Body scanner wouldn’t have foiled syringe bomber, says MP who worked on new machines

Warning: The £100,000 body scanners, seen here at work, would not have stopped the Christmas Day bomber, according to Tory MP Ben Wallace

Daily Mail | Jan 3, 2010

Gordon Brown’s plans to foil terrorist attacks by installing body scanners at UK airports are doomed to failure, according to an MP who helped to design the machines.

Tory MP Ben Wallace, who worked on the scanners at defence research organisation QinetiQ before entering Parliament in 2005, said the £100,000 ‘millimetre wave’ machines would not have stopped syringe bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from trying to mount his attack on Christmas Day.

The terrorist had sewn high explosives into his underpants, which he attempted to detonate as the plane flew over Detroit.

The Prime Minister vowed to use technology, and additional scans at airports, to fight the threat from Al Qaeda.

But Mr Wallace warned: ‘I must advise the Prime Minister – and the British public – that the scanners are not a “silver bullet”. You would be mistaken to think that they would counter the new threat.

‘The millimetre wave technology is harmless, quick and can be deployed overtly or covertly. But it cannot detect chemicals or light plastics.

‘They have their uses. They give a sharper image of objects – especially metallic – than the “metal arch” scanners now in use.

‘And as they scan the whole body, they would speed up security checks as there would be less need for the “pat-down” search.

‘They are also able to scan crowds at a distance. But they cannot detect everything.’ He said that the only type of scanner that might be able to pick up concealed explosives were X-ray machines – but they pose health risks and are too slow to operate.

Mr Wallace, the Shadow Scottish Minister, added: ‘Scanners are only part of the solution. A method better than any scanner is profiling. Why is it at airports we all are put through security the same way?’

Transport Secretary Lord Adonis said he was considering following in the footsteps of the U.S. by banning airline passengers from leaving their seats for the last hour of any journey, as well as giving airline staff the authority to target ‘high risk’ passengers.

While this move would undoubtedly anger ethnic minority groups, one Muslim MP has caused controversy by saying he thinks Muslims should be singled out at airports for extra security checks.

Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said: ‘I think most people would rather be profiled than blown up. It wouldn’t be victimisation of an entire community.

‘If people want to fly safely we have to take measures to stop things like the Christmas Day plot.

‘The fact is the majority of people who have carried out or planned these terror attacks have been Muslim.’

But Massoud Shadjareh, the chariman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, contested: ‘It’s not true that all terrorists are Muslims.

‘Any such measure would not only alienate people, it would also be ineffective in terms of stopping terrorists.”

Meanwhile, it was last night announced that Britain and the United States are to jointly fund a counter-terrorism unit in Yemen, in response to the latest airline bomb plot.

Abdulmutallab is said to have told FBI agents that he was radicalised and trained in Yemen.

Britain faces coldest winter for 25 years as big freeze causes chaos for millions returning home after Christmas break

Treacherous: The A1 near Gateshead as snow made driving conditions highly dangerous

Telegraph | Jan 3, 2010

By Paul Sims

Families heading home after the Christmas break faced perilous driving conditions tonight as Britain faced up to the coldest winter for a quarter of a century.

Police and motoring organisations warned drivers to take extreme care as a fresh wave of snow and freezing temperatures caused major disruptions on the roads and one motorist died.

The scale of the big freeze will be underlined by Met Office figures due to be released on Monday which are expected to show the country is currently experiencing the coldest winter for 25 years.

Lancashire Police said the conditions could have been to blame for the death of one driver who was killed in a crash on the M55 motorway near Blackpool around 8am.

The transport network also suffered as a number of rail lines were closed in Scotland and more than 45 bumps and crashes were recorded on the roads.

Six vehicles crashed in Greater Manchester on the M6 near Orrell shortly after 10.30am, causing long delays.

Poor driving conditions were reported on the M60, M602 and the M66 while and Snake Pass, which runs between Manchester and Sheffield, was closed.

Police closed the M9 in Scotland between junctions one and two near Edinburgh Airport for three hours after the area was ‘inundated’ with snow flurries.

Drivers were forced to abandon their cars causing further problems on the road according to Lothian and Borders Police. It was reopened at 8pm with traffic still moving slowly. Inverness Airport  was closed due to snow and ice.

A handful of 3rd round FA Cup ties also had to be called off and Sandown Park race course was forced to abandon an afternoon fixture.

