Litvinenko never served on the Mitrokhin Commission. He was tricked into signing false revelations written in Italian, purported to be translations of his accusations against Putin, by Scaramella. Litvinenko made a full verbal report on record to the reporters, Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, detailing how Scaramella had tricked him. Repubblica published Litvinenko's testimony.
A full translation of Litvinenko's testimony against Scaramella as well as that of Limarev (off line)would be in order.
Limarev is in France and has declared that he is more than ready to testify or offer his collaboration.
Ok, found it. The Sun attributed it to Yuri Felshtinsky. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
Limarev's testimony reveals the San Marino scams before they were published both in the Telekom Serbia Commission scam as well as the Mitrokhin Commission scandal.
As I have said previously, it is surprising that Repubblica sat on these interviews for so long. It is now apparent. They only published after Scaramella and Guzzanti made their moves this past month.
Had Guzzanti and Scaramella released their false and malicious accusations just before the elections, my bet would be that Repubblica would have immediately published the Litvinenko and Limarev interviews.
Unfortunately they didn't. Perhaps because Scaramella learned through a mole in Minister of Interior that he was under investigation and that he was being taped. Further it now appears that the Sismi was aware of Scaramella's criminal activity.
Investigators for the Rome procura are seeking to identify the mole.
As for Nature the article expresses doubts that the polonium came from Russia.
La Repubblica clearly is in this for the long haul, and use their investigative journalism strategically and not simply to boost readership.
The behind-the-scenes wheelings and dealings of everyone in Italy, from the press to the politicians, to everyone's secret services, to organised crime, are nothing short of amazing. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
this country is being so wasted right now, people are hurting, the corruption so endemic and entrenched, it seems some amoral permission is being given all down the line from the example at he highest levels, where duplicity and opacity are written right into the dna, spewing aver more arcane scams, sucking the vitality from the country.
until they see the goverment spending their tax money wisely, the italians will go on dealing in the black, and the government will have to scrape.
i'm already hearing the voice of the small business entrepreneur rueing berlusconi's unseating.
this was so depressing to hear, from an otherwise perfectly rational and seeming intelligent person.
it is rot, and the head rots first.
i want so much to believe in prodi, but it seems he is not much loved.
the good news for me right now in italian politics is that the left have much brighter people at the top, whereas the right is already bitterly infighting, (something everyone thought the left would immediately do), and casini is the only rightist with minimal charisma, whereas rutelli and alema are good communicators, as is fasini.
fini is the wild card, a very wily man, beadily consistent and cool-blooded, which gives him some traction as the others look vainer and make more noise.
he reminds me a lot of putin, actually.
the unity on the left is holding better, it seems, is (i guess) the point of this ramble, from my ignorant point of view.
someone has to put the 'rant' into 'ignorant'!
whatis amazing is how good the italian reporting is getting here at ET.
front-row seats, people! ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
That wasn't in dispute. I meant that Litvinenko and Scaramella might have been two scam artists working together, but afterwards one blaming another of distortion in public, just to evade responsiblity. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
On one hand when talking to Perry, Scaramella declares that he's got taped testimony against Prodi by Gordievskij in the presence of Lou Palumbo.
With Cordova Gordievskij is discussed in an entirely different light. Both are aware that Gordievskij knows nothing about Italy nor Prodi. Cordova literally advises Scaramella how to use Gordievskij as a false source with the press- and to hell with eventual consequences or investigations. What's important is to get a statement in the press to the effect that Gordievskij indicates Prodi, not necessarily naming him as a Soviet spy but heavily alluding to him.
Scaramella also tells Cordova that Scotland Yard is pissed off at him because he keeps badgering Gordievskij who is under their protection. Supposedly Scotland Yard complained to the Sismi who in turn advised Scaramella to ease off Gordievskij.
What we have here is a similar situation to Litvinenko's regardless of whether Litvinenko is a con himself. It appears Scaramella repeatedly seeks out prominent Russian exiles in order to trick them into supporting his false charges.
Scaramella has today denied ever having done what he says in his taped conversations. He denies having ever met Berlusconi as well as the negotiations for appointments to prestigious international organizations as he asserted with Mr. Perry.
Both caretaker heads of the Secret Services, Generals Mori and Pollari have denied ever having had Scaramella as an agent or an informant.
Police have raided Scaramella's offices again today. He is now under investigation by the Procuras of Rome, Naples and Bologna for international arms traffic, revelation of official judiciary secrets, calumny, international traffic of radioactive material and, last and least, irregular dumping of special waste through unauthorized third parties.
The Perry guy also refers repeatedly to "our organisation" ...as though Scaramella is part of it - or rather, its Italian branch.
