BRITISH DEFENCE MINISTRY DOCUMENT REVEALS SKRIPAL BLOOD EVIDENCE IS MISSING – FAKE CHAIN OF CUSTODY MAKES NOVICHOK EVIDENCE WORTHLESS — John Helmer

Usually I aggregate such posts but this deserves featuring.

Dances with Bears
BRITISH DEFENCE MINISTRY DOCUMENT REVEALS SKRIPAL BLOOD EVIDENCE IS MISSING – FAKE CHAIN OF CUSTODY MAKES NOVICHOK EVIDENCE WORTHLESS
John Helmer

Craig Murray — British Government Covert Anti-Russian Propaganda and the Skripal Case

So what do we have here? We have a programme, the Integrity Initiative, whose entire purpose is to pump out covert disinformation against Russia, through social media and news stories secretly paid for by the British government. And we have the Skripals’ MI6 handler, the BBC, Porton Down, the FCO, the MOD and the US Embassy, working together in a group under the auspices of the Integrity Initiative. The Skripal Case happened to occur shortly after a massive increase in the Integrity Initiative’s budget and activity, which itself was a small part of a British Government decision to ramp up a major information war against Russia.

I find that very interesting indeed.

With a hat-tip to members of the Working Group on Syria, Media, and the Propaganda, who are preparing a major and important publication which is imminent. UPDATE Their extremely important briefing note on the Integrity Initiative is now online, prepared to the highest standards of academic discipline. I shall be drawing on and extrapolating from it further next week....

Craig Murray Blog
British Government Covert Anti-Russian Propaganda and the Skripal Case
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Martin Robinson — Revealed: How 'Putin's spy agency' hit-squad 'including a woman' carried out whirlwind 30-hour Novichok mission to poison the Skripals

The latest episode in the drama. Is this the climax?

Daily Mail
Revealed: How 'Putin's spy agency' hit-squad 'including a woman' carried out whirlwind 30-hour Novichok mission to poison the Skripals

Martin Robinson, Uk Chief Reporter For Mailonline

Craig Murray — The Holes in the Official Skripal Story

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....

Craig Murray Blog
The Holes in the Official Skripal Story
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Craig Murray — Wheel Out the Skripal Story Again

I was just thinking this morning about the Skripal case and wondering what ever happened to the Skripals. They have disappeared.

If this happened in Russia, the media would be screaming about it. Actually, the Russian media is. Not peep about in now in the West though.

What is becoming clear is that not only is the British establishment up to its centuries-old tricks but also the British elite are trying desperately to stay relevant on the world stage as they begin to slip into final oblivion and disappear other than as a curious relic like the former European aristocrats that now just hang out.

Craig Murray Blog
Wheel Out the Skripal Story Again
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

See also

Moon of Alabama
British Government Peddles Warmed Over Skripal Muck

b

See also

Sputnik International
UK Counter-Terrorism Chief: 2 People in Amesbury Exposed to Novichok

Follow up from Craig Murray

Craig Murray Blog
The Amesbury Mystery
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Craig Murray — Probable Western Responsibility for Skripal Poisoning [More]

Back then I did not realise what I now know, that the person being protected was Pablo Miller, colleague in both MI6 then Orbis Intelligence of Christopher Steele, author of the fabrications of the Trump/Russia golden shower dossier. That the government’s very first act on the poisoning was to ban all media mention of Pablo Miller makes it extremely probable that this whole incident is related to the Trump dossier and that Skripal had worked on it, as I immediately suspected. The most probable cause is that Skripal – who  ou should remember had traded the names of Russian agents to Britain for cash – had worked on the dossier with Miller but was threatening to expose its lies for cash....

Craig Murray Blog

Probable Western Responsibility for Skripal Poisoning

Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

See also

The response from the US, UK and France to a briefing on Thursday at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in the Hague was perverse, to say the least. Russia had brought 17 witnesses from Douma who stated that there had been no chemical weapons attack there earlier this month – the pretext for an illegal air strike on Syria by the three western states.

The witnesses, a mix of victims and the doctors who treated them, told accounts that confirmed a report provided last week from Douma by British reporter Robert Fisk – a report, it should be noted, that has been almost entirely blanked by the western media. According to the testimony provided at the OPCW, the victims shown in a video from the site of the alleged attack were actually suffering from the effects of inhaling dust after a bombing raid, not gas.

The first strange thing to note is that the US, UK and France boycotted the meeting, denouncing Russia for producing the witnesses and calling the event an “obscene masquerade” and “theatre”. It suggests that this trio, behaving like the proverbial three monkeys, think the testimony will disappear if they simply ignore it. They have no interest in hearing from witnesses unless they confirm the western narrative used to justify the air strikes on Syria....

See also

More pieces added to the puzzle.

Moon of Alabama
The Silence Of The Skripals - Government Blocks Press Reports - Media Change The Record

b

Jonathan Cook Blog
The West Closes Its Ears to Douma Testimony

Jonathan Cook | British journalist, the only foreign correspondent based in Nazareth, Israel (2001-present), and recipient of the  Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism (2011)

Related

The internet is full of photos and videos with the leaders of these nazi organisations posing with swastikas and other nazi symbols and openly declaring their nazi/rasist views and agenda and making the nazi salute! But the west does not want to see the evidence! Hundreds of torch-marches, book-burnings, attacks on churches and synagoges have been carried out by these nazis with the silent support of the illegal regime in Kiev, as well as attacks on, and murders of, journalists, politicians, priests, teachers and anyone suspected of being anti-nazi/anti-racist. But the west does not want to see this either.

Newspapers, TV and radio stations, even internet-sites and bloggers have been burnt, occupied or closed because they showed the truth about the nazis and the illegal regime - the Kiev nazi junta - but the west - that in other cases "fights for the right of free speech" (at least when it comes to Pussy Riot in Russia), does not want to see what happens in former Ukraine.

Geopolitics

There are real nazis in power in Kiev

Nicholas Nicholaides, physician living in Sweden

See also

The term ‘media bias’ does not do justice to the western corporate media’s relationship with Israel and Palestine. The relationship is, indeed, far more profound than mere partiality. It is not ignorance, either. It is a calculated and long-term campaign, aimed at guarding Israel and demonizing Palestinians.

The current disgraceful coverage of Gaza’s popular protests indicates that the media’s position aims at suppressing the truth on Palestine, at any cost, and by any means....

Politics for the People
Media Cover-up: Shielding Israel is a Matter of Policy

Ramzy Baroud

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The White Helmets, otherwise known as the Syria Civil Defense, are often presented as an independent humanitarian NGO, but in reality it was founded by a former British intelligence officer, receives millions of dollars in funding from the US, UK, Qatar, Denmark and the Syrian opposition party and material support and training by many EU member nations.

The White Helmets were set up by ex ‘security’ specialist and former British military intelligence officer, James le Mesurier who played a key role in some of NATO’s most dubious interventions including Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine....

Tidbit.

Professor Fadhel Kaboub, Associate Professor of economics and international studies at Denison University says there is a lot of evidence the White Helmets have staged and choreographed events that have been revealed and debunked by many experts including the UN.

Fadhel Kaboub is an MMT economist.

Medium
Who are the White Helmets?

Claire Connelly

See also

But narrative control is working.

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is America’s most popular politician according to a study by Quinnipiac University, CNN reported yesterday.

Neocon Bill Kristol, who "discovered" Sarah Palin, is pushing Haley for POTUS in 2020.

Zero Hedge
America's Most Popular Politician Is Nikki Haley...Let That Sink In

Tyler Durden

Gareth Porter — An Alternative Explanation to the Skripal Mystery

"Compounding factors."

For weeks, British Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have insisted that there is “no alternative explanation” to Russian government responsibility for the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury last month.

But in fact the British government is well aware that such an alternative explanation does exist. It is based on the well-documented fact that the “Novichok” nerve agent synthesized by Soviet scientist in the 1980s had been sold by the scientist–who led the development of the nerve agent– to individuals linked to Russian criminal organizations as long ago as 1994 and was used to kill a Russian banker in 1995.

The connection between the Novichok nerve agent and a previous murder linked to the murky Russian criminal underworld would account for the facts of the Salisbury poisoning far better than the official line that it was a Russian government assassination attempt.

But in fact the British government is well aware that such an alternative explanation does exist. It is based on the well-documented fact that the “Novichok” nerve agent synthesized by Soviet scientist in the 1980s had been sold by the scientist–who led the development of the nerve agent– to individuals linked to Russian criminal organizations as long ago as 1994 and was used to kill a Russian banker in 1995.

The connection between the Novichok nerve agent and a previous murder linked to the murky Russian criminal underworld would account for the facts of the Salisbury poisoning far better than the official line that it was a Russian government assassination attempt....

Consortium News
An Alternative Explanation to the Skripal Mystery

Gareth Porter

J — Russian FM Lavrov speaks on the Skripal Posioning Issue. Samples examined by Swiss Spiez Labs

From the lips of the man who doesn't bullshit, Russian FM Lavrov briefing on the Skripal incident that was carried by Russia 24 TV:

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Russian FM Lavrov speaks on the Skripal Posioning Issue. Samples examined by Swiss Spiez Labs
J

Craig Murray — Just Who’s Pulling the Strings?

It is also worth noting that the most ardent supporters of this military action, outside Saudi Arabia and Israel, are the Blairites in the UK and the Clinton Democrats in the USA. The self-described “centrists” are actually the unhinged extremists in today’s politics.

This attack on Syria is, beyond doubt, a huge success for the machinations of Mohammed Bin Salman. Please do read my post of 8 March which sets out the background to his agenda, and I believe is essential to why we find our nations in military action again today.…

Curiously, no mention of Bibi and the Israel (Zionist) lobby.

Craig Murray Blog
Just Who’s Pulling the Strings?
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Craig Murray — OPCW Salisbury Report Confirms Nothing But the Identity of the Chemical

The word “Russia” does not occur in today’s OPCW report. The OPCW Report says nothing whatsoever about the origin of the chemical which poisoned the Skripals and certainly does not link it in any way to Russia.

The technical ability of Porton Down to identify a chemical has never been in doubt, and the only “finding of the United Kingdom”the OPCW has confirmed is the identity of the chemical.…

Craig Murray Blog
OPCW Salisbury Report Confirms Nothing But the Identity of the Chemical
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Craig Murray — Yulia Skripal Is Plainly Under Duress

Abduction?

Craig Murray Blog
Yulia Skripal Is Plainly Under Duress
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Russia agrees with Murray. Not written by a Russian.

Sputnik International
Russian Embassy Skeptical Letter from Yulia Skripal is Authentic

Tyler Durden — CIA & MI6 To Relocate Skripals To America, Give Them New Identities: Report

So they are going to be disappeared? This gets more bizarre all the time.

Zero Hedge
CIA & MI6 To Relocate Skripals To America, Give Them New Identities: Report

Tyler Durden

The Economics Behind the Skripal Poisoning — Michael Palmieri interviews Michael Hudson

The Hudson Report is a new weekly series produced by Left Out with the legendary economist Michael Hudson. Every episode we cover an economic or political issue that is either being ignored—or hotly debated—that week in the press.

In this episode we discuss the economic and political implications of the attempted murder of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal. We also touch upon the long history of collaboration between Russian oligarchs and Western banks and how it fits into the larger neoliberal project pursued after the collapse of the Soviet Union....

Michael Hudson's breadth of knowledge is amazing. He ferrets out the details.

Michael Palmieri: Wow. Certainly not a take that I’ve heard laid out anywhere that I’ve been reading.

Counterpunch — The Hudson Report
The Economics Behind the Skripal Poisoning

Michael Palmieri interviews Michael Hudson, President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

See also

Hilarious. Hopkins is a gifted writer, and he turns his talents toward politics on occasion. His satire always worth a read.

And his analysis is spot on.

As I’ve been tracking for going on two years now, the global capitalist ruling classes are putting down a nationalist insurgency … the populist backlash against global capitalism that led to the Brexit, the election of Trump, and the rise of nationalist parties in Europe. They are conducting this counter-insurgency against an assortment of forces on both the left and the right. Ideology makes no difference to capitalism, which can accommodate pretty much any ideology as long as it doesn’t interfere with the market. Hard as it is to get our minds around, what we’ve been living through since 2016 is not a battle between left and right. It’s a battle over sovereignty. Since the end of the Cold War, global capitalism has been dissolving national sovereignty and replacing it with supra-national sovereignty … corporate supra-national sovereignty. A lot of people, on both the left and the right, are not real happy with how that is going and are resisting the only way they know how to, by reasserting their national sovereignty. The global capitalist ruling classes cannot allow this rebellion to continue, not when it leads to events like the Brexit, the election of Trump, and the destabilization of the entire Western neoliberal order.

Which brings us back to the Putin-Nazis and the War on Dissent that the global capitalist ruling classes are currently waging against any and all resistance to their brave, new global capitalist world. Because they are unable to characterize the nature of this conflict as what it is, they need a convincing “official enemy” to scare the living Bejesus out of people. This is where the Putin-Nazis come in....

Where does Corbyn fit into all this? Well, obviously, he’s been quietly building his extreme-left Putin-Nazi Death Cult in the shadows of British politics for years. If the Blairites hadn’t tracked down that telltale comment in his six-year-old Facebook post, who knows what horrors he and his legions of cultists might have unleashed on Britain.

Luckily, we won’t have to find that out, because the ruling classes and the corporate media are united against the Putin-Nazi threat. They shall not flag. They shall go on to the end. They shall fight these devils in the streets and the fields, and on the hills, and on the seas and oceans. They shall defend global capitalism, whatever the cost, no matter who they have to smear as an anti-Semite or a Russian agent. They shall smear them on television and on the Internet. They shall smear them in their “respectable” papers, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its corporate power and might, steps forth to the liberation of the old …

Jeremy Corbyn’s Nazi Death Cult
CJ Hopkins, American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin

Craig Murray — Knobs and Knockers

Craig Murray continues his exposé.

Craig Murray Blog
Knobs and Knockers

Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

also

Coincidence? Or hybrid warfare?

RT
'Skripal case plays amazingly into Britain’s campaign to isolate Russia'

US hits Russia with new sanctions, interior minister among 38 officials, tycoons & companies listed

also

I’m sorry but it’s not a stretch to think this whole thing was cooked up by MI-6. In fact, that’s been my operating assumption for a month now.

The problem was, until a few days ago, I didn’t have a good enough reason why.

My immediate hypothesis when the story broke. And MI6 and the CIA are joined at the hip.

Luongo's theory involves 4-dimensional chess played by the deep state, but I would not rule it out any more than I would regarding complicity in 9/11 and a host of other things that have happened which favor "special interests." Without evidence, which may never be forthcoming, it remains speculation.

Russia Insider
As Skripal-Gate Collapses so Will the May Government

Tom Luongo

The Novichok Fiction Commences Disintegration Phase

John Helmer — The Empire Strikes Backwards

Dances with Bears

The Empire Strikes Backwards

John Helmer 

See also

Down the toilet.

American Committee for East-West Accord
Amb. Tony Kevin: Diplomatic Fallout from the Skripal Affair, an Australian Diplomat’s View

Also

Geopolitics Alert
Israel Executed Civilians, Vows to Do It Again, and The World Still Bows

Robert Inlakesh

Also

Irrussianality
Expelled for Tweeting
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Also

Russia Insider
Skripal Pets Starved to Death After Brits Sealed Home

The London Economic — Watch: Jeremy Corbyn accuses Boris Johnson of misleading public on the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal

Video and story.

This is turning into farce.

Is Boris Johnson trying to live down the common Russian name Boris?

The London Economic
Watch: Jeremy Corbyn accuses Boris Johnson of misleading public on the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal

See also

Russian and Eurasian Politics
Putin, Skrypal, Novichok, and Spy Markets: UPDATE
Gordon M. Hahn, analyst and Advisory Board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, member of the Executive Advisory Board at the American Institute of Geostrategy, a contributing expert for Russia Direct, a senior researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies, Akribis Group, and; and an analyst and consultant for Russia – Other Points of View

Also

Russian Observer
Russian Federation Sitrep 5 April 2018

Patrick Armstrong

Intel Today — Sergei & Yulia Skripal — UK Scientists Unable to Pinpoint Origin of Novichok

Let me add that I have a really bad feeling about this development. The last time a scientist from Porton Down told the truth to a journalist, it did not end very well for him. Dr David Kelly soon met an extremely suspicious death. Let us hope that nothing of the sort will happen to Dr. Gary Aitkenhead.…

Intel Today
Sergei & Yulia Skripal — UK Scientists Unable to Pinpoint Origin of Novichok

L

See also

Craig Murray Blog
Of A Type Developed By Liars
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Also

"The gang that couldn't shoot straight."

Zero Hedge
UK Foreign Office Denies Claiming Russia Responsible For Nerve Agent, Deletes Tweet

Tyler Durden

also

Global Research
U.K. is Lying: If Skripal was Poisoned at His Home, The Agent Used against Him Cannot be Nerve Gas

Bassim al-Khalili

also

Disobedient Media
All Russiagate Roads Lead To London As Evidence Emerges Of Joseph Mifsud’s Links To UK Intelligence

Elizabeth Vos

also

Moon of Alabama
"It's The Cover-Up" - UK Foreign Office Deletes Tweet, Posts False Transcript, Issues New Lies

b

also

RT
Russia calls for UN Security Council meeting over Skripal affair

Moon of Alabama — Operation Hades - A Model For The 'Novichok' Case?

What is Operation Hades you ask? I confess to never having heard about it. It was a false flag operation conducted by the German intelligence and b, who is German, gives the details. Apparently, it was not reported in the US and a search on Operation Hades Germany turns up only a few hits in English, mostly later.

Here is b's account.

Telepolis points out (in German) that this would not be the first time that a 'western' service would stage such a 'provocation'. The Skripal case is indeed quite comparable to Operation Hades.

On August 10 1994 German officials in Munich 'found' 363 grams of plutonium on a plane coming from Moscow. They immediately asserted, that the plutonium 'must' have come from a Russian reactor. There was a lot of media panic, international political noise and condemnation of Russia.

This put pressure on the Russian government to increase its security at its nuclear sites. The U.S. offered to 'help' with nuclear security and thus got easy access to Russia's nuclear secrets. The case broke in the mid of the federal election campaign in Germany and helped chancellor Kohl to get re-elected.

Months later first leaks appeared, enterprising reporters dug deeper into the story and it started to unravel.

Der Spiegel filled ten pages (in German) with the explosive story.

It turned out that the plutonium was not from Russia but had been planted by the German equivalent of the MI6, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). Later leaks and counter-leaks created a convoluted story to hide the truth behind it. A parliamentarian commission investigated the case but the Kohl government eventually shut it down without any political consequences. Shortly thereafter the deeply involved BND head, Bernd Schmidbauer, was sent into retirement.

The Russian depict the 'Novichok' case as a staged 'provocation'. There is a historic antetype for such a 'provocation' by a 'western' intelligence service. That gives the Russian claim some significant merit....

More about the Skripal case in the post.

Moon of Alabama
Operation Hades - A Model For The 'Novichok' Case?

Moon of Alabama — Hillary Clinton Ordered Diplomats To Suppress 'Novichock' Discussions

More info raises more questions.

Moon of Alabama
Hillary Clinton Ordered Diplomats To Suppress 'Novichock' Discussions

b

See also

Russia Insider
Skripals Are a Case of Implausible Deniability for the Brits
David Macilwain

Also

Sputnik International
Russian FM Releases 14 Questions Addressed to UK on 'Fabricated Skripal Case'

Also

The Unz Review
Assange’s internet blackout & Skripal case part of propaganda war that risks real one

John Pilger

Alexander Mercouris — Furious China ramps up support for Russia on Skripal, calls West’s actions “outrageous”

Smackdown.

The Duran
Furious China ramps up support for Russia on Skripal, calls West’s actions “outrageous”
Alexander Mercouris

See also

The National Interest
Russia and China Are Now Building Weapons Together

Dave Majumdar | Defense Editor