Hermano Lobo

Many thanks for your replies.

Can anybody recommend a museum where I will see some genuine stuff?

I would have visited Thai museums before but I have been side-tracked by aspects of Thai-life, I can't remember what ?

I spend a lot of time in the British Museum, so something similar would be interesting.

Cheers

Brother Wolf

You chaps are probably correct about a different writer. The "ask the Sticks" section has gone and been replaced by 'Udon Girl' or Bar-Girl or something like that. At first I thought he had split up with his missus, or they just got fed up with doing it....... ' ask the sticks' that is?

Does anybody know where the antique shops are in Bangkok ?

I have been told that they are near the river.

Chatuchak market use to have a couple ?

Thanks

Whoever wrote that must be very miserable.

They took away his beloved movie series.

Me, I'm happy.

they gave my beloved movie series a grand kick up the backside, granted him some character, sorely lacking for far too long, and gave the Arnie/Willis type action hero of recent Bond's a Long Kiss Goodbye.

NB> on the ImDB rant you posted, Hermano> If the writer had put the second paragraph up first ( the bit about it re-booting the franchise in modern times a la prequel) then the rest of his first paragraph would be moot. For the point is that Bond is not yet Bond and is only becoming Bond...

But if I were so inclined, I'd probably take it up with the guy who wrote that on Imdb. Lucky, for I'm not so inclined and there a beer getting cold in the fridge

A lot of people did like the new Bond film. I thought it was dreadful, probably because I am a fan of the original book by Ian Fleming. This new chap reminds me of a bouncer outside a Wetherspoon pub. I don't think he can act either. Judi Dench is a great actress and deserves a better script. I have seen better lines at Clapham Junction.

OK, so what do I like ? At the moment I am watching Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy for the umpteenth time. I like it as it ir nearer to how it really is. Even down to the scruffy offices they had near Cambridge Circus. The characters are very believable and I thought the scene in the Czecho forest near Brno quite scary ! AAaaahhh memories ???

Like the film data base IMDb, many here like the new Bond film. I think it is rubbish. Here are a few comments that I concur with on IMDB:-

(1)

Don't believe the hype. The worst Bond film of all time!

I was going to wait until a second viewing of CASINO ROYALE before writing a comment for it since my opinion on a film occasionally does change the second time around, but I am absolutely stunned at the positive rating of the picture so I feel I must get my two cents out while my grips are fresh in my mind. Since there are so many of them, the following will read more as a complaint this than a coherent review, which is appropriate since coherency is definitely not something that CASINO ROYAL has, surprising given the ridiculous two and a half hour running time. Poorly adapted by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and (groan) Paul Haggis, is the perfect example of one too many cooks in the kitchen. There are two screenplays fighting for screen time here, and the two mesh horribly. The action aspect, which I am guessing is Purvis and Wade's screenplay, is fine. The ideas behind the action scenes are incredible. The execution-not so much. Then there's the so-called character development and horrid romantic sub-plot that feel like they were tacked right after shooting began. No doubt that was the work of Haggis' trite, pain-inducing screenplay, overwrought with some of the corniest dialogue of all time delivered by the seemingly medicated Daniel Craig as James Bond. Neither charming nor slick, Craig plays Bond as if he doesn't care. There is no coolness factor to Bond here, especially when the film turns into THE NOTEBOOK in the last act. Yes, this is not the Bond we all know and love. This is a sensitive, weak, and all around boring Bond. The exact type that should not be in an action movie. To make matters worse, there is no chemistry between Craig and leading lady Eva Green. In fact, their romance seems downright creepy. Green was 25-years-old when 'ROYALE' was shot, Craig was 38 and looking over 40. I could buy them as father and daughter, but as a supposed couple, it was just a major turn off.

Perhaps the biggest cinematic crime CASINO ROYALE makes is throwing the continuity of the series out the window. Granted the Bond series has never been about continuity, but what's done in 'ROYALE' is a giant slap in the face to anyone who has been following the franchise for even the past few installments. A supposed prequel to the series, the story takes place in 2006. With a budget of over $150 million, the filmmakers couldn't have set in another decade? It's just one of the many examples in CASINO ROYALE that shows film-making at its laziest. Don't believe the hype. This is the worst Bond picture of all time. I never thought I would say this, but Bond is dead. Worst of the year. 0/10

(2)

this is really a Bruce Willis or Arnie film, not a Bond film at all.

