U.N. Security Council members Britain, Estonia and Germany denounced Syria Wednesday for a lack of accountability after being accused of conducting chemical weapons attacks in 2017. The accusations came in speeches delivered during a closed door Security Council videoconference, and later made public despite confidentiality ...
The global chemical weapons watchdog explicitly blamed Syria for toxic attacks for the first time Wednesday, saying President Bashar Assad's air force used the nerve gas sarin and chlorine three times in 2017. The findings came in the first report from a new investigative team ...
Critics assail secrecy over unexploded chemical weapons left by Imperial Japanese Army
At the end of World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army left a number of unexploded shells filled with poison gas used as munitions. In the 2000s, when such artillery shells were discovered and retrieved from the seabed off the coastal town of Kanda, ...
South Korea demands proof from Japan for accusation of export violations
South Korea said on Friday it deeply regrets accusations by some senior Japanese officials that South Korea did not enforce proper export control and Japan must present clear evidence for its assertion. South Korea has fully enforced U.N. sanctions on North Korea and international export ...
The existence of a detailed report documenting how chemical weapons were used by the Imperial Japanese Army in China has been confirmed for the first time, a Japanese historian said Sunday. The official report, compiled by a frontline poison gas battalion posted in northern China, ...
Syria bars access to chemical weapons investigators, says watchdog
Syrian officials have refused access to a newly created chemical weapons investigation team formed to identify culprits behind attacks with banned munitions, the organization's top official said in remarks published on Wednesday. Member countries of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted ...
Focus on North Korea's nuclear arsenal obscures threat posed by chemical and biological weapons
As U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held their summit in Vietnam, the narrow focus on nuclear weapons obscured a major danger: Kim holds the whip in a three-ring circus of weapons of mass destruction. The other two rings, ...
Chemical arms team to assign blame for Syrian attacks despite Russia, Iran opposition
The global chemical weapons watchdog will in February begin to assign blame for attacks with banned munitions in Syria's war, using new powers approved by member states but opposed by Damascus and its key allies Russia and Iran. The agency was handed the new task ...
U.S. prepares for biggest-ever Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday visited a former American air base in southern Vietnam that will soon become the biggest-ever U.S. cleanup site for contamination left by the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Standing near a skull-and-crossbones warning sign meant to ...
The United States on Thursday charged seven Russian intelligence officers with conspiring to hack computers and steal data from the nuclear energy company Westinghouse Electric Co. as well as anti-doping watchdogs, sporting federations and an international agency probing the use of chemical weapons. The charges ...
U.N. documents further Syrian regime use of banned chemical arms, fears Idlib 'massacre'
U.N. investigators said on Wednesday that they had documented three further uses of banned chlorine weapons by Syrian government forces that constituted war crimes, and urged major powers to help avert a "massacre" in the final battle for Idlib. The attacks caused injuries in the ...
Syria is preparing chemical weapons for attacks in Idlib, U.S. envoy says
There is "lots of evidence" that chemical weapons are being prepared by Syrian government forces in Idlib in northwest Syria, the new U.S. adviser for Syria said on Thursday as he warned of the risks of an offensive on the country's last big rebel ...
