Russia exerted her “right of reply” to respond to statements produced by the US and Sweden which implicated Syrian forces in the use of chemical weapons. As stated by the representative for the Russian Federation, such accusations were not only off topic, at a meeting devoted to biological—not chemical—weapons ,but were also patently untrue.
More likely, claimed the Russian spokesman, was that US- affiliated “jihadists” tried to pin this about the embattled Assad regime and used chlorine gas. The US, he declared, is known to be supporting terrorist groups like Al Nusra in that area.
To not be left out in the cold, the US- connected Ukrainian representative also defended the US’s assertions.
I think of the seminar at the United Nations as Ground Zero. For three weeks, delegates from more than 170 nations meet to discuss the latest advances in biological weapons— whose got ’em, who might have ’em and what things to do to protect a vulnerable world from deployment and their proliferation.
This is a low profile meeting, with little press interest and no major movements in international policy. For the fact is that the BWC is virtually the only international arms treaty which has no verification mechanism with no way of ensuring compliance.
Things might have cooled down after this exchange, as the NGOs were then scheduled to make their presentations that were brief. As it turned out, most of the NGOs were pretty superficial in their demonstrations, intoning the necessity of earning the world safer in face of the increasing danger of biological weapons. The International Office for Innovation in Reducing Crime, a brand new kid on the block, detailed a technique to address hazard while the usual suspects, including UPMC and Vertic, made presentations which highlighted their public profile as policy analysts.
Russian giant news agency, TASS, ran an article that the US is violating the BWC.
And in case it’sn’t quite clear what the story might be, let’s not leave you in a state of confusion. An intentionally caused pandemic gets the potential of decimating the people of the US, or at least the targeted groups.
