Health Indonesia says to launch bird flu pandemic plan Vietnam tests bird flu vaccines among humans Researchers chart how new flu strains travel Emergency Services Amphibious vehicle is a car for all seasons NRC to expand radioactive materials tracking system Legal / Legislative Nuclear attack on D.C. a hypothetical disaster Security Duos receives award to expand Washington DC rail corridor security project Railroads directed to analyze safety and security of routes Airport security from chaos Federal Ageny Events Water, water, everywhere under attack DHS-FEMA releases preliminary observations from national exercise TOPOFF 4. U.S. Customs and Border Protection announces pilot for Global Entry™ program. International News Grangemouth refinery ‘was terror bomb plot target.’ Bird flu virus may have got entrenched in India

Health

Indonesia says to launch bird flu pandemic plan
http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSJAK211392

Indonesia, which has the highest death toll from bird flu of any country, will launch a plan to deal with a possible influenza pandemic, officials said. The head of surveillance and monitoring at the national commission for bird flu control said the plan would be followed up a week later by a three-day pandemic simulation involving several villages on Bali. “The current situation is already very worrying,” he said, speaking on the sidelines of a bird flu conference, adding that researchers were looking into the role of migratory birds in transmitting bird flu. In the case of a pandemic, an estimated 5 million Indonesians could be infected with the virus, he said, adding that of those infected, between five and ten percent would die. “In such a situation, hundreds of thousands would die,” he said, “and hospitals would be not able to accommodate all patients.”

Vietnam tests bird flu vaccines among humans
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/21/content_8020597.htm

Vietnam has conducted its first large-scale trial of a locally-produced H5N1 vaccine on 30 volunteers, local newspaper Vietnam News reported. The trial was implemented on healthy volunteers aged 18-45, who are students and staff from the Hanoi capital-based Military Medical Institute. If the trial is successful, Vietnam will conduct the second test on 240 other students and staff of the institute in June. If everything goes as scheduled, the H5N1 vaccine will be produced in Vietnam in 2009 at a price of two U.S. dollars per dose. An earlier human trial on ten local researchers directly involved in H5N1 vaccine production project has proved successful, the paper said. All of the volunteers are now healthy. Bird flu virus strain H5N1 has killed five people in Vietnam since early this year, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Health.

Researchers chart how new flu strains travel
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-flu17apr17,1,1623801.story

Researchers have now concluded that new flu strains emerge in eastern and southeastern Asia, move to Europe and North America six to nine months later, then travel to South America where they disappear forever. The new findings should help researchers pick the correct flu strains for each year’s vaccine, a process that must be carried out a year ahead of time. The group charged with making the decisions about vaccines has been right about 80 percent of the time, said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the new findings should lead to an even higher success rate. Influenza strikes up to 15 percent of the world’s population each year, killing on average about 250,000 to 500,000 people, according to the World Health Organization.  

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Emergency Services

Amphibious vehicle is a car for all seasons
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2008/April/Tech.htm#Sensors

Following four years of research and development, Hydratrek LLC, a Covington, Tennessee, company is now marketing Hydratrek – a heavy duty emergency response vehicle that can endure hazardous conditions. The 2,500-pound multi-wheel amphibious vehicle can swim through swamps, mud, and water, and negotiate rough off-road terrain. A company spokesman says the aluminum clad vehicle is suited for a range of missions that span disaster response, emergency rescue, law enforcement, environmental research, and geological surveying.

NRC to expand radioactive materials tracking system
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39773&dcn=e_hsw

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants to significantly expand the number and type of radioactive materials the agency will track in a Web-based system under development. The National Source Tracking System, which is to be fully implemented by Jan. 31, 2009, originally was conceived in late 2006 to account for the actions of 1,350 radioactive materials licensees who possess some of the most dangerous material from a security standpoint. Those are considered Category 1 and Category 2 sources, as determined by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and are typically used in medicine and manufacturing. NRC's proposed rule, which the agency published Friday in the Federal Register, would require another 3,500 licensees and 17,000 additional radioactive sources to be subject to the tracking system. Affected licensees would have to report information on the manufacture, transfer, receipt, disassembly and disposal of radioactive materials, and manufacturers would have to assign a unique serial number to each source.

