[bid_em_up]

While I have seen multiple accounts of Alexander Litvinenko's death by nuclear poisoning, along with information on some of the places tested for radiation, and other people who have (supposedly) been inflicted with nuclear/radiation poisoning, I have yet to see any information suggesting where or how this might have been accomplished, or the materials to accomplish this might have been obtained.

Not being a nuclear scientist myself, does anyone have any idea how much of this stuff would one have to be exposed to in order to suffer ill effects, and has there been any information that gives any idea to where this stuff was obtained, how it might have been transported, and whats going on here?

Was it someone transporting radioactive materials to a government attempting to create nuclear weapons (ie, Iran)? Was it in connection with a possible dirty bomb? Just vial of liquid to off a spy who was no longer wanted/needed/trusted?

I'm just asking because its possible the European media might have published more information on this than what is being given out in the US and am curious about this.

[inquiry]

seems a rather stupid way to kill someone. If you were worried he might leak secrets, he lingers on a while and can squeal all he wants (after all, he is already dead, his body just doesn't acknoweldge it at first).

IF the russians wanted to remove him, they could have made it look like a robbery, or just snatched him and he disappeared. Also getting P-10 is not all that easy and would tend to point at state-sponsoreed action, so why do it that way.

Only two possible answerers.

1) to send a clear message to others ... such a public method of assassination sending clear warning.

2) to try to frame the russians, maybe by someone else, or maybe by Litvinenko himself. If he was going to commit suicide anyway, or if he had some other life-ending problem, maybe he could become famous this way.

Anyway, this one is bizarre

[sceptic]

The only thing remotely intersting about this case, is,

1/. If it was Al Queda that did it, what would be the frenzy in the media

2/. As the Russians probably did kill him for being a pain in the ass, why are we not invading them for weapons of mass destruction

a small observation do we not live in a world of hypocritical values, no wonder some people think the west is not the best option

perhaps we could learn a lesson, some people are better off under a dictaor than under the American or British rule

Free Sadam Hussain bring back our boys and only use them in defence of our country, not for political one upmanship

[hrothgar]

I've seen very extensive coverage of this poisoning in the US media...

Here is a condensed summary:

Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium 210. Polonium 210 is a naturally occuring element that was originally discovered by Marie Curie. Curie was able to gather minute quantities of Polonium by refining large amounts of pitchblende. To give you an idea how rare this stuff is, one ton of uranium ore will yield roughly 100 micrograms (0.0001 grams) of polonium.

Polonium 210 emits large amount of alpha particles. The stuff spits out a helium nucleus every now and then. This makes polonium 210 useful for a couple different purposes:

1. Polonium can be used to prevent static charges from building up
2. Small quantities of polonium will generate large amounts of heat. In turn, this permits polonium to be used as a fuel source for batteries. (The Soviet space program used Polonium batteries for some of its lunar missions)

These day, when folks need Polonium they manufacture it. Take some Bismuth 209, add some fast moving neutrons and you get Bismuth 210. Bismuth 210 has a half life of 5 days and decays into Polonium 210. The Russians manufacture the stuff at their reactors. The US does the same thing at places like Oak Ridge.

Apparantly, Polonium also make a handy dandy poison. A minute amount of Polonium 210 (say a quantity the size of a dust mote) was sufficient to poison Litvinenko. In theory, this would make it an extremely useful posion because it would be enormously easy to hide the stuff into some food or drink. In practice, it looks like your posion would be a pain in the ass to transport...

I've seen a lot of debate about the difficulty in getting small qauntities of Polonium. Some folks say that it would be extremely difficult. Other say that you can go out buy the "right" type of anti-static brush and extract useful quantities of Polonium by dissolving the gold foil used to contain the Polonium in acid. The first group then goes on to say that this won't work for reasons XYZ. I haven't bothered to dig too deeply.

[Winstonm]

Maybe the purpose was nothing more than to demonstrate and publicize the deadliness of Polonium 210, a threat about which few people knew until this man's death.

[mike777]

600 die in mudslide in Far East and this gets all the news hits and tv exposure.
More people have died falling out of bed in the USA since this story broke. Watch out for killer beds!

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Dec 8 2006, 03:51 PM, said:

More people have died falling out of bed in the USA since this story broke.  Watch out for killer beds!

Weapons of Mass Insomnia?

Who do we invade?

[mike777]

Winstonm, on Dec 8 2006, 04:11 PM, said:

mike777, on Dec 8 2006, 03:51 PM, said:

More people have died falling out of bed in the USA since this story broke.  Watch out for killer beds!

Weapons of Mass Insomnia?

Who do we invade?

Another underreported story. Bush and his cronies are in on it. They are not only in bed with the oil companies but in bed with the bed makers too I bet!

[cherdano]

hrothgar, on Dec 8 2006, 09:38 PM, said:

Apparantly, Polonium also make a handy dandy poison.  A minute amount of Polonium 210 (say a quantity the size of a dust mote) was sufficient to poison Litvinenko.  In theory, this would make it an extremely useful posion because it would be enormously easy to hide the stuff into some food or drink.  In practice, it looks like your posion would be a pain in the ass to transport...

My understanding is that the radiation of Polonium 210 does not penetrate skin, so it is pretty safe to transport (assuming you don't accidentally eat it...)

Quote

I've seen a lot of debate about the difficulty in getting small qauntities of Polonium.  Some folks say that it would be extremely difficult.  Other say that you can go out buy the "right" type of anti-static brush and extract useful quantities of Polonium by dissolving the gold foil used to contain the Polonium in acid.  The first group then goes on to say that this won't work for reasons XYZ.  I haven't bothered to dig too deeply.

On a usually competent mailing list, the discussion agreed that it would be expensive to get the necessary amount of Polonium, but it is by no means so difficult that only a secret service would be able to pull this off.