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This entry was posted in politics, Russia and tagged chemical weapons, Nick Bailey, Porton Down, Salisbury, Sergei Skripal. Bookmark the permalink.
So many of the newspaper articles state firmly and ominously, a rare nerve agent like this can only come from a state sponsored laboratory.
Well yeah, and Porton Down is just up the road.
It seems Skripal was still working for M16 and met with his old recruiter Pablo Miller regularly at a restaurant in Salisbury.
Pablo also lives in Salisbury.
Conveniently close to Porton Down?
All the fuss about washing clothes and bringing in the army to remove contaminated objects when the first to have anything to do with the couple, a doctor cleared Yulia's airways, put her in the recovery position , and stayed with her for 30 minutes…. with no medical consequences whatsoever.
Was he in danger of spilling M16 secrets?
Was he perhaps doing a little job for M16 (to keep his pension coming) transferring a nerve toxin via his daughter, maybe ending up in Syria?
Just out of curiosity, can you also get polonium 210 just up the road?
This morning RNZ reported Theresa May as saying it is "highly likely" that Moscow was behind the attack; also that the nerve agent used, novichok, was of a family developed and produced by Russia.
Similar reports are provided by the BBC and the Guardian.
For a conspiracy that the UK did the deed to have any veracity, I would have to question the UK location of the chemical factory required for production of usable quantities of the nerve agent.
The UK has been open about its production of chemical weapons. Records show the only chemical factory for nerve agents built in the UK (Nancekuke) was for sarin and VK. It produced a small amount before 1956 then was mothballed, well before novichok was developed by Russia, until it was demolished in 1980.
So, given that the UK does not have the ability to manufacture novichok, for the conspiracy to exist, the UK would necessarily have been allowed to acquire novichok from those highly monitored and defended locations where it is produced and kept in Russia. I hardly think so.
Ockham's razor applies here just as much as it does in science.
No state is open about its secret weapons production, storage and research – especially its chemical and biological weapons – or do you take as factual the Russian assurances that it has followed international obligations and destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile?
But, of course, this is politics, not science. And we are in the midst of a very intense geopolitical struggle involving an information war. Unfortunately people "take sides" (or confirm biases) on the basis of minimal or manufactured evidence. And a lot of straw clutching is involved in this.
The situation parallels that of the investigation into the tragic destruction of Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine where the joint investigation team (which included one of the possible guilty parties) ignored all the Buk missile systems under control of the Ukranian army (many situated in the eastern region) so had to go with a rather mythical and tedious transport of a system from another country – and its return after "doing the deed" – suggested by a social media activist!
But anything goes in the geopolitical struggle. I fully expect to see a further round of sanctions and even withdrawal from the World Cup (a target British politicians have often mentioned – or let slip in unguarded moments). And I fully expect that these actions will not be based on an open or public investigation. But I would be pleased to be proved wrong for once.
Reenmac, your comment brings back memories.
I met the famous NZ Nobel winning scientist Ernie Marsden (who worked with Rutherford and Geiger), in the early 60s. Between his retirement and death he did a bit of personal research on the possible role of polonium in cigarettes as an explanation of their ability to cause cancer.
I met Marsden as he laboured over a cigarette smoking machine in a room next to the laboratory I was working in. I have the memory of a rather pleasant and chatty elderly gentleman patiently knocking the ash off a row of smoking cigarettes as he explained his hypothesis to me.
If they are producing small quantities of other nerve agents, to help research antidotes,why not Novichok?
I think PM May is getting in over her head on the basis of no, as yet, evidence. I suspect a strong pressure is being applied and it is part of a long-term geopolitical strategy, anyway.
Her false bravado in the way she speaks to the representatives of the Russian Federation could have serious consequences, consequences not necessarily to the liking of May and her backers.
Maybe "well thought-out" but a protagonist in their thinking often under-estimates possible responses of their opponent.
This is a nasty situation.
Did you actually read those references you supplied? Neither tells us that nerve agents have ever been made at Porton Down, merely that Porton Down is the UK centre for research into the effects of nerve agents, protection from them, treatment of their effects, and potential medications prophylactic against them.
Porton Down has had about a week to run specimens through equipment specifically manufactured to rapidly identify nerve agents in case the UK is subjected to attack. Why are you surprised that they can identify an agent when both of your references tell us that their job is precisely that?
The novichok family of nerve agents have been known about, in the "western" world, since at least the 1990s. Russia has acknowledged that they developed and manufactured them in the 1970s/1980s. So Porton Down has known about them for at least a quarter century. They are not new agents. My ageing (medical) textbook on NBC warfare covers their immediate and long term effects, and also covers potential treatments.
Ockham's razor – attributed to William of Ockham (c. 1287–1347), a Franciscan friar. Also known as Occam's razor or Ocham's razor. I guess the spelling is down to where you received your classical and scientific education. That part of mine was from a more recent Franciscan friar.
I'm not taking a stand on causes or origins of the illness affecting the Skripals; I simply don't have enough information from good enough sources.
Theresa May has advisors in both the medical and chemical warfare fields, but their advice is being filtered through political minds and the public is receiving only part of the information available – that part which politicians consider that the public will find acceptable.
The novichok family of nerve agents were not well know among the general public before they were mentioned by Theresa May, even though they were well known to the military establishment and to some of the medical establishment. It is therefore probable (but not certain) by their mention that Porton Down has identified a novochik agent in samples they were sent.
My textbook tells me that Russia has admitted the development and manufacture of the fourth-generation novichok nerve agents and that the USA and UK have both denied manufacture of those same agents. The UK admits to manufacture of ~20 tons of sarin and test amounts of VK, both of them at its Nancekuke facility, before 1956. They claim that they have not manufactured any chemical warfare agents since then. Wikipedia appears to support those claims.
I have no sources nor knowledge of whether other countries that have manufactured nerve agents, or which are suspected of having manufactured nerve agents, have ever produced the novichok family of agents. That also means, of course, that I am unable to rule out those 20 or so countries as a source of novichok agents.
All I can say is that it is unlikely that the novichok agent (if that is indeed what it was) originated in the UK.
Given all of that, and applying Ockham's razor to the little information that is available, I think that the claims attributing the illness of the Skripals to a conspiracy originating within the UK are somewhat far-fetched.
It would be completely normal and expected that a good quality lab dealing with chemical weapons should have stocks of this nerve agent. In fact, when the US assisted in the destruction and removal of this specific agent from the manufacturing plant in one of the ex-Soviet republics (can't remember which at the moment) I would have exp[ected the USA and its allies to have kept some of the material for their own work. I expect this also happened when the Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles were removed and destroyed.
Even if the sole purpose of maintaining such stocks is to assist in their detection it is completely normal for Porton Down to have stocks. The very (claimed) fact experts from Porton Down were able to identify this material so quickly suggests to the mind of this chemist that they would have at least had samples in their stocks.
As for May's reaction – commentators suggest she has unwillingly been pushed into this apparently strong stance. She is in an extremely weak political position at the moment and very likely unable to stand against the extreme pressure coming from her cabinet and political/ideological forces in the UK and USA.
Her very use of words like "likely," "probably," and "possibly" indicates that the UK does not have any evidence that would stand up in a real couirt of law. In fact, may have no evidence except the chemical nature of the agent. And this is occurring within a manufactured atmosphere which is painting the Russian Federation as a rogue state and its president as evil. There is constant pressure to proclaim further sanctions, the expulsion of diplomats, boycotting contacts (eg World Cup), support sporting boycotts (the drug scandal) ban alternative media sources like RT and Sputnik, prevent MPs from being interviewed by these alternative agencies and to force UK citizen with programmes on those channels to withdraw. There are attempts to blame the Russian Federation for all the ills of countries like the UK, USA, and Europe – to pretend that any electoral result is caused by Russian meddling. That any social problem is being manufactured by Russian influence in social media.
The current liberation of terrorist-held territory in Syria is also hurting those particular western political forces – they had hoped to use these head choppers to enforce another regime change. the fact that the Russian Federation is helping to prevent that is casuing a lot of angst at the moment. The international situation at the moment is very stressed.
So there is plenty of scope for conspiracy theories.
I do not let any state off the hook. Personally, I can see a scenario where the nerve agent came from a Russian or Russian-affiliated source. But equally, I can see it coming from a British or US source. And the fact that Porton Down is just up the road makes this very credible.
After all, what would the Russian Federation or its president have to gain? I do not buy the fable that this helps Putin's re-election of Sunday – if anything it would just encourage Navalny's boycott movement. At the moment the only loser is the Russian Federation and Putin. But western ideologues have a lot to gain from this incident.
However, as this proceeds, and if the threatened strong action is taken against the Russian Federation, I think we will all be losers. The Russian Federation is not in any mind to be pushed around anymore like this and they will retaliate against any action taken by the UK, the USA, and NATO as a result of what happened in Salisbury. Of course, they cannot directly influence the political atmosphere in the UK. But their recovery from a near complete collapse in the 90s has come a long way and they have proven capable of taking retaliatory political and economic reactions which can be very painful.
To help develop effective medical countermeasures and to test systems, we produce very small quantities of chemical and biological agents. They are stored securely and disposed of safely when they are no longer required.
Like other aspects of research at Porton Down, precise details of animal experiments are generally kept secret. Media reports have suggested they include exposing monkeys to anthrax, draining the blood of pigs and injecting them with E. coli bacteria, and exposing animals to a variety of lethal, toxic nerve agents.
As a chemist you should be already aware that in order to identify a compound in a specimen it is not necessary for an investigating laboratory or agency to actually possess stocks of the compound.
Local examples would be Hamilton Pathlab and Waikato hospital labs not requiring stocks of cholesterol in order to be able to detect cholesterol in a specimen. Supplies of the cholesterol, in precisely measured concentrations, are only needed as controls in order to accurately quantify levels of cholesterol, ie measure the concentration in serum.
