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BERLIN — Germany says it will help destroy Syria’s stockpile of chemicals as part of international efforts to rid the country of the raw materials for poison gas and nerve agents. ... The first batch of toxic chemicals was loaded onto a Danish cargo ship in the Syrian port of Latakia and shipped Tuesday toward international waters.

Poachers kill 300 Zimbabwe elephants with cyanide • Cyanide has been used to kill 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's biggest nature reserve - three times the original estimate - as new photos show the scale of the slaughter Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than 300 elephants and countless other safari animals by cyanide poisoning, The Telegraph has learned. The full extent of the devastation wreaked in Hwange, the country's largest national park, has been revealed by legitimate hunters who discovered what conservationists say is the worst single massacre in southern Africa for 25 years. Pictures taken by the hunters, which...

Amply documented the Al Nusrah rebels are in possession of chemical weapons. In an unusual twist, An August 9, 2013 UPI report intimates that the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusrah rebels rather than the Syrian government constitute a threat to the security of Israel, an absurd proposition. And that Israel, so to speak, fears that chemical weapons might “fall in the wrong hands”. Troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have broken through rebel forces encircling the northern city of Aleppo to secure a major chemical weapons base that, if they can hold it, will be a big help to...

Iran is producing chemical weapons, including sarin gas, out of a facility in Fars Province. Sarin gas, banned under international protocol, is the gas Syria’s Assad regime used to kill more than 1,400 civilians on Aug. 21. A Revolutionary Guards base, Shahid Dastgheyb, is producing five deadly gases, under the project name of “Baasat,” as part of the Islamic regime’s chemical weapons program, according to intelligence received from a member of the Guards serving in the province. The source is not named due to security reasons. The chemical plant is outside the central city of Shiraz and close to the...

Chemical weapon propulsion unit on Syrian missile 'made in Siberia', says Russian expert By The Siberian Times reporter 18 September 2013 Evidence suggests this 'ancient junk' not fired by Assad regime but by rebels, it is claimed A leading Russian expert has acknowledged that the propulsion unit on one of the rockets responsible for the deadly Syrian chemical attack indicates it was manufactured at a secret Soviet plant in Siberia. However, the remnants of the 'antique' weapons provide new evidence the 'sarin' blast was the work of rebels and not the Damascus regime. President Assad's military machine would not have...

The chemical weapons watchdog has been handed "initial disclosure" of Syria's arsenal of poison gas and nerve agents. The Assad regime has given details of its toxic weapons programme to the world's chemical weapons watchdog. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the body tasked with dismantling Syria's stockpile of nerve agents, said that Syria had given an "initial declaration" outlining its programme. It will not release the details of the declaration and is now seeking to verify what has been outlined. OPCW is looking at ways to fast-track moves to secure and destroy Syria's arsenal of poison...

Germany sold tonnes of chemicals to Syria which were capable of being put to military use. … The chemicals sold have a dual use—they can be used for both military and non-military purposes. They include hydrogen fluoride, ammonium hydrogen fluoride and sodium cyanide. The export of the chemicals is restricted but not illegal, the Süddeutsche newspaper reported, as they are used in industry. … Germany’s government said Syria told them the chemicals would be used for industrial purposes. The government added it had established that the chemicals would not be put to military use before they were exported. …

The United States-Russian deal for the destruction of Syria's huge chemical weapons stocks caused Israelis to breathe an audible sigh of relief. Many expected that a U.S. strike would push either Syria or its ally Hezbollah tio retaliate by attacking Israel. Over the past few weeks, thousands of Israelis, not known for their patience, spent hours waiting in line for government-issued gas masks. Yet the deal also increases pressure on Israel to get rid of its chemical and, even more troubling to the Jewish state, its nuclear stockpile. If Syria must get rid of its chemical weapons, the reasoning goes,...

Chemical weapons are evil, but you could also say they're a curse. They have a talismanic power to bend and distort U.S. foreign policy. You can ask George W. Bush or Barack Obama. In 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz gave a lengthy interview to Vanity Fair that caused a huge uproar, largely because the magazine shamefully distorted what he was trying to say. Wolfowitz explained that within the Bush administration there were a lot of arguments for why we should invade Iraq. Some had to do with the fact that Saddam Hussein was a state supporter of terrorism. Some...

The U.S-Russia plan to dismantle Syria's chemical weapons is drawing attention to Israel's own suspected chemical stockpile and could raise pressure on the Jewish state to come clean about its capabilities. Israel signed the landmark international treaty banning the production or use of chemical weapons two decades ago, but it is among a handful if nations that have never ratified the deal. ...

