FEMA Should Better Assess Voluntary Organizations’ Mass-Care Capabilities, Says GAO (Washington Post) “The American Red Cross and other disaster relief charities are unprepared to meet projected mass casualty needs during a natural catastrophe or terrorist attack in major U.S. cities,” reports the Washington Post, citing a new report from the Government Accountability Office. “… A large-scale disaster would ‘overwhelm’ the Red Cross and other nonprofit organizations that have federal responsibilities for assisting the government in feeding and sheltering victims … The report also faults the Federal Emergency Management Agency for not fully assessing the capacities of relief groups and for not clearly documenting the roles that each should play in a disaster.” (See the Feb. 29 newsletter.) [View Post article] [View GAO highlights (76KB PDF)]

Release Date: September 16, 2008

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced approximately $29 million in grants to prevent a radiological/nuclear attack in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area by enhancing regional capabilities to detect and interdict illicit radioactive materials.

“Today I was pleased to sign another cooperative agreement through the Securing the Cities initiative with the New York City Police Department,” said Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Director Vayl Oxford. “This funding will help the New York metropolitan area to acquire equipment, training, and support to further our mission of preventing dangerous radiological and nuclear materials from entering a high-risk urban area.” 

The award includes the participation of key Securing the Cities (STC) stakeholders, including: New York Police Department (NYPD), the State of New York, the State of New Jersey, the State of Connecticut, Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland Counties, City of New York Fire Department, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Providing assistance to state and local jurisdictions in and around major metropolitan areas will enable communities to build capabilities by: leveraging current technologies and deploying them regionally in a coordinated manner; designing, acquiring, and deploying the components of an operationally viable regional architecture for radiological and nuclear detection, focused on State and local jurisdictions; developing and implementing a common, multi-agency Concept of Operations for sharing sensor data and resolving alarms; and training and exercising by the regional agencies to execute operations at a high level of proficiency.

STC was launched by Secretary Chertoff in July 2006 as way to protect a high-risk urban area, such as the NYC region, from a potential radiological or nuclear attack. A previous cooperative agreement for $3.2 million was awarded to the NYPD in September 2007, to build a regional enterprise architecture for the NYC region that will allow real-time sharing of data from fixed, mobile, maritime, and human portable radiation detection systems.

(New York Sun) “The American Psychological Association has reversed its policy of encouraging members to assist in the interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other overseas prison sites,” reports the Sun.

The “new policy, which was reached by a referendum, goes beyond telling members, even those who are military personnel, that it is off-limits to participate in interrogations at detention centers abroad. Members would be prohibited from working at such sites in any capacity that directly assists the government. The prohibition would apply to psychologists who work as psychological profilers or even as clinicians who treat detainees as mental health patients.” [View article]

Terror Website Posts Plan for Poisoning Denmark’s Water (Copenhagen, Denmark, Post) “An Islamic extremist group has discussed on its website how to poison Denmark’s water supplies in retaliation for Jyllands-Posten newspaper’s publication of the Mohammed drawings,” reports the Copenhagen Post. “Detailed plans of how the deed can be carried out appeared on extremist group al-ekhlaa’s homepage in August, according to American terror watch organisation Jamestown Foundation.” [View article]

“Spain’s Supreme Court has banned” the Nationalist Basque Action, known as the ANV party, “because of its links to armed separatists ETA,” reports Reuters. “The Supreme [Court’s] … ruling on Tuesday meant [that ANV]—which has 400 or so local councilors in the Basque Region and Navarra, in northern Spain—would be dissolved and its assets seized … Spanish authorities say the ANV has taken over representing ETA from Batasuna, the political wing of ETA, which is already banned.” [View article]

View the above WHO timeline to see the progression and major activity of H5N1 in both animals and humans since 1996.

Link:  H5N1 Timeline (PDF – 164 KB)Š

Intro:  You see the remnants of Jangmi moving north of Taiwan and now you see Mekkhala heading into Laos & Vietnam.  And off in the corner there’s this little tropical depression that will drench the Phillippines.  While we’re worried about the stock market’s free fall, many of these people in SE Asia are wondering about flooding, loss of homes, loss of friends and relatives, and lack of food.  To them the DJIA is about as foreign to them as Jessica Simpson’s latest CD.