neat.

"From November 1994 through January 1996 he was First Vice-Premier — in charge of economy and finance — in the Government of Viktor Chernomyrdin. During this time, the creation of Russian oligarchs was finalized. Russian oligarchy was formed in late 1995 in the "loans-for-shares" program. In this scheme, a small group of individuals well-connected to government structures were handed valuable pieces of state property in return for cash "loans" (which in many cases were funded by the bank accounts of the state bank) that was cash which had previously gained been by the same people in the government-controlled privatization. One purpose of this operation was to help Boris Yeltsin's re-election...

Although there are rumors that Chubais benefited enormously from the loans-for-shares scheme, the exact amount of his profit is unknown. In 1997, when Chubais served as First Vice-Premier and Minister of Finance for the Russian Federation, it became known that businessman Alexander Smolensky gave Chubais an "interest-free loan" of $3 million around the time that Chubais arranged an auction for Russia's second largest banking network, AgroPromBank, which then went to Alexander Smolensky. Chubais was then implicated in the scandal for a fake book publishing advance from a company tied to Vladimir Potanin's Oneximbank — shortly before Oneximbank won the auction for Svyazinvest. Chubais was removed from the government after that scandal and named chairman of the board of UES, Russia's power generating monopoly. Best known quote from Chubais is "We swindled them" ("Мы их кинули"). Chubais said this when he explained how he managed to squeeze $40 billion in funds from the IMF and other international lending organizations, all of which ended up in the pockets of Yeltsin's circle...

Chubais is one of the most controversial figures in Russian politics as a result of his close involvement in the rigged Russian privatization during the 1990s. The general population tends to see him as a criminal who stole money using his government position, and he is widely hated. He has also been blamed by some for rising utility prices because of his position at UES. Chubais seems to have survived the 2005 Moscow blackout generally blamed on Mosenergo and UES. He also survived an attempt on his life that took place on his way to work in March 2005. Retired Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov was later jailed in connection with the attack, though he continually denied the charges. Despite the widespread allegations, Chubais has never been charged for bribery or corruption."

The eXile describes him thus -

"Recently tabbed an "oligarch" by Yevgeny Kiselov after shoring up control of UES...After having been a great Kremlin intriguer, is now literally a major regional powerhouse, brokering control of regional industry through judicious turning on and off of energy subsidy faucet...If he ever runs for office, may use famous Calvin Trillin campaign slogan: "Never been indicted"...Snake-charmed entire Western press corps with brandishment of laptop computer...Speaks English; has been spotted in limo outside Night Flight...Destined to work as cafeteria manager in hell, where jello will be on the menu but never on the shelves."

All in all, Chubais sounds like quite an interesting fellow - however, the one comment that jumps right off the page concerning Gaidar's incapacity is,

"It is unquestionable for me that a mortal construction of Politkovskaya, Litvinenko and Gaidar, which did not come into being by miracle, would have been exceedingly attractive for supporters of unconstitutional scenarios envisioning a change of power in Russia by force” .

For the avoidance of doubt, in January 2006 Boris Berezovsky was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying that,

"President Putin violates the constitution... and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today...That includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working on".

On November 21 the timing of the story's appearance became suspicious.

On November 22 it became known that Lord Tim Bell, one of the United Kingdom's top public relations men, was working on Litvinenko's behalf free of charge - and was also an adviser of Berezovsky's.

On November 23, before Litvinenko died, it was being reported that the focus of the investigation was moving away from there having been any state involvement in his condition.

On November 24, the precise length and depth of Litvinenko's relationship with Berezovsky became apparent - and it was also at that point that the suspicion of cause of death switched from the previous 'certainty' of thallium poisoning to it being polonium-210; that the rather odd background of Mario Scaramella became apparent; and also the nature of links that Berezovsky had made with British political figures.

On November 26 the possibility of Litvinenko having been complicit in his own death was mooted.

And on November 28 it was announced that Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian emigre dissident of no political value, had visited the offices of a global security company named Erinys International on the day he was poisoned, on what Erinys described as 'unrelated business'.

On November 21 I wrote,

"At the moment, all cards seem to be on the table. It might be the case that Litvinenko's past as an investigator caught up with him. It might be the case that the Russian state wants him dead.

But given the possible gravity of this situation's international implications, the idea that we are seeing the most dangerous case of wasting police time in English legal history being played out before our eyes cannot be discounted."

On November 22 I wrote,

"There is no reason why (Berezovsky'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?"

On November 28 I asked,

"Upon what 'unrelated matter' could Litvinenko, a relatively unimportant Russian dissident, British citizen and associate (and tenant) of a man who's made clear his desire to bring down a friendly foreign power's democratically elected government by force, have possibly been visiting the offices of the company that won a $100 million contract to guard Iraq's oilfields?And which hires Russians?

One is certain it couldn't be on account of anything which might contravene the strict code of ethics to which Erinys adheres."

Earlier today, Life Style Extra reported on the inquest opened into Litvinenko's death and immediately adjourned -

"Poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko probably died from a type of leukaemia caused by radioactive polonium, a coroner heard today (Thu).

It also emerged the family of the former KGB colonel have asked for their own pathologist to be present at the autopsy tomorrow, when the precise cause of death should become known.

The inquest into the death was formally opened this morning at St Pancras Coroner's Court, attended by the dissident's friend Alex Goldfarb and lawyers representing Mr Litvinenko's widow, Marina...

Coroner Dr Andrew Reid heard Mr Litvinenko, 43, of Muswell Hill, North London, whose occupation was given as 'journalist', died at University College Hospital on November 23.

Coroner's Officer Alan Pearce told the court how the hospital had first been in touch with him shortly before Mr Litvinenko died, saying he was suffering from either "anaplastic leukaemia or pancytic leukaemia".

Mr Pearce added: "Sadly he subsequently died later that day on November 23."

He continued: "The preliminary cause of death has been supplemented by further investigations. It now appears that Mr Litvinenko was exposed to a radioactive substance known as polonium 210."

This matter is still the subject of police investigation. The level of polonium at this stage appears to have come from a source other than a naturally occurring source and the police are investigating the further circumstances by which Mr Litvinenko was exposed to or was administered this substance, and by whom."

I have received an indication that, subject to these investigations, someone may be charged with a homicide in relation to this death.

"We are still waiting for further investigations, including an autopsy to determine the precise cause of death."

Dr Reid said: "On that basis I have instructed a Home Office pathologist to perform an autopsy on my behalf at the Royal London Hospital's forensic facility tomorrow morning (Fri)."On the basis that someone may be charged with a criminal offence in this matter, and in accordance with Home Office guidelines, it was agreed that an independent pathologist will be present and will provide an independent opinion, should anyone ever be charged."

One awaits the autopsy's outcome with interest.

Order In Court

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

A Request To Russian Speaking Readers

Could someone please e-mail me the gist of what this piece says?

I'm getting traffic from Russia, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Libya from it.

International Recruitment Companies And Migration

The famous 'Broadening Our Horizons' conference held by Scotland's Haughty Immigration Tsars' was sponsored by Hudson - an international recruitment company.

The idea that a business whose business is moving people across borders would have any vested commercial interest to serve by promoting migration's 'benefits' is, of course, ridiculous.

However, during the course of researching yesterday's post 'Pray Or Pay' I came across the thoughts of a gentleman named Albert Ellis.

He was quoted by the BBC as follows -

"Mr Brown warned against "the threat of protectionism" and insisted that overall the UK stood to gain from globalisation, "not just because we are among the most stable economies in the world but because we are the most open economy".

Moreover, Britain's "openness extends to embracing new ideas, and new influences".
A stark example of how such openness can help fuel economic growth was provided by a survey published at the CBI conference, which found that skilled migrant workers accounted for 5% of the UK's gross domestic product (GDP).

"The UK is now so heavily dependent on its migrants, that dispensing with them would cost the UK the equivalent of 100 new hospitals and more than 500 new schools, or approximately £54bn," the Harvey Nash/Centre for Economic and Business Research survey said.

"Economic migration has many detractors, but clearly what we are seeing here is unquestionably positive and beneficial to the UK," said Albert Ellis, chief executive, Harvey Nash. "

The Centre for Economic and Business Research is not a think tank, but a private consultancy. It's a business, so presumably it's in business for the purpose of making a profit.

One does not wish to be considered as impugning its staff's professional integrity, the quality of its research or the methods it uses to analyse data in any way whatsoever; however Douglas McWilliams, its CEO, is on the record both on UKIP's website and The Daily Express as having punted Mervyn King's old line from June 2005, that migration has kept down wage inflation, as recently as August 2006.

By just how much it might have kept down wage inflation is now clearly visible.

By just how little it might have helped keep overall inflation down is also now clearly visible.

Stagflation is coming.

McWilliams is also on the record as predicting that 'in the global labor market a combination of population growth and spreading literacy will expand the world’s labor force from 600 million, at present, to about 4,000 million in 25 years, with real hourly labor costs in Europe declining by over 1% per year over the same period' - in other words, the global labour arbitrage red in tooth and claw.

PR Newswire's report on the Harvey Nash/CEBR report said,

"New research by professional services and outsourcing company, Harvey Nash, highlights how the UK would lose GBP54.3 billion a year without the assistance of professional and managerial workers from overseas.

The study, conducted jointly with economic think-tank, the Centre for Economic and Business Research and published at this years' CBI Conference, clearly shows that the UK is now heavily dependent on its migrants to the tune of GBP54.3 billion - the figure attributed directly to them in terms of additional value added to the economy. The benefits of inward migration extend not only to plugging skills gaps, but also by the value added by migrants spending their cash in the UK on consumer items - known as the "multiplier effect"...

Albert Ellis, Chief Executive of Harvey Nash said:

"The sheer size of the contribution foreign skilled workers make to the UK economy in purely financial terms is quite unexpected. The UK benefits from migration by more than GBP50 billion each year, a figure expected to grow in the years ahead. Economic migration has many detractors, but clearly what we are seeing here is unquestionably positive and beneficial to the UK as a whole. In fact, the UK could not do without its influx of economic migrants."

He continued, "This trend is positive in so many ways - migrants employed by UK businesses are mainly in the Technology and Financial Services sectors. The skills and knowledge they bring are crucial in driving growth and in many cases innovation in some of our most successful companies. Secondly, migrants indirectly support around 200,000 other jobs by spending their wages in the UK, creating further "multiplier" effects."

"In general, several sectors - the NHS for example - would cease to operate effectively without the help of migrant workers. The NHS takes many thousands of migrants as workers - over 30% of NHS nursing roles are held by recent migrants to the UK. So the effect we are seeing is not a temporary blip - the UK is vastly dependent on its migrants to sustain its steady economic growth and will be for the foreseeable future".

A summary of the research report can be found at www.harveynash.com or at www.cbi.org.uk"

Harvey Nash is - an international recruitment consultancy.

And Albert Ellis has a blog.

I do try to look for these things, but I can't find summary of the research on Harvey Nash's website. However, I did find the thoughts of Albert Ellis -

"...the good news is that the UK is attracting great professional and managerial talent from around the world. As new Harvey Nash/CEBR research reveals, this highly skilled migrant talent in 2005 accounted for an additional 5% of GDP…thats nearly £55 billion! And this is not Polish plumbers or Bulgarian waiters….it’s £55 billion of value generated by highly skilled professional migrant talent."

If anyone finds it there, please let me know, with my apologies to Harvey Nash.

Both sentiments also apply to the CBI - I can't find the summary there either.

In any event, PR Newswire carries 'Key Points of the Research' -

"Current highly-skilled migrants
- There were 636,000 Professional and managerial migrants in the UK in 2005. In 1995, there were 380,000, meaning an increase of 256,000 or 25,500 per year
- Professional and skilled migrant workers represent 2.4% of the UK's labour force
- Over 40% of economic migrants reside in London, contributing GBP13.3 bn to London's economy
- The majority (36.1%) of professional and managerial migrants work in education/health and local/national government sectors
- 2005 saw 36,000 migrants arrive - a 6.1% rise on 2004, with the majority of highly-skilled migrants coming from the EU and EU accession states. Other significant flows came from Asia (9,100) and North America (4,500)
- Migrants produced GBP32 billion worth of output in 2005 or 3% of UK GVA.
- The IT, health and teaching professions were the largest occupation groups to arrive - IT and healthcare are the biggest - in 1995, 2142 software specialists came to the UK. In 2005, the figure increased to 20,900.
Regional Impact
- London is the biggest net receiver of migrants. In 2005, approximately 263,000 of migrants were working in London.
- The South-East is the second biggest absorber of migrants - 97,000 have been attracted to the South East/East of England.
- Schools, hospitals and public administration are the biggest occupational sectors in which migrants are employed
- Regions least affected by migrants are Wales, the North-East and Northern Ireland.
Indirect impact of skilled migrants
- Spending by skilled migrants supports 209,000 jobs in the UK or an extra GBP9.1 billion added to GDP.
- Economic migrants indirectly supported GBP22billion of the UK's output in 2005
- IT, telecommunications and related sectors are a close second, with service industries and financial services as the next biggest sector
- The biggest net contributors in terms of GVA are not in public administration ort healthcare - they are in IT and banking/financial services
Total economic Impact
- The total economic impact of skilled migrant workers in 2005 is estimated to be GBP54.3 billion or equivalent, 5% of domestic output (GVA/GDP)
- Output gains in the transport and communications sector benefits more than any other sector from highly- skilled migrants. They boosted this sector by just over GBP12 billion. "

All of the arguments to counter such research are contained in 'A Restrictionist's Reply to John Bercow'.

Mentioning how much migrants add to the economy by way of spending is pointless without also mentioning how much they consume in terms of services; schools, healthcare, road usage, housing , etc.

That the majority work in 'education/health and local/national government sectors' is merely an expression of current political priorities, and thus subject to change. All it means is that migrants work in the public sector. Such references do nothing to enhance the economic case for migration per se.

The 'benefits' gained from migrants working in IT must be weighed against the 'losses' incurred as a result of their employment upon indigenous IT experts.

And it is pointless, utterly pointless, to quote migration as having an 'economic impact' of '5% of GDP', without referring to what gain in GDP per capita it might bring.

Harvey Nash is an international recruitment and outsourcing business - and it's against that background that this report really should be read.

Wal-Mart Conservatives

R. Cort Kirkwood provides some food for thought for Wal-Mart's defenders -

"Wal-Mart is a corporate citizen of the world no more loyal to the land in which it grew than La Raza and the other leftists on Wal-Mart’s dole. The Times fortuitously revealed that libertarians and “conservatives” applaud Wal-Mart’s bankrolling of the ideology that will ultimately destroy us. Most importantly, as with all business partnerships between the ideological and corporate elites, the rest of us have no say in the matter.

Wal-Mart is subsidizing the destruction of America. Libertarians and so-called conservatives support the endeavor. Some of us dare call that treason."

But we're all good 'globalists now', so the end of the world's greatest nation state doesn't matter when weighed against the 'right' of some people to buy their stuff cheaply.

After all the nation state is an outmoded, archaic notion.

Although Milton Friedman didn't agree.

Taken For A Ride

The BBC reports that,

"Taxi drivers in Wrexham will face tests of their English language skills, basic arithmetic and knowledge of the area.

Town councillors have backed proposals that anyone applying for a taxi licence must show a command of "basic" written and spoken English.

The move follows licence applications from people who do not speak English.

A growing number of immigrants live in Wrexham, including up to 10,000 Poles - many of whom moved after Poland joined the European Union in 2004.

The council said it was impossible to monitor exactly how many immigrants were in the area."

One might have thought a good idea would have been to put an advert in a local paper asking all migrants in the area to dial an 0800 freephone number between particular hours.

The report continues,

"...it is thought around a quarter of Polish immigrants entering Wales head for Wrexham and neighbouring Flintshire...

Wrexham Council said it had a duty to ensure it only issued taxi licences to "fit and proper" applicants.

It said a command of basic written and spoken English was essential for a driver to "safely and effectively discharge his duties".

A list of 100 questions have been drafted, including: "Where is Mecca Bingo?" and "On which road is Wrexham football ground?"

Applicants will be expected to answer 25 out of 30. "

Paying for Poles to be asked 'Where is Mecca bingo?' in Wrexham...such are the uses to which uncontrolled migration demands that British taxpayer funds be put...

Is there no end to this migration madness?

We have really been taken for a ride.

Some Thoughts On Police Funding

If the Chief Constable of North Wales says his service is short of funds and that he 'can't afford the staff that we've got', then it might be a good idea to ditch the idea of hiring a Polish-speaking officer.

Unless, of course, he plans to replace all his existing cops with cheaper Poles.

I wonder how much he spends on interpreters - Dumfries & Galloway's interpretation costs have risen 9000% in four years -

"Police interpreter costs in Dumfries and Galloway are almost 90 times higher than they were four years ago.

A total of just £156 was spent on such services in 2002/03 but that rose to some £14,000 in 2005/06.

Police have attributed the rise to an increase in foreign nationals travelling between Northern Ireland and ports at Stranraer and Cairnryan...

Three officers attached to the UK Immigration Service have been stationed at the Police Operational Support Unit at Stranraer..

The spokesman said a large number of the people traced were either failed asylum seekers or people using false documentation. "

Migrants? Without whom the economy would collapse because the British are so lazy and stupid that they can't tie their shoelaces without a foreigner's help? Using false documentation?

Never!

Our Chinese Friends, Who Are Helping Us All Get Rich

They shoot Christians, you know.

Even the slightly odd ones.

'Where Economists Agree'...

the people suffer.

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko, Continued - Part I: Justin Raimondo Has Turned Into Elmer Fudd

Time for a little spleen-venting. A little score-settling.

A little bile.

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that, although people of great integrity such as Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts appear on Antiwar.com, its editorial director Justin Raimondo is an individual of low, or no, integrity.

Two things have led me to this conclusion.

It might be a function of my condition - but I can't seem to stop jumping in where I don't have to when I see either point blank lies being told or what I perceive to be concerted propaganda efforts being hoisted on the public.

That was what annoyed me so much about the BBC's propaganda efforts to prevent the deportation of Sakchai Makao.

That was what annoyed me so much about Mohammed Sarwar and Bashir Maan's behaviour in the immediate aftermath of Misbah Rana's disappearance.

That was why I took a swing at Lawrence Auster for telling lies about John Derbyshire.

That is what has annoyed me so much about the death of Alexander Litvinenko.

And that was why I jumped into the den of loonies at the now defunct arm of Front Page Magazine known as 'Moonbat Central' to defend Justin Raimondo.

I didn't know the guy, had never spoken to him - but they were lying about him, and that could not be tolerated.

And these lies had to be addressed not once, but three times.

My thanks for this was - a link.

An e-mail from Raimondo saying 'Thanks for taking otherwise productive time out your life to defend my reputation, Martin', would have been nice - but I guess he's a busy man.

That's the first reason - the second is, well, financial.

Between February 24 2005 and March 14 2006, Antiwar published five original articles of mine (read them now, because after this post they might not be there for long), entitled 'The Gonzocons Live On', 'The High Priest of Empire', 'The Gonzocon Terror Lie', 'Gonzocons Erase History' and 'A Requiem for Gonzoconservatism'.

Shane Cory's payment policy at 'The Washington Dispatch' was quite straightforward - he didn't. That was made clear at the outset, and one was happy to give him copy on that basis.

That was a nice gig. I miss it.

VDare pays, and after it published 'Ireland: Though All The World (Specifically, The Irish PM) Betray Thee' I received a cheque for $100 very promptly afterwards. This became £44.00 after the exchange rate and bank handling charges did their worst, but that's not Peter Brimelow's fault. Peter's a man of his word, and I can say with hand on heart that I've seen the colour of his money.

I cannot say the same of Justin Raimondo.

Antiwar's article submission guidelines make no mention of it having a 'no payment' policy. If they don't pay, then they should at least say so. In the absence of such a statement, one is entitled to believe that one will be paid for work submitted.

I have never received an enquiry from them as to where payment should be sent. I have not been paid for any of these articles.

Of course, I am the sucker here. To be suckered once is bad enough, but five times - folks, I might have been a lawyer and write about economics but I am no businessman.

Nobody gets into blogging or Internet commentary for the money, for sure, but I've got better things to do with my time than write adverts for bubblewrap.

This blog's early posts are scarred with a white box at the top of the page - that was where the Google Ads public service box appeared in the interval between telling them to take it down after they rejected me and my working out how to remove its HTML code manually.

But one's experience with 'Antiwar' means that if anyone were to ask me 'Should I submit to Antiwar?' I would reply 'No, because Raimondo's not good at showing his cash'. He is the editorial director - this is a matter under his control.

It's not just that they published five original articles - they also linked to four 'Washington Dispatch' pieces, 'Faster, Neocons! Kill! Kill!', 'The Blue Bolsheviks', 'The Sons of the Desert Gather Flowers of the Forest' and 'The Fever of Revolution'. Presumably they paid nothing in order to link to those pieces - which means I was providing content not only to 'The Washington Dispatch' but also 'Antiwar' for free.

They were written for TWD readers, not to be vampirised by Antiwar.

Notwithstanding all this, I sent them a very short piece less than two weeks ago, during their fundraising drive, suggesting 'Six Good Reasons to Donate to Antiwar'.

I will admit to an element of pique at none of the links I have submitted to them in relation to the Litvinenko case having been used- but I think I know why they might have sat on the shelf.

I have committed the cardinal sin of criticising Justin Raimondo.

One of Antiwar's great hooks is 'Liars don't link' - and in a critique of the version he told of his Moroccan, ahem, associate's story I wrote,

"However, I'm not altogether sure how verifiable Justin's comment about how the Spanish 'shoot illegal immigrants as they clamber onshore from rickety barges' might be; and very unusually for him, the reference is not supported by a hyperlink."

However, that Raimondo is, in my experience, a graceless tightwad (and hysteric) should not obscure the fact that he set the standard for Internet journalism with his investigation into the alleged poisoning of Victor Yushchenko.

Which is why his effusions on the Litvinenko case show him to be turning into Elmer Fudd.

This one deals with reporting faults covered two days earlier.

This one makes no mention of the delay between the initial reporting of the story in Russia and its appearance in the UK, Berezovsky's stated intention of bringing down the Russian governemtn by force, the appearance of Litvinenko's photo at precisely the point someone suffering from thallium posioning should be losing their hair, the role of Lord Tim Bell, Berezovsky's connections to Neil Bush and his having been declared persona non grata in Latvia on account of parapolitical activities, Berezovsky's boasts of links to the Conservative Party, or other possible motives for Litvinenko's killing.

But the most Fuddish of all his Litvinenko pieces is today's.

We get to Erinys -

"However, the visit to Erinys/Titon International is a bit harder to explain away as a mundane event.

The dictionary defines Erinys as "an avenging deity; one of the Furies; sometimes, conscience personified," and doesn't that send a bit of a chill down the spine? Alarm bells ought to be going off, at this point, as we learn that Erinys has its roots in the South African apartheid regime's intelligence apparatus, and, in its present incarnation, has links to Ahmed "Hero in Error" Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.

Erinys secured a contract from the Coalition Provisional Authority worth $80 million to protect Iraq's oil infrastructure, and you can see what a good job they've been doing. While this may not be a bargain for American taxpayers, it is a good deal for the INC, practically a guarantee of permanent employment for Chalabi's gang. Erinys employs their top people as legal counsel and uses Chalabi's militia for the strong-arm stuff: 14,000 strong. And you thought the U.S. subsidy to Chalabi & Co. had ended!

Titon International, headed by the same CEO, is variously identified as a "private investigator," and also an agency engaged in "confidential" "computer forensic investigation," whatever that is: their Web site describes them as

"An independent Business Intelligence Company providing a wide range of bespoke security and intelligence services to the commercial world both in the UK and Overseas. All Titon services are necessarily discreet and precisely tailored to the client's requirement – client confidentiality is of paramount importance to us and is always guaranteed."

Titon's graphic symbol, prominently displayed on their Web site, is an iceberg floating in the sea, with the great mass of it underwater and only a few icy peaks jutting through the surface.
We are told that the occasion of Litvinenko's visit to the building housing Erinys and Titon International was to see "a friend," but one wonders if it really was just a social call. Given the short time it took for Litvinenko's poisoning symptoms to manifest themselves, one also wonders just when this visit was made. On the day he was effectively killed, Litvinenko paid a visit to the world headquarters of a major mercenary operation; while this could be a coincidence, somehow I don't think so".

