A recent interest has been sparked in my original draft from my dark sci-fi story Chronilces. So I have decided to suspend posting further work with regards to the story on the forum. Im certainly hoping to see the story hit a paper back format but thats way in the early days. And could be me been a little too hopeful. Fingers crossed anyway. I'll keep the blog updated as I hear.
A period of tense relations between Britain and Russia is expected following the British request for the extradition of a former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi over the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. However, the British government is determined that the criminal investigation should take priority over any diplomatic difficulties and is quite prepared for a delicate period ahead with Moscow as the extradition request takes its course. Indeed, it will defend its position by sticking by what it regards as a classic case of the rule of law being applied in a criminal case. In this way, it hopes that Moscow will be forced onto the defensive. "This remains a legal matter," a foreign office official told me. The extradition request will be made under the 1957 Council of Europe European Convention on Extradition. It will be government to government. However, Russia has the right, under Article 6, to refuse to extradite one of its nationals. If that happens, the case is supposed to be referred to local authorities. In any event, the Russian constitution does not allow the extradition of a Russian citizen. Article 61.1 says: "A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported from Russia or extradited to another State." So the issue of extradition appears closed. The argument will then move to whether Russia should hold its own trial. Under the European Convention, it should at least explore this. Under its constitution, it can do so. Britain has to send a detailed account of the case so presumably that will include the evidence against Mr Lugovoi. 'Revenge attack' According to Martin Sixsmith, a former BBC correspondent in Moscow and author of a recent book on the case called The Litvinenko File, the British request for extradition will not succeed. The polonium probably came from a government laboratory at Dubna not far from Moscow Martin Sixsmith "Russia will say no. There is no extradition treaty so any extradition has to be agreed between the governments. Russia has made it clear that they will not comply with any request," he said. "Russia claims that if the evidence is overwhelming, then it could try the case in its own courts, but this is very unlikely to happen. It has itself opened a case not only into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko but into the attempted murder of Dmitri Kovtun [another former Russian agent who also met Mr Litvinenko in London], thereby portraying Kovtun as a victim. "However, their investigation is getting absolutely nowhere and they are using it as an excuse to come over and quiz the Russian exiles who live in the UK. "They saw Boris Berezovsky [an exiled former oligarch who made millions during the Yeltsin era] who told me they had not even asked about Litvinenko but about his bank accounts, so that shows where their interest lies. Akhmed Zakayev [a Chechen exile accused of terrorism by the Russians] refused to see them. The whole thing is at an impasse, but at least the CPS has been brave enough to go through the motions. "You have to see this whole thing as part of the war between President Putin and his supporters and their opponents, which has burst into the open. "Specifically this was probably a revenge attack by the Russian FSB against Litvinenko, a former agent who blew the whistle on corruption in the FSB in 1998, though I think it probably only went up to colonel level for approval, not to the top. "The polonium probably came from a government laboratory at Dubna not far from Moscow. The evidence in this case will be mainly circumstantial, based on the polonium trail, especially in places where Litvinenko himself did not go." Russian request The Russians have not only opened their own case but have requested the extradition of Mr Berezovsky, who told the British newspaper The Guardian this year: "We need to use force to change this regime. It isn't possible to change this regime through democratic means. There can be no change without force, pressure." The UK has refused to extradite Boris Berezovsky to Russia The Russian argument is that Britain is harbouring people who advocate violence and that Moscow's request has sufficient merit to be accepted. Britain has always refused to extradite Mr Berezovsky, who has been granted refugee status in the UK. However it has warned him not to involve himself in anything that could undermine his status and the foreign office is carrying out a second investigation into his activities. He was warned once before. The whole series of incidents also has to be put against the backdrop of the currently strained relations between Russia and the West in general. President Putin recently appeared to imply that US foreign policy could be compared to that of the Nazis. There was a tense EU-Russia summit last week during which the German Chancellor Angela Merkel complained about protesters being prevented from even travelling to the venue. Russia has complained about US plans to set up an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even though US officials say Russian defences would not be affected. If Russia wanted to make life even more difficult for Western governments, it could block further sanctions on Iran over Tehran's nuclear activities, though it has always acted with caution. It could also hold out against a UN Security Council resolution on limited independence for Kosovo. But it has its own agenda in these areas, which might equally be unaffected by this dispute. The main effect will probably be bilateral, with relations with Britain likely to go into cold storage for some time.
