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Family of Girl Killed by Letter Bomb in Malta Awarded Financial Settlement After Judge Determines Attack to Be Related to Father’s Work For Government  (Times of Malta, 12/1/2010)

Malta--The family of Karin Grech, who was killed by a letter bomb more than three decades ago, were awarded €420,000 in compensation after a court ruled that the “cowardly” crime was a consequence of her father’s work with the government during a politically turbulent time.

The court also ruled the government had discriminated against the Grechs by not granting them ex gratia compensation that was extended to other victims of lesser crimes.

“I’m very pleased with the judgment. It’s not about the amount of money,” the father of then 15-year-old Karin, Edwin Grech, said.

“The crime against my daughter and the attack on my family was finally declared by a court as having had a medico-political motive. It’s also been proven that I was discriminated against...

“The important thing is the principle and that this (judgment) leads to the case being solved, eventually. And I know it can be solved,” he said.

Refusing to give more details, he added: “It will take some more time to get there but we’ll get there... The murder was carried out by Maltese, by my brethren. I haven’t forgotten and my family will never forget that.”

Prof. Grech, his wife Pearl and their son Kevin had filed an application in the First Hall of the Civil Court, in its constitutional ­jurisdiction, against the Prime Minister.

The family explained how, in August 1977, Prof. Grech was working as an obstetrics and gynecology consultant in the UK. At the time, there was a doctors’ strike in Malta as a result of disagreement between the government and the Malta Medical Association. The government asked Prof. Grech to return to Malta to head the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at St Luke’s Hospital. He agreed to return until the industrial dispute was over, in the best interest of patients.

Three months after Prof. Grech returned to Malta, on December 28, 1977, a large brown envelope addressed to him was delivered to his house. Inside was a pen-box shaped parcel in Christmas wrapping paper.

His daughter – who was in Malta from her UK school for the Christmas holidays – eagerly opened the parcel that exploded in her hands. She died in hospital and her brother, who was near her, had to be operated upon.

It is believed the bomb was sent to Prof. Grech because he was considered to be a strike breaker.

A similar letter bomb was sent to general practitioner Paul Chetcuti Caruana but this did not go off.

The murder remained unsolved and the magisterial inquiry is still open.

The Grechs pointed out that the tragedy was a consequence of the fact that Prof. Grech worked with the government. They had asked for compensation from the government but did not manage to reach an amicable settlement.

They pointed out that, over the years, the government granted voluntary compensations to victims of crime on several occasions.

The Grechs called on the court to rule that Karin’s murder was a consequence of the service Prof. Grech gave to the government and that the government had discriminated against them in not granting them compensation.

The Prime Minister noted he appreciated the sensitive nature of the case and could understand the frustration as the murder remained unsolved. He argued that, given that the case was not solved, it was impossible for the motive to be known and so it could not be established that it was a medico-political issue that led to the crime.

Rejecting the discrimination claim, the Prime Minister questioned why the Grechs had waited almost 30 years to claim compensation through an urgent constitutional case.

The presiding judge, Mr Justice Ray Pace heard that, once the court case started, the government had offered a settlement of €200,000 that was turned down.

The court also noted that, at the time of the murder, there was no law regulating compensation to people who became victims of crime when rendering a service to the government.

However, the government had given several hand-outs through schemes, similar to ad hoc payments.

A memorandum entitled Compensations By Government To Victims Of Crime From 1990, dated April 2009, showed that 127 such compensations were granted. Eight cases involved fatalities and included the case of Nardu Debono who was murdered in the police headquarters in the 1980s. Former Police Commissioner Lawrence Pullicino was convicted for complicity in his death.

Other cases granted compensation included the attempted murders of Richard Cachia Caruana, who at the time was Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami’s personal assistant, and the political frame-up of Peter Paul Busuttil.

Deciding on compensation, the court noted that Mr Debono’s heirs had been awarded €379,400. The court pointed out that, unlike Mr Debono’s heirs, the Grechs did not have closure as the perpetrator had not been brought to ­justice.

The court ruled that the attack on the Grechs and Karin’s murder was the result of Prof. Grech’s ­service to the government and that the family had been discriminated against. The judge awarded them €419,287 in compensation.

The government has 20 days within which to appeal the judgment. Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi yesterday told journalists in Libya the government was still deciding whether to appeal.

Lawyers Emanuel Mallia and Alex Perici Calascione appeared for the Grechs.

Amerithrax Experts Debate FBI Findings, Insist Ivins Was Innocent  (News-Post, 11/30/2010)

WASHINGTON -- The FBI may have closed its Amerithax case against Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins nine months ago, but some experts are not willing to let the issue die quite so easily.

A group of about 25 scientists, professors, writers, terrorism experts and more convened Monday afternoon to discuss the particulars of the investigation and to debate who the real perpetrator may have been.

Lewis Weinstein, who has written extensively about the anthrax attacks in 2001 that killed five and sickened 17 others, introduced the first panel of speakers by saying "none of us on this panel believe the FBI proved its case against Dr. Bruce Ivins."

Though each speaker came from a different perspective and had different opinions on the real killer, Weinstein said they wanted to address the group Monday "to continue to keep this case alive so someday Americans can know who committed this bioterrorism attack."

The first panelist to speak was Paul Kemp, Ivins' attorney since 2007, whose nearly 25 minute presentation could have been the opening argument to the trial that never took place -- Kemp's client committed suicide in July 2008 as the FBI investigation was closing in on Ivins.

"There is no evidence that Dr. Ivins ever made the dried anthrax" used in the attacks, Kemp said. "There were no spores found in his house, in his car, at his desk, any place that it shouldn't have been."

Because the attack anthrax was never found on Ivins' property and because his DNA was never found on the attack letters, critics of the FBI investigation said the final report released in February is nothing more than a laundry list of circumstantial evidence strung together to make Ivins appear mentally unstable and, therefore, guilty.

