Russia’s UN envoy receives envelope with white powder

UNITED NATIONS, November 11 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s ambassador to the UN has received an envelope with white powder, the embassy’s press secretary confirmed on Wednesday.

Ruslan Bakhtin said embassy employees “took necessary security precautions” and placed the envelope in a plastic bag, after calling police, who then investigated the powder.

“A suspicious substance addressed to Vitaly Churkin was delivered to the [Russian] UN Embassy at around 1:00 am [06:00 GMT],” Bahktin told RIA Novosti.

New York City police authorities also said the Russian UN Embassy was the sixth diplomatic mission in the city to receive a powdery substance in an envelope recently. Three of the five envelopes that have already been investigated show the substance to be regular flour.

Bakhtin said the envelope’s postal mark showed it was mailed from Dallas, Texas, as were the other five envelopes sent earlier to UN diplomats from Uzbekistan, Austria, Germany, France, and Great Britain.

A reference to Al-Qaida was found on three of the envelopes, NY1 TV reported.

U.S. authorities have become extremely cautious of envelopes with powdery substances since 9/11, after which unidentified individuals began mailing them to news agencies, top U.S. officials, including congressmen, and other organizations. Some of those envelopes contained anthrax spores and five office workers died from inhaling the contents.

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