Mario Scaramella, in a London hospital after doctors found traces of a radioactive substance in his urine, told CNN in an interview broadcast on Wednesday he was feeling well despite the discovery.

The expert on the KGB and its successor organization recalled meeting Litvinenko on November 1 at a sushi restaurant in London and sharing with him emails from a source warning the pair their lives might be in danger.

"(The emails said) him and in a certain sense me - I was mentioned as well but for different reasons - were under the special attention of hostile people and so to take care," Scaramella said.

Asked who these "hostile people" were, he said: "People linked with some clandestine organizations not directly under control of (the) Russian establishment but from Russia ... generally retired people from the security service."

On Saturday, when Scaramella said urine tests had detected traces of polonium 210 - the substance that killed Litvinenko - in his body, he did not accuse anyone of the poisoning.

Litvinenko, a critic of the Kremlin, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his death. The Kremlin denies any involvement.

Speaking to CNN from his hospital bed, Scaramella said he felt fine. "Doctors confirmed that I have no symptoms, no effect of the poisoning, so again I am perfectly well."

He also doubted whether the poisoning took place at the sushi restaurant as has been widely speculated.

"I don't believe it happened there simply because there were no other people, any strange situation," Scaramella said, adding that he did not think he had been a target himself.

The probe into Litvinenko's death on November 23 moved to Moscow on Monday as a team of British detectives flew there to look for leads.

Given that Litvinenko was a Russian citizen, as well as having British citizenship, "our security agencies should not be indifferent to what happened," Vladimir Kolesnikov said in quotes carried by the Kommersant newspaper, deriving from the Interfax news agency. "We should take a procedural decision and carry out our own full, multi-faceted, objective investigation... cooperating with the security agencies of other countries including Britain," he said.

On Tuesday Russia laid down strict ground rules for visiting British counter-terrorism police probing the poisoning and ruled out the extradition of any suspects.

The British team flew in to a frosty reception in the Russian capital on Monday and, according to a British Embassy spokesman here, has already begun their inquiries into a case that has created serious tensions between London and Moscow. While the Russian side has promised to cooperate with the investigation, Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika made it clear that the British officers would only be allowed to work under tight controls.

At a tense press conference, Chaika stressed that only Russian investigators had the right to actually question witnesses in Russia and ruled out any possibility of the British team making any arrests while here or extraditing suspects. "They can't arrest Russian citizens," he said. "If they have to be investigated, we can do that in Russia according to a convention. We can open an inquiry... and put them on trial in Russia."

Chaika also questioned claims made in the British media that the radioactive substance apparently used to poison Litvinenko, polonium-210, originated from Russia.

"We believe there haven't been any losses of polonium here," he said, adding that the British authorities would have to provide hard evidence to the contrary before prosecutors could open an investigation.

Litvinenko, who died in London on November 23, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his poisoning -- a charge sternly denied by the Kremlin which has taken umbrage at coverage of the case in the British media.

"I see no grounds for speculation actively held in Western media that this was the long arm of the KGB or FSB, that Litvinenko knew a lot and was an important intelligence officer. But that does not at all correspond to reality," Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov told the Greek Eleftherotypia newspaper Tuesday. According to Ivanov, himself a secret service veteran, Litvinenko was working in a minor role in the interior ministry when he was hired by the FSB in the mid-1990s for a newly created department combatting organised crime, and was thus unlikely to have been much of an insider.

Andrei Lugovoi, one of three Russians who met with Litvinenko in London on the day he fell ill, said Tuesday that he was willing to be interviewed by the British police team. "I am counting on meeting them in the coming days," Lugovoi, who like Litvinenko is a former secret service agent, said in a telephone interview broadcast on NTV television. "If they show me a list of people that they want to meet and if there are names missing from that list, names that I believe would be interesting to propose to them, then I certainly will," Lugovoi said.

According to the Kommersant newspaper, police are investigating why traces of radiation were found on the planes on which Lugovoi flew to London and returned to Moscow, and also in rooms in two London hotels where he stayed.

Traces of polonium-210 have also been at London football club Arsenal's Emirates Stadium, Britain's Health Protection Agency said Tuesday.

