First off, another one of my predictions I made which I said would come true if this was a smuggling effort came true. I predicted back on December 5th that if this was a smuggling effort we would find Polonium traces at hotels that lined up with the trips of Lugovoi on Oct 15th, Oct 25th and Nov 1st because these were trips where Litvinenko met Lugovoi (as if to check on the status of some effort). That has now come true:

Traces of polonium-210 has been found at Parkes Hotel, Mayfair, it was confirmed last night. It means that radiation has been found at all three hotels where Mr Lugovoy had stayed since flying to London on October 16. The Parkes was the first he stayed at.

The radioactive isotope has also been found at Risc Management, a security firm in Cavendish Place, visited by Litvinenko with Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun on October 17.

Back on December 1st I said if this was a smuggling ring that was exposed by an accident one of the Russians with Lugovoi (who would be coordinating the smuggling, not handling the material himself) would fall ill. Obviously that happened today as well. I am now ready to be proven wrong, if it all possible. If there were three rounds of Polonium 210 shipments, and Litvinenko was only poisoned as one of these shipments came through, how much Polonium is still out there?

The UK media are chasing their conspiracy spinning tails on the Litvinenko incident, but finally they may be seeing the light. As I proposed here, and in numerous other posts, I think the second major contamination site at the Millenium Hotel at Grosvenor’s Square is where the poisining of Litvinenko took place. I think there is a case to be made that Litvinenko met twice with Lugovoi and Kovtun (two Russian “business associates” of Litvinenko and Berezovsky): once in the morning or mid-day before the Scaramella meeting, and then again after the meeting in the early evening. Reporting keeps getting conflicting inputs because the idea of two meetings in one day has not been widely contemplated. In any event, the Times UK is now moving the site of the major poisoning event to the Millenium Hotel:

All seven bar staff working at the Pine Bar in the Millennium Hotel that night have tested positive for polonium-210, the radioactive isotope that killed Litvinenko. Health authorities are trying urgently to contact the 250 customers using the busy bar on November 1.

The Pine Bar is a popular haunt for businessmen and foreign guests at the five-star hotel in Grosvenor Square. Many of those overseas travellers have returned home after being told they were at no risk.

Health experts said they were surprised to find that the levels of radiation found in the seven bar staff approached that found in Litvinenko’s wife, Marina.

As I mentioned in this previous post the contamination level can be used to derive how close the person was to ground zero event (when the major contamination happened that poisoned Litvinenko). Litvinenko was at ground zero (obviously) and the closest one since had the highest dose (he fell ill first and died first). The second closest to ground zero may be Kuvton, who seems to have fallen ill and could be on his way to dying. The third known contamination is Scaramella – who is a second tier vector having been contaminated by Litvinenko at his Sushi Bar meeting. No other restaurant staff were contaminated at that location. The next closest contaminated people are the 7 staff members at the Millenium Pine Bar and Litvinenko’s wife. They seem to be like Scaramella in that they ran into a prime vector (Litvinenko or Kovtun) who was at ground zero, but far enough away in time that whatever contamination was on the vector had dissipated by some means or another so that they received less of a dose than Scaramella.

As distance, or time, or some other intervening vector creates distance from ground zero and the two prime vectors we know of (Litvinenko and Kovtun) the risk to people drops off. What is not clear is whether there are any more prime vectors who were at ground zero. Was Lugovoi? We should know soon because they should be getting ill pretty soon.

But someone is really stringing the media along here:

Michael Clark, of the agency’s radiation protection division, said last night that it was possible that Litvinenko was poisoned by a contaminated cigarette or drink.

A minute quantity of polonium-210 placed in Litvinenko’s glass would explain how he ingested the radioactive poison that led to his agonising death three weeks later.

The vapour that evaporated from the drink would have been inhaled by anyone in the area, with a greater concentration for his Russian companions and staff, who would have been in the bar much longer.

Litvinenko did not have a minute quantity of Polonium-210 by toxic standards. He ingested 50-100 times the lethal dose, which represented 30 million euros worth of Polonium-210 (at its peak purity – assuming minimal decay time since production). The ‘vapors’ do not explain how Scaramella received 5 times the lethal dose, and it number three on our dose chart (Kovtun looks to be number two and I would guess that if he is truly as ill as people say he could be at 10-20 times the lethal dose). The other problem we have is there could have been a build up over many exposures in Litvinenko or Kovtun over the three week period in questions. It is possibly the cumulative dose is the result of a number of smaller exposures. But this theory being put out to the UK Times seems a very strained. My theory holds up better, which entails an early meeting in a hotel room which is the true ground zero:

Investigators believe the poison cocktail was likely to have been manufactured in a guest room at the hotel, a short walk away from the US Embassy. Significant traces of polonium-210 were found in a fourth-floor room, which was occupied by a visiting Russian.Police believe that the killer may have stalked Litvinenko in London that day and had first tried to poison the ex-KGB colonel in a sushi bar. That failed but the poisoner left ample traces of the deadly radioactive isotope in the Piccadilly restaurant. Traces were also found on an Italian academic, Mario Scaramella, who was in the Itsu sushi bar. Toxicologists found polonium-210 in every place that Litvinenko visited after his drink at the hotel. It was not until he arrived home two hours later that he was violently ill.

This theory is pretty lame (except the fact there was ‘a spill’ of what must have been a Polonium-210 acid suspension in the hotel room) because it proposes the assassin had no clear opportunities to get Litvinenko in an open area like a street, or had to trail him and get the job done that one day. The amount of Polonium available was enough to kill Litvinenko 50-100 times over. An assassin could have trailed at his liesure, leaving a drop in a drink while passing by and slowly building up the toxicity of the Polonium-210 in Litvinenko. If an assassin selected Polonium-210 it is assumed they took the time to study how it could be administered covertly.

Update: Larisa Alexandrovna has posted something she says will make me very happy – so I thought I would share it with everyone.