News in Briefs

Probe into ex-KGB agent poisoning



UK police are investigating after a Russian former security agent in exile in Britain was poisoned by thallium. A clinical toxicologist said the 43-year-old had been poisoned with a potentially lethal dose of the metal.

Mr Litvinenko is in a serious but stable condition in University College Hospital, London. He is reported to be under armed guard.

The really worrying thing about these KGB poisonings (Viktor Yuschenko, Anna Politkovskaya, now Litvinenko) is that they are probably not botched assassinations; after all, if the victims survive, they do so in significantly worse shape than before, as a warning to anyone else who might ever have contemplated crossing one of the world’s most successful secret polices. [NB - written before it became clear that he had been dosed with a highly radioactive material, guaranteed to wipe him out and possibly also take out anyone in his immediate surroundings. Still, if it had just been poison, I would have stood by what I wrote.] You can tell who the leadership really wants to kill, as it just has them killed (Politkovskaya again, two years later). It’s also a clear message to everyone else, whether or not the intent was to kill, that they can carry out this kind of attack with utter impunity. [That bit's still true.]

In 1990 I found myself in the middle of a huge demonstration in Moscow against the Soviet regime, with particular reference to the KGB. “Down with the USSR! Down with the KGB!” they were yelling. (It had a snappier rhythm in Russian.) I hope those protesters still have their old banners lying forgotten in the attic. They’re going to need them again one day.

Hereditary peers welcome

“I saw this and thought of you,” said strictlytrue as he handed this to me. My unbounded thanks to him, not least for valiantly risking opprobrium from passers-by as he dived into a Westminster phone box and tore from its interior this card that he had spotted.

I have not mocked it up. It is not intended as some kind of clay-fisted satire. The thing is real.

( ... “Welcome” )