Kemp argued back with his own list of reasons why Ivins did not appear guilty. Ivins talked openly in front of a grand jury twice in 2007 without legal representation, implying he did not think he had anything to hide. Ivins always insisted Steven Hatfill, who was originally considered a "person of interest" and later cleared of any involvement in the attacks, was innocent, whereas a guilty person would have taken advantage of having a scapegoat. And the FBI found nothing suggesting Ivins' guilt on his home computer, which investigators admitted had not been tampered with in any way.

Meryl Nass, a doctor who has also written extensively about the Amerithrax investigation, followed by listing and discounting each of the FBI's means, motive and opportunity for Ivins to have committed the crime.

"We don't know if he had access to the equipment and the knowledge because we don't know what knowledge and equipment were required," she said of the FBI's inability to pinpoint how the anthrax was prepared. ""Did he have a motive? The FBI comes up with several purported motives, but none of them make sense.  Did Bruce have the opportunity to commit the crime? The scenario the FBI initially floated about how he might have driven to New Jersey to mail the letters was shot down and they never came up with a better story."

James Van de Velde, a consultant on terrorism issues, added that Ivins, as a prominent anthrax researcher, would not have been dumb enough to use anthrax from his own beaker in an attack. And Ross Getman, a lawyer and author on the subject, said the FBI changed its timeline of when the letters would have had to be mailed to fit Ivins' calendar, which has not been released. Getman asserted that Ivins had group therapy sessions scheduled for the two days the FBI originally thought the letters were mailed.

In an interesting turn of events, John Ezzell, who was mentioned several times during the first panel discussion, was sitting in the audience. Ezzell was an anthrax researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases with Ivins. He personally handled the anthrax letters in 2001 when the FBI asked USAMRIID to help identify the powder inside.

Because of his involvement in the investigation, Ezzell had been under a gag order until he recently retired from USAMRIID. In what he said was his first time speaking out about the issue, Ezzell stood up toward the end of the panel's presentation to address a question. When those in the room realized a true expert was among them, audience members and panelists tossed question after question his way.

"I think it is very valuable for you to have come forward," said Kemp, Ivins' lawyer. "This kind of open, forthcoming information-- this is the kind of thing that should have been going on since August of 2008 at the very least."

"Dr. Ezzell, obviously you've retired now, so now you can speak out, and now you can provide this kind of information, and that's all I've ever wanted on behalf of Dr. Ivins," Kemp said.

Despite some strong opinions from the panelists and audience members, the seminar itself never drew any conclusions as to Ivins' guilt or who the real attacker could have been. When Van de Velde asked Ezzell if he thought Ivins could have done it, Ezzell responded with a hesitant "possibly yes."

Postal Inspectors in North Carolina Investigate How Sensitive Mail Ended Up In Charlotte Man's Hands  (WSOC TV,  11/29/2010)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Postal inspectors in Charlotte will start an investigation after a whistleblower called Eyewitness News.

A viewer named Chris found a pile of someone else's mail at the bottom of a stack of postal trays last week. Chris had picked up the trays for his business.

He did not want his last name used, but every piece of mail he found is addressed to a Charlotte P.O. box, mostly businesses, and was postmarked in September. It all appeared damaged, and many pieces were open.

The stack included a check for $96,000, sent from the Logan County School District in West Virginia. Another piece, addressed to Humana, had multiple checks for more than $1,000 and that's not all.

"But then you have this other big wad of paper that falls out, and it's just paper after paper with social security numbers," Chris said.

It appears to be numbers of employees of a Houston-based hospital called Intracare.

A postal inspector talked with Chris and said she'll get that mail Tuesday, and start the investigation.

"We want to make sure something like this doesn't happen again," inspector Sandra Tidwell said. "And if it did, what was the reason behind it, why did it happen?

Eyewitness News left messages for representatives at Intracare on Monday evening.

Former Postal Worker in Tennessee To Plead Guilty to Theft of $90,000 From Postal Service  (Times Gazette, 11/30/2010)

Shelbyville, TN--A former Shelbyville postal worker has informed a federal judge of his intent to plead guilty to taking thousands of dollars from his employer.

Christopher Cooper, 48, was arrested and charged by federal authorities in October with stealing almost $90,000 from the U.S. Postal Service.

He entered a plea of not guilty when arraigned before federal magistrate William B. Carter in Chattanooga, however, Cooper filed a notice of intent to plead guilty last Monday.

According to a federal indictment filed on Aug. 24, Cooper allegedly stole approximately $86,958 worth of money and property that was under his control while he was employed with the postal service.

The indictment stated that the incidents occurred from February 2006 until January 2010.

Cooper is no longer employed with the post office and was arrested following an investigation by the USPS Office of Inspector General, which investigates fraud and waste within the federal postal system, USPS spokesperson Beth Barnett told the T-G in October.

He was taken into custody by United States Postal Inspector's Service Special Agent Margaret Busbee and faces a 10-year maximum sentence and $250,000 in fines, in addition to restitution for the money allegedly stolen.

Cooper is currently free on $30,000 bond and is represented by Anthony Martinez.

Postal Employee in Colorado Sentenced For Stealing 11,000 Packages  (The Denver Post, 11/30/2010)

Denver, CO--An overnight mail handler, who stole more than 11,000 packages over two years before he was caught by federal agents, received the maximum sentence under the guidelines for his crimes Monday.

David Schmauder, a 48-year-old former U.S. Postal Service employee, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of theft by mail in federal court in August. He was sentenced in a federal court to the maximum sentence under the guidelines of 30 months after a judge rejected Schmauder's claims that obsessive-compulsive disorder and mental illness were the reasons he stole the mail.

Schmauder apologized to the people he stole packages from at his sentencing.

Upon being observed and caught by USPS special agents in January 2010, Schmauder admitted to stealing about 50 packages two or three nights a week from the post office he worked at in Highland Ranch since January 2008.

Suspicious Packages That Triggered Evacuations of Government Offices in Australia  'More Than A Hoax'  (The Age, 11/30/2010)

Melbourne, Australia--TWO suspicious packages found in government buildings, hours before John Brumby conceded defeat in the state election, were more than a hoax, police said yesterday.

