John Helmer — The Blood Libel Of The British Government (Sic)

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I met Anastasia Barannikova this last December when I visited the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia. I was there to participate in discussions with eight of the university’s regional security experts about the situation in Korea, only a few hundred kilometers distant from where we sat. In my notes I circled Anastasia Barannikova’s name. Her colleagues mentioned that she had the best set of contacts with North Koreans.

After I returned to my home in Boston, I contacted Barannikova and was able to arrange an interview. She is Russian, but her perspective should not be equated with that of the Kremlin. Rather it is an assessment from an informed young academic living 9,000 kilometers east of Moscow, active in international non-proliferation circles, and benefiting as a researcher from her hard-won independent relationships with North Koreans as primary sources.

We conducted the interview on February 18, and since then there have been many new and important developments in Korea. Nonetheless, what she has to say remains highly relevant to understanding and assessing the statements of officials and the reporting by the press regarding both diplomacy and war posturing in the coming months....

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Handwaving.

Craig Murray Blog
Boris Johnson Attempt to Refute My Sources on Porton Down the Most Hilarious Fail

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With the kind of post-imperial arrogance befitting of a nation state that lacks an independent foreign policy, Theresa May demanded that Russia explain the deaths of Mr Skripal and his daughter to her satisfaction. But amid all of the media hyperbole over the last week, what the corporate media omitted to report to the public was the fact that under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) to which the UK is a signatory, the UK government was obliged to provide Russia with a sample of the nerve agent used, along with all related evidence uncovered in the course of the investigation.…

Suspicions that the UK’s role in the crisis is not that of the honest broker were further heightened after it was revealed that on March 14, the country blocked a Russia-drafted UN Security Council statement calling for an urgent inquiry into the incident....

A significant Middle East ally and regional player is, of course, Israel which has major undeclared stocks of chemical weapons but has refused to ratify the CWC. It is perfectly reasonable under these circumstances to point the finger for the poisoning of Mr Skripal and his daughter at either Mossad, the CIA or M15....

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In short, we should be extremely sceptical of this sudden new information that Boris Johnson has produced out of a hat. If the UK was in possession of intelligence about a secret Russian chemical weapons programme, it was not under a legal obligation to tell Andrew Marr, but it was under a legal obligation to tell the OPCW. Not only did the UK fail to do that, the UK Ambassador Sir Geoffrey Adams was last year fulsomely congratulating the OPCW on the completion of the destruction of Russia’s chemical weapons stocks, without a single hint or reservation entered that Russia may have undeclared or secret stocks.

On the Andrew Marr programme, Boris Johnson appeared to say for the first time that the nerve agent in Salisbury was actually made in Russia. But this is a major divergence from the published FCO statement, which very markedly does not say this. Boris Johnson was therefore almost certainly reverting to his reflex lying.…

It does not need me to point out, that if Porton Down had identified the nerve agent as made in Russia, the FCO would not have added that paragraph. Plainly they cannot say it was made in Russia.

The Soviet Chemical Weapons programme was based in Nukus in Uzbekistan. It was the Americans who dismantled and studied it and destroyed and removed the equipment. I visited it as Ambassador to Uzbekistan shortly after they had finished – I recall it as desolate, tiled and very cold, nothing to look at really. The above paragraph seeks to hold the Russians responsible for anything that came out of Nukus, when it was the Americans who actually took it....

Craig Murray Blog
Boris Johnson Issues Completely New Story on “Russian Novichoks”Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

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European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had a moment of clarity once. He famously said, “When things get serious, you have to lie.”

Given the state of affairs in his beloved European Union right now Mr. Juncker and company are doing a lot of lying....