In East Sussex a teenage driver and female passenger were seriously injured when their car hit a patch of ice and crashed into a tree on a country road on Friday night.

A third teenager was also hurt when the black Peugeot 207 veered off the A26 at Boarshead just before 11pm.

Forecasters say the big freeze is set to continue for the first half of the month with fresh snowfall, severe frosts and ice on the roads.

A Highways Agency spokesman said: ‘Our winter fleet has been working flat out and will continue to treat the network as long as the cold weather continues.

‘Our advice to drivers is to drive according to the conditions, and even when roads are treated they should still be negotiated with care.’

The AA said that by 4pm today it had dealt with more than 11,000 breakdowns, with the number expected to rise to 16,000 by the end of the day. This compares with 8,000 calls for help on a average Saturday.

The biting conditions, which are expected to last for the first 10 days of the new year, follow the coldest December in more than a decade.

Forecasters said temperatures could drop as low as minus 15C in some parts of Scotland and northern England over the next few days.

A family of four were recovering from hypothermia today after their canoe capsized in an ‘icy cold’ river.

Full Story

Van Rompuy and the secret Belgian plot to rule Britain

Dangerous: New EU president Herman Van Rompuy extols ‘global governance’

Daily Mail | Jan 2, 2010

By Paul Belian, Belgian Lawyer And Historian

Perhaps, like many, you think Herman Van Rompuy, who took office as the first EU President on Friday, is a harmless figure of fun. Well, you’re wrong.

Van Rompuy, a former prime minister of Belgium, represents the ‘Belgianisation’ of Europe – a process which began 180 years ago and for which Britain has only itself to blame.

There is ominous symbolism in a Belgian ruling the EU. During the Second World War, Churchill called the Belgians ‘the most contemptible of all – a nation which vainly hoped to stay out of this war, no matter what they owed to those who had saved them in the last war’.

Yet the Belgian political model has since then stealthily conquered Britain, turning Brussels, not London, into the centre of power from which decisions are imposed on the British people.

Belgium was created by British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston in 1830-31. It is home to six million Flemings, three million Walloons and one million people in bilingual Brussels.

The country came about after French-speaking Walloons broke away from the Netherlands and tried to join France. Palmerston recognised the rebels on condition that they established a new state and remained neutral.

At first, everyone was sceptical about Palmerston’s creation. Even Belgium’s first king, Leopold I, said: ‘Belgium has no nationality and it can never have one. Basically, Belgium has no political reason to exist.’

By the late 19th Century the Belgian political elite had developed an ideology with a striking similarity to modern Europeanism. In 1904, the ideologist Leon Hennebicq wrote: ‘Have we not been called the laboratory of Europe? Indeed, we are a nation under construction… the solution is economic expansion, which can make us stronger by uniting us.’

His words foreshadowed the Europeanism of the Fifties, which aimed for political unification through economic integration.

But before this could be put into practice Germany invaded Belgium in 1914, forcing Britain to intervene in a Franco-German tussle to uphold Belgium’s neutrality. As neither the Flemings nor Walloons loved Belgium, they left Britain to do the fighting. The war left Britain with 700,000 military deaths.

After the war, the Belgian establishment put Hennebicq’s doctrine into practice. Since 1919, economic and social policies have not been decided in parliament, but between the government and so-called ‘social partners’, including the trade unions and the Federation of Belgian Employers.

Soon, the Belgians realised they could apply their ideas to Europe. In the Thirties, Henri De Man, leader of the Belgian Socialist Party, said his country’s ‘corporatist welfare state’ model should be turned into a European or even a global system.

When Hitler overran Europe in 1940, Queen Elisabeth, the widow of Belgium’s King Albert, described it as a ‘work of necessary destruction’.

Meanwhile, De Man saw the Second World War as a unique opportunity to establish a united Europe, asking his followers not to oppose the German victory because: ‘The Socialist Order will thereby be established, as the common good, in the name of a national solidarity that will soon be continental, if not worldwide.’

What was needed, he added, ‘was as much federalism and as little separatism as possible’.

De Man is now forgotten by history. His legacy, however, is very much alive thanks to his deputy, Paul-Henri Spaak, who settled in Britain during the summer of 1940.

He would go on to produce the Spaak Report which laid the foundation of the Treaty of Rome in 1957. It recommended the creation of a European Common Market, which would later become the European Union, as a step towards political unification and ‘an ever closer union of the peoples of Europe’. From the beginning, what these peoples might think was deemed unimportant.

