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MP for Central Devon

Dear Mr Stride,

I copied a letter to you which was addressed to Mr Corbyn who has been speaking about law and above the catcalls.  Your response was automatic, which given the threatening environment of lies and the blackest of propaganda from HMG/BBC/'media' was inadequate.  That letter is second below.  Against HMG and BBC claims of 'democracy' I often receive no responses from you.

This letter immediately below is from Craig Murray, our former ambassador in Uzbekistan.  He crossed our much vaunted democracy by revealing how Islamic 'dissidents' were being tortured to death, the corpses dumped on their loved ones and the ''''intelligence'''' sent to the CIA and thence to MI6.  READ IT and attempt to serve our benighted country better.  He provides evidence from the horses mouth (ex-Porton) and receives information from experts it seems.


for truth

David Halpin FRCS

 


The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD Scam 27


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

Yet now, the British Government is claiming to be able instantly to identify a substance which its only biological weapons research centre has never seen before and was unsure of its existence. Worse, it claims to be able not only to identify it, but to pinpoint its origin. Given Dr Black’s publication, it is plain that claim cannot be true.

The world’s international chemical weapons experts share Dr Black’s opinion. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is a UN body based in the Hague. In 2013 this was the report of its Scientific Advisory Board, which included US, French, German and Russian government representatives and on which Dr Black was the UK representative:

[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)

OPCW: Report of the Scientific Advisory Board on developments in science and technology for the Third Review Conference 27 March 2013

Indeed the OPCW was so sceptical of the viability of “novichoks” that it decided – with US and UK agreement – not to add them nor their alleged precursors to its banned list. In short, the scientific community broadly accepts Mirzayanov was working on “novichoks” but doubts he succeeded.

Given that the OPCW has taken the view the evidence for the existence of “Novichoks” is dubious, if the UK actually has a sample of one it is extremely important the UK presents that sample to the OPCW. Indeed the UK has a binding treaty obligation to present that sample to OPCW. Russa has – unreported by the corporate media – entered a demand at the OPCW that Britain submit a sample of the Salisbury material for international analysis.

Yet Britain refuses to submit it to the OPCW.

Why?

A second part of May’s accusation is that “Novichoks” could only be made in certain military installations. But that is also demonstrably untrue. If they exist at all, Novichoks were allegedly designed to be able to be made at bench level in any commercial chemical facility – that was a major point of them. The only real evidence for the existence of Novichoks was the testimony of the ex-Soviet scientist Mizayanov. And this is what Mirzayanov actually wrote.

One should be mindful that the chemical components or precursors of A-232 or its binary version novichok-5 are ordinary organophosphates that can be made at commercial chemical companies that manufacture such products as fertilizers and pesticides.

Vil S. Mirzayanov, “Dismantling the Soviet/Russian Chemical Weapons Complex: An Insider’s View,” in Amy E. Smithson, Dr. Vil S. Mirzayanov, Gen Roland Lajoie, and Michael Krepon, Chemical Weapons Disarmament in Russia: Problems and Prospects, Stimson Report No. 17, October 1995, p. 21.

It is a scientific impossibility for Porton Down to have been able to test for novichoks, without possessing some to develop the tests. As Dr Black has revealed Porton Down had never seen any Russian novichok, they cannot have a test for it unless they synthesised some themselves to develop the tests. And if they can synthesise it, so can many others, not just the Russians.

And finally – Mirzayanov is an Uzbek name and the novichok programme, assuming it existed, was in the Soviet Union but far away from modern Russia, at Nukus in modern Uzbekistan. I have visited the Nukus chemical weapons site myself. It was dismantled and made safe and all the stocks destroyed and the equipment removed by the American government, as I recall finishing while I was Ambassador there. There has in fact never been any evidence that any “novichok” ever existed in Russia itself.

To summarise:

1) Porton Down has acknowledged in publications it has never seen any Russian “novichoks”. The UK government has absolutely no “fingerprint” information that can safely attribute this substance to Russia.
2) Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced “Novichoks” even exist.
3) The UK is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW.
4) “Novichoks” were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.
5) The “Novichok” programme was in Uzbekistan not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians.




Dear Mr Corbyn,

My sister has just sent me this link, admittedly from the Murdoch channel

https://news.sky.com/story/john-mcdonnell-urges-labour-mps-not-to-appear-on-russia-today-11286224

Mr McDonnell said "What we are seeing from Russia Today sometimes goes beyond objective journalism from what I've seen," on the Marr show.

Does McDonnell, whom I have respected, consider that the junk journalism (calumnies in fact) coming from Salisbury and from every UK outlet, is objective journalism?  Is it fed from No10, the FCO with the violent clown in charge, and from MI6?  The connection to that Kremlin has been made in almost all broadcasts by the State Broadcaster and Propagandist.

My focus has mainly been on the genocide in Palestine and the destruction of OUR NHS, both of which have been accelerated by the Tory 'safe in our hands' party.  This party is blind to both gross cruelty and to its hypocrisy - Typhoons and the Yemen, as was Wilson's.

The fact is that RT and Press TV report truths, and the detail, which never emerge in the British media.

A current example from RT re the terrible cruelty to children in Palestine, written by David Fleming

https://www.rt.com/news/420977-israel-palestine-children-prison/

cf with Yolande Knell's BBC report on the abduction and imprisonment, now into 4 months, of Ahed Tamimi.  Note how the journalist Al Azza continues to stand for truth even though he was severely injured by the 'only democracy in the ME' which has committed holocausts/shoahs against the native people - at the start and regularly since.

I have always voted Labour but will not do so from now on.  Does McDonnell want a one party state?

David Halpin FRCS    01364 661115     Letter to my web site   <website of David Halpin>

ps  This of many articles by me

http://dhalpin.infoaction.org.uk/6-articles/palestineisrael/107-the-methodical-shooting-of-boys-at-work-in-gaza-by-snipers-of-the-israeli-occupation-force

BBC ever reported this?