Urine drug testing, as used by commercial companies and even WINZ in Hamilton, detects the presence of meth, cannabinoids, narcotics, etc, in urine. But neither the company nor WINZ needs to stock meth, cannabinoids, narcotics, etc, in order to detect the presence of those compounds in a potential employees urine.
Pregnancy test users do not require stocks of human choriogenic gonadotropin at home in order to detect the compound in urine.
We have no information as to the nature of the specimen in which novichok was detected, only that it has been detected. We have no information at all whether novichok levels have been quantified.
From the meagre information that we do have, a conclusion that Porton Down has stocks of novichok is entirely speculative and unjustified.
My textbook does provide many of the details, even though it's not from Porton Down. Many of the first pages of the book comprise lots of legal material and warnings.
Btw, some information that doesn't appear to have been filtered by politicians: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/public-health-england-statement-regarding-events-in-salisbury You might want to locate Public Health England on a map.
As a chemist, I would want my own standard samples – especially for a rare or unknown compound. And certainly, if I were developing methods I would absolutely need my own standard materials – either synthesised or got from elsewhere. That is why I am sure Porton Down has its own samples.
But, yes, this is speculation on my part. I am not in the position to know for sure – few people are. All I can do is go one up on May and say my suggestion is "highly likely." It wouldn't stand up in court – neither would May's current story.
The problem is that all we have in this situation is speculation – and it appears that is all the UK government has as well. In this situation, political prejudice and confirmation bias play a huge role – as does group thinking and prevailing political pressure.
I have more of an open mind than most on such things (I am not Russophobic) and can see possible conspiracies involving the UK and USA just as clearly as I can see possible conspiracies involving the Russian state, or Russian criminal elements.
And if we are going to rely on speculative motives (and let's face it the media and politicians are doing exactly that at the moment) I actually think conspiracies involving the UK state are more credible. Currently, the state and major politicians in the Russian Federation are very much losing as a result of what has happened, yet the major political forces in the US, UK and NATO (and their friends active in Russia) are winning by these actions. I think it would have been incredibly stupid of the Russian political leadership to have sanctioned this action (nothing to gain but everything to lose) – but very clever of political leadership in the US, UK or NATO to have sanctioned it.
It's pretty clear to me that the example followed for this attack was in the same spirit of that voiced by our own Minister of Defence (Gavin Williamson) last year, when he threatened enemies of the UK in the Middle East with instant death by drone.
This theory that, "It would be completely normal and expected that a good quality lab (Porton Down) dealing with chemical weapons should have stocks of this nerve agent," therefore the Russians must be completely innocent, is a far reach at best. At worst, it's parroting Russian State propaganda.
This question of whether Porton Down had it or not is irrelevant. Why?
It would also be completely normal and expected that a good quality lab would have inventoried its stocks of chemical weapons and would have known if anything was missing, or at least out of the ordinary. Therefore, when someone like Scotland Yard says that all evidence points toward Russia being behind this assassination, it would have been completely normal and expected that State Law Enforcement would have looked at the inventories of the nearest good quality lab which would have had stockpiles of this nerve agent. And Scotland Yard would have known that the nerve agent didn't come from Porton Down. Otherwise the statement wouldn't have been issued that all evidence points toward Russia.
Yes, of course, David, an inquiry worth its salt will look at the records of Perton Down and, hopefully, request the same thing of its allies – particularly the USA. The inquiry held by the Russian Federation will presumably do the same.
But these inquiries have hardly started and May's statements are politically based – not based on any evidence form an inquiry. How could they be with the experts telling us such an inquiry is going to take months.
the danger is that with such a huge political investment an inquiry is going to be very constrained so as not to produce results countering the political claims. I think that the inquiry and judgments will be made ins secret – possibly being justified on security grounds. As happened in the Litvinenko case.
You say "otherwise the statement wouldn't have been issued that all evidence points toward Russia." But that is exactly the point. The statement has been made before any inquiry has progressed. It has been made for political reasons and to precipitate political actions which, as is being acknowledged, have been in preparation for some time.
1: One of the victims was a double agent, and most recently, a British agent who had betrayed his country, the Russian Federation.
2: His daughter is a Russian citizen.
3: The name of the possible poison used is Russian (Novichok – not used by Russians but by western experts) – or more correctly the chemical agent identified (to the extent it has been identified) is thought to belong to a class of chemical agents which has been labeled with that name.
As for 1 – in the murky world of spying and today's intelligence bodies (Skipal was most probably working recently for British state agencies) all sorts of things happen. It is naive in the extreme to think that only agents of the Russian state would take such actions – (and I am no way saying Russian State agencies wouldn't – just that it is extremely naive to assume only they would). On the other hand, he had been caught as an anti-Russian spy, punished, released and pardoned and then exchanged for Russian spies. One would have thought the Russian Federation had considered that matter closed – but as I say the intelligence world is very murky – in the UK as well as Russia.
There is a range of conspiracy theories which can be (and are being) advanced implicating a range of countries. One has to be very prejudiced to land on any one of these conspiracy theories with no supporting evidence – and there is none at this stage. It is always dangerous to make prejudiced assumptions (and then act on them) at such an early stage.
Regarding 2 – some theories suggest Yulia was the target and the conspiracy theories supporting that suggestion are just as credible and unsupported as the on advanced by May. Actually, more supported because of recorded claims made by her friends who are now denied access to and information on her.
Incidentally, Yulia is being denied her rights to consular access which are guaranteed under international law. The secrecy around her and her father, and around the police officer now released from hospital give an indication of how unsatisfactory this whole situation is.
3: May's use of the name "novichok" has enabled a lot of hunting around by various people and we now know a lot more about these agents than we did before (which was mainly on the basis of a TV thriller). It seems that the claim Russia developed these chemicals is false – they were developed in the USSR, some of the scientists involved in the work moved to the west when the USSR collapsed. The plant producing these chemicals was in Uzbekistan and it was dismantled and stocks destroyed in the 90s with the help of the USA which was an ally of Uzbekistan at the time.
Last September international treaty officials, including UK representatives, confirmed that the Russian Federation had dismantled all plants for producing chemical weapons and destroyed all stock in fulfillment of their obligations under the treaty. They congratulated the Russian Federation on this fulfillment in a ceremony at the tui=ime. The UK and USA have yet to fulfill these obligations (the USA claims it cannot afford to – yeah, right).
I do not know the details but imagine the treaty may allow member states to maintain some samples for research and identification purposes. This tells me that any number of countries could be the source of the material used in Salisbury (including the Russian Federation, USA, and UK). I think May is lying to claim it was military grade material (in the sense of weaponised material) – if it had been then the victims would be dead – and many others would have too.
So, at this stage the whole situation is wide open – the political claims are worth nothing as far as facts are concerned. The inquiries should be left to proceed – in fact, they should be helped to succeed. The UK should assist the Russian Federation and vice versa in these inquiries. In fact, any sample that the Russian Federation has legally will be invaluable in detecting the origins of the material by high-resolution analysis. The UK refusal to cooperate with the Russian Federation, together with international treaty bodies is, in my mind, very suspicious.
But, even more seriously, the UK Foreign Minister has made a specific charge which he claims the UK has evidence for – that the Russian Federation has been illegally researching and stocking chemical warfare agents. That is an extremely serious charge which should be investigated properly as such actions would mean the Russian Federation is violating the treaty. The UK is obliged to provide that evidence to the international body which can then investigate it. The Russian Federation has committed itself to cooperating in that investigation.
It will be very telling if, as I suspect, Boris Johnson does not proceed with his obligations stemming from this claim.
Are your views based on the notion that Russians are uniquely dishonest?
Reenmac, are my views based on the notion that Russians are uniquely dishonest? Absolutely not. I have never said or implied anything negative about the Russian people, and I challenge you, or anyone else, to show me where I have.
Are my views based on the idea that the Russian government is uniquely dishonest? No, the Russian government seems to be uniquely victimized by accusation. Whenever a political opponent gets whacked, of course the Kremlin gets blamed. For example, the murder of this guy, Boris Nemtsov, who was who was shot on a very highly surveilled bridge near the Kremlin, had, of course, been blamed on the Kremlin.
Ben Judah, of The Daily Telegraph, wrote that the Kremlin "either ordered or allowed [Nemtsov's murder] to happen", saying that "Nothing Boris Nemtsov did was not bugged, tailed, filmed or monitored by the secret police. It is quite simply impossible that this man could have been shot dead without the Kremlin knowing there was a plot afoot to kill him." And yet there was not one shred of evidence linking the Kremlin to this murder. At the time he was shot, every surveillance camera on that bridge had been switched off for maintenance, except one, which offered a grainy video of a snow-plow blocking the actual murder. And yet, because of this media conspiracy, the Kremlin gets blamed.
Whenever an opposition journalist in Russia gets killed, the Kremlin gets blamed. For example, this hack Anna Politkovskya criticizes Putin, gets herself killed, and all of a sudden it's the Kremlin's fault.
The downing of MH 17, which you mentioned, is another great example of an international conspiracy to blame the Russian military for something. RT initially reported that the flight may have been shot down in an attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin; and you're right, stories like this were conveniently dismissed.
On the other hand, The Russian Investigative Committee, headed by Alexander Bastrykin, a former university classmate of Vladimir Putin, insisted that a Ukrainian pilot, Captain Vladislav Voloshin (who, oddly enough, was found shot dead in his own home) shot MH 17 down with an air-to-air missile. And of course, that was dismissed as nonsense by both the JIT & the Final Dutch Safety Board's reports, both which conspired to reach the same conclusion that MH 17 was shot down by a Buk 9M38-series surface-to-air missile with a 9N314M warhead.
I would really enjoy seeing an answer to that question.
