Health H5N1 bird flu virus reassuringly stable In fruits and vegetables, a terrorist threat lurks Emergency Services Companies getting into business of disaster relief Cell users invited to sign up for reverse 911 calls Security New border-crossing rules start January 31 Study doubts ports’ security Air traffic controllers’ union: Shortages hurting safety Federal Agency Events Elite teams prepare for nuclear terrorism Homeland Security to unveil new driver’s license rules Farmers fear a barnyard Big Brother

Health

In fruits and vegetables, a terrorist threat lurks
http://www.asuwebdevil.com/issues/2008/01/14/news/703058

New research at Arizona State University’s Morrison School of Management and Agribusiness is examining how safe food imported from Mexico is. A group of five professors received approximately $263,800 from the National Center for Food Protection and Defense - an agency under the Department of Homeland Security. The money will be used to research the possibility of agro-terrorism, or terrorists contaminating fruits and vegetables, coming through the border at Nogales. Members of the group will be traveling to Nogales to work with Mexican authorities to finalize the survey next month. The study will run through May 2009. The supply chain at Nogales is especially important for the economy, one researcher said. Between October and May, almost half of the produce coming from Mexico to the U.S. passes through its security checkpoints. Approximately 900 trucks of food cross the border every day.

Plague a growing but overlooked threat
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080115/sc_nm/plague_threat_dc

Plague, the disease that devastated medieval Europe, is re-emerging worldwide and poses a growing, but overlooked threat, researchers warned. While it has only killed some 100 to 200 people annually over the past 20 years, plague has appeared in new countries in recent decades and is now shifting into Africa, where there have been “major outbreaks,” said ecologists at the University of Liverpool. A bacterium known as Yersinia pestis causes bubonic plague, known in medieval times as the Black Death, and the more dangerous pneumonic plague, spread from one person to another through coughing or sneezing. Globally the World Health Organization reports about 1,000 to 3,000 plague cases each year, with most in the last five years occurring in Madagascar, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United States sees about 10 to 20 cases each year. More worrying is that outbreaks seem to be on the rise after years of relative inactivity in the 20th century. The most recent large pneumonic plague outbreak comprised hundreds of suspected cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006.

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Emergency Services

Companies getting into business of disaster relief
http://www.redcross.org/article/0,1072,0_312_7419,00.html

A Red Cross initiative, Ready When the Time Comes (RWTC), recruits volunteer teams from local businesses and trains them in emergency response to ensure their communities are prepared for emergencies and able to rebuild quickly after disasters strike. Through RWTC, businesses partner with the Red Cross, thereby enabling their employees to receive free training in disaster relief functions. In return, corporate partners commit to making their trained employees available for disaster service. Thus far, eight Red Cross chapters have launched pilot RWTC programs, training more than 2,500 new disaster response volunteers from 80-plus partner organizations. The chapter in New York will launch its pilot program on January 28; launches at seven other chapters are scheduled for later this year.

Cell users invited to sign up for reverse 911 calls
http://cbs3.com/delawarewire/22.0.html?type=nplocal&state=DE&category=....

Operators of Delaware’s reverse 911 system say people may miss lifesaving phone calls because they have given up their landlines for cell phones. Landlines, both listed and unlisted, automatically get the calls. But cell phone users need to call a special number to get signed up. The company that handles the system for the state, FirstCall, say just 57 cell phone users have signed up for the service in Delaware. FirstCall says it will unveil a Web site next week that will allow people to sign up multiple phone numbers, and elect to receive text messages and e-mails in case of an emergency. The state has only used the reverse 911 system once, after a chemical spill near Dover in 2006.

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Security

New border-crossing rules start January 31
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080107/ap_tr_ge/travel_brief_border_crossing;_ylt=AlI.....

Starting January 31, citizens of the U.S. and Canada ages 19 or older will have to present a government-issued photo ID (such as a driver’s license) along with proof of citizenship (such as a birth certificate or naturalization certificate) in order to enter or depart the U.S. by land or sea. Children ages 18 and younger need proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate. The requirements also apply to Americans driving or sailing to and from Mexico, and to those traveling by sea to and from Bermuda and the Caribbean.

