Archive: syria
17th September 2021
Hundreds of people died – many of them in their sleep – when rockets laden with the nerve agent sarin hit Ghouta, a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus, in the early hours of 21 August 2013. It was the deadliest chemical attack anywhere in the world since the 1980s and it caused… Read more
26th July 2021
Syria's claim that crucial evidence relating to chemical weapons was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes has been greeted with widespread scepticism: it sounds too convenient to be true.
In a diplomatic note to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Syria announced that an… Read more
24th July 2021
Two gas cylinders that formed crucial evidence in connection with a suspected chemical attack in Syria have been destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, according to the Syrian authorities.
The cylinders were at the centre of an investigation by the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) regarding events… Read more
6th July 2021
Four tonnes of a chemical supplied by a German firm and supposedly intended for making pharmaceuticals vanished after arriving in Syria, according to a Swiss newspaper investigation. The chemical – isopropanol – has multiple civilian uses but also is a crucial ingredient in the nerve agent sarin… Read more
3rd July 2021
The Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism is named in memory of a Lebanese-American journalist who died in a car crash while working for Iran's Press TV in 2014. The purpose of the award, according to its website, is to honour non-mainstream journalists who "tell challenging… Read more
1st April 2021
Former UN assistant secretary-general Hans von Sponeck. Photo: Justus Nussbaum
A newly-formed group has joined the campaign to discredit investigations of chemical weapons in Syria and has recruited a former high-ranking UN official to its cause.
"Berlin Group 21", whose website was registered on… Read more
29th March 2021
It emerged last week that a university professor who spreads conspiracy theories about chemical weapons in Syria has been passing information to someone who he mistakenly believed was working for Russian intelligence.
In a lengthy email correspondence with the supposed… Read more
30th November 2020
Towards the end of each month the director-general of the OPCW issues a report headed "Progress in the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons programme". There have been 86 of these reports over the last seven years but what they reveal is not so much progress as a lack of it.
More than 20… Read more
27th November 2020
When the 193 countries that are parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention hold their annual meeting next week they will face a tricky question regarding one of the members.
The general assumption of the Convention is that if countries are willing to sign up to it they are also likely to comply… Read more
6th October 2020
An interesting situation is developing at the OPCW – the global chemical weapons watchdog – regarding Syria and Russia.
Last July the OPCW's executive council set a 90-day deadline for Syria to provide further information about its chemical weapons programme – some of which it was supposed to have… Read more
ARAB ART ONLINE: Susan Hefuna: Al Sabr Gamil (Patience is Beautiful) 2007. Ink stained on wood 140 x 170 cm. More information | Click to enlarge
