British police yesterday raced to identify an unknown substance that has left a former Russian double agent fighting for his life, as Moscow said it had no information about the “tragic” incident.
Specialist officers from the counterterrorism squad were helping the investigation into the collapse of Sergei Skripal on Sunday, which has sparked fears of a poison plot.
Media reports named the 66-year-old, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, as the man found unconscious on a bench in a shopping center in the southwestern English city of Salisbury.
Photo: AP
Police said a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s found with him are being treated for “suspected exposure to an unknown substance” and are in critical condition in intensive care.
A “major incident” was declared and the area remained cordoned off yesterday, while a restaurant on a street nearby, Zizzi, was also closed as a “precaution.”
London Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner for Special Operations Mark Rowley said specialist members of his team were supporting the investigation.
“Clearly, it’s a very unusual case and the critical thing is to get to the bottom of what has caused this incident as quickly as possible,” he told BBC radio.
Local police said they are keeping “an open mind.”
Skripal was in 2006 sentenced to 13 years in Russian jail for betraying Russian intelligence agents to Britain’s MI6 secret service.
He was pardoned before being flown to Britain as part of a high-profile spy swap between Russia and the US in 2010.
His mysterious collapse has revived memories of the death of Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-Russian spy and Kremlin critic was who poisoned in 2006 with radioactive polonium in London.
A British inquiry ruled in 2016 that Russian President Vladimir Putin “probably approved” the killing and identified two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, as the prime suspects.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov yesterday said that Russia has no information on the Salisbury incident.
“We see that such a tragic situation happened, but we don’t have information about what could be the cause, what this person did,” he said.
London had not made any requests for assistance in the investigation, he said, but added: “Moscow is always ready for cooperation.”
Lugovoi, who is a lawmaker in the Russian legislature, responded to the British media reports by saying that Britain “suffers from phobias.”
“Because of the presidential elections [on March 18], our actions in Syria, the situation with Skripal could be spun into an anti-Russian provocation,” he told the Interfax news agency.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
IMPORTANT BACKER: China seeks to expel US influence from the Indo-Pacific region and supplant Washington as the global leader, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng said China is preparing for war to seize Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said in Washington on Friday, warning that Taiwan’s fall would trigger a regional “domino effect” endangering US security. In a speech titled “Maintaining the Peaceful and Stable Status Quo Across the Taiwan Strait is in Line with the Shared Interests of Taiwan and the United States,” Chiu said Taiwan’s strategic importance is “closely tied” to US interests. Geopolitically, Taiwan sits in a “core position” in the first island chain — an arc stretching from Japan, through Taiwan and the Philippines, to Borneo, which is shared by
RSS