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Legal / Legislative

Nuclear attack on D.C. a hypothetical disaster
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080416/METRO/556828862/1001

A nuclear device detonated near the White House would kill roughly 100,000 people and flatten downtown federal buildings, while the radioactive plume from the explosion would likely spread toward the Capitol and into southeast D.C., contaminating thousands more. The blast from the ten-kiloton bomb – similar to the bomb dropped over Hiroshima during World War II – would kill up to one in ten tourists visiting the Washington Monument and send shards of glass flying the length of the National Mall, in a scenario that has become increasingly likely to occur in a major U.S. city in recent years, panel members told a Senate committee. The Senate committee has convened a series of hearings to examine the threat and effects of a terrorist nuclear attack on a U.S. city, as well as the needed response. The panel stressed the importance of state and local cooperation with federal authorities in the wake of an attack, assistance from the private business sector to aid recovery, and the dire need to boost the capabilities of area hospitals. They recommended expanding emergency personnel by training physicians like pharmacists and dentists to aid in all-hazards care, monitoring the exposure of first responders to radiation, and clearly disseminating information to the public.

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Security

Duos receives award to expand Washington DC rail corridor security project
http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20080415005297,,,,

Duos Technologies, Inc. has been awarded a contract to expand its existing intelligent video and security sensor system along a segment of the Amtrak and CSX rail system running through downtown Washington DC. The project includes a comprehensive virtual security buffer zone within which any moving object is detected, analyzed, and authenticated. Events such as perimeter breaches, objects left behind or removed from a scene, and loitering behavior are compared to set rules and processed as an actionable alarm event if they meet certain criteria. The system is capable of processing input from radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and from a host of security sensitive detectors. Data from the system is monitored by Amtrak and CSX Police, as well as made available to other federal, district and local authorities and agencies.

Railroads directed to analyze safety and security of routes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603373....

The U.S. Transportation Department issued a rule that orders railroads to extensively analyze security risks in choosing the routes on which they ship hazardous chemicals. Railroads will be required to do a safety and security risk analysis of primary routes and any practical alternatives they might use, the department said. By September 2009, they must route trains with dangerous chemicals based on the studies. Those that do not use the safest routes could be fined up to $10,000 a day and ordered to reroute trains. In their analyses, railroads will be required to consider 27 risk factors such as trip length, population density, and volume and types of hazardous materials being moved, Transportation secretary said. They also must consider information provided by communities.

Airport security from chaos
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080416161215.htm

A Department of Homeland Security-sponsored research project out of the University of Southern California (USC) will increase security at LAX airport in Los Angeles, and it could soon be used across the country to predict and minimize risk. Here is how it works: Computer software records the locations of routine, random vehicle checkpoints and canine searches at the airport. Police then provide data on possible terrorist targets and their relative importance. These data may change from one day to the next, or if there have been any security breaches or suspicious activity. The computer give the police a model of where to go and when. The software uses mathematical algorithms to generate random decisions that are based on calculated probabilities of a terrorist attack at those locations. The software makes it extremely difficult to predict police operations.

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International News

Grangemouth refinery ‘was terror bomb plot target’
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2008/04/11/grangemouth-refinery-was-terror-bomb....

Grangemouth oil refinery in Stirlingshire, Scotland, was a possible target for the liquid bomb terror plotters, prosecutors claimed. Detailed research on British oil refineries and terminals was found on a computer memory stick at the home of an alleged ringleader of the plot, the court heard. Prosecutors said the information on the stick could refer to possible targets. Eight Muslim men are on trial accused of plotting to blow up seven transatlantic jets with liquid explosives hidden in soft drink bottles. They deny conspiracy to murder thousands of passengers. A prosecutor told the jury that the memory stick was found at the home of a defendant in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. As well as the Grangemouth site – which sits next to a town of 17,000 people and employs more than 1000 staff – the stick contained details of oil facilities at Fawley in Hampshire, Coryton in Essex, Killingholme on Humberside, and Milford Haven in Wales.

