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WASHINGTON — An accident that occurred as a decades-old nuclear warhead was being dismantled at the government's Pantex facility near Amarillo, Texas, could have caused the device to detonate, a nonprofit organization charged Thursday. The Project on Government Oversight said the "near miss" event, which led the Energy Department to fine the plant's operator $110,000, was due partly to requirements that technicians at the plant work up to 72 hours per week. The Pantex plant, 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, is the country's only factory for assembly and disassembly of nuclear weapons. The organization said it was told by unidentified...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan24) – Amb. Kenneth Ward strongly criticized Iran and Russia on Thursday for maintaining chemical weapons programs, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention to which they are both signatories. Ward, the US Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), addressing that organization, cited Iran and Russia for their own chemical weapons programs. He also criticized their support for Damascus, which, he said, is “enabling Syria’s chemical weapons use by shielding the Assad regime from consequences in international fora.” Turning to Iran, Ward explained that the US “has had longstanding concerns that [it]...

Two envelopes addressed to Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson have initially tested positive for the deadly poison ricin at the Pentagon’s mail facility, according to a report. The packages, which were delivered Monday, were intercepted before making it into the sprawling headquarters of the Defense Department in Virginia near Washington, DC, spokesman Chris Sherwood said Tuesday.

(CNN)An envelope addressed to President Donald Trump contained a substance suspected to be ricin and appeared to be connected to similar envelopes sent to the Pentagon, a law enforcement source told CNN.

President Donald Trump’s national security adviser warned the Syrian government against using chemical weapons in the impending battle for Idlib Province, the last remaining rebel stronghold populated by more than 2 million people. If chemical weapons are used, National Security Adviser John Bolton promised the U.S. would deliver a counterattack ...

With little fanfare, another taboo in U.S.-Iran relations has shattered. Jim Slattery, a former six-term Democratic Congressman from Kansas, late last year became the first former or current American legislator to visit the Islamic Republic of Iran. In Tehran to attend a conference on countering violent extremism, Slattery encountered a largely friendly reception from both officials and ordinary Iranians and came back equipped to present a more realistic and upbeat depiction of Iranians than is usually found on Capitol Hill. Speaking Monday at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Slattery conceded that there are elements in Iran that still oppose any...

SNIP “On Wednesday ... a small bottle was recovered during searches of Charlie Rowley’s house in Amesbury,” police said in a statement. “Scientists have now confirmed to us that the substance contained within the bottle is Novichok.” SNIP ETC...

"It is now time that the Russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on" British Home Secretary Sajid Javid 7/5/2018 After chairing a meeeting of the COBRA committee on national security matters today the British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, said to be a leading candidate to be the UK's next Prime Minister, took aim at Russia in connection with the latest incident that caused a British couple to become critically ill when he spoke in the House of Commons. Javid claimed that Russia was using the UK as a "poison dumping ground". A spokesman for the Russian...

The leader of Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult which carried out a deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground in 1995 has been executed, Japanese media report. The sarin attack, Japan's worst terror incident, killed 13 people and injured thousands more. Seven other Aum Shinrikyo members are also awaiting execution.

Just came across an intriguing theory about Sergei Skripal, the former Soviet/Russian military intelligence agent who spied for Britain, and, along with his daughter Yulia, was nearly killed this spring by a dose of the nerve agent Novichok in the town of Salisbury, England, where they live. In a March 21 interview on the John Batchelor Show, Gregory R. Copley, editor and publisher of Defense & Foreign Affairs, posited that Sergei Skripal is the unnamed Russian intelligence source in the Steele dossier. Copley further explained (or tried to explain) to Batchelor (who kept cutting him off): “The people who wished...

Jean Duley testified that she was "scared to death" of Bruce Ivins after he left her a string of harassing phone messages, according to an audio recording taken during a July 24 peace order hearing. Duley, 45, told Judge Milnor Roberts that Ivins planned to "go out in a blaze of glory," had bought a bulletproof vest and a gun and planned to kill his co-workers. The audio recording was obtained by The Frederick News-Post on Monday. Duley told the court she got to know Ivins while running group and individual counseling sessions at the Comprehensive Counseling Associates in Frederick...