Today’s EU is a shotgun marriage for the peoples of Europe. When the Danes voted against the Maastricht Treaty, and the Irish against Nice and Lisbon, they had to vote again. When the French and Dutch rejected the EU Constitution, their verdict was discarded.

Britain’s Government simply denied its people a say on the Lisbon Treaty, so Westminster is now legally obliged to ‘contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union’ – i.e. to further the interests of the EU, rather than those of its own people.

Make no mistake, the EU is an empire with global ambitions. In his acceptance speech, President Van Rompuy extolled ‘global governance’.

Legions of bureaucrats will rule the British from Brussels, the Belgian capital. Being proud of your Britishness will be criminalised, just as Brussels has always punished Flemings who put Flanders first.

Last November, Van Rompuy, although a Fleming himself, confessed in an interview: ‘I am a European because the European idea is an antidote for Flemish nationalism, an antivenin [an antitoxin against a snake's venom] against the Flemish Movement.’

Two weeks later, he became the EU President. Van Rompuy is no harmless creature. He symbolises the conquest of Britain by Belgium, the monster created by Palmerston.

• Dr Paul Belien is the Flemish author of A Throne In Brussels: Britain, The Saxe-Coburgs And The Belgianisation Of Europe, published by Imprint Academic, Exeter.

China arrests 5,000 for internet pornography

China arrests 5,000 for internet pornography offences

China arrested more than 5,000 people in 2009 in a drive to purge the internet of pornography and other “harmful information”.

China maintains strict censorship of the internet in order to make sure that unhealthy content, including criticism of the Communist Party, does not reach a wide audience.

Telegraph | Jan 1, 2010

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

The ministry of public security said 5,394 people had been arrested and that over 9,000 websites had been deleted for having pornographic content. The ministry did not say how many people had subsequently been put on trial.

The authorities released the figures with a warning that its policing of the internet would intensify in 2010 in order to preserve “state security”.

China maintains strict censorship of the internet in order to make sure that unhealthy content, including criticism of the Communist Party, does not reach a wide audience.

Websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all blocked and Google has received a public warning for not censoring itself more thoroughly.

With over 350 million internet users, the government worries that any small cracks in its authority could quickly spiral out of control. In the first six months of 2009, an average of 221,000 Chinese a day started using the internet for the first time, or 153 new users a minute.

The authorities are also hoping to tackle the growing number of Chinese hackers and fraudsters who use the internet to spread viruses and steal personal information.

The government has tightened regulations for websites, forcing owners to prove their identity before being allowed to register a name.

The ministry said it would “strengthen punishment for internet operators that violate the laws and regulations” in the coming year and “severely punish operations that have serious problems with harmful information”.

“Purifying the internet environment and cracking down on internet crimes is related to long-term state security,” the ministry said.

In December, the government offered a reward of up to 10,000 yuan (£906) to people who reported websites that feature pornography.

The government attempted last year to coerce computer manufacturers into only selling computers which had a censorship program called Green Dam Youth Escort already installed. The move was eventually defeated.

U.S. East Faces Major Freeze 20 Degrees Below Normal

U.S. East Faces Freeze; Florida Oranges Threatened

businessweek.com | Jan 2, 2010

By Dan Hart

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida.

Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation.

Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site.

“This is a pretty significant cold snap,” Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. “This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop.” He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. “The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week,” he said.

Tonight will be the coldest and offer the highest chance of crop damage, Keefe said.

Frigid in Jacksonville

Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. Typically, Jacksonville doesn’t dip below 42 degrees this time of year, said Alan Reppert, a meteorologist for AccuWeather.com. Orlando’s normal low is 50 degrees, he said. Reppert said temperatures in Florida tomorrow night and through Jan. 5 might be as cold or colder than tonight.

The Miami area will see temperatures as much as 13 degrees below seasonal norms, meteorologist Keefe said earlier.

The next freeze may come next week when another wintry blast may push temperatures as much as 20 degrees below normal for the central Plains through northwestern Florida, Reppert said. From Houston across to Atlanta could be 20 degrees colder than normal by the morning of Jan. 8, he said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month estimated Florida’s orange crop will be 0.7 percent smaller than earlier forecast because adverse weather reduced fruit size.