Detectives will investigate whether the packages delivered to 1 Treasury Place, which houses the office of the Premier, and the Exhibition Street offices of the Departments of Transport and Justice, had any political links.

Staff were evacuated from Treasury Place for hours yesterday after an envelope containing white powder was discovered in the mail room when one worker opened what is believed to be an envelope just after 8.30am.

The immediate area was sealed off and staff were evacuated to Treasury Gardens. A similar package was later discovered at the Exhibition Street offices, which were not evacuated because the package remained sealed.

''It's more than a hoax. I regard the behaviour as criminal in the way it's being played out,'' Inspector Ross Guenther said.

''I can't comment on the political situation, but I would say that obviously it concerns us that people would use this to cause alarm to others, whether they work within the government environment or not.''

The inspector said that the mail deliveries appeared to be linked.

Fire engines lined the street between Treasury Place and the gardens and the police disaster victim identification team joined forces with brigade experts to examine the delivery before declaring the package safe.

Up to four office staff were in the area when it was opened, but they did not require medical attention and were being offered counselling.

''We take these matters very seriously and we will prosecute people where we can,'' Inspector Guenther said.

UN Agency Pushes New Rules On Air Cargo Security To Counter al-Qaida’s New Mail-Bomb Strategy    (AP, 11/29/2010)

NEW YORK— The U.N. agency that oversees aviation is pushing new guidelines for cargo security to counter al-Qaida's new mail-bomb strategy, but is stopping short of calling for 100 percent screening of packages, as pilots and some U.S. lawmakers have urged.

The proposed changes by the International Civil Aviation Organization concentrate on "supply-chain security," or checking outbound shipments before they even reach the airport. A draft of new guidelines will go out to all 190 member countries in the next few weeks, the agency says.

Governments are increasingly worried about cargo security as the holiday season swells the number of packages moving around the world.

In October, militants based in Yemen tried to blow up cargo jets with 38 bombs hidden in printer cartridges. The bombs were stopped only because of a tip from Saudi intelligence officials, Transportation Security Administration chief John Pistole told Congress.

Since August, the United States has been screening all cargo loaded onto passenger planes that take off from U.S. airports. But there is no such requirement for cargo-only planes, or for flights coming from abroad.

Last week, a magazine published by al-Qaida urged members to launch more mail bomb attacks, calling them a "good bargain."

"An attack is an attack, whether it's large or small, and we're trying to defeat all of those," said Jim Marriott, head of ICAO's security branch.

The Montreal-based ICAO writes the standards that allow planes to fly easily from one country to another, from the frequencies used by navigation systems to the phrasing pilots use on the radio.

While not binding, the agency's recommendations carry tremendous weight, and member countries usually incorporate them into their aviation laws.

A panel of two dozen ICAO experts had been working on the cargo security measures for several years, and they were approved by the organization's governing council Nov. 17, Marriott said.

The text is not public until member governments submit their comments, but most of the changes focus on inspecting cargo before it leaves for the airport, then protecting it from tampering until it reaches the plane, Marriott said.

The amendment also urges countries to introduce inspection machinery, an important change in poor countries where airports still rely on searches by hand and see little reason to introduce high-tech sensors, he said.

Other parts of the amendment urge countries to secure air-traffic control sites and protect their computers against viruses and digital attacks.

ICAO is preparing to send a draft to member countries for their comments in the next few weeks; the final guidelines will be incorporated into the 1944 Chicago Treaty on international aviation sometime next year, he said.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration praised the proposal, saying it "exemplifies global collaboration."

"Due to the evolving nature of the threat, this is an ongoing effort for the entire international community," the agency said in a written statement.

However, the ICAO amendment does not set a target for how much cargo must be inspected before being loaded on planes, Marriott said.

That has been a matter of furious debate within the aviation industry, with pilots calling for 100 percent screening of cargo on all planes and shipping companies saying it would cause massive backups.

"Cargo security is the biggest hole in the net," said Gideon Ewers, a spokesman for the Chertsey, Britain-based International Federation of Airline Pilots' Associations. "All cargo aircraft should be treated exactly the same as a passenger aircraft, because they will cause exactly the same amount of damage if they come down."

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., introduced a bill this month that would require screening of all cargo on all commercial planes in the United States, regardless of whether they carry passengers. Markey wrote the original 2007 law regarding passenger planes that took effect in August.

Cargo companies, meanwhile, say inspectors' time would be better spent using intelligence information and computerized criteria to identify suspicious packages. Inspecting every package is impossible, they say.

"You're going to create bottlenecks, slow down commerce and you might even put lives in peril because a lot of cargo that the industry moves is life-saving drugs, biomedical, pharma, that kind of stuff," said Brandon Fried, executive director of the Washington-based Airforwarders Association. He estimated that 100 percent inspection would cost companies hundreds of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the European Union is set to unveil its own package of recommendations to impove air cargo security.

On Monday, European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas said the package would include more stringent rules on air freight screening, new criteria for identifying potentially risky cargos, and better intelligence sharing regarding possible threats both within Europe and outside the 28-nation bloc.

On Wednesday, Germany revoked the licenses of three companies for failing to meet cargo security standards and issued warnings to 20 others. It did not identify the companies or say whether they were shipping firms or manufacturers sending exports abroad.

ICAO has also been moving to tighten international laws against terrorist attacks on planes. In September, it approved two treaties criminalizing attacks on aviation-related computers and the transport of weapons of mass destruction.

Other changes anticipate exotic new ways of hijacking planes, said Denys Wibaux, director of the agency's legal division. One measure makes it a crime to take control of a plane by remote control or to use hostages on the ground to force pilots in the air to obey terrorists' orders.

"It's a remote scenario, but it's the kind of thing we want to make absolutely sure is covered in the international laws," Wibaux said. "Sometimes the reality is even worse than our imagination."

Those two treaties must now be ratified by member countries, a process that could take months or years, he said.

