Ex-KGB officer poisoned in UK

According to reports from the BBC and The Telegraph, UK police are investigating the alleged poisoning of a former KGB agent and critic of President Vladimir Putin who has been living in exile in Britain.

Litvinenko, who has a Ukrainian surname, despite being referred to as "Russian" by both the BBC and The Telegraph, has written several articles and contributed to books critical of Putin. His writings generally attempt to demonstrate that the most fundamental problems in modern Russia do not result from the smash-and-grab free-for-all of the so-called "liberal radical reforms" of the Yeltsin era, but instead from covert resistance to these reforms from within the Russian special services. He also espouses some very far-fetched beliefs - such as this article where he makes an outlandish and bizarre comparison between Putin and Hitler.

He also claimed that the right hand of Bin Laden, the Number Two in "Al-Qaeda" was trained at the secret base of the Russian secret services on Caucasus. Given that Al-Qaeda is nothing more than a collection of conveniently placed mirrors accompanied by the requisite amount of smoke, nothing more than a figment of fevered imaginations, and that no proof has been produced that the organisation actually exists, this claim is patently ludicrous.

According to newsru.com, Litvinenko was invited to a London restaurant by an Italian citizen, Mario Scaramella, who claimed he had some important information about a recent murder of Anna Politkovskaya. It is at this meeting where Mr Litvinenko was supposedly poisoned with Thalium, an extremely toxic heavy metal.

The Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets claims that Mario Scaramella is a CIA agent, whereas the ChechenPress claim that Mr. Scaramella is an FSB agent in Italy and a close friend and business partner of the FSB deputy chief Kolmogorov. They also claim that the Italian visited the FSB headquarters in Moscow several times.

It is possible that either of these claims are true, that Scaramella is an agent for the FSB or CIA. It is also possible that both claims are false - that Scaramella has nothing to do with either agency or the poisoning. It is even possible that both claims are simultaneously true, as double agents have not been exactly uncommon throughout history.

Given the accusations, counter-accusations and rhetoric on both sides, it can be difficult to discover what really happened. As always with such events, the first question I ask is "cui bono?". Who benefits?

Does it really benefit Putin that much to be rid of someone whose claims were so clearly subjective and often off-the-wall? Or does it benefit those who want to weaken the resurgent power that is Russia, in order to continue their previously-interrupted looting of Russian resources, unhampered by a strong Russian leadership? Does such an attempted murder benefit Russia and the Russian leadership, or would it be more beneficial, in a propaganda sense, to the country that is busy building bases in almost every state bordering Russia?

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9/11 : The questions that remained unanswered - insider trading

The spate of put option purchases in the run-up to 9/11 was a clear indication of foreknowledge.

As this article by Don Radlauer explains, in cases where transactions deviate so wildly from normal trading levels, the timing of the transactions are just a little too convenient and the nature of the transactions are too specific, there very high possibility that insider trading is taking place. In the run up to 9/11, all of these factors were in play, indicating not only that insider trading had taken place, but that certain individuals had sufficient foreknowledge of events on that day to be able to play the insider trading game.

The unprecedented surge in put options and call options on certain key stocks in the days leading up to 9/11 remains unexplained. These suspicious changes to trading patterns include:

an enormous increase in trading of put options on stocks of United Airlines and American Airlines, the two airlines whose aircraft were allegedly involved in the attack.

increased trading of put options on stocks of Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley and the Bank of America, three financial services companies whose operations were severely impacted by the attack.

increased demand for put options on stocks of Munich Re and the AXA Group, two reinsurance companies who would be expected to pay out billions of dollars to cover losses resulting from the attack.

a considerable increase in trading of call options of Raytheon stock, Raytheon being a weapons manufacturer that could be expected to gain considerably from the attack.

a higher than normal demand for 5-Year US Treasury Notes

Of these suspicious trading patterns, the flood of put options on the airlines stuck out like a sore thumb. Bloomberg reported that put options on the two airlines surged to an incredible high of 285 times their average levels, but noted that no similar trading occurred on any other airlines. CBS News reported a jump in American Airlines put options 60 times the normal level on the day before the attacks. As a result of the attack, the price of United Airlines stock fell 42 percent from $30.82 to $17.50 per share, and that of American Airlines fell 39 percent, from $29.70 to $18.00 per share - so these 'put option' folk walked away with a bundle of cash.

Given foreknowledge of the attack, a number of reinsurance companies could be expected to suffer huge consequential losses. The world's two largest reinsurance companies, Munich Re and Swiss Re, along with the AXA Group of France, were the worst hit in terms of liabilities and also in terms of trading anomolies. Liabilities for Munich Re were believed to be in the order of $1.5 billion, as were those for their Swiss counterparts. The French AXA Group had estimated liabilities of just over a half a billion dollars. Trading levels on these reinsurance companies was double normal levels in the days leading up to the attack.

Just like the reinsurance companies, financial services companies who were headquartered in the two towers or in the vicinity were the subject of apparent insider trading. Trading of put options on Merrill Lynch, who had offices close to the twin towers, was 48.5 times higher than normal in the four days before 9/11. Trading in put options on Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, who occupied 22 floors of the North Tower, had reached almost 80 times normal levels in the days preceeding the attack.

Of course, not all companies would be expected to lose stock value as a result of the attack. Businesses involved in the military industrial complex could be pretty much guaranteed to gain stock value. Indeed, the stock value of Raytheon, the maker of Patriot and Tomahawk missiles, soared immediately after the attack. Again indicating that certain individuals had foreknowledge of this attack, call options on Raytheon stock increased to six times normal levels on the day prior to the attack.

If you are a well-trained sheeple, then you can probably console yourself by thinking that it was the dreaded Bin Laden and his dodgy cohorts who not only planned and executed the whole thing, but played the stock markets so they could benefit financially from it as well. You might be tempted to believe that fairy tale for the sake of simplicity and to avoid thinking about the possibility that the world is a very different place than you have been lead to believe. However, if it were truly the case that the alleged perpetrators of 9/11 were also those who profited financially from it, the evidence would have been plastered over every newspaper and tv screen.

Instead, despite years of SEC investigations, neither the exact amounts involved in this unprecedented insider-trading swindle nor the names of the individuals involved have been made public. Where they would normally be expected to carry out an open and transparent public investigation, the SEC moved to deputise employees of companies involved in or related to securities trading into its investigation, effectively muzzling them and making it impossible for them to make public any concerns or knowledge they may have. The net result is that this investigation has produced nothing substantial in the way of amounts and names, let alone indictments.

Over five years have passed by and the questions about the financial irregularities around 9/11, amongst many others pertaining to that even, remain unanswered. The official line that the put option frenzy was as a result of "market pessimism" rings very hollow indeed. Such levels of put option trading suggest a market that is not only pessimistic but borderline suicidal. On the contrary, the frenzy was clearly a result of insider trading. It bears all the hallmarks. However, this is no ordinary insider trading, it suggests foreknowledge of a murderous act, and should be investigated accordingly. If it is not being investigated as a matter of utmost urgency, then don't you owe it to yourself to ask "Why not?....."?

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