As I wrote yesterday,

"Upon what 'unrelated matter' could Litvinenko, a relatively unimportant Russian dissident, British citizen and associate (and tenant) of a man who's made clear his desire to bring down a friendly foreign power's democratically elected government by force, have possibly been visiting the offices of the company that won a $100 million contract to guard Iraq's oilfields?

And which hires Russians?

One is certain it couldn't be on account of anything which might contravenes the strict code of ethics to which Erinys adheres."

Indeed.

Last Wednesday I asked,

"There is no reason why (Berezovsky'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?"

As far as Litvinenko's concerned, it looks like we'll never know.

And as far as Justin Raimondo's concerned, maybe Anthony Gancarski had a point.

The Darker Side of Poland

Hmmm -

"Racist groups in Poland are forging links with Neo-Nazis in the UK, a race relations conference has been told.

Immigration and high unemployment had led to an upsurge in racist activity in Poland, said Dr Krystyna Bleszynska, of Warsaw University...

Neo-Nazi groups are outlawed in Poland, as they are in many European countries, but there has been growing concern about skinhead activity linked to football hooliganism.

In July, Polish police working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down a neo-Nazi website and charged a man suspected of running it...

The website published details of people on its hate list - such as left-wing activists, homosexuals and members of ethnic minorities, police said.

It was operated by the Polish wing of Blood and Honour, an international group which originated in the UK. The site used a US-based server.

Asked about Polish attitudes to migration at a Commission for Racial Equality conference in central London, Dr Bleszynska said Poland was a "cosmopolitan" and "multi-ethnic" society with a strong sense of social justice.

But there were also nationalists on both the right and left who had racist views.

"In Poland, we have certain legal and illegal organisations acting against immigrants on the basis of racism and that's really very sad," Dr Bleszynska told the Commission for Racial Equality conference in central London...

Average unemployment was 16% but it was 25% among young people and immigrants were sometimes seen as "people who will take Polish jobs".

Some Polish migrants in the UK, meanwhile, were being supported in their "unpleasant" behaviour by British nationalist and Neo-Nazi groups, said Dr Bleszynska, who is professor of multicultural education at Warsaw University...

Many Poles were highly qualified and found it easy to find work in the UK, Dr Bleszynska said.
But others, who were less well-educated, sometimes found it difficult to find jobs and were not accustomed to the multiracial nature of British society.

In particular, they found it difficult to understand "positive discrimination," which they viewed simply as "negative discrimination".

In areas such as Ealing, in West London, Polish "ghettos" were forming, Dr Bleszynska claimed, with some young Poles unable to find work but also unable to return home.

"They are ashamed to come back to tell their friends and family, I am sorry I was not successful," she said.

They sometimes faced "very unpleasant behaviour" when competing for jobs with British people, she said, but their behaviour in response was "also not pleasant".

And they were being "supported by British nationalists and Nazi groups," she added.

About 600,000 people have come to work in the UK from eight nations which joined the European Union in 2004, according to official figures, with the majority, about 447,000, coming from Poland. "

Not really the sort of attitudes one wishes to import en masse, one might have thought.

Hat tip - Adam Lawson.

Peter Hitchens On Russia

Food for thought -

"The trouble with the West in this period is that we were obsessed with 'democracy', the mechanism of elections. What we should have tried to bring to Russia is that much more valuable thing, the Rule of Law. But you cannot just proclaim the rule of law, as we ceaselessly proclaim 'democracy in Ukraine. Iraq and all the other places we gleefully interfere in.

It is much more difficult to establish. I learned this if nothing else, from those strange days in Moscow, that law and liberty are the things most worth saving, and that democracy is mainly gaudy wrapping paper. After all, Putin's Russia still has elections. and we can all pretend, if we want to, that it is democratic."

Kirk Elder On Jack McConnell (Again)

A classic from Scotland's Thurber -

"Incidentally, on watching Reporting Scotland, I couldn't help noticing two things. Firstly, the Senior Retainer, Mr McConnell, has developed a new style of public address, with a poetic metre somewhere between that of the Prime Minister and a speak-your-weight machine. He talks as. If he is. Receiving Messages From. The Littlegreenmen In His. Invisible Earpiece.

It is very disturbing.

Secondly, the report on the St Andrew's Day holiday was delivered by a Mr John Knox. A small comfort."

Thoughts For The Day

Scott Adams -

"What one simple problem could you eliminate – let’s say using magic – that would fix virtually every other problem in the world?

You might say that poverty is the biggest single problem. There’s a good argument for that. But I’m reasonably sure that if everyone on the planet suddenly became a billionaire we’d still be fighting over who has the best God. And before long a copy of Windows would cost a billion dollars and Bill Gates would have all the money back. That magical fix wouldn’t last."

Filed Under 'Couldn't Care Less'

Did the BBC think there was any particular reason why its licence-fee payers would be interested in the story of 'repatriated migrant' Alkaly Sarr?

His tough luck in being born in Senegal is precisely that - his tough luck.

He tried to enter Spain illegally, didn't make it and lived to tell the tale.

Case closed.

The Harmondsworth Job

Isn't it odd that there should be a riot at Harmondsworth Detention Centre the very day after the BBC reported that there were concerns about the facility?

And it hadn't made the news for two and a half years beforehand?

Pray Or Pay

Gordon Brown is not fit to be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Yesterday, he expressed his deep hatred of this country; and, by extension, of its people.

According to 'The Guardian', Brown addressed the Confederation of British Industry thus -

"Mr Brown called on Britain to become "an evangelist for globalisation", arguing free trade, open markets and flexibility were the preconditions of success in the global economy.

"I want globalisation's children - the coming generation - to enjoy the vastly increased opportunities it brings," Mr Brown told the CBI annual conference."

Globalisation is a policy, not a process - a policy of global labour arbitrage between the First and Third Worlds, with tradable employment moving from the high cost, high value economies of the First to the low cost, low value economies of the Third and mass migration into the First in order to lower wages.

The shipping of seafood landed in Scotland to China and Thailand for processing is an extreme example - but such examples make the game so obvious that any who deny it lay themselves open to the charge of being an economic ignoramus.

British real wages are visibly declining.

Migration is now openly reported as being a factor in the increase in unemployment - something some of us have been shouting about for months.

Globalisation is a policy intended to lead to plutonomy - as far as the United Kingdom and her citizens are concerned it benefits only the very rich.

And we have never been asked to vote upon it.

Any British politician who touts globalisation as having benefits for the United Kingdom can only hate this country, because they do not think, they cannot think, that it should be capable of standing by itself; and also hates its people, for they would make them paupers.

That's all that globalisation holds for us. Lower real wages, higher costs. That's all.

Brown is an aggressive globalist. Immediately before last June's G-8 summit in St.Petersburg he wrote an editorial for 'The Times' decrying 'economic 'patriotism'.

Earlier this month he wrote another editorial for 'The Times', saying,

"Globalisation desperately needs champions, statesmen and business leaders speaking together, to challenge the current descent into protectionism. And a new world trade deal is the most visible signal we can send that anti-globalisation forces of protectionism can and will be routed."

Now we must all be 'evangelists' for this false god of plutocrats; an appropriately sacrilegous metaphor to describe a wholly treacherous policy.

If there is one audience in the United Kingdom who you'd think would lap that message up it would be the CBI, British industry's vehicle for the practice of ethnic identity politics.

After all two years ago its members lapped up the comments of Sir Digby Jones, its then Director General, that,"I have formed the view that if ever there was a country made for globalisation, it is Britain. It is in our DNA."

Jones also said,

"Protectionist voices who think they can stop this - that's cloud cuckoo land...Ensuring people have the skills remains our problem. You have nothing to fear if you skill yourself."

The theory that one can protect oneself from globalisation with 'skills' is a canard.

It was shown to be a canard less than a month after Jones made his remarks.

Anyone who repeats it , including Gordon Brown himself, is a repeater of canards.

If proof of that claim's status as a canard is required, ask the engineer who didn't get hired because Irina Dyke got their job.

Ask the IT workers whose wages are being slashed by Indians on temporary visas, a practice some politicians might actually seek to defend.

Ask the engineers who aren't being hired because British industry, wrongly and for its own commercial benefit, considers experience to be a skill.

But the CBI aren't happy, because they're not allowed to do to foreign businesses what foreign businesses can do here.

They want a bigger slice of the pie.

They want more; and when faced with the idea that some countries prefer strategic businesses to remain in domestic hands, they throw their dummies from the pram like babies.

Tough luck, guys. You reap what you sow.

In such cases, one says 'Bravo' to the Spanish, the French and the Germans.

At least they still understand what a nation is.

Globalisation is a god to which Gordon Brown can pray as much as he likes.

What is certain is that for as long as this treacherous, anti-British practice remains government policy, the rest of us will be paying for it.

O Happy Day! The Christophobic, Scotophobic Jihadist Sajad Ahemed Rana Has LOST!

The High Court in Lahore has ruled that Misbah Rana must return to Scotland!

The BBC reports her mother's lawyer as saying,

"This was not a decision about custody. It was a decision on whether Mr Rana had acted improperly by violating the court order made at the Court of Session in Scotland in June last year."

The lawyer added: "Misbah should get a chance at the Court of Session to say who she wants to live with."

By ordering her return, the High Court in Lahore believes he did violate the court order.

Good.

Where are Mohammed Sarwar and Bashir Maan now?

Has Sarwar no harsh words for Rana? Is Maan still complaining of Islamophobia?

Is Bashir Maan going to assist Northern Constabulary with whatever enquiries they might have to make in relation to Misbah's de facto kidnapping?

Are we all supposed to forget that all this started out as a consequence of Rana's Christophobic jihad against the law of Scotland?

One wonders just how the Muslim bigot and apologist for Misbah's kidnapping Osama Saeed will try to spin this!

They Are Coming For The Bloggers (Continued) - Breaking The Code

Via The Devil's Kitchen, one learns that Tim Toulmin, the director of the Press Complaints Commission, is calling for 'a voluntary code of practice' for bloggers and other Internet sites.

Toulmin's comment that 'on the internet "there are no professional standards, there is no means of redress", is best rebutted by His Satanic Majesty himself -

"We scummy bloggers have this horrible habit of linking directly to our sources and to the data that we quote, which is rather more than many newspapers—especially, and for obvious reasons, the print editions—which, admittedly, can be a little embarrassing for those who are trying to hide things away.

We bloggers regulate ourselves. If a blogger has misrepresented the facts, he or she is veru often taken to task by their own commenters as well as by other bloggers. We nasty, rumour-mongering bloggers sink or swim by our credibility which is, in turn, determined by our reliability on evidence and interpretation. Not something that one can say about, say, Polly Toynbee; why else would there be a blog solely dedicated to exploding her lies and manipulation?

And means of redress? Well, in most cases an email will suffice.

There is something of a difference between the press and bloggers, and it is this: the press have massive financial backing. If someone complains to the MSM, the MSM can afford to ignore them. Even a libel case will not, in most cases, really damage a newpaper.Bloggers don't have those kind of resources. In most cases, the person who complains about what a blogger has written will have far more resources and money that the blogger. In this case, a voluntary code really is not needed."

Indeed. For example, if anyone thinks my pointing out that Toulmin 'comes (from) a newspaper family that founded the Lancashire Evening Post in Preston', then all they need to do is e-mail me and I'll think about editing it off.

As I wrote on April 11 2005,

"Murdoch has been an advocate of free markets for decades; well, now he’s got one in his backyard, and as time passes and the current non-existent level of Internet regulation continues, it’s a free market that is really going to hurt the corporate interests of anyone who ever borrowed money in order to put on a TV news show.

Although the Internet will have a saturation point, it’s probably nowhere near it yet, a thought which should make the Establishment quake at the prospect of the awesome power of the unleashed cyber-citizen.

This advent of this inter-connected reality has the power not just to change the way news and opinion is delivered; not just to provide other forums for activists; but also to change the very face of the political landscape.

A hyperlink serves no function other than to provide a reader with a choice; click on it or not. Obviously, this enables readers to experiment with information that would not otherwise form part of their regular intellectual diet. The attractions of writers who may have seemed thrilling only a short while ago may soon pall, to be replaced by new gurus.

The harsh reality of the Internet era is that it is not only the mainstream media but also those in government who are petrified of it; the central regulation and flow of information, the very means by which all states keep control, has been truly abolished at precisely the same time that Western governments have reached depths of authoritarianism never before reached in peacetime...

The Internet happened so fast that the political elites have only been able to react to it; the danger for Internet users will come when they want to control it, for the day may come when a politician, tired of the bad press they have received in unfiltered cyber-media, proposes that Internet use be licensed, and if not licensed then registered.

There would be a storm of protest, of course, but ultimately it is in the interests of both the Republicans and the Democrats for the flow of information to be regulated, preferably by them, and if not by them then by others favourable to them and their interests. They are political movements; they exist for no reason other than to seek and hold power. Once in power, the only means that exist of challenging that power lie in the regulated, infrequent and predictable turns of the electoral cycle.

A blogger with a piece of hot news can be read around the world in minutes. This is the biggest challenge the mainstream politicians have ever faced, an unconscionable threat to their interests.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts; and beware of politicians who say they want to protect the public in the aftermath of the very first big story that a blogger gets wrong and which has tragic consequences.

The day of the licensed blogger may not be far behind."

The MSM have as much interest as government in silencing the bloggers.

Don't ever forget it.

Economists At Their Pique

Both Bryan Caplan and Don Boudreaux mourn "the abject deference the public gives to physicists with the stubborn defiance the public gives to economists."

The explanation for this lack of deference is quite simple.

Economics contains no universal absolutes such as E=MCSquared.

E=MCSquared is true at all times and under all circumstances; 'comparative advantage' is not.

And if Caplan and Boudreaux believe that the public have a duty to respect them because of their academic discipline, they should study The Gas Laws more closely.

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko, Continued - Part II - (Im)Pertinent Comments...

have been posted on the blogs of Edward Lucas and The Beatroot.

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko, Continued - Part I: Is That E-Gor Or Eye-Gor?

Firstly, thanks to Donagh at Dublin Opinion, John Szamosi at the delightfully named Car Tree Duck and the (Russian) 'Genie in a bottle' at 'The Adventures of an Absent-Minded MBA Student', as well as thoe guys in the Russian language 'Live Journal' chatrooms, who've taken the time to read previous posts on this story.

Gasp! Polonium-210 has been found at Boris Berezovsky's office!

The 'Daily Telegraph' notes that,

"Traces of radiation have been found at the offices of the billionaire Russian exile Boris Berezovsky and a security firm which employs the former commander of Britain's special forces.

Polonium 210, the rare radioactive element thought to have killed the former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko, has been found at Mr Berezovsky's offices and those of the private security firm Erinys.

Erinys employs Major-General John Holmes, a former commander of the SAS and former director of British Special Forces at its offices in Grosvenor Street, Mayfair.

The company employs 16,000, largely ex-Forces personnel in Iraq to guard oil installations and has connections around the world, including Moscow.

Mr Berezovsky, one of Russia's first "oligarchs" made his wealth in automotives and oil before falling out with President Putin and being granted asylum in Britain.

As police sealed off part of his offices in Down Street, Mayfair, yesterday he was described by a friend as "extremely nervous"...

The friend added: "He is deeply shocked by Alexander Litvinenko's death and fears he could be next.

Police confirmed that radiation had been found at the two addresses but were still unable to explain the sequence of events that led them to the two sites.

A source said: "We are still trying to piece together Litvinenko's movements, who he met and where."...

The Health Protection Agency said it had received 450 calls over the weekend and asked three members of the public who may have come into contact with Mr Litvinenko and are showing possible symptoms of radiation poisoning to take further tests.

The symptoms include sickness, vomiting and bleeding gums. The people involved have been asked to take urine tests.

Forty members of the medical staff at University College Hospital and Barnet General, where Mr Litvinenko was treated, have also been sent for tests after the HPA conducted assessments.

It is understood that close members of Mr Litvinenko's family, including his wife, Marina and 12-year-old son, have also been offered the tests, which can take up to a week....

Erinys said yesterday that Mr Litvinenko had visited its offices on an unrelated matter and it had later called the Metropolitan Police.

Workers at other offices in the block said the premises on the fourth floor have been sealed off since Sunday.

In a statement composed before his death on Thursday, Mr Litvinenko, who had recently become a British citizen, pointed the finger at Mr Putin.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, said the Russian authorities had been asked to provide "all necessary co-operation" with the investigation...

At the weekend the Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain criticised the "very murky murder" of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, an opponent of Mr Putin.

Yesterday Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "The Prime Minister and other ministers have repeatedly underlined our concerns about some aspects of human rights in Russia. In terms of this particular case, we have to proceed carefully."

Mr Reid would not confirm that the incident would be discussed when Mr Blair and President Putin meet next week. "To some extent it will depend on developments," he said."

Security firms run by ex-SAS commanders? Visits on unrelated matters?

Murky murders? Just what on Earth is going on?

Upon what 'unrelated matter' could Litvinenko, a relatively unimportant Russian dissident, British citizen and associate (and tenant) of a man who's made clear his desire to bring down a friendly foreign power's democratically elected government by force, have possibly been visiting the offices of the company that won a $100 million contract to guard Iraq's oilfields?

And which hires Russians?

One is certain it couldn't be on account of anything which might contravenes the strict code of ethics to which Erinys adheres.

And if the story broke on November 19, Litvinenko died of polonium-210 poisoning on November 23 and the relevant tests to determine the existence of that toxin can take a week, why was thallium poisoning being shouted as the cause of his illness on November 21?

Surely the tests for polonium poisoning were still ongoing at that point?

Although three people are undergoing tests, the Home Secretary has indicated that there is no cause for general alarm...which may be of little comfort to Mario Scaramella, back in town and ready to answer questions.

What possible dealings could Litvinenko have had with a company like Erinys?

His post mortem, an essential step in the investigation of any sudden death, will be conducted on Friday.

However, a real McGuffin appeared yesterday - in the shape of 'Igor'.

According to 'The Daily Mail',

"A ruthless assassin known as Igor is being hunted over the poison murder of a former Russian spy that yesterday threatened to spark a fully-blown diplomatic row.

The trained killer - part of a group of ex-KGB spies called 'Dignity and Honor' - was named in a document passed to police by Alexander Litvinenko shortly before he lost consciousness and died...

The 46-year-old, a former member of Russia's notorious Spetsnaz special forces, is a key suspect wanted for questioning over the death of the KGB defector, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium 210 - a toxin 250 billion times deadlier than cyanide.

The document was passed to Mr Litvinenko at the sushi restaurant where he is thought to have been slipped a lethal dose of the substance.

The papers reveal that 'Dignity and Honor' are loyalists waging their own Cold War campaign against critics of Russian president Vladimir Putin...

The document is understood to contain an extraordinary hitlist with 43-year-old Mr Litvinenko a prime target...

Igor, whose full identity cannot be revealed for legal reasons, is said to be a judo master who walks with a slight limp after an accident. Slim, muscular and 6ft tall, he speaks perfect English and Portuguese - and has been trained to kill.

Security services and police believe he is in hiding in Italy."

Oh for goodness' sake!

Yes, Litvinenko's death may indeed have been the work of a 'rogue group' of ex-KGB - but who would fund such a group? Are they criminals?

One is almost tempted to ask whether he's known as E-Gor or Eye-Gor...and the theory doesn't seem to hold water anyway...

All these deaths...

Peter Hain was, of course, absolutely correct to describe Anna Politkovskaya's murder as 'murky'. There has been speculation that she might have been the victim of 'a Kremlin power struggle'; while on October 10 Kommersant published a detailed analysis of who might have been responsible -

"Anna Politkovskaya was buried today in Troekurovskoe Cemetery in Moscow. The Novaya gazeta reporter was murdered last Saturday. The investigation of her killing has not gotten far in the two days since then. Investigators are using three main theories – that her killing was the revenge of police who were imprisoned as a result of her investigations, or a conspiracy among the opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, or the revenge of Chechen rebels who went over to the federal side...

Kommersant has learned that three theories about Politkovskaya's killing have been pursued in investigator's meetings leading up to their report to Grin. One of those connects the crime with policemen in Nizhnvartovsk. Politkovskaya, working with the Memorial human rights center, that police from that Siberian city kidnapped, tortured and killed civilians while serving in Chechnya in 2001. After the publication of those findings in Novaya gazeta and other media, a criminal case was initiated against those policemen. One of them, Sergey Lapin, who used the codename Cadet in radio communications, remained at large for a lengthy period but was eventually sentenced to 11 years in prison. This version of events arose after investigators remembered that Lapin had threatened Politkovskaya while on the run. “You have ten days to publish a retraction. Otherwise the policemen you have hired to protect you will be powerless to help,” Lapin told Politkovskaya in one of his e-mail messages. Lapin also told her that he had been trained in a snipers' school and was armed and heading for Moscow. The prosecutor in Nizhnevartovsk charged Lapin with making threats against Politkovskaya's life, but the policeman's father Vadim Lapin told Kommersant that the case was dropped for lack of evidence. “When they killed Politkovskaya, I immediately thought they would think about my son,” the elder Lapin said. Investigators note that, after Lapin's sentencing, several other Nizhnevartovsk policemen were charged, and they also had a motive for revenge against the journalist.

Kommersant has learned that investigators are also discussing the possibility a conspiracy among opponents of Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov. Under that scenario, the journalist's killing was intentionally timed to the Russian president's birthday to undermine his authority, especially in the West. The name of political emigrant Boris Berezovsky was mentioned in that context."

Wow! Boris Berezovsky's name has been (gulp) discussed by (gulp) the Russian authorities in connection with the murder of Anna Politkovskaya?

Who, like Paul Klebnikov, was an American citizen, having been born in New York City?

You didn't know?

It continues,

"I am proud that Anna Politkovskaya, especially in the last few years, very often came to me for advice and commentary,” Berezovsky told Kommersant. “He (sic) considered me someone who thought about Russia and like-minded.” Concerning possible suspicions about him, Berezovsky commented that “the regime attributes everything bad that happens in Russia to its enemies, and very often to me.”

The idea that the murder of the journalist was intended to cast suspicion on people associated with Kadyrov is being pursued as well. Several prominent Chechens are being investigated who had been in conflict with the Chechen prime minister or were not interested in supporting him.

Politkovskaya made a number of enemies among influential Chechens because of her publications in Novaya gazeta. “I specially requested and read all, well, let's say almost all of Anna Politkovskaya's material,” Prosecutor of Chechnya Valery Kuznetsov told Kommersant. “Her publications helped me understand what happened in the republic before me,” added Kuznetsov, who has been in his post for just over a year, “and what is happening now. Even we can miss something… The last material of Politkovskaya's that I read was called “Vindictive Collusion.” I want to note that we will check all the facts in that article that are within the purview of our office. We have tried to react quickly and not wait for those observations to be read on high and an order be issued for us to do it.”

When asked if the Chechen prosecutor's office was checking the main hero of almost all of Politkovskaya's reportage, Prime Minister Kadyrov and the forces he controls, which are habitually referred to as “Kadyrovites” (Russian kadyrovtsy), Kuznetsov replied, “Kadyrovites are not specific. It is an ephemeral concept. In general, we always face the main task of checking facts, not persons. After we confirm the facts, we begin to work with people. Among those involved in criminal cases initiated by the republic's prosecutor based on Anna Politkovskaya's material, there are policemen and employees of the security services of the leaders of Chechnya.” As an example, the prosecutor mentioned the beating of interior forces soldiers by Chechen security forces after a car accident. “The let that fact slip by somehow,” Kuznetsov explained. “But, thanks to Politkovskaya, the prosecutor's office turned its attention to it and initiated a case of exceeding authority.”

“I can't say that we agree with all of Politkovskaya's opinions,” Kuznetsov conceded, “but there was undoubtedly a grain of rationality in many of her publications about the actions of Chechen security forces.”

So Politkovskaya had many enemies, just like Paul Klebnikov.

And, like Litvinenko and Klebnikov, had had dealings with Berezovsky...

How strange...

But with Michael Ledeen channelling James Jesus Angleton, the laughable David Pryce-Jones writing that 'Everyone concurs that the murder serves only the hierarchy ruling in the Kremlin' (not me, boss) and Max Hastings accusing the Russians of murder, one imagines the road through the fog is going to be even harder to follow than at first thought ...