The pre-credit sequence is boring with zero humour or panache in Craig's delivery of the punch line.

Judy Dench is looking old and completely out of place in a film that is supposed to go back to the beginnings of Bond. And we have the oldest cliché in the book of Bond at odds with his superior, blah blah, done in every cop film since the dawn of time.

The Sony product placement is just crass throughout for a Sony/Columbia picture. Is this a movie or an advert? The title song is instantly forgettable with lyrics mumbled.

The cartoon credit sequence is the poorest graphics since Dr No, simply boring with no imagination or wow factor. It looks cheap compared to the great graphics we have come to expect and makes the whole film look cheap compared to greater Cubby Brocolli efforts.

Craig is not debonair, tall, dark or handsome and has no wit or class, totally miscast as Bond. He would be better as the villain's No 2 henchman rather than Bond.

The idea that the world's terrorists depend on a legitimate casino game to fund their activities is as ludicrous as Moonraker's laser guns or Die Another's invisible car, but this is the whole plot of the film.

There are 3 good action sequences and the rest is FAR too long. The love story bit dialogue between Bond and Vesper particularly is yawn inducing with no chemistry between the actors on screen, and Vesper's suicide at the end particularly contrived and unbelievable. The whole end sequence of destroying a Venician building shows no imagination and is obviously just tagged on as an afterthought.

In conclusion it's just another formula action film with none of the class and features that make a good Bond film. The hero could have been any cop/agent/private investigator so the whole has none of the distinctive and memorable scenes that always went into a Bond film.

A big disappointment.

(3)

This was a Sony and Ford show. And did I spot Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines too? I hated the new Bond. Bond MUST be handsome but this guy looked like a waiter in an East European restaurant. Can he deliver the lines? Let's put it this way - if you like a monotonous drone, you'll like him. Man, haven't they got anyone better to choose from? Listen up producers, you've lost me as a customer. I ain't paying to see another Bond flick as long as that neanderthal is playing Bond, OK? And I mean what I say. Like I said, too much ADVERTISING!!! I bet good ol' Branson paid to show his mug, if it was him. And what is it with the 21st century mobiles and laptops? Is this a PREQUEL or SEQUEL??? Sheesh... And I hate Judi Dench as M. I mean, she just isn't M. I would give this stinker a 0 if I could. And that's not to mention the absence of any meaningful action. Oh ya, and very very LONG & BORING. As bad as watching Saints hang on to a 1-goal lead. Gimme my time and money back!!!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381061/usercomments?start=10

What a load of <deleted> !

Casino Royale ? 'Turkey Royale' more like !

Is this the end of the Bond Genre ?

Pierce Brosnan was hoping to get another Bond picture, but 'they' didn't want him.

The film 'luvvies' had been scurrying around looking for a replacement but to no avail.

The one night at a night club, one of them took a fancy to one of the bouncers on the door. An ex-boxer who had fortunately done some acting; so 'they' offered him the part of the New Bond !

That is of course a fictitious assessment, but it might as well have been fact.

What on earth was the film about ?

Flash bang wallop; the film starts with action after a song that even Britney Spears would turn down. Bond chases an African Olympian around a building site and learns the finer points of scaffolding and the building trade. Not a builder's bum in site ! Or maybe there was, a bloke called Bond ?

As usual he kills a load of people.

Is this what is termed a plot-less film ?

The scenes are tacked thoughtlessly together; there is no hint of character development, acting or story ?

Daniel Craig really does look like a doorman at a local discotheque, with probably less personality.

To date the Bond film I have like the least was 'Moonraker'; this excuse for a big budget film was by far the worst.

This offering is neither Bond; nor spies, or an attempt at drama. Judi dench must have wondered whether her lines were taken from the back of a Corn Flake packet ?

As for Bond's script; you will get more humour from a constipated traffic warden.

I shall with the comment I began with:-

"Is this the end of the Bond genre?"

So she bought a dress from Hollywood ! Big deal....

Tasty bit of stuff though

Who does not like Samba you'd rather not meet

There's sick in the head or lame in the feet.

-Dorival Caymmi 'Samba da Minha Terra'

Many years back I had a Ford Anglia. That was crap as well !

The Boeing B787 hasn't flown yet. Aircraft manufacturers make lots of claims for their new aicraft.

It will be interesting how the A380 proves itself in service, whenever that happens. Seats will be larger and leg-room extra in economy.

This is all nothing more than speculation.