You say, "Porton Down, which has a record of being highly secretive, and not particularly ethical." Let's be clear about what you mean by "not particularly ethical." Are you discussing animal experimentation? Because if you are, every time you use deodorant you, yourself are complicit in this same unethical behavior.
"Highly secretive?" Do you mean because the Russian government demanded full and open access to all Porton Down records and the request was denied? Hmm, . . . I wonder why a government military research facility wouldn't open its records to a foreign government, who asked very nicely by the way.
Your blatant tactic of attacking those who dare to question the guilt of a regime which so often appears to be at the center of highly suspicious activity and death is tired and old. Your blind defense of that regime is beyond bizarre. Hell, I can't even get Ken to admit that the Russian Air Force was responsible for collateral damage in Syria. Hell, I caught Russian apologist, Alexander Mercouris, (who, by the way, was disbarred for making a series of outlandish assertions – including the claim that he had been kidnapped and blackmailed by one of Britain's most senior judges) in a blatant lie regarding the Mueller Investigation. I must have beat Ken over the head with it a dozen times, and he still wouldn't admit that Mercouris was a liar.
As I said, your defense of a regime which has become famous for the murders of its own journalists is beyond bizarre, especially in light of your last sentence in which you appear to accuse me of being unfair to the Russian people, and imply that you are their defender.
My defense is not of the Russian government or Putin, it's a plea for an honest investigation , stripped of geoplitical ambition and propaganda.
Yes, David, your response reeks of Russophobia, and I can legitimately call it an example of anti-Russian Racism.
You assume guilt and then search for some handy media extract to "prove" it – to confirm your bias.
Stuff the legal investigations of the murders of Boris Nemtsov and Anna Politkovskya. Stuff the fact that most of those found guilty of Nemtsov's murder have been imprisoned (and one is still on the run). No, you go with the completely mindless accusation that the Kremlin is responsible. Completely mindless, but unfortunately heavily promoted and relatively common these days.
You rush to support an interim report on the MH17 tragedy, ignoring the fact that only one possible (but highly improbable) hypothesis was investigated. Hell, you would have thought the large number of BUK missile systems in the hands of the Ukrainian army (and the one in the hands of the rebel forces) and based in the area would have been checked out.
The problem with the JIT report and investigation is that the Ukranian government is part of the JIT. As a possible suspect, they should never have been included.
Another glaring problem is the refusal to consider the technical and radar information from the actual manufacturers of the BUK missile systems which strongly suggest an older version of the missile not used by the Russian forces (but standard for the Ukrainians) and pinpoints a launch site in territory held by the Ukrainian army.
Of course you suffer from Russophobia – you are not alone in that. it is heavilky promoted in our scoeity. It is what has enabled the UK to achieve a partial unity in diplomatic and sanctions actuals against the Russian Federation despite never producing any evidence to support their claim of Russian involvement in the murder of the Skipals.
Hell, we see the same effect of this mindless Pavlovian russophobia or racism in New Zealand. Our government is currently being pressured by the US, UK, atc., to expel some Russian diplomats. It will probably buckle under that pressure. But it won't do so as a result of any actual factual information showing Russian guilt.
Reenman, thank you for the link. It was informative. It is also interesting that you are so apprised on a UK military research facility that has only come under the public (and by public, I mean the global public) eye a few weeks ago. Of course, your article did refer to animal experimentation. As a modern human being who uses cosmetic products, you are complicit in these activities. But human beings were also mentioned as being used as guinea pigs.
As you probably know, the U.S. has been guilty of similar experiments. In those cases, like the CIA & LSD in the 1950s, the Tuskegee experiment, etc., compensation was paid to those victims. Your article didn't mention if compensation was paid out to relatives of victims. To my knowledge, it is not U.S. policy to experiment on human beings any more to determine the lethal-ness of a chemical or biological agent.
So, back on topic, would I accord the same confidence to the Russian scientists involved in counterpart institutions? I guess that would depend on a case-by-case situation. For example, if the shoe were on the other foot, if a Russian spy who spied on the Brits had been murdered within miles of a Russian secret military facility . . If the director of that facility said there was "no way" that the toxic agent came from his facility . . knowing that inventory lists would be the First Thing that State Law Enforcement would look at on Day One . . and knowing that this classified information would be shared with the Russian head of state . . and knowing that the Russian head of state shared this classified information with other heads of state . . and knowing that, thus far, 28 countries agreed that this classified information was damning enough for them to make the bold move of expelling British diplomats from their own countries, . . . and knowing that among those 28 countries was the United States, whose leader has never once criticized the head of the country in question (the U.K., in this case) but has nonetheless criticized every other human being with whom he has come in contact . . . . . . . . . then yeah, I would probably accord the same confidence to the Russian scientists involved in counterpart institutions. I hope that answers your question.
It is interesting in this modern world where states have agreed to prohibit development and storage of chemical weapons and to destroy existing stocks that parties to the treaty get to visit and monitor production and storage facilities, and the destruction process.
In September 2017 sensible people celebrated the completion of the destruction of Russian chemical weapons stocks. This was verified by OPCW's inspection teams.
The US has still to complete its obligations under the treaty – it is dragging its feet claiming lack of money to carry out the destruction. Yeah, right.
Now, I agree, one can hypothesize that the Russian Federation, the US, UK or any other signatory state maintained or maintains an undeclared, secret programme. This would violate the treaty and all efforts should be made to expose such actions.
In particular, states which make these allegations (as has the UK against the Russian Federation) have an obligation to pass on their information to the OPCW so that the charges can be investigated and monitors can visit the plants where the alleged programmes are taking place. A state which makes such charges and does not provide the information they have is acting irresponsibly.
I frankly will not believe Boris Johnson's allegations until the UK government fulfills its obligations and hands over the information.
But, Boris Johson – come on. He is just not credible.
Thank you, Ken. Your stale tactic of calling "Russa-phobe" was expected and you did not disappoint.
Response: As I have already said, "I have never said or implied anything negative about the Russian people, and I challenge you, or anyone else, to show me where I have." You did not respond to that challenge.
Response: Yes, the U.S. Mafia has the same problem. Always being investigated even after others have taken responsibility for the crime. Then on the other hand, . . . Stuff the fact that every video camera on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, a heavily policed area near the Kremlin, had been conveniently switched off on the night of Nemtsov's assassination.
Of course. That makes it true. Sports are heavily promoted in our society; therefore, according to your logic I must be a sports fan.
Do you even hear yourself? Your knee-jerk inability to assign any guilt to the Russian Federation has caused you to suffer from the irrational ability to admit that, for example, the Russian Air Force has caused collateral damage in Syria.
For example, after being shown point-blank that Alexander Mercouris, (who, by the way, was disbarred for making a series of outlandish assertions – including the claim that he had been kidnapped and blackmailed by one of Britain's most senior judges) had lied about Christopher Steele and the Mueller Investigation, you irrationally refused to admit that he was lying.
It's not me who is Russo-phobic, and again, I challenge you to provide anything I have ever said negatively about the Russian people, it is you who struggles to defend the suppression of those people by irrationally defending a regime that has become famous for the murders of its own journalists.
This video explains the chemistry behind the detection of this nerve agent and determination of its possible origin.
You don't have to agree with his political conclusions at the end – but as another chemist, this is also how I understand the problems, and why I am so sceptical.
It is interesting (and he doesn't comment on this) that the OPCW still hasn't prepared their report of the samples they got from the UK – which sort of underlines the clumsiness and hastiness of the conclusions drawn by May and Johnson within 24 hours. And their absolute irresponsibility in precipitating an international crisis on the basis of that hasty conclusion.
Busby's whole spiel relies on his unsubstantiated assertion that investigating authorities have no samples, and that it is impossible for them to obtain samples of Russian manufactured nerve agents.
Without that assertion his argument is weak and of what value is an argument based on assertion without evidence?
Can't quite see your point, Richard.
The question of identifying manufacturing method (and possible source) from high-resolution analysis is very speculative. On the one hand, the Porton Down spokesperson (not a scientist by the way) claimed this was not their job (wrong) – but went on to say they were still working at it. Porton Down obviously have their own samples (presumably synthesised) and may have samples of material taken from Uzbekistan in the late 90s by the USA. Material synthesised in Iran and the USA is probably also available. If Boris Johnston's claim that the Russian Federation had a recent programme with these materials is at all true (Ha Ha) it is possible the UK has managed to get recent Russian samples for identification purposes. I have seen media reports that there are samples taken from a criminal poisoning in Russia – which does open up a scenario of material stolen from the state during the 90s (when everything was being stolen) was used. This could also explain why it was ineffective as it would have degraded.
The story is now being so confounded (probably intentionally) by the media-government-intelligence community misinformation that the actual forensic samples are starting to lose significance. I also suspect the OPCW report (when it is produced, and to the extent the UK reveals its content) will also be of little use. Perhaps just confirming organophosphorus molecular fragments (which mean nothing) which will continue to be used by the UK as "evidence" to damn Russia.
And now there is also talk of physical destruction of Skipal's house and the restaurant where they ate!!
I am afraid this whole issue is going to be buried in political hysteria and evidential confusions – and meanwhile, a very convenient chemical attack has occurred in Syria!! The world is moving on – and becoming more dangerous. The upcoming UNSC meetings will probably illustrate this.
The Russian Federation Prosecutor General's Office is currently releasing documents relating to past issues like the death of Berezovsky and Litvenko's murder – including documents from the UK, which they seem to be suggesting is related to the Skripal incident. At least as evidence for the unhelpful behaviour of the UK authorities in protecting people like Litvinenko and other witnesses against Berezovsky. This parallels their unwillingness for any cooperation in the Skripal case.
My point is quite simple, Busby states that the UK analysts don't, and can't, have a sample of Russian the made agent.
I mean, they could be lying , but thats a whole other can of worms.
I would like to see the OPCW's workings transparent and open to peer review, but it seems the UK has the discretion to have the report fully disclosed or not.