Washington (CNN)A survivor of a Syrian chemical attack in 2013 wants to buy President Donald Trump a beer to share his experience on the conditions in the country. Kassem Eid, who told CNN's Ana Cabrera he lived under two years of siege and bombardment by the Syrian government, said he was glad the President has attempted to do something for the Syrian people. "I just want to tell Mr. Trump directly: I'm a Syrian refugee who survived chemical weapons attacks, who lived under two years of siege and bombardment by the government," Eid said. "I would love to, like, buy...

The US Department of Justice will investigate claims that the Obama administration shielded the Lebanon-based Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah from criminal prosecution for its drug-trafficking and gun-running operations, as part of an effort to curry favor with Hezbollah’s patron, Iran. Last week, Politico released an investigative report citing Drug Enforcement Administration and former Treasury Department officials who claimed that the previous administration blocked the prosecution of Hezbollah officials known to be involved in the smuggling of illegal narcotics and weapons – including chemical weapons – in an effort to bring Hezbollah’s patron state, Iran, to the negotiating table. In 2015,...

Nigergate: The shadow of the French inspector After yesterday’s posting, a close look at Ambassador Wilson, today’s the turn of Mr Jacques Baute. The following article raises some incredible questions and reveals some amazing facts. Mr Baute, a Frenchman, seemed to know all about the the Niger forgeries and kept very quiet about them. The result: the Bush administration was ridiculed. The day after Baute’s organisation, the International Atomic Energy Agency, declared the documents to be forgeries the French Government made a startling announcement..... The Bush administration was decieved by it’s presumed allies and the blame was placed on the...

Baghdad leaders reveal that coup plot duped MI6 Julie Flint explains how rumours of Saddam's overthrow caused British intelligence to miss vital information about Iraq's weapons programme British intelligence took its eyes off Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes because it had been duped into believing a military coup would leave Sunni Muslims in power in Iraq. Sources in the country say what they missed was a push to convert chemical and biological organisms into dry agents that could be hidden until pressure on the regime was lifted. 'From the second half of 2000, the focus of the British was not on...

Thirteen years ago, Samantha Power made a name for herself with her Pulitzer prize-winning book, “‘A Problem from Hell’: America and the Age of Genocide.” In this book, she explored the history of America’s reluctance to intervene to stop or prevent genocides. Prescribing American intervention as justified on grounds both “moral” and in service of “enlightened self-interest,” Power asked how something so clear in retrospect as the need to stop genocide could “become so muddled at the time by rationalization, institutional constraints, and a lack of imagination.” It appears that on Monday morning, Power herself is going to demonstrate exactly...

... Now police say his daughter might have brought it from Russia in her suitcase - but it is just the latest of a series of bizarre theories Thirteen days after Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were attacked with a nerve agent in Salisbury, police appear to be no nearer any answers as to how the pair were poisoned. Theories banded around in the past fortnight include food poisoning, a bouquet of flowers laced with the deadly substance Novichok and the lethal toxin being smeared on the former agent's car door handle. Now, it is understood investigators have turned...

After the release of the Iraq Survey Group's Duelfer report, the headlines blazed "No WMD Found." ...This reflects the notion that Iraq was only a threat if it had military munitions filled with WMD. The claim "Iraq was not an imminent threat" was also expounded by pundits that seemingly crawled out of the woodwork as well as those opposed to President Bush. But have these individuals read carefully the report...? While no facilities were found producing chemical or biological agents on a large scale, many clandestine laboratories operating under the Iraqi Intelligence Services were found to be engaged in small-scale...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will only respond to a British demand it provide answers about the nerve agent that poisoned former double agent Sergei Skripal if London lets Moscow analyze the substance, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. British Prime Minister Theresa May said it was "highly likely" that Moscow was responsible for the poisoning in England of Skripal and his daughter using a military-grade nerve agent that was part of the Novichok group of nerve agents developed by the Soviet military. Lavrov said the British government was obliged to provide Moscow access to the substance because Britain...

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday that the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain “clearly came from Russia” and “certainly will trigger a response."