The Booman Tribune has posted a good analysis of the case against Putin so far -

"Therefore, the official story is that a guy who has claimed Putin 1) killed hundreds of Russians in Moscow to provoke a second Chechen War and "divert Russia from democracy" 2) Putin personally ordered the KGB to kill Litvinenko's close friend Berezovsky 3) Putin is in league with organized crime 4) Putin controls the Italian Prime Minister and 5) that Russia is paying and training top Al-Qaeda leaders got tired of Litvinenko's criticism after 13 years, 2 books, 2 criminal trials and 6 years of freedom in Britain and decided to "silence" him using extremely small doses of one of the most toxic, radioactive substances on the planet.

Oh yeah, and this poisoning was done either 1) by an Italian journalist who had "dirt" on the Putin government's "cover-up" of Politskaya's murder or 2) some of his old ex-KGB buddies, nobody can say which.

As if all that wasn't dramatic enough, after Litvinenko is dead in his bed, his buddies Goldfarb and Berezovsky produce a "signed statement" supposedly written 3 days earlier which points the finger square at Putin. Oh yeah, and the radioactivity is not what killed him, but instead he died of a heart attack."

The best analysis of the diagnostic delay comes from John Szamosi, a guy who also knows his chemistry -

"I’ve been admitted to the hospital several times in my life for high blood sugar related to being a Type I diabetic. One of the first things they do is take urine samples to check the level of ketones in my urine. While checking the ketones, they’re also checking for other shit, like drugs (one nurse literally asked my mother when I was 17 if I drank or did drugs because how could I be so stupid). I have no idea how they handle sickness in England, but I would like to believe that they’re able to do a urine test somewhere near as fast as some podunk hospital in Warren County, New Jersey can.

How is it possible that doing a scan for toxic substances, it took until three hours before this man kicked the bucket before they were able to detect Polonium 210? Maybe the British medical workers need to watch their fellow countryman Hugh Laurie in House MD to get an idea of the proper way to diagnose a patient… We do know he was saying he was poisoned with Thallium, and it could be possible that they took him at his word and did not really do an extensive test of his fluids to find out what was actually poisoning him."

And The Copydude compares and contrasts the coverage given to the cases of Litvinenko and Politkovskaya with that of Eduard Limonov.

All three posts are worth reading in full.

The most unintentionally funny comment I've read about the case so far has come from commentor GeorgeD on The Belmont Club -

"There is some speculation that Litivenko was a convert to islam and that his death was a Jihadi suicide. Any comment or substance to this?"

And I'm accused of conspiracy theory...

Boris Berezovsky once described Paul Klebnikov as being 'a bull in a china shop', you know...

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko, Continued - Part II: A Letter To John Podhoretz

Having seen his post of last night entitled 'Pat Buchanan: Some Guy Named Goldfarb Did It' on NRO's 'Corner', this morning I have sent the following e-mail to John Podhoretz. The e-mail address was jpod@sprynet.com, the one listed on his post, and it was sent at 09:03:01 GMT -

"Dear Mr. Podhoretz,

I will provide you with the bullets for you to fire at me, if you so wish - however, the circumstances surrounding Alexander Litvinenko's death are very much more complicated than they might at first appear. Although Mr. Buchanan is often accused of anti-Semitism, Goldfarb's & Berezovsky's Judaism is most likely not a factor in this business. It might interest you to know that Russia's wealthiest man, and the oligarch now closest to Putin, Roman Abramovich, is Jewish.

For the record I am a lawyer by profession, although I now no longer practice.

On January 26 2006 Agence France Presse reported Boris Berezovsky as saying,

"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 forcein Russia," he said, claiming he would finance this with a fortunethat had "tripled" over the last five years to billions of dollars". -

http://www.bhhrg.org/mediaDetails.asp?ArticleID=849

He therefore has motive to smear and discredit Putin.

From the point at which this story broke, the British appeared to report only Litvinenko's opposition to Putin -

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/reporting-of-attempted-assassination.html

The Russian press was reporting this story on November 13, yet it did not break in the UK until the 19th. At that time, the cause of Mr. Litvinenko's poisoning was alleged to be thallium. Litvinenko alleged that he had been poisoned on November 1. Although the effects of thallium poisoning appear 12 hours after ingestion, hair loss after 2-4 weeks is apparently a critical factor in its diagnosis; and it struck me as odd that the story should only appear at this point in his illness, to the extent that on November 21 I speculated whether Litvinenko had a PR team -

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/framing-of-vladimir-putin-for.html

On November 22, it transpired that he did; one led by Lord Tim Bell, the UK's most prominent PR man and an associate of Berezovsky's, who was donating his services free of charge and who had advised the Litvinenko family to release the pictures -

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

The above post also notes that while Alex Goldfarb was being described as 'a family friend', he is also the chairman of Berezovsky's 'Civil Liberties Foundation' and his self-described 'right-hand man' -

http://en.for-ua.com/news/2005/10/28/140702.html ;

and that Berezovsky has been declared persona non grata in Latvia on account of his parapolitical activities -

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=412

Berezovsky was reported to be not merely an associate of Litvinenko's; one of his companies owns the house the Litvinenkos live in.

As early as November 23, it was being reported that the focus of police attention was moving away from state involvement in the poisoning to it being the work of crime gangs, perhaps those with whom Litvinenko had tangled when he was KGB -

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

On November 24, it transpired that Litvinenko had been in contact with a British politician named Gerard Batten in relation to allegations that Romano Prodi, now the Italian premier, was a KGB agent, and that Lord Bell's association with Berezovsky may have been of very long standing; and given Berezovsky's stated aim of overthrowing the government of Russia by force, and the closeness of his association with Litvinenko, it is virtually impossible to believe that he did not know of the contact that Litvinenko made with Batten -

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

On Saturday, it was reported for the first time that the Kremlin was blaming Berezovsky -

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/11/death-of-alexander-litvinenko_25.html

The following day, the 'Independent on Sunday' reported that the police were investigating the possibility that Litvinenko might have been in some way party to his own poisoning -

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

The above post also mentions the death of Paul Klebnikov, the American editor of 'Forbes Russia' and author of a book extremely critical of Berezovsky, who was murdered in Moscow in 2004; your NRO colleague John J. Miller reviewed it for Amazon.

It also makes mention of Berezovsky's interference in Ukrainian politics; it appears that he might bear as much responsibility as any other for the collapse of the 'Orange Revolution' -

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/09/25/16194.html

Believe me, Mr. Podhoretz, I hold no particulalar brief for Mr. Putin, but I do not like the possibility of the British public being misled over such a potentially grave incident.

I told you I'd give you the bullets to fire at me.

I am a very great admirer of Patrick J. Buchanan's -

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/08/where-is-our-buchanan.html -

his blog links to mine -

http://www.buchanan.org/blog/ -

and I also authored this post -

http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/2006/09/who-are-israelis-to-me.html

I have nothing to hide, Mr. Podhoretz. The question as far as Alexander Litvinenko's death is concerned is - who does?

Do as you will.

Regards,

M.E. Kelly, LL.B., Dip.L.P.,
http://martinkelly.blogspot.com/
Glasgow"

In fairness to all concerned, it should also have been noted that the Kremlin's PR appears to be handled by Ketchum.

(Update 228/11/2006 - I have received a reply from Podhoretz; it is reproduced here in its entirety-

"So you're saying that some of Putin's best friends are Jewish?
Don't be a fool."

Well, I think that's that avenue of enquiry closed).

New Labour's Displays Its Commitment To Small Government

From the BBC -

"Local authorities in England are to be warned by the government to keep council tax rises below 5% next year.

"Local government minister Phil Woolas is expected to tell councils he will not hesitate to cap "excessive" hikes...

"Mr Woolas is expected to tell Parliament today that government support for local councils in England will rise by 4.9% to £3.1 billion next year.

In his speech, Mr Woolas is also expected to say that total revenue grants to English local authorities for the same period will reach £65.7 billion.

The Local Government Association (LGA) has warned that a large number of authorities will get just 2.7% - well below the rising costs of many council services. "

Wow, council tax rises must be below 5%!

With the Consumer Price Index showing inflation during October 2.4% and the Retail Price Index 3.7%, real wages visibly declining and past council tax rises already having outstripped earnings, a demand from New Labour that the next rise should be no more than twice the level of CPI inflation is almost libertarian!

"The rising costs of council services"....

Na. They can't mean stuff like Clackmannanshire Council spending £50,000 on remedial English classes for Polish migrants' children...or Dumfries & Galloway Police holding open days for migrants...could it?

What Passes For Politics In Scotland

It is on issues such as this that the Union's fate hangs by a thread.

Foreign Criminal Of The Day, Part I - Broken Hearts, Broken Limits

Being the head coach of Heart of Midlothian Football Club can't be the easiest of jobs right now.

After all, you're working for Vladimir Romanov, veteran of the K-19 and sometime underground 'businessman' in the former Soviet Union.

Romanov's leadership style is reported to be, well, idiosyncratic - but one supposes that you're not going to be scared of the SFA when you've had the KGB standing on your doorstep.

But workplace stress was certainly no excuse for Lithuanian Valdas Ivanauskas (pictured) to be speeding at 97 miles an hour.

Just another sad story of Eastern Europeans in motor cars...

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part II - Slough's Mr. Fraud

Benefit fraud, passport fraud, speeeding ticket fraud, whatever type of fraud you care to name, if you were in Slough and you had the cash then Pakistani Nawaz Sharif would be able to perpetrate it for you.

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko (Continued) - Is That E-Gor Or Eye-Gor?...

will appear tomorrow.

Sorry folks, I know the poor bloke's dead but after a week I'm Litvinenko-ed out.

I need 24 hours without writing about Russian oligarchs or polonium-210.

Economic Bits And Pieces And Stuff

Don Boudreaux has put up a post entitled 'In Markets, People are the Ultimate Resource'.

Wrong. At all times and under all circumstances, the ultimate resource is time.

Dennis raises the possibility of the housing asset bubble bursting, while James Hamilton anticipates this week's figures for home sales.

The 'Daily Mail', ever fearful of famine, fire and flood, quotes David Miles' concern for the UK bubble's future; and MichaelCD isn't wholly convinced of the arguments against it not bursting.

William Rees-Mogg doesn't seem to understand that this boom, having nothing at all to do with the political cycle, is not like its predecessors.

Bruce Hall puts the Economisticons on the mat.

And with the UK's GDP growing by a whopping 0.7% last quarter, the national debt might be three times higher than advertised.

And the Conservatives still can't seem to get ahead in the polls...not that the idea we live in an abstraction called the 'United Kingdom' seems to matter any more...

Why Nobody Sould Vote For The Scottish National Party, Part MCLXIX

This image appears on the blog a lady named Christina McKelvie, the SNP candidate for Hamilton South.

Although it looks innocent enough, it is in fact one of the most repulsive images that one can ever recall seeing; certainly the most repulsive to come from Scotland's party political playpens.

It is too similar to Joe Rosenthal's image of Old Glory being raised on Mount Suribachi for the similarity to be coincidental; and by aping that image, taken as it was during the appalling bloodshed of Iwo Jima, a battle that some depicted in the original photograph did not survive, those responsible for the above photograph show that they do not understand what they are about; indeed, they don't even know what point they're trying to make.

Iwo Jima was a fight-to-the-death battle which fewer than 5% of the Japanese combatants survived. The struggle for Scottish independence is - what? A struggle on the same scale?

As important and consequential an event as the defeat of the Axis?

Get a life.

Are they trying to portray victory over tyranny?

If so, then any sense of tyranny which believes that the United Kingdom and the Greater East Asia Prosperity Sphere are in any way equivalent to each other is warped.

It is morally unserious; worse, actually frivolous, because by aping Rosenthal's photograph it shows that the photographer wanted the benefit of the visual image he captured without thought for when, why and under what circumstances that image came about.

After seeing that some members of Congress had dyed their fingers blue, aping the mark placed on voters during the Iraqi elections of 2005, I wrote of their gesture that,

"This is the moral equivalent of well-fed, affluent Western academics and teenagers proclaiming their support for the oppression of Fidel Castro while wearing the image of the murderous Ernesto Guevara; a poseur’s act, purely ideological, completely free of personal risk and ultimately as disrespectful to those Iraqis who braved savage harm by going to vote as the Che-wearers are of those Cubans who suffer under the boot of a vicious old man to whom the neoconservatives are happy to turn blind eyes, thus spitting in those of Bush’s most loyal supporters, those without whom neither he nor his brother would hold office, the Cuban-American Republicans of Miami-Dade. "

The image portrayed above is of precisely the same character; a posuer's act, free of risk and disrespectful to those it apes.

Perhaps Ms. McKelvie doesn't understand its significance.

Pity.

You know, I really don't want to vote Labour next May...

Immigration, Immigration, Immigration

Cue James Brown!

"OH! Say it now! I'm back! I'm back! I'm back! I'm back..

Get up offa that thang, and collate evidence of immigration restriction's social and economic benefits 'till you feel better,..."

A House of Lords committee has pulled out Excuse for Mass Immigration No. 4 ('it's boosted the economy' - no, that's No.3; No. 4 is 'leads to a more vibrant and diverse society') out of the bag.

Their Lordships presumably don't mix with many displaced Liverpool builders.

The 'Daily Mail' has reported that cash is on the way back, just as it's been announced that the UK is the European country where one is most likely to suffer card fraud.

And all less than two months before Romania, the continent's card fraud capital, joins the EU and every Romanian can settle here if they wish.

Well, if cash is making a comeback then the powers that be had better do something about those declining real wages...like, um, restrict immigration...because if the figures quoted by those appalling populists (sidebar - is it just me, or is 'populist' fast becoming an epithet to be not spoken but spat, like 'witch', 'whore' or 'Fenian'?) at the 'Daily Mail' are anything to go by, then near enough 700,000 Eastern Europeans have arrived within the last 30 months.

Hmm...this is interesting...

Compare and contrast...

"As well as placing unprecedented pressure on schools, hospitals and roads, the migrants are costing the taxpayer up to £60million in benefits.

According to the Home Office, 55,000 are now in receipt of handouts such as tax credits, child benefit and council housing.

The number claiming state support - which Tony Blair insisted would be kept to a minimum - has risen by almost 30 per cent in the past three months. "

The Daily Mail, November 22 2006.

"By God, what Scotland really wants is Poles. Poland is a highly educated place, and what we really need is Polish entrepreneurs. All these brilliant, hungry kids who know how to use money. As soon as they’ve got a few dollars together they settle down and start a small business. It’s that extraordinary kind of energy I think we might just get from a fine inflow of Poles....the idea of Poles coming in as sort of hairy, cheap labour and taking jobs away from honest working men is a complete misconception".

Neal Ascherson, February 25 2004.

"It might even be said that they are better at their jobs than the British. "I have worked with a lot of English people and their attitude is slightly different. They take things for granted a bit more, because there is quite a strong benefits system here ," says Miss Motyka. "But we never claim benefits. We always rely on ourselves."

Katarzyna Motyka, quoted in 'The Daily Telegraph', May 12 2006.

"Thousands of 'feckless' Poles are raking in unemployment benefits back home while doing 'very nicely' out of the British economy, according to the Polish President.

Lech Kaczynski also said Britain has become the 'destination of choice' for many of his countrymen, who have ended up jobless and homeless here.

The Government has defended the influx of up to 400,000 Poles into Britain by saying they are hardworking and have little interest in claiming benefits.

But Mr Kaczynski said they had been quite the opposite back home - where they are still receiving welfare payments.

He told a Number Ten audience: "I believe there are a number of people - not only from Poland but from a number of other countries - who are feckless naturally, but they seek a better life and they go abroad.

"Currently, the UK has become a destination of choice for such individuals. Poland doesn't shirk responsibility for such individuals. We are aware that such a problem exists.

"We know that there are those who have succeeded in the UK and have jobs and are doing very well, thank you, especially considering the difference in wages between the UK and Poland.

"But these people are registered as unemployed in Poland, so they are living a fiction and raising unemployment figures in Poland while they are doing very nicely in the UK.

"This is something we would like to do without."

Lech Kaczynski, President of Poland, November 7 2006.

UK Immigration News reports that 80,000 Eastern Europeans are arriving to colo-settle every year.

Soon we'll be seeing more stories about how people like PC Keith Sinclair are going out of their way to accommodate migrant communities.

Sinclair's beat is in Wrexham, a migration magnet; and wonder of wonders, there might soon be a London to Wrexham railway line.

Now why had nobody ever thought of such a thing before?

But as well as spiralling levels of card fraud, we also have an acute problem with cocaine abuse - which of course has had nothing to do with permitting the likes of Jesus Anibal Ruiz-Henao to become British citizens.

Sadly, uncontrolled migration also kills - a truth which one of an apparently insane North African road rage attacker's victims paid with their life to prove.

Here's a deal for the Africans - we'll set up the development fund if they stop sending us the AIDS cases.

The Globalisation Institute's smart little cookies and bright young things have worked out there's a link between globalisation and migration; but it's a pity they haven't yet worked out that migration is globalisation.

And one has the greatest sympathy for The Hyphenated Canadian, given that he has been accused of 'hate speech'; one wonders how long one will be able to blog on the subject of Eastern European migration at all, given that Dr. Kay Hampton, Ali Jarvis' replacement as head of the Commission for Racial Equality in Scotland and one of 'Scotland's Haughty Immigration Tsars', wants to 'move away from the perception of racism as a black issue' - meaning that one might soon be branded with the modern mark of Cain for criticising Poles.

O brave new Scotland, which has such people in it...

The last words on that particular topic ever written should be those of Bob Parks, referring to the case of Michael Richards;

"Good thing he didn’t direct a Jesus movie. He’d be in real trouble".

They Are Coming For The Bloggers, Continued - The New World Order Strikes Back...And Gets Busted In The Chops...

Following the attack on free speech perpetrated by retiring Blair apparatchik Matthew Taylor on November 17, a couple of items concerning officialdom's encroachment onto the Internet have grabbed one's attention.

The first is President George H. W. Bush's criticism of bloggers for turning the air of political discourse 'ugly'.

That his son has initiated two of the ugliest policies in modern American history - firstly the unnecessary invasion of a nation which presented no threat to America at a cost of oceans of American blood and the loss of an incalculable amount of American treasure, and secondly his attempt to prove that his country's southern border is soluble in the Rio Grande - seems to have escaped the old patrician's attention. If he wants to throw about the blame for American political discourse being 'ugly', he need look no further than the fruit of his own loins.

Bush's comment is all that one would expect from an optimate; when it all goes pear-shaped, blame the mob.

Hat tip to Iain Dale via the The Devil's Kitchen - in typically lusty voice.

The second is the (failed) prosecution of Canadian blogger Charles Leblanc on charges of obstruction of justice.

According to CBC News,

"The judge overseeing the obstruction trial of internet blogger Charles LeBlanc criticized the prosecution's case in open court and even wondered aloud why LeBlanc was arrested in the first place.

Judge William McCarroll stopped short of dismissing the case Tuesday, but asked several pointed questions of the Crown, and suggested police officers may have acted inappropriately.

McCarroll studied CBC videotape of LeBlanc's arrest outside a business conference in Saint John last June. The video shows LeBlanc taking digital photos of a rowdy protest outside conference doors, and caught three Saint John police officers pinning him to the ground while he shouted out that he was taking pictures for his internet website. He was later charged with obstruction of justice...

"The video speaks for itself. It's very strong evidence, that video," McCarroll said. "He's taking pictures. The next thing is, you know, he's down on the ground with three officers on him."

Police had testified earlier in the week that LeBlanc resisted during his arrest, but McCarroll held up a picture of the police walking LeBlanc peacefully across the lobby of the conference centre. "This doesn't look to me like someone who is resisting arrest."

Crown prosecutor Catherine McNally suggested police arrested LeBlanc because they "didn't recognize him as a media person."

McCarroll replied the officers must have believed he was some sort of journalist, because they admitted to using his blog to get information about the conference in the days prior to his arrest. "The police went to his blogsite to get information," he said.

Tuesday morning, Saint John police admitted to visiting LeBlanc's blog site to obtain information on the Atlantica conference in the days before the event, even though they eventually arrested him partly because they didn't consider him a legitimate journalist....

Sgt. Bruce Connell testified Tuesday that police were concerned about planned demonstrations at the conference, held last June, and visited LeBlanc's website to get more information.

LeBlanc had written about plans by some opponents to attend the business conference and protest, a report police found useful enough to download and discuss.

"You did find some information there, useful to you," asked LeBlanc's lawyer, Harold Doherty, during testimony in the Saint John courtroom.

"Yes, absolutely," replied Connell.

The arresting officer, Sgt. John Parks, testified Monday that he didn't consider LeBlanc to be a legitimate reporter because he appeared "scruffy" and had an unprofessional-looking digital camera. Parks also admitted to deleting a photo of himself from LeBlanc's camera.

Doherty says LeBlanc did not obstruct justice during the protest, and was just doing his job as a journalist. He says the officers' actions in deleting pictures from LeBlanc's camera deprive him of a full and fair defence because they would show precisely where LeBlanc was standing and what he was doing in the minutes before his arrest.

Doherty says freedom of the press should extend to all journalists, not just those employed with large media organizations...

Parks also testified Monday that he had no idea what a blog or blogger was, even though his colleague admitted Tuesday to using LeBlanc's website as a source of information."

This report is of interest to all bloggers for three reasons.

Firstly, ensure that you are clean, tidy and presentable at all times.

In my case, that means ears, eyebrows and nosehair trimmed and clean shorts donned before either former Spetznaz contract killers in the pay of dissident Russian oligarchs, hordes of foreign criminals, the Special Branch, George Mason University's economics faculty or the Whitesbridge Labour Party come to break down the door.

After all, you wouldn't want anyone thinking you to be 'scruffy'.

The second is that Saint John's sounds like a really good place to get arrested.

However, the third is that this case might seem to reinforce bloggers' legal status as journalists. The cops used Leblanc's blog as a source. Like all bloggers, Leblanc placed the information in the public domain freely - there was nothing suspicious in his actions.

After all, did Mohammed Atta blog about his intention to perpetrate the 9/11 atrocities? Obviously not.

Did Mohammed Siddique Khan blog about his intention to perpetrate the 7/7 bombings? Obviously not.

All these guys who blow up stuff being called 'Mohammed'...weird coincidence...

Content obviously matters; if a blogger writes 'There will be a demonstration at XYZ Corp on Wednesday at 16.00: Death to the pigs!', that might reasonably be construed as incitement to perpetrate violence against those members of the law enforcement community who might be in attendance at that demonstration.

If a blogger wrote that a dissident Russian oligarch with a name that sounds like, say, Barney Ballofwoolsky was responsible for the deaths of three people because he is the person who would seem to have most to gain from all three of them being dead, then without concrete proof of his involvement such a statement would of course be libellous.

However, it would appear to be the relative neutral, dare one say it journalistic nature of Leblanc's blogging that was his best defence. In the narrow sense, all this verdict proves is that Charles Leblanc's behaviour at a particular time and place did not constitute obstruction of justice - but it proves that some cops treat blogs like reports.

And people who write reports are 'reporters'.

Hat tip to The Hyphenated Canadian.

The Thoughts Of Peter Hain

Peter Hain, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Wales and Northern Ireland, has launched an attack on Vladimir Putin, saying Putin's achievements,

"must be balanced against the fact that there have been huge attacks on individual liberty and on democracy and it's important that he retakes the democratic view".

That the Russians approve of him overwhelmingly seems neither here nor there - however one might thought that Hain had other, slightly more pressing matters to consider than the condition of democracy in Russia.

For example, on Friday an armed Loyalist killer burst into Stormont, the Northern Ireland assembly building, brandishing a gun.

That such incidents can still happen in that most fragile portion of the United Kingdom might indicate that Hain still has some work to do on the old 'promoting civic values' front within the framework of his immediate portfolio.

And Hain might have more in common with Putin than he thinks.

In 1976, Hain was tried on charges of bank robbery, a consequence of having allegedly been framed by the South African security services on account of his anti-apartheid activities.

Given the possibility that Alexander Litvinenko's death might be just be one great big put up job for the purpose of, er, framing Vladimir Putin, one might have thought that Hain would at least have had the decency to be sympathetic...

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko - What The Sunday Papers Said (Or Not), And Other Odds, Ends, And Odd Ends

Remember how Dr. Mario Scaramella might have required to be bilocative in order for him to have been able to attend both a conference at NYU School of Law and possibly a plenary session of his ‘Environmental Crime Prevention Program’, if the plenary session its website referred to was for the year 2000?