I flew a three month old Etihad Airbus A340-500 in October.

I don't think I want to fly in any other aircraft, it was that good.

I liked Etihad as well.

"I do for you, you don't do for me.That's not the way it works!"

-Al Pacino

Can't remember the film ?

The philosophy of the plot line is simple:-

Conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict, conflict.

The more screaming and shouting and <deleted> and blinding the better.

A few deaths and punch-ups all the better.

I am glad the TV has an on/off button !

Veni,Vidi,Vici !

Great line from Neidemeyer there

how about Blatarsky's line: did we give up when the German's bombed pearl harbor?

Dean Vernon Wormer: Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Don't know if this has already been mentioned, as I have not read the whole thread...

Just watching "Snakes on a Plane" DVD:

Pilot to Samuel L Jackson, talking about aeronautical problems:

"This bird goes down faster than a Thai hooker"

"This bird goes down faster than a Thai hooker"

I wince and blow a fuse everytime I hear this well used, negative, Thai cliché.

If this is all that film can offer it sounds a right load of old <deleted> !

Hollywood is crap !

What has it got to do with the topic?

I haven't followed the whole defected spy story, but, generally, what else did he expect from KGB? A Cristmas card?

What has it got to do with the topic?

Many wider implications. If you are allowing the Boris to come to Thailand willy-nilly, easy come easy go, what are you letting in without serious screening ?

An alleged democratic country where people are shot and poisoned because they openly disagree!

What if Thaivisa followed this policy. Would they still have any living members ?

It is just my opinion but I believe that Putin is following an agenda, not a very nice agenda.

An agenda that would bring a smile to the good old boys from the good old days of the Soviet Union.

I see behind the scenes activity here:-

Key ministers sacked in Ukraine

What if the dirty deed was done in a Bangkok Sushi restaurant and not one in London.

What would be your attitude then ?

Contact in positive polonium test

Who needs a James Bond story when you have real life ?

Russian ex-PM has mystery illness

Former Russian acting Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar is being treated in a Moscow hospital amid rumours about the cause of his mystery illness.

Mr Gaidar became violently ill during a visit to Ireland last week, and his daughter Maria told the BBC that doctors believe he was poisoned.

Irish police are investigating the claims, as he recovers in Moscow.

Mr Gaidar, 50, fell ill a day after Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko died of radiation poisoning in London.

Mr Gaidar briefly served as prime minister in 1992 under Russian President Vladimir Putin's predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.

He now heads a Moscow-based think-tank which has criticised President Putin's economic policies, but he is a marginal political figure who is not regarded as a prominent political opponent of the Russian leader.

'Pale and thin'

Mr Gaidar suffered from a nose bleed and vomiting before fainting in Dublin last Friday, during a visit to promote his book The Death of Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Russia.

Ms Gaidar was quoted as saying her father had eaten a "simple breakfast of fruit salad and a cup of tea".

Ms Gaidar, an anti-Kremlin activist, told the BBC doctors in Moscow had been unable to find any other cause except poisoning.

"The doctors think that they don't find any other reason of his condition that he was poisoned with some strange poison they cannot identify," she said. "But to have an official conclusion they're still waiting for the information of the doctors of Dublin."

She said that if her father had been deliberately poisoned "it could be a political poisoning because there are no personal or business reasons why someone would want to do that".

She told Reuters news agency her father was speaking, but looked pale and thin.

Mr Gaidar was treated in intensive care in Dublin after he collapsed, before being flown to Moscow.

The Irish government has said it had no reason to believe there was anything untoward about Mr Gaidar's illness.

However, the police force said it was investigating Mr Gaidar's movements during his trip.

"Enquiries to date have been conducted with hospital and medical staff and through the diplomatic corps," a police statement said.

"Public health and safety is of paramount importance and there is nothing known which indicates that any member of the public is at risk."

As acting prime minister, Mr Gaidar was responsible for introducing sweeping economic reforms following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His programme of economic "shock therapy" under which price controls were lifted and large-scale privatisations were launched angered many Russians who saw their savings devalued.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6159343.stm

This Titanic of a plane is a bigger boondoggle than the Concorde - Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner will take the entire market.

http://newairplane.com/

Check out the huge porthole windows :>

The B787 is quite an adventure for Boeing. They are normally very cautious, the amount of plastic (carbon fibre etc)in the aircraft is a first for civil aviation. Apparently the dihedral in flight will be spectacular. I wonder if that will change the aerodynamics ?

