Or, the countries may have had an 'agent' for research purposes and maintain information regarding the chemical compounds in its make-up.
Current Affairs Critically ill man is former Russian spy
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orchard
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That's open source anyway for bio-chemists, and I suppose even if you have stock-piled capability, you don't have 'it', as it's supposedly unstable, you'll have its constituents ready.
Comrade Corbyn has a nice warm dacha waiting for him just outside St Petersburg.
He is towing the party line tovarich.
He is towing the party line tovarich.
Agree, seems it is permitted for 'research purposes'. Porton Down has it so has the capability to produce it. May said it was 'military-grade nerve agent' and also a 'weapons grade nerve agent'. If it is 'military grade nerve agent' /'weapons grade nerve agent'? Where has it been used? I am sure we would have heard of it being used before. May wouldn't have a clue what goes on at Porton Down so has been fed this line 'military/weapons grade' or decided to add some sort of 'substance' to her remarks. I fully remember the last time a Prime minister used alarmist 'information'.
There are many states that have it. Also the scientist involved has wrote a book about how to make it and this caused alarm in the US. But the UK and the US have equally dismissed the existence of 'novichok'.
An interesting read.
March 14, 2018
Are 'Novichok' Poisons Real? - May's Claims Fall Apart
The British government claims that 'Novichok' poisons, developed 30 years ago in the Soviet Union, affected a British double agent. But such substances may not exist at all. The British government further says that the Russian government is responsible for the incident and has announced penalties against the country.
A comparable incidents happened in 2001 in the United States. Envelopes with Anthrax spores were sent to various politicians. Some people died. The White House told the FBI to blame al-Qaeda but the Anthrax turned out to be from a U.S. chemical-biological weapon laboratory. The case is still unsolved.
The 'whistle-blower' Vil Mirzanyanov who 'revealed' the 'Novichok' program and its poisons published chemical formulas that should enable any decent laboratory to reproduce them. But neither the existence of the claimed program nor the existence of the alleged substances were ever accepted by the scientific community. The Russian government says it does not know the program nor the alleged poisons.
The highly constructed drama around the alleged poisoning of a British double agent Skripal and his daughter has thus turned into a surreal play. The British government has so far given no evidence that the Skripal's were poisoned at all, or that they were poisoned by someone else. No detailed medical bulletin was published. The British accusations against Russia lets one assume that a suicide attempt has been excluded. Why?
There is no independent evaluation of the alleged poison. The British government claims that its own chemical weapon laboratory at Porton Down, only a few miles from where the incident happened, has identified the poison as one of the 'Novichok' chemicals.
But in 2016 a leading chemist at Porton Down had doubts that such chemicals exist. (Paul McKeigue, Professor of Statistical Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology at Edinburgh University, Piers Robinson, Professor of Politics, Society and Political Journalism at Sheffield University and the former British Ambassador Craig Murray pointthis out):
As recently as 2016 Dr Robin Black, Head of the Detection Laboratory at the UK’s only chemical weapons facility at Porton Down, a former colleague of Dr David Kelly, published in an extremely prestigious scientific journal that the evidence for the existence of Novichoks was scant and their composition unknown.
In recent years, there has been much speculation that a fourth generation of nerve agents, ‘Novichoks’ (newcomer), was developed in Russia, beginning in the 1970s as part of the ‘Foliant’ programme, with the aim of finding agents that would compromise defensive countermeasures. Information on these compounds has been sparse in the public domain, mostly originating from a dissident Russian military chemist, Vil Mirzayanov. No independent confirmation of the structures or the properties of such compounds has been published.(Black, 2016)
Robin Black. (2016) Development, Historical Use and Properties of Chemical Warfare Agents. Royal Society of Chemistry
The Scientific Advisory Board of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has not recognized Novichoks as chemical weapons because it found scant evidence that they exist at all. The U.S. and the UK are both part of the organization and both agreed with this evaluation:
[The SAB] emphasised that the definition of toxic chemicals in the Convention would cover all potential candidate chemicals that might be utilised as chemical weapons. Regarding new toxic chemicals not listed in the Annex on Chemicals but which may nevertheless pose a risk to the Convention, the SAB makes reference to “Novichoks”. The name “Novichok” is used in a publication of a former Soviet scientist who reported investigating a new class of nerve agents suitable for use as binary chemical weapons. The SAB states that it has insufficient information to comment on the existence or properties of “Novichoks”. (OPCW, 2013)
The former Soviet scientist, Vil Mirzanyanov, who 'blew the whistle' and wrote about the 'Novichoks', now lives in a $1 million home in the United States. The AFP news agency just interviewed him about the recent incident:
Mirzayanov, speaking at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, said he is convinced Russia carried it out as a way of intimidating opponents of President Vladimir Putin.
"Only the Russians" developed this class of nerve agents, said the chemist. "They kept it and are still keeping it in secrecy."