Well, ECPP might indeed have held a plenary session in New York City in November 2000. If it had not, then Professor Anna Marta Michalak of the University of Michigan’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering would have been unable to have presented an invited talk to the ECPP’s plenary session on ‘Approaches to Contaminant Source Identification for Environmental Law Enforcement’ in the NYC headquarters of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 2 - in November 2000.

One wonders whether ECPP’s ‘remit’ of aiming for ‘the adoption of international measures for the Environmental Crime prevention and world Environmental Security’ included working on measures to restrict the distribution of radioactive materials – such as polonium-210…

Polonium-210 isn’t an easy thing to get hold of, apparently; although ‘The Technologist’, one of Dennis’ commentors, has found a static eliminator containing ‘Polonium 210, which emits alpha particles that neutralize the negative charges picked up from free electrons’ for sale from GE Osmonics Labstore for the grand price of $71.00.

The nature of the coverage of Alexander Litvinenko’s illness death from the British media has, of course, been mostly dire – however, while today it’s largely been no different there have been some rays of sunshine amid the gloom.

The ‘Sunday Telegraph’, the sister of – guess who? - ‘The Daily Telegraph’, carries a report entitled ‘The Kremlin’s Revenge?’. It describes Litvinenko as having been ‘drafted into the Soviet Army and (his rise) through the ranks from private to lieutenant-colonel’, as living in ‘a modern, three-storey townhouse in north London’ and working as ‘an aide to Boris Berezovsky’; all without mentioning that Litvinenko was from a military background, and that Berezovsky is alleged to have been his ultimate landlord.

It also reports that ‘Senior security sources in Britain suspect that Russian agents — possibly a rogue unit — were behind the sophisticated nuclear weapons element used to commit the murder; and that ‘Scotland Yard's Counter Terrorism Command wants to question two Russians and an Italian professor who lunched with Mr. Litvinenko at the same Japanese restaurant in central London, just two weeks apart.’

In fairness ‘The Sunday Times’ does mention that Lord Tim Bell ‘helped with publicity for Litvinenko’s story’; and although still describing Alex Goldfarb, Boris Berezovsky’s self-described right-hand man, as ‘a Russian émigré who knows Berezovsky and Litvinenko well’, it does also acknowledge that he is ‘the director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties, a group set up by Boris Berezovsky.'

‘The Observer’ carries an exceptionally partisan commentary by Henry Porter directly alleging official Russian involvement in the deaths of Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya (one wonders whether Porter might like to know that he wasn’t the first to link Litvinenko’s death to James Bond - beat you to it, old man).

Porter writes,

“Litvinenko and Politkovskaya were friends for about three years. They set out from very different points in Russian society and came together in London, he having renounced the gangsterism that had been part of his career in the KGB and FSB, she having acquired a position of commanding moral authority during the brief period that the Russian media were free.”

Well, that’s not quite correct. As already stated Litvinenko was from a military family, while Politkovskaya was born in New York City, where her parents were serving as Soviet diplomats at the United Nations.

They were both children of the Soviet elite.

Whether or not Litvinenko’s previous accusation that Putin is a paedophile, an accusation which after five years in the West he must have known would have been taken extremely seriously, or his continued association with the thug Boris Berezovsky, who, after all, has indicated that he is planning to overthrow a friendly foreign power’s democratically elected government by force, indicate that he had eschewed gangsterism is most certainly not as clear cut as Porter might imagine; and John Laughland’s analysis of Anna Politkovskaya’s fame and moral authority most certainly does not square with Porter’s –

“The whole of the British, American and West European press extolled Politkovskaya as ‘one of Russia’s bravest and most brilliant journalists’ (The Guardian), ‘one of the few voices that dared contradict the party line’ (The Daily Telegraph), ‘a firebrand for freedom’ (The Independent), ‘the most famous investigative journalist in Russia’ (The Times), ‘one of the bravest journalists [in Russia]’ (The New York Times); ‘a victim of rare courage’ (The Washington Post). All these quotes are from the leader articles which each paper thought worth devoting to her death. In reality, Politkovskaya was virtually unknown in Russia. The reaction of a wealthy Russian businessman dining in Brussels on the night of her murder was typical:

‘Politkovskaya? Never heard of her.’

Politkovskaya in this respect resembles another murdered Russian-speaking journalist with connections in the Caucasus, Georgiy Gongadze, the Ukrainian citizen with a Georgian surname whose murder in 2000 was instrumentalized by the United States in an attempt to implicate the then Ukrainian president, Leonid Kuchma. Politkvskaya was not quite as obscure as Gongadze: he ran a mere web site (although this meant that when he traveled to Washington DC he was received by the Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright) while the newspaper where she worked, Novaya Gazeta, had a circulation of 250,000. Still, that is not much in a country of nearly 150 million inhabitants and certainly not enough to merit the exaggerated praise heaped posthumously upon her.”

It’s a sad fact of Russian life that journalists seem to get killed.

Indeed, as Lord Robert Sidelsky, inter alia the Executive Secretary of the UK/Russia Round Table, sometime professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and sometime ‘Moscow Times’ columnist, noted in a commentary entitled ‘Could the poisoner be from Prince Putin's court?’ published the day after the Litvinenko poisoning story broke,‘The poisoning in London of the former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko confirms what we already know: that it is dangerous to criticise the Kremlin. It comes less than a month after the shooting in Moscow of Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who tirelessly exposed Russian atrocities in Chechnya. Paul Klebnikov, another crusading journalist, was shot dead in 2004.”

Paul who? Paul Klebnikov? You mean this Paul Klebnikov? The American editor of ‘Forbes Russia’ who published a book entitled ‘The Godfather of The Kremlin - Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia?’

One ‘John J. Miller’ reviewed the book thus –

“Paul Klebnikov tells the incredible story of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Russian car dealer who assembled a huge--and illicit--fortune after the collapse of Communism. "This individual had risen out of nowhere to become the richest businessman in Russia and one of the most powerful individuals in the country," writes Klebnikov, a respected reporter for Forbes. "This is a story of corruption so profound that many readers might have trouble believing it." Yet Godfather of the Kremlin is a careful work of journalism in which Klebnikov documents the business dealings of a man who once bragged to the Financial Times that he and six other men controlled half of the Russian economy and rigged Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996. Berezovsky survived both an assassination attempt and a murder investigation, and paved the way to power for Vladimir Putin. He and the other crony capitalists of post-Soviet Russia like to rationalize their deeds, writes Klebnikov: "Whenever I asked Russia's business magnates about the orgy of crime produced by the market reforms, they invariably excused it by pointing to the robber barons of American capitalism. Russia's bandit capitalism was no different from American capitalism in the late nineteenth century, they argued." Yet nothing could be further from the truth: Carnegie, Rockefeller, and their peers transformed the United States into an economic superpower. Berezovsky, on the other hand, has "produced no benefit to Russia's consumers, industries, or treasury." It's not that he didn't have an opportunity. To pick one example among many, he took over Aeroflot when it had a monopoly position in a booming market. But the company barely grew, and instead experienced myriad problems. Berezovsky controlled many businesses, but he was a lousy business manager; his only authentic success--as an auto dealer--depended on collusion. His real skill is shady dealmaking, especially with corrupt government officials. That's the way to success in modern Russia, as this well-told but troubling book reveals.”

Good grief!

That would mean that someone else who’s been entangled with Berezovsky, however indirectly, had met a sudden, violent and so far unexplained death…

That's not to accuse Berezovsky of anything. For example, there might even be people who might have had something to gain from the death of all three - Litvinenko might once have arrested a Kyrgyz vendor of novelty keyrings who refused to give Klebnikov a full refund and whom Politkovskaya was threatening to expose.

Or there could be someone for whom Litvinenko's and Politkovskaya's sudden, violent deaths could have presented fabulous propaganda opportunities and who could have wanted revenge on Klebnikov...

The ‘John J. Miller’ who wrote the above review is most likely the same John J. Miller who blogs on National Review Online’s ‘Bunker’, sorry ‘Corner’. He’d better get his story straight with David Pryce-Jones, if only because the latter has authored an almost comically Russophobic post entitled ‘Foul, Strange, and Unnatural” for his own wee toy NRO blog.

Pryce-Jones concludes that ‘Those who know the Kremlin…think that Moscow totally misjudged the effect that this murder would have, in the belief that it would pass unnoticed. Actually the murder reveals that the Soviet Union is arising, vampire-like, from its grave.”

Given that the one thing that we do know for certain about this case is how little we really know, such prose is almost as foul, strange and unnatural as whatever killed Alexander Litvinenko - indeed, Pryce-Jones has managed to out-frenzy the ubiquitous Edward Lucas.

He’s almost as Russophobic as ‘The Russophobe!’

However, one digresses- the killing of Klebnikov, an American citizen, shows that in the New Russia it isn’t just those journalists and activists who cross Vladimir Putin’s path whose lives get cut short.

For what it’s worth, a blogger almost uniquely qualified to comment on both the geographical and public relations aspects of this case is 'The Copydude'; and he has a slightly different take on the late Alexander Litvinenko – one well worth a scan.

Copydude has also pointed out that others inside Russian public life apart from Putin have been known to query just why the United Kingdom seems to be so accommodating of such apparently insalubrious figures as Boris Berezovsky and Akhmad Zakayev; -

“Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the deputy speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament, the State Duma, and the leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, suspects British Prime Minister Tony Blair of being personally interested in preserving the immunity of certain Russian nationals currently living in the UK. Zhirinovsky is set to appeal to the British parliament with a request to probe Blair’s possible connection to the former Russian tycoon currently living in self-imposed exile in London the Interfax news agency reported….

Earlier this month, Moscow renewed a request for Berezovsky’s extradition, accusing the exiled Russian oligarch of plotting an armed coup against President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s prosecutors said they had opened a new criminal case against Berezovsky, charging him with “carrying out acts aimed at violent seizure of power”. The case has been handed over to the Federal Security Service (FSB), successor to the KGB.The announcement came days after Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, warned Berezovsky against campaigning to overthrow Russia’s government. Berezovsky told a Moscow radio station in January he had been planning a forced takeover of power in Russia for 18 months, The Guardian reported. Zhirinovsky said Wednesday he was convinced that Blair was personally interested in keeping Berezovsky on British soil, claiming that the Blairs were receiving financial support from “criminal elements”. Cherie Blair, Zhirinovsky continued, works in a law firm “which is servicing our Russian thugs, Berezovsky included.” Those are dozens of “extremists” including Berezovsky and Akhmed Zakayev, as well as “nearly all of the Yukos top executives”, he added. Zhirinovsky is convinced that Mrs. Blair’s being a member of a law firm that protects those people in British courts is the key reason for Russia’s failure to win their extradition cases. Zhirinovsky urged the lower house to take measures in this connection and address the British parliament with a request to probe Blair’s possible connection to Berezovsky.”

Cherie Booth QC is, of course, a barrister, not a solicitor – and to the best of this former solicitor’s knowledge and belief, the rule that barristers cannot form professional partnerships for mutual gain remains in force. If that’s now out of date, I’m more than happy to stand correction.

However, the ancient barristers’ practice of forming chambers for the purpose of covering overheads led to her joining the ‘Matrix Chambers’. – but that’s another story.

They’re big fans of the old human rights laws over at Matrix…

Now, Zhirinovsky’s not known for his tact at the best of times – however, one can certainly see where he’s coming from when Berezovsky has made it quite clear that he is planning a coup in Russia.

And given the fraught nature of Boris Berezovsky’s relationship with Paul Klebnikov, he might be of very great interest to the US State department.

He used to describe himself as a ‘business adviser’ to the President’s younger brother, you know…

And he is alleged to have interfered in Ukrainian politics, possibly bearing as much responsibility as anyone else for the collapse of the Orange Revolution.

And he is persona non grata in Latvia, where Edward Lucas will be delighted to know that NATO will be holding a summit on November 28-29.

Gee, couldn’t the poisoning of a Russian dissident in a NATO country on the eve of a NATO conference being held on Russia’s doorstep, combined with rising gas prices and the onset of winter, give a person opposed to Russia’s current government, who wants it out of office and who might be facing extradition back to the Motherland, yet another reason to smear Russia’s president?

What a shameful, ignoble thought…

Socialists are the same the world over, God love them. The idea that the British press has largely been pulled like strings for a week takes second place to public health. Whilst Londongrad glows in the dark, New Labour has got in a spin, so to speak, over sushi eaters’ inability to get through to a helpline.

Given Berezovsky’s nekulturny boasts of his contacts within the Conservative Party, one might have thought that the closeness of his association to Litvinenko might have given the Conservatives some pause for thought before playing politics.

Then again, the Parliamentary Conservative Party are a bunch of undisciplined, unprincipled and largely unspeakable losers, led by a lightweight, so nothing better should have been expected of them.

But the bad news for the Litvinenski is that they’re not getting it all their own way with the reporting…

On November 19, the day the story broke, Will Geddes speculated that it might have been the work of organized crime…

Then ‘The Daily Mail’ said the same on November 22…

Then on November 24 ‘The Guardian’ reported that ‘other lines of enquiry were being pursued’…

And today’s ‘Independent on Sunday’ reports that,

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

Increasing concerns over the reliability of the Russian dissident's death-bed testimony have prompted police to check every detail of Mr. Litvinenko's version of events on 1 November, the day he said he was poisoned.

The Russian dissident's death on British soil has triggered an unprecedented investigation headed by Scotland Yard's anti-terror branch and involving forensic experts and nuclear scientists from the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. They are still trawling through hours of CCTV footage and conducting detailed searches of the places he visited on the day he fell ill.

Meanwhile, nuclear scientists are frantically trying to establish just how radioactive was the dose of polonium-210 that killed Mr Litvinenko. Traces of the material - powerful enough to trigger a nuclear warhead - were found on tables at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, a London hotel, and his home in Muswell Hill.

But yesterday the Metropolitan Police were still treating Mr. Litvinenko's death as an "unexplained death", not as a murder inquiry. One source close to the investigation said: "He was a guy with a colourful past. It's not straightforward….

The presence of radioactive particles in the restaurant where he ate more than three weeks ago adds weight to theories that the poison could have been sprinkled over his food.

Some reports in the Russian press have suggested that Mr. Litvinenko's death could have been a "martyrdom operation", on the grounds that no state would want to attract the attention of a radioactive poison plot.

But British officials warned against assuming that the spy staged his own dramatic demise.
One senior source warned: "You have to remember this guy was on his guard 24 hours a day. Normal assassination methods may well not have worked."

Possibly because it might not have been as assassination attempt at all; but a high but calculated risk taken by a still young and very fit former intelligence officer who associated closely with some very rich, very well-connected and very powerful people who shared his desire to see regime change in his motherland.

And a similar story appears in the (offline) ‘Sunday Express’…

The Russians don’t seem to be buying the spin – and there’s no reason we should either.

The Death of Alexander Litvinenko, Continued - The Morning After

As might have been expected, 'The Daily Telegraph' thunders that 'The West is losing patience with Putin', quite forgetting that it does not speak on all 'The West's' behalf - whatever 'The West' is these days.

Oddly, it accuses Putin of 'throwing his weight about' - an accusation that might also be levelled fairly at Boris Berezovsky.

Simon Heffer, its resident bumptious blowhard who, for the avoidance of doubt, once wrote that 'President Putin should be put down' asks 'Is Russia licensed to kill in London?'

One can almost see the London fog swirl outside the windows of No 221B Baker Street as Sherlock Heffer dons the deerstalker and speculates,

"The bastards got him. If you seek circumstantial evidence of the guilt of the Russian government in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, ask yourself this. If a Briton – even one who had recently given up his citizenship – were bumped off in this way in a foreign country, isn't it likely that the British Embassy would make formal representations to the foreign ministry of the country concerned?"

Well, beginning a speculative piece with the words 'the bastards got him' does rather indicate that its author has already reached the end of his hypothesis without presenting either its beginning or middle; but as far as the rest of Heff's theory goes, one has no idea.

However, as a rule of thumb circumstantial evidence derives from the victim's circumstances; and these have a habit of being rather more immediate than whether or not diplomatic representations have been made on the deceased's behalf.

"Do we know of any formal protests by the Russian Embassy to the Foreign Office about the murder of Mr Litvinenko? Of course not: because all the FO could tell them is that they almost certainly know more about the circumstances of the assassination than we do."

Hold on, hold on, hold on, Heff - even if one assumes that the Russians are involved, such comment goes way beyond denying them the presumption of innocence; what you have said there is very possibly libel.

At this stage, all that 'we in the West' know is that a crime appears to have been committed and that its investigation is ongoing. We know nothing else.

But at this point he goes berserk -

"Does our Government, which lives in fear of the tyrant Putin because of his control of so much of our future energy supplies, propose to protest about the Kremlin's new habit of sending its murderers to our capital city to kill people with whom it has a quarrel? Or is there, where dear Vlad is concerned, an acceptable level of assassination?"

This is drivel, unfit even as opinion for the pages of any newspaper, let alone one which claims to be reputable. Heffer's energies would be better devoted to asking why so much of 'our future energy supplies' might be dependent on Russia rather than making wild, irresponsible and at this stage spurious allegations against the democratically elected, and domestically overwhelmingly popular, leader of a friendly foreign power.

'The Times' leader entitled 'A British Citizen' is slightly better - but not much.

Its subheadline is 'Putin must prove by deeds he is not linked to Litvinenko’s murder' - again, a denial of the presumption of innocence.

It refers to Litvinenko's deathbed statement, the 'embarrassment' his death would cause Putin and notes,

"Those who should be pressing Moscow hardest to explain its role in this squalid assassination are the British police. This must now be a murder investigation. The hospital discovery that Mr Litvinenko was probably killed with polonium 210, a radioactive isotope, points to a sophisticated plot and to assassins able to obtain a substance not readily available except to those with considerable backing. The suspicion must fall on the FSB, the successor agency to the KGB. It had motive, means and opportunity. In exile in London, Mr Litvinenko, himself a former FSB agent, taunted and mocked the present head of Russia’s spy agency as well as Mr Putin. Goaded into a vendetta against a traitor, they may well have reacted as Henry II’s knights did on imagining their King’s desire to be rid of Thomas à Becket. "

As early as last Sunday, analysts such as Will Geddes were saying that Litvinenko was not important enough to kill. He wasn't worth the bother.

The obituary which appeared on Global Challenges Research concluded that,

"His death will for certain seem to many as a much stronger argument in favour of the anti-Russian charges he had put forward, rather than his statements, publications, and books altogether."

He would seem to have had a political value of nil - if Putin's knights wanted rid of any troublesome priest then a much more fitting target would have been Litvinenko's friend Akhmad Zakayev; or their apparently mutual landlord, Boris Berezovsky.

It continues,

"Two other factors increase the suspicion. First, the Russian parliament recently voted specifically to allow the FSB to undertake assassination missions abroad fighting terrorism. In doing so, it widened the definition of terrorists to include those who gave moral support to Chechen rebels and others seeking to undermine the State. FSB operatives, freed from any constraint, may well have seen Mr Litvinenko in that category.

Secondly, the FSB, though politically accountable, has been given an almost free hand by the President, who grew up in that same culture. It had no need to seek permission from the top. It knew that Mr Putin needed to maintain plausible deniability of all its actions. At the same time, it could easily point — as it now has — to the murky world of Russian exiles, some of whom are unsavoury characters and who are widely believed to have had links with organised crime groups while enriching themselves in Russia. "

Good grief! The Russians allow state sponsored killings abroad!

Call in the Church Committee!

Er, hang on a minute...anyone ever heard of, um...I almost don't want to mention his name...James Bond?

One of the United Kingdom's most popular fictional characters of the last century perpetrates state-sponsored killings overseas. Stuff happens. It's the dirty, nasty nature of the world we live in.

'The Times' continues,

"Mr Putin has been deeply embarrassed by the murder. His open quest to make Russia respected again around the world is not helped by accusations of running a gangster state. He must, therefore, offer British investigators full co-operation and total access to all those they might want to question. A refusal or even prevarication must be taken as evidence of complicity. Nor should Russia be given the impression that this is a small episode that will be forgotten in a few weeks. Any policy of trying to tough it out should be met with an even tougher response from Britain. Mr Litvinenko was a citizen of this country. His murder is an affront to our laws, our democracy and our way of life."

''Accusations of running a gangster state...refusal..prevatication...tough it out...'

Has anyone even asked them yet?

Now, someone who runs an ongoing feature called 'Foreign Criminals of the Day' must be cautious when throwing about accusations of xenophobia...stones and glass houses and all that...

But who should pop up on 'The Times' opinion page but the ubiquitous Edward Lucas, with an almost xenophobic piece entitled 'The one way to fight Putin's menace'.

Samples -

"Vladimir Putin’s thuggish and arrogant rhetoric; the routine use of murder in business and politics; the bullying of neighbours such as Georgia; energy blackmail; authoritarian behaviour by the Kremlin — all have crystallised a growing unease with the wishful thinking that has marked outsiders’ attitudes to Russia in the past 15 years....

Russia no longer needs our money. Nor does it care much for our approval. The past few years have taught Mr Putin that when he needs something from the West, he gets it. Jacques Chirac, of France, is a Russian cheerleader, like Silvio Berlusconi and Gerhard Schröder before him....

The first response must be not to panic. For all its bombast, Russia’s strength rests on sand. Its demographics are disastrous: in the minute you may have taken to read to this point, five Russians died, and only three were born. Its roads and railways are still rickety, its pipelines and powerstations clapped-out. The much touted gas weapon may not be loaded: decades of neglect and under-investment may mean that Russia is an energy beggar, not an energy bully.

Then the West must stick together. Russia expertly plays off one country against another. British eurosceptics must drop their defeatist disdain for a common European foreign policy, especially in the field of energy security. Without it, we risk losing half the continent to the Kremlin’s new empire, one built on pipelines rather than tanks. Europe must dump its self-indulgent anti-Americanism and rebuild its alliance with an administration chastened and looking for friends.

That alliance’s big task will not be military defence, but diversifying energy supplies. We need new pipelines in the Balkans and the Caucasus to bring the oil and gas riches of the Caspian basin and Central Asia to European markets, bypassing Russia’s capricious, greedy and monopolistic oil and gas companies. We must also build more liquefied natural gas terminals, and interconnecting pipelines to hook up national gas grids. It sounds just as boring as the jargon of the last Cold War but it is just as important.

Similarly, we must give unflinching support to the countries in Russia’s viewfinder, such as Poland, Georgia and the Baltic states. They face hate campaigns in the Russian media, meddling in their energy supplies and arbitrary sanctions on their exports. All too often, the EU says that problems its new members have with Russia are “merely bilateral”. In future, the message must be: “If you mess with Estonia you mess with the whole of Europe.” These are brothers-in-arms and know a lot more about Russia than we do, and we have been slow to recognise it.

We must continue to expand Nato and the EU. Enlargement of both bodies has been an unsung triumph, spreading peace and security. The next phase will be more difficult, because the countries concerned are weaker and poorer. But that makes it all the more necessary. If our doors are not open, then the only choice available is Russia. It is a tragedy that this week’s Nato summit in Riga is hamstrung by division and timidity on the question of enlargement.

Thirdly, the West must recover the moral self-confidence that ultimately proved far more important than our guns and missiles. We believed in our system: it was not just richer and freer than theirs, but kinder, fairer, cleaner, healthier, more innovative, more tolerant and more truthful. It had flaws, certainly. But it also had the built-in capability to remedy them. In a market democracy, the crooked and cruel stand a better chance of being fired or jailed than they do in an authoritarian state-run economy.

So the most powerful weapon we have now is to to make our own system truly worth admiring. Integrity in public life would not only contrast with the Kremlin’s sleaze, but also immunise us against its bribes. Speedy justice, efficient government and public-spiritedness are lacking in Russia — and just what we need to make our system envied at home and abroad. It will be a long slog: but so was the last one."

For the record this is Lucas' third piece anti-Putin piece in the third British newspaper in the last 10 days - the first appearing two days before the Litvinenko story broke. Lord Tim Bell was handling Litvinenko's PR.

If one reads his blog, one will find a fourth.

Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium-210.

This morning, Tim Worstall, owner of the world's largest scandium trading business and a guy who knows Russia quite well, notes,

"Po 210 isn't an easy thing to get hold of. Not an easy thing to find at all. So where did it come from?"

