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Washington, April 3 Trains and buses in major US cities may be targeted this summer by terrorists using bombs hidden in bags or luggage, federal counterterrorism officials told law enforcement and transportation officials in a nationwide bulletin.
USA to fingerprint more
visitors
Killers of US contractors in Iraq
identified
Annan allowed to give benefits to gays,
lesbians
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Polish firm to supply 228 armoured
vehicles
Congressional hearing sought on AIDS
cases in India
2 Palestinians shot dead
MNNA status to Pak yet to happen: USA
Satellite to test Einstein predictions
NRI-led team invents pump that purifies
liquids
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US security officials warn of blasts
Washington, April 3 FBI and Homeland Security Department officials said they had received uncorroborated intelligence reports about a plot by terrorists to target commercial transportation systems. The bulletin, issued late on Thursday, mentioned no specific cities or dates and did not elaborate on the source of information. A senior federal law enforcement official, speaking yesterday on condition of anonymity, said the intelligence, coupled with the deadly March 11 commuter train attacks in Madrid in which bombs went off inside backpacks, had increased the level of wariness about a similar attack in the USA. A spokesman for the U.S. passenger rail system, Amtrak, said the company stepped up security after the Madrid bombings, including the use of bomb-sniffing dogs, although the company’s trains have received no specific or credible threats. “It should not be considered unusual that the FBI should issue this kind of a bulletin in the wake of what occurred in Madrid last month,’’ Amtrak said in a statement. Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said information in the bulletin was being shared via the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System to ensure proper security measures were implemented around the country. Officials said the message was sent mainly out of an abundance of caution, and the threat — deemed “somewhat credible” by one official — was not causing undue alarm throughout the government.
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USA to fingerprint more
visitors
Houston, April 3 The US Department of Homeland Security yesterday announced that it will begin processing visitors travelling under the Visa Waiver Programme (VWP) at air and sea ports of entry. An estimated 13 million visitors enter the US each year. The decision will affect citizens from nations that included Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Singapore and Japan. They are allowed to enter the USA for up to 90 days for business or pleasure using only a passport. Canada and Mexico are not part of the programme and their citizens, who enter the USA under separate regulations, will continue to be exempt from the new requirement. According to Asa Hutchinson, Undersecretary of Border and Transportation Security of the Department of Homeland Security, by September 30, visitors travelling under the VWP, will be enrolled in the US-VISIT programme which requires them to provide immigration officials with two digital index fingerprints and a photograph to verify their identities. She indicated that the new security measures were adopted in part to close the gaps that terrorists can exploit to enter the USA to carry out attacks. Under US law, the 27 nations must introduce passports with “biometric” data by October 26 but the State Department and the US Department of Homeland Security have asked Congress to approve a two-year extension because most, if not all, are not expected to meet the deadline. —
PTI |
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Killers of US contractors in Iraq identified
Washington, April 3 ABC yesterday said US forces were expected to take decisive action against the attackers within the next several days, and intelligence sources knew who they were going after. US President George W. Bush vowed yesterday not to be intimated or retreat from Iraq after the murder and mutilation of the four men in Falluja, a hot spot of violence in the US occupied country. Their bodies were burned, mutiated and two were strung up for public view. The US contractors were “targets of opportunity” who had the bad luck to drive into a pre-planned ambush site, ABC quoted US intelligence sources as saying. Eyewitnesses have told intelligence sources there were seven to 18 assailants involved in the attack, ABC said. It said Iraqi insurgents had set up several ambush points around Falluja and had stocked them with gasoline on the morning of the attack. Some townspeople had been warned to stay inside, the intelligence officials told the network. ABC said the four contractors left the Iraqi city of Taji on Tuesday to escort a convoy of several flatbed trucks full of goods, spending the night at a base east of Falluja. On Wednesday morning, the convoy approached a traffic circle in Falluja, where eyewitnesses said a vehicle pulled in front of the lead SUV, while occupants from several other vehicles fired machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Cheering Iraqis paraded the charred bodies of the contractors through the streets of
Falluja, images that evoked comparisons to the 1993 killings of 18 US troops in Mogadishu. Washington ended its military presence in Somalia soon afterwards. —
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Annan allowed to give benefits to gays, lesbians
United Nations, April 3 In a compromise resolution yesterday, the panel said Mr Annan had to re-issue his guidelines on the subject and not use words like “family” or “domestic partnership” or “legally recognised marriage” in describing the policy. Mr Annan, in a bulletin issued in January, took the cautious step toward recognising non-traditional families for health and pension benefits in accordance with the policy of the staffer’s home country. But Islamic nations and a few African countries last month vehemently opposed the policy and said any chage in what constituted a family or a partnership needed to be approved by the finance committee and the 191-member General Assembly. The measure is expected to be adopted by the full General Assembly this week. —
Reuters |
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Polish firm to supply 228 armoured
vehicles
