Radiation detected in spy’s wife, friend

The wife of an ex-KGB agent fatally poisoned in Britain and the Italian security expert he met the day he fell ill both showed traces of the radioactive substance found in the dead man’s body, friends and officials said Friday.

The inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko widened with the new positive test results, the evacuation of a hotel in southern England, and the sweep of an Irish hospital that treated a Russian opposition leader for what his aides described as poisoning.

The Italian, Mario Scaramella, was hospitalized in protective police custody after tests confirmed he had been exposed to polonium-210, the rare isotope found in Litvinenko’s body before he died Nov. 23. Scaramella was exposed to a much lower level of radiation than Litvinenko, doctors said.

Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, was also “very slightly contaminated” by the radioactive substance found in her husband’s body, said the former KGB agent’s friend, Alex Goldfarb.

United Nations

U.N. considers Somalia protection

The United States circulated a U.N. Security Council draft resolution Friday that would authorize a regional force to protect Somalia’s weak government and threaten Security Council action against those who block peace efforts and attempt to overthrow it.

The draft, obtained by the Associated Press, would lift a 1992 arms embargo against Somalia so that troops in the “protection and training mission” could be militarily equipped.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said he expects Security Council experts to discuss the draft on Monday, “and then we’ll proceed as rapidly as we can after that.”