In my last post I set out the official Government account of the events in the Skripal Case. Here I examine the credibility of this story. Next week I shall look at alternative explanations.
Russia has a decade long secret programme of producing and stockpiling novichok nerve agents. It also has been training agents in secret assassination techniques, and British intelligence has a copy of the Russian training manual, which includes instruction on painting nerve agent on doorknobs.
The only backing for this statement by Boris Johnson is alleged “intelligence”, and unfortunately the “intelligence” about Russia’s secret novichok programme comes from exactly the same people who brought you the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s WMD programme, proven liars. Furthermore, the question arises why Britain has been sitting on this intelligence for a decade and doing nothing about it, including not telling the OPCW inspectors who certified Russia’s chemical weapons stocks as dismantled.
If Russia really has a professional novichok assassin training programme, why was the assassination so badly botched? Surely in a decade of development they would have discovered that the alleged method of gel on doorknob did not work? And where is the training manual which Boris Johnson claimed to possess? Having told the world – including Russia -the UK has it, what is stopping the UK from producing it, with marks that could identify the specific copy erased?
The Russians chose to use this assassination programme to target Sergei Skripal, a double agent who had been released from jail in Russia some eight years previously.
It seems remarkable that the chosen target of an attempt that would blow the existence of a secret weapon and end the cover of a decade long programme, should be nobody more prominent than a middle ranking double agent who the Russians let out of jail years ago. If they wanted him dead they could have killed him then. Furthermore the attack on him would undermine all future possible spy swaps. Putin therefore, on this reading, was willing to sacrifice both the secrecy of the novichok programme and the spy swap card just to attack Sergei Skripal. That seems highly improbable.
Only the Russians can make novichok and only the Russians had a motive to attack the Skripals.
The nub of the British government’s approach has been the shocking willingness of the corporate and state media to parrot repeatedly the lie that the nerve agent was Russian made, even after Porton Down said they could not tell where it was made and the OPCW confirmed that finding. In fact, while the Soviet Union did develop the “novichok” class of nerve agents, the programme involved scientists from all over the Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia, as I myself learnt when I visited the newly decommissioned Nukus testing facility in Uzbekistan in 2002.
Furthermore, it was the USA who decommissioned the facility and removed equipment back to the United States. At least two key scientists from the programme moved to the United States. Formulae for several novichok have been published for over a decade. The USA, UK and Iran have definitely synthesised a number of novichok formulae and almost certainly others have done so too. Dozens of states have the ability to produce novichok, as do many sophisticated non-state actors.
As for motive, the Russian motive might be revenge, but whether that really outweighs the international opprobrium incurred just ahead of the World Cup, in which so much prestige has been invested, is unclear.
What is certainly untrue is that only Russia has a motive. The obvious motive is to attempt to blame and discredit Russia. Those who might wish to do this include Ukraine and Georgia, with both of which Russia is in territorial dispute, and those states and jihadist groups with which Russia is in conflict in Syria. The NATO military industrial complex also obviously has a plain motive for fueling tension with Russia.
There is of course the possibility that Skripal was attacked by a private gangster interest with which he was in conflict, or that the attack was linked to Skripal’s MI6 handler Pablo Miller’s work on the Orbis/Steele Russiagate dossier on Donald Trump.
Plainly, the British governments statements that only Russia had the means and only Russia had the motive, are massive lies on both counts.
The Russians had been tapping the phone of Yulia Skripal. They decided to attack Sergei Skripal while his daughter was visiting from Moscow.
In an effort to shore up the government narrative, at the time of the Amesbury attack the security services put out through Pablo Miller’s long term friend, the BBC’s Mark Urban, that the Russians “may have been” tapping Yulia Skripal’s phone, and the claim that this was strong evidence that the Russians had indeed been behind the attack.
But think this through. If that were true, then the Russians deliberately attacked at a time when Yulia was in the UK rather than when Sergei was alone. Yet no motive has been adduced for an attack on Yulia or why they would attack while Yulia was visiting – they could have painted his doorknob with less fear of discovery anytime he was alone. Furthermore, it is pretty natural that Russian intelligence would tap the phone of Yulia, and of Sergei if they could. The family of double agents are normal targets. I have no doubt in the least, from decades of experience as a British diplomat, that GCHQ have been tapping Yulia’s phone. Indeed, if tapping of phones is seriously put forward as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.
Their trained assassin(s) painted a novichok on the doorknob of the Skripal house in the suburbs of Salisbury. Either before or after the attack, they entered a public place in the centre of Salisbury and left a sealed container of the novichok there.
The incompetence of the assassination beggars belief when compared to British claims of a long term production and training programme. The Russians built the heart of the International Space Station. They can kill an old bloke in Salisbury. Why did the Russians not know that the dose from the door handle was not fatal? Why would trained assassins leave crucial evidence lying around in a public place in Salisbury? Why would they be conducting any part of the operation with the novichok in a public area in central Salisbury?
Why did nobody see them painting the doorknob? This must have involved wearing protective gear, which would look out of place in a Salisbury suburb. With Skripal being resettled by MI6, and a former intelligence officer himself, it beggars belief that MI6 did not fit, as standard, some basic security including a security camera on his house.
The Skripals both touched the doorknob and both functioned perfectly normally for at least five hours, even able to eat and drink heartily. Then they were simultaneously and instantaneously struck down by the nerve agent, at a spot in the city centre coincidentally close to where the assassins left a sealed container of the novichok lying around. Even though the nerve agent was eight times more deadly than Sarin or VX, it did not kill the Skripals because it had been on the doorknob and affected by rain.
Why did they both touch the outside doorknob in exiting and closing the door? Why did the novichok act so very slowly, with evidently no feeling of ill health for at least five hours, and then how did it strike both down absolutely simultaneously, so that neither can call for help, despite their being different sexes, weights, ages, metabolisms and receiving random completely uncontrolled doses. The odds of that happening are virtually nil. And why was the nerve agent ultimately ineffective?
Detective Sergeant Bailey attended the Skripal house and was also poisoned by the doorknob, but more lightly. None of the other police who attended the house were affected.
Why was the Detective Sergeant affected and nobody else who attended the house, or the scene where the Skripals were found? Why was Bailey only lightly affected by this extremely deadly substance, of which a tiny amount can kill?
Four months later, Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess were rooting about in public parks, possibly looking for cigarette butts, and accidentally came into contact with the sealed container of a novichok. They were poisoned and Dawn Sturgess subsequently died.
If the nerve agent had survived four months because it was in a sealed container, why has this sealed container now mysteriously disappeared again? If Rowley and Sturgess had direct contact straight from the container, why did they not both die quickly? Why had four months searching of Salisbury and a massive police, security service and military operation not found this container, if Rowley and Sturgess could?
I am, with a few simple questions, demolishing what is the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I have ever heard – the Salisbury conspiracy theory being put forward by the British government and its corporate lackies.
My next post will consider some more plausible explanations of this affair.
Trump’s latest tweet before meeting Putin. Weirder and weirder.
(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Monday that U.S.-Russian ties have never been worse.
“Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!,”
What’s he on?
Tonight on ITV there is an interview with him conducted by Piers Morgan! no less on board Airforce One.
The “rigged witch hunt” is the sustained media barrage of the gigantic nothing burger that is Russia collusion. It alleges a vast Russian conspiracy to get Trump elected on the basis that he once spoke to a Russian in his business dealings. It will continue on a drip feed of devastating revelations such as “Trump once ate a Russian salad!” for as long as Trump is president.