Warsaw, April 3 PHZ Bumar, which bagged the order on March 30, is in negotiation with India to supply another 50 armoured recovery vehicles, said a spokesman for the firm. The spokesman said Bumar was hopeful this deal would be inked once a new government is formed in New Delhi after India’s general election in April-May. The WZT-3 armoured recovery vehicles to be supplied by Bumar are meant for the recovery of damaged tanks from the battlefield and for towing all types of tracked and wheeled vehicles. They can carry equipment for repairs and also be used as bulldozers. The March 30 deal for the armoured recovery vehicles was the second one clinched by Bumar. It had earlier bagged a $60 million deal to supply 80 such vehicles to India in April 2003. Bumar is also keen to bag a deal to upgrade some 2,000 Russian-designed T-72 tanks of the Indian Army with the latest technology and equipment. Poland has the expertise for such a programme as it was a part of the Warsaw Pact till 1991 and the Russians provided Warsaw the know-how to upgrade the tanks. After a slump in recent years, the Polish defence industry is shaping up well again and has made good progress in several research and development programmes. It is finding new customers such as Malaysia and Indonesia, apart from India, which has been a traditional customer for Polish defence equipment. —
IANS |
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Congressional hearing sought on AIDS
cases in India
Washington, April 3 A formal request in this regard was made in a bipartisan letter, organised by Frank Pallone
Jr, founder of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, to International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde, where 22 lawmakers stressed the urgent need to address the issue of tackling AIDS in India and the widespread support among the members of the Congress for a hearing. With a national HIV/AIDS infection rate of just under one per cent, as high as five per cent among high risk groups, and an estimated 4.58 million people infected, India ranks just behind South Africa as the country with the largest number of HIV/AIDS cases. Despite these findings, the members wrote that they were encouraged by the Indian government’s response over the past year. “Political leadership from the Prime Minister, and in particular, a group of dedicated parliamentarians who created a parliamentary forum on HIV/AIDS, have helped to motivate plans to expand prevention programmes, provide anti-retroviral treatment and draft legislation to criminalise discrimination against individuals living with HIV/AIDS,” the lawmakers wrote. “Nonetheless, substantial concerns still exist regarding the ability of the government, NGOs and interested foreign donors to rapidly scale up prevention programmes and provide universal access to treatment services in a country as large as India,” they added. “Given the traditionally close business and political ties between India and the USA and India’s key strategic position as our ally in a volatile region, not to mention the large bipartisan support for India from the 182 members of the congressional caucus, we believe a joint hearing on this important subject will generate considerable interest,” the lawmakers said. The National Intelligence Council had warned that without the urgent implementation of a sizeable, coordinated and sustained response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, India could have as many as 25 million cases by the end of the decade. In the letter, the members
expressed their confidence that India could contain its HIV/AIDS pandemic and pointed that India’s proactive response to tuberculosis was a model for an AIDS treatment programme. —
PTI |
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2 Palestinians shot dead Gaza City, April 3 One of the Palestinians was killed near the Al-Bureij refugee camp and the other in the north of Gaza City. An Israeli military spokesman said yesterday one Palestinian who was part of an armed group was shot when approaching a prohibited area “to carry out an attack or place a booby-trapped device.” —
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MNNA status to Pak yet to happen: USA
Washington, April 3 “The President plans to designate Pakistan a Major Non-NATO Military Ally,” he said. —
PTI |
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Satellite to test Einstein predictions
Los Angeles, April 3 Since 1959, Gravity Probe B has overcome a half-dozen attempts at cancellation, countless technical hurdles and several delayed launches. The
NASA-funded, university-developed spacecraft is now scheduled to begin its mission following an April 17 liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The unmanned, Earth-orbiting satellite is designed to test two of Einstein’s predictions about the nature of space and time, and how the Earth and other bodies warp and twist the fabric that combines the two. At the spacecraft’s heart are four pingpong-sized balls of quartz, the most perfect spheres ever made. To ensure accuracy, the balls must be kept chilled to near absolute zero, in the vacuum of the largest thermos ever flown in space, and isolated from any disturbances in the quietest environment ever produced, said an official . —
AP |
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NRI-led team invents pump that purifies
liquids
Houston, April 3 Patra, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who is working closely with Synergena, Inc, has designed a screw pump that may dramatically improve the method of decontamination that uses photonics to eradicate within minutes dangerous bacteria, viruses and other contaminants such as E. coli, salmonella and anthrax. Called Synergistic Isogenous Active Decontamination (SIAD), the method was developed by Synergena, which might license it from UB the screw-pump invention for the manufacture of the SIAD ER N-T Past eurizer
(equi distributed radiant energy non-thermal pasteuriser). “The screw pump invention by the Patra team at UB, coupled with Synergena’s unique SIAD technology, offers tremendous potential in municipal and wastewater purification, decontamination of great lake-polluting ballast from ocean vessels and commercial processing of human-consumption liquids such as orange juice and apple cider,” said Robert Duthie, CEO of Synergena. The SIAD process also eradicates within 30 minutes the toxic chemical phenol used in the manufacture of several consumer products, in seven gallons of industrial wastewater. In comparative tests, other purification processes took much longer to destroy the pathogens in the liquids, or were unable to do so because of the liquids’ density. —
PTI |
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