I said to a senior Boeing executive,"What's the point of the big windows when the stewardess comes around and insists they are closed an hour and a half into the flight?"

The competitor to the Boeing B787 is the Airbus A350XWB, not the A380.

Q & A : A380 Delays

I can read the headlines now: Worlds Largest Plane breaks new airport's cracked runways, Thai(s) forced to reopen Don Muang.

Ah-ha the technically challenged !

It will be landing light as it will not be carrying any great loads.

I don't know the LCN(Load classification number) but looking at the undercarriage

I doubt whether there will be any problems.

The A380 flies very well. It has just done some crosswind trials in Iceland.

It dealt with a 43 knot! crosswind without any trouble.

I still can't figure out how Airbus got their knickers in a twist over the wiring?

Or their wiring in a twist over their knickers?

BA planes undergo radiation tests

Two British Airways planes are to undergo further detailed examination after traces of a radioactive substance were discovered on board.

The traces were found by scientists involved in investigating the death of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko. An inquest into the death opens today.

BA said a third plane is grounded in Moscow awaiting tests.

The airline is trying to make contact with 33,000 passengers who travelled on affected flights.

People are being advised to check the flight details published on the BA website and to contact NHS Direct or a special helpline number if they travelled on the named flights.

Advice

A spokeswoman for BA said the airline had also been "proactively calling passengers" and hoped to have contacted the majority before the end of Thursday.

An estimated 3,000 staff would also need to be checked, BA said.

DESTINATIONS AFFECTED

Moscow

Barcelona

Dusseldorf

Athens

Larnaca

Stockholm

Vienna

Frankfurt

Istanbul

Madrid

All flight numbers published on the BA website

Mr Litvinenko, an ex-KGB agent and a fierce critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, died last week of radiation poisoning.

Traces of radioactive polonium-210 were discovered in his body and more traces of the substance were found at venues he visited in the capital on 1 November.

Scotland Yard has not said why it became interested in the planes, which were used on flights to Moscow and other European destinations over a five-week period.

But detectives are known to be tracing the movements of those who associated with Mr Litvinenko.

The BBC's Richard Galpin said the traces could be there from anyone who had been in contact with Mr Litvinenko, or could have come from someone bringing the substance to the UK.

The alert involves 221 flights made by the three short-haul 767s in Europe between 25 October and 29 November.

British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh told the BBC that the aircraft affected were all of the same type, and were being carefully examined.

EXPOSURE RISK

Contact with carrier's sweat or urine could lead to exposure

But polonium-210 must be ingested to cause damage

Radiation has very short range and cannot pass through skin

Washing eliminates traces

"Three specific aircraft were initially identified - three 767s," he said. "Two of those aircraft have been tested, and very low levels of radioactive traces have been discovered on the aircraft."

Mr Walsh said that the aircraft had made a large number of flights since they were contaminated, carrying many thousands of passengers, and the company was trying to alert them all.

"In total, there are 221 flights involved, involving the three aircraft. We estimate that there are 33,000 passengers involved."

Low risk

The chief executive of Britain's Health Protection Agency, Prof Pat Troop, said that if the source of the radiation was the same as that which killed Mr Litvinenko - polonium-210 - the risk of serious contamination to passengers was small.

"What we have heard is that it's either traces or very low levels and what we have learnt so far in our investigation... is that where we have got these areas of low level radiation it doesn't seem to pose a significant health threat."

The inquest into Mr Litvinenko's death is due to open today at St Pancras Coroner's Court.

However, it will be adjourned until the police investigation into his death has been completed.

Home Secretary John Reid is expected to make a statement to Parliament concerning the investigation today.

British Airways has set up a special helpline for customers in the UK on 0845 6040171 or 0191 211 3690 for international calls.

Passengers who travelled on those flights and want further advice are advised to telephone NHS Direct on 0845 4647.

More information:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6158473.stm

From The Nation 29th November 2006

Who killed Alexander Litvinenko? Ask Putin

Until a week ago, Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, was virtually unknown outside the murky world of Russian intelligence.

With his death in London from a massive dose of the radioactive element polonium 210, however, his fate may lead to a fundamentally different relationship between Russia and the West.

Beginning with the Yeltsin era, two US administrations have muted criticism of Russia. This was the case even in the face of a series of political murders in Russia. But if Litvinenko, a British subject, was murdered by Russian intelligence on British soil, self-censorship is no longer an option. Unless we want to give the Putin regime carte blanche to dispose of its enemies on our soil, we have no choice but to react.