“howls of outrage”
American MSM seriously believes that Trump should do a no notice pull out of his summit with Putin.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/15/trump-putin-russia-summit-helsinki-722255
All because the Russian state is accused of some basically low level, jiggery pokery, psyops. Even the American version of events is that the Russians were attempting to propagate social discord.
a) Such activity is as old as the hills, only the platform has changed.
b) As Rand Paul points out it’s not as if America can claim clean hands.
c) Given the resources in the indictments, the impact on propagating social discord in America would be analogous with taking a hairdryer outside in a category 5 hurricane.
If only your point about thick, uneducated white trash in flyover states had been hammered home then we wouldn’t be in this situation. America would be at peace with itself in a gender neutral state of invading and inviting the world.
All state education systems are not internationally equal and nationally there are differentials between available systems. Why is this controversial?
Very many of the Americans I have worked with have had entirely adequate technical educations. The mechanical engineers were good mechanical engineers, the chemical engineers were good chemical engineers etc.. On average, their grasp of history, geography and international politics was not as developed as that of their equivalent European counterparts. Once worked with a competent chemical engineer from Texas that sincerely assured me that his ancestors were from Scotchland and came across on the Mayflower (he had the receipt from the genealogy company to prove it).
All individuals are not equally well educated. Why is this controversial?
If someone chooses to spend three hours a day six days a week working out then we accept that they are fitter and stronger than average. If someone dedicates the same effort reading a wide array of source material it is somehow outrageous to suggest that they are better educated than someone that reads one book per year and never goes beyond the sports pages of the newspapers.
Worked with a guy once who sincerely believed that a major cause of death in the British dairy industry was weasel attack. Seriously, he was scared to go into the woods ’cause the “weasels might get me”.
Any understanding of history and international politics that derives from a state syllabus is likely to be seriously warped, certainly one that derives from the British state syllabus.
There is no BRITISH state syllabus. Even by the early 1970’s the teaching of history in Scotland had moved on from learning by rote all that crap about Kings and Queens. We were taught stuff about peasants and tribes. All very middle class, lefty, right-on.
Can’t say with any authority but get the impression that the syllabus in England was lagging behind in that respect.
Say what!? America hasn’t got clean hands? Gosh. Is that Paul Rand for real?
Ha ha you have to give Putin his due, he is cool under pressure. His has just called Mueller’s bluff on the fake indictment with the unprecedented step of saying we will make those indicted available for questioning if Mueller official requests them. https://www.rt.com/news/433400-mueller-probe-request-russia/
I posted later in the comments re Putin’s offer, and then found that you had alerted users here. I agree with you that this is a very important development. Sadly for everyone, the track record is: London and Washington will do everything to stop people looking into William Browder’s Russia-Clinton connections.
Oh no it looks like the peace-mongering is going to spill over into outright peace with Russia! Is there any limit to evil of this fascist Nazi racist Trump?! We’re all going to die!!!
© Entire MSM
Sadly, The Intercept is to be lumped together with MSM on this one issue.
Perfume bottle, well, any bottle will not do. Don’t forget that Sergei and Yulia should provide the Police with very precise description of any bottles, yet any liquids, gels or aerosols they contacted. Especially if they self-adminstered something before collapsing on the bench.
Tatanya, that is far too logical and obvious for our media to question, and more importantly for our politicians to act on.
After all, it could possibly upset the whole apple cart, which is so rickety at the moment there are hardly any apples left.
That’s why they both needed a full stomach, Tatyana. That’s why, despite the witnesses saying that Skripal was greatly agitated, and most obviously needing to get to his meeting on time, they could not just get up and go. They had to be in Queen Elizabeth Gardens at the given time. Everything was timed.. the delivery of the red bag, DS Bailey to keep unwanted witnesses at bay and then to take his own part in the charade, the ‘first-responders’ (who the media are not allowed to interview or even trace), the ambulance (the media are not allowed to interview the ambulance staff), the air ambulance.. But, they had to eat that meal. They both had to have a full stomach. It’s so obvious now! If you take an oral dose of BZ on an empty stomach, it hits you like the proverbial. They needed a full stomach to cushion the effects. Had Skripal been promised a fake ‘death’ and a new identity, perhaps to protect him from the wrath of Hillary Clinton due to his contribution to the Steele/Orbis Dossier? Did Yulia blow it all by logging on to her VK page on the 7th March at 6:35am? (I have a screen-shot of the page). And then ringing her cousin (was it? Or sister?) a few days later? It’s so obvious now. The Skripals knew what they were doing. Where were the Skripals taken? Were they taken to Salisbury hospital, or to Porton Down – or to Boscome Down and flown out of the country? That puts an end to all that ‘Novichok’ nonsense. Novichok was in a drama on the telly. Nobody is going to be wafting Novichok around in Salisbury or Amesbury. Now the real story gets more exciting…
I’m losing the plot here ,- why would they sell administer a Novichok – and why on a park bench in the centre of Salisbury?
I do not understand why they should be self administering anything in the centre of Salisbury?
Mary Paul, nobody understands
Well my working hypothesis is quite different. I think that Serge trod on some seriously nasty toes in his current below-the-radar role as a freelance espionage agent. The use of Novichok was clearly intended to send a message to anyone who supplied him with info or used his services, “keep out of our business, we have some very nadty retribution available.'” So it could be rogue elements in Russian secret service or Russian or Ukranian mafia.
I think that Dawn and Charlie somehow got mixed up in this – maybe as couriers – and after a lapse of everal months it was decided to dispose of them .I imagine whoever did it, assumed it would be treated as drug overdoses but in any case did not care about possible contamination. I really do not buy disaffected mothers-in-law, suicide pacts, or British police sergeants wandering round Salisbury spraying novichok agents. For starters many Porton Down employees live locally. Are they going to “shit in their own nest” and potentially take out their own employees and their families? I just don’t buy that.
Mary Paul, I’ve just returned to check answers, (still unable to find proper way of seeing them)
Self-admnistration of Novichok, it was admitted somewhere in the previouse page.
—
All is going absurd. I have seen several articles in russian. Yulia and Victoria had another phone contact, Yulia blames Victoria for making public their conversation. Victoria is blaming Yulia for non-visiting her granny for several years and having a bon-vivan life. Yula invited her friend Gulnara to visit her in Britain. Made some directives to homerepair team in Moscow.
Victoria is like trying to enter local elections??????
In case anyone missed it:
https://skwawkbox.org/2018/07/15/novichok-perfume-bottle-creates-more-questions-than-answers-msm-still-not-asking-them/
Some Frank Gardner from BBC has suggested it probably could have been something such as perfume bottle. Why not suggesting that Yulia knows her perfumes, she certainly would point out a newly obtained perfume, as well as any toiletry. Well, Police would ask her about ANY non-solid substance, including soap, deodorant, home chemicals, baby wipes, whatever can leave its trace on human skin. Hey, they had several months for doing this.
Thus, the Police would know what to look for in Charlie’s house.
“one key theory now being explored is that the couple is that the couple found the bottle in the apartment,
after it was left there when Skripal’s would be assassins used it as a safe house while they prepared
the attack.”
Being explored by who? Who would explore such a dumb theory and why would they explore it?
One reason could be that the people exploring the theory know something about the bottle that we don’t know and what they know is very problematic to try to explain with a simpler theory.
Either they know something, or they know nothing, not even how it got into the flat because now conscious and talking Charlie couldn’t tell them.
Theresa May will be at the Farnborough Airshow today promoting the UK’s military industrial complex.