Threats against Obama: More Than A Dozen Arrests Over Past Two Years  (Christian Science Monitor, 11/26/2010)

The arrest of former New York City cop Michael Stephen Bowden for telling a Secret Service agent he'd like to put President Obama up against a wall and shoot him underscores the daily threat matrix for a job that is much more dangerous than, say, the harrowing experience of Bering Sea fishermen as dramatized on the popular TV show "The Deadliest Catch."

Nearly 1 in 10 presidents have been assassinated or shot while in office (the last being Ronald Reagan, in 1981), with another 11 escaping assassination attempts unscathed.

The Secret Service has been particularly busy chasing down threats to Mr. Obama, who faced a barrage of death threats and at least one credible assassination plot while a presidential candidate and since taking office in January 2009.

Last summer, author Ron Kessler wrote that Obama was receiving 30 death threats a day. Other reports state that federal agents had seen a 400-fold increase in threats from President George W. Bush's last year in office. Secret Service head Mark Sullivan later pushed back at that assertion, saying "threats are not up" in the Obama era.

Nevertheless, in the past two years the Secret Service has arrested more than a dozen Americans for posing credible threats to the president. Because of concerns about his safety, candidate Obama received Secret Service protection earlier than any other presidential hopeful in US history. The Secret Service doesn't publicize most threats, fearing that they could inspire copycat attempts.

The most famous Obama assassination plot involved two neo-Nazi skinheads in Tennessee, who were accused in late 2008 of planning to shoot 88 black people, behead another 14, and then kill Obama. Both men pleaded guilty this year to charges of conspiring to kill Obama.

According to the law, "Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."

Vermont comedian Chris King was arrested Oct. 8 for tweeting: "I am dying inside. And I am plainly stating to you that I am going to kill the president.” Such "death tweets" on the social media network Twitter have figured in several high-profile threat arrests.

"Read literally, the threats-against-the-president statute could apply to someone overheard mouthing off in a bar ..., though authorities aim to prosecute only those individuals deemed to pose credible threats," writes Andy Bromage for Seven Days, a Vermont-based news website. "In King’s case ... his repeated threats online, his mental condition and the fact that he owned guns ... persuaded authorities he posed a risk."

While the vast majority of threats are not serious, authorities ignore threats at the president's peril. In 1994, few people took Francisco Martin Duran seriously when he said he planned to assassinate President Bill Clinton. On Oct. 29, 1994, Mr. Duran unloaded 29 rifle rounds into the White House, injuring no one. In 2001, Secret Service agents shot and then arrested Robert Pickett, an Indiana man, after gunshots were heard outside the White House fence while Mr. Bush was in residence.

Despite such dangers, Secret Service protection insulates presidents from everyday life, which can affect their job performance. "You cannot shake the bubble," writes former presidential speechwriter Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street Journal, about Obama's political problems. "And the worst part is that the army of staff, security and aides that exists to be a barrier between a president and danger ... winds up being a barrier between a president and reality."

Mr. Bowden, an ex-N.Y.C. policeman and firefighter who had retired to South Carolina, didn't write down his threats, but Secret Service were alerted by a Veterans Administration counselor after Bowden said he "was thinking of traveling to Washington, D.C., to shoot the president because he was not doing enough to help African-Americans."

Bowden, who is white, didn't deny the threat when talking to Secret Service officers, and even went on to tell them, "If I had the opportunity, I would shoot [Obama] myself. If I had the opportunity to get Obama against the wall and shoot him, I would." A small arsenal of loaded weaponry was found in Bowden's South Carolina home.

After making a court appearance, Bowden is undergoing mental evaluation through the federal prison system. His son told news outlets that Bowden, in his seventies and in deteriorating health, isn't physically capable of carrying out the threat.

Plastic Explosive PETN, Weapons-Making Materials Found In California Home   (LA Times, 11/26/2010)

Escondido, CA--Sheriffs continued to surround a North County home over the weekend after nine pounds of explosives were discovered on the property, deputies said.

Authorities have discovered blasting caps and a quantity of pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a powerful plastic explosive known as PETN, along with a huge cache of weapons-making materials at the home of an Escondido man in jail on bomb-making charges.

PETN was the explosive used by would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid and by terrorists worldwide, officials said.

The resident of the home, George Jakubec, 54, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Serbia, is charged with possession of explosive devices, possession of bomb-making materials, bank robbery and burglary.

Jakubec has pleaded not guilty, with bail set at $5 million. Prosecutors said he is an unemployed software consultant.

The house came to the attention of authorities when a gardener was hurt in an explosion.

On Sunday, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department bomb squad entered the house, retreating after seizing evidence that included homemade grenades.

On Wednesday, the squad reentered the house, finding it "extremely cluttered, making movement and observation extremely difficult," the Sheriff's Department said.

In a storage area outside the house, authorities found containers of hydrochloric acid, nitric acid and sulfuric acid and 50 pounds of hexamine, a bomb-making material, authorities said.

"Proactive operations on site have been suspended," the Sheriff's Department said. "Explosive material and hazardous chemicals remain within the house."

Local, state and federal explosives experts are conferring about a plan to reenter the house and remove the materials. No further action is expected until Dec. 1 at the earliest.

The charges against Jakubec do not include any allegations that he had used or sold any explosive devices, according to court documents. He apparently lived alone in the home; his estranged wife attended his court arraignment Monday.

Police have seized computers at the home in hopes of determining a motive for the alleged crimes.

Police Investigate Racist Hate Mail in Scotland  (Press and Journal, 11/25/2010)

Scotland--A couple campaigning to save a remote Moray school from closure have contacted the police after receiving “racist” hate mail.

Rob and Sandi Grams were sent the letter after they made an 11th-hour plea to keep the £100,000-a-year Cabrach primary open, where two of their four children are the only pupils.

The school, near Dufftown, has cost £360,000 to run over the past four years and has never had a roll of more than six pupils during that time.