Study doubts ports’ security
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5442123.html

The Coast Guard lacks the resources to meet its own security standards to protect against terrorist assaults at American ports, even as the nation is to dramatically expand imports of liquefied natural gas, the Government Accountability Office has found. The GAO, in a report, noted that while U.S. intelligence officials know of no specific threat to American ports, captured terrorist training manuals have cited seaports as potential targets. And terrorism trainees are instructed to try to obtain surveillance information on ports for use in a possible attack. However, “despite considerable efforts to protect ports and the energy traffic in them, the level of protection is not where the Coast Guard believes it should be,” the report said. “At some ports, Coast Guard units are not meeting their own levels of required security activities.” Ports are inherently vulnerable, the report said, because they are often sprawling facilities, close to major urban centers.

Air traffic controllers’ union: Shortages hurting safety
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/01/10/air.traffic.controllers/index.html

A shortage of experienced air traffic controllers has resulted in a “staffing emergency” that is jeopardizing safety in the sky and on runways in Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and Southern California, according to the union representing the nation’s 14,800 controllers. The National Air Traffic Controllers Association stepped up its protracted dispute with the Federal Aviation Administration over staffing levels, for the first time declaring a “staffing emergency”. However, an FAA spokeswoman disputed NATCA’s claims and called the union’s figures “misleading.” The FAA anticipated a recent wave of retirements and hired 1,815 new air traffic controllers last year, exceeding its projections, she said. But NATCA said that because the FAA has been slow to train and certify replacement workers, experienced controllers are demoralized and fatigued and are leaving the work force in record numbers.

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Federal Agency Events

Elite teams prepare for nuclear terrorism
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/01/06/0106nuclearteams.html

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks the Office of Emergency Response at the National Nuclear Security Administration has created 26 rapid-response units. If a nuclear device is found, two other specialized teams would rush to the scene, one from a base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where a fueled jetliner is on 24-hour alert, the other from rural Virginia. The teams would first try to disable a bomb’s electrical firing system and then quickly transfer the weapon to the Nevada desert. There, the bomb would be lowered into the G Tunnel, a 5,000-foot shaft, where a crew of scientists and FBI agents would try to disassemble the device behind steel blast doors and log the evidence. About 1,000 nuclear weapons scientists and an additional 500 to 1,000 FBI professionals participate in the effort, though not full time. Increased investment in the project reflects an acknowledgment that the nation is vulnerable to terrorists seeking to plant a nuclear device.

Homeland Security to unveil new driver’s license rules
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321925,00.html

Americans born after Dec. 1, 1964, will have to get more secure driver's licenses in the next six years under ambitious post-9/11 security rules to be unveiled by federal officials. The Homeland Security Department has spent years crafting the final regulations for the REAL ID Act, a law designed to make it harder for terrorists, illegal immigrants and con artists to get government-issued identification. The effort once envisioned to take effect in 2008 has been pushed back in the hopes of winning over skeptical state officials. Even with more time, more federal help and technical advances, REAL ID still faces stiff opposition from civil liberties groups. To address some of those concerns, the government now plans to phase in a secure ID initiative that Congress passed into law in 2005. Now, DHS plans a key deadline in 2011, and then further measures to be enacted three years later.

Farmers fear a barnyard Big Brother
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-animals14jan14,0,5243172.story

The National Animal Identification System, a federal database of animals to fight disease outbreaks is a threat to privacy and family operations, critics say. The database, which is a Bush administration initiative, is meant to provide a modern tool for tracking disease outbreaks within 48 hours, whether natural or the work of a bioterrorist. Most farm animals, even exotic ones such as llamas, will eventually be registered. Information will be kept on every farm, ranch or stable. And databases will record every animal movement from birth to slaughterhouse, including trips to the vet and county fairs. But the system is spawning a grass-roots revolt. Family farmers see it as an assault on their way of life by a federal bureaucracy with close ties to industrial agriculture. They point out that they will have to track every animal while vast commercial operations will be allowed to track whole herds. Privacy advocates say the database would create an invasive, detailed electronic record of farmers’ activities. Religious farming communities, such as the Amish and Mennonites, oppose the system for religious reasons. Within the cattle industry, the database is seen as essential to restore U.S. exports in the international market, which dropped sharply after a Canadian cow infected with mad cow disease was imported to the U.S. in 2003.

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