Word: polonium
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Alexander Litvinenko killed in a spectacularly unusual way, poisoned with a tiny dose of the radioactive element polonium-210. But the routine of the former KGB agent on the day he ingested the stuff--a shuttle among elegant hotels, a sushi bar and exclusive offices in the heart of London--would be familiar to any number of affluent Russians who make the city their home. London is 31% foreign born, profiting from successive waves of the ultrarich--American bankers, Arab sheiks, Hong Kong Chinese. Now the Litvinenko case is making some Brits wonder whether the city has turned into Moscow...
...this story’s mise en scène seems far too obvious. After all, Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium 210, which is 250 million times more toxic than cyanide. In order to get this obscure substance experts said one needs access to a nuclear laboratory. And the only reference to it as a weapon was found in a 1994 paper only published in, you guessed it, Russian. But even more importantly, why would the quite professional Russian secret services murder someone slowly, giving them over three weeks to blame them, and do it with a substance that could...
...moment of high drama, but it paled beside what happened next. Last Thursday, Litvinenko himself died in a London hospital, after having ingested a "major dose" of the radioactive toxin polonium-210 that destroyed his immune system, according to Britain's Health Protection Agency. Scotland Yard said that traces of polonium-210 - which is so rare and volatile that producing quantities large enough to kill requires access to a high-security nuclear laboratory - were found at a sushi restaurant called Itsu in Piccadilly where Litvinenko had eaten lunch on the day he got sick. Traces of the isotope were also...
Whoever did kill Litvinenko wasn't an amateur. British authorities announced last Friday that he had ingested a radioactive toxin, polonium 210, and that police had found traces of it in three locations: a sushi bar where Litvinenko had eaten lunch, a hotel he had visited on the same day and his home. Polonium 210 is so rare and volatile that the assassin would have needed access to a high-security nuclear laboratory to obtain it. Moscow denies that it had anything to do with the death. At a meeting with European officials in Helsinki, Vladimir Putin called the death...
...health hazard. Outdoors, the gas disperses quickly in the atmosphere. Indoors, however, radon can build up to a deadly concentration, entering buildings through their foundations, creeping through cracks in floors, foundation walls and sewer pipes. The gas quickly decays further into other elements, including radioactive bismuth and polonium, which can adhere to dust particles, be inhaled and become lodged in the respiratory system. No immediate physical symptoms occur; radon cancers have a 20-year latency period...