President Vladimir Putin's decision to suspend Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe, or CFE, treaty is a potent political signal. It is yet another sign of the worsening relationship between Moscow and the West. It shows that this relationship was not improved in any substantial way by the informal meeting at the start of this month between the US and Russian presidents at the Bush family's holiday home at Kennebunkport in Maine. It is another diplomatic warning shot from Mr Putin across the bows of the Bush administration. And with crucial issues like Iran's nuclear programme and the political future of Kosovo looming at the United Nations, it raises a new set of questions about how far Russia might go to block initiatives backed by Washington and its key allies. President Putin's move will be taken as yet another sign of a more assertive foreign policy - a policy buoyed up by Moscow's rising income from oil and natural gas The Russians have been threatening to suspend their participation in the CFE treaty for several months. An emergency meeting in mid-June to discuss the issue made little if any progress. The CFE treaty of 1990 was one of the most significant arms control agreements of the Cold War years. It set strict limits on the number of offensive weapons - tanks, aircraft, artillery and so on - that the members of the Warsaw Pact and Nato could deploy in a broadly-defined Europe, stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals. In the wake of the collapse of communism, the treaty was revised in 1999, in part to address Russian concerns. The most recent round of talks on the treaty failed This revised treaty has never been ratified by the Nato countries who first want Russia to withdraw all of its forces from the former Soviet Republics of Georgia and Moldova. Now Russia's patience has run out. President Putin's decree to suspend application of the treaty is not the same as a full-scale withdrawal - that would require a formal notification of the other parties. This suspension is a unilateral Russian measure and its practical impact will be limited. Various routine inspections, exchanges of data, and so on will presumably be halted. Irrelevant? In many ways the CFE treaty is not hugely relevant today. The Cold War is over and whatever new tensions there may be between Russia and the West, nobody envisages a return to an armed stand-off on the European continent. Nonetheless Mr Putin's decision matters. For a start it raises questions about yet one more arms control treaty at a time when disarmament experts fear that the whole network of arms control treaties established during the Cold War years is increasingly under strain. The United States pulled out of another key agreement, the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, in December 2001. In a sense Mr Putin is just demonstrating that what the Americans can do in the name of their vital interests, so Russia can also threaten in the name of its national interest. President Putin's move will be taken as yet another sign of a more assertive foreign policy - a policy buoyed up by Moscow's rising income from oil and natural gas. But analysts wonder if this is really a sign of strength. For all its energy revenues, Russia remains a shadow of the former Soviet Union in the superpower stakes. Russian experts argue that Mr Putin realises this. But in certain key areas, not least missile defence, he wants to be treated by Washington as an equal. Russian opposition to US plans to deploy limited missile defence in Poland and the Czech Republic is at the heart of their current disagreements. But Russia's ever more muscular noises that it might block a proposed United Nations deal on the political future of Kosovo adds a worrying dimension to what up to now has been largely a rhetorical row. Add in "local difficulties" like the dispute between London and Moscow over the murder of a former Russian agent living in Britain and there is real danger that relations between Russia and the West could be heading back to the freezer. It is clearly nonsense to speak of a new Cold War. But several Russian foreign policy experts have expressed concern that relations could deteriorate significantly. Mr Putin's position, they say, is more sophisticated and perhaps more nuanced than some Russian spokesmen's pronouncements might indicate. Mr Putin has gone some way, for example, in acknowledging that Iran does represent a potential missile threat. But Mr Putin is drawing on a strong well of anti-Americanism in Russia's military and foreign policy establishment. That is why Mr Putin's whole approach risks sounding, and indeed becoming, blunter and more dogmatic than even he probably wants.
Two new RAF Typhoon jets shadowed a Russian bomber heading for Britain, the Ministry of Defence has said. The jets were scrambled on Friday 17 August to identify the Russian aircraft, which turned back before it reached UK skies. The MoD said: "RAF Typhoons from Numbers 3(F) and XI Squadrons launched to shadow a Russian Bear-H aircraft over the North Atlantic Ocean." The BBC's Gordon Corera said the incident was not a security threat. Active standby He said a similar incident occurred in July, but that this represented a new, more provocative Russian foreign policy. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, has recently resumed the Soviet-era practice of sending bomber aircraft on long-range flights. Britain's £67m Typhoons were only put on active standby in July. Typhoons, the RAF's newest fast jet aircraft - which are based at RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire - cover the UK Quick Reaction Alert (QRA) commitment together with Tornado F3 aircraft based at RAF Leeming and RAF Leuchars. Over the next nine months, the Typhoons will progressively replace Tornado F3s, the aircraft which have performed this duty for many years. The Typhoon was designed during the Cold War, when European leaders looked to the Soviet Union as their main threat from the air. The RAF has ordered 144 Typhoons, which can accelerate from standing to take-off in under seven seconds. They were developed by companies in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy.