Tag Archives: chemical weapons

No chemicals sent to Syria from the UK

Syria mapAccording to the Independent, Vince Cable is under pressure over some export licenses that were issued by his department in January 2012.

The licenses were for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride. both of which can be used to manufacture sarin gas, which we now know was used in the chemical attacks in Syria. But further down the article we can read that:

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills insisted that although the licences were granted to an unnamed UK chemical company in January 2012, the substances were not sent to Syria before the permits were eventually revoked last July in response to tightened European Union sanctions.

Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 13 Comments

Opinion: the case for intervention in Syria

Being up all night does give me somewhat of an advantage as far as news goes. As I’m writing this even the BBC has not yet covered what’s been seen on NBC, CNN, Russia Today and others. Namely, the reports that Assad has had chemical and biological weapons prepared for use. Obviously, at this point we’re unable to establish if this is fact, what we do know however is that Syria is in possession of these weapons and Assad’s regime is clawing along on its last breaths.

I don’t need to establish how devastating chemical and biological weapons like these can …

Posted in Europe / International and Op-eds | Also tagged | 7 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • David Le Grice
    Weird that this appears to be the first LDV article about this, and the first time anyone in the parliamentary party has spoken up about it (as far as I'm aware...
  • Jack
    Delighted to see conference overwhelmingly reject the EHRC guidance (they don't deserve three quarters of that name - I accept they are a commission). People ar...
  • Geoff Reid
    Somebody had to say it eventual!y. Thank you Tom for inviting us to be honest on this matter....
  • Hywel
    Important point there Paul. For all the angst about 'lack of cut through' that has pretty much been the case for most of the time the LIb Dems existed except f...
  • Roland
    @Gwyn, I agree with David Raw about relative urgency. However, even in the list of political reforms, I would put changes to voting way below the changes that n...