In New York, overnight lows may be 22 degrees, with wind chills dropping the experience to single digits. Philadelphia may see a low of 20 degrees, Keefe said. Washington may slip to 19 degrees, he said.

Once in a generation cold snap forecast for NC

A cold snap like that was last seen in January 1977.

Associated Press | Jan 1, 2010

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Forecasters say the coldest stretch of weather in years if not decades could be heading for North Carolina.

While temperatures won’t be falling to record lows, the National Weather Service says the duration of the cold weather is unusual. Highs could struggle to get above freezing for the next week in areas from Raleigh west.

Forecasters say there are some indications the weather with highs in the 30s and lows in the teens could last up to two weeks. A cold snap like that was last seen in January 1977.

A wind chill advisory has been issued for the mountains. Once the temperature dips below freezing Friday evening, forecasters say it might not get above 32 degrees again until Tuesday or Wednesday.

The weather service says check pipes and bring pets inside.

New Year’s Day Lake Michigan polar bear swim the “coldest of them all”

Hundreds rush to greet 2010 with 10-degree plunge

24th annual event welcomes the new year

greenbaypressgazette.com | Jan 2, 2010

By Tony Walter

JACKSONPORT — Susan Reynolds-Smith has participated in eight New Year’s Day polar bear swims here but proclaimed Friday’s plunge the coldest of them all.

The Ephraim resident joined an estimated 1,000 others who jumped into Lake Michigan at noon Friday, marking the 24th anniversary of an event that seems to grow every year.

“I mean, how much fun is it?” said Reynolds-Smith as she walked back her car, ice hanging from her cap. “But this was the coldest of them all, for sure.”

Temperatures hovered around 10 degrees when Joe Jarosh, one of the event organizers, started the 10-second countdown that led to the stampede into the lake at Lakeside Park and the equally quick retreat from it.

Full Story

Pope Benedict XVI: we must all get with the UN climate program, go green to save the planet

Pope Benedict XVI used his traditional New Year address to call for a revolution in personal lifestyles in order to safeguard the future of the planet.

Telegraph | Jan 1, 2010

By Nick Squires in Rome

Pope Benedict XVI used his traditional New Year address to call for a revolution in personal lifestyles in order to safeguard the future of the planet

He said people needed to change how they live their lives and called for “ecological responsibility” to be taught in schools.

The Pope said individuals and families had as important a role to play in preserving the environment as governments meeting at international summits such as the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen last month.

Related

Pope Benedict XVI urges pilgrims to fight climate change and reject consumerism

He told thousands of faithful who had gathered in St Peter’s Square that environmental responsibility was essential for global peace.

“I would like to underline the importance of the choices of individuals, families and local administrations in preserving the environment.

“An objective shared by all, an indispensable condition for peace, is that of overseeing the earth’s natural resources with justice and wisdom,” he said.

Calling for an end to war and in particular the suffering of children, the 82-year-old, German-born pontiff said there was “a close link” between respect for mankind and respect for nature.

“If humanity shames itself, it damages its environment”, Benedict said.

He appealed for “investment in education with the objective not only to transmit technical and scientific concepts, but also a broader and deeper ‘ecological responsibility’ based on respect for humanity, human rights and fundamental duties”.

The Pope has built on the legacy of his predecessor, John Paul II, in putting the environment high on the Vatican’s agenda.

Last month, in a message sent to heads of state and international organisations, Benedict called on rich nations to acknowledge responsibility for the environmental crisis and to rein in consumerism.

He gave his address a week after a 25-year-old woman with a history of mental problems knocked him to the ground during Christmas Eve mass.

He was unhurt in the fall and has kept up his busy holiday schedule.

Passenger profiling needed as well as scanners, airlines chief warns

Full body scanners will not eliminate the terrorist threat to flying, the world’s leading airlines have warned, calling for security checks to be focused on groups of passengers perceived to present the greatest risk.

Telegraph | Jan 1, 2010

By David Millward, Transport Editor

Security can only be guaranteed by making a risk assessment of people before they are even board an aircraft, said Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association.

“Instead of looking for bad things—nail clippers and rogue bottles of shampoo—security systems need to focus on finding bad people,” he said.

Mr Bisignani’s warning came as airlines face additional security demands following the unsuccessful attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight on Christmas day by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former London University student and known Muslim extremist.

