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chemical weapons

Protesters hold umbrellas in thick tear gas.

Tear gas has been banned in warfare. Why do police still use it?

Conflict & Justice

Despite its illegality in war, police use tear gas to control riots and disperse crowds all over the world. To understand why and how it’s still in use, host Marco Werman spoke with Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s human rights program. 

A person holds tear gas canisters and shot guns shells all tied on to a string

The global tear gas business is booming. It’s complicated.

A man, center, stands in a back-light doorway looking into a room in rubble.

Syrian warplanes strike eastern Ghouta despite Russian truce

Conflict
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (R) meeting Abdullah al-Ahmar, deputy general secretary of Syria's ruling Baath Party, on a visit to Pyongyang in 2013

A key supplier of Syria’s chemical weapons? North Korea.

Conflict
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaking during a previous interview with Croatian newspaper Vecernji List in Damascus, Syria, April 6.

Interview: Syria’s Assad says US ‘fabricated’ chemical attack to justify strikes

Conflict
Syria chemical weapons 2014

World powers condemn Assad’s regime as Russia protects it

Conflict

At least 86 Syrians were killed early on Tuesday in rebel-held Khan Sheikhun, and dozens more have received treatment for convulsions, breathing problems and foaming at the mouth.

Syria

If Assad stayed, could Syria ever rebuild from war?

Conflict

At a conference focused on rebuilding Syria, experts doubt change will ever be possible under the current regime.

A civil defense member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria on April 4.

Dozens of Syrian civilians killed in apparent chemical attack

Conflict

If confirmed, it would be one of the worst chemical attacks since the start of Syria’s civil war six years ago.

CCTV image Kuala Lumpur Malaysia airport

Kim Jong-nam was killed by VX nerve agent, Malaysia says

Conflict

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half brother was assassinated with a lethal nerve agent manufactured for chemical warfare and listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction, Malaysian police said Friday.

A soldier from the US Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade adjusts his gas mask prior to an air analysis mission near an oil and gas separation plant at the Baba Gurgur oil field outside northern Iraq's town of Kirkuk on May 3, 2003.

The Army’s secrecy habit kept US troops from getting needed treatment after chemical weapons exposure

Health

Iraq may not have had the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration believed, but it did have stockpiles of long-abandoned chemical weapons. And this week, C.J. Chivers of The New York Times blew the lid off of the Army’s long silence on those weapons — and the soldiers they harmed.