Russian television has given an explanation for the murder of Litvinenko as surrealistic as any offered by the Soviets during the Cold War. It attributed his death to intrigues in the entourage of the exiled Russian oligarch, Boris Berezovsky. An announcer on the evening news said Litvinenko was "a pawn in a game whose significance he did not understand". Mr Berezovsky, however, had no reason to kill Litvinenko, whose views he shared and whom he had helped since his arrival in the UK in 2000. In November 1998, Litvinenko revealed a plot to kill Mr Berezovsky who, at the time, was the deputy head of the Russian security council. The evidence points instead to Litvinenko having been murdered by the FSB, which, together with the other "force ministries", has become the dominant political force in Russia today.

The FSB has always had a strong interest in Vladimir Putin's critics abroad. In December 2001, a Russian police official, in announcing a warrant for Mr Berezovsky's arrest, said, "We know what he eats for breakfast, where he has lunch and where he buys his groceries." This was followed up in September 2003 with an unsuccessful attempt to kill Mr Berezovsky with a needle camouflaged as a pen. The British reacted by granting Mr Berezovsky political asylum. Besides a history of tracking Mr Putin's opponents, the FSB could have been encouraged to kill Litvinenko because in June the Russian State Duma passed a law allowing the president to authorise attacks by the FSB on "terrorists" in foreign countries. In fact, the Russian intelligence services do not need a law to attack persons they regard as terrorists abroad. On February 13, 2004, the former Chechen president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, was killed and his 12-year-old son seriously injured when a bomb attached by Russian agents ripped apart their SUV. The new law, however, gives a seal of legitimacy to such operations and guarantees that those who carried them out will not be disowned or forgotten in the event of failure.

In the last six years, the make-up of the ruling elite in Russia has undergone a dramatic change. Once in power, Mr Putin filled the majority of important posts with veterans of the security services, many with ties to him dating back to his work in St Petersburg. By 2003, the top ministers, half of the members of the Russian Security Council and 70 per cent of all senior regional officials in Russia were former members of the security services. At the same time, many of these persons gained access to great wealth. Russia was already highly corrupt under Boris Yeltsin but, according to IDEM, an independent Russian think tank, with the rise in oil prices the level of corruption in Russia between 2002 and 2005 increased 900 per cent.

The result of these developments was that Mr Putin created an FSB ruling class. As this class became rooted, the victims of contract killers in Russia began to include the most prominent political figures in the country.

The most sensitive question in Russia is the provenance of the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buinaksk, in which 300 died. As a result of the bombings, the second Chechen war was launched and, in his role as wartime leader, Mr Putin, then the PM, achieved enough popularity to be elected president. There is widespread belief the real authors of the bombings were the FSB. Two of the political figures murdered in Russia in recent years were investigating the bombings.

Finally, Anna Politkovskaya, perhaps Russia's best-known journalist, was murdered last month. She travelled to Chechnya regularly despite the risk and was sought out by people from all over the North Caucasus in the hope that she would tell the world about their situation. It used to be said in Russia that no one is killed for politics. Politkovskaya, however, was clearly the victim of a political killing because she wrote only about politics.

Litvinenko resembles the others in this list in all respects except one. He lived in England. His book, "Blowing Up Russia", accused the FSB of the 1999 apartment bombings. He received visitors from Russia, was able to comment knowledgeably on the actions of the FSB in Moscow, and refused to be intimidated. In the wake of Litvinenko's death, the West must insist on cooperation from the FSB in finding his killers. If that is not forthcoming, it should be assumed that the murder of Litvinenko was ordered by the Russian regime.

Under those circumstances, not only should Russia be expelled from the G-8 but the whole structure of mutual consultation and cooperation would need to be re-evaluated. This is not just a matter of refusing to trivialise a murder. It is also a vital political obligation. Russians of all types are watching to see whether the West will simply swallow this crime or finally react to the rampant criminalisation of Russian society. There are forces in Russia that want the country to be part of the West. But to back them, we need to demonstrate that we have moral values that we defend. To do less would be to abandon Russia to the forces of nihilism and obscurantism.

David Satter

Moscow

David Satter is affiliated with the Hoover Institution, the Hudson Institute and Johns Hopkins University. His most recent book is "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State" (Yale, 2003)

Quotes from National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)

Dean Vernon Wormer: Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

D-Day: Hey, quit your blubberin'. When I get through with this baby you won't even recognize it.

