Last week’s death of former KGB Colonel Alexander Litvinenko in London from poisoning by a nuclear isotope, Polonium 210, raises a number of disturbing questions. Let us examine:

Facts

All we know for certain is that a healthy 43-year old Litvinenko somehow ingested the deadly Polonium on Wednesday, November 1st in London - either in his frequent haunt, Isto - a sushi restaurant, the Millenium Hotel or at his house. (All three places have been found to have traces of Polonium.) Mr. Litvinenko died three weeks later after losing 28 pounds, all his hair and suffering massive organ failure and finally a heart attack. Those are all indisputable facts; the rest is subject to conjecture and investigation. (more…)

North Korea wants the United States to free its overseas bank accounts and for countries to drop sanctions imposed after Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency on Wednesday quoted its envoy as saying.

North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan made the demands in meetings on Tuesday with envoys from other countries in six-way talks on ending the North’s nuclear weapons programs, Yonhap said, citing a source in Beijing familiar with the talks.

According to the unnamed source, Kim said these were preconditions for the impoverished state to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. (more…)

For years, whispers have ebbed and flowed across the currents of cyberspace that the U.S. government had plans on the drawing board for the establishment of detention and relocation camps to heard massive swaths of the population into during times of declared national emergency.

Haughty sophisticates regularly dismissed such nuggets of information, claiming such warnings were the ravings of kooks and the paranoid. However, at last more mainstream news sources are willing to admit such holding pens of dubious constitutionality are in the works.

According to a FoxNews.com report titled “Critics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used For Immigration Round-Ups”, a contract has been granted to a subsidiary of Halliburton no less for the establishment of emergency relocation centers for use during a national disaster or immigration crisis. Though marketed as a way to house illegals as they are processed back to their countries of origin, the American people need to be warned this might not be the only purpose for such facilities. (more…)

Once again the possibility of reinstating a military draft is being discussed in Washington, and while the idea seems remote it is not unthinkable.

Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, soon to be a powerful committee chair, has openly called for reinstating the Selective Service System. Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey claims that our ground forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq are stretched far too thin, and desperately need reinforcements. Meanwhile, other political and military leaders suggest that several hundred thousand additional troops might be needed simply to restore some semblance of order in Iraq. We are nearing the point where a choice will have to be made: either decrease our troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan significantly, or produce thousands of new military recruits quickly. So a discussion of military conscription is not purely academic. (more…)

Rich perverts rejoice, for there’s new technology in town under development which may well be able to see right under clothing. Of course, it’s designed for security purposes, but one can’t help but ponder on privacy problems the technology could cause.

Researchers at Northrop-Grumman Space Technology are working on tiny little cameras which will be able to peek right through clothing and other materials to check blokes and blokettes for weapons or other dodgy goods. The technology’s called passive millimeter-wave or PMMW technology, and will also be used to see through heavy clouds on rainy days, also for security and surveillance purposes, says the EE Times. (more…)

Democrats, about to take control of Congress, say they will forge a bipartisan compromise to put limits on President George W. Bush’s program of domestic eavesdropping of suspected terrorists.

Democrats say they already have a starting point for a compromise, noting that bipartisan proposals this year require court warrants for eavesdropping. At the same time, party leaders will be treading carefully in an effort to assure Americans that they can protect privacy without sacrificing vigilance, and to discredit Republican charges they are weak on national security.

“How will the Democrats proceed? I think gingerly,'’ said Steven Aftergood, who directs a government secrecy project for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “They can no longer function as a protest group.'’

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bush authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without getting court warrants on communications between suspected al-Qaeda operatives in the U.S. and overseas. (more…)

The White House wants a strong greenback but the US deficit is weighing heavily

The dollar came under pressure for the fifth day in row yesterday as further evidence of weakness in the world’s largest economy emerged and as a key international body warned that the US economy was running out of steam.

Henry “Hank” Paulson, the US treasury secretary, reiterated on a visit to London that the Bush administration remained wedded to a “strong dollar” but this failed to stem the tide as dealers bet that the long-expected slump in the greenback’s value had finally arrived.

Having recovered some lost ground late on Monday, the dollar set a fresh two-year low of just above $1.95 against the pound in hectic trading yesterday. There is widespread speculation that it could soon breach the $2 level - something it has not done for 14 years. It also slid to a 20-month low against the euro of $1.318. The US currency has now shed 11% of its value against the euro this year and 12% against the pound. (more…)

Senior Pakistani officials are urging Nato countries to accept the Taliban and work towards a new coalition government in Kabul that might exclude the Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, has said in private briefings to foreign ministers of some Nato member states that the Taliban are winning the war in Afghanistan and Nato is bound to fail. He has advised against sending more troops.

Western ministers have been stunned. “Kasuri is basically asking Nato to surrender and to negotiate with the Taliban,” said one Western official who met the minister recently. (more…)

Everyday transactions such as buying a store gift card or playing pokies could lead to your details being recorded on a government database under a crackdown on money laundering and terrorism.

Top law firms, privacy groups and shopping giant Westfield fear low-risk and low-value items such as gift cards, phone cards and toll road passes could be subject to the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Bill, which was passed in the House of Representatives last night.

Submission documents tendered to a Senate inquiry, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, show the Bill could affect every aspect of our lives. (more…)