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Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

nytimes.com

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Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#111

Post by amelius »

tlow wrote: post #20
sasas wrote: post #17

Interesting tid-bit from Wikipedia [1] In fiscal year 2008, the US Department of Defense released a study finding that the U.S. had dumped at least 124 tons of VX into the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of New York/New Jersey and Florida, between 1969 and 1970. This material consisted of nearly 22,000 M55 rockets, 19 bulk containers holding 1,400 pounds (640 kg) each, and one M23 chemical landmine. [25] [1] https://en…

Yep. And who knows what the affects of that were. But I do not agree with the claim that this is interesting in this context as it seems irrelevant to the discussion.

> it seems irrelevant to the discussion

Unless the victim ate the wrong fish.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#112

Post by owenversteeg »

Lordarminius wrote: post #104
wbl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know about Georgi Markov? Bulgaria concerned about the propaganda fallout if they killed him and it was known, so they injected him with ricin instead. Mossad attempted to use poison to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. It went comically wrong, with his driver chasing down the assassins with a rolled-up newspaper.

> Mossad attempted to use poison to assassinate the head of Hezbollah. It went comically wrong, with his driver chasing down the assassins with a rolled-up newspaper. Mossad successfully poisoned the head of Hezbollah by spraying a delayed action toxin into his ear. His driver (who did not comprehend what had happened, and whom he was dealing with) chased after the assassins who in turn fled fearing he was a bodyguar…

I believe you've conflated two assassination attempts, one on Hassan Nasrallah, one on Khaled Mashal. Mashal was the one in 1997 where the antidote was turned over by the Israeli government. Nasrallah was in 2008, and also survived after being treated by Iranian doctors.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#113

Post by rwmj »

tlow wrote: post #13

If we are talking about V-Series Agents, we might as well talk about the secret Soviet Program to develop additional V-series compounds[1] that would be undetectable by the west. It is important to note that there are many vectors of entry for a V-series agent, and in this case, evidence points to an atomized version, as opposed to the dermal administration which is more common among this class. An atomized version t…

There's an absolutely terrifying book by Ken Alibeck ("Biohazard") about the Soviet secret chemical and biological warfare programme. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Alibek)

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#115

Post by andlier »

There is a fascinating BBC-documentary about chemical warfare history and the british Porton Down military research facility, hosted by Michael Mosley [0]. There is a part where the researcher actually makes sarin and VX right in front of Michael in a fume-hood. They literally watch the VX-liquid condense out of the vacuum distillation apparatus right in front of Mosley and the camera team. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07hx40t

Edit: Program available here until mid March: https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23002916/mosley-og-de-kjemiske... If you can VPN to Norway.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#116

Post by teh_klev »

andlier wrote: post #115

There is a fascinating BBC-documentary about chemical warfare history and the british Porton Down military research facility, hosted by Michael Mosley [0]. There is a part where the researcher actually makes sarin and VX right in front of Michael in a fume-hood. They literally watch the VX-liquid condense out of the vacuum distillation apparatus right in front of Mosley and the camera team. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/p…

I saw that recently and can certainly recommend viewing it.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#117

Post by feintruled »

varjag wrote: post #103
winfred wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or obscuring the source. If I wanted to cause a Chinese-North Korea conflict, I'd do it in a way that gives me enough time to tie up loose ends and points in a certain direction. Same with Litvinenko. We will never find out the true story. Was it a message? Probably. But from who to who? Might have been FSB, but there were plenty of other parties that really didn't like Litvinenko and could have used Russian Polonium…

Lugovoy, the murderer of Litvinenko is now a member or parliament in Russia with extradition requests of the UK being denied. It's pretty clear the assassination had the highest possible approval. Sometimes, things are exactly what they look like.

In fairness, Russia flat out deny ALL extradition requests for their own citizens.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/22/russia.lukehar...

A commendable stance, IMHO. (From a most uncommendable unregime).

They also have no extradition treaty at all with the US. Hence why Snowden is there, I guess.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#118

Post by benages »

andlier wrote: post #115

There is a fascinating BBC-documentary about chemical warfare history and the british Porton Down military research facility, hosted by Michael Mosley [0]. There is a part where the researcher actually makes sarin and VX right in front of Michael in a fume-hood. They literally watch the VX-liquid condense out of the vacuum distillation apparatus right in front of Mosley and the camera team. [0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/p…

You can also download the program with youtube-dl without a VPN.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#119

Post by ptaipale »

franciskim wrote: post #50
knieveltech wrote: post #44

This is easily the most terrifying comment I've ever seen on Hacker News. You are a deeply scary human being. May I ask how do you know all of this? Edit: weird, I typically know ahead of time what's going to get downvoted. Didn't see it coming this time around. shrug

Look at the number of Wikipedia links, it's not like tlow is the only person on earth that knows about this.

I guess there are people who haven't heard of VX nerve agents, but over here, most males have got a basic training in the army (we have conscription here). I was in service 30 years ago and VX was listed as one of the threats where you would use your gas mask, though it is not necessarily nearly enough, obviously. In addition to gas mask, the rain poncho (also known as "magic cloak") is for protecting against radioactive fallout as well as chemical agents (the nickname is to highlight the rather strong optimism in the idea that the rain poncho helps much).

We would train the use of gas masks with CS gas.

This was during our basic infantry training at the beginning of service, and I think it wasn't particularly new back in 1986.

Re: Kim Jong-Nam Was Killed by VX Nerve Agent, Malaysians Say

#120

Post by saiya-jin »

tlow wrote: post #20
sasas wrote: post #17

Interesting tid-bit from Wikipedia [1] In fiscal year 2008, the US Department of Defense released a study finding that the U.S. had dumped at least 124 tons of VX into the Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of New York/New Jersey and Florida, between 1969 and 1970. This material consisted of nearly 22,000 M55 rockets, 19 bulk containers holding 1,400 pounds (640 kg) each, and one M23 chemical landmine. [25] [1] https://en…

Yep. And who knows what the affects of that were. But I do not agree with the claim that this is interesting in this context as it seems irrelevant to the discussion.

a comment in discussion with hundreds of posts saying only that some comment is not interesting for the discussion is... not interesting for the discussion either. same as this comment, so please let's not pollute the discussion, ok?
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