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US authorities are to examine Roman Abramovich’s ties to the Kremlin as part of a national security review of a $2.3bn (£1.18bn) bid for Oregon Steel by a company controlled by the Russian billionaire. Experts in Washington say the US government panel that reviews foreign deals will scrutinise the proposed takeover, announced last month, more closely if Mr Abramovich is found to be acting with the backing of the Russian government. Mr Abramovich is believed to be close to Vladimir Putin, Russian president. The Russian steel company, Evraz, is controlled by Mr Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, group director. Evraz and...

French magistrates have closed their investigation into the 2004 death of Arafat, the prosecutor’s office said Wednesday. “At the end of the investigation… it has not been demonstrated that Mr. Yasser Arafat was murdered by polonium-210 poisoning,” the three judges ruled, according to the lead prosecutor at Nanterre court near Paris. But lawyers for his widow, Suha Arafat, have argued that his death was a political assassination and vow to appeal the decision in court. …

LONDON — It has consumed more than eight years of maneuvering, obstruction and a widow’s dogged legal campaign, fought often on a shoestring. But finally, on Tuesday, a public inquiry is set to begin its quest for an answer to the question that has driven the whole process: Why did Alexander V. Litvinenko have to die? On Nov. 1, 2006, Mr. Litvinenko, a former officer of the Soviet K.G.B. in self-exile in London and a vocal critic of President Vladimir V. Putin, sipped tea from a poisoned pot, took sick and died 22 days later. Only after his death did...

A tape apparently recorded by murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko a year before he was poisoned has revealed he was digging up links between Vladimir Putin and one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. A Telegraph investigation uncovered the audio recording, in which the dissident claims from beyond the grave that Russia’s president had a “good relationship” with Semion Mogilevich - a Ukrainian crime boss who was on the FBI's most wanted list and whom Mr Litvinenko believed was selling weapons to al-Qaeda. The apparent recording of Mr Litvinenko is published for the first time ahead of a public inquiry...

The British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former officer in the K.G.B. who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that it may now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the planned May 1 start date for the hearings. The inquest would be the first — and probably the only...

Palestinians leaders agreed Wednesday to exhume the body of Yasser Arafat after a television documentary suggested that he had been assassinated while being treated in a Paris hospital. Arafat was 75 and had long been ill when he slipped into a coma and died on Nov. 11, 2004. He had been suffering from a mysterious illness. The cause of the death was never determined and French medical officials would not release details of his illness because of privacy laws. The medical report was given to his family. The television network al Jazeera broadcast a documentary this week in which a...

Russian agents came close to carrying out the perfect assassination on British soil when they killed Alexander Litvinenko... Security sources have disclosed that the former Russian spy would have died within hours had the poisoned tea he was given been served hot. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who had become a critic of the government of Russia's then president, Vladimir Putin... Security sources say that during the meeting Litvinenko took just a few sips of the tea but left the remainder of the cup because it was cold. "If Litvinenko had drunk all the tea he would have been dead...

...Litvinenko "was giving Scaramella lots of information about Russian and criminal infiltrations in Italy, but most of it was very difficult to verify and crosscheck. It was a little bit out on a limb." In the old days, Litvinenko had been familiar with criminal clans in Russia, now he was making risky approaches to the Italian mafia. Scaramella believed if they could get inside this network, they would be able to leverage much more damaging intelligence about Italian politicians. They spread their net wider. The Litvinenko dossier lists a dizzying roll call of names investigated by the pair, among them...

MOSCOW (AP) — The sole suspect in the radiation poisoning death of a former KGB agent announced plans to run for parliament Sunday on the ticket of a pro-Kremlin ultranationalist party. Andrei Lugovoi, another former KGB officer who met with Alexander Litvinenko at a London hotel bar on Nov. 1 hours before Litvinenko fell ill, told state-run Russia Today television that he had no desire to go into politics but changed his mind because of British accusations. Now a Moscow businessman who runs a private security agency, Lugovoi said Sunday that he would be No. 2 on the list of...

Traces of the lethal radioactive poison which killed Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko have been found at four previously undisclosed sites - including a Mayfair lap dancing bar. The revelations come nine months after the former spy's murder and shed new light on the scale of the investigation into his death. The polonium-210 poison was found at the Hey Jo nightclub on Jermyn Street, on a shisha pipe in the West End restaurant Dar Marakesh, in a taxi and in Mr Litvinenko's Mercedes. Westminster council has disclosed that a total of 47 venues were checked, among them five buses, eight aircraft,...

