Quote:(ATLANTA) — Police in Atlanta say a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee has been missing for more than a week.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Thursday that 35-year-old Timothy Jerrell Cunningham was last seen Feb. 12. Police said he called in sick from work that day and hasn’t been heard from since.

WSB-TV reported his parents arrived from Maryland at his Atlanta home and found his car, keys, wallet and phone. They said he also left his dog at home.
His father Terrell Cunningham told the television station that his son graduated from Morehouse and got a master’s degree and doctorate from Harvard University. He worked as an epidemic intelligence officer and has been deployed for public health emergencies.
Anyone with information on his whereabouts was asked to call Atlanta police.

Quote:The bright and talented young man studied at Harvard and is a commander at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He left work feeling sick, and hasn’t been seen since. His family has said that certain communications they had with him before he disappeared left them worried. But no matter what was happening, he would never abandon his beloved dog, a job he loved, or his friends and loved one, they said.

Quote:He is a commander in the US Health Service Corps, his family said, and as part of his job is sent to respond to public health emergencies like the Zika virus, the Ebola virus, or natural disasters, ABC reported. According to his CDC bio, he’s a team lead with the CDC’s Division of Population Health and trained with the CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. His family said he was recently promoted to Commander, 11 Alive reported.

Quote:The day before mysteriously disappearing, Center for Disease Control and Prevention scientist, Tim Cunningham, told a neighbor to tell his wife to delete his phone number from her cell phone, reports WHAS 11. 

Cunningham vanished February 12th after meeting with his supervisor, who explained to him why he was passed over for a promotion.

Atlanta Police Major Michael O’Connor released new details of Tim Cunningham’s disappearance in a news conference on Tuesday.

On the way home, Cunningham tried to call his mother in Maryland. She missed the call, and Cunningham did not leave a voicemail, Atlanta Police Major Michael O’Connor said Cunningham hasn’t been heard from since.

Cunningham’s parents drove from Maryland to their son’s Atlanta home when they had trouble getting in contact with him. They said that two windows at Cunningham’s house were open: one to a bathroom and one to a laundry room. They said that was unusual because Cunningham was environmentally friendly.

Police did confirm that Cunningham told a neighbor to tell his wife to erase his phone number from her phone on the day before he disappeared. O’Connor said they’d talked to that neighbor but offered no other details about what that exchange might have meant.

In a bizarre twist, police managed to locate Cunningham’s cell phone, car keys and wallet at his home.
“Every single belonging that we are aware was located in that residence,” O’Connor said.

Asked if foul play could have been involved, O’Connor said, “There’s no evidence suggesting anything,”

When reporters pressed for more details, O’Connor responded, “There is a lot that I cannot explain.”

Cunningham’s family and friends have raised more than $22,000 as a reward to help locate the missing CDC scientist.

Quote:Nationwide manhunt underway for missing CDC worker; Ebola containment aircraft
dispatched to Little Rock then back to Atlanta.

Is there any connection between the missing CDC public health commander and the
Ebola containment aircraft recently deployed to Arkansas?



'ATLANTA (INTELLIHUB) — A nationwide manhunt is now underway for missing Center
For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Public Health Service Commander Timothy
Cunningham, 35, who was last seen on Feb 12 after he cut his workday short and told a
neighbor of his to have the neighbor’s wife erase his phone number from her contact list.

Records show the rock star epidemiologist, who had previously responded to several
major Ebola virus and Zika outbreaks, worked on Feb. 5th, 6th, and 7th (a Monday,
Tuesday, and Wednesday) before calling in sick on Feb. 8th, and 9th (Thursday, and Friday).

Cunningham reportedly returned to work on the following Monday, Feb. 12, where subsequently
left early after telling co-workers he felt ill; this would be the last time Cunningham was spotted.

The Public Health Service commander called and had a conversation with his sister around 9 a.m.
on the morning of his disappearance and even tried to reach out to his mother via telephone shortly
after but was not successful, reports say.

The family of Mr. Cunningham and Crime Stoppers of Atlanta have put up a $10,000 reward for
information leading to an arrest and indictment in the case, although no evidence of foul play exists,
WSB-TV 2 reports.

A GoFundMe page set up on Timothy Cunningham’s behalf has raised just over $24,000 of the
$100,000 stated goal at the time of this article’s publication.

An excerpt from the page reads:
"Dr. Timothy Cunningham has been missing from his home in North West Atlanta, Georgia,
since February 12, 2018. Tim is a very loving, brilliant, and responsible young man.
Therefore, his sudden disappearance is highly irregular and very much out of character
for him.
His friends, family, and colleagues are desperately searching for him.
We are launching this fundraising campaign to collect funds that will be used to establish a
reward for information that will help locate Tim. Your contributions will be greatly appreciated."

The search has turned up no new leads, as of yet...'

Quote:Russian spy: Police seek to identify nerve agent source. [UK]

'Counter-terrorism officers are working to uncover the origin of the nerve agent used in the attempted
murder of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury.
The pair are still critically ill after being found on a bench in Salisbury.