Very good question...guess you can buy anything when you've got enough money...

November's a good time of year for a Putin smear - winter's on the way in, gas prices are on the way up...

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Litvinenko might have been complicit in his own demise. He was a man well acquainted with the concept of calculated risk.

However, given that our newspapers are screaming for the President of Russia's head, let's throw another McGuffin into the mix.

This morning, Global Challenges Research has published a timeline of events...

"Former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko was delivered to hospital with acute poisoning, online site NEWSru.com reports. Radio Ekho Moskvy, referring to the head of the Civil Liberties Foundation Alexander Goldfarb, at present moment, says there is no threat to Litvinenko’s life. Though, he had been in a very grave condition for several days before. According to Litvinenko, he was contacted by a person, who offered to have a meeting at a restaurant and wanted to hand him over some materials, particularly, on Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. After the meeting Litvinenko turned out to be in hospital. Meanwhile, he said he would definitely pass the documents he received from the intelligencer to Novaya Gazeta, where Politkovskaya worked, as soon as he would be released from hospital, Ekho Moskvy says. The known dissident and human rights activist, Russian defector Litvinenko, was invited to a London restaurant by an Italian citizen, Mario Scaramella, who claimed he had some important information about a recent murder of Politkovskaya, NEWSru.com writes. According to the intelligence, Mario Scaramella is a close associate of the FSB deputy chief Viktor Komogorov and visited the FSB headquarters in Moscow several times. In a couple of hours after the dinner, Litvinenko felt very sick and was delivered into a London hospital with extremely dangerous poisoning caused by an unknown toxin. He balanced between life and death for several days. "

OK, so we knew yesterday that Super Mario Scaramella seemed a bit iffy...but it continues,

"According to the informal information, obtained by the MK from a source in the Russian secret services, Litvinenko came to Russia a short time ago and testified on Politkovskaya's case to the same State Office of Public Prosecutor inspector who in due time brought criminal case against Litvinenko. However, the State Office of Public Prosecutor categorically denies the fact of interrogation. If the visit of Litvinenko to Russia really took place, that means that Litvinenko can really possess valuable information on the Politkovskaya’s case and has been promised to keep freedom, at least temporarily, MK writes. In this connection Litvinenko’s meeting with Skaramella might have had absolutely different character, the paper marks."

Did Litvinenko return to Russia? Was he promised liberty (or immunity) from prosecution in return for information on who really killed Anna Politkovskaya?

Wouldn't such a development really irritate the emigre dissident circles he moved in?

Or perhaps some in those circles might have their own reasons for the truth concerning Politkovskaya's death not to come to light...

Some people are worth more dead than alive...

Some of whom have the money to buy just about anything at all? And who might have access to his house, where Po210 has been found?

Just a thought...

And Yahoo! News reports that the Kremlin is blaming Boris Berezovsky for Litvinenko's death...

The Death Of Alexander Litvinenko

Alexander Litvinenko died last night.

He leaves a wife and son. RIP.

Hopefully they won't go without. He had some rich friends.

Perhaps this sad development was not unexpected after the dramatic deterioration that he suffered on Wednesday evening.

His death was the first item on the BBC's 'Breakfast News'. The headline on the dead tree 'Scottish Daily Express' reads' 'Poisoned Russian spy loses fight for life'. A similar headline appears on the dead tree 'Herald'.

One is eerily reminded of how King George V was euthanised so his death could make the morning papers.

But the advent of the Internet and the 24 hour news cycle has meant the time of day at which a story breaks is no longer of any concern to those responsible for news management.

Or shouldn't be, at least.

In his final interview, reported today in 'Times Online', Litvinenko is reported to have said -

"The poisoned Russian spy breathed defiance at the Kremlin as the effects of a mystery cocktail pushed him towards his death last night.

“I want to survive, just to show them,” Alexander Litvinenko said in an exclusive interview given just hours before he died.

Too weak to move his limbs and visibly in great pain, the former Russian intelligence officer suggested that he knew he may not win his struggle against the lethal chemicals destroying his vital organs. But he said the campaign for truth would go on with or without him.

“The bastards got me,” he whispered. “But they won’t get everybody.”

Mr Litvinenko, 43, uttered his last defiant words to Andrei Nekrasov, a friend and film-maker, who had visited him in University College Hospital in London every day this week. Last night Mr Nekrasov described the extraordinary scenes in hospital, where one ward looks like a scene from The Godfather.

“Sasha was a good-looking, physically strong and courageous man,” Mr Nekrasov told The Times. “But the figure who greeted me looked like a survivor from the Nazi concentration camps.”

Moments after he saw his friend pass away, Mr Nekrasov said: “I have been through a few things in Russia and Chechnya, but this is one of the most horrible crimes I have witnessed in my my life.”

“It was sadistic, slow murder. It was perpetrated by somebody incredibly cruel, incredibly heartless. It had no meaning whatsover.”

Although Mr Nekrasov had seen Mr Litvinenko sometimes more than once a day, Tuesday was the last occasion on which his friend could communicate properly. Yet in his final remarks, the former spy remained defiant in his battle against President Putin and the Russian security services.

He also managed a joke at his own expense, suggesting that his poisoning was proof that his campaign against the Kremlin had targeted the right people. “This is what it takes to prove one has been telling the truth,” he said."

The fortitude and presence of mind which Litvinenko would have required to reach the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the KGB did not desert him.

The Times continued,

"Mr Nekrasov revealed that Mr Litvinenko’s British citizenship had come through on the day of a service at Westminster Abbey for Anna Politkovskaya, a friend and critic of the Kremlin murdered in Moscow.

“We discussed the likelihood of another killing. Sasha warned me not to go back to Russia because it was too dangerous,” Mr Nekrasov said. “Very sadly he turned out to be the next victim, attacked in the perceived safety of Central London.”

Last night, Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB agent who defected to Britain, told Sky News: “It’s very sad news because he was a hero to Russia and a hero to Great Britain. He loved Britain as much as he loved Russia.”

Of course, Litvinenko was reported as saying in 2002 that "Above all, I am a patriot. I believe Russia will rise again and that I will manage to return again to the motherland and Moscow."

Global Challenges Research provides a full obituary.

He was part of the Russian military establishment by birth; his father was a doctor in the gulags.
'The Daily Telegraph's' report on his death notes that 'Mr Litvinenko’s father had flown in from Russia on Tuesday to be with his son as his condition deteriorated.'

One had thought that his condition had deteriorated on Wednesday; however, although this is a difficult time for his family, one would hope that, while he's here, some kind soul from Amnesty International might approach Dr. Litvinenko to enquire as to what, if any, role he played in the gulags' horrors.

His son's relationship with Boris Berezovsky seems to have commenced in 1994, after an attempt on the latter's life in which his driver was killed.

The obituary notes,

"In his book Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, Litvinenko describes that he had established personal relations with Berezovsky during the investigation of the July 1994 attempt on the businessman. Then they were meeting periodically, and, according to Litvinenko, he did not informed his supervisors about it. It is marked in the book that by the means of Berezovsky, Litvinenko got acquainted with a number of persons from the closest entourage of the first Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Berezovsky also organized Litvinenko’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in July 1998, after the latter was appointed the FSB head. Russian observers and the politicians close to the present Russian regime say that Litvinenko and his closest associates on service had been Berezovsky’s “agents of infulence” in the FSB. According to the same sources, Berezovsky aimed at using this group of servicemen in accrued political fight, first of all, with a purpose of strengthening his influence in the FSB. The specified sources pointed out that Litvinenko and his comrades, in 1996-1998, tried to discredit a number of the high-ranking FSB officers, with an aim of their subsequent replacement by people, loyal to Berezovsky. In the book Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within Litvinenko confirms that he collected compromising information on some high-ranking officers and tried to convey it to the top leadership, in particular, to Putin. But as he said, he did it for the sake of suppression of the criminal activity in the ranks of the FSB.

In November 1998, Litvinenko and four of his colleagues held an unprecedented press conference, having accused the FSB and their direct supervisors, of alleged practice of extrajudicial liquidations and physical pressure upon businessmen and political figures. They declared, in particular, that one year prior to that they had received an order on Berezovsky's elimination. Two years later, one of the closest fellows of Litvinenko and a participant of the abovementioned press conference, Viktor Shebalin, publicly announced that it had been “a planned-in-advance action of Litvinenko, under direction of Boris Berezovsky”. In November 2003, another former colleague of Litvinenko, who also participated in the press conference, Andrey Ponkin, announced that «according to mine, though, unchecked information, Litvinenko had received from Berezovsky one and a half million dollars for the press conference".

Companies alleged to be controlled by Berezovsky own the London houses in which both Litvinenko and Akhmad Zakayev reside.

And of course Lord Tim Bell was handling Litvinenko's PR free of charge -

Berezovsky's relationship with Lord Bell seems longstanding.

After all, he acted on behalf of Berezovsky's Civil Liberties Foundation prior to the G8 summit in St. Petersburg last summer.

This interview that he gave to 'The Independent' on May 2 2005 stated that,

"The hidden hand of Lord Bell of Belgravia, purveyor of PR advice to Rupert Murdoch, intimate of Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, agent of Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko and longtime confidant of Baroness Thatcher, has probably left more fingerprints on modern history than any other current British media figure. "

But Berezovsky's a boastful sort - for example, he's not in the slightest bit bashful about stating his desire to overthrow a friendly foreign power's democratically elected government by force. However the essence of good PR is tact; a quality Berezovsky did not display in an interview published in 'The Observer' on April 27 2003, when he boasted that his "campaign to resist extradition and win political asylum is being masterminded by Conservative politicians and, in particular, the communications guru Lord Tim Bell. Berezovsky says: ‘I have a lot of connections here, not so much with New Labour but with the Conservatives. Lord Bell for example.’

But it might have gone back even further - if one clicks on this link and scrolls down to 'TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE AT THE RUSI IN LONDON ON TUESDAY, 5 MARCH 2002' one sees the e-mail address JMorgan@bell-pottinger.co.uk; the same e-mail address which appears on this press release from March 16 2004 to which I linked yesterday.

Bell-Pottinger is, of course, a vehicle of Lord Bell's.

After Berezovsky stated his desire to overthrow a friendly foreign power's democratically elected government by force, it was truly miraculous that the most toxically Putinophobic of all British newspapers should carry a full page commentary describing him as a 'refugee' and warning of the dangers of 'sending a rich Russian Jew back to the certainty of a kangaroo court, a show trial and quite possibly the rest of his life in a brutal jail' - a not particularly subtle attempt to paint Putin as The Black Hundred's second coming, written by Simon Heffer, one of whose previous attempts at Anglo-Russian diplomacy had included writing that 'President Putin should be put down'.

You'd almost think Berezovsky had a good PR man...

And the chairman of Berezovsky's press conference of March 5 2002 introduced himself as "My name is Richard Tracey, I am the independent chairman of this press conference, the subject matter of it is nothing to do with me but I am here to try to pull together the various strands that make up the story."

Oddly, that name is very similar to the chairman of another press Berezovsky press conference, held on February 19 2004 -

"Yesterday in London, almost below the windows of the residence of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Boris Berezovsky gave a long-awaited press conference: "Putin’s Russia. State Terrorism?" Journalists saw a fragment of a documentary film "Assassination of Russia". Those expecting Boris Berezovsky to show the document confirming the FSB’s connection to the bombing of apartment houses in Moscow signed by Vladimir Putin were disappointed. However, in his opinion, the information given in the film is enough to consider Putin an illegitimate president. Kommersant correspondents NATALIA GEVORKYAN and VLADIMIR KARA-MURZA attended the press conference.

The place chosen for the press conference with such a provocative name was the London Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, situated in the very heart of the Whitehall governmental area, practically in front of the British Prime Minister’s residence on Downing Street (although that day Tony Blair was in Australia at a summit of heads of the governments of the British Commonwealth). The oval hall where the press conference took place was full an hour before it began. When the organizer of the event, Boris Berezovsky, appeared in the presidium, the hall was overcrowded. There were about 20 TV cameras (only two Russian channels among them– NTV and the already cut off TV-6). All the periphery of the hall was decorated with stands displaying photos of the ruins of apartment houses in Moscow and Volgodonsk blown up in September 1999, a photo of the blasting assembly from the basement of a Ryazan apartment house and a chronology of events.

Just before the conference began, the hall was joined by Radio Svoboda correspondent Andrei Babitsky, ex-president of NTV Igor Malashenko, writer and historian Yury Felshtinsky and former FSB lieutenant colonel Aleksander Litvinenko, who had got political asylum in Great Britain a year before (Felshtinsky and Litvinenko are the co-authors of the book "The FSB Blows Up Russia" that has recently been published in the USA). The main conferees came in with Boris Berezovsky: RF State Duma deputies Sergei Yushenkov and Yuly Rybakov, former acting director of the Rosconversvzryvtsenter (Explosives) Research Institute Nikita Chekulin, a former resident of the apartment house on Guryanova street, whose mother was killed in September 1999, independent British explosives expert Alan Hatchen and the authors of the film – French documentalists from Transparences Productions company Jean-Charles Deniau and Charles Gazelle. The press conference was conducted by Richard Tracey, a Briton introduced as the "independent chairman". The only representative of official Russia, Shamil Yunusov, second secretary of the Russian Embassy in London, was present on his own private initiative."

One alleges nothing; one suggests nothing; but given Berezovsky's boast of links to the Conservative Party, one can't help but wonder whether the 'Richard Tracey' who chaired these press conferences is the former Conservative Member of Parliament for Kingston & Surbiton.

Berezovsky's documentary on the September 1999 apartment bombings was the first of two; the second was entitled 'Disbelief', and was directed by - guess who? - Andrei Nekrasov.

Nekrasov is sometimes described as 'the Russian Michael Moore', and his film was based on the experiences of two sisters, Tatyana and Alyona Morozova, who lost their mother in the bombings.

Tatyana Morozova spoke at Berezovsky's press conference of February 19 2004. Kommersant, which at that time was owned by Berezovsky, reported her remarks thus -

"Tatyana Morozova in decent English (since 1997 she has lived in the USA) read out something like a statement that she was going to bring an action against the FSB and she wanted to know who had been behind the murder of her mother and hundreds of other people. Her speech gave the impression of a prepared performance and only the questions pronounced without notes at the end – "Why are all the cases classified? Why is everything being concealed?" – sounded sincere."

Alyona Morozova became an aide to Liberal Russia politician MP Sergei Yushenkov - after his assassination in April 2003 she sought asylum in the United States.

Boris Berezovsky was elected leader of the Liberal Russia party two months later - but whether Yushenkov, who addressed the Berezovsky press conference chaired by 'Richard Tracey' in 2002 and who had tangled with Berezovsky, is dead at all is a matter for, well, Russian Bearded Conspiracy Theorists.

So that's Boris got connections to two political parties in two countries - that we know of.

However, this post is titled 'The Death of Alexander Litvinenko'; and it's in relation to a third political party that one must return to topic.

This morning, BBC Breakfast News interviewed Gerard Batten, United Kingdom Independence Party Member of Parliament for London and a friend of Litvinenko's, in relation to his death.

One might be doing Batten a great dis-service, and if so one apologises unreservedly - however, one cannot recall him mentioning the speech he made to the European Parliament on April 3 2006, in which he reported the contents of a conversation that his constituent Litvinenko alleged that he had had with a General Anatoly Trofimov prior to his exile -

"General Trofimov reportedly said to Mr Litvinenko, "Don't go to Italy, there are many KGB agents among the politicians: Romano Prodi is our man there."

In February 2006 Mr Litvinenko reported this information to Mario Scaramella of the Guzzanti Commission investigating KGB penetration of Italian politics.

This allegation against a former head of the European Commission is one of the utmost seriousness. It should be thoroughly investigated. The European Parliament should conduct its own investigation".

The speech is available on YouTube.

UKIP is implacably opposed to the European Union, and thus also to the European Commission, which Prodi headed until recently - before ascending to the Italian premiership.

No politician holding Batten's convictions would fail to use such information - but given Litvinenko's closeness to Berezovsky, the idea that he reported this conversation to Batten without Berezovsky's knowledge stretches the bounds of credibility to breaking point.

That's not how these guys work.

Batten also knows Mario Scaramella; how much he knows is another matter.

Does he know of Global Challenges Research's allegation that Scaramella is 'a close associate of the FSB deputy chief Viktor Komogorov and visited the FSB headquarters in Moscow several times'?

Or of Scaramella's allegation that a Soviet submarine containing 20 warheads sank in the Bay of Naples? When the submarine in question, the K-8, really sank in the Bay of Biscay?

Or of his sometime chairmanship of the 'Enviromental Crime Prevention Program', in which capacity he has attended a conference at the NYU School of Law and whose website describes it as -

"a permanent intergovernmental conference aimed at the adoption of international measures for the Environmental Crime prevention and world Environmental Security. Members of the E.C.P.P are United Nations countries who have signed the E.C.P.P statute, which is deposited in care of the Angolan and Samoa Governments and is currently under ratification by our members.

E.C.P.P works with other intergovernmental organizations and in particular with G8, the European Union, Interpol, United Nations International Maritime Organization.

The next ECPP plenary meeting is scheduled for the 15th and 16th of November in New York with the a section on 17th in Lyon and is open to governmental and intergovernmental representatives. "

Sounds fabulous and funky doesn't it?

Scroll down down to 'Contact E.C.C.P. Secretariat'. What e-mail address do you get?

scaramel@unina.it

Some secretariat.

It might just be coincidence, but if the 'plenary session' referred to as being held in New York on November 15-16 happened to be that scheduled for the year 2000 then Dr. Scaramella would require to possess the gift of bilocation - on those dates in that year he was attending a conference at NYU School of Law.

He's even been shot at by the Camorra...

Boy, does that bambino get around...

Alexander Litvinenko, a British citizen, is dead.

The reporting of his case has been largely pitiful.

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.

And now that he's dead, one can say without fear of contradiction that Alexander Litvinenko might have been a willing party to his own incapacity and death.

Some people will do anything for their country.

As a British citizen one is concerned for the welfare of fellow citizens like Tim Bell and Gerard Batten, given the nature of some of the company they seem to keep - no matter how worldly they might feel they are, they might be hanging around people who might be too hard even for them.

One wonders at just what this country has become, when a thug like Boris Berezovsky is able to walk into the halls of power, influence and above all else access on the back of nothing more than a fortune gained by extremely dubious means.

Whatever his loyalties, whatever he did, we owe it to our fellow citizen Alexander Litvinenko to get to the bottom of his death. Though he was not one us for long, we owe him that much - to show him that we're not like the rest of the world, not a place where power and influence is bought and sold; not people governed by 'siloviki' or oligarchs.

That we're Brits. Just like him.

(Update November 24 2006 - my friend and team-mate Dennis Mangan has linked to this post, as has Professor James Hamilton, one half of my favourite economic blogging partnership.

In the (unlikely) event that Professor Hamilton doesn't check his blog stats, he might be interested to know that he has a reader in The Maldives - but that's globalisation for you.

And I can see that I'm going to have to write an e-mail beginning 'Dear Miss Lopez'...

Tonight the BBC has reported that,

"Police probing the death of Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko have found above-normal levels of radiation at three locations in London.

Mr Litvinenko's death has been linked to the presence of a "major dose" of radioactive polonium-210 in his body.

Scotland Yard confirmed traces were also found at his home, a sushi bar and a hotel, but the risk to others was said by health experts to be very low...

Officials discussed the issue with the Russian Ambassador, Yuri Fedotov, at a meeting this afternoon, said a spokeswoman...

Officers are looking at CCTV footage and interviewing witnesses, trying to find out who he met around the time he fell ill on 1 November, said Peter Clarke, head of the Counter Terrorism Command which is leading the investigation...

Tests are also being carried out at the two London hospitals where Mr Litvinenko had been treated, University College and the Barnet General, the Health Protection Agency said.

Professor Pat Troop from the HPA told a news conference that the tens of hospital staff who had come into contact with him would be monitored.

She said Mr Litvinenko would have had to either eaten, inhaled or been given the dose of polonium-210 through a wound.

She said the nature of death as an "unprecedented event in the UK".

Roger Cox from the HPA said a large quantity of alpha radiation emitted from polonium-210 had been detected in Mr Litvinenko's urine.

The radiation cannot pass through the skin, and must be ingested or inhaled into the body to cause damage.

He said people who came into contact with Mr Litvinenko's excreta - including sweat - could in theory be affected, but described the risk as "insignificant"....

A post-mortem examination on Mr Litvinenko has not been held yet.

The delay is believed to be over concerns about the health implications for those present at the examination.

The Home Office said anybody concerned should contact NHS Direct on 0845 4647, who have been briefed about the issues.

Meanwhile, the government's civil contingencies committee Cobra has met to discuss the case...

Friends have said Mr Litvinenko was poisoned because of his criticism of Russia.

In a statement dictated before he died at University College Hospital on Thursday, the 43-year-old accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of involvement in his death.

Mr Litvinenko had recently been investigating the murder of his friend, Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of the Putin government.

Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated the Kremlin's earlier dismissal of allegations of involvement in the poisoning as "sheer nonsense".

Mr Putin himself has said Mr Litvinenko's death was a tragedy, but he saw no "definitive proof" it was a "violent death".

Police have been examining two meetings Mr Litvinenko had on 1 November - one at a London hotel with a former KGB agent and another man, and a rendezvous with Italian security consultant Mario Scaramella, at the sushi restaurant in the West End.

Mr Litvinenko, who was granted asylum in the UK in 2000 after complaining of persecution in Russia, fell ill later that day.

In an interview with Friday's Telegraph newspaper, former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi said he had met Mr Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel but vigorously denied any involvement in the poisoning.

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. "

Polonium 210 is everywhere.

It's in cigarettes.

The activation of COBRA, usually British governments' weapon of last response in times of civil emergency (the acronym stands for nothing more dramatic than 'Cabinet Office Briefing Room A'), was probably a knee-jerk response to New Labour's hearing the words 'radioactive' and 'London' in the same sentence.

No particular significance should be read into it.

Although the summoning of the Russian ambassador possibly indicates a slightly elevated level of diplomatic concern, that he has been called in now when the story has been live for nearly a week probably relates more to the revelation that radiation might have been a factor in Litvinenko's death; and as 'radiation' is a bogeyman word in the mob's mind, its introduction demanded that all sides get their backsides covered and their stories straight. One would imagine that today's meeting was a rather civilised affair.

That pathologists are unable to perform post mortems in lead aprons in order to minimise the risk of radiation poisoning was news to me. On the other hand Polonium-210 has a half life of 138 days, meaning that even if Litvinenko's cadaver were left out for the crows it's presence would still be detectable after a reasonable period.

Yet if it was a massive overdose of polonium-210 that killed him, one would have thought that this would have automatically ruled out Lugovoi as a direct murder suspect; after all, presumably he did not have access either to Litvinenko's home or to the sushi bar where the now dead Litvinenko met Super Mario Scaramella.

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?

Does anyone know the Russian words for 'patsy'? Or 'fall guy'? Or 'martyr'?

Mind you, he didn't own the house... and this is going to keep The Daily Telegraph going for weeks...)

A Happy Thanksgiving To All American Readers

If any of you folks have reached that stage of the day when you've started fighting with your spouses/children/in-laws and have crawled to the PC to seek psychological shelter in the impersonal and sterile world of cyberspace - have a happy Thanksgiving.

Believe me, after blogging about this character and his pals for the past four days (recap in order here, here, here, here and here), tomorrow I am going to write about something else.

Anything else.

Thought For The Day

Dave Bean -

"Why is it that the Amish are never credited with being practitioners of a "religion of peace"?

Could it be because they actually are?

Just curious."

The Litvinenko Poisoning (Continued) - A Good Day To Bury Bad News

"Above all, I am a patriot. I believe Russia will rise again and that I will manage to return again to the motherland and Moscow." -

Alexander Litvinenko, quoted in 2002.

"Today is a good day to bury bad news" -

Jo Moore, September 11 2001.

"Each man has his own destiny" -

Mario Puzo.

"Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" -

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Amongst those of us fortunate enough to have been schooled by the English Province of the Society of Jesus, it's a matter of some pride that the creator of the world's most famous detective was one of our own.

And a Scotsman, you know...

Thanks to Tim Worstall for linking to last night's post.

You can get any piece of information you like on Google - even Boris Berezovsky's astrological birthchart.

It's the fifth item to appear under "Boris Berezovsky""Naples".

