German frigate to help destroy Syrian chemical weapons

BERLIN: The German government agreed on Wednesday to send a frigate to take part in an international mission in the Mediterranean Sea to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons.
Up to 300 German soldiers will take part in the deployment to help protect the US vessel, MV Cape Ray, aboard which the weapons will be broken down at sea using hydrolysis.
The German mandate runs until December at the latest and must be approved by the Bundestag lower house of Parliament where the left-right “grand coalition” has an overwhelming majority. Germany has already accepted a UN request to destroy remnants of Syria’s chemical weapons on its own soil, which state-owned company GEKA in the northern town of Munster is handling.
Some 370 tons of the secondary waste, so-called hydrolysates, are being shipped in about a dozen containers to the German plant, where it will be pumped into a 1,000-degree-Celsius incinerator.