Australia stockpiles deadly gas http://news.com.au/0,4780,1207003%255E421,00.html 17sep00 THE Australian military is stock-piling a deadly nerve gas called VX to counter possible chemical weapons attacks. VX is so potent it is capable of wiping out cities. A Canadian Security Intelligence Service report stated a drop of VX was enough to kill a human. A canister sprayed from a plane over a city could kill hundreds of thousands of people. "Defence holds a very small amount of the VX agent for use in research into defence against chemical agents and in the development of methods of analysis to support the verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)," Defence Minister John Moore said in a report to Federal Parliament. Greens Senator Bob Brown discovered the chemical was being stockpiled after a Defence Department whistleblower alerted him. "I'm very worried such a deadly toxin is being stored somewhere in Australia," Senator Brown said. "The idea that we are experimenting with it is very disturbing, there should be a complete ban on the production of such chemicals," he said. Senator Brown called on the Government to say where the chemical was being stored, how it got into Australia, what experiments were being done on it and who had asked Australia to do them. "It's here with Government knowledge, the Government's going to have to explain where it is," he said. "I would expect it came through some populated area, likely to be Sydney, on its way in." Defence Minister John Moore said the chemical was stored safely. "VX is classified as a Schedule 1 chemical and as such, is subject to stringent monitoring," Mr Moore told Parliament. "Australia makes bi-annual declarations of stocks, production, use and trade of chemicals such as VX to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. No other stocks of VX exist in Australia and its territories." VX was featured in the movie, The Rock, where a terrorist threatened to release the nerve agent in San Francisco from the former jail Alcatraz. The VX nerve gas kills by coming in contact with the skin or by being inhaled. It takes about 10 minutes for VX to be fatal. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