The intervention from one of aviation’s most influential figures comes as passengers and airlines wait to hear the results of a comprehensive review of airport security announced by Gordon Brown.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, will unveil the Government’s plans when he is expected to demand for the increased use of body scanners and order a swift increase in the use of explosive-detecting swabs at departure gates.

Airlines fear that over-reliance of scanners and pat down searches of all passengers could bring airports grinding to a halt and “waste resources”.

Mr Bisignani added: “The air transport system cannot support 100% pat-down searches over the long term.”

Airlines have urged Governments to combine hi-tech screening with intelligence about terrorist threats and evaluation of the risk posed by individual passengers, to pick out potential terrorists who would be subjected to more detailed searches.

“Adding new hardware to an old system will not deliver the results we need. It is time for governments to invest in a process built around a check point of the future that combines the best of screening technology with the best of intelligence gathering. Such a system would give screeners access to important passenger data to make effective risk assessments,” Mr Bisignani said.

Targeting travellers seen as a potential threat – known as passenger profiling – remains controversial, with some critics arguing that it is potentially racist with Asian and Arab travellers more likely to be picked out than others.

But supporters of profiling say that techniques are more sophisticated and would include taking into account how tickets were bought – a cash purchase would trigger concern – previous travel and even behaviour at the airport itself.

A number of measures are expected to follow the urgent security review. In addition to introducing extra machinery capable of detecting whether explosives have been handled, the Government is likely to call for the reactivation of four full body scanners which have been in storage at Heathrow for some time.

The machines, which are now six years old, will have to be updated before they can be brought back into service – although industry insiders say this could be done within 24 hours.

New scanners cost in the region of £100,000 each. One design entails a passenger walking slowly through an arch and turning, while another requires an individual to stand briefly between two wardrobe-sized cabinets.

Should anything arouse concern the passenger is pulled aside for a further inspection.

In both cases the image is transmitted to a screen elswhere in the airport, where it is monitored by security staff. It is this which has led to some privacy fears. However software is being developed that could read the image and pick up suspect objects without the need for human inspection.

BAA, Britain’s largest airport operator, believes it could get machines in place swiftly once it was told to do so by the Government.

Theresa Villiers, the Tory transport spokesman, said the Government needed a better co-ordinated approach to airport security.

“Gordon Brown is scrambling to catch up on this issue. Labour have serious questions to answer on their slow response to the security issues which were apparent long before the Christmas Day bomb plot.

“Labour must also recognise that no matter how sophisticated scanning technology becomes, it cannot solve all airport security issues. An intelligence-led approach to security is vitally important if we are to do the best we can to keep people safe then they are flying.”

Prince Philip’s friend James Robertson didn’t see why there was such a fuss about boys being “deflowered” at public schools

Prince Philip hot under the collar over new book about his friend James Robertson. Photo: Telegraph

Prince Philip, James Robertson Justice and the sex that was too hot to handle

Telegraph | Jan 1, 2010

by Tim Walker

My disclosure yesterday about how the Duke of Edinburgh had prevailed upon the author James Hogg to omit some of the more lurid details about the sex life of his old friend James Robertson Justice in a biography amused Molly Parkin, the painter, whose virginity the much-loved actor took when she was 22.

“I don’t think James would have minded,” said Molly, 78. “He had a most extraordinary appetite for sex and was prepared to try anything.”

Once, at a meeting of the notorious Thursday Club, the actor told a gathering that included Prince Philip and Larry Adler, the harmonica player, that he didn’t see why there was such a fuss about boys being “deflowered” at public schools. He admitted that he had been, at Marlborough, and felt it had done him no harm at all.

Adler asked him if any of the other boys had watched. “Why on earth would they want to do that?” the actor boomed. Adler replied: “So that Justice was not only done, but seen to be done.”

Related

Prince Philip orders Molly Parkin’s light bulb out

Valerine Singleton is feeling a bit Blue

Mandrake seems to see more of old Blue Peter teams on the television these days than when they were actually fronting the programme in their heydays.

Valerie Singleton was herself surprised when she popped up on The Weakest Link over Christmas. “I was in the kitchen and I could hear a lot of questions being asked about Blue Peter,” she says. “It was only when I went into the television room that I realised it was me. I think it must have been a repeat as I haven’t done any television for a while. Unfortunately I don’t get repeat fees.” Alas, she missed her former colleague Peter Purves on Eggheads on BBC Two.