A letter with several signatories was sent to the Sunday Times by Forces Watch.
https://twitter.com/ForcesWatch/status/1018414045517570049
Misguided aim of weapons show
15/07/2018
The packaging of Farnborough International Air Show as both ‘the ultimate platform for the aerospace industry to do business’ and an event to ‘keep the whole family entertained’ is troubling.
Much of the business being done will be in weapons. All top ten global arms companies will be present.
At past air shows the Government hosted scores of military delegations from some of the world’s most repressive regimes.
The public displays include flypasts, exhibitions and family areas.
The Futures Day is aimed at school and university students and allows weapons manufacturers to promote themselves to young people through STEM activities.
Highlights this year include MBDA’s The Enforcer which will encourage school pupils as young as 11 to ‘seek, aim and fire at military tanks and buildings in a gaming environment’. How many of them will know that MBDA’s missiles have been dropped on their contemporaries in Yemen?
Unfortunately, this is but one example of the numerous ways in which military interests are increasingly allowed to influence young people under the guise of education.
A more ethical approach would be to engage young people’s interests in how science, design and technology can contribute to sustainable peace, healthcare, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
Emma Sangster, Coordinator, ForcesWatch
Celia McKeon, Coordinator, Rethinking Security
Mark Curtis, Author
Dr Stuart Parkinson, Executive Director, Scientists for Global Responsibility
Rowan Kinchin, Coordinator, Campaign Against Arms Trade
Jon Nott, General Secretary, Woodcraft Folk
Sophie Neuberg, Executive Director, Medact
Paul Parker, Recording Clerk for Quakers in Britain
Pat Gaffney, General Secretary, Pax Christi
Oliver Robertson, Development Manager, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Let’s hope she gets in the way of some target practicing.
Anyone interested in her 104 page White Paper entitled ‘THE FUTURE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE EUROPEAN UNION.’?
Cm
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/725288/The_future_relationship_between_the_United_Kingdom_and_the_European_Union.pdf
“…Trump discussed the possible need to evacuate members of the (*White Helmets) group during his meetings at the NATO summit last week…”
Do you still think the White Helmets are native Syrian people, kind-hearted volunteers?
“… evacuation … has become a focus of discussions of several countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, France and Canada”
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/07/15/politics/us-allies-syria-evacuation-white-helmets/index.html
The whole Syria regime change narrative is unravelling rapidly and the war might soon come to an end. I think this may be one of the positive outcomes of Trump’s meeting with Putin, a face saving formula for the ‘international coalition’ so that they can gracefully withdraw from Syria and just let the petulant state next door to continue with gratuitous bombing.
I think that we must help the spooks get their story as straight as possible. Unnamed ‘sources’ trail some idea in the media and then study the comments. I hope we get a credit.
“I think that we must help the spooks get their story as straight as possible.”
Not necessarily ‘straight’ just less full of holes otherwise they may have to tell the truth.
The perfume affair :
If in a perfume bottle and now said to have been ” left ” in the house :
Yulia has the perfume so how does it get to be in this house since the Beggining as he moved recently . Or he picked it up at garden and when he moved he then brought it with him ? Uh?
if sprayed more than likely goes to Airways and it’s death within minutes according to peeviously described properties .
unless it’s conveniently a bottle of CK1, why would the men spray it as well ?
The telegraph states this was a safe house ( someone screen shot it and it’s now changed but the screen has been captured ). So do we have 2 perfume Bottles because it would not explain how the perfume was with Yulia and then also in safe house .
Although the door knob is nonsense , that’s the official version where the highest concentrations were found and let’s not forget the spy manual of spreading gel in door .
In Skripal we had a gel and now it’s a liquid so … which is it ?
let’s also remember that both Yulia and Sergey are alive and well and would certainly have mentioned a perfume bottle …
Bonkers story and literally unbelievable .
The Profumo Affair had less of a smell to it.
Not for Profumo. The ladies were no doubt very fragrant.
I think we can rule out Down spraying it normally on herself:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44768229
“Swabs taken from them in hospital revealed the highest level of contamination on their hands, leading to the theory they picked something up. ” She could still have sprayed it on her hand and then distribute, as often done with highly concentrated perfumes.
Reply ↓
Igor P.P.
July 16, 2018 at 14:54
“I think we can rule out Down spraying it normally on herself:”
Do you mean, ‘itself’ ?
Or is she in fact ‘Porton Dawn’ ?
I know a perfectly logical way in which both of them could have been contaminated by a perfume bottle found in this park which doesn’t violate the laws of time linearity or the science of skin and novichoks (including hydrolysis). It does not contradict any publicly known facts and will even pass the plausibility test of people who understand how a map works.
I would love to share here it but I worry about having my plot ideas plagiarized by the team writing the script. I know you’re reading this, so please contact me directly if you’d like to negotiate royalties on my intellectual property.
Is it possible all these poisonings are down to cheap 1980s aftershave? Anyone who ever used Blue Stratos will know there’s a fine line…
lol
Frank Gardner BBC hinting that a perfume bottle just might be the long-sought item before a perfume bottle fortuitously turned up – reminiscent of Jane Standley BBC announcing the ‘fall’ of WTC7 before it happened.
I like your style Robyn.
The Torygraph dutifully report that the perfume bottle may have been “hidden under a bush in a park in the centre of Salisbury”.
Is the British army so shit that after a supposed chemical weapons attack it can’t sweep a park properly and misses a small bottle of liquid? Or if they can but were told not to, didn’t any soldiers or officers mind? I advise people to stockpile many times the amount of food they were planning to, or have already amassed, to survive the coming Brexit famine. Because an army that can’t sweep a park may well not be able to drive a lorry full of biscuits either. I’m sure they’ll be able to drive vehicles up and down for the cameras, though, even ones painted with suitable words and livery.
Perhaps if military spending is increased by 40% in accordance with the defence secretary’s wishes, the army will be able to buy a couple of park keepers’ sticks with points on the end to go with their chemical warfare suits?
What an absolutely unbelievable story about the source of whatever substance killed Dawn Sturgess, if any substance did. The poshboy regime is really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. It doesn’t merit being taken apart at great length as if it were a logical proposition made in error. Don’t feed trolls, even government propagandist trolls. Just how moronic can media consumers get?
Well the assassins wouldn’t need a large quantity and would want it packed in something small and innocuous, especially if they had to smuggle it into the country. Logic would suggest that a perfume bottle would be a good choice.
“Well the assassins wouldn’t need a large quantity and would want it packed in something small and innocuous, especially if they had to smuggle it into the country…”
Thank you Kempe for finally acknowledging that it wasn’t Putin and the Russians. They would have brought it in a diplomatic bag.
That’s not how Litvinenko’s assassins brought their Polonium into the country. They left a traces on all the aircraft and in all the hotel rooms they used.
There’s never been a trial, so we don’t know who his assassins were. We don’t even know if he was assassinated, or fell a victim of his own carelessness. For that matter, we don’t even know what he died from, because UK goverment kept his autopsy report secret and denied and access to it even to his widow. Let Litvinenko rest in peace, he cannot help anyone’s case.
Steve Bannon – a charmer. The language used!
‘Tommy Robinson is the backbone of this country’: Steve Bannon clashes with LBC political chief
15 Jul, 2018
https://www.rt.com/uk/433280-bannon-tommy-robinson-lbc/
He’s obviously never met Robinson.
Does anybody know if by chance a candlestick and/or a lead pipe were found?
Where are you going with this?
…the library?
I don’t have a cluedo you?
No, but the Chalice from the Palace was the Vessel with the Poison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS75NtlH3gI
Brilliant!