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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Ancient Mysteries & Alternative History
Frequency of "A"
By WVK, July 4, 2018 in Ancient Mysteries & Alternative History
kmt_sesh 36,492
Mummy Overlord
Location:Chicago, Illinois
3 minutes ago, Golden Duck said:
I don't have a favourite. But, I did give a link to an online version. And, I identified the paragraph by number.
I gave the details of the copy I have at home.
Most of my posts here are by phone. If you really want me to copy the quotes here, can it wait until I get home?
Again, a worthy discussion, but if we're to discuss Herodotus, it would be better to do so in a new thread.
The Truman show 10,709
Gender:Not Selected
57 minutes ago, Golden Duck said:
Yes mate, all good.
Kenemet 10,834
3 hours ago, Captain Risky said:
I don't doubt your research but the facts are that the great pyramid shows little evidence of being a tomb. The pyramids at Giza are aligned and neither try to out compete in size, design
In spite of the fact that it's shaped like the other pyramid tombs and the chambers are very similar to other pyramid tombs?
If it had been made for a unique function, the interior design would be different and would reflect the intended usage. You can't have much of a ritual in a space where you can't bring in ritual objects (except small ones) or draw out ritual designs (except small ones) or have the leaders of rituals get in and out with their gear easily.
Edited July 9, 2018 by Kenemet
2 minutes ago, Kenemet said:
If it had been made for a unique function, the interior design would be different and would reflect the intended usage.
And in spite of the fact that it was built in the middle of a vast necropolis, with thousands of tombs and burials. As well as the fact that we know Khufu had an active burial cult there till the end of the Old Kingdom. Oh, also, we know that numerous family members are buried around the pyramid; their tombs are known, even his mother's.
Harte 18,239
Supremely Educated Knower of Everything in Existence.
Location:Memphis
Don't bore me or I'll limerick you.
20 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:
And in spite of the fact that it was built in the middle of a vast necropolis...
Well, there's your proof right there.
"A" vast necropolis.
Other necropoli were C sharp, and B flat.
Harte
Coil 669
Psychic Spy
Location:Ukraine
Honest death is better than shameful life. Only fools call self-will freedom. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
form of sound A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIYtPNJgevw
432-440Hz
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zw0uWCNsyw
It turns out that sounds create material forms and hence the word has creative power.
DingoLingo 3,506
Government Shill
Location:Collie West Oz
Thought of the day 'Never slam dance while priming plastic explosives' D.R Dodds
danydandan 14,264
Father Tedite
Location:Kildare Ireland
" I assure you that there is a whole world outside of the boundary of your own ignorance. " Podo 2018.
1 hour ago, Coil said:
Oh good lord. Did you complete your education?
jmccr8 19,657
3 hours ago, danydandan said:
Hi Dany
Are you inferring that 46 seasons of Sesame Street is not a full education? Gasp
jmccr8
7 hours ago, Coil said:
Since you're new here, you may not be aware that "look at this video" is not considered much of a comeback. Explain what's on the video and why it relates.
The Wistman 14,738
Paladin of Mountainsides
Location:empty, try another
7 hours ago, DingoLingo said:
** Reality shows give us the wisdoms.
19 hours ago, Kenemet said:
Explain what's on the video and why it relates.
My explanation I expressed in a previous message in this thread in the last sentence.
WVK 433
On 7/8/2018 at 9:38 AM, WVK said:
In that case one can only imagine the surprise when it was discovered that an end to end conversation in a normal speaking voice was possible. All the more surprising since the speakers can barely see one another (525ft).
So if it can be accepted that the GBC acoustical characteristics were intentional wouldn't that increase the probability that
the quetzal echo (Temple of Kukulkan) and the quetzal/rattlesnake echo (Temple of the Warriors) were also intentional?
3 hours ago, WVK said:
Hi WVK
How they are different cultures separated by time and distance that built different structures serving different purposes. You have to look at things in the context of culture and use.
On 7/9/2018 at 11:28 AM, Kenemet said:
you do realise that at some point the ancient Pharaohs would have acknowledged that the pyramids were not ideal resting places cause they could be robbed? i don't think that my idea of a ceremonial monument would be outta place in the Giza Plateau. you are right that the entrance was far too small for not just priest officiating but how did they expect the get all the funeral objects in? even the casket, coffin would have been an effort.
Yes, that's why they began burying in the Valley of the kings. The monuments to the kings, however, were not put at Giza.
And they got the funeral objects in as that layer of the pyramid was being built. Easy to slide it in before the walls are set in place.
I'd also add that we don't know what all went into a royal burial in the Old Kingdom. We have no "King Tut" to show us what a mostly unrobbed tomb looks like that early in history. Yes, there may have been loads of goods in Khufu's burial chamber—or there may have been very little. This is suspected of tombs late in the New Kingdom, in which the common scarcity of grave goods was deliberate and replaced by painted objects on the walls. To them, a picture of a thing was as good as the real thing.
My personal opinion is that there wasn't that much in the large Giza pyramids. They would have had to stock each room as it was being built and keep it from being robbed for well over a decade while the tomb was being finished. In a design like Djoser's pyramid it would have been much easier since you could wall over the storage areas in one fell swoop.
58 minutes ago, Kenemet said:
they buried in the valley of the kings and elsewhere a long time latter. bringing in funerary objects (including the sarcophagus) in the pyramid before it was complete or even before the Pharaoh's death is another irregularity in the pyramid narrative that doesn't fit. remember these objects were the Pharaohs every day items.
i think its time we admitted that the the Pyramids at Giza were decoy's and monuments to a dynasty more than resting places.
they buried in the valley of the kings and elsewhere a long time latter
Yes, after it became clear that pyramid robbing was a "thing."
. bringing in funerary objects (including the sarcophagus) in the pyramid before it was complete or even before the Pharaoh's death is another irregularity in the pyramid narrative that doesn't fit. remember these objects were the Pharaohs every day items.
Sarcophagi weren't everyday items. We know that families generally began constructing their tombs shortly after the husband moved out of his parent's house and that they would build new tombs as their status changed (when someone was promoted, they started a newer and more lavishly designed tomb.)
And how do you know what was in the pharaoh's tombs of that time? We know what was it Tut's tomb...and a lot of it was a collection designed for someone else's burial (because his death was unexpected.)
And how are you proposing the sarcophagus got into the GP? Putting it in (nothing worth stealing about a huge granite box) when it's being built is the logical method. They couldn't have put it in AFTER it was built.
The change of venue for the Royal necropolis during the New Kingdom—from the western plateau at Memphis to the Valley of the Kings at Thebes—was a political choice as much as it was the purported practical one of eliminating royal tomb robbing. At Memphis, the huge ancient necropolis was under the jurisdiction of the High Priests of Ptah. At Thebes, the Valley of the Kings was small and would be controlled by the Amun priesthood.
There are, I think, records of tomb robbing on the Memphis plateau previous to the New Kingdom, but I'm not aware of any conclusive evidence that the royal pyramids of the kings themselves were extensively robbed. I could be wrong about that, of course; I'm not the most informed hereabouts.
8 hours ago, Kenemet said:
no they couldn't have put the sarcophagus in after the pyramid was built. i have already been there with sesh. more than likely it was transported as a block and carved once in place. again you haven't addressed how the funerary objects got in there and how they got out.
where are the hieroglyphics and funeral text?
Im prepared to accept that the remains were hidden someplace else in the pyramid (maybe that void they are investigating) or even hidden under the bedrock in some cavern system like was told to Herodotus. this picking and choosing facts to support the official story is falling apart. all facts must be accounted for.
25 minutes ago, Captain Risky said:
no they couldn't have put the sarcophagus in after the pyramid was built. i have already been there with sesh. more than likely it was transported as a block and carved once in place.
Why would they carve it when it was in there? That isn't logical - they'd have to take out all the chips from the pounding. The king approved all the material for his tomb while he was alive (at least, barring an unexpected death.) If he didn't like it then they'd have to haul another huge block in and carve it and dispose of all the chips somewhere. It's more likely that it was carved in a workshop near the quarry and then transported.
again you haven't addressed how the funerary objects got in there and how they got out.
Why should I address this?
You seem to have forgotten your original statement: that the sarcophagus, when struck, resonates to 440 A... and that somehow the Egyptians could measure the amplitude of sound and that it was used for Mystical Purposes as a measurement of the Great Pyramid's sides or something similar.
Our contention is that it's not a musical instrument, that no ceremonies were held in there, and that the Egyptians had no way of measuring the frequency of a sound and converting it to a magical "440."
why is it illogical? a carved sarcophagus would be more prone to damage. it could just as easily been reworked at a latter time to suit the coffin dimensions that might have changed with the style and taste of the pharaoh.
why not? if you couldn't get the sarcophagus in after construction then what makes you think the funerary objects that the pharaoh used everyday stood a chance of getting into the tomb. there are just soo many holes in the pyramid narrative that one must question the entire Gaza Plateau and its function.
sorry love but that wasn't me that said that. in fact i called that theory wacky.
See that? We can agree on something!


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©The Wire | 2018
'Imagine No Country Claims You, and Your Own Country Wants to Throw You Into the Sea'
Rohingya refugees in India are trying to make a better life for themselves while fighting the threat of deportation.
A Rohingya settlement in the fringes of New Delhi. Credit: Rohini Mohan
Rohini Mohan
Jammu/New Delhi: In the centre of a ramshackle snack shop in the Narwal settlement in Jammu, India, ten-month-old Shafiqa sat atop a plastic coffee table and clapped her hands. Her grandfather Mohammad Rafik, who had just poured eggs into oil smoking on a wok on the stove, shot a quick look at her and yelled in Rohingya, "Wait for two minutes, you bossy monster!"
It was nearly 1 pm on a Friday, and Rafik had work to finish before afternoon prayer. A shirtless six-year-old sucking on an orange popsicle walked confidently inside and lifted Shafiqa to his waist. "I'll watch over the kid and the shop, uncle," he offered.
Nearby, the grocery store, fish stall and barbershop were hurriedly closing up. As men in skullcaps rushed to the mosque, the half a dozen shops and over 100 huts in the Rohingya refugee settlement suddenly seemed taken over by children, little guardians of the limited but precious possessions their elders had gathered bit by bit since fleeing Myanmar years earlier. Mothers and aunts sat in a tea shop, their eyes glued to a small television playing the Hindi dubbed version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. "Timepass," said a 19-year-old woman, using the Indian-English word for killing time. "We learn Hindi this way." Her sister, who was nursing an infant next to her, scoffed. "I'm not sure there is a point anymore – India might kick us all out anyway."
Originally from Myanmar, Rohingya have entered India and Bangladesh in a trickle since the 1990s, fleeing persecution from the Myanmar army and government, which increased after the Buddhist-majority country effectively revoked their citizenship in 1982. Myanmar not only refuses to recognise Rohingya as citizens but actively discriminates against them: they are denied education, healthcare and voting rights; prevented from freely practicing Islam or Hinduism; and regularly subject to arson, violence and harassment from the military.
About a million Rohingya have abandoned their homes in search of freedom and dignity. Most would reach Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar, by foot or on overcrowded boats over the last ten years, and a few thousand came to India. Since August 25, 2017, in just the six months following massacres in Myanmar's western Rakhine State, 688,000 Rohingya have made the perilous journey into Bangladesh, and joined the three lakhs who fled in the past 30 years. The UN calls them "the world's most persecuted community".
Today, according to the UNHCR office in New Delhi, there are 16,500 Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers in India, most of whom came not in the most recent 2017 wave, but over the last decade. Of these, half live in the northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir. They have refugee cards (some even long-term visas), work as labourers and rent tin huts in crowded slums. But in 2016, as tens of thousands of Rohingya began pouring out of Myanmar to escape gang rape, mass killings and arson attacks in Rakhine – UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Raad Al Hussein called it "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing" – the Indian government more or less shut its doors to any new Rohingya refugees.
Last July, after claiming that there were 40,000 Rohingya people in India, the Ministry of Home Affairs characterised all of them as "illegal immigrants." It called the Rohingya "national security threats" with "Pak-based" connections, but offered no evidence. The ministry then directed all state governments to identify and deport these illegal immigrants. Indian security forces at the Bangladesh border, who have for years let embattled Rohingya families in on humanitarian grounds, are now reportedly sending them back.
The Indian government directly shelters and assists over 100,000 Tibetan refugees and 64,000 Sri Lankans, and the UNHCR has registered nearly 36,500 refugees and asylum seekers in India, mainly from Afghanistan and Myanmar, and in smaller numbers from Africa and the Middle East. So why is the 1.2 billion-strong Indian state terror-stricken about 16,500 – or 40,000, as the government claims – Rohingya?
India's desire to expel the persecuted Rohingya is motivated by an insidious combination of security paranoia, nationalist politics and, some say, economic interests in Myanmar.
Under tacit allowance by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (in power in 19 of 35 states too), rising numbers of Muslims in India are being targeted – and in some cases lynched – for eating beef, falling in love with Hindus or simply for wearing skullcaps. Media, civil society and politics are so sharply polarised that ruling politicians dismiss secularism and human rights as communist psychobabble, while armies of pro-BJP trolls cheer them on. Ministers constantly refer to the refugees as "Rohingya Muslims", and erroneously lump them with Bangladeshi economic migrants, another BJP irritant.
The home minister also insists that India can reject refugees at its discretion because it is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. However bigoted or ignorant the justifications, they have captured the popular imagination. In multicultural Jammu, a site of growing Hindu assertion, the influential Chamber of Commerce issued an "identify and kill" statement against the Rohingya. The loud, often pro-establishment Arnab Goswami, anchor-editor of Republic TV, was vicious: "Let [the Rohingya] be floating around in a boat in the Indian Ocean. India is for Indians." After much criticism about its indifference, the Indian government sent relief assistance to refugees in Bangladesh.
India also justifies Myanmar's expulsion of the Rohingya and encourages exaggerated allegations of Rohingya terror. When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Myanmar leader Aung San Su Kyi, they shook hands on the joint effort to fight terror. Myanmar is at the heart of the Modi government's Act East trade and economic cooperation policy, as part of India's competitive response to China's growing presence in Myanmar. Economic development in Myanmar, however, is largely military-led.
Since the 1990s, the military has aggressively grabbed land from Rohingya smallholders, and from other minorities like the Chin, the Mon, Kachin, the Shan and the Karen. In 2012, land laws were amended to disproportionately favour corporate acquisition. The same year, Myanmar formally allocated 17,000 acres in the Rohingya area to corporations. In 2016, this increased to 31,00,000 acres in the Rakhine. In September of 2017, the government completed developing a 100-acre economic zone in Rakhine's Maungdaw district, which thousands of Rohingya had fled from that same month. The Indian government plans to invest in such economic zones, including a 1,000-acre hub for Indian companies 30 miles away from the Rakine capital of Sittwe, and a 4,000-acre export hub in central Rakhine.
In December, the Indian government signed a bizarre agreement with Myanmar to supply pre-fabricated houses for returning Rohingya refugees, even when it's clear that the Burmese military continues its spree of executions and village burning, pushing even the last half million left in Rakhine to leave soon.
When I visited their makeshift settlements across Jammu and New Delhi, it was evident that Rohingya families couldn't even imagine returning. "Please don't send us to Burma, not there… anywhere, but not there," chanted Amir Husain, a 55-year-old in a Jammu settlement, feverishly in Hindi. When Rafik returned from prayer, he showed me images of his village in Rakhine, which had burned to the ground two weeks earlier. A relative in Myanmar who had escaped to Bangladesh sent him photos through Whatsapp. "Deportation to Myanmar means a sure death," Rafik said. "I'm scared, but deep inside, I don't believe it's possible that a diverse, large-hearted country such as India will send us to die, even when we have done nothing to hurt it – can it?"
Abdul Hameed's family of eight is afraid they will be evicted from the Channi Himmat settlement in Jammu. Credit: Rohini Mohan
Under international law, India cannot deport the Rohingya. "The principle of non-refoulement – or not sending back refugees to a place where they face danger – is considered part of customary international law and therefore binding on states whether they have signed the Refugee Convention or not," said Ipshita Sengupta, from the UNHCR in New Delhi. "Refugees and asylum-seekers are often forced to flee from their countries without proper documents and should not be denied asylum merely on the basis of irregular entry."
India has always stated its commitment to non-refoulement in various international human rights fora. Additionally, when the Ministry of Home Affairs (in charge of security) insists it can deport Rohingya, it is directly contradicting the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, which has issued five-year resident visas to many refugees in Delhi.
But experts say India's refugee policy has never been uniform. "In principle, India always maintained a liberal approach toward the plight of asylum-seekers and refugees," said Ravi Nair, from the Delhi-based South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre. But India has refused to sign the UN refugee convention, and not created a domestic framework or law dealing specifically with refugees.
"So, India ends up behaving in an ad hoc manner. It has led to a lot of uncertainty and unevenness in the treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees," he explained. Refugees from Tibet and Sri Lanka, for instance, are in a better position, as India uses them as leverage in regional politics, than those who come from countries like Afghanistan, Myanmar, Iran or Somalia.
Now two petitions in the Supreme Court – one of them filed by refugees – are challenging the decision to deport the Rohingya and so far, the Indian government has refused to budge. It is calling the Rohingya the same names and using the same pretexts that Myanmar did to render them stateless and ultimately oust them: illegal, Bangladeshi, dirty, immigrant, terrorist, Muslim, threat. With no concern about flouting laws, staining its global image or betraying its own legacy of providing sanctuary for refugees, India is making choices that will set ugly standards for how the Global South treats persecuted minorities.
In the snack shop in Jammu, Shafiqa leapt into the arms of her father, 23-year-old Mohammad Shafiq, who had just returned from prayer. He handed her a biscuit, which she promptly began to nibble on. "Such a happy child," he said. She was born in India, and although she is still a refugee and not a citizen, he hoped she would have a better childhood than he did.
Shafiq grew up in Boli Bazaar village in the hilly Rakhine State. As a boy, he was taught never to use the word "Rohingya" around any non-Rohingyas – especially those "in uniform" or who looked official. "I was the fourth generation of my family to live in Myanmar, but we were shunned as outsiders, stripped of citizenship," he said. He spoke in bursts, taking long pauses while he searched for the right words. "It's hard to explain to people who have always been a citizen of somewhere… Imagine being denied your identity and any attachment to the place that is your home. Imagine no country claims you, and your own country wants to throw you into the sea."
Before the 2016-17 crisis, there were over one million Rohingya people living in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. A majority are Muslim, but some are Hindu too. In 1982, the military junta passed the Myanmar Nationality Law, which effectively denied the Rohingya the possibility of obtaining citizenship. This remains in place even though Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign to bring democracy to Myanmar, became the de facto leader of the government in 2016.
"Myanmar doesn't count Rohingya among its eight national races and 132 ethnic groups," says SAHRDC's Ravi Nair. "No amount of documentary proof seems to be conclusive enough for the authorities to grant a Rohingya person citizenship." While the Rohingya are permitted to reside in Myanmar, the Buddhist-dominated government considers most of them "resident foreigners", not citizens.
Rohingya ancestry is highly contested in Myanmar. Some Rohingya can trace their roots in Myanmar back to the eighth century, but the government claims that all of them were brought by British colonists to Rakhine from Bangladesh. "Even if they were, is 100 years not enough?" asks Nair. Myanmar even rejects the word "Rohingya", calling them Bengali instead.
Rohingya children play in a settlement in Narwal, Jammu. Credit: Rohini Mohan
The government restricts Rohingya people's movement within Rakhine, and they are banned from the rest of the country, including Yangon, the former capital city that used to be called Rangoon. "I used to ask about it to the elderly uncles who remembered times when their forefathers were in parliament and even in the army," said Shafiq. "I used to ask, 'What is Rangoon like? Is it shiny? Are there only rich people there? Are there many soldiers, like in our district?'" He remembers leaving his village with his father just once. "I was very sick, and he took me to a medical clinic in a bigger village nearby, but it took us days," he said.
As Shafiq spoke, other men gathered at the snack shop. They were pooling money for the bus journey to Srinagar city, where they had found some construction work. Back home, most were farmers and had worked on ancestral land that the state prevented them from legally owning. "That way, the government could arbitrarily confiscate an entire village's property," said Mohammad Juhar, who left Myanmar with nearly 200 people in 2011 after the army opened fire on their village. Juhar described how non-Buddhists like the Rohingya have to pay "one lakh kyat" (Rs 4,700) to the state to conduct weddings – it's not clear if this is routine bureaucratic extortion or government policy, but all Rohingya I met confirmed the existence of such payments. "We also had to pay a fine for every child that was born," he added.
The Rakhine State is under the jurisdiction of the military, over which Suu Kyi has no constitutional control – a freedom the Armed Forces retained when it ceded control to a democratic regime in 2011 after 50 years of military junta rule. Shafiq recalled that his childhood ambition was to be a solider, as they were the most powerful people he had seen. "By the time I was a teenager, I knew that was impossible," he said. "I couldn't even dream of being an engineer – as a non-citizen stuck in Rakhine, I couldn't go university. Anyway, even if a Rohingya had a PhD, it's no use to him in Myanmar." After decades of discrimination, the population has chronic health problems and is semi-literate.
Most families in the Narwal settlement have lived there since 2007, but the largest numbers arrived after June 2012, when clashes between Muslim Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists left at least 78 dead, according to government figures, and displaced thousands more. That was when Shafiq, then 17, walked for two days with his uncle until they crossed into Bangladesh. They laboured for two months in rice fields, saved enough to pay Rs 1,000 per head to an Indian human smuggler who brought them to Kolkata in India. "From there, I was put on a train, whose last stop was Jammu," said Shafiq. According to Jammu and Kashmir police records, there are over 5,700 Rohingya in Jammu. Smaller numbers live in Delhi, Mewat, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Chennai. "They go where there are kinship networks and where they get a regular source of livelihood," said Nair.
Shafiq found not only work and safety in India, he said, but also dignity. "I could lead a normal life, where my concerns are not about life and death, but much easier: food, clothes, housing." He was able to pray openly, think of the future and start a family. He married another refugee two years ago and last year he became a father.
As their numbers in India grew, Rohingya community leaders – often male religious elders who had quickly picked up Hindi to better negotiate Indian society – sought help from activists in applying for refugee status. India does not have a formal process for offering asylum to asylum-seekers. The government has, however, permitted the UNHCR office in New Delhi to issue refugee cards to persecuted Rohingya seeking shelter in India.