Otter: Flounder, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes! You fukked up - you trusted us! Hey, make the best of it! Maybe we can help.

Flounder: [crying] That's easy for you to say! What am I going to tell Fred?

Otter: I'll tell you what. We'll tell Fred you were doing a great job taking care of his car, but you parked it out back last night and in the morning, it was gone. We report it to the police, D-Day takes care of the wreck, the insurance company buys your brother a new car.

Flounder: Will that work?

Otter: Hey, it's gotta work better than the truth.

D-Day: We have an old saying in Delta House: don't get mad, get even.

-------

Marion Wormer: You can take your thumb out of my ass any time now, Carmine.

[in the supermarket vegetable section]

Eric 'Otter' Stratton: Mine's bigger.

Marion Wormer: [looks questioningly at him]

Eric 'Otter' Stratton: My cucumber. It's bigger.

Eric 'Otter' Stratton: I think vegetables can be very sensuous, don't you?

Marion Wormer: No, vegetables are sensual. People are sensuous.

Eric 'Otter' Stratton: Right. Sensual. That's what I meant. My name's Eric Stratton. People call me Otter.

Marion Wormer: My name's Marion. People call me Mrs. Wormer.

Eric 'Otter' Stratton: Oh, we have a Dean Wormer at Faber.

Marion Wormer: How interesting. I have a husband named Dean Wormer at Faber. Still want to show me your cucumber?

---------

Doug Neidermeyer: And most recently of all, a "Roman Toga Party" was held from which we have received more than two dozen reports of individual acts of perversion SO profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dean Vernon Wormer: Put Neidermeyer on it. He's a sneaky little sh1t just like you.

As usual there is a lot more to this. It is unlikely that we will find out what ?

Spy death linked to nuclear thefts

Mark Townsend, Antony Barnett and Tom Parfitt

Sunday November 26, 2006

The Observer

An investigation was under way last night into Russia's black market trade in radioactive materials amid concern that significant quantities of polonium 210, the substance that killed former spy Alexander Litvinenko, are being stolen from poorly protected Russian nuclear sites.

As British police drew up a list of witnesses for questioning over the death, experts warned that thefts from nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union were a major problem.

A senior source at the United Nations nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency, told The Observer he had no doubt that the killing of Litvinenko was an 'organised operation' which bore all the hallmarks of a foreign intelligence agency. The expert in radioactive materials said the ability to obtain polonium 210 and the knowledge needed to use it to kill Litvinenko meant that the attack could not have been carried out by a 'lone assassin'.

Suggestions that the death may have involved some form of state sponsorship were being investigated by MI5 and MI6 who are looking at theories that foreign agents may have been behind the death of Litvinenko. Scotland Yard has asked the Kremlin for help with its inquiries, though Russia has dismissed any involvement in the death as 'absurd'. Litvinenko received British citizenship this month.

A senior British security source said they were providing the police with material in 'hostile intelligence agencies' operating in the UK, including those from Russia. He said: 'Russia has never really decreased its activity in the UK from the end of the Cold War.'

Privately, however, there is deep scepticism in Whitehall about whether the Putin administration would be willing to risk a crisis in British-Russian relations by directly authorising an assassination of a British citizen on British soil, particularly using a method that might involve other Britons being contaminated. The two countries are currently engaged in delicate negotiations over energy security.

More than anything, the death of the London-based former KGB spy has placed Russia's still thriving trade in radioactive material under scrutiny. 'From the terrorism threat standpoint, these cases are of little concern but they show security vulnerabilities at facilities,' said an IAEA spokesman.

One of the few figures available, on a database compiled by researchers at Stanford University in the US, revealed that about 40kg of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium were stolen from poorly protected nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union between 1991 and 2002. Although the IAEA has no confirmation of polonium finding its way into the underground trade, there have been several unconfirmed reports of thefts.

In 1993 the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reported that 10kg of polonium had disappeared from the Sarov, which produces the rare radioactive material and is described as Russia's own version of Los Alamos, the US government's nuclear research base in New Mexico.

Globally there have been more than 300 cases during the past four years where individuals have been caught trying to smuggle radioactive material. In 2005 there were 103 confirmed incidents of trafficking and other unauthorised activities involving nuclear and radioactive materials, many involving Russia.

