Britain, Russia tensions spike over new nerve agent case
AFP / Chris J RatcliffeThe couple collapsed at a house in the English town of Amesbury on Saturday, but it was days before police confirmed they had been exposed to a nerve agent
Britain demanded answers from Russia Thursday after a couple was exposed to the same nerve agent used on a former Russian spy and his daughter in an attempted murder blamed on Moscow.
But Russia quickly hit back, denouncing Britain for playing "dirty political games" and demanding London apologise.
The British couple fell ill on Saturday in Amesbury, a small town near the southwestern English city of Salisbury where former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia collapsed on March 4.
That incident triggered a major diplomatic crisis with Russia after Britain and its allies accused Moscow of trying to kill the Skripals -- a charge strongly denied by the Kremlin.
Novichok is a military-grade nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Speaking to parliament on Thursday, Interior Minister Sajid Javid said a link between the cases was "clearly the main line of inquiry".
"It is now time that the Russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on," he said.
"It is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate or accidental targets, or for our streets, our parks, our towns to be dumping grounds for poison."
The remarks sparked a sharp response from Moscow.
"We urge British law enforcement not to get involved in dirty political games," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters.
"This government and its representatives will have to apologise to Russia and the international community," she said.
- Drug paraphernalia found -
AFP / Gillian HANDYSIDENew UK Novichok poisoning
Police said tests on the couple, named locally as Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, revealed they were exposed to Novichok, later confirming they had handled "a contaminated item".
It was not immediately clear what the item was, nor if the substance was from the same batch used on the Skripals.
Sturgess collapsed first, Rowley hours later.
Police initially suspected that the couple had consumed a contaminated batch of illegal drugs, saying they had found "paraphernalia" in the house.
A friend of Rowley's told AFP that he was a drug user and Sturgess lived in a homeless hostel in Salisbury.
England's chief medical officer Sally Davies said the public should "be careful of picking up any unknown or already dangerous objects such as needles and syringes".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the case as "very worrying" but said Russia had no information "about what substances were used and how they were used".
- 'We cannot detect it' -
Around 100 counter-terror officers are working alongside police on the investigation, and several sites in Salisbury and Amesbury that were visited by the couple have been cordoned off, including a park and Sturgess's homeless hostel in Salisbury, as well as a pharmacy, church and the house in Amesbury.
AFP / Geoff CADDICKSam Hobson, a resident of Amesbury village in southern England, said he had seen the couple after they were taken ill, describing them as if they were "in another world"
Officials said there was only a "low risk" to the wider public, but urged anyone who had visited the affected sites wash their clothes and wipe down personal items.
Chemical weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon told AFP the couple likely came into contact accidentally with Novichok residue that may have been discarded.
"The whole search is hugely challenging," he added. "Novichok's designed by the Russians to overmatch NATO chemical defence capabilities, we cannot detect it."
The Novichok used in March was believed to have been smeared on the Skripal's front door.
Police said there was no evidence the latest victims visited any of the sites linked to the Skripals, which have since been decontaminated.
- 'In another world' -
Sam Hobson, a friend of the couple, said he had visited Salisbury with them the day before they fell ill.
Hobson said he went to Rowley's house on Saturday as Sturgess was being taken to hospital and stayed with Rowley for several hours until he too began to complain of feeling ill.
"He was sweating loads, dribbling, and you couldn't speak to him," Hobson said.
"There was no response from him, he didn't even know I was there. It's like he was in another world, hallucinating."
The victim's brother, Matthew Rowley, told ITV News the Salisbury incidents were "outrageous" and said he had not received any information about his brother's condition.
Cara Charles-Barks, the chief executive of Salisbury District Hospital, said both of the patients remained in a critical condition.
"Having been exposed to a nerve agent, they are clearly acutely unwell," she added.
One dead, dozens of Chinese tourists missing as Thai boat capsizes
AFP / Kritsada MUENHAWONGThai paramedics attend to rescued passengers after the boat went down off Phuket
One man died and dozens of Chinese tourists remain missing after a boat capsized as high winds whipped up rough seas off the Thai island of Phuket, officials said late Thursday, confirming the rescue had been suspended for the night.
The Phoenix was carrying around 90 passengers when it began to keel over after it was hit by massive waves, prompting a rescue operation that stretched into the night and left authorities scrambling to react.
The body of a man wearing a life jacket with the logo of the Phoenix boat was pulled from the sea late Thursday.
Footage shown live on the public relations Facebook page of Phuket showed the body being brought to shore. The victim was found near one of a string of islands off Phuket's coast.
"There are 53 people missing," the governor of southern Phuket, Noraphat Plodthong told reporters. "We have stopped the rescue... we'll start again in the morning."
Thailand has a sketchy health and safety record and accidents are common on its roads and busy waterways -- especially during the monsoon season which is now biting.
The kingdom is already in the global spotlight for a dramatic rescue mission in the north of the country, after 12 boys and their football coach were trapped in a cave complex.
Television footage taken at a pier in Phuket showed stunned tourists huddling in blankets, while several women cried as medics tended to the injured.
The boat was returning to Phuket from Koh Racha at around 4:00 pm (0900 GMT) when a storm hit, according to the captain, who identified himself as Somjing Boontham in a televised interview.
He said the boat was hit by five metre-high waves, which flooded the boat that started to slowly keel over, prompting him to warn passengers to put on life jackets and trigger inflatable life rafts.
"So I sent someone to them to wear life jackets... They were all Chinese visitors -- apart from two farang," he said using Thai vernacular for Westerners, adding around half the passengers were unaccounted for.
- Tourist magnet -
Phuket is a magnet for overseas visitors including Western sun-seekers and huge numbers of Chinese tourists who make up the bulk of the 35 million people expected to visit the kingdom this year.
AFP / Kritsada MUENHAWONGOne body has so far been recovered from the waters off Phuket but some 53 people are still missing
Governor Noraphat said Phuket officials had issued a weather warning on Wednesday alerting the public about impending storms.
"There were high winds this evening," he said, adding a further 10 pleasure boats were stranded at sea and being attended to by rescue vessels from the police and navy.
Two other separate boat capsizes were reported in the same area Thursday evening.
A yacht called the Senerita carrying 39 people also capsized in the high seas, the officials added.
All of the passengers in both cases were pulled from the sea alive.
Photographs circulating on social media showed soaked and exhausted passengers -- most of them Asian -- in life jackets being pulled on inflatable rafts to safety.
It was not immediately clear which boat they belonged to.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency said its consulate in the southern Thai city of Songkhla had been informed by local authorities that two vessels with Chinese nationals on board had capsized and that efforts were under way to rescue them.
"There are some Chinese tourists on board," Xinhua reported the consulate-general as saying. "They are mostly one-day individual visitors (day trippers) or staff and their families of a Chinese company."
The report, which did not name either of the vessels, said that "the majority of 133 passengers on two boats overturned by rough seas in southern Thailand were saved."
However, it was based on information received by the consulate at 8.30 pm (1330 GMT), some three hours before Thai officials later confirmed some 53 people were missing and that the search had been called off until morning.
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