Radioactive traces found at 12 sites in Britain

More radiation checks
The Russian Transport Ministry announced increased radiation checks on international flights and at international airports across the country Thursday.

The three British planes were on the London-Moscow route, but also made stops in Barcelona, Frankfurt and Athens over a period of three weeks. Thousands of passengers aboard some 200 flights have been asked to report any symptoms of radiation poisoning.

It was not immediately clear whether the traces found onboard could have come from passengers who may have come into contact with Litvinenko, or whether a radioactive substance could have been smuggled on board. Authorities refused to specify whether the substance found was polonium-210.

Around 33,000 passengers and 3,000 crew and airport personnel had contact with the 221 flights on the three British planes, said airline spokeswoman Kate Gay. She said the government contacted the airline but would not say what aroused its suspicions.

UK carrier: ‘Risk to public health is low’
British Airways has said that “the risk to public health is low,” but it has published a list of the flights affected on its Web site and told customers on these flights to contact a special help-line set up by the Health Ministry.

International Atomic Energy Agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Britain has not asked the U.N. watchdog agency for help in tracing the polonium, “but we stand ready to assist, and we communicated that.”

Alessia Pierdomenico / Reuters Police stand guard Wednesday outside the Itsu restaurant in the Piccadilly area of central London. Radiation was found at the sushi restaurant where former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko met Mario Scaramella, an Italian KGB expert, on November 1.

The 43-year-old Litvinenko, a fierce Kremlin critic, had blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for his poisoning from his deathbed.

He told police he believed he had been targeted for investigating the October killing of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Putin’s government who was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building.

Moscow denies involvement
The Russian government has denied any involvement in either death.

Gaidar, a liberal economist whose moderate criticism of the Kremlin is largely limited to economic issues, served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin in post-Soviet Russia’s most liberal and democratically oriented government. While he is one of the leaders of a liberal political party, liberals have been severely sidelined under Putin and he is not prominent.

Gaidar is unpopular among many Russians who blame the Western-backed economic policies he pursued as prime minister for the decline in their living standards following the Soviet collapse.

His daughter, Maria, is a well-known liberal youth activist and vociferous Kremlin critic.

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