I think we ought to pursue that line.
Unfortunately it’s as contradictory as the official story. The Chalice from the Palace and the Vessel with the pestle are two separate containers. Only one had the pellet with the poison (we cannot be certain of that even in the Amesbury/Salisbury cases).
Reports that Novitsjok Parfum du Toilette might have been self-administered by one lady leads to speculation that it might have been self-administered by the other lady.
Could sweet Yulia have been the intended victim all along, with Dad a mere red herring fall-guy?
Could Yulia perhaps have left behind her a string of rejected and dejected lovers, one of whom at least had been trained in the Novitsjok School for Assassins, located deep in the Russian countryside?
my previous post has disappeared…
to repeat it : Once you realise that the perfume bottle tells us that the target was Yulia and not Sergei, it all makes a lot more sense…
Does it?
Ladies spray themselves with perfume before going out, or perhaps give themselves a little ‘refresher’ in the ladies’ room of a bar/hotel/restaurant or wherever. It is a rather personal act after all. I don’t think it’s something they’d do sitting in the open on a park bench – then discard the bottle. Of course they might, but only if it were absolutely empty (as in nothing else can emerge from it but air), in which case there’d be nothing left with which to impregnate anything or anyone else. A still viable receptacle would be returned to the bag or pocket it came from, even if it were first shown to ‘Dad’ sitting adjacent, not tossed under a bush like Richard III’s crown.
Against which, I suppose, is the canard of careless usage, a bottle doused externally with a virulent liquid and a succession of people handling it thereafter, although quite why Charlie should have handled a bottle of his girlfriend’s perfume I cannot imagine.
“Once you realize the perfume bottle tells us the target was Yulia and not Sergei, it all makes a lot more sense…”
Right, the story here is winding down to a close. Not that it will matter to people who love their conspiracies, be they ever so factually conflicted. Because Charlie remembers the perfume bottle; we are simply waiting for him, his brother or the police to tell us where and when he picked it up.
In all likelihood, this was not QE Gardens the day before onset, but rather back in March at the bench, where the perfume bottle rolled out of Yulia’s handbag onto the turf as the bag lay on its side. Left there during the initial commotion and weak cordoning of what was taken as a drug scene not a crime scene, it was soon scavenged by Charlie, taken home, and much later gifted to Dawn.
There’s no mystery where the novichok came from, given Leonid Rink’s account.
So we are back to the mother-in-law back in Moscow, one of the original suspects in Viktoria’s expressed opinion. The key fact is the mother hails from a multi-generational family of Heroes of the Soviet Union, a matter taken very seriously over there. It was intolerable to think the line would be continued into a family of traitors. This would still be considered a very serious crime in Russia but an understandable one. People of WWII age would scarcely press for prosecution. The mother-in-law knew it would be associated with Russia; she took pride in that. She could not anticipate the perfume bottle being lost for so long though.
In the annals of false flag histories, this classifies as a hasty, nasty ill-considered opportunistic diversion of an irrelevant crime to some “larger” purpose. The diplomatic expulsions and Russian bashing, the US and others wanted that beforehand but just needed a pretext. All the donkey countries that went along, on zero evidence, their thinking is why be the nail that sticks up.
Will the UK have the grace to apologize, help undo the expulsions, pay damages? Will the Skripals be allowed to return home?
No. Expect instead continuing nonsense that the Russians wot done it after all,. Imaginary intercepts that can’t be revealed will reveal that Putin directly ordered the MIL to do the deed to redeem the country’s honor, ad personally handing over a left-over bottle of tainted perfume from his KGB service.
So as you see it then, the novichok on the doorknob was put there by whom?
If Bailey rooted in Yulia’s handbag for keys, and some of the novichok had leeched out, he put it on door handle.
“There’s no mystery where the novichok came from, given Leonid Rink’s account.”
Rink’s account is featured here:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-russia-novichok-creator/soviet-era-scientist-says-he-helped-create-poison-in-uk-spy-attack-row-idUKKBN1GW1EP
“Echoing a theory floated in Russian state media, Rink said the British could have been behind the attack.”
Tom Smythe: “In all likelihood, this was not QE Gardens the day before onset, but rather back in March at the bench, where the perfume bottle rolled out of Yulia’s handbag onto the turf as the bag lay on its side.”
Metropolitan Police’s head of counter-terror, Neil Basu suggested last week that Charlie or Dawn found the bottle the day after the Skripal incident:
“There is a possibility they found it on 5 March and only opened it in the past 10 days.”
https://www.spirefm.co.uk/news/local-news/2630419/amesbury-incident-novichok-could-be-active-for-50-years/
He made that statement on 10 July, which was the day that Charlie regained consciousness. The following day, the police discovered the bottle in the house.
http://news.met.police.uk/news/update-source-of-nerve-agent-contamination-identified-314322
Putting two and two together, we can see a story in which Charlie woke up, and soon after that he told the police about when he (or Dawn) found the bottle and where it was. How else would Basu know about the specific date when Charlie or Dawn might have found it?
I suppose it’s possible that someone had mentioned something about a bottle that was found on 5 March. But it’s a big coincidence that the first public statement about that was on the day that Charlie wakes up, ten days after the Amesbury incident.
Tom Smythe – your hypothesis that Russian patriot Mother-in-Law is the source of the novichok held water until I started to think of the detail. If M-i-L wanted Yulia dead, she would have to have hidden her hatred long enough and well enough that giving Yulia a gift wouldn’t appear odd (and apparently she didn’t hide her feelings because we all ‘know’ about them). Anyway, assuming M-i-L’s plan clears the first hurdle, it’s unlikely Yulia would have opened the perfume for the first time on the bench. It’s almost certain she would have opened the ‘gift’ at home and, liking it, sprayed some on then. It could only have been a top-up at the bench.
Chanel 7.5ml purse spray is £98 in Boots. She might have shown it off as a great “find”.
As I posted below….maybe a man’s perfume bottle!
If you’re in the mood for a fine piece of long form journalism from a technical specialist then this is worth a go.
An extraordinarily expensive way to fight ISIS.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/william-langewiesche-b-2-stealth-bomber/561719/
Taking a flight of B2 stealth bombers from Missouri to kill 70 inept foreign fighters in the Libyan desert. No precise cost is offered, I guess it depends on the accountancy protocols you apply, but anyway you try to add it up, the cost would be astronomical.
Looks like paranoid America is going to indict Putin for meddling in its presidential election without effect when it should be impeaching, and removing Trump for encouraging it.
Indeed. Don’t hold your breath if you are expecting any sort of justice for the Palestinians. 70 years, and counting.
July 16, 2018
Trump Turns to Gaza as Middle East Deal of the Century Collapses
by Sheldon Richman
The Trump administration’s “Deal of the Century” for the Palestine-Israel has, predictably, gone over like a lead balloon. So it’s shifting gears. The Washington Post reports, “With President Trump’s promised Middle East peace plan stalled, administration officials are focusing on improving conditions in the impoverished Gaza Strip — a move that could put political pressure on Palestinian leaders to come to the negotiating table.”
Don’t hold your breath.
The “Deal of the Century” was dead on arrival because it was based on the idea that Saudi Arabia and Egypt would “deliver the Palestinians” on the cheap in return for a more formal Saudi-Egyptian-Israeli-US alliance against Iran. The Palestinians were expected to be satisfied with economic-development aid while their aspirations for their own state were essentially tabled, that is, confined to the rubbish bin.
/..