Shafiq, like many others, travelled to New Delhi in 2012, applied for asylum at the UNHCR office, and, after a few months, sat for a refugee status determination interview. "They asked me to describe my village, point it out on the map, recall what was near it, speak in Rohingya," said Shafiq. To verify that he was indeed fleeing persecution, the same questions were repeated in many ways: Did you see any violence? Describe the violence you witnessed. Who died? How many died? What day? What time of day? Did you see it or hear about it? What were the circumstances in which you decided to leave? Why did you come to India? Did you come to India to find work? Do you plan to return to Myanmar?
When it became clear that Shafiq's request for asylum was authentic and that he posed no security threat to India, he received a refugee card, valid for two years. The card gives him all the rights Indian citizens have, except the right to vote. He must also follow domestic laws. The card protects him from forced detention and deportation, and gives his family access to government schools and free medical care at government hospitals.
Syed Husain shows the national ID of his father, a former member of the Burmese army. The Myanmar government called this document false, and refused citizenship to the family. Credit: Rohini Mohan
That's where the benefits end. The Rohingya, like most other refugee groups in India, live in near destitution, with no aid, housing, electricity or water from the government, and only meagre support from a few refugee rights NGOs. Among the poorest migrants in Jammu and Delhi, they blend into the labouring crowds, doing menial jobs that locals have long abandoned: cleaning faeces off railway tracks, clearing drains, digging at construction sites, and collecting recyclable scrap. Many of these jobs are subcontracted to them by locals, who then take a cut from their pay.
"We still make Rs 500 a day, which is high compared to the rest of India," said Moulana Younus, a Rohingya community leader who came to India in 2005 and is now what Indians call a maestry, a supervisor-cum-labour supplier in Jammu. "I got 20 people a digging job just outside Jammu," Younus said. He is careful about choosing employers. "As refugees and as poor people, we are vulnerable, and initially, employers regularly cheated us of our pay, knowing that we couldn't really access the police, or afford to complain," he said. Now, he usually sticks to trustworthy networks.
While Rohingya settlements are informally called "camps", they are not set up by state agencies. They are small slums: collections of tin huts built by the Rohingya on plots rented from local landlords. In Jammu, I visited six of the biggest settlements, which housed anywhere from 25 to 100 families each. Each paid Rs 500 a month in rent, in addition to electricity and water charges, to a landowner who dealt with the police and government on their behalf.
Ashwaq Hussain, a 25-year-old landlord who has rented his plot to a Rohingya settlement, identified himself as a Gujjar to prove that he had no special affinity to Rohingyas. "I've rented to them for four years, but only last year, the police started harassing me. Arey, they needed a place to stay, I had land. They are hard-working, they are religious Muslims so they don't drink alcohol and they have small children who need safe homes. Why shouldn't I rent my land?" The state refused them taps or power lines, so the landlord hooked these services up in his name. "The renters pay me," he explained.
Neha Dixit's report on how Rohingya refugees in India are denied basic nutrition services
Can the Rohingya return to Myanmar now? No, says Azeem Ibrahim
Jorge Silva's portraits of injured Rohingya refugees
Manoj Joshi argues that shunning Rohingya refugees is a bad geopolitical strategy for India
At Narwal, a few Rohingya had opened small grocery shops, fish stalls and tea shops along the road next to the settlements. At lunchtime, ten-month-old Shafiqa's grandmother Fatima Khatoun walked me through "their Indian village" by the road. Wobbly tin huts were separated by dusty lanes, barely as wide as an average-sized adult. There were no doors, only fading curtains billowing in the warm breeze. Some huts had blue tarpaulin roofs, on top of which their primary source of livelihood lay drying in separate piles: plastic boxes, foil wrappers, and metal wires, to be sold at the recycling centre. In a corner, a couple of men sat by a four-foot-high mountain of glass bottles.
At this time of day, the slum belonged to the women and children. Barefoot, half-dressed, wild-haired toddlers played among plastic pots of stored water, chased each other with headless plastic toys found in the garbage, or stood around eating Kurkure, the ubiquitous junk snack of poor urban kids in India. Nearly all women hunched over open-air wood stoves, cooking rice and a watery curry, one eye always on an infant bawling in the corner. Some avoided my camera, or asked me to hold on while they pulled a scarf over their heads. One called it haram to be photographed. When we reached Shafiqa's mother Taslima, she was lying on a straw mat indoors, burning with a fever that has recurred every few weeks since her pregnancy. "I get an injection from the government hospital sometimes, but nothing changes," she said. Taslima is only 17; most young mothers here are under 20.
The Rohingya already in India help new arrivals set up home, apply for refugee status and find jobs. But as they receive frantic calls from the tens of thousands of Rohingya escaping the intensifying crackdown in Rakhine, they can offer no help. Shafiq said that his father disappeared while his village was being evacuated late last year. "He probably stayed out longer than 6 pm, and was shot by the military," Shafiq said.
As the political situation regarding the Rohingya has deteriorated in India, he instructed his mother and little brother still in Myanmar to go to Bangladesh and stay there. "I told them not to come to Jammu now," said Shafiq, his face turning red with guilt and grief. "I should be taking care of her – but I told her, don't come to India, Ma, it's not safe. Any day now, we might just be thrown back into the mouth of the beast."
Like Shafiq, many Rohingya in India are terrified. Those with UNHCR refugee cards assumed they would at least be allowed to stay in the country without fear of being sent back to Myanmar, where they would almost certainly be killed. But on August 8, the home ministry sent a notice to all Indian states asking them to start the process of identifying and deporting Rohingya. "Illegal migrants are more vulnerable for getting recruited by terrorist organizstions," the notice said. "Infiltration from Rakhine State of Myanmar (where Rohingya are based) into Indian territory specially in the recent years besides being burden on the limited resources of the country also aggravates the security challenges posed to the country."
While no Rohingya have been deported yet, the decision has made an already difficult situation even harder. At the Indo-Bangladesh border, which is usually quite porous, the Indian Border Security Force is monitoring entry more carefully. Within India, the police in states where Rohingya are present are responding to the government notice by drawing up lists of names and insisting on family photographs for surveillance purposes.
"Rohingyas are not illegal, but they do live on the edge of the law, and of society," said Ravi Hemadri, director of the Development and Justice Initiative, a UNHCR partner organisation that works with Rohingya people in Jammu and Delhi. "Demonising the community by calling them terrorists or miscreants is very dangerous. It may lead to police excesses, trouble from vigilante groups, and more generally, loss of livelihood and societal acceptance." He said that since the state notice, there has been a burst of cases filed by police against Rohingya for crimes like petty theft, entry without a passport and trespassing.
Over the last decade, Rohingya people and poor Bihari migrants have filled some gaps in Jammu's economy. Many refugees I met were doing cleaning and digging jobs subcontracted to them by locals. Rohit Sharma, the Gujjar landlord's friend, ran a woodwork factory. "All my labour is Burmese," he said. "They are good workers."
A plastic factory, and another medical packaging facility near the settlement also employed many Rohingya. Some were asked to leave in May last year, after the Jammu Chamber of Commerce said that if the government failed to deport the Rohingya settlers within 30 days and didn't book people on whose land they had settled, the Chamber would launch a "identify and kill" movement on its own.
"The accusations of us being terrorists have worried our landlords and employers," said construction labour supervisor Moulana Younus, who has had many of his steady jobs cancelled. "The employers told me they knew it was politics, but they didn't want any trouble." Neighbours, Rafik said, now look at them in fear instead of with compassion. "Last year, when a short circuit burned down all the huts in one of our settlements, all the middle-class neighbours mobilised and contributed between Rs 1,000 and 5,000 each to rebuild strong concrete structures," he said. "I'm not sure people will help us if the government is calling us terrorists."
As a trading and business centre, Jammu is diverse, but there has always been regional resentment toward the dominance of Kashmiri Muslims in state government. "Communal polarisation has been part of Jammu and Kashmir politics since independence," said Anuradha Bhasin, the Jammu-based managing editor of the Kashmir Times. "And Indian governments have always tried to sharpen the divide, and use Hindu-majority Jammu as a tool to block off Kashmiri demands." The Hindu right-wing has been laying down roots in the city, as evidenced by recent agitations around land use for an annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath temple and the anti-Rohingya messaging.
In mid-2017, Hindu fundamentalist vigilantes in Jammu found a rotting cow carcass near the Channi Rama plot, where more than 30 Rohingya families lived. The vigilantes accused the Rohingya of cow slaughter and demanded that they be evicted. As the mob threatened to burn their homes, the police detained ten Rohingya, including two women. When I visited in September 2017, the plot was cleared of all but three huts. Bhasin observed that the "manufactured paranoia around the Rohingya" is beginning to unsettle local Muslims too. "Perhaps that was the intended consequence," she said.
That same month, I met with Rakesh Gupta, the president of the Jammu Chamber of Commerce who had called on his supporters to "identify and kill all Rohingya". When I asked him why, he smiled. "It was not an emotional statement, but a logical one," Gupta said. "Why can't the Rohingya go somewhere else? Why not Srinagar – there are Muslims there. Why Jammu?"
He called it an attempt to change the demography of the place, which would "render Jammu Hindus weaker" in a state government he said was largely dominated by those from Kashmir. "I will not let India give the Rohingya residency even as it denies certificates to refugee Sikhs dating back to 1947," said Gupta. Then, pulling his chair forward, he added, "So many Muslims… it can be a trigger for religious sentiments to flare up, for some terrorism. Why take a risk with such people?"
There is a lot of talk about Rohingya terror in Jammu, but little actual evidence. I visited four police stations in Jammu that oversee the Rohingya slums. There are 5,743 Rohingya in Jammu, and only 17 cases total have ever been registered against them: eight for lack of a visa or travel document, one for cow slaughter, two for rape and others for stealing railway property, causing injury, and child marriage. No terrorism.
S.D. Singh, Jammu's Inspector General of Police said, "The Rohingya do some petty theft, which is common among communities this poor. There is nothing too sensational – we have no terror cases against them." Junior policemen confirmed the same, and some even expressed sympathy for how poor many Rohingya are. One policeman in the Channi Himmat police station was confused: "Rohingya? Aren't they from Bangladesh?" Others have fallen prey to crude political narratives: "If Hindus are frustrated, they have no terror organisation to join," said K.L. Sharma, a policeman in Narwal. "But extremist Islamic outfits like ISIS could exploit the Rohingya people's vulnerability."
The Indian government's concerns about Rohingya terrorism seem to emanate from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, an armed guerrilla outfit that has been active since 2016. Last August, they claimed responsibility for an attack on police posts and an army base in Rakhine. ARSA's founder is of Pakistani origin, and in images leaked to the media in September, the head of an Islamic militant organization is seen addressing one of its gatherings in Karachi in 2012.
"The connection might be something intelligence agencies should keep an eye on, but it is not conclusive evidence to order a blanket deportation of all Rohingya in India," said Bangalore-based refugee rights lawyer Sahana Basavapatna. If security concerns are behind the desire to deport, she says, then India must institute a protocol for handling refugees. "You can't ban a whole community. Countries across the world have systems to weed out militant or economic migrants from innocent victims of persecution. If individual refugees fail the test, you can always deport them, or jail them."
Basavapatna surmises that the government wants to gain electoral traction by signalling to the Indian Hindu majority that it is taking a hard stance on Muslim refugees. But acting on this bluster might be difficult. "Deportation will mean logistical coordination with the home country, but Myanmar does not consider the Rohingya as citizens. Aung San Suu Kyi is saying they'll take them back, but the military hasn't stopped killing and raping them. You can't even put them on a flight to Yangon city because they are banned there."
Colin Gonsalves, a lawyer who has filed public interest litigation in India's Supreme Court on behalf of the Rohingyas in Jammu to challenge the deportation order, also thinks the government has an ulterior motive. "The Rohingya issue is not about security at all," he says, "It's about politics." While his petition is under consideration, no deportation cases can proceed until they've been heard in court.
Another petition comes from two Rohingya people: one of them is Mohammad Salimullah, a 35-year-old shopkeeper who lives in a Delhi settlement. Velvet-voiced and mild-mannered, he is not somebody one would expect to launch a high-stakes battle that might determine the direction of India's refugee policy. Salimullah left Myanmar in 2005 and has lived in India for eight years. Before we speak, he insists on showing me all his documents. "You need to know that I am a legitimate resident in India," he said.
The file has a long-term visa for his family, refugee cards and proof of a phone connection. "Ever since the talk of deportation began, I wanted a legal way to resolve this," said Salimullah, who is being represented pro bono by the social justice lawyer Prashant Bhushan. "My plea challenges the deportation order based on the truths about our struggles in Myanmar, the impossibility of our return until peace returns there, and our legal status in India."
Sitting on his haunches and swatting away the afternoon flies gathering at his shop's entrance, Salimullah said that reporters often ask him how he can be so brave. "They think I'm taking on a big country," he says. "But by going to court, what I'm doing is showing that I trust the Indian system." In a hearing on January 31, the attorney for the central government said that they "didn't want India to become the refugee capital of the world". Yet, Salimullah stood his ground, "We Rohingya have pretty much nothing left, but we have hope."
As I walked out of the Delhi Rohingya settlement, three men sitting outside the slum approached me. They were migrant labourers from the neighbouring Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, taking a cigarette break. Their hands were still white with concrete, and one man's shirt was splattered with mud.
"What will happen to them?" asked one of them, middle-aged Rajesh Kumar.
When I said the court had yet to decide, Kumar nodded. "I have seen the scary videos from their country – poor things, I hope their troubles end soon."
The man next to him walked closer to me. "I'm not saying all of them are like that, but … I just don't trust them. They could be anything, they could be terrorists."
Kumar laughed wryly at his friend. "We are as dirt poor as these fellows," he said. "But look, we have the arrogance of citizens."
Rohini Mohan is a Bangalore-based journalist.
This article was first published in World Policy Journal, New York