Moray Council has proposed closing it and most local people who responded to a recent consultation are in favour.

An anonymous letter sent to the couple yesterday told them: “Scotland does not need scroungers like you.”

German-born Mrs Grams, 38, moved to Scotland with her South African-born husband Rob, 40, five years ago and the couple moved to Rhinturk Farm, Cabrach, from the Borders a few months ago.

Last night she said she understood “the whole issue with the money” but Cabrach was “dying” and the community association was working hard to revive it.

Mrs Grams said the “hurtful” anonymous letter, which accused them of “never having paid taxes here” and “no doubt are living off benefits”, had caused a lot of anger and upset for the family.

The unsigned letter read: “Can you please explain to me what right you have to come to Scotland and demand a free private education for your brats?

“Scotland does not need scroungers like you and your family and it would be a good idea if you all get out of our country. We do not need scum like you wasting our valuable resources for our own children. I am a very angry Scot when I read in the paper what you think are your rights.”

Mrs Grams insisted last night that the family had never “lived on benefits”. She said the fight for the school was “an important part in trying to keep Cabrach alive”.

She added: “I felt quite at home here for years and all of a sudden this is like a big slap in the face. I grew up learning all about World War II and racism and I am teaching my children never to judge anyone on their religion or where they come from and then we get a letter like this. It’s just hurtful.”

Cabrach Community Councillor Martin Shead said the letter “could not be condoned in any way”.

California Man Indicted For Sending Obama Death Threat Letter  (San Francisco Chronicle, 11/25/2010)

Eureka, CA--A Humboldt County man who served time in prison for mailing a phony anthrax letter to the FBI was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges that he wrote a letter threatening to kill President Obama, records show.

Roger Hudnall, 54, of Eureka wrote, "I will Kill the President" in a letter he mailed on Jan. 7, 2009, less than two weeks before Obama took the oath of office, according to the indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in San Francisco.

Hudnall was charged with making threats against the president. He is in state custody on another conviction, records show.

The indictment comes two days after federal prosecutors dropped charges against John Gimbel, 60, of Crescent City, who had been accused of threatening to kill Obama. But a jury deadlocked earlier this month on whether Gimbel's racist, violent e-mail was an actual threat or an empty rant.

In 2002, Hudnall was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for mailing a letter to the FBI's San Francisco office that threatened to kill two people and contained white powder he said was laced with anthrax. It was actually baby powder.

Hudnall marked the letter with the wrong FBI address, and it was returned to Hudnall's former Arcata landlady, whose return address was on the envelope. Hudnall admitted he sent the letter to scare his former landlord, who had evicted him, and to perhaps get her in trouble with the FBI.

UCLA Researcher Sent Razor Blade Letters and Death Threat Says He Won't Be Deterred By Animal Activists' Attacks  (LA Times, 11/25/2010)

Los Angeles, CA--After the latest incident, in which he received a letter containing razor blades and threats that his throat would be cut, J. David Jentsch says he isn't intimidated. 'This is the work I feel morally obligated to do,' he says.

When UCLA neuroscientist J. David Jentsch was a grad student, he never expected his life as an academic would require around-the-clock armed guards, or a closed-circuit TV inside his bedroom so he could keep constant watch over his home.

But the high-powered security proved necessary again this month when the researcher, who experiments on monkeys, opened a letter left in his mailbox to discover razor blades and a death threat.

"We follow you on campus," Jentsch recalled the note reading. "One day, when you're walking by, we'll come up behind you, and cut your throat."

Activists claimed the razors were tainted with AIDS, though it hasn't been confirmed by officials. University officials have said the latest threat, confirmed by UCLA on Tuesday, is under investigation by the FBI and UCLA police.

But the 38-year-old professor has been through this before. Last year, he woke up to an orange flash and a car alarm. He ran outside to find his car had been blown up.

Twice a month, animal rights activists in ski masks gather outside his home, chanting "murder." On Halloween, neighborhood trick-or-treaters were handed flyers with images of bloodied animal subjects.

"If you go to the house down the street, there's a monster who lives there," children were told.

The tactics, Jentsch said in an interview inside his office, are part of an intensifying effort by extremists to halt animal research at the university. Molotov-cocktail-like devices have been left near researchers' homes and under their cars, and in one case, a professor's window was smashed and a garden hose inserted to flood her home.

Some of Jentsch's colleagues have opted to alter their research, or move, but the neuroscientist says the latest incident has motivated him to press on.

"They're absolutely determined. This is not a joke to them," he said. "But this is the work I feel morally obligated to do."

Since his car was torched, Jentsch has become the face of animal research at UCLA, founding an organization to voice support for humane animal research and organizing a public rally for the cause.

His tenacity comes with drawbacks. He has to vary his routes to work and switch his parking spots. When he has dinner parties, he has to remind his guests that they'll be checked in at the gate by security guards with guns. After moving into his new home, he made the rounds to his new neighbors, informing them of his work and warning of the protests that would inevitably follow him to the neighborhood.

He keeps the door outside his office pod locked. On a recent morning, the sound of footsteps in the hall brought Jentsch to his feet. "Who's there?" he shouted as he turned the corner, his demeanor softening once he discovered it was one of his students waiting outside.

Jentsch uses vervet monkeys in his research on methamphetamine addiction and tobacco dependence in teens, along with cognitive disabilities affecting schizophrenia patients. University officials say their animal research is subject to strict oversight, but the work has come under fire from animal rights activists who say it amounts to abuse.

Some of Jentsch's work has included administering methamphetamine to monkeys and then withdrawing the drug, a project that includes killing about half a dozen of the primates each year for postmortems.

A recent animal activist communique on the razor blade incident called Jentsch a Frankenstein.

"How would Jentsch like the same thing he does to primates to be done to him? That would be justice," the letter said.

Lately, the researcher said, activists have been referring to him as David "Tiller" Jentsch, a reference to abortion doctor George Tiller, who was shot and killed last year in Kansas by a pro-life activist.

