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Russian duma member Andrey Lugovoy - a prime suspect in the dramatic radiation assassination of FSB turncoat Alexander Litvinenko - has passed a polygraph test administered by private technicians, possibly clearing him of involvement in the 2006 killing of Litvinenko in London, where he was living after alleging Russian involvement in the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings. Information on the qualifications or affiliation of the polygraph technicians wasn’t provided.

Exercise Armageddon Tomorrow in 1913 the Irish Volunteers, predecessor to the Irish Republican Army, was  founded in Dublin, marking the start of the current phase of “Physical Force Irish Republicanism.” We recall one of the most daring and bizarre chapters in the last hundred years of that conflict: Exercise Armageddon. The secret contingency plans for an invasion of northern Ireland were drawn up by the general staff of the Irish Defense Forces at the height of the sectarian violence that swept the northern six counties in 1969, following a televised address by Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch in which he declared “the Stormont government is no longer in control” and “the present situation cannot be allowed to continue.” The two-phase plan would start with Irish special forces attacking high-profile targets in Belfast, such as the BBC broadcast center. As British forces redeployed from the border to aid in the defense of Belfast, company-sized flying columns of the diminutive Irish Army would cross the frontier in an unannounced and sudden incursion to secure the nationalist towns of Derry and Newry. Never put into action, documents detailing the plan were declassified by the Irish government in 2009.
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Exercise Armageddon

Tomorrow in 1913 the Irish Volunteers, predecessor to the Irish Republican Army, was  founded in Dublin, marking the start of the current phase of “Physical Force Irish Republicanism.”

We recall one of the most daring and bizarre chapters in the last hundred years of that conflict: Exercise Armageddon. The secret contingency plans for an invasion of northern Ireland were drawn up by the general staff of the Irish Defense Forces at the height of the sectarian violence that swept the northern six counties in 1969, following a televised address by Irish Prime Minister Jack Lynch in which he declared “the Stormont government is no longer in control” and “the present situation cannot be allowed to continue.” The two-phase plan would start with Irish special forces attacking high-profile targets in Belfast, such as the BBC broadcast center. As British forces redeployed from the border to aid in the defense of Belfast, company-sized flying columns of the diminutive Irish Army would cross the frontier in an unannounced and sudden incursion to secure the nationalist towns of Derry and Newry.

Never put into action, documents detailing the plan were declassified by the Irish government in 2009.

Prince Charles Enjoys Veto

Ministers have been forced to seek permission from Prince Charles to pass at least a dozen government bills, according to a Guardian investigation into a secretive constitutional loophole that gives him the right to veto legislation that might affect his private interests.

Neither the government nor Clarence House will reveal what, if any, alterations to legislation Charles has requested, or exactly why he was asked to grant consent to such a wide range of laws.