And I imagine this Perry guy is the same "silent" American who sat in on Scaramella's previous hours-long sessions with Litvinenko preparing all that pseudo-Mitrokhin bs?
Query: So who the heck IS this Perry guy anyway - and what the heck is he supposed to be doing messing around with a) Italian domestic politics b) Livtinenko's Russian/Chechen intrigues?
Is he US-official or US-unofficial? If the first, doing what? if the second, first question is "whose" is he? Acting on whose orders... and of course, doing what exactly - in our presumably sovereign and democratic nation??
Grrrr ...Dejà vu dejà vu. Last fifty+ years of nastiest, bloodiest and shadowiest zones of Italian political history are all creepycrawling with these "American connections". So here they are again!!! and not exactly non-coincidentally, may I note that while the USA is at least supposedly cutting down its troops n' hardware presence in the rest of Europe, it's actually INCREASING its military presence here (Vicenza)!!...So seems Italy's still viewed as the US's "natural harbour-cum-aircraft carrier " to dominate the Med.... and evermore shall remain so...???
.......
P.S. If no-one else has time/energy to translate the Repubblica articles either in full or as excerpts I'm strongly tempted to do a diary with nice fat translation excerpts, concentrating on this aspect...as soon as I have the time! Maybe late tomorrow - that is, unless anyone else here is working on it?
Could call it "Scaramella's American connnection" - THAT would get the Kossacks jumping, eh? ;-) "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
There are however several interviews in this case worth translating: The Litvinenko interview and the two Limarev interviews- especially the first one (off line.)
I have done excerpts of the the second Limarev interview- and Migeru did too.
One possibility I would suggest is to set up pro tempore crews and divide the job. I would also suggest cross-checking. I'll even try to figure out how Migeru uses that two-column trick.
The Perry Cordova tapes are very interesting and should be urgent. I'm certain Repubblica and others are trying to track down Perry and his organization. I can't help remembering Phil Guarino, Reagan's defrocked priest turned California Mason who ran shot-gun in the White House over the Italian department of dirty tricks in the Eighties. This could be something similar.
As for Cordova he is a long time controversial figure, murky at times who needs to be explained.
If you do the Perry-Cordova tapes that's great. I'll add in a Cordova bio. I could do the off-line Limarev interview and finish the second current interview.
Since the late Seventies the US has shifted its long-term military strategy to the Southern flank of Europe. Italy- and especially Sicily- are now the major "aircraft carriers." Sicily represents fabulous gains for mafia-linked infrastructures and their political representatives. It's no wonder so much intrigue leads back to Sicily, whether Sindona, Comiso, the P2, Billygate.
Gordievskij makes it perfectly clear that both Scaramella and Litvinenko tried to force him into backing false charges against Prodi. Gordievskij was so outraged that he complained to the MI6. But what further enraged Gordievskij is when he found out that Guzzanti and Scaramella had discovered that he had informed MI6. It was Bukovskij who told him that. Bukovskij, too, had been subject to pressure by Scaramella to back false charges against Prodi.
Gordievskij is very much irate and considers both Scaramella and Guzzanti to be clinical cases- something that has been asserted here since day one.
Migeru doesn't like asking for Recommends, but I ask for it to get the stories noticed by them Orange Americans. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I'll even try to figure out how Migeru uses that two-column trick.
"Best current practice" uses three colums (an empty middle column), and is in the New User Guide, though I slightly modify Afew's formatting (I don't use the "width" attribute in the TD tags). You can see how I did it by looking at the source of my comment. [Under Firefox, CTRL-Left_click will select a part of the page, then Right_click will give you a pull-down menu with the option view selection source).
The gnomes could modify the site CSS so that one could use <td class="some_name_or_other"> for the two colours, and <table class=bilingual> for the general table formatting. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
I can't help remembering Phil Guarino, Reagan's defrocked priest turned California Mason who ran shot-gun in the White House over the Italian department of dirty tricks in the Eighties.
The fun never ends! Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
That's not my reading of the Nature "article" which, by the way, is no better than our own Kcurie and Polonium discussion thread. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
Metro: Spy poison found at Arsenal's ground (December 6, 2006)
Minute quantities of polonium 210, the radioactive substance which was used to poison former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, have been found at Arsenal's Emirates stadium. The radiation was found at the north London football ground at "barely detectable levels", the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said. An HPA spokeswoman once again stressed that there was no public health concern, adding that the levels picked up were lower than natural background activity.
The radiation was found at the north London football ground at "barely detectable levels", the Health Protection Agency (HPA) said.
An HPA spokeswoman once again stressed that there was no public health concern, adding that the levels picked up were lower than natural background activity.
So we should be worried about a lack of Polonium in the environment there? Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