Whether we are talking about respect for a nation or for an individual, nothing undermines respect more than duplicity -- saying one thing and acting differently. I think it is a big reason why President Barack Obama's Tuesday speech to the nation, in which he attempted to explain why he has proposed military action in Syria, fell so flat. The president cast his rationale for taking action in moral terms; he said a targeted strike against Syria would warn against the future use of poison gas, which killed 1,429 people in an Aug. 21 attack. But the very dubious moral...

Canada’s foreign minister John Baird is calling Syria’s offer to begin providing information on its chemical arsenal 30 days after it signs an international convention banning such weapons “ridiculous and absurd.” Baird said Syrian President Bashar Assad could not be given extra time. Baird said: “This is a man who up until a week ago denied that they had any such weapons.” …

Russia-North Korea:Russian officials said they interpret the white vapor plume at Yongbyon to signify testing of the electric power generation system, not a sign the reactor is nearing operational status. Their main point is that the reactor is in such a state of disrepair that it cannot be started safely. Comment:The Russian argument is a good reason to not try to restart the reactor, but it does not mean the North Koreans won't try just the same. Russia-Iran:Update.The Office of the Russian President said the report in yesterday'sKommersantwas untrue. At this time President Putin is not planning to offer the...

In March 2012, President Obama whispered to placeholder Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that he needed "space" on matters like missile defense until 2013. "After my election, I'll have more flexibility," the president blurted into an unsuspected open microphone. "I will convey this information to Vladimir," Medvedev promised, managing not to smirk outwardly. Medvedev did not need to deliver the message. Obama has telegraphed his weakness in a thousand ways, starting with the "reset" that was premised on the idea that relations between Russia and the U.S. were frayed because we had been without the transformative leadership of Barack Hussein Obama....

An elite Syrian unit that runs the government's chemical arms program has been scattering the weapons to dozens of sites across the country, potentially complicating US plans for air strikes, the Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper, citing unnamed US officials and lawmakers briefed on the intelligence, said on its website on Thursday that a secretive military group known as Unit 450 had been moving the stocks around for months to help avoid detection of the weapons. US and Israeli intelligence agencies and Middle Eastern officials still believe they know the location of most of the government's chemical weapons supply,...

I … don’t remember this being part of the offer. Obama had better run it past Putin right away to see how he wants the U.S. to respond. Syria will fulfil an initiative to hand over its chemical weapons only when the United States stops threatening to strike Syria, RIA news agency quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying in a television interview… “When we see the United States really wants stability in our region and stops threatening, striving to attack, and also ceases arms deliveries to terrorists, then we will believe that the necessary processes can be finalized,” he was...

Apparently, once again with respect to Syria, the White House was caught off guard by events they are frantically reacting to instead of shaping. Speaking to CNN's Jake Tapper, a White House official publicly responded to Russian President Vladmir Putin's New York Times op-ed with the admission that Putin "now owns" and has "fully asserted ownership" of America's current foreign policy focal point; pushing Syria to surrender its chemical weapons: “That’s all irrelevant,” the White House official said in response [to Putin's op-ed]. “He put this proposal forward and he’s now invested in it. That’s good. That’s the best possible...

Syrian rebels claim that the army of President Bashar Assad again used poison gas in an attack on rebel forces in the Damascus area Thursday, an Israel Radio report said. The report was based on rebel sources, who said the attack took place in the Jobar neighborhood of the capital. The rebel sources said they could not tell what kind of chemical weaponry had been used, but that it was a poison gas of some kind, and was causing injuries, including breathing difficulties.

Russia's proposal for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to place his chemical weapons under international supervision and then destroy them is quickly gaining steam. Assad's government accepted the plan this morning. A few hours later, President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande announced that they'd seriously explore the proposal. It already has the backing of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a growing number of influential lawmakers from both parties. There's just one problem: the plan would be nearly impossible to actually carry out. Experts in chemical weapons disposal point to a host of challenges....

“Undoubtedly, all of this makes sense and can function, can work, only if we hear that the American side and those who support the United States in this sense rule out the use of force,” Mr. Putin said in televised remarks on Tuesday night, “because it is difficult to make any country — Syria or any other country, any other government in the world — unilaterally disarm if the use of force is being prepared against it.” He noted that Syria had “a certain arsenal of chemical weapons,” and that “the Syrians have always regarded it as an alternative to...