"They're hoping I would be the first Tiller of the animal rights community," he said. "My worry is some unstable person will hear these messages enough times and they'll take it as a signal."

But Jentsch is hopeful with every incident that the individuals responsible might slip and leave behind DNA or fingerprints.

In a news release issued earlier this week, the Animal Liberation Front said it had obtained statements from animal activists calling themselves the Justice Department of UCLA, claiming responsibility for sending the razor blades.

"They're used to scaring people and getting their way," Jentsch said. "It's just not going to happen in this case."

Powder Scare At National Reconnaissance Office in Virginia  (ABC7 News, 11/24/2010)

Fairfax, VA-- Fairfax County police and fire officials are investigating a suspicious powder at the National Reconnaissance Office on Lee Road in Chantilly.

Crews were called the building just before 2 p.m. Wednesday when the powder spilled from an envelope inside the NRO's mailroom.

An NRO spokesperson says the mailroom is specially designed for these kinds of incidents, and there is no hazard to anyone outside of the mailroom.

Officials are testing the powder to determine if it's hazardous.

UPDATE, 3:42 p.m.: Tests confirmed the powder is not harmful. Crews are clearing the scene.

Man Gets Two Years In Prison For Bomb Threat Letter Sent To Jewish High School  (Chicago Tribune, 11/24/2010)

Chicago, IL--A West Rogers Park man was sentenced Wednesday to 25 months in prison for mailing a letter threatening to blow up a Jewish high school.

A half-dozen friends and neighbors testified that Mohammad Alkaramla, 25, was a peaceful man with many friends in his multiethnic neighborhood until his estranged wife moved to Jordan with their son. The caring man known to friends as "Mo" then became depressed and feared Middle East strife would make life dangerous for his son, they said.

Alkaramla, who was born in Jordan, mailed a letter in late 2008 to the Ida Crown Jewish Academy, threatening to plant a bomb there if Israel didn't withdraw troops from the Gaza Strip within two weeks, said his father, Tawiq Alkaramla.

"He knows all people are the same," his father said to U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer. "He went crazy like with stress. ... He thinks Gaza is by Jordan. All he knows is what he sees on the TV."

At a bench trial in July, Pallmeyer found Mohammad Alkaramla guilty of a single count of making threats against the school. Investigators traced his fingerprints and a stamp on the letter to his home. They found he had searched for targets on the Internet in the days before the letter was mailed.

"Will Give You until 01.15.2009 to back OFF from Gaza in Palestine or will set our explosive in your areas," the letter said in part.

Alkaramla, who has been in custody since July, briefly read from a written statement.

"I realize I was in a downfall of my life, thinking of myself," he said of the decision to make the threat. "I regret and am deeply sorry for all my troubles."

While there was no evidence in Alkaramla's trial that he intended to carry out his threat, Pallmeyer ruled that he deserved a stiff sentence because he targeted schoolchildren. Officials at the school adopted strict safety measures in the weeks after the letter arrived and eventually built a wall around the school.

"He lived near the school. If you walk by it, you have to see there are children there," Pallmeyer said. "On some level, he must have known those threats could not have done anything to make his son any safer."

Greek Guerrilla Group Claims Mail Bomb Attacks  (Reuters, 11/26/2010)

ATHENS-- A Greek guerrilla group claimed responsibility on Thursday for a wave of parcel bombs sent to foreign governments and embassies in Athens this month and warned of more attacks.

The booby-trapped packages were sent to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, among other foreign targets.

The parcel sent to Merkel was intercepted at her office and rendered harmless. Another addressed to Berlusconi caught fire when Italian police opened it.

The Fire Conspiracy Cells, which describes itself as an anti-state group, said in a statement on a leftist website it had staged the attacks to encourage groups in other countries to strike against state targets.

"We wanted to make an international call," the group said. "We are calling our partners and rebel groups in Greece, Europe, Chile, Argentina and Mexico to send their own aggressive signal."

Police, who had earlier pointed the finger at the group, said they were investigating the authenticity of the claim.

Two Greeks were arrested on Nov. 1, shortly after a first parcel addressed to the Mexican embassy in Athens exploded in a courier office, wounding an employee. Police later detonated two more parcel bombs carried by the suspects, one addressed to Sarkozy and the other to the Belgian embassy in Athens.

The total of 14 parcel bombs, most of which were detonated by police, contained small amounts of explosives, not enough to kill. Security analysts said the choice of foreign targets was aimed at attracting international attention.

The Fire Conspiracy Cells initially specialised in arson attacks but turned to bombings in May 2009, after the country's worst riots in decades, sparked by the police killing of a teenager.

Greek police have arrested more than 20 suspected members of guerrilla groups this year but the group said in the statement it would continue to strike.

"Nothing can stop the continuous and evolutionary course of our action," it said, talking of "revolutionary war."

Jordanian American Sentenced For Bomb Threat Against Jewish Schools in Chicago  (JTA, 11/25/2010)

Chicago, IL-- A dual Jordanian-American citizen was sentenced to more than two years in prison for mailing a bomb threat to a Chicago Jewish day school.

Mohammad Alkaramla, 26, of Chicago's North Side, was sentenced Wednesday to 25 months in prison for mailing a letter to the Ida Crown Jewish Academy that threatened to blow up Jewish educational institutions as well as injure or kill Jewish individuals in the city. The letter, which was received on Dec. 31, 2008, was addressed to rabbis and leaders of the Jewish community.

He was convicted in July in U.S. District Court and ordered jailed until his sentencing.

Arrested in March 2009, Alkaramla had written a letter which threatened: "Will Give You until 01.15.2009 to back OFF from Gaza in Palestine or will set our explosive in your areas, it very important to make a quick action before we make our decisions to set bombs in the fowling [sic] addresses."

The letter, which was received during Israel's month-long war with Hamas in Gaza, then listed 22 addresses of Jewish educational centers in the Chicago area, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

A draft of the letter was found on Alkaramla's laptop computer. He could have received up to 10 years in jail.