Traces of the lethal radioactive poison which killed Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko have been found at four previously undisclosed sites - including a Mayfair lap dancing bar. The revelations come nine months after the former spy's murder and shed new light on the scale of the investigation into his death. The polonium-210 poison was found at the Hey Jo nightclub on Jermyn Street, on a shisha pipe in the West End restaurant Dar Marakesh, in a taxi and in Mr Litvinenko's Mercedes. Dancers from Hey Jo lap dancing club where traces of radiation have been detected Westminster council has disclosed...

FALLON, Nev. (AP) -- Two dairy farms have dumped milk after the discovery of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope in 25 nearby drinking water wells. Officials from Sorensen's Dairy and Oasis Dairy said they will stop selling milk until it is tested for the isotope, polonium-210, by the Food and Drug Administration. Officials said there's no known health risk at this time. A study released Friday by the U.S. Geological Survey found the radioactive isotope in 24 private wells and one public well around Fallon, about 60 miles east of Reno. Polonium-210 is known to cause cancer in humans. All...

Ex-KGB agent charged with Litvinenko's murder by Robin Millard Tue May 22, 2007 The Crown Prosecution Service demanded Tuesday the extradition of a former KGB man to face charges over the radiation murder of Alexander Litvinenko, in a move likely to seriously strain ties with Moscow. Russian authorities immediately said they would not hand over Andrei Lugovoi, a wealthy Russian businessman, despite London's demands for "full cooperation" from Moscow over the affair. Prosecutors called for his extradition over the poisoning of Litvinenko last November, which CPS chief Sir Ken Macdonald called an "extraordinarily grave crime." "I have today concluded that...

Scotland Yard detectives are to issue arrest warrants against three former KGB officers suspected of poisoning ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. Police have told sources close to Mr Litvinenko's widow Marina that they intend to lay charges of murder and poisoning against the men, who met the victim three weeks before his death in London. The move will damage the already strained relationship between Downing Street and the Kremlin, which is almost certain to block any request for the men's arrest and extradition. Warrants are expected to be issued against Andrei Lugovoy, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko within the next few...

Police believe Litvinenko poisoned twice By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 07/01/2007 Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, was the victim of a "double hit" by the assassins who poisoned him with radioactive polonium-210, police believe. Traces of polonium have been found at Pescatori Detectives suspect that Mr Litvinenko, 44, who lived in north London, was first poisoned several days before he was attacked at a central London hotel on November 1. Officers had initially believed he was first poisoned that day at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly, central London, when he met Mario Scaramella, an...

The Polonium Diversion At least a dozen people have been contaminated by the rare radioactive isotope Polonium 210. The list includes Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB who died from a dose of Polonium 210 in London on November 23rd; Andrei Lugovoi, a former colleague of Litvinenko in the KGB, who met with Litvinenko at the Pine bar of the Millennium Hotel in London the day he became ill, November 1st; Dmitry Lugovoi, Lugovoi’s business associate, who also attended that November 1st meetings; 7 employees of the Millennium Hotel; Mario Scaramella, an Italian security consultant, who dined with...

24/12/2006 - 2:18:23 PM Italian who met spy Litvinenko arrested  :: latest Police today arrested an Italian security expert who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning. Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples, where he landed on his way back from London, Italian news agencies reported. Rome prosecutors have been investigating Scaramella for violating secrets of his office and possible arms trafficking. Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill. On his deathbed on November 23, Litvinenko - a former KGB agent and harsh...

LONDON: The exotic murder-by-polonium of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko throws into question most of the previous analyses of "dirty bombs," terrorist attacks using radioactive isotopes wrapped in explosives (or using other dispersion techniques) to spread radioactive material in crowded areas. Essentially all analysts, myself included, played down the possibility of using alpha radiation — fast- moving helium nuclei ejected during the radioactive decay of certain isotopes, such as of polonium 210, the substance that killed Litvinenko — as a source of dirty bombs.

BRITISH investigators believe that Alexander Litvinenko's killers used more than $US10 million of polonium-210 to poison him. Preliminary findings from the post mortem examination on the former KGB spy suggest that he was given more than ten times the lethal dose. Police do not know why the assassins used so much of the polonium-210, and are investigating whether the poison was part of a consignment to be sold on the black market. They believe that whoever orchestrated the plot knew of its effects, but are unsure whether the massive amount was used to send a message - it made it...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The head of an organization of former Russian spies was quoted as saying on Thursday Moscow abandoned its policy of assassinating enemies long ago, and that Alexander Litvinenko was probably murdered by criminals. Former KGB agent Valentin Velichko said fellow former agent Litvinenko, who died in London on November 23 from radiation poisoning, was a traitor but was not killed by Moscow. "That was long ago. It belonged to the days of Stalin," Velichko, head of the Veterans of Foreign Intelligence, told Die Welt newspaper in an interview. Millions died under the rule of dictator Josef Stalin.