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/16/trump-turns-to-gaza-as-middle-east-deal-of-the-century-collapses/
Every US administration since the Camp David accords, 1978, has made the same sort of commitment. In all cases those making the commitment lacked sincerity or understanding, and often both. I’ve lost count of the “visions” of a solution that various presidents have outlined.
What they all choose to forget is that one of the belligerents doesn’t want peace. One Party is at war with peace. If it ever looked like a peaceful solution might be found, one party would launch air strikes and do everything possible to destroy its chances.
Seemingly well-intended attempts by successive Presidents to broker a deal are transformed completely into something much darker when you consider the billions of dollars worth of arms given (free of charge) by them every year to one side and not the other.
Combined with the unmetered political support given by the US, again to one side and not the other, this has resulted in a situation where that one favoured side can (and does) launch muderous and cruel attacks with absolute impunity on an essentially defenceless and captive population.
The so-called Israeli-Palestine conflict — which is no more a conflict than a gang of thugs attacking a newborn baby with baseball bats represents a conflict — will rightly be recorded as the most straightforwardly unjust, wicked, murderous, and troublesome sources of instability and bad feeling in the history of international relations.
Everybody, every single person, who studies this situation with honesty for 5 minutes, will arrive at the same conclusion. But so very few dare admit it.
You are spot on Hatuey.
I noticed Trump’s words at the ‘press conference’ today about the need to protect Israel.
‘Russian President Vladimir Putin opened Tuesday’s highly anticipated joint press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in Helsinki by saying that the U.S. president paid particular attention to Israel during their summit. Trump echoed that Russia and the U.S. will work together to help ensure Israeli security.
>> Russia-Israel deal is Clear: Iran away from border, Assad’s rule accepted ■ Can Israel really trust Russia to remove Iranian forces from Syria? ■ If Moscow’s ‘deal of the century’ works, both Damascus and Jerusalem will smile ■ Putin Is laying a bomb on Israel’s doorstep | Opinion
“We both spoke with Bibi and they would like to do certain things with Syria having to do with the safety of Israel,” Trump told a joint news conference. “Russia and the United States will work jointly (in this regard). Creating safety for Israel is something both Putin and I would like to see very much,” Trump said.’
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/trump-and-putin-hold-joint-press-conference-in-helsinki-1.6273846
Quite vile, the pair of them.
There is absolutely no mention of Palestine or the Palestinians in this report.
Vile, as you say, pandering to the most aggressive rogue state in the region, if not the world, but also doomed to fail. Nothing short of a massive annihilistic attack on Iran will satisfy Israel and its pals. It isn’t enough that Iran pipes down and disarms itself.
Because Israel, the US, and everybody that lives in the Middle East, knows that Iran’s real power and influence in the region doesn’t depend on military power.
Nobody really fears that iran might attack anybody and it’s worth remembering that it never has. Iranians know that doing so would be suicidal. If anything, one of the big problems with Iran is that it isn’t militaristic (which is the opposite of what Israel and others argue).
Iran represents an alternative to the abject misery, poverty, and exploitation that ordinary people in other countries in the region are forced to endure. Those other countries are governed by people who do what Washington asks and demands of them; and they could hardly be more undemocratic and corrupt.
As long as Iran exists it will serve as an example of an alternative to all that, and for that reason it must be seen to struggle and fail.
Bear in mind, however, that the UK is equally responsible for the sorry state of affairs when it backs Israel at every turn. Why, we even had a government minister going to Israel “on holiday” last year and having unauthorised meetings with members of that government, including Netenbloodyyahu, some of which were held in the Golan Heights! Patel didn’t get sacked, she got to resign when, in fact, she should have been booted out of office as an MP altogether! She essentially committed treason by holding secret meetings with a foreign government without the knowledge of or permission from her own government. Yet Priti Patel survived and has smirked her way on ever since. Indeed, she’s recently being increasingly rolled out again by the BBC for QT and the Daily Politics, still smirking and still shameless!
Remember too, the EU has done little or nothing on Palestine either.
If the concentration of nerve agent was on the BACK of the hands – then it would point to a perfume spray being tested out. It would explain why – having found this out – the authorities went into panic mode searching for the perfume bottle that had to have been near the bench – but was missing…
If it was on a door handle it would be on the palms. Actually you are supposed to spray perfume on your inner wrists, your throat and behind your ears. Does anyone really believe it took the searchers 9 days to find it because it was hidden? Why and where in a small one bedroom flat/room in a hostel/in Dawn’s personal effects?
On Twitter
Richard N. Haass Jul 14
International order for 4 centuries has been based on non-interference in the internal affairs of others and respect for sovereignty. Russia has violated this norm by seizing Crimea and by interfering in the 2016 US election. We must deal w Putin’s Russia as the rogue state it is.
Neil Clark’s response
@NeilClark66
Was this guy locked in a wardrobe during the illegal invasion of Iraq? Or during the bombing of Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria et al….Or when the US helped Yeltsin win the Russian Presidential election in 1996…..
https://twitter.com/NeilClark66/status/1018450651066531840
Haass is the President of the Council on Foreign Relations.
I’ll repeat my sophomoric observation posted elsewhere: Remember, one can’t spell “Haass” without “ass”.
Abandon ye all hope. JRM is the power behind the throne. It’s either the UK as a whole entirely divorced from Europe or an independent Scotland with a hard border at Gretna.
Two Remainers. One was the President of the EU Council. The other hoped he would be President of the EU but failed. Push off and Umunna and others with you. We do not want a second vote. That is the last thing that’s needed in this politically paralysed country,
Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson join Tory Brexiteers in attack on Theresa May’s plan
The New Labour architects join with disgruntled Conservative MPs in branding the PM’s proposals as “the worst of both worlds”.
15 July 2018
https://news.sky.com/story/tony-blair-and-lord-mandelson-join-tory-brexiteers-in-attack-on-theresa-mays-plan-11437925
‘WhatsApp 100’ plot to wreck Theresa May’s Chequers plan
Brexiteer MPs are threatening to vote against the PM’s Chequers bill as a former cabinet minster calls for a second referendum.
16 July 2018
https://news.sky.com/story/theresa-may-braced-for-showdown-with-brexit-rebels-11438418
The finding of a heavily contaminated, small glass container in Charlie Rowley’s brand new home, just off Princess Way in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, SP4 7GY, (so recently built that the postcode, street name, and imagery are not even listed on google maps… https://goo.gl/maps/us26Q1g1F3U2 ) means that we can finally begin to put together a story that probably explains the Skripal Affair, and how the UK government is able to claim the implicated chemical is a weapon, which originated in Russia.
Dawn Sturgess who has sadly died, and Charlie Rowley who is seriously ill are both well known as substance abusers. They living just a few miles away from Salisbury in Amesbury. The connection between Dawn and Charlie, and the Skripal’s is at present, just the implicated chemical, the same chemical which ties both poisonings together, but that’s enough extra information to start putting a story together. Who knows if it’s true, but I think it’s probably very close to the mark…
It was never clear to me just what ex Russian spy Sergi Skripal actually did for a living, how did he maintain his standard of living, nice house, BMW etc., since settling in the UK? It was the Petrol Station CCTV footage which was distributed, showing Sergi buying a pint of milk and a pasty, and recorded just prior to his poisoning, that initially caught my attention. The long leather jacket he wore just said ‘crime’ to me, it looked like the sort of leather jacket Phil Mitchell used to wear on East Enders, or that worn by some criminals acting in foreign mafia films.
It seemed to me at the time, that this may be how Sergi was earning a living in the UK… as a crook. Once a hood, always a hood? Both Yulia and his joint poisoning just seemed too strange, inept and high profile to be a deliberate ‘hit’ job by the Russian State, and the speed of the substances effect was too slow, it took hours, not a couple of minutes, as a chemical weapon might have taken. Yulia his daughter, had just flown in from St Petersburg, Russia.
The locations where the police suggested the substance was found were on door handles of the house and car, the sort of places which would become contaminated if one had already got the offending chemical on ones hands – perhaps by a different method completely. Since the start of the Skripal affair, it has seemed to me that Yulia was probably carrying some type of illegal chemical for Sergi when she arrived in the UK, partly because they both were poisoned so shortly after she arrived in the UK, and partly because the UK government seemed so sure there was a Russian connection with the implicated chemical. Very early on in the investigation, RT broadcast a comment from a Russian expert, that the symptoms from which the Skripal’s were suffering when found, sounded rather like a Fentanyl overdose. As we will see later, I wish I had paid more attention to this line of thinking.
Then we have Yulia’s current presence at an undisclosed military base near London, and the strange exclusive Reuters interview filmed in an isolated shrubby woodland so as not to give away the location, with lots of jet aircraft engine noise in the background. Although it wasn’t really an interview, because all Yulia did was read a prepared statement from a teleprompter screen to the camera. She didn’t answer any questions, because none were asked, that was the deal, apparently. It seems clear, she is co-operating with the UK authorities, but it appears she is not free to go, or talk freely, and that seems to indicate to me, both her and Sergi were jointly involved in something criminal, which the UK authorities can hold over them.
In the last couple of years, a drug epidemic has swept the world, it is the illicit supply of Heroin or Cocaine, which has been cut with synthetic opioids, and it has lead to thousands upon thousands of deaths every year through overdosing. Initially the drug cutting took place with the synthetic opioid Fentanyl, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl – when taken together they are 100 times stronger than heroin alone. More recently, a synthetic opioid used to cut the heroin is Carfentanil, when taken together they are 5000 times stronger than the heroin alone. Carfentanil is so strong, it has been suggested that it should be considered a potential weapon of mass destruction should rogue states or terrorists get their hands on it. Canadian authorities recently sized a large amount of Carfentanil hidden in printer toner cartridges, the quantity was sufficient that if given as a single dose, there was sufficient quantity to kill every man, woman and child in Canada.
Fentanyl is so strong, that if the substance is suspected as the cause of an emergency overdose, medical staff treating a patient need to take very special precautions, and follow strict decontamination procedures, as just a small amount of contamination to the skin can result in symptoms:
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/fentanyl/healthcareprevention.html
But one can see why these synthetic opioids are so attractive, up till recently, they have been relatively easy to get hold of (China didn’t restrict supply until 2017), and cutting it with heroin and other bulking agents can make a small amount of heroin go a long long way, it’s a drug dealers dream, and a easy way to make a lot of money, for not a lot of cost.
Here’s a US study on Fentanyl use…
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395917301275
Here’s a very recent April 2018 article from a UK drug charities blog discussing Fentanyl… (Note the specific mention of “Salisbury” at the bottom of this blog post…and that CGL is currently undertaking research into the prevalence of fentanyl in the UK and that they are issuing harm reduction advice, and they have planned two additional roundtable events, one for Salisbury and one for Exeter to prevent future fentanyl-related deaths.)
https://www.changegrowlive.org/latest/blog/fentanyl-and-drug-related-deaths-the-local-perspective
Here is a US site dealing with illicit Carfentanil…
https://www.rehabcenter.net/carfentanil-laced-heroin-abuse-addiction/
And here is a new British Medical Journal paper just published in April 2018 suggesting the Synthetic Opioid epidemic may have just begun to hit the UK…
https://www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k1564
On October 26, 2002, Russian Special Forces deployed a chemical aerosol against Chechen terrorists to rescue hostages in the Dubrovka theatre. Its use confirmed Russian military interest in chemicals with effects on personnel and caused 125 deaths through a combination of the aerosol and inadequate medical care. Researchers at the UK’s biological warfare labs at Porton Down found carfentanil and remifentanil in clothing from two British survivors of the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis. The team concluded that the Russian military used an aerosol mist of carfentanil and remifentanil to subdue Chechen hostage takers:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23002178
Two other things of interest… In 2015, Estonia was listed as having the highest death rate/million of the population from synthetic opioid overdose of any country in the world, Five times the European average. Yulia Skripal lives in St Petersburg Russia, just 80 miles from the border of Estonia. Alexandr Skripal – Sergi’s son, apparently passed away very suddenly last year (2017) aged only 43, while visiting St Petersburg, his death is recorded as being complicated by sudden and unexplained liver failure, his death still seems somewhat of a mystery.
So there we have it… that’s my story, and my claim is that the Skripal’s were either…
1. Accidentally contaminated by a very powerful illicit Synthetic Opioid which Yulia had brought into the country, suggesting that Sergi is probably a drug dealer, and is at least partly responsible for the distribution of these dangerous drugs in and around the Salisbury area.
2. Sergi is a drug user, and accidentally overdosed on a new Synthetic Opioid drug which has recently entered the Salisbury area, and Yulia was accidentally contaminated by contact with Sergi.
The UK government is obviously claiming that Carfentanil can be considered a Russian military grade weapon, because of the 2002 Moscow Theater Hostage Siege where it was used by Russian Special forces to bring the siege to an end. Yulia possibly brought it into the UK for Sergi, to cut with heroin, hence the UK’s claim of a Russian connection, and hence why she’s still being held in the UK, why she can’t ask for Russian assistance, and why she is not free to talk to the press. The deal is that if she and Sergi play ball on this, they can eventually go free, to live a life elsewhere, probably under a new identity.
Interesting comment. Back when all this started I came across a youtube clip detailing some of Sergi’s time in the Russian jail – it was in Russian with English subs – claimed that during his stay was visited often, brought many top line items such as cigars etc and touched on the possiblility of him also being supplied heroin as he was a known user. Have since tried to find the clip again, maybe someone with more time can.
It’s probably this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEL0vtDBwgU
No, they do not confirm him being a known user. The programme host directly asks if he was, but they explain that it was extremely difficult to get heroin in that prison (it was not a normal prison), and his addiction would subside anyway before he got there as he spent a year in an FSB jail prior to that (where drugs are an impossibility). They did get the impression that he had some experience with drugs in the past.
Hi MaxB, I don’t entirely disagree with your hypothesis however, Yulia lived in Moscow and arrived in the UK from there.
Also of possible interest to you is the 29 June arrest in nearby Chippenham of a local drug dealer with an estimated £36k street value stash, which was seized and had to be sent away for “tests.” Because of the need to identify the seized substance, the dealer was released. https://www.wiltshire.police.uk/article/2897/Man-arrested-and-26-000-cash-seized-following-warrant-at-Chippenham-address-
Well spotted lissnup, I was not aware of that.
So they picked up a perfume bottle 4 months ago and waited 4 months before the “used” it?
Or perhaps the perfume bottle has been laying visible out there for months?
On other news, Russia and US talking is bad according to western media. I dont know if I should laugh or cry.
It’s best to laugh.
Relaxes the muscles.
A whole worldwide chorus is already doing that.
Chime in.
Just had a thought…mans or womens perfume bottle…..? Just because Dawn died does not mean it is wonens perfume…as then she would have taken it to her home surely?
Jo
There was perhaps no label at all on the bottle.
I laughed Jack. Channel 4 News was hilarious. Jon Snow was doing outrage like nobody’s business! The Cathy woman was doing outrage in her report from Helsinki. Snow was speaking to various outraged Americans one of whom said to him, “I mean you guys KNOW Russia tried to murder people on UK soil. What is Trump doing?!? This is treason! He can’t talk about internal domestic stuff (Hillary’s emails) in a situation like this!” Snow nodded emphatically in agreement. The collective apoplexy covering an area including Helsinki, Washington D.C. and the Channel 4 News room swirled out of the TV like a mini tornado. And, sadly, John and Cathy were the worst with Snow almost shrieking that Trump had no right to want to be friends with Russia, Russia was NOT our ally!
Yep, I laughed and laughed. What else do you do when you see the extent to which even once-decent journalists like Snow have been contaminated by the toxins that now flow freely through our media?
O/T but to do with Putin:
‘PUTIN: AFTER DEFEAT OF TERRORISTS IN SOUTHERN SYRIA, SITUATION IN GOLAN HEIGHTS MUST BE BROUGHT IN COMPLIANCE WITH 1974 AGREEMENT’:
https://southfront.org/putin-after-defeat-of-terrorists-in-southern-syria-situation-in-golan-heights-must-be-brought-in-compliance-with-1974-agreement/
Let’s see what comes of this initiative!
“Harmony in Helsinki sows discord in the world” was the opening gambit on C4 news. What a dangerous fucked up bunch these people are.
BBC equally pathetic on Beyond 100 days.
They’ll do everything they can to get us safely back on the road to annihilation.
Well, in a sense it’s true.
There’s a lot of discord of the cognitive kind that needs to be canalized today.
I envision a giant raspberry.
Jeez….their reporting on it…their ” expert”Dominic…the world is not a safer place he says…..clearly he is some bought in John McCain equivalent. Clearly the fires are stoking to charge DT with treason or impeach him.
Looking out from the armed camp that is the South of England it must seem the sky is falling in.
There is no money to be made from peace, just happiness.
Meanwhile, on the Assange front:
‘British and Ecuadorian authorities in talks to evict Julian Assange from London embassy’:
https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/16/british-and-ecuadorian-authorities-in-talks-to-evict-julian-assange-from-london-embassy/
‘The London-based Times newspaper reported yesterday that the British and Ecuadorian governments have been holding secret discussions on plans to evict WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from Ecuador’s London embassy, where he sought political asylum six years ago.
The article said the talks are “an attempt to remove Assange” from the embassy and are being conducted at the highest levels of government, with British Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan personally involved.
The report is the latest public indication of a conspiracy, involving the British, US and Ecuadorian governments, to terminate Assange’s political asylum, in violation of international law, and force him into UK custody. The major powers are determined to prosecute the WikiLeaks editor for his organisation’s role in exposing US-led war crimes and diplomatic intrigues around the world.
The Times noted that the talks have been taking place prior to a British visit by Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno scheduled for the end of this month. Since elections last year, Moreno has escalated the rightward turn initiated by his predecessor Rafael Correa. He is deepening economic and military ties with the US and Britain and has denounced Assange as a “hacker,” a “stone in our shoe” and “our inherited problem.”….’
Sounds like the cue to give Moreno the kind of Trump welcome he reserves on his visit.
StW, hope you’re reading this. The US was already behind two foiled coup plots against Maduro – one in late 2017, and one Feb/March 2018.
I was expecting you to say that Trump was hoping that the GRU would find in Hillary]s 33,000 emails that she was indeed a druggy dyke who loved to have oral sex with adolescent females which got James Comey to write that unprecedented letter to the Congress about reopening the Bureau’s investigation of her alleged crimes which would justify Trump locking her up once he became POTUS.
The GRU found nothing about it as Trump heard through the grapevine.
Typically The Guardian and Reuters are reporting “treason” and “shock” but are not yet reporting Putin’s offer re the Mueller investigation and “CEO William Browder illegally earned more than $1.5 billion.They didn’t pay a cent of taxes but they transferred the money to the US and they also donated $400 million to the Clinton campaign – $400 million. They might have done it legally, but they earned that money illegally,” Putin said.”
SEE https://www.rt.com/news/433400-mueller-probe-request-russia/
@ Robert W July 16, 2018 at 19:44
‘Vladimir Putin just humiliated Donald Trump. And Trump humiliated America’:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/putin-trump-meeting-conference-summit-helsinki-us-russia-finland-a8450231.html
‘…At a press conference with Donald Trump following their first formal bi-lateral summit, Putin stood and watched as the US president told the world he trusted the word of the Russian leader as much as that of his own intelligence chief.
A week after berating Nato allies in Brussels, undermining British prime minister Theresa May’s position on Brexit and angering sticklers on royal protocol by walking in front of the Queen, Trump was asked whether he accepted the assessment of his intelligence community that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.
“All I can do is ask the question – my people came to me, Dan Coats [the Director of National Intelligence] came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia,” he said.
“I have President Putin he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this, I don’t see any reason why it would be but I really want to see the server but, I have confidence in both parties.”…’
Way to be!! Pity other world leaders don’t say the same thing (I’d prefer the truth, that they trust Putin’s word more, but obviously that would fit in with their ‘Demonisation’ Program).
Thanks Paul. The Independent ALSO CARRIED the on-the-ground truthful report re Douma’s “gassed wet children attack”:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html
BUT James Le Mesurier’s White Helmets’ staged version became the UK-US-France sop to global media masses while predatory investors bombed Syria on the night of 13-14 April 2018.
Of course The Guardian’s Airport One marching orders didn’t report truthful journalists such as Robert Fisk on the ground in April either, they carried the sop.
>>>So as you see it then, the novichok on the doorknob was put there by whom?
Back on Craig Murray’s designated forum topic (be that ever so boring vs burning tyres at a barricade for someone’s cause du jour):
The door knob business — and the silly assassination manual that soon followed — was just a last act of desperation in a failed investigation. It was the graveyard flowers, no it was the air intake on the BMW, no it was the car door handles, no it was the lip balm, no it was the russian buckwheat, no we need to interrogate the Mill Pub bartender a ninth time (not exaggerating), no it was an irritated chef at Zizzi’s, no it was a random passerby with a red handbag … and those are just the police scenarios, never mind variants the tabloids and on-liners put out.
How is the role of OPCW “confirmation” then explained? Here we know very little because Britain refused to release more than a fragment of the report. (The risk here was outside chemists like Prof Collum at Cornell would tear it to shreds).
Unbelievably, Porton Down was one of the four ‘independent’ labs used. Two received blood under proper chain-of-custody, two received environmental. The door handle was not secured; it first went under CoC at the arrival of OPCW. People had been going in and out for about a month at that time; there’s a press photo of a Salisbury meter-maid standing inside Sergei’s living room, no gloves, no mask, no training, no coverlets, no hose-off, no nothing.
OPCW is not a UN agency as people think. It is independently funded by treaty member countries. But like NATO or the UN, one of the member countries contributes way disproportionately and gets to fire and hire the OPCW director if they don’t play ball (google ‘OPCW Bolton threaten’). OPCW’s remit, for good reason, was historically limited to scientific analysis but that was just changed to blame game after the second Salisbury incident at the initiative of a state which had already announced guilt, with Big Brother and Sh*thole Countries (good name for a band?) quick to agree.
And the OPCW, despite no investigative staff, will soon be trotted out to third-party perfume attribution to Russia. Except for the summary sentence, the rest of the report will not be available to the ‘guilty’ party or independent scientists (see The Trial F Kafka 1925, $1.29 ebook).