Police last week listed a dozen locations where the substance, of which large quantities were found in Litvinenko's urine, had been detected, but the Emirates Stadium was not one of them. "Minute quantities (of polonium-210) were found which were barely detectable in a couple of localised areas ... there was no risk to public health," a HPA spokeswoman told AFP. "Even the traces that were found were at barely detectable levels."

Because there are levels at which polonium is simply "naturally occurring", the HPA had to check it out and ensure that there was no public health risk, she added.

Three Russian men, Lugovoi, Dmitri Kovtun and Vyacheslav Sokolenko, who met with Litvinenko at a central London hotel on November 1, the day he fell ill and three weeks before he eventually died, also watched a football match between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow at the Emirates Stadium, the Russian newspaper Kommersant said earlier this month.

Meanwhile Italian police raided the home and offices of Mario Scaramella, an Italian contact of Litvinenko, suspecting him of violating Italian waste management laws, the ANSA news agency said Tuesday. Scaramella is allegedly connected to a scheme involving the illegal use of building site waste.

He is in hospital in London after testing positive for a radiocative substance, but doctors have so far failed to detect any symptoms of the radiation poisoning that killed the former Russian spy Litvinenko. The raids targeted Scaramella's home and several offices in Naples, as well as offices he regularly used in Torre del Greco, Marigliano and San Sebastiano in the Naples region.

The mass circulation daily Izvestia repeated allegations that Litvinenko had been involved in trading in radioactive materials and may have been involved with Chechen militants trying to create a "dirty bomb".

Given links between Litvinenko, the exiled Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky and Chechen envoy Akhmed Zakayev, "one can't exclude that the bomb was being created in Britain," Izvestia said.

Gaidar, a 50-year-old economist who served briefly as prime minister in the 1990s under President Boris Yeltsin and is a leader of a Russian liberal opposition party, began vomiting and fainted during a conference in Ireland on November 24, and was rushed into intensive care at a hospital.

Spokesman Valery Natarov said doctors treating Gaidar in Moscow concluded his condition "did not correspond to any disease known to medicine and a toxic factor was possible."

Natarov said Gaidar was taken a clinic in Moscow 60 hours after falling ill, which made it impossible to trace any possible toxic substance which usually remains in the system for up to 48 hours.

Gaidar was discharged on Monday and was feeling "quite well," but would remain under the doctors' supervision, Natarov said.

Gaidar fell ill a day after ex-FSB officer and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko died in London after being poisoned with the radioactive element polonium-210.

Irish doctors concluded he was not poisoned by a radioactive substance, but said his health had suffered "radical changes."

The illness added to growing speculation in Moscow over who might be responsible for Litvinenko's death. Some critics have tied Litvinenko's death and Gaidar's illness to the October killing of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, also a Kremlin critic.

Gaidar is a liberal economist whose criticism of the Kremlin was largely limited to economic issues. He is unpopular among many Russians who blame the liberal, Western-backed economic policies he pursued as prime minister for the decline in their living standards following the Soviet collapse.

"I have been officially informed that our meeting with Scotland Yard detectives will take place today and proceed with the participation of employees of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office,'' Lugovoi said, according to ITAR-Tass.

Vyacheslav Sokolenko, a business associate, confirmed in an interview with The Associated Press that Lugovoi would be meeting with British investigators.

Lugovoi, who is also a former Russian agent, attended a soccer match at Emirates Stadium on Nov. 1 after meeting Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko fell ill that day and died Nov. 23 in London. Toxicologists found polonium-210 in his body.

The radiation found at the soccer stadium was "barely detectable'' and posed no public health risk, said Katherine Lewis, spokeswoman for the Health Protection Agency.

ABC News reported that British detectives had identified Lugovoi as a prime suspect in the poisoning. The report cited an unnamed senior British official.

Alexander Goldfarb, a friend of Litvinenko's, said he doubted that Lugovoi played a role in the killing.

"I frankly doubt that he was the hit man because hit men are usually people hiding in the dark,'' Goldfarb told the AP. "I think it's one of his associates, I think he was used unawares ... Now his life is in danger because he knows a lot.''

On Tuesday, Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika said that his office would fully cooperate with the British investigators, but all figures in the case would be questioned by Russian prosecutors in the presence of the British officers.

On his deathbed, Litvinenko, a strong critic of the Russian government, blamed President Vladimir Putin for the poisoning. The Kremlin has vehemently denied the accusations.

Lugovoi, who had become a businessman, has said that he knew Litvinenko for a decade. He said Litvinenko had contacted him from London about a year ago with some business-related proposals, and that they had met intermittently in London since then.

Lugovoi traveled to London three times during the month before Litvinenko's death and met with Litvinenko four times, according to Russian media.

The case has further strained already tense relations between Russia and Britain, which has infuriated the Kremlin by giving asylum to tycoon and fierce Kremlin critic Boris Berezovsky and Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakayev in addition to Litvinenko, a former Federal Security Service officer.

Lugovoi was at one point a bodyguard for former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar, who also recently fell ill with an illness that Russian doctors have been unable to diagnose. They say they suspect poisoning, but are unable to detect a toxic substance, a Gaidar aide has said.

In comments that appeared to sharply limit the activity of the Scotland Yard team, Yuri Chaika, Russia's General Prosecutor, made it clear that if there is to be a "Litvinenko trial," it will be in Russia. British courts have repeatedly refused high profile Russian extraditions, including that of Mr Litvinenko's allies, the oligarch Boris Berezovsky and the Chechen exile Akhmed Zakayev. It seems Moscow is in no mood to help now the boot is on the other foot.

Though Mr Chaika vowed that the Russian side would do its "utmost" to help the British investigation, everything he said appeared to indicate the opposite, a state of affairs that mirrors increasingly icy relations between London and Moscow on the subject.

Efforts by the Yard's anti-terrorist command to talk to one of the central figures in the case - businessman and former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi - were also facing unexpected delay after it emerged that he was being treated in a hospital for an unexplained ailment. Mr Chaika said: "According to our information, he is ill and currently in hospital. If doctors allow, he will certainly be questioned." News that Mr Lugovoi is in hospital was unexpected: last week he was tested for polonium-210, the lethal radioactive isotope which killed Mr Litvinenko, and allegedly given the all clear.

Mr Lugovoi emerged as a key actor in the month-long drama of Mr Litvinenko's poisoning and subsequent death after he visited London three times in October. Mr Lugovoi met Mr Litvinenko four times on those trips to discuss potential business ventures.

But he again denied any involvement in the poisoning and claimed he is being set up as a suspect. He told Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency: "Once I give all the necessary testimony to the law enforcement organs, I intend publicly to put an end to speculation about my supposed involvement in this story that has caused such a stir."

Mr Chaika indicated that his own officials would conduct the interrogation of any witnesses, with the British allowed only to listen in but not allowed to interject or pose its own questions spontaneously.

A list of individuals who the Yard officers want to question has been submitted to their Russian counterparts. It is understood to include two Russian men who were in London at the time Mr Litvinenko fell ill.

Mr Chaika said Russia's Federal Security Service would not be dragged into the investigation.

A team of nine anti-terrorism officers arrived in Moscow on Monday briefed to find out all it can about Mr Litvinenko's death.

The wrongdoings attributed to the Israeli nationals were decriminalized after the four were convicted. In talks with Israeli officials and families of the convicts the Russian officials reportedly hinted at the possibility of "the exchange".

Moscow and Tel-Aviv signed the extradition agreement two years ago. Russia has already used it once when Israel extradited a Russian-Israeli suspect on condition that if convicted he would serve his prison term in Israel. Russia honored its commitments under the treaty.

But ever since the Israeli jewelers were found guilty in Moscow two years ago numerous requests made by Israel to let them return home have been flatly rejected by Russia. Even personal requests made by top Israeli ministers were ignored, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

One of the convicts has recently wrote a letter to his relatives where he claimed that in October 2005 he and his inmates were visited in their cell by an unidentified man who informed them that their task was to bring Nevzlin back to Russia and assured them that if they agreed to help Russian law enforcers they would be discharged from prison; if not they would have to serve their entire terms in Russia.