In one incident, in the remote west of former Soviet Georgia, a group of woodsmen found two capsules of the material which was emitting heat in a forest. They used them to keep warm at night but soon developed acute radiation sickness. The capsules turned out to be the highly radioactive strontium 90 core of a nuclear generator from a long abandoned aircraft navigation beacon.

Meanwhile in Britain, Cobra, No 10's crisis committee, met again yesterday to discuss emerging findings in the police investigation and in public health.

The Foreign Office held a meeting on Friday with the Russian ambassador to request full co-operation from the Russian government in the police investigation, including making witnesses available. Officials from the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire, and Porton Down, the government's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, were trying last night to track down the precise source of the polonium 210 that killed Litvinenko.

No date has been set for a post mortem examination on Litvinenko until a risk assessment is carried out to see if it is safe to perform the procedure, and if so, what precautions would be necessary.

BIT FISHY? IT STINKS OF ROTTEN COLD WAR

by Tony Parsons

The Mirror 27 November 2006

I HAVE always been a fan of Itsu, the sushi restaurant in the West End of London where former KGB man Alexander Litvinenko was probably poisoned with polonium 210, a substance 250billion times more deadly than cyanide.

Itsu is one of those conveyor-belt sushi restaurants where the nosh rolls by your face like the prizes in a Bruce Forsyth game show from the Seventies.

In Japan, because the sushi is not made to order, this kind of place is considered very downmarket - the equivalent of a greasy spoon cafe with crusted red and brown fossils on the bottles of sauce where overweight men cough fag ash into their dippy egg. But in London they are considered quite sophisticated.

I often eat at Itsu, and I am disturbed to think that I might have asked a KGB agent to pass the wasabi.

So I find myself outraged about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko on a number of levels.

As someone who regularly goes to Itsu, I don't much like the sound of some of my fellow diners.

As a Londoner, I am angry that an estimated 21,000 of my fellow Londoners have had their lives put in danger by this deadly poison, a figure that includes recent Itsu diners and the innocent nurses and doctors who treated Litvinenko at two London hospitals.

And as a Brit, I am bloody furious that a bunch of murderous foreign goons are running around in my country settling scores with people they don't like using the most deadly poison on the planet.

When the story of Litvinenko's poisoning first broke, it was treated as a bit of a joke.

But if we allow foreign killers to commit murder on our soil with the most toxic substance known to man, then the joke is on us. Of course we feel human sympathy for the murdered man and his family.

But lest we forget, Alexander Litvinenko was - like the man he detested, Russian President Vladimir Putin - a former KGB man.

Let us not rush to confuse Litvinenko with some crusading journalist murdered by the cruel regime he gallantly opposed.

Litvinenko was once a willing servant of that hideous regime and part of an organisation, the KGB, that uses murder, torture and terror as routine.

Our sympathy for the man and his family should be tempered with reality. Or are we asked to believe that Alexander Litvinenko was a nice KGB man?

The real issue is how can it be possible that foreign agents have turned our capital city into a battleground where the weapons include the deadliest substance on earth?

And what are we going to do about it?

"Nothing will be done Tony. The other Tony is Prime Minister."

DIPLOMATIC BAG USED FOR POISON

By Jeff Edwards And Vanessa Allen

THE assassin who murdered ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko smuggled a tiny phial of poison in a diplomatic bag, it was claimed last night.

That way it could not be found by Customs or police officers.

A Special Branch source told the Mirror: "A former Soviet Union embassy could be involved. It would cut out any risk of interception. The poison pellet and umbrella used to murder defector Georgi Markov in the 1970s was brought in that way."

Litvinenko told police he was being targeted by a diplomat, Viktor Kirov, who is now back in Russia.

Detectives are sure the polonium that killed Litvinenko was slipped into his food. They want to interview two Russians and an Italian - Mario Scaramella - who ate and drank with him on November 1.

Litvinenko, 43, was paranoid about the meeting with Mr Scaramella at a sushi bar and later told a friend: "Mario was just drinking water."

Days before his death three weeks later, he said President Vladimir Putin ordered his murder. His friend, filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov said that was unlikely but blamed "rogue people who are the result of his ideology of force and nationalism".

A Russian journalist has claimed Litvinenko was murdered by his own supporters to discredit Mr Putin.

He said London-based oligarch Boris Berezovsky told him: "There's a plan to reduce Putin's popularity. We need to sacrifice someone in the interests of democracy."

"Smoke and Mirrors......"