A police officer, who was in intensive care, is now "engaging and talking with people" but the situation
is still serious, the home secretary says. Amber Rudd said there was "nothing soft" about the UK's response.

She told Radio 4's Today: "Let me be clear, we are absolutely robust about any crimes committed on these
streets of the UK." Police said government scientists had identified the nerve agent used, but would not make
that information public at this stage.

The source familiar with the investigation told the BBC it was likely to be rarer than the Sarin gas thought to
have been used in Syria and in an attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
And it was said not to be VX - the nerve agent used to kill the half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un
in Malaysia last year.

Col Skripal, 66, was convicted of passing secrets to MI6 but given refuge in the UK in 2010 as part of a "spy swap".
It is known that he and his 33-year-old daughter had visited the Bishop's Mill pub and Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury
before they were found collapsed on a bench near the Maltings shopping centre.

A witness, who saw the pair at the restaurant, told the BBC Mr Skripal was acting "very strange" and was "very agitated".
"He seemed to lose his temper... and he just started screaming at the top of his voice, he wanted his bill and he wanted
to go."

Police have yet to say if they know how and where the poison was administered.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said: "This is being treated as a major incident involving attempted murder,
by administration of a nerve agent.

"Having established that a nerve agent is the cause of the symptoms... I can also confirm that we believe that the two
people who became unwell were targeted specifically."

He added: "Our role now of course is to establish who is behind this and why they carried out this act."
Nerve agents are highly toxic chemicals that stop the nervous system working and shut down bodily functions.
They normally enter the body through the mouth or nose, but can also be absorbed through the eyes or skin.

Mr Rowley said there was no evidence of a widespread health risk to the public.
Police said they wanted to speak to anyone who was in the centre of Salisbury on Sunday afternoon.
They are particularly keen to hear from people who ate at Zizzi or drank in the Bishop's Mill pub between
13:00 and 16:00 GMT. Both sites remain closed to the public.
There is also a cordon in place outside Mr Skripal's Salisbury home and part of a business park in nearby Amesbury.

Hundreds of detectives, forensic officers, analysts and intelligence officers are working on the case, which has drawn
comparison with the killing of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006.
A public inquiry concluded his death was probably carried out with the approval of President Putin.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told MPs on Tuesday that the UK would respond "robustly" to any evidence of Russian
"state responsibility" in the Skripal case. Russia has insisted it has "no information" about what could have led to the
incident, but is open to co-operating with British police if requested.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said foreign media had used the case as part of an anti-Russian
campaign.

"Who is Sergei Skripal?
Col Skripal, 66, had been living in Salisbury after being released by Russia in 2010
Colonel Skripal is a retired Russian military intelligence officer who was jailed for 13
years by Russia in 2006.



He was convicted of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working
undercover in Europe to the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.

In July 2010, he was one of four prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for 10
Russian spies arrested by the FBI.

After a Cold War-style spy swap at Austria's Vienna airport, Col Skripal moved to
Salisbury, where he kept a low profile for eight years...'

(03-15-2018, 06:25 PM)Wallfire Wrote: ...So did the Russians do it ????. 

Quote:....Well if people take a good close look at what MI5 did in Northern Ireland over the years
its not too far of a step that they could of did this thing in England.

Quote:...Interesting point, the M mob hate Putin because he takes such a hard line protecting his people,
I wonder if these two things are connected.

(03-15-2018, 08:40 PM)guohua Wrote: @"Wallfire"  &  @"BIAD" 
My husband agrees, he thinks that Putin would be much more Subtle, like a hollow umbrella and air cartridge propelling a pellet the size of a pin head filled with the Poison Ricin.
They normally don't ever attack family members.

Quote:'...A Russian lawmaker is suggesting that the nerve agent used on a former Russian double agent
and his daughter in Britain may have been obtained via the United States.

The U.S. was involved in cleaning up a site where the nerve agent, Novichok, was thought to have
been used during the Soviet era.

Novichok, was reportedly tested at a site in Nukus, an isolated city in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet
republic. The United States and Uzbekistan agreed on a cleanup program in 1999.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted the deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the
lower house of the Russian parliament saying the cleanup gave the U.S. the opportunity to learn
about Novichok.

Lawmaker Alexei Chepa said on Thursday: "The Americans had access not only to the technology,
but had access to its development. In all likelihood, their NATO partners from Britain also had this
access."...'

Quote:UK's claims questioned: doubts emerge about source of Salisbury's novichok.

'...The question now is whether all of Russia’s chemical weapons were destroyed and accounted for.
Theresa May –having identified the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack as novichok, developed in Russia
–told the Commons on Wednesday that Russia had offered no explanation as to why it had “an undeclared
chemical weapons programme in contravention of international law”.

Jeremy Corbyn introduced a sceptical note, questioning whether there was any evidence as to the location
of its production. The exchanges provoked a debate echoing the one that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq
over whether UN weapons inspectors had overseen the destruction of all the weapons of mass destruction in
the country or whether Saddam Hussein had retained secret hidden caches.