U.S. Will Expand Biosecurity Work to Africa, Official Says  (Global Security Newswire, 11/23/2010)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction initiative will work to secure deadly pathogens in Africa to prevent their use as tools of bioterrorism, a key Defense Department official said yesterday.

The Nunn-Lugar program has effectively safeguarded biological weapons facilities in the former Soviet Union but deadly disease materials, such as Ebola and anthrax, remain for the most part unprotected at research institutions in East Africa, Andrew Weber, assistant to the Defense secretary on nuclear, chemical and biological programs, said yesterday.

"I've been to a lot of the former bioweapons laboratories in the Soviet Union territory and if you look at the diseases that they weaponized, the pathogen samples originated in Africa," he said during a global health and security conference organized by the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biosecurity.

"We don't want terrorist groups to do the same thing that the Soviet weapons program did," according to Weber, who earlier this month accompanied Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), one of the CTR program's creators, on a tour of biological research facilities in Kenya, Burundi and Uganda designed to highlight the potential threat.

The region has experienced terrorist attacks in the past from al-Qaeda linked groups such as the Shabab, an Islamic extremist organization that claimed responsibility for recent suicide attacks in Uganda, he said.

"Terrorism in that part of the world is not a hypothetical situation," Weber told the audience.

Lawmakers in 2004 expanded the U.S. threat reduction effort's mandate to include securing weapons of mass destruction and related materials outside the Soviet bloc.

The program is on track to receive roughly $523 million in fiscal year 2011, once the annual spending bills are approved by both houses of Congress and sewn together in conference.

More than $209 million of the proposed funds would go toward biological threat reduction in the former Soviet Union. That works includes safeguarding pathogens, developing laboratories that conduct research on disease countermeasures and some border security operations.

The CTR program has not previously addressed biological risks in Africa, according to Lugar spokesman Mark Helmke. The effort would eventually install new physical security measures and train more medical personnel, he told Global Security Newswire today.

The effort is currently making preparations to begin work on the continent and the "stage is set to move quickly," a Defense Department spokesman said today by e-mail.

Weber said recently the program was likely to provide several million dollars to African states to improve security at laboratories that store dangerous pathogens. He added yesterday that "big thrust and focus" of the initiative's biological engagement work in Africa would be to improve biosafety and biosecurity at research institutions.

Biosafety is often defined as measures intended to prevent the release of infectious agents within a laboratory or the outside environment. Biosecurity involves active methods to avert biological terrorism or other disease breakouts.

During their visit to the Kenya Medical Research Institute, which maintains dangerous pathogens including anthrax and Ebola, in the capital city of Nairobi, the U.S. delegation noticed that several orange bags filled with biohazard waste "were just sort of sitting around" on the ground because the facility's small incinerator had "pretty limited capacity," according to Weber.

"While we were there a stray cat went into one of the bags, had lunch, and then hopped over the wall into the largest slum in Africa," he added. "That's just an example of why we need to focus a little bit more on biosafety."

Weber said that while there has been "tremendous progress" in standing up "administrative" and human health laboratories in the region, veterinary facilities have been largely neglected by the international donor community.

For example, the Uganda Virus Research Institute, which once housed Ebola and Marburg samples, lacked the resources to deal with anthrax outbreaks that killed hundreds of hippopotamuses in recent years.

"They just didn't have the diagnostic tools to deal with that very effectively, so we're trying to help them out" by providing them with modern equipment that could lead to quicker diagnoses, Weber said. "I think that's an important gap that the Nunn-Lugar program can help fill is this lack of attention to the animal health laboratories."

After his speech, the senior DOD official predicted that the threat reduction effort would have a long-term presence in Africa.

"I think it's going to be, just because of the nature of endemic disease, it's going to be absolutely a continuation of the long-term strategic partnership in the region," he told GSN.

The decision to expand the threat reduction program into Africa rather than other regions was based on several priorities, including: the prevalence of endemic disease, the presence of terrorist groups with intent to use biological agents; and the level of existing infrastructure and capacity and the impact the effort could have on improving that, according to Weber.

"Unfortunately, there's terrorism in East Africa, as well as the South Asia region. So yes, we need to work in both; we need to prioritize. A lot of what I described should be a global effort but we can't start everywhere at the same time," he told GSN.

He noted that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been engaged in the region for decades, with offices in both Kenya and Uganda.

Weber also predicted the Cooperative Threat Reduction biological engagement work would eventually make up half of the program's budget, noting that the disease effort began with $2 million in the late 1990s and has grown to more than $200 million in the pending budget cycle.

Ex-Postal Worker in Michigan Pleads Guilty To Fraud  (The Herald-Palladium, 11/24/2010)

BANGOR, MI - A former Bangor post office worker has pleaded guilty to three federal charges after filing a false robbery report in April.

Douglas E. Porter of Bangor pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids to two counts of fraud and one count of embezzlement, said Jane Anderson of the U.S. Postal Inspector's office in Grand Rapids. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

Porter could face fines and up to five years of prison for each of the two fraud counts. For the embezzlement charge he could face restitution charges and/or 10 years imprisonment.

"That's a little unusual," Anderson said of Porter's decision to plead guilty to all three counts. "Often, individuals will seek a plea bargain through the advice of their attorney and will plea to one or two charges and the other charges will be dropped."

The investigation regarding the alleged robbery was unusual as well, Anderson said.

"We knew something was amiss," she said regarding the initial hours the U.S. Postal Inspector's staff spent investigating the alleged assault and robbery reported April 28.

On that day, Porter told Bangor police he had been attacked from behind and knocked unconscious shortly after arriving to work at 5 a.m. Police discovered that money and stamps were missing from the post office and contacted the postal inspectors.

It didn't take long for federal investigators and Bangor police to determine the robbery complaint was false. In June, the case was submitted to the U.S. District Attorney's office in Grand Rapids to obtain an arrest warrant and a federal indictment against Porter.

"It (the alleged robbery) was made up to cover up a financial depredation in the office," Anderson said at the time.