The NEWSru Israel website asked Leonid Nevzlin who currently lives in Israel to comment on Yedioth Ahronoth's report. "I have heard that those convicts were warned that if Israel refused to extradite Nevzlin they could abandon hope for early release or transfer to an Israeli prison. I also know that my extradition has many times been discussed at meetings between top Israeli and Russian foreign ministry officials but those conversations were never officially recorded," the entrepreneur said.

Nevzlin also pointed out to an inaccuracy in Yedioth Ahronoth's report. "In truth, there is no permanent extradition pact between Russia and Israel saying that criminals shall serve their sentences at home. Such an accord was achieved once, on the Zhuravlyov case (Multiple murder suspect Andrei Zhuravlyov, aka Terrazini, was extradited to Russia in 2002, after the court said he had obtained Israeli citizenship unlawfully). As to the jewelers' case a separate agreement was drawn up," Nevzlin said.

Nevzlin said he had no reason to doubt the facts unearthed by Yedioth Ahronoth. "I view [Russia's actions] as a hostage-taking in spite of the fact that those people had been arrested before I moved to Israel. In fact, what we deal with here is blackmail where innocent Israeli are being used as bargaining chips," Nevzlin said.

Subanov said he had traveled to the base but did not have details on the victim or the serviceman.

A spokesman for the base was not immediately available for comment.

The United States maintains the Manas base mostly in support of U.S. forces operating in nearby Afghanistan.

"Kyrgyzstan's friends in the person of the U.S. are pushing the country toward democracy, where freedom of speech reigns, but we are not getting richer or better-fed from this democracy," Adakhan Madumarov told professors and students of the Kyrgyz State University.

He cited ex-Soviet neighbor Kazakhstan with its authoritarian government, whose economy has been developing rapidly in recent years on the back of oil and gas revenues.

"For example, in Kazakhstan there is discipline, while democracy reigns in Kyrgyzstan," Madumarov said.

Madumarov also said Kyrgyz mass media negatively impact the state's development, because they write about murders and scandals. He urged the media to stop "shattering the process of strengthening statehood" and to "serve the unification of society."

After the mass opposition protests that ousted long-serving leader Askar Akayev, Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power in a democratic vote. However, his term in office has been marred by corruption scandals and mass poverty. At the beginning of November, thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the center of the capital, Bishkek, demanding that Bakiyev resign or delegate some of his powers to parliament.

Bakiyev signed a new constitution November 9, based on a compromise agreement drafted by opposition and pro-government lawmakers. The president lost the right to dissolve parliament, and parliament gained the authority to appoint the prime minister and the cabinet.
is quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

Political turmoil and economic hardship has continued to plague the country since the overthrow of the government in March 2005 known as the 'tulip revolution', widely believed to have been backed by U.S.-funded NGOs.

"Kyrgyzstan's friends in the person of the U.S. are pushing the country toward democracy, where freedom of speech reigns, but we are not getting richer or better-fed from this democracy," Adakhan Madumarov told professors and students of the Kyrgyz State University.

He cited ex-Soviet neighbor Kazakhstan with its authoritarian government, whose economy has been developing rapidly in recent years on the back of oil and gas revenues.

"For example, in Kazakhstan there is discipline, while democracy reigns in Kyrgyzstan," Madumarov said.

Madumarov also said Kyrgyz mass media negatively impact the state's development, because they write about murders and scandals. He urged the media to stop "shattering the process of strengthening statehood" and to "serve the unification of society."

After the mass opposition protests that ousted long-serving leader Askar Akayev, Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power in a democratic vote. However, his term in office has been marred by corruption scandals and mass poverty. At the beginning of November, thousands of opposition supporters gathered in the center of the capital, Bishkek, demanding that Bakiyev resign or delegate some of his powers to parliament.

Bakiyev signed a new constitution November 9, based on a compromise agreement drafted by opposition and pro-government lawmakers. The president lost the right to dissolve parliament, and parliament gained the authority to appoint the prime minister and the cabinet, RIA Novosti reported.