Bird flu virus may have got entrenched in India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/rssarticleshow/msid-2939607,prtpage-1.cms

On April 10, the United Nations said that the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus might now be entrenched in the Indo-Gangetic plains of India and Bangladesh. This is evidenced by the spread of the disease from West Bengal into Tripura, where the disease has killed approximately 3000 birds, forcing the state government to implement steps to deal with crisis. Culling operations began in a number of villages there after Tripura’s secretary of Union Animal Husbandry confirmed the outbreak.

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Federal Agency Events

Water, water, everywhere under attack
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/online/1_1/32592-1.html

Water utilities should begin work immediately to secure their systems against catastrophic cyberattack, according to a new strategy document sponsored by the American Water Works Association and Homeland Security Department. The cyberthreat to water systems is growing, the report said. The Roadmap to Secure Control Systems in the Water Sector outlines one-year, three-year, and ten-year goals for water utilities to upgrade their control systems and information technology architectures and networks to protect against cyberattacks and identify vulnerabilities. Within a year, water plants ought to create teams of IT and control engineers, integrate control system security needs into vendor contracts, and elevate control system security in all business plans, the report indicated. Within ten years, the water systems ought to have a robust portfolio of security tools and systems along with new IT architectures, protection for older systems, and secure communications. Water utilities are facing many challenges in implementing the road map at a time when cyberthreats are increasing, the report said. Foremost among them is that managers of such utilities often do not recognize the significance of the cyberthreat against industrial control systems.

DHS-FEMA releases preliminary observations from national exercise TOPOFF 4
http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=43170

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) met today with State Homeland Security Advisors, State Emergency Management Directors and participants from the TOP OFFICIALS 4 (TOPOFF 4) exercise held in October 2007 to discuss preliminary exercise observations. During the meeting, held in Oklahoma City at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT), officials briefed out and released preliminary exercise observations and lessons learned from TOPOFF 4. At the conclusion of TOPOFF 4, participants in the full scale exercise presented their initial impressions and identified major findings during a series of “hot-wash” briefings. The results of the briefings combined with an initial analysis of exercise play and inputs from participating departments and agencies were compiled into the official TOPOFF 4 Quick Look Report (QLR). The QLR summarizes the initial findings from the TOPOFF 4 exercise for the general public while providing stakeholders with the necessary material to begin a more detailed and comprehensive after action review process. The QLR focuses on five DHS capabilities, including: Intelligence/Information; On-Site Incident Management; Emergency Operations Center Management; Emergency Public Information and Warning; and Economic and Community Recovery. The Quick Look Report can be found at www.fema.gov.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announces pilot for Global Entry™ program
http://hospitality-1st.com/PressNews/USCBP-042108.html

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently announced the Global Entry™ pilot program, scheduled to launch this summer. Global Entry is designed to expedite the processing of low-risk, frequent international “trusted” travelers entering the U.S. Global Entry will be available for U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents who are frequent international travelers, who have not been found guilty of a criminal offense, charged with a customs or immigration offense, or declared inadmissible to the U.S. under immigration legislation. Upon returning from international travel, Global Entry -enrolled travelers may bypass the regular passport control line and proceed directly to the Global Entry™ kiosk. At the kiosk, the Global Entry traveler will activate the system by inserting his or her passport or U.S. permanent resident card into the document reader. The kiosk will direct the traveler to electronically provide his or her fingerprints and will compare that biometric data with the fingerprint biometrics on file. A digital photograph will also be taken of the traveler as part of the transaction record. Finally, the traveler will be prompted to answer several CBP declaration questions posted on the kiosk’s touch-screen. Once the process is successfully completed, the traveler will be issued a transaction receipt which must be presented to the CBP officer as the participant leaves the CBP inspection area. The pilot will be initially conducted at John F. Kennedy International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport. The program will begin processing applications from the public starting May 12 with operations at the three initial airports scheduled to begin June 10.

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