Perhaps someone in Italy is a superstitous man...

Alexander Litvinenko's condition has deteriorated overnight.

The BBC reports that,

"X-rays on ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, who is ill in hospital in London, have shown up unusual objects that he apparently swallowed.

A source at University College Hospital told the BBC there were three objects of dense matter in his intestines....

It is not clear whether the objects are the cause of his illness, and the hospital has refused to comment on this aspect.

The X-ray ordered on Tuesday afternoon revealed a round object - possibly a package - about the size of a two pence piece in his left abdomen, and similar sized objects in his colon and small bowel.

One of the objects may have ruptured.

Their position implies that they were ingested but it is not clear what the objects are, how or when they entered his body, or whether they are connected to his illness.

In a statement the hospital said its investigations were continuing and it was not willing to make further comment until it had more information.

The Metropolitan Police said it had no knowledge of the items and the results of toxicology tests were still pending.

His friend Alex Goldfarb said he had spoken to Mr Litvinenko's wife Marina but she knew nothing about any objects.

He said that Mr Litvinenko was on an artificial heart system after a "catastrophic" fall in blood pressure and probably a cardiac arrest.

However, he added: "To my uneducated guess it doesn't mean he is in a fatal condition."

Alex Goldfarb is, of course, Boris Berezovsky's right hand man.

Sky News reports that,

"Former spy Alexander Litvinenko may have taken an "antidote package" in a bid to save himself after being poisoned in a London restaurant, Sky News has learnt.

Three unusual objects spotted by X-ray in the Russian's intestines could have been swallowed deliberately to cleanse his system.

Sky News Health Correspondent Thomas Moore said the theory was raised by a source close to the case.

He said it was doubtful the objects - the size of a 2p piece - were taken accidentally.

And it is thought the former KGB commander may have tried to self-medicate with an antidote package after realising his meal had been spiked.

However, it has not been confirmed whether the three shadows of dense matter are foreign objects or growths, or whether they contributed to his illness.

Mr Litvinenko, hospital officials say, suffered a "major deterioration" in his condition overnight.

A friend of the former spy said his heart has failed and he is on a ventilator in intensive care.

Mr Litvinenko is being treated at University College Hospital, London, and is in a "very serious" condition, a spokesman said...

Doctors have said his illness is unlikely to have been caused by thallium sulphate poisoning, but they have not ruled out radioactive material - including radioactive thallium - being to blame.

Friends of Mr Litvinenko claim he was poisoned in London earlier this month because of his fierce criticism of Vladimir Putin's administration.

However, Russia's foreign intelligence service has denied that it had played any role in the incident.

Mr Litvinenko, a defector to Britain who has been granted asylum and citizenship, is thought to have been poisoned three weeks ago, on November 1.

He had been investigating the murder of dissident Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya...

Officers are focusing on two meetings Mr Litvinenko had on the day he is said to have been poisoned - one with a former KGB agent, and a second in a sushi restaurant.

Akhmed Zakayev, a former Chechen rebel commander who now lives in the UK, said the apparent poisoning was proof more needed to be done to protect exiled Russian dissidents."

Akhmed Zakayev is, of course, Alexander Litvinenko's near neighbour and, like both Litvinenko and Goldfarb, an associate of Boris Berezovsky's.

Astonishingly, the Daily Telegraph has reported this development with some candour -

"The condition of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent lying desperately ill in a London hospital, deteriorated seriously overnight..

A friend of the 43-year-old who is thought to have been poisoned, said he had suffered heart failure and was now on a ventilator, but University College Hospital (UCH) said only that Mr Litvinenko was in a “very serious condition” in intensive care.

The spy thriller story of the 43-year-old ex-lieutenant colonel in the FSB, the domestic arm of Russian intelligence, took another bizarre turn this morning .

Unconfirmed reports said that an X-ray of Mr Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of the regime of President Vladimir Putin, yesterday revealed three unexplained objects in his digestive system.

A hospital source told BBC radio that the dense, round objects, each about the size of a 2p piece, were found on the X-ray, one in his stomach, one in his small intestine and one in his lower bowel.

It was reported that one of the objects appeared to have ruptured.

It is unclear how the objects may be linked to the serious illness Mr Litvinenko has suffered.

Among the host of questions raised by the report was how Mr Litvinenko, who had apparently been warned that he was vulnerable to attack by enemies from Russia, could have ingested three objects which must have been hard to swallow.

But Alexander Goldfarb, the sick man’s friend, said the family had been told only that three “shadows” were seen on the x-ray which doctors did not confirm as being foreign objects.

He discounted the possibility that Mr Litvinenko had deliberately swallowed anything without telling doctors, even some kind of antidote if he had suspected he had been poisoned.

A spokesman for UCH said: “That information was not released officially by the hospital and we can’t comment on it, I’m afraid.”

Given the question which must now be asked of Goldfarb, Litvinenko and Zakayev - whether they were aware of and involved in Boris Berezovsky's plans to overthrow Vladimir Putin by force - an appropriate response to Goldfarb's dismissal of the possibility that Litvinenko could have swallowed an antidote without telling his doctors might be 'Well he would say that, wouldn't he?'

And given that he has Lord Tim Bell, one of the UK's top public relations men, working on his case for free should mean that Litvinenko has no incentive to conceal anything from anyone.

One has to ask - under what circumstances might Alexander Litvinenko have swallowed an antidote without telling his doctors?

As I speculated on Tuesday,

"Although it's perfectly possible that Vladimir Putin wanders the Kremlin plotting his enemies' demise, he would appear to have little to gain from killing this one. Litvinenko does not appear to be a credible figure in Russian public life; he would seem to present little challenge.

He could indeed have been the victim of a revenge attack by those he once helped bring to justice, from his days as a willing apparatchik in one of history's bloodiest secret services.

Yet there could also be some who might gain from his death; or if not from his death, then from his incapacity.

Like oppponents of Putin's committed to smearing him, what with gas prices on the way up and just as the winter's coming in; ruthless enough to let go of those who might perhaps be of no further use to them - or those willing to take a calculated risk.

No particular name springs to mind.

I can't help but think back to what Oleg Gordievsky said -

"Mr Gordievsky, a former KGB station head in London, who still refers to the FSB by its former name, insisted that he did not know the identity of the Russian would-be killer.

But he assumed that the man was a former associate of Boris Berezovsky, the former oligarch and Yeltsin confidant, who has been granted political asylum in Britain.

“He used to be in Mr Berezovsky’s entourage and was imprisoned in Moscow. Then suddenly he was released, and soon after that he became a businessman and a millionaire. It is all very suspicious. "

Indeed it is.

Hopefully Mr. Litvinenko survives his ordeal, and is getting plenty potassium ferrihexacyanoferrate (Prussian blue) - thallium poisoning's specific antidote.

At least he came to the incident probably better equipped than most. He seemed very conscious of the importance of physical fitness, jogging five miles a day. It's important for a man in his early 40's to take good care of himself, because it's a dangerous time of life when you never know what's around the corner - the quick stroke; the snap heart attack...

And as a former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel he might even had some training in poisons, so he might have a better idea of what symptoms to expect, thus reducing the incident's psychological impact."

However, the problem with all plots is that no matter how carefully planned, their success depends on secrecy, upon the plot remaining undiscovered until the plotters can make their move; and unless they are very well connected and able to pull all the strings, there is almost always some external factor which puts the risk of their discovery beyond their control.

On Monday, the investigation into the assault on Litvinenko was taken over by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch.

From the December 2003 issue of 'The New Internationalist', quoted in 'Barbara and Boris'-

"Berezovsky is candid on the point: ‘Most people in Russia don’t like me, but I don’t care what they think.’ Some people didn’t like him enough to blow up his Mercedes in 1994. Later he lost the immunity he had gained by engineering his own election to the Duma. The writing was clearly on the wall and Berezovsky went into self-exile in the West.

But there is an even murkier side to the story. The year was 1999. Berezovsky had extensive contacts with Chechen rebels, negotiating several hostage releases. Seemingly out of nowhere, Chechen rebel commanders invaded neighbouring Dagestan. This shut off Caspian oil supplies from the south, vastly increasing the value of the Siberian holdings of Berezovsky and a number of other oligarchs. It also moved the region from a delicate peace to almost inevitable conflict. This suited a number of interests, including a wildly unpopular Russian political class that quickly wrapped themselves in the flag.

Then there were the ‘obstacles’ to Berezovsky’s ambitions who wound up dead. These included the journalist Vladislav Listev, who was trying to lead an ethical revolution at ORT TV, and more recently the politician Sergei Yushenkov, who had engineered Berezovsky’s expulsion from the opposition political party Liberal Russia. No connection to Berezovsky was proved. Forbes magazine was forced publicly to retract after calling Berezovsky a Mafia boss and ‘Godfather of the Kremlin’ (30 December 1996). "

Akhmad Zakayev, commenting on the death of Shamil Basayev -

"There is simply no justification for what happened in the school and I know that Shamil Basayev regretted it in his heart and soul," says Akhmad Zakayev, foreign minister in the Chechen rebels' unrecognised government.

"Yet I do not believe that history will remember Shamil Basayev primarily for Beslan, but for his 15-year fight against Russian occupation."

Zakayev seems to have taken the same PR classes as Gerry Adams.

Yet according to the Daily Mail, the investigation's focus is moving away from the question of state involvement towards it being a revenge attack - just as Will Geddes suggested on Sunday.

And yet, and yet, and yet, and yet, and yet...

Coincidences are wonderful things.

On November 17 Edward Lucas, the 'Economist's' Central and East European correspondent (and husband of Cristina Odone - yes, the same Cristina Odone who writes a notebook in the Daily Telegraph), published a rather doom-laden commentary entitled 'Sound the alarm – Nato is failing', in - guess where? - 'The Daily Telegraph', writing that "Russia's gas weapon is proving a far more potent means of subverting Europe than either communism or the Red Army."

The Litvinenko story broke on November 19.

And on November 20, the very same Edward Lucas published a commentary in the 'Daily Mail' entitled 'Putin's agents and a licence to kill'.

Have I mentioned that Lord Tim Bell, one of the UK's top public relations men, is working on Litivinenko's behalf for no fee? And that he advised on the release of the pictures showing Litvinenko to have lost his hair at just the point when, if he were suffering from thallium posioning, he wouldn't be looking his best for the cameras? I have? Sorry...

And it had puzzled me why Kommersant had run the story on the 13th, yet it had taken the British press nearly a week to report it...

Did anyone else know that until earlier this year Boris Berezovsky owned Kommersant?

That must have been an interesting meeting where he mentioned that...interesting speakers...interesting chairman...interesting e-mail addresses...

This must have been an interesting meeting as well...

Go back to the Daily Telegraph's report of this morning, which has been updated while this post is being written -

" In a further twist it was also revealed today that Mr Alexander Litvinenko was not poisoned either by thallium or radioactive agents - the two explanations mooted by toxicologists employed by the ill man's associates.

Dr Geoff Bellingan, director of critical care at London's University College Hospital said: "We are now convinced that the cause of Mr Litvinenko's condition was not a heavy metal such as thallium. Radiation poisoning is also unlikely. Despite extensive tests, we are still unclear as to the cause of his condition."

This man's image was released to the media on the advice of a top public relations consultant at precisely the point when his hair loss, which is key to the diagnosis of thallium poisoning, was evident.

More and more, this story begins to look like the framing of Vladimir Putin.

Yet there is another element of this morning's development which is of grave concern; and this is where one must get down and dirty, so to speak...

This diagnostic guide to thallium poisoning records that -

"Acute poisoning tends to produce gastro-intestinal effects whilst chronic poisoning tends to produce neurological manifestations".

This guide to the diagnosis of thallium poisoning from the Postgraduate Medical Journal (.pdf)indicates that loose bowel movements can indicate the condition's presence.

The case study referred to in that guide involved a thallium poisoning victim who had 'noted a peculiar taste in a sweet offered to him'.

Perhaps Litvinenko did suspect something was wrong; and his KGB training told him to self-medicate...

However, he has been hospitalised since at least November 13. The legal test to determine whether or not medical negligence has occurred is whether or not a reasonable doctor has exercised a reasonable degree of care and skill.

With a patient apparenly suffering from a form of poisoning characterised by gastric disturbance, the world's press camped outside and Russian oligarchs floating round the corridors, the balance of probabilities inevitably suggests that it wouldn't take University College Hospital eight days to X-ray Litvinenko's stomach.

If this is all a smear job on Putin, then it might very well be the case that Litvinenko was a party to it. For him to have involved himself in this way would have been a calculated risk - but one which his training and lifestyle might have thoroughly prepared him for.

If that were the case, then the involvement of the anti-terrorist squad might have been a step too far - too many declarations of intention to mount coups in other countries floating about the Internet; and at that point, Litvinenko might have realised his gamble had failed and that the plot would have to be seen through to its least preferable final scenario: his death.

Odd objects appearing out of nowhere on his X-rays and sudden deteriorations in his health...it's all very suspicious...

If there is a conspiracy, then his death would remove a conspirator - or a possible witness.

Perhaps it was Litvinenko's destiny to be the bad news that had to buried; but one does hope the armed police outside his door are searching his visitors.

The Litvinenko Poisoning (Continued) - It Pays To Buy The Daily Mail

Tom Parfitt's link on the 'Guardian News Blog' has ramped up my traffic dramatically - thanks, Tom.

Tom's post is itself interesting reading -

"Watching the furore over the alleged poisoning of the former security officer Alexander Litvinenko from Moscow has proved instructive.
In a satirical book popular in Russia, the president, Vladimir Putin, is portrayed as a ruthless but befuddled hood who prefaces every approach to his subordinates with the gangster intro: "Slish, bratello ...(listen, bro'...)".
The readiness with which we are now willing to paint Mr Putin - and Russia itself - as this kind of pantomime villain now seems rather alarming...

"Obviously it's deeply shocking that Mr Litvinenko is fighting for his life. And we know the Soviet Union poisoned people during the Cold War.

But does anyone really believe that the Kremlin tried to bump off a low ranking former FSB officer (who was, incidentally, never a spy, and certainly not a "top spy", as some have decided) who posed not the slightest threat to the country?

The people who are feeding us this line are Litvinenko's cronies: Boris Berezovsky, the businessman who lives in self-imposed exile in London, and Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen separatist leader.

Mr Berezovsky, as we all know, is Machiavelli's Prince in living form, a notorious manipulator who once pulled the strings at the Kremlin. Mr Zakayev is the Chechen rebel envoy who saw no contradiction in serving in the government in exile headed by terrorist mastermind, Shamil Basayev, the architect of the Beslan school siege.

Slightly compromised people, no?

Certainly, it seems clear that Mr Litvinenko was probably the victim of a ruthless attack. But whether it was organised by personal enemies that he made as Mr Berezovsky's stooge before he fled Moscow, renegade special services who see him as a traitor, or someone inside his own circle keen to set up a supreme piece of political theatre, nobody knows."

But we can guess...

In this morning's post I linked to this story in today's online 'Daily Mail' - however I have also been an avid reader of the offline Daily Mail since a run-in with one of its columnists.

The online story appears on Page 6 of the dead tree Scottish edition - the following item by Richard Pendlebury appears directly beneath it; and as far as I can see is not online. It is not reproduced in its entirety -

"Oligarch who gains from a power struggle with Putin

Alexander Litvinenko likes to boast that he was once asked by Vladimir Putin to assassinate the man who is now the Russian president's biggest critic.

'I refused' the former KGB colonel would recount. 'Boris Berezovsky is my friend'.

But what kind of friend is Mr. Berezovsky, the billonaire Russian oligarch living in Britain?

The balding little man, with bodyguard on tow, has already visited the stricken Litvinenko's bedside.

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.

Lord Bell told the Mail that his firm was acting for Mr. Berezovsky's human rights organisation, Civil Liberties Foundation, for free. It was Lord Bell's advice which led to the release which led to the release of pictures of Mr. Litvinenko in his hospital bed".

So my suspicion that 'You'd almost think that Litvinenko had a PR team...' and Justin Raimondo's comment that "In spite of the numerous interviews Litvinenko appears to have given to the media – a veritable public relations tsunami, in which his absurd conspiracy theory is being touted as unimpeachable fact – he is supposedly too sick to be making statements and finds himself unable to answer queries about what transpired at this meeting, or even where it occurred", were founded in fact.

Tim Bell, one of the best PR men in the business, is on the case.

For Lord Bell to have offered his services to the Civil Liberties Foundation free of charge is remarkably generous - perhaps a favour for an old client.

From 'The Times', July 13, 2006 -

"A FIERCE battle for hearts and minds is being fought in the run-up to the St Petersburg G8 summit by rival public relations companies, fuelled by millions of dollars from Russia and its former oligarchs.

While the Russian Federation has hired the big American PR firm Ketchum to soften President Putin’s image at home and abroad, British PR companies are hard at work to counter its efforts.

Lord Bell, the PR veteran behind successive Conservative Party election campaigns, has fallen foul of G8 organisers for his work with the Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky.

His company paid for advertising space in the official G8 programme but found that its material was rejected because it fell foul of censors.

Lord Bell said: “We bought some space in the G8 programme for Boris Berezovsky’s Civil Liberties Foundation and sent in three ads. But at that stage they refused to run them.

“One was a picture of Putin made up to look like Groucho Marx and it said ‘I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me as a member’. What seemed to upset them was the word ‘Marx’.”

Berezovsky's associates include Litvinenko's neighbour, that rather rum kettle of halal borscht Akhmed Zakayev; a man lucky enough to find another old thespian to post his bail.

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'.

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.

And he can't seem to stop himself interfering in Ukrainian affairs either - both he and Litvinenko had a lot to say about who they thought was responsible for the murder of Georgy Gonzadze.

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?

'I hate the Queen, I hate this country'

A comment made by Shamsu Miah when being questioned on suspicion of killing a swan because he was Ramadamafamished.

Two months jail in this life, everlasting torment in the next...bummer...

The Litvinenko Poisoning , Continued

Firstly, my thanks to Neil Clark for linking to yesterday's post; his link has brought a reader from Finland.

This morning, the British press has all but formed a posse to ride out to Moscow and bring back Vladimir Putin - dead or alive.

As is to be expected, the 'Daily Telegraph' is at the front of the pack, reporting that Litvinenko had been poisoned with - gasp! - radioactive thallium!

It's not all that clear on its facts - Nic Fleming writes that Litvinenko 'has lived in exile in Britain for six years' when The Poisoned One actually became a British citizen last month - but it does take good care to report the opinion of Dr. Andrea Sella, 'a lecturer in chemistry at UCL' -

"To give someone radiation poisoning you would normally give them something that would be absorbed. My gut feeling is that whoever did this wanted not only to do him harm, but also to send a spectacular message to others – mess with us and we make you die a lingering death."

Perhaps English is Dr. Sella's second language - some might consider the use of the phrase 'gut feeling' in the context of such a case as not perhaps being in the best of all possible taste - so to speak.

However, it also carries an almost operatically anti-Putin tirade from Adrian Blomfield entitled 'Putin is returning Russia to a state of tyranny' - par for the course for the Telegraph really, but there's plenty of competing opinion coming from on the ground.

It sems that absolutely nothing will assuage Blomfield's fears about Putin - not even his stated intention not to pursue the third term that Blomfield predicted last year.

The 'Daily Mail' regurgitates the radioactive drug story, while 'The Times' reports that Litvinenko was 'marked for death!'.

Good grief! This story's descended from the level of John Le Carre down to Steven Seagal!

Because as both Justin Raimondo and Tim Worstall point out, this has all the makings of a potboiler.

Justin's comment that despite 'the numerous interviews Litvinenko appears to have given to the media – a veritable public relations tsunami, in which his absurd conspiracy theory is being touted as unimpeachable fact – he is supposedly too sick to be making statements and finds himself unable to answer queries about what transpired at this meeting, or even where it occurred" echoes my own suspicion that "How odd it is that this story broke here just when his condition would been most likely to have reached the stage where he wouldn't have looked his best for the cameras. You'd almost think that Litvinenko had a PR team..."

And Tim's allusion to a spy novel he has read in which the KGB kills a victim with radioactive thallium might not be unfamiliar to a former KGB colonel...who might have an interest in making his condition appear to be the work of the KGB...

Asylum Anarchy Redux

From the Office of National Statistics -

"There were 5,850 applications for asylum in the UK in the third quarter of 2006 (July to September). This was 7 per cent higher than the previous quarter but was 7 per cent less than the third quarter of 2005. The top five applicant nationalities were Eritrean, Afghan, Iranian, Chinese and Somali.

Including dependants, there were 7,105 asylum applications in the third quarter, 11 per cent higher than the previous quarter. This compares with an increase of 6 per cent in the rest of the EU15 (excluding Greece, Luxembourg, Portugal, Italy and the UK).

25,710 asylum applications were received in 2005, 24 per cent less than in 2004 (33,960).

There were 4,565 initial decisions in the third quarter of 2006, 8 per cent lower than the previous quarter. Of these, 9 per cent were granted asylum, 10 per cent granted either humanitarian protection or discretionary leave and 81 per cent refused.

The number of initial decisions made fell by 40 per cent between 2004 and 2005 from 46,020 to 27,395. Of these, 7 per cent were granted asylum, 10 per cent granted Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave and 83 per cent refusals. This compares with figures from 2004 when 3 per cent were granted asylum, 9 per cent Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave and 88 per cent were refusals.

For the third quarter of 2006, the number of principal applicants removed was 3,295, 26 per cent lower than in the previous quarter (4,480) and 12 per cent less than in the third quarter of 2005 (3,745). Including dependants, a total of 3,635 asylum seekers were removed in the third quarter.

13,730 principal applicants were removed in 2005, 9 per cent more than in 2004 (12,595). Including dependants, 15,685 failed asylum seekers were removed, 5 per cent more than in 2004 (14,915). "

So the new asylum policy is to grant it less often but conduct fewer removals...got it...

Not that being removed ever makes much of a difference...what else is freedom of movement for?

And notice too how the graph differentiates between those who claim asylum upon entry and those who do the deed once they're inside the country.

What I would like to see from the ONS is a graph relating solely to the in-country claimants showing the length of time between their arrival in the UK and their claim...although probably impossible to compile, that would be interesting reading...

How The Public Finances Will Continue To Look Under Gordon Brown

From the Office of National Statistics.

Just look at the graph on the right.

Milton Friedman really is dead.

Auld Broon had better hope that the Great British House Price Asset Bubble deflates gently - rather than go pop.

'Left and Right'

An excellent, if challenging, analysis of Catholicism's relationship with ideology from Aelianus, posting on Laodicea.

There is only one aspect of the post with which I would quibble.

Aelianus writes,

"Marxists...do not fall into the right-left dichotomy (which is why their regimes appear to be both) because they are actually realists, extreme realists who think that the common good is separated from and potentially incompatible with the good of the individual. They are also very badly wrong about what that common good is."

That Marxists possess no comprehension of the common good is a fact beyond dispute - the skulls of millions bear testament to its truth.

However my contention would be that Marxism is best analysed as a religion, rather than an ideology. It is possible for Catholics to be either liberals or conservatives, in varying degrees - but not Marxists.

Marxism's policy of oppressing religion is itself religious in character - an act of devotion to a waste of space whose ideas, though long ago foresworn by the reasonable, still carry some weight amongst his more pious acolytes.

A Memo To Anatole Kaletsky

Dear Anatole,

Given that when you ask "businessmen or investors about their biggest economic worry at present, they almost invariably put the housing-related slowdown in the American economy at the top of their lists", I would suggest you start reading James Hamilton.

Menzie Chinn's very good as well...they know their stuff about free trade...and they deal in numbers...

Latvian Crime Gangs In Dublin

They've got the lot!

Contract killings, lawyers living under police protection...

Mind you, if things are bad on the banks of the Liffey they're worse on the banks of the Lee!

Foreign whores in Cork, by God!

But sure, mass immigration's been just grand for Ireland...just grand...

Cool Hand Luke Lives!

It looks like the spirit of the man who just wanted to do his own thing is not yet dead.

'From Neoconservatism to Paleorealism'

An excellent essay on the Iraq debacle from John Derbyshire; if only NRO would publish more like that instead of the reality-challenged rantings of Charles Krauthammer and Mona Charen.

There never was an Iraqi Ben Franklin, Dr. Krauthammer - that was the problem with your vision all along.