On social media, there were arguments that the novichok could have come from some part of the former Soviet
Union other than Russia, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or Ukraine, or some non-state group, maybe criminals.

The years following the fall of the Berlin Wall were chaotic, with chemical weapons laboratories and storage sites
across the Soviet Union abandoned by staff who were no longer being paid.
Security was almost non-existent, leaving the sites at the mercy of criminal gangs or disenchanted staff looking to
supplement their income.

“Could somebody have smuggled something out?” Amy Smithson, a US-based biological and chemical weapons
expert, said to Reuters. “I certainly wouldn’t rule that possibility out, especially a small amount and particularly in view
of how lax the security was at Russian chemical facilities in the early 1990s.”

It took almost a decade before order was restored, in part through stockpiles being transferred to Russia from other
parts of the former Soviet Union and in part through help from US and other western experts.

Novichok was developed at a laboratory complex in Shikhany, in central Russia, according to a British weapons expert,
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, and a Russian chemist involved in the chemical weapons programme, Vil Mirzayanov, who
later defected to the US. Mirzayanov said the novichok was tested at Nukus, in Uzbekistan.

The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who visited the site at Nukus, said it had been dismantled
with US help. He is among those advocating scepticism about the UK placing blame on Russia.
In a blog post, he wrote: “The same people who assured you Saddam Hussein had WMDs now assure you Russian
‘novichok’ nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil.”

A Russian lawyer, Boris Kuznetsov, told Reuters he was offering to pass to the British authorities a file he said might be
relevant to the Salisbury case. It details an incident when poison hidden in a phone receiver killed a Russian banker and
his secretary in 1995.

The poison came from an employee at the state chemical facility who sold it through intermediaries –in an ampule placed
in a presentation case – to help reduce his debts...'

(03-15-2018, 10:54 PM)Mystic Wanderer Wrote: Dilley says this photo ties directly into what the UK is trying to blame on Russia...

Quote:Murder inquiry over Russian's London death.

'UK police have launched a murder investigation after the death of Russian businessman
Nikolai Glushkov in south-west London. Mr Glushkov was found dead at his home in New Malden
on 12 March.



A post-mortem examination revealed Mr Glushkov, who was 68, died from "compression to the neck".
There is, at this stage, no evidence linking the death to the attempted murder of a former Russian spy
and his daughter in Salisbury, police say.

Detectives are retaining an open mind and are appealing for any information that will assist the investigation.
In particular, they are appealing for anyone who may have seen or heard anything suspicious at or near his
home in Clarence Avenue, New Malden, between Sunday 11 March and Monday 12 March to contact them.

Police on Friday continued to guard the home lived in by Mr Glushkov. A blue and a purple tent was erected
to cover the front drive of the property, which has been cordoned off along with several adjoining properties
either side.

Mr Glushkov is the former deputy director of Russian state airline Aeroflot.
He was jailed in 1999 for five years after being charged with money laundering and fraud.

After being given a suspended sentence for another count of fraud in 2006, he was granted political asylum
in the UK in 2010 and became a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Former PR and advertising executive Lord Bell, who was a close friend of Mr Glushkov, described him as a
"very charming, funny, affectionate man who had a troubled past".
Kate Fitzsimmons, an 87-year-old neighbour of Mr Glushkov, said he was "just an ordinary friendly Englishman"
who would wave at her across the road.

She said his death and the subsequent police activity was a "big shock".
Mr Glushkov had a close friendship with fellow Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, who came to the UK
in 1999 after falling out with Mr Putin.

Mr Berezovsky was found hanged in the bathroom of his Berkshire home in 2013 and an inquest recorded an
open verdict. Meanwhile, Russia's investigative committee has said it has opened a criminal case investigation
into "the murder" of Mr Glushkov and the "attempted murder" of Yulia Skripal...'

Quote:'...Mr Glushkov also had a close friendship with fellow Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky,
who came to the UK in 1999 after falling out with Mr Putin.
Mr Berezovsky was found hanged in the bathroom of his Berkshire home in 2013 and an inquest
recorded an open verdict...'

Quote:Russia spy poisoning: 23 UK diplomats expelled from Moscow.

'Russia is to expel 23 British diplomats amid tensions over the nerve agent attack on a former spy and his daughter in the UK.
The Russian foreign ministry said staff from the UK's Moscow embassy would be expelled within a week.


Britain's ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow.

It also said it would close the British Council in Russia, which promotes cultural ties between the nations, and the British
Consulate in St Petersburg. The move comes in response to Britain's decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats.

They were ordered to leave over the incident on 4 March which the UK government has blamed on Russia -but which Russia denies.

Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia Skripal, 33, remain critically ill in hospital, after they were found unconscious
on a bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire. The UK government says they were poisoned with a nerve agent of a type developed by Russia
called Novichok, and PM Theresa May has said she believes Moscow is "culpable".

On Friday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it was "overwhelmingly likely" that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the
nerve agent attack. Responding, Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accusations were "shocking and unforgivable".

Britain's ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, was summoned to Russia's foreign ministry on Saturday and was handed Russia's
response to the UK's sanctions...'