Global chemical arms inspectors are to take the unprecedented step of exhuming some bodies of victims in the Syrian town of Douma as they work to verify last month’s alleged chemical attack, a media report said on Thursday.
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) director-general Ahmet Uzumcu told the Financial Times that the organization’s fact-finding mission had already gathered more than 100 “environmental samples” since getting access to the site northeast of Damascus on April 21.
The OPCW’s mission to Douma was launched after footage from an apparent April 7 onslaught horrified the world and prompted unparallelled strikes on Syrian military installations, but inspectors, in a bid to find further evidence of alleged chlorine and sarin use in the attack, in which medics and rescuers say more than 40 people were killed, are now looking at “ways to exhume and take some biomedical samples,” Uzumcu said.
“It is a very sensitive process. That’s why they are very cautious. Although our experts have been able to attend some autopsies in the past, this is going to be the first time we have exhumed bodies,” he told the newspaper.
The Hague, Netherlands-based OPCW confirmed that inspectors are indeed looking to conduct autopsies on the bodies, adding that the fact-finding mission “is continuing to explore all avenues for collecting evidence.”
Uzumcu told the Financial Times that it could be a month before the mission publishes its report on Douma, but another OPCW official said that it “is premature to speculate as to when the report will be ready for sharing” with the watchdog’s member states.
The OPCW mission gained access to Douma on April 21 after several delays, but experts have said chemical traces — if they existed — could still be found, including in the bodies of the alleged victims.
Damascus and Moscow have accused Syrian volunteer rescue workers known as the White Helmets of staging the video footage at the behest of the US and its allies.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
SOUTH CHINA SEA TENSIONS: Beijing’s ‘pronounced aggressiveness’ and ‘misbehavior’ forced countries to band together, the Philippine defense chief said The Philippines is confident in the continuity of US policies in the Asia-Pacific region after the US presidential election, Philippine Secretary of Defense Gilberto Teodoro said, underlining that bilateral relations would remain strong regardless of the outcome. The alliance between the two countries is anchored in shared security goals and a commitment to uphold international law, including in the contested waters of the South China Sea, Teodoro said. “Our support for initiatives, bilaterally and multilaterally ... is bipartisan, aside from the fact that we are operating together on institutional grounds, on foundational grounds,” Teodoro said in an interview. China’s “misbehavior” in the South