The Framing Of Vladimir Putin For The Poisoning Of Alexander Litvinenko

Further to my post of yesterday on the British media's massive outburst of Putinophobia in the wake of Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning, the mania has continued into today.

The Daily Telegraph has continued its policy of denying Vladimir Putin the presumption of innocence's benefit. Its leader this morning is entitled 'Is Russia poisoning its relations with the West?'

It states,

"There is, in the minds of his friends and most knowing observers, a link between the catastrophic fate that has left Mr Litvinenko so near to death and his ties to known enemies of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Not only is he an associate of Russian "oligarch" exiles in Britain, and of Chechen activists, but he has recently been involved in investigating the murder of Russian dissident journalist Anna Politkovskaya. "

Such hypotheses are not evidence, no matter how circumstantial; just as there is no evidence of the Kremlin having been involved in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

It continues,

"All of this points to an obvious conclusion: that agents of the Russian presidency were responsible for the attack which was intended either to silence a dangerous critic permanently, or to cause him enough suffering to serve as a warning to others. "

It leads to no such thing. It is gossip and speculation - not evidence.

"The Russian secret service, in its previous incarnation as the KGB, was known to favour poisoning as a means of eliminating dangerous antagonists but it would be peculiarly worrying if Mr Putin were going to such lengths to put a minor player out of commission".

As the report from Life Style Extra to which I linked yesterday indicated, it is precisely because Litvinenko is a minor player that the Russian state is unlikely to having played any role in this attack. To quote Will Geddes again -

"Five years down the line, whether he was holding any damaging information to Putin would be highly unlikely. If the FSB had an assassination squad, the time of his defection would have been the time to take him out.
"It is not impossible that he has been poisoned, whether by the KGB/FSB it is difficult to say.
"Speculatively, if he was working with journalists and they were investigating the FSB, he would be preying into a world that he knows all too well.
"He could be prodding an old wound, but it seem more likely to be organised crime rather than the FSB.
"Organised criminals are more likely to take these kinds of risks. The two for a long time were alleged to be interlaced pretty fully."

However, when it comes to Putin there is no appeasing the 'Daily Telegraph' -

"The Kremlin, predictably, denies these charges vehemently, dismissing them as "pure nonsense". However dubious such protestations of innocence may be, the absence of any clear proof combined with categorical denials from Mr Putin's officials put the British government in an awkward diplomatic position."

"Predictable denials"..."Dubious protestations of of innocence"...

I shall never read another word that the Daily Telegraph prints about Blair's erosion of civil liberties ever again...

"Speculation that enemies of the Putin regime might have perpetrated the crime in an attempt to discredit the Russian presidency seem far-fetched but for official purposes cannot be totally dismissed."

I'll bet Vlad feels glad to be off the Telegraph's hook!

"But the British government cannot be seen to accept a situation in which a citizen of the United Kingdom is subjected to a murderous attack under conditions that raise grave, and reasonable, suspicions of the involvement of foreign agents."

In 2002 Litvinenko, who became a British citizen only in October 2006, declared that "Above all, I am a patriot. I believe Russia will rise again and that I will manage to return again to the motherland and Moscow"; but that's beside the point.

But just as the British government cannot accept attacks on its citizens, presumably the Russian government cannot accept rather cack-handed British attempts at espionage.

For goodness' sake, people! We used to be good at this sort of stuff! And there's a Bond movie coming out! Have you no self-respect?

"The Foreign and Home Offices must be seen to pursue this case with the greatest rigour and to the highest possible level, and to demand whatever explanations they feel are required from the Russian authorities. Otherwise, there will be a clear suggestion that Britain dare not offend a Russian regime that may hold much of Europe to ransom over energy resources within a decade. "

And we could have avoided that possibility had successive British governments not followed stupid energy policies which have resulted in a country which we know is going to be a net energy importer within the next ten years selling gas because the weather's been unseasonally warm!

But the Telegraph saves the best for the last. This is gorgeous.

"Whatever the future holds for British energy supplies, this country must not be a safe haven for international thuggery".

The principal Russian 'oligarch' with whom Litvinenko associates seems to be Boris Berezonsky.

As I wrote yesterday,

"He is an associate of Boris Berezovsky, a very sinister, very well-connected person to whom it was a mistake to grant asylum and who has abused that privilege by saying that "President Putin violates the constitution... and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today...That includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working on".

Having thus declared his intention to overthrow the government of a friendly foreign power, his continued residence in the United Kingdom is no longer in alignment with the common good. "

That post was not quite right. It should have read 'the democratically elected government of a friendly foreign power'.

We shelter a person who has declared his intention to overthrow the democratically elected government of Russia by force.

Who are the thugs? His comments indicate that Berezovsky's a thug as well as a thief. But aren't we thugs as well for sheltering him?

Might the Russians not be justified in thinking us to be thugs for doing so?

The Daily Telegraph again allows this thief and thug's speculation on who is responsible for Litvinenko's poisoning to go unchallenged -

"Mr Berezovsky last night made a second visit to Mr Litvinenko in hospital.

"He is really in very bad shape, but personally he is strong," he said. "He has the same opinion he had before he was poisoned.

He personally thinks that it was organised in Moscow and Putin gave the order to poison him because he is former KGB. It is a message to everyone who is in the service that no one is able to leave without being killed or damaged very seriously."

Nothing that Boris Berezovsky either says or writes about Russian affairs can be read without bearing in mind his acknowledgment that he is planning or has planned to overthrow Russia's government by force.

If we are jealous of our own democracy, should we not also be jealous of the Russians' on their behalf? Would we not be enraged if a plotter of coups against the Crown were to receive asylum in Moscow?

He is precisely the same to them now as the Cambridge Spies were to us in the 1950's and 1960's; a member of a privileged elite, exiled because of his determination to impose his will over that of the majority.

Lest any think I'm ragging on the 'Telegraph', well, they deserve it; but the others aren't much better.

In 'The Times', Oleg Gordievsky, the highest ranking KGB officer ever to defect to the UK, a former London station chief who never quite got round to going home to Mother Russia when the Soviet Union came tumbling down, points the finger at an FSB agent in Berezovsky's entourage.

Will Geddes' observation that 'any former spy, especially ones that left under a black cloud, remain "paranoid', springs to mind.

It is a strange day when the most sensible and rounded commentary on this affair comes from 'The Guardian'.

It reports that,

"Mr Litvinenko is widely seen in Russia as a stooge paid by the anti-Kremlin oligarch and London exile, Boris Berezovsky, to blacken Mr Putin and his circle. "He's a notorious provocateur," said Alexander Khinstein, an author and investigative journalist. When asked to respond to the poisoning accusations, a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Petrov, said: "There is no need to comment on statements that are pure nonsense."...

If he's perceived as a stooge, then any threat he might pose is automatically lessened; lacking credibility, he's not worth the killing.

"The SVR (foreign intelligence service) said it had not killed anyone abroad since assassinating the Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera in 1959.

Many observers said they were so sceptical of the story that they believed Mr Litvinenko had poisoned himself or was attacked by people close to him in order to discredit the Kremlin.

"There are assassination attempts and there imitations of them," said the MP and former federal security service (FSB) colonel, Gennady Gudkov. "I would advise Mr Litvinenko to look for the poisoner among his own entourage."

In comparison to the Daily Telegraph, its leader is a model of restraint.

And yet, and yet, and yet, and yet...

The poison was applied to Litvinenko on November 1 - yet the story did not break in the UK until the 19th.

Kommersant reported it on the 13th.

The toxin applied was thallium - and the symptoms of thallium poisoning apparently appear 12 hours after it's ingested. After five days Alexander Litvinenko would have been seriously ill.

Although the range of symptoms which might indicate thallium poisoning begin to widen after two to five days, one of Litvinenko's symptoms has been widely-reported; and photographed - hair loss.

This diagnostic guide notes quite clearly that,

"Alopecia is a feature that should lead to suspicion of thallium toxicity."

However, it also notes quite clearly that,

"Hair loss, rashes and palmar erythema take 2 to 4 weeks to appear."

How odd it is that this story broke here just when his condition would been most likely to have reached the stage where he wouldn't have looked his best for the cameras.

You'd almost think that Litvinenko had a PR team...

One of history's greatest lawyers once asked the question 'Cui bono?'

Although it's perfectly possible that Vladimir Putin wanders the Kremlin plotting his enemies' demise, he would appear to have little to gain from killing this one. Litvinenko does not appear to be a credible figure in Russian public life; he would seem to present little challenge.

He could indeed have been the victim of a revenge attack by those he once helped bring to justice, from his days as a willing apparatchik in one of history's bloodiest secret services.

Yet there could also be some who might gain from his death; or if not from his death, then from his incapacity.

Like oppponents of Putin's committed to smearing him, what with gas prices on the way up and just as the winter's coming in; ruthless enough to let go of those who might perhaps be of no further use to them - or those willing to take a calculated risk.

No particular name springs to mind.

I can't help but think back to what Oleg Gordievsky said -

"Mr Gordievsky, a former KGB station head in London, who still refers to the FSB by its former name, insisted that he did not know the identity of the Russian would-be killer.

But he assumed that the man was a former associate of Boris Berezovsky, the former oligarch and Yeltsin confidant, who has been granted political asylum in Britain.

“He used to be in Mr Berezovsky’s entourage and was imprisoned in Moscow. Then suddenly he was released, and soon after that he became a businessman and a millionaire. It is all very suspicious. "

Indeed it is.

Hopefully Mr. Litvinenko survives his ordeal, and is getting plenty potassium ferrihexacyanoferrate (Prussian blue) - thallium poisoning's specific antidote.

At least he came to the incident probably better equipped than most. He seemed very conscious of the importance of physical fitness, jogging five miles a day. It's important for a man in his early 40's to take good care of himself, because it's a dangerous time of life when you never know what's around the corner - the quick stroke; the snap heart attack...

And as a former KGB Lieutenant-Colonel he might even had some training in poisons, so he might have a better idea of what symptoms to expect, thus reducing the incident's psychological impact.

One would have thought that an alleged superfiend like Vladimir Putin would at least have the good grace to ice his enemies with diabolically sophisticated poisons - the ones that kill within 24 hours and have no known cure, all that sort of stuff.

At the moment, all cards seem to be on the table. It might be the case that Litvinenko's past as an investigator caught up with him. It might be the case that the Russian state wants him dead.

But given the possible gravity of this situation's international implications, the idea that we are seeing the most dangerous case of wasting police time in English legal history being played out before our eyes cannot be discounted.

Why would anyone do such a thing to himself? Loyalty to country? Mother country?

A great deal of money?

If this is an inside job, then Litvinenko, the ink barely dry on his citizenship, would be immune from deportation; however, any asylum-seekers caught up in the affair would be liable to have their status reviewed - or revoked.

And if that were to happen, their despatch to the 'The Black Museum' would be a certainty.

Somehow, I just can't help but think that poor old Vlad Putin's being framed...

And why did it all appear on the same day, when Kommersant had ben running the story for a week?

You'd almost think someone was telling them to hold off...

Fromn The Mailbox - A Victim Of Farepak Writes

A reader blows off some steam at Sir Clive Thompson, Farepak's chairman; her mail is reproduced with permission -

" F is for flaunting, what Sir Clive is doing
with holidays at such a time
A is for arrogance , in his appearance
but he hasn't lost, not a dime
R is for rubbish, that this man is speaking
whenever he speaks to the press
E is for excrement, just one more word
for excuses he's made for this mess
P is for pennies, which customers will get
to compensate, their loss of cash
A is for action, that everyone wants
no more helpings of his verbal trash
K is for kindness, that people have shown
by donating amounts large and small
But with this fiasco, while we are all rooked
"DEAR Sir Clive" hasn't suffered at all!"

Given the way she and thousands of others have been treated, I think she's entitled...

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part I - The Embarrassed Japanese

As predicted earlier today, our first foreign criminal of the night is the embarrassed conspirator and passport fraudster Hidehiro Iga.

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part II - The Incredible Revolving Kazakhs

A hat tip is owed to Laban Tall, one of the British blogosphere's more senior members, for relating the astonishing story of the Pugachev family.

Judge Scott's comments on the failings of the British immigration system are particularly noteworthy.

Foreign Criminals of The Day, Part III - He Is Identified!

The Unknown Foreign Prisoner Of Llanelli has been identified as Hassan Ibrahimi, a Moroccan Berber and foreign criminal so stupid that he paid to be smuggled to France and ended up in Wales.

Ibrahimi has been sentenced to 12 months and recommended for deportation for burgling the same house three times.

He is apparently planning to seek asylum.

All in all, just another sad example of how far North African seamanship has gone down the tubes...

Foreign Criminals Of The Day, Part IV - The Knave Of Prats Meets The Queen Of Proofs

Benedykt Golli really should have kept his mouth shut about the speeding tickets.

It seems harsh, I know - but they're all part of the calculus of foreign crime.

The Police Polonaise Pomps Into Pwllheli

In April, I posted a comment on a Scottish Executive proposal to recruit police in Poland.

It now seems that North Wales Police have had precisely the same wizard idea.

North Wales Police is headed by the ultra politically correct Richard Brunstrom, the only cop in Britain who scares me. They're not so hot at manning Holyhead Police Office from time to time, but if today's report is anything to go by they're marvellous at community relations.

"North Wales Police are considering recruiting Polish-speaking officers because of high levels of immigration...

Deputy chief constable Clive Wolfendale said the force was looking at a number of measures to improve service.

Benedykt Golli, a Pole who does not speak English and works in Pwllheli, Gwynedd, said his problems occurred only when dealing with officialdom. "

Learn English. Problems solved.

"North Wales Police recently launched a scheme in Flintshire to provide help and advice for the Polish community, who are the largest migrant workers' group in the county.

The Open Door project aims to give foreign workers better access to information, including personal safety, road traffic legislation, environmental health and other related matters.

"The Polish community in particular is growing rapidly in this area," said Mr Wolfendale.

"The appointment of Polish officers is only one of a number of suggestions under consideration."
Mr Golli, 43, speaking with his employer translating - who in turn speaks to him in Russian - said having a Polish-speaking police officer would be a help if anything happened.

"There is no problem, day-to-day at work and in the shops," he said.

"Problems only arise with anything official, dealing with the council, or when I got a speeding ticket," he said. "

Well, we know where he's going later...

"Mr Golli's employer Robert Wright said: "I think it's essential that the police speak the language of the people of the area they are in: in this area Welsh and English.

"But it would help too if they had one policeman, say in Caernarfon, where Polish people could ring if they had a problem."

Why would you possibly go to work in a country whose language you can't speak?

And Poles using Russian to communicate is probably what gave rise to the notorious breakdown in communication which occurred between Thomasz Stepniowski and Svetlana Purkis in the interview room at Weymouth Police Office.

Welsh language bigots are bad enough - but Poles who can't be bothered learning English, colonists to the core, and who would prefer the services of Polish police is just beyond a joke.

Poland should be policed by Poles; Wales should be policed by - well, the Welsh would probably prefer Welsh...

Besides, I thought that Poles spoke better English than the Brits; at least, that's how the propaganda goes...and so the Poles keep telling us...

It Appears That A Member Of The Scottish Executive Is Both An Imam And A Jihadist

BBC Scotland reports that,

"Islam is often "misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented", according to Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm.

At the launch of Islam Awareness Week in Glasgow Central Mosque, he reiterated the Scottish Executive's belief in religious diversity.

Mr Chisholm said anti-Islamic comments or abuse would not be tolerated....

"Recent events have unfortunately prompted some in our communities to believe that it is justified to make anti-Islamic comments or to abuse or harass Muslims, or those they presume to be Muslims, in the street or other places," he said.

"I deplore that and can assure you that such views and behaviour have no place in Scotland."

Neither Malcolm Chisholm's Wikipedia entry, his list of personal interests nor his entry in the register of interests give any indication that he has converted to Islam.

However, in order for him to declare so confidently that Islam is often 'misunderstood, misinterpreted and misrepresented' indicates great depth of learning about the religion, coupled with a convert's piety. By so proclaiming, he shows himself to be a true imam. One hopes he finds solace in his chosen faith, inshallah.

Of slightly more concern is his reported remark that "anti-Islamic comments or abuse would not be tolerated. " Although one is suspicious that his comments have been subjected to a little BBC spin - there is a world of difference in meaning between "anti-Islamic comments or abuse would not be tolerated" and "I... can assure you that such views and behaviour have no place in Scotland." - he has at the very least issued a fatwa, if not an outright declaration of jihad.

In Imam Al-Chisholm's Scotland, Muslim bigots, unethical journalists and apologists for law breaking and Christophobic, Scotophobic scofflaw jihadists with friends in high places would all get a free pass from critique- while the rest of us would be denied the opportunity to discuss the causes and consequences of 'recent events'.

Like the murders of 3,000 people.

Any Readers In The Dumfries Or Bristol Areas...

who might be able to confirm whether Dr. Tapash Saha qualifies for 'Foreign Criminal of the Day' status are asked to drop me an e-mail.

As one might expect, the BBC are no use whatsoever...

The Reporting Of The Attempted Assassination Of Alexander Litvinenko

Yesterday, the BBC reported that,

"UK police are investigating the poisoning of a Russian former security agent and critic of President Vladimir Putin living in exile in Britain...

Mr Litvinenko fled Russia and was granted political asylum in Britain in 2001...

He said he had been investigating the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was killed in Moscow last month.

Speaking to the BBC last week, before his condition deteriorated, Mr Litvinenko said the contact had approached him to say they should talk and they arranged to meet at the restaurant in Piccadilly.
"He gave me some papers which contained some names on it - perhaps names of those who may have been involved in the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, and several hours after the meeting I started to feel sick."...

Mr Litvinenko had earlier alleged that members of the Federal Security Service (FSB) - the main successor to the Soviet KGB - had plotted to kill the powerful Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky.
He also wrote a book called Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within, alleging that FSB agents coordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Russia that killed more than 300 people.
Russian officials blamed the explosions on Chechen separatists and in that year the Kremlin launched a new military offensive on Chechnya.

Ms Politkovskaya, a harsh critic of Mr Putin and Russian policy in Chechnya, was shot dead at her Moscow apartment building.
She was one of the few Russian journalists to write about alleged human rights abuses in Chechnya and had received death threats in the past.
Ms Politkovskaya became ill with food-poisoning on her way to report on the Beslan school siege in 2004, which some believed may have been an attempt on her life. "

Sky News has likened the affair to the 1978 assassination of Georgi Markov.

The Sunday Telegraph reported the poisoning under the headline 'Leading Russian critic of Putin's regime is poisoned in London', writing that,

"Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian secret service and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, was seriously ill under armed guard at a London hospital last night.
Mr Litvinenko, 50, who used to work for the Federal Security Bureau (FSB, the former KGB), fell ill after meeting a contact at Itsu, a sushi restaurant in Piccadilly. The woman journalist claimed to have information on the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, the outspoken journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment last month.
A close friend of Mr Litvinenko said last night: "Alexander has no doubt that he was poisoned at the instigation of the Russian government." He has been living at a secret address in London with his wife and son because he feared he might be targeted by political opponents...

He went to meet the woman journalist at Itsu on November 1 after she claimed to have information about the shooting of Miss Politkovskaya, also a fierce critic of President Putin. The next day, Mr Litvinenko complained of feeling unwell and was admitted to hospital. It was thought he had nothing more than a serious stomach upset but in recent days his condition has deteriorated. Friends say the journalist may have been a genuine contact but that political opponents may have discovered the venue for their meeting and slipped the poison into his meal or drink."

The Sunday Telegraph also carried an interview with Boris Berezovsky, under the headline 'Putin tried to kill my friend'.

Berezovsky is reported to have said of Putin that,

"I know people in Britain find it difficult to believe that someone who is a leader of a G8 country and someone who struts across the world stage as a democrat could order something like this to be done...But people need to understand he is a bandit."

The report containing the interview continued,

"The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that he was examined in hospital by Professor John Henry, a British toxicologist who two years ago was one of the first to confirm that Viktor Yushchenko, the Ukrainian president, had been poisoned during the election campaign. After being poisoned, Mr Yushchenko's face blistered violently...

Russians who speak out against Mr Putin's administration – especially journalists – fear for their lives. When Ms Politkovskaya was gunned down in the lift of her apartment block in Moscow last month, she was the 13th journalist to be murdered. She ran a relentless campaign exposing corruption in the army and its brutal reign in Chechnya.
Since her assassination, the Committee to Protect Journalists has disclosed that Russia has become the third most dangerous place in the world to work: only in Iraq and Algeria have more reporters been murdered. What is perhaps more chilling is that not one of the 13 murders of journalists has been solved.
When Mr Putin came to power he declared: "Our press is free and forever will be." The honeymoon did not last. Instead of following a path to democracy, Mr Putin, a former head of the KGB, has reasserted the centralised Kremlin control of the Soviet era."

This morning's 'Daily Telegraph' was little better.

Under the headline 'Ex-KGB colonel 'poisoned by Russian agents', its crime correspondent, John 'Dum-Dum' Steele, wrote,

"In an episode reminiscent of the intrigue and plots at height of the Cold War, Alexander Litvinenko, 43, a former KGB colonel in exile in London since 2000, fell ill at the start of the month after meeting a contact in a London restaurant. He is said to have been investigating the recent murder of a woman journalist in Moscow....

Alex Goldfarb, who brought him to Britain six years ago and has been visiting him in hospital, said he had been warned that his friend’s chances of survival were only 50/50.
Mr Goldfarb added that he believed Mr Litvinenko, a critic of President Putin, had been targeted by the Russian regime.
“Of course we do not have any direct evidence other than he met some people during that day,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “He actually had a couple of meetings where he had drinks and this poison could be sprinkled there"...

Reports so far have not suggested anything as dramatic as the murder in 1978 of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who died after being shot in London with a ricin-tipped pellet from an umbrella gun.
However, the incident comes only weeks after the murder of the Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of Russia's role in Chechnya."

The newspaper also carries a profile of Litvinenko, in which he is reported to have said that,

"Above all, I am a patriot. I believe Russia will rise again and that I will manage to return again to the motherland and Moscow."

He has previously been reported as having acquired British citizenship in October 2006.

Today's 'Times' and 'Daily Mail' have also joined the hanging party currently being arranged for President Vladimir Putin.

These are the facts that we know so far.

Litvinenko has been poisoned.

He was formerly an officer in the Soviet, then Russian, state security apparatuses; an apparatchik.

He was granted asylum.

He is an associate of Boris Berezovsky, a very sinister, very well-connected person to whom it was a mistake to grant asylum and who has abused that privilege by saying that "President Putin violates the constitution... and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today...That includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working on".

Having thus declared his intention to overthrow the government of a friendly foreign power, his continued residence in the United Kingdom is no longer in alignment with the common good.

At the time he is believed to have been poisoned, Litvinenko was investigating the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.

Not one shred of evidence linking the Russian state to Anna Politkovskaya's murder has been placed the public domain.

Don't just take my word for it; take Mark Ames'.

And the circumstances of Litvinenko's poisoning might indicate that he had plenty of enemies other than Putin!

Life Style Extra reports that,

"The Russian mafia were more "likely" to have poisoned a former KGB spy because of his role in

investigating organised crime than the Russian intelligence services, an expert claimed today...

"While another expert said Alexander Litvinenko was not important enough to have been targetted by his former bosses...

"...an intelligence expert said the former lieutenant-colonel defected six years ago and if the FSB ran assassination squads, he would have been targetted then rather than five to six years down the line. Security risk analyst Will Geddes said any former spy, especially ones that left under a black cloud, remain "paranoid." Instead Mr Litvinenko could have been targetted by mafia hitmen because of his job of investigating organised criminal gangs who bloomed after the demise of the Soviet Union and the selling off of state firms.

Mr Geddes said: "Five years down the line, whether he was holding any damaging information to Putin would be highly unlikely. If the FSB had an assassination squad, the time of his defection would have been the time to take him out."It is not impossible that he has been poisoned, whether by the KGB/FSB it is difficult to say."Speculatively, if he was working with journalists and they were investigating the FSB, he would be preying into a world that he knows all too well. "He could be prodding an old wound, but it seem more likely to be organised crime rather than the FSB."Organised criminals are more likely to take these kinds of risks. The two for a long time were alleged to be interlaced pretty fully....

A journalist at Russian London Limited added: "There are plenty of people that would be bigger targets than this guy, ex-Chechen guerrillas and people that Russia is trying to extradite back to face charges...

""There are a lot of Russian people living overseas who believe they are in danger."If something happens to these people for any reason, whether they be struck by lightening, or maybe they are hit by a boy racer in London, or if they simply are faced with a natural disease they immediately blame it on the Russian secret services."It's a bit of a paranoia. They are constantly thinking that someone is after them. Russia is not like that anymore, although some people would like to believe it is."Many people are trying to think it's still scary stories about the Russian Secret Service but I don't think so. "They are too busy making money, they don't have any time to try and kill people off."

Mr Litvinenko defected to the UK in 2000 after he claimed he was left out in the cold and punished for speaking out by being arrested twice on trumped up charges - only to be acquitted in court.He was then forced to flee to Turkey when he was faced further arrest on falsifying evidence charges.He has accused the Russian authorities of trying to kill Tycoon Boris Berezovsky who was close to the then president Boris Yeltsin in 1998 and being behind the bombing of a Moscow apartment block in which 228 people were killed in 1999. "

Telegraph Newspapers' rabid Putinophobia is beyond dispute - but what has happened here is an across the board collapse in journalistic standards and descent into innuendo one very low rung above yellow journalism.

Today, the British press should be hanging their heads in shame.

A Question For Andrew Sullivan

And this is a good one.

Sullivan is a prominent critic of the philosophy he describes as 'Christianism'.

One of 'Christianism's' alleged premises is its absolute support for abortion bans.

Nicaragua outlawed all abortions yesterday.

The question is; are the Nicaraguans 'Christianists'?

'Muslim women debate more rights'...

in New York.

Ironic, isn't it? That they have to do it in the belly of the Great Satan?

The Kindest Thing Anyone's Said About Me Today

Dave Bean -

"As it happens, Martin Kelly, The Devil's Kitchen, Mr Eugenides and others possess the "Spirit of '76" in greater measure than many of my own countrymen.

As the Beans earned a degree of notoriety two-hundred-odd years ago for their less-than-cordial relations with the British, I find it both ironic and amusing that I, their descendant, would hold a greater number of attitudes and values in common with certain Britons than I do with many modern Americans.

Ain't life weird as all hell?"

It sure is, Dave...

Baqhtraqhing

First it was Osama Saeed backtracking on his comments concerning the level of co-operation Mulsims should extend to the police.

Now Asghar Bukhari's backtracking on his support for David Irving.

All these Muslim bigots backtracking from their previous positions all at once...

But that's taqiyya for you.

Perspectives On Friedman's Legacy

One of the blogosphere's most infuriating features is its incestuousness...

Given the undeserved kindness that Neil Clark has extended in my direction in the past, and given the apparent animosity between them, I am loathe to take Oliver Kamm's part whenever they disagree.

However, one must say that the analysis of Milton Friedman's legacy which Kamm has produced from his neocon bunker is, to my mind, closer to the mark than Neil's.

The consensus of opinion, whether expressed by Kamm or Niall Ferguson, seems to be that Friedman's monetarism influenced policy for quite a short period, 1979 to 1983.

However, Neil's observations relate to some of the real and wholly negative effects of privatisation - observations I agree with 100%. In the UK, the privatisation era kicked off after Friedman's monetarist influence had begun to wane.

It's too easy to lay the blame for privatisation's defects wholly at Friedman's door. Friedman was a social scientist, not an administrator; he was an ideas man, a very astute and vocal one, but not an ideologue.

Privatisation was to its core the product of dog-eat-dog anarchocapitalist ideology of the kind that howls from the windows of the Mises Institute or the pages of Cafe Hayek; a toxic ideology whose perniciousness was aggravated by all governments' need for money.

A need which Milton Friedman was known to rail against.

Racial Crime In Scotland (Continued)

Further to Saturday's post, it's heartening to see that arrests have been made in relation to this case.

Hopefully Lotian & Borders will soon be able to make some progress in relation to this.

Sushi In A Barrel

is now up on The Devil's Kitchen.

A Series Of Cheap But Satisfying Shots At Poor Old Niall Ferguson

Quick, Mother! The smelling salts!

Niall Ferguson, the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and sometime self-described 'fully paid up member of the neo-imperialist gang' has written a third column for 'The Sunday Telegraph' with a foundation in reality!

Wonders will never cease!

The first was, of course, his disavowal of the Iraqi imperial adventure; hopefully the sackcloth didn't chafe too much, nor the ashes play hell with his eczema.

The second was his error-riddled critique of Gordon Brown's profligacy.

The third was published yesterday, and was entitled 'Friedman is dead, monetarism is dead, but what about inflation?'

In all fairness, a commodity which, if his journalism is anything to go by, should be extended to Niall very sparingly, the piece is a very salient critique of why Friedman's Great Big Idea, monetarism, didn't last the pace. He writes,

"The list of libertarian reforms he urged is an impressive one: the abolition of the draft; the abolition of fixed exchange rates; vouchers to allow parental choice in education; tax credits instead of government handouts. Nevertheless, it will be for monetarism — the principle that inflation could be defeated only by targeting the growth of the money supply and thereby changing expectations — that Friedman will be best remembered.

Why then has this, his most important idea, ceased to be honoured, even in the breach? Friedman outlived Keynes by half a century. But the same cannot be said for their respective theories. Keynesianism survived its inventor for at least three decades. Monetarism, by contrast, predeceased Milton Friedman by nearly two.

The death of monetarism is usually explained as follows. In the course of the 1980s, pragmatic politicians and clever central bankers came to realise that it was difficult to target the growth of the money supply. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Geoffrey Howe preferred to raise interest rates and reduce public sector borrowing. His successor Nigel Lawson targeted the exchange rate of the pound against the deutschmark.

At the Federal Reserve, too, Friedman's rules, once zealously applied by Paul Volcker, gradually gave way to Alan Greenspan's discretion. And, for all the praise he heaped on Friedman last week, Greenspan's successor Ben Bernanke is dismissive of monetarism. Earlier this year the Fed ceased to track and publish M3 (the broadest monetary aggregate). It is the inflation rate that today's central bankers want to target, not money (though the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently came out as a neo-monetarist)."

Now Professor Ferguson begins to get interesting.

"At the Federal Reserve, too, Friedman's rules, once zealously applied by Paul Volcker, gradually gave way to Alan Greenspan's discretion. And, for all the praise he heaped on Friedman last week, Greenspan's successor Ben Bernanke is dismissive of monetarism. Earlier this year the Fed ceased to track and publish M3 (the broadest monetary aggregate). It is the inflation rate that today's central bankers want to target, not money (though the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently came out as a neo-monetarist).

Anti-monetarists point out that the relationship between monetary growth and inflation has simply broken down. Inflation is low nearly everywhere. The latest figure for the annual growth in American core consumer prices is just 2.3 per cent, down from 3.8 per cent in May. Yet the annual growth rate of M3, which diehard monetarists have continued to track unofficially, is just under 10 per cent. Last year, according to the IMF, M2 increased by nearly 13 per cent in the UK. In some emerging markets the figure was higher. Russia's money supply grew 25 per cent."

Bingo! Gaun' yersel, Niall!

"Yet simply because consumer price inflation has remained low, money has not become irrelevant. On the contrary: it is the key to understanding the world economy today. For there is nothing in Friedman's work that states that monetary expansion is always and everywhere a consumer price phenomenon.

In our time, unlike in the 1970s, oil price pressures have been countered by the entry of low-cost Asian labour into the global workforce. Not only are the things Asians make cheap and getting cheaper, competition from Asia also means that Western labour has lost the bargaining power it had 30 years ago. Stuff is cheap. Wages are pretty flat."

I spy with my little eye that Professor Ferguson is beginning to understand the importance of 'global labour arbitrage' theory...

"As a result, monetary expansion in our time does not translate into significantly higher prices in shopping malls. We don't expect it to. Rather, it translates into significantly higher prices for capital assets, particularly real estate and equities. The people who find it easiest to borrow money these days are hedge funds and private equity firms. Through leveraged buy outs, the latter can easily acquire companies and, by improving their cashflow, boost their valuations. These guys then buy houses in Chelsea with the millions they make."

Niall Ferguson? Contemplating the reality of asset bubbles? What in the name of Adam Smith is going on here?

"It makes sense. Consumer goods are plentiful: the supply of computing power has grown even faster than the supply of credit to consumers. But shares in Chinese banks and houses with Chelsea postcodes are scarce, while the supply of credit to their potential purchasers seems almost infinite."

I can't believe this...when anyone starts talking about the growth of computing power and credit in the same sentence, they are getting very close to global labour arbitrage theory...

"No one can say for sure what the consequences will be of this new variety of inflation. For the winners, one asset bubble leads merrily to another; the key is to know when to switch from real estate to paintings by Gustav Klimt. For the losers, there is the compensation of cheap electronics. Why worry, when China is willing to buy all the US dollars the Fed cares to print in order to keep its currency from appreciating and its exports cheap?"

He said 'asset bubble!' Niall Ferguson said 'asset bubble'!

"Last week the People's Bank of China announced that its international reserves have reached the dizzying figure of $1 trillion, 70 per cent of which is held in dollar notes and bonds. If you were wondering where all the money went, that's part of the answer. Unnerving, isn't it?
No, the theorist may be dead, but long live the theory. "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." It's true, no matter what is inflating."

He's sounding like Stephen Roach!

There might be good reason for that.

Professor Ferguson was recently in the Chief Economist of Morgan Stanley's company - he was a guest speaker at MS's recent investor conference on Lyford Cay.

Roach's report of Niall's comments was interesting -

"Professor Niall Ferguson... grabbed the Lyford crowd with his “paradox of the newspaper.” Shouldn’t we make more of an effort, he argued, to reconcile the sickening content of the news section with the sanguine stories of the business section? “Nonsense,” said the Lyford crowd. Geopolitical angst paled in comparison to the main event -- globalization. A rapidly accelerating pace of cross-border integration of economies and markets should not be seen as a risk -- even as pro-labor Democrats stormed the US Congress. Instead, it was viewed as a one-way street to ever-greater prosperity by poor and rich countries, alike. Globalization was the glue that cemented the unflinching enthusiasm over BRICs and commodities that permeated our discussions at Lyford Cay this year.

Instead, Niall Ferguson was seen as typical of the alarmists that I always seem to invite to this conference. There was actually a request by one of the more seasoned investors to dispense altogether with an outside speaker next year, and instead offer a screening of “Mary Poppins.”

This was the second time in five months that Niall Ferguson has addressed a Morgan Stanley investment conference.

Of his first appearance, Stephen Roach wrote,

"Ferguson’s gift is not to describe -- although he does plenty of that -- but to analyze."

Indeed.

Steve Sailer has recently given a typically gracious explanation of why he consistently puts Malcolm Gladwell to the point of the sword -

"The pattern underlying whom I choose to repeatedly pick on -- Gladwell, Steven Levitt, Michael Barone, Jared Diamond, etc. -- is that they each have the potential to do really good work. "

This partly, but not completely, describes my regular critiques of Professor Niall Ferguson, M.A., D. Phil (Oxon), Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution and Scotland's Malcolm Gladwell.

I would kill to possess Ferguson's raw brainpower. However good one is at sucking up to tutors nor how skilled at playing University politics, absolutely nobody attains such credentials from the University of Oxford and a Harvard professorship without being one very smart and diligent cookie, and the possessor of devastating analytical skills.

We come from the same hometown - a parochial wee place, God love it, where we enjoy poking fun at each other. Although you'll never get an Old Aloysian to publicly admit they're envious of a Glasgow Academical, the dispassionate reader might feel that some critiques are motivated by that most ignoble emotion.

Readers are, of course, free to interpret what they wish.

But Ferguson provides his critics with two very good reasons for criticising him.

The first is that precisely because he is capable of producing journalism of yesterday's quality, there is absolutely no reason why he shouldn't. Instead, he has a bad habit of churning out easily refutable guff, week in, week out, which means that he is either an ideologue or underestimates his readers' intelligence; a very foolish mistake for any commentator to make. Whatever their other attainments, Harvard professors are flesh and blood like the rest of us.

But the second is social; it's a 'Cosa Caledonia' thing.

On January 1 2006 Niall Ferguson broke a taboo. He published a vitriolically anti-Scottish column on New Years Day. This is not the done thing for any Scot to do. One might imagine the uproar that would ensue were, say, Paul Krugman to publish a viciously anti-American piece on the Fourth of July.

What Ferguson did was the same kind of thing - deliberate controversialism, the act of perhaps a learned but also perhaps morally unserious man; an unprovoked poke in the eye to a beleaguered wee country that hadn't really ever been too bad to him.

No matter how much how he backtracks, its publication will ensure that some Scots will extend Professor Ferguson a frosty reception until the end of his days - a position no expat, in particular a famous son who, whether he wants the job or not, is a de facto ambassador for his country and one of whom we all want to be proud (he's a Glaswegian Harvard professor, for God's sake!), should ever want to find themself in.

Given Stephen Roach's obvious need to reconcile his appetite for Professor Ferguson's company with his investors' appetite for light entertainment, one might suggest that he invite Professor Ferguson along to his next conference.

To sing 'Ally's Tartan Army'. Believe me - he knows the words.

Violent Ulster Revisited

Earlier this year I ran a short series called 'Violent Ulster', as the province seemed to be suffering from a violent crime problem of epic proportions.

Sadly, the Six Counties have not enjoyed a quiet few days.

A policeman has been bottled.

A fire crew have been shot at.

The Forbes family of Portadown have been subjected to a particularly vicious home invasion robbery.

Belfast has suffered at least two arsons.

Two Lithuanians have been subjected to what is believed to have been a racially motivated attack in Bushmills.

A wheelchair bound woman has been the victim of another very nasty home invasion robbery in Bangor.

And back in Belfast, 38 year old Grace Moore has been murdered.

These are all obviously serious crimes, by their very nature more likely to be reported than muggings or bagsnatchings.

However, one might just be cynical; but to see such a volume of reports of such very serious crimes in such a short span of time from such a small place might indicate that they are the tip of a rather larger iceberg.

One hopes that Grace's killer is swiftly brought to justice, and that all the other victims quickly recover from their ordeals - something that's often easier said than done.

The Thoughts Of Henry Kissinger

"If you mean by 'military victory' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible" -

Henry Kissinger, via Andrew Sullivan.

"Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order [referring to the 1991 LA Riot]. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond [i.e., an "extraterrestrial" invasion], whether real or promulgated that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the world government." -

Henry Kissinger, reported on EliteWiki.

Of course, anyone who reads websites such as EliteWiki is a raving loony, wingnut, moonbat, tinfoil hat merchant and conspiracy theorist who should be expelled from the public forum - the

kind of crackpot who'd try to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out if Ed Balls has been been to the Bilderberg Group three (or is it four?) times.

The Internet's choc-a-block with crazies, you know...

How The Aussies Deal With Offshoring

They don't.

Hat tip - my brother.

One Crime, Two Reports

The BBC -

"A 28-year-old bus driver has been found guilty of abducting and raping a 20-year-old woman in Glasgow.
Irfan Hussain, of Carrington Street, Glasgow, will be sentenced later for the attack in December 2001.
Detectives only caught up with Hussain after he was arrested for a second assault last year.
At the High Court in Glasgow, judge Lord Hardie said women were not safe on the streets of the city while Hussain was at liberty.
He was also found guilty of abducting and sexually assaulting another girl, aged 19, in April last year with intent to rape."

The Daily Record -

"A SEX predator who abducted and raped a showbiz personality's daughter was facing a long jail sentence last night.
Bus driver Irfan Hussain, 28, got away with the horrifying attack for five years.
But last year detectives probing a sex attack on a 19-year-old girl kidnapped by a man in a car noticed similarities.
And DNA recovered in both cases proved he was responsible.
Yesterday, at the end of a two-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow, Hussain was found guilty of the 2001 rape...

"The defiant thug, who allegedly made threatening gestures to the jury after he was convicted, was also found guilty of abducting and sexually assaulting the 19-year-old in April last year with intent to rape her.
Judge Lord Hardie remanded him in custody pending sentence.
He added he was calling for a risk assessment report with a view to giving him an extended sentence.
He told the jury: "Women are apparently not safe to walk the streets in Glasgow while Hussain is at liberty."
Hussain's friend, Shabaz Bari, 27, of Heriot Street, Pollokshaws, Glasgow, was acquitted of the abduction and sex assault of the 19-year-old victim because the girl broke down in the dock.
She fled the court in tears several times and could not be cross-examined by Bari's lawyer.
Lord Hardie told the court: "Balancing the public interest and the health issues, the advocate depute very properly decided the greater interest lay in considering the girl's health."
The judge said otherwise it could be argued Bari hadn't received a fair trial.
But he then called Bari before him and warned him that he was going to ask the prosecution to investigate possible perjury and attempts to pervert the course of justice in the case.
Bar is a brother in law of Mohammed Faisal "Becks" Mushtaq, 27, and a friend of Imran "Baldy" Shahid, the race-hate thugs who murdered teenager Kriss Donald.
Hussain, of Carrington Street, Woodlands, Glasgow, was also brought back into the dock after Lord Hardie received a report alleging that several jurors had seen him mouth at them: "You're f***ing getting it", and then making a cutting action across his throat.
Lord Hardie said: "This caused them considerable distress."
He told prosecutor Paul Kearney: "This is so serious a matter it merits further investigation and I ask you to instruct the police in the matter."...
Hussain will be sentenced next month.

Given the nature of the crimes, and the accuseds' behaviours in court, it is disappointing that the state broadcaster failed to report the case as completely as a local redtop.

Good for the 'Record'.

The James Maley Story

The gentleman in the picture is 98 year old James Maley.

Mr. Maley is a veteran of the Spanish Civil War. BBC Scotland describes his experiences thus -

"About 2,300 volunteers went from Britain to join the newly-created International Brigades. Only 21 are still alive, among them just two of the 600 people from Scotland who left via France to join the fight.

One of them was James Maley, a Communist Party member from the Calton district of Glasgow.
He helped organise the journeys of other Glasgow men before setting off himself in December, 1936.

Three buses were drawn up in George Square with the men paying £5/8/0 (£5.40) each for the journey.
"It was like a Celtic supporters' outing. I recognised some of them who'd gone to school with me," he said.
"There were about 150 of us, and we went to London first where we caught the boat train to Paris.
"We were met by the Communist Party there, and we spent a day in the city before we were on our way to Spain."

Arriving in Valencia to join up, his idealism was shattered by chaotic disorganisation.
Sitting in an armchair in his sheltered home in the Maryhill area of Glasgow, he recalls: "It was chaotic, and it seemed to take a long time.
"We sat around for three or four weeks; there was no training, until all of a sudden the stuff had arrived."

It was the start of the defence of the Jarama Valley, a strategically important south-eastern approach to Madrid.
The lack of organisation was equally apparent when the volunteers were taken to the front.
As they were getting off the lorry, the Republicans were already in retreat in a battle which was raging less than quarter of a mile away.

"There were four of us with two cannons as well as 12 men with rifles," Mr Maley told BBC Scotland's news website.
"As soon as we jumped off the lorry we had to begin firing. It was pandemonium, but we didn't have enough ammunition.
"There was no organisation; we fired until we ran out of ammunition, until there was nothing left."

With the battle having passed him by, Mr Maley and his comrades hid among the olive groves for two days.
By then the battle had ground to a stalemate which was to last for another 18 months and, as Spanish Moorish forces withdrew, he was captured.
Back home in Glasgow there was no word of him until his mother caught a glimpse of him in a Movietone newsreel shown at the Palaceum cinema in Shettleston.
He was in the front row of a group of prisoners-of-war paraded for the cameras as rations were handed out.
She followed the newsreel to Paisley where a sympathetic projectionist was persuaded to clip out two frames of the film.
Mr Maley was freed and returned home several months later. "

If war is all hell, then civil war, the war which turns brother against brother, is the worst of all hells - but the Spanish Civil War was made worse by the intervention of foreign fantasists and ideologues like James Maley.

The International Brigades were not like the Lafayette Escadrille, the Flying Tigers or the Eagle Squadrons. Those foreigners who fought in others' wars helped defend nations against assault from other nations.

However, the International Brigades involved themselves in the dirty business of helping Spaniard kill Spaniard for no reason other than its members' support for the most oppressive, vicious and bloodthisrty ideology the world has ever seen.

Their involvement aggravated a particularly nasty and bloody affair, in which both sides committed atrocities; however, Wikipedia's report on the conflict narrates the nature of some of those committed by Mr. Maley's side, the Republicans -

"Republican sympathizers, soldiers and volunteers, formally acting independently of the state massacred Catholic clergy and burned down churches, monasteries and convents and other symbols of the Spanish Catholic Church, Republicans (especially the Stalinists) viewed as an oppressive institution supportive of the old order. The Republicans also attacked nobility, former landowners, rich farmers and industrialists."

So let's not romanticise the International Brigades' surviving veterans, no matter how old they are.

After all, we wouldn't do it for their cousins in foreign insurgency, Al Qa'eda in Iraq.

Some Thoughts On Sectarian Marches (And Marchers)

This evening, 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King', receives its premiere on British terrestrial television (Channel 4, 20.00 GMT).

Those unfamiliar with the spectacle of the sectarian marches which blight community relations in Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland, and whose only purpose seems to be to weaken ties of citizenship, should know that 'The Return Of The King' contains the best depiction of a sectarian march that I have ever seen - the March of the Orcs upon Minas Tirith.

Whether it is organised by the Orange Order or Cairde na hEireann, all sectarian marches look like the March of the Orcs - even down to the tattered banners and the trolls banging drums.

They Are Coming For The Bloggers

"A blogger with a piece of hot news can be read around the world in minutes. This is the biggest challenge the mainstream politicians have ever faced, an unconscionable threat to their interests.

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts; and beware of politicians who say they want to protect the public in the aftermath of the very first big story that a blogger gets wrong and which has tragic consequences.

The day of the licensed blogger may not be far behind."

Martin Kelly, April 11 2005.

"Tony Blair's outgoing chief strategy adviser fears the internet could be fuelling a "crisis" in the relationship between politicians and voters.

Matthew Taylor - who stressed he was speaking as a "citizen" not a government spokesman - said the web could be "fantastic" for democracy.

But it was too often used to encourage the "shrill discourse of demands" that dominated modern politics...

Mr Taylor said Mr Blair's online grilling from voters - and other initiatives such as environment secretary David Miliband's blog and Downing Street's new online petition service - showed the government was making good progress in using the internet to become more open and accountable.

But he said more needed to be done by the web community in general to encourage people to use the internet to "solve problems" rather than simply abuse politicians or make "incommensurate" demands on them....

Speaking at an e-democracy conference in central London, he said modern politics was all about "quality of life" and that voters had a "very complex set of needs"

The end of deference, the rapid pace of social change and growing diversity were all good things, he argued, but they also meant governments found it increasingly difficult to govern.

"We have a citizenry which can be caricatured as being increasingly unwilling to be governed but not yet capable of self-government," Mr Taylor told the audience.

Like "teenagers", people were demanding, but "conflicted" about what they actually wanted, he argued.

They wanted "sustainability", for example, but not higher fuel prices, affordable homes for their children but not new housing developments in their town or village.

But rather than work out these dilemmas in partnership with their elected leaders, they were encouraged to regard all politicians as corrupt or "mendacious" by the media, which he described as "a conspiracy to maintain the population in a perpetual state of self-righteous rage".

Whether media was left wing or right wing, the message was always that "leaders are out there to shaft you".

He went on: "At a time at which we need a richer relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had, to confront the shared challenges we face, arguably we have a more impoverished relationship between politicians and citizens than we have ever had.
"It seems to me this is something which is worth calling a crisis."

The internet, he told the conference, was part of that "crisis".

"The internet has immense potential but we face a real problem if the main way in which that potential expresses itself is through allowing citizens to participate in a shrill discourse of demands.

"If you look at the way in which citizens are using technology and the way that is growing up, there are worrying signs that that is the case.

"What is the big breakthrough, in terms of politics, on the web in the last few years? It's basically blogs which are, generally speaking, hostile and, generally speaking, basically see their job as every day exposing how venal, stupid, mendacious politicians are.

"The internet is being used as a tool of mobilisation, which is fantastic, but it only adds to the growing, incommensurate nature of the demands being made on government."

He challenged the online community to provide more opportunities for "people to try to understand the real trade-offs that politicians face and the real dilemmas that citizens face".

"I want people to have more power, but I want them