Ex-spy’s associate now seriously ill
A Russian businessman who met with a former Russian domestic intelligence officer in London the day the man fell ill from radioactive poison has himself become suddenly and seriously sick, Russian news organizations reported Thursday night.
Dmitry Kovtun, a business consultant who met with Alexander Litvinenko on Nov. 1 at a bar in the Millennium Hotel in London, suffered a severe health breakdown from radiation exposure, according to the reports. He had earlier been interviewed by Russian investigators, with detectives from Scotland Yard present as well.
The investigation of Litvinenko’s mysterious death has widened with each day, as technicians follow a radioactive trail left by the poison polonium-210 across London and Moscow and in the cabins of jetliners that flew between the two cities.
Kovtun is the second person reported seriously sickened by the radiation, though others have tested positive for low-level exposure to the substance. On Thursday, British health officials added seven people to the exposure list – employees in the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1.
KABUL, Afghanistan
Ministers discuss border security
Pakistan and Afghanistan began key talks on border security Thursday, as a suspected Taliban suicide bomber killed two civilians and wounded 12 others in the militia’s former southern stronghold.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri met with his Afghan counterpart, Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, and President Hamid Karzai in Kabul amid acrimony over alleged infiltration by Taliban militants causing havoc in the war-racked nation’s south and east.
Relations between the two Muslim nations have been badly strained by Afghan contentions that Pakistan has been giving sanctuary to Taliban militants on its side of the border, contributing to an upsurge in the Afghan insurgency this year.
Pakistan, a former backer of the Taliban, denies allegations made by Afghan and some Western officials that its intelligence agencies still give tacit support to the militants. It says it is doing all it can to patrol the border, which is populated on both sides by Pashtun tribes that support the Taliban.
BEIRUT, Lebanon
Nasrallah vows Saniora will fall
Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah promised thousands of supporters Thursday that they would eventually bring down Lebanon’s Western-backed government, but the prime minister vowed to stand firm against protesters.
It was the seventh day of street demonstrations by Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian parties aimed at pressuring Prime Minister Fuad Saniora to quit in a deepening political crisis threatening to tear the country apart.
In a rousing speech delivered on huge screens in two central Beirut squares, Nasrallah accused Saniora of conniving with Israel during its monthlong war with Hezbollah last summer.
Nasrallah said protests would continue until Hezbollah’s demands are met. But he also said he was prepared to negotiate and that the Shiite guerrillas would use arms only against Israelis.