Conceivably Yulia had unpacked or handled the perfume bottle early on, without spraying, and managed to contaminate the house and car with nanograms of novichok, far too little to bring on symptoms (compare: botox) but enough for ultra-sensitive enzyme assays to detect. {Note: since PD, like any CBW lab, has A234 reference samples in-house, some onlookers think they salted the door handle for the benefit of inspectors.]
Conceivably a state of the art analytic lab like Spiez could confirm traces on a door handle swipe — recall an admin there foolishly tweeted that they did not have enough to determine the chemistry but could safely defer to their good friends at PD on that.
No test results or methodologies have been disclosed. However acetylcholinesterase is famous among protein chemists for its rapidity of action (high turnover of substrate in micro-seconds). Decades of journal articles dive deeply into the structural basis for this. OPs including novichoks bind covalently to the active site serine, stopping the reaction in its tracks.
Inhibition of this very high turnover is thus the basis for an exquisitely sensitive assay: very low molar amounts of proxy BChE, titrated to rough stoichiometric correspondence with very low molar amounts of swipe novichok, give rise to practically no choline or acetate product, and consequently no colorimetric development of them, even after hours have gone by.
Since the swipe is only quasi-representative of initial source contamination, the tests are only semi-quantitative (yes-no) despite the sensitivity.
Nonetheless the police knew all along the door handle was not “it” even though the handle and half of Skripal’s Salisbury had detectable contamination if you looked hard enough. There are a whole lot of novichok molecules just in a nanoliter (google ‘avogadro’ with mol wt ~500).
Finding the perfume bottle motherlode is thus a huge breakthrough. There’s more novichok in that bottle than in their thousands of other objects put together. Plus Charlie is right there to tell investigators the latter half of its history (provenance).
The problem they’re facing now is how to walk back the door handle. Not the perp though, leave that murky. Mind you, the novichok resembles something once made by Russia (omitting mention of a dozen other countries and any college-educated terrorist).
Tom might consider how most users post on Craig’s posts, rather than jumping to the conclusion that “Back on Craig Murray’s designated forum topic (be that ever so boring vs burning tyres at a barricade for someone’s cause du jour):”
Topics such as Assange (Paul Barbara above) and The Guardian’s woeful deceptions on foreign relations (Robert W above) are key topics on Craig’s forum. It is usual for users to post to the most current comments thread.
I would agree with you that it is not ideal. Perhaps Craig/webmaster might consider a slightly different set up of the front page so that we users can both see Craig’s front page “cause du jour” AND can easily see and post to the other topics Craig and users agree are current.
btw, designating “search” as “google” plays into the search network that writes its algorithms to close traffic to Craig’s website. Better is to support a non-stalking search engine such as https://duckduckgo.com/
As to your post Tom, thank you, it is very useful and I commend it to everyone following the Skripal topic.
Webmaster – fyi
Put on the door knob by Sergi Skripal when he touched it… surely.
The perfume bottle seems a little too convenient for the previously stalled investigation. It seems surprisingly lucky/unlucky for the bottle to escape from say, Yulia’s bag, and end up in someone else’s possession. Then it is not opened/tried for months.
If this happened it is likely it was caught on CCTV too. Guess we know too little to make concrete conclusions. It is certainly fun exercising the brain cells trying to work it out.
This is fascinating information and I’m trying to follow along.
Are you saying that there is a fast, simple, highly sensitive test that could maybe even be done in the field to determine if OP (of some sort) is present in a sample? Like drop your q-tip into a vial, put the lid back on, shake and wait 20 minutes, if it turns blue it’s the novichoks (or maybe cockroach powder).
This is probably a dumb question, but I’m not a chemist: How precise does the BChE correspondence need to be and how would you even begin to estimate the molar target?
Is there a reason BChE is used (as you say a ‘proxy’) rather than using AChE directly?
Neat stuff, I’d love to read more about how the analytical techniques work either via more comments or any recommended reading that you think would be accessible to an enthusiastic layperson.
About the OPCW report, do you know for sure that it was never shared with Russia? I was under the impression that it had been. I noticed recently that if you read all the statements from the member states some of them leak small details from the confidential report. This may be interesting to you if you hadn’t noticed it before.
“field test for OPs: swipe the sample, dip the q-tip into a vial, put the cap back on, shake and wait 20 minutes, if it DOESN’T turn blue it’s the novichoks (or maybe cockroach powder).”
Right, the enzyme breaks compound A into B + C. Compound C + reagent D give an intense blue (alternatively fluorescent) color. If enough OP is present to overwhelm the enzyme, the system stays stuck in compound A, so no color.
BChE, a sister enzyme soluble in water and found in plasma, is a reliable proxy for inconvenient cell membrane-bound, nervous system AChE that is the sole significant player in OP toxicity. The right molar range isn’t known in advance so it is determined by serial dilution, followed by a zoom that determines a narrower appropriate range. Too high, the OP knocks out 1%, not detectable; too low, the OP knocks it all out; about right, get some numbers on the OP level.
The basic cholinesterase enzyme inhibition test is non-specific to the OP: sarin, flea powder, malathion, donepezil, carbamates, novichoks etc are not readily distinguishable without some kind of follow-up. They did check the Skripals for double exposure (street drug + novi), negative.
The police could pre-screen objects in the field and take the positive objects (or a second swab) back to a PD lab, but training, consistency, quantitation, evidence alteration and documentation discourage this.
With say the ~200 bricks taken out in front of the bench, for site decontamination more than evidentiary forensics, they could simply mist the bricks with first with barely enough enzyme and buffer, wait 20 minutes for the OP if any to react, mist with substrate, wait another 20 minutes, mist with color developing reagent. The blue bricks can stay, they define the limits of non-contamination. This saves on the volume of waste needing go to a certified landfill. With a bus or car, they are primarily looking for yes/no and where, not for how much.
It is actually easier to go out there with a rack of numbered test tubes, swipe each brick, put each q-tip in its tube, take the rack back to the lab and stick it in the robotics’ conveyor belt as this one of many hospital blood tests that’s long been programmably automated. They have to avoid contaminating the lab and staff, whatever that takes. PD would have whole buildings at BSL Level 4 containment, overkill for just a little liquid novichok. https://consteril.com/biosafety-levels-difference/
They didn’t do it this way as far as I could tell from photos. Some of it they just hosed off, didn’t test, and hoped for the best. In higher priority areas, first came photos before anything got moved around, then a short list of priority objects was decided, then officers sent in to swipe the list and bag the objects, then PD techs tested them manually as they came in.
They’ve put in a huge frustrating effort here that has to be applauded. One accident, one person clinically contaminated, the whole investigation screeches to a halt. This approach does not scale to decontaminating a whole city misted with a liter of novi, flown say from a small drone. For this reason, BCW treaties were negotiated and agreed.
As it played out, Charlie and Dawn provided in vivo enzyme assays and became in effect walking novi detectors.
Easy but accurate read:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3648782/
>leaks from OPCW full report
No, I haven’t seen any further details. It would be great if you could post quotes or links, what with a blame visit scheduled soon.
Lavrov claimed in his BZ statement that full OPCW report was never shared with Russia.
Many thanks for your highly informative and useful input on the most complex aspect of this affair. I will be watching out for more contributions from you.
Things are hotting up. The events in Helsinki are not going according to plan. MSM casting POTUS as a traitor, because he’s warming to Russia. The Novihoax events in salisbury don’t appear to have negatively impacted the summit, anyone on here surprised ?
Keith Prescott
The situation is absurd and dangerous, no wonder fewer people support western liberal media these days.