text:
<!--
id: 6468938976
link: http://tumblr.atmos.org/post/6468938976/two-conceptions-of-taste-aaron-swartzs-raw-thought
slug: two-conceptions-of-taste-aaron-swartzs-raw-thought
date: Sun Jun 12 2011 16:12:54 GMT-0700 (PDT)
publish: 2011-06-012
tags:
title: Two Conceptions of Taste (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
-->

Two Conceptions of Taste (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
=====================================================

[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/2taste](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/2taste)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Which Is the better Splice?
* Now that I've set up the topic, you and I can have our competition, Tes!
* The goal is to construct a Splice using 2-3 different sprites.
* You can use Pokemon AND human sprites, but at least 1 of the sprites used must be that of a Pokemon.
* When presenting your Splice, be sure to include the sprites used to create it.
* The winner will be determined by a vote: first one to receive ten (10) votes in their favor wins.
so I'll be changing my wager to THREE (3) tickets!
* Shall we give a show that Mauvache will be proud of?
Eheheh... prepare to lose your ticket.
Looking at past competitions, perhaps you should bump the votes needed to win to 10, and lower it if that turns out to be too high.
Better to have too high than too low of a number I think.
(Audio-Only) * Sure, let's go with that.
* I've managed to acquire more Tickets today!
* I was actually wondering that myself.
and then I post both of our Sprites into the Opening Post.
* Or perhaps have both of us send them over to Mauvache to post them here.
Please vote for which of the two you find superior, in this battle of artistic merit!
If you do vote, I implore you to give your reasoning in a post.
Remember, there will be a Poll edited into the OP by Asgore and once that happens you may begin voting.
First to 10 wins. Please will the 10th to vote on one of the splices screenshot and post with said screenshot.
(Audio-Only) * Poll has been edited in, so voting shall now begin!
It seems that Splice A is taking a fast lead! 5-0 so far, can B turn it around or shall this be a clean sweep?
I'm going to vote A as well, mostly because it blends a bit better with colors and sprites used.
Arbok's tail on B...just feels off. Idea is nice, but yeah, not sure what it's supposed to be doing on it. And yeah, the red overpowers stuff (yes, I had a red reindeer avatar earlier, but that is irrelevant).
7-0 in A's favor at time of my vote.
Asgore, Tesability, I believe that at this point it would be good to end this soon. And so, 24 hours from now, this will end even if neither reaches 10 votes and the most votes will win.
10 votes to 3 in favour of A.
Asgore, with Splice A, has claimed victory! A strong victory of 10-3 at that! Congratulations, Asgore. And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for participating in my Arena when none else would.
And thanks to you, as well, Tesability. Personally I found your creation to be quite delightful.
Anyone who knows me woulds have knows the sprite.
Anyway, you both well played. Congratulations to Asgore.