When the Inspector's Office determined that embezzlement had taken place, it turned part of the investigation over to the post office's Office of Inspector General, which investigates embezzlement complaints.

Throughout the ensuing investigation, it was determined that Porter embezzled more than $10,000 from the post over three years, according to Anderson.

"Porter cited financial hardship," she said regarding his motive.

Suspicious Substance Leaking From Package Triggers Scare At Upstate NY Post Office  (Watertown Daily Times, 11/23/2010)

HOGANSBURG, NY — A package leaking an unidentified substance at the post office caused emergency responders to shut down a portion of St. Regis Road on Friday night.

U.S. Postal Service inspector Bernadette M. Lundbohm said the package "arose some suspicions with the employees."

St. Regis Mohawk Tribal Police said about four ounces of a substance spilled from the package. Officials would not identify the substance.

While the typical protocol would have required the employees to notify the U.S. Postal Service, Ms. Lundbohm said the local employees instead contacted Franklin County 911, which dispatched its hazardous materials unit. She said postal inspectors also responded to the scene once notified of the incident.

Franklin County Emergency Services Coordinator Ricky L. Provost said the county hazmat team was notified of the situation at about 8 p.m. Both Massena Memorial Hospital and Alice Hyde Medical Center were put on standby in case anyone needed to be taken for medical treatment.

"At that point, the postal service had a pretty good idea of what the substance was," Mr. Provost said. "We made entry with our testing equipment, and the test for the presence of any chemicals or hazardous substances came back negative. At that point, we just assisted with decontaminating the individuals who had made contact with the stuff."

Mr. Provost said two postal employees, as well as several emergency responders, were put through decontamination showers and examinations.

Mr. Provost said the incident was resolved and the substance removed by just after 11 p.m.

"We were back to business shortly," Inspector Lundbohm said.

Animal Testing Advocate Gets “AIDS-Tainted Razor Blades” in the Mail (Discover Magazine, 11/23/2010)

Los Angeles--A neuroscientist who has spoken out in support of animal testing is in the news again after a militant animal rights group sent razor blades and a threatening note to his house. The group claims that the razor blades were contaminated with HIV-infected blood.

The researcher, J. David Jentsch, who studies addiction and schizophrenia at UCLA, explains the incident:

“About a week ago I was going through my mail in my kitchen and I opened a letter and razor blades spilled out on the floor. It was the first sign something was nefarious,” he said. “The letter inside contained quite specific and heinous acts of violence to kill me.”

Jentsch made headlines last year when he staged a pro-test rally in support of (humane) animal research after an animal rights group fire-bombed his car in his driveway. The threats and harassment of Jentsch and other department employees have continued, but Jentsch seems undaunted and undeterred.

“Responsible use of animals in research aimed at improving the health and welfare of the mentally ill is the right thing to do,” Jentsch said in  a statement. “We will continue to do so because we have a moral responsibility to society to use our skills for the betterment of the world.”

The Animal Liberation Front released information from an activist group calling itself the “Justice Department at UCLA”; that group claims responsibility for the package, which they say was contaminated by HIV-infected blood. From the press release (emphasis and bad grammar is all theirs):

The Justice Department at UCLA sent bloody AIDS tainted razor blades to David Jentsch at [xxxxx] Valley Vista boulevard in the town of Sherman Oaks, California; instead he should be living in hell which is where he will eventually end up desirably sooner rather than later. He has no business addicting primates to phencyclidine known on the streets as PCP and other street drugs using grant money from the federal government. Confining primates to puny filthy cages then removing them to give them their fix of PCP when primates would not get addicted if it weren’t for Frankenstein’s like Jentsch. How would Jentsch like the same thing he does to primates to be done to him? That would be justice. STOP YOUR SICK EXPERIMENTS OR HELL AWAITS YOU.  –UCLA JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

The group also claims to have sent a similar package to Jentsch’s graduate student, Stephanie Groman, though there is no evidence the package was received. While the Animal Liberation Front doesn’t officially back violent acts such as these, the conclusion of the ALF press release warns that such acts will continue:

Refusal to discontinue their futile and torturous animal research can be expected to yield additional consequences for vivisectors at the hands of activists who are willing to risk their own lives and freedom to help these enslaved and tormented animals.

Bullet Was In ‘Suspicious’ Mail Sent To Community College President in Ohio  (Marietta Times, 11/24/2010)

Marietta, OH--Police may ask Washington State Community College employees to voluntarily submit their DNA in hopes of identifying the person responsible for sending a "suspicious package" to college President Charlotte Hatfield in August.

"Yesterday (Monday), we learned DNA was obtained from a bullet that had been sent to (Hatfield)," Washington County Sheriff Larry Mincks said. "We've ran that DNA though our system, and so far there has been no match. But we do have a sample and we do anticipate finding a match."

College officials did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment on the issue.

On Aug. 25, police were called to investigate a report of a suspicious package. The package was deemed suspicious because the package was believed to have been sent by someone other than the person listed on the return address, authorities said.

Officers have remained tight-lipped about the package and its contents, only saying Tuesday that it included a bullet. Mincks said he could not release whether there was a message sent with the bullet.

Hatfield, who has been at the college for nearly a decade, has been criticized by employees and former trustees for her leadership style, which has been described as abusive. Surveys, letters and evaluations have for years documented concerns that Hatfield bullied, demeaned and intimidated employees and created a work environment filled with mistrust and fear, accusations Hatfield has denied.

The trustees hired an independent consultant last spring to study the college's workplace environment and make recommendations on how to improve it.

In October, Hatfield announced she intends to retire at the end of her contract, which expires in December 2011. Her retirement announcement made no reference to the apparent threat.

Mincks said the person or persons responsible for the package could face charges of inducing panic or intimidation.

"If this was just a prank, they should come forward and tell us that," he said. "It would be better for whomever sent this to come forward now and say, 'that's my DNA and this is why I sent it' than for us to move forward and continue to spend time investigating, because eventually we will find a match."

Mincks said