The only other possibility, he said, would be that someone used the formulas in his book to make such a weapon.
"Russia did it", says Mirzanyanov, "OR SOMEONE WHO READ MY BOOK".
The book was published in 2008 and is available as hardcover, paperback or for $8.16 as an electronic file. It includes a number of formulas which, Mirzanyanov says, could be used to produce those chemical agents. But neither Porton Down nor the OPCW seem convinced that this is possible. They may believe that Mirzanyanov is just full of it".
It's highly likely that Russia are behind this, but why can't we just get international recognition before we do anything about it?
I don't understand this hatred.
I don't understand this hatred.
tsubaki
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The hatred is vital, otherwise people will start to ask what the Government has been doing.
Their record on Russia, and on the defence of this country against Russia, is awful; it will not stand up to any kind of scrutiny whatsoever.
NilSatisOptimum
Player Valuation: £70m
The Government needs a distraction for something to chest beat about and look decisive weak governments always go in hard on a foriegn affairs. What better than Russia and Putin.
However, May looked suspicious when she refused when home secretary, then having to be ordered by the high court to have an inquiry into Litvinenko death. And there is the 14 other deaths of Russian nationals that have died here in the UK, that many are concerned about, however, it's been put down as unexplained very likely these will be now reinvestigated And of course all money donations and connections with the Tory party, and strange these Russian nationals Tory donstors escape Putin's methods..
This is the Tories weapons of mass destruction moment against an enemy they want to damage and ratchet up war, war rhetoric. All the over-hyped bull has been the same, try and create the fear and panic that the whole of the UK population is in danger. This time it is a 'nerve agent' attack being used against the UK population, last time it was the 45 minutes misinformation.
It is incredible that we all face this 'nerve agent' attack, but the police do not seem to be able to find the people who were involved in this 'incident'.
It is incredible that we all face this 'nerve agent' attack, but the police do not seem to be able to find the people who were involved in this 'incident'.
Genuinely, where has it been stated that they haven't got an idea or some evidence of who it is was who committed the crime (inc. individuals)?
This whole idea of the public 'needing' to be told of all the information of a criminal case makes me actually howl - it's simply not how it works!
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Wow, some terribly partisan people on here. A military grade nerve agent has been used on the streets of the U.K. and all you lot can do is blame the Tories. If Gordon Brown was still in office and the exact same circumstances happened, just ask yourselves if your responses would have been the same. This is not a political issue, most Labour people, of a sensible mind, totally agree with the government....
I feel that a wave of support for these false-flag, anti-government mentalities has a huge part to play in while people are doubting the validity.
In no way am I saying the government is perfect and I do appreciate that their view of the truth is often somewhat jaded, but it's become absurd.
If growing swathes of the populous think the world is bloody flat, then believing that this is some form of Brexit conspiracy is for them small-fries.
Only last week, I had someone claiming that the BBC was untrustworthy because it was manipulated by the government, so they used RT instead.
The irony of it all simply went over his head! Often, the simplest and most logical argument is the correct one - it's not all bloody perverse.
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orchard
Player Valuation: £60m
I'm not partisan, any authoritarian government that chats absolute wham, breaks pledges aots, attempts to shut down discussion,uses all the dirty tricks it can, fails to act ( except to talk big ) when we've been attacked, will get my criticism/scrutiny.
Nice try to reverse the roles though pete, anyone who reads this forum will know who's truly partisan.
Nice try to reverse the roles though pete, anyone who reads this forum will know who's truly partisan.
I never said they 'haven't got an idea' or that the public 'needing to be told all the information'. It is two weeks since the 'attack' and no one has been arrested for using a 'nerve agent' on UK soil. So there are people roaming the streets of the UK with a deadly 'nerve agent and I repeat there has been no one arrested. Don't police, MI5 and MI6 keep tabs on people in this country or entering this country? It seems not as the government have said they will 'tighten up on private flights from Russia'.
The government, and some Labourites like Yvette Cooper arch supporter of the WMD dossier, are bending over backwards and wanting to blame Putin but the evidence is as flimsy as Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Maybe the police are looking in the right place or maybe they aren't. Or maybe the authorities are incompetent in dealing with two people slumped on a bench. We are told this is a deadly 'nerve agent' but the lorry that took the car away was then allowed to go back to its base for then to be 'quarantined'. An incredible response when they said it was a 'nerve agent' attack.
Salisbury nerve agent backlash: Residents outraged as 500 told they ...
Some people in Salisbury aren't to impressed with the authorities. The government can't try and pull 'The Russians are coming' with some deadly 'nerve agent' chemical attack and then have such an incompetent response. This smells like Blair's dodgy dossier all over again so the government can shout war, war against an enemy it doesn't like.
The government do not want some tricky questions asked, like Russian money to the Tories and want to curtail this in any way possible.
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