text:
Statement from Speaker Madigan on Resolution of Governor's Budget Crisis
by Press on June 15, 2017
Press Author
More in Local:
Prairie State College Announces Fall 2022 Part-Time Honors List January 31, 2023
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. –(ENEWSPF)—June 15, 2017. House Speaker Michael J. Madigan issued the following statement, Thursday:
"We have stated unequivocally that a resolution to the governor's budget crisis—which has resulted in eight credit downgrades and tripled the state's debt—must be our top priority. Wherever we can compromise with the governor without hurting middle-class families, Democrats have worked to find common ground so we can get the governor to work with us and pass a balanced budget, but he has refused to do so. Per the governor's request, House Democrats have voted to cut . . .


text:
Q: Enterprise Library Validation Ruleset issue for nested objects I'm having a problem applying Rulesets when validating objects with nested objects when using Enterpirse Library validation. If I have the following objects
public class Person
{
    [ObjectValidator]
    [ObjectValidator(Ruleset = "A")]
    public Address Address  { get; set; }
}

public class Address
{
    [StringLengthValidator(0, 32, MessageTemplate = "Invalid value '{0}' for {1}, Max length:{5}")]
    public string Address1 { get; set; }

    [StringLengthValidator(0, 32, MessageTemplate = "Invalid value '{0}' for {1}, Max length:{5}", Ruleset = "A")]
    public string Address2 { get; set; }
}

Now if I try to validate the object by calling
ValidationResults results = Validation.Validate(myPersonObject);

I get my default validation as expected, i.e if Person.Address.Address1 is too long it fires but Person.Address.Address2 is ignored, this is as expected.
However if I try to invoke my validation for Ruleset "A" as follows
ValidationResults results = Validation.Validate(myPersonObject, "A");

I always get the same results as the previous validate call despite the fact I have specified the Ruleset.
Any suggestions?

A: So turns out I need to pass my Ruleset through in the constructor of the ObjectValidator attribute as well as specifying the Ruleset property to get my expected behaviour.
public class Person
{
    [ObjectValidator]
    [ObjectValidator("A", Ruleset = "A")]
    public Address Address  { get; set; }
}

public class Address
{
    [StringLengthValidator(0, 32, MessageTemplate = "Invalid value '{0}' for {1}, Max length:{5}")]
    public string Address1 { get; set; }

    [StringLengthValidator(0, 32, MessageTemplate = "Invalid value '{0}' for {1}, Max length:{5}", Ruleset = "A")]
    public string Address2 { get; set; }
}

Basically the constructor argument is the target ruleset in the target object ("Address") while the Ruleset named parameter is what the ruleset is called on the current object ("Person").

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


When creating your umpteenth site using Mavention Make, you have probably seen that a correct template suddenly gives an error. You know that this template should work because it did provision correctly a several times before. After using the retry button, the template provisions the site as if nothing had happened before.
What just happend? There could be several reasons why the provisioning stops. One thing could be that SharePoint Online is throttling your requests. This happens when Microsoft detects a extensive usage, but in this case Mavention Make has build-in functionality to handle throttling. The more common reason why the provisioning did not complete, is probably that a specific service did not responded like it supposed to in a longer period of time. When this happens the provisioning of the templates stops and you can find the reason in the error log of the provisioning request. To handle this kind of situations you could build a Microsoft Flow to retry the template on a error. But you could also use the retry option for in the playlist. Using this you can specify the number retries Mavention Make playlist should make before it stops. There is also a retry delay option, where you can set the time between the retries.
Now when the provisioning throws any error, Mavention Make will automatically retry the template for the defined times.
In case of provisioning still fails, I always create an notification for me and the requestor that it takes a little bit longer than supposed to.


text:
Ludwig Piskaçek (16 November 1854, Karcag, Hungary – 19 September 1932, Vienna) was an Austrian obstetrician remembered for describing Piskaçek's sign.

He trained in Vienna, gaining his doctorate in 1882. He became apprentice in surgery at the Albert Clinic until 1884, then assistant at the second obstetrical clinic under Josef Späth (1823–1896) and his successor August Breisky (1832–1889) until 1888. He became professor of obstetrics in Linz in 1890, and in Vienna in 1901.

He was the author of a textbook on midwifery that was published over several editions, Lehrbuch für Schülerinnen des Hebammenkurses und Nachschlagebuch für Hebammen.

References

External links

Austrian gynaecologists
1854 births
1932 deaths
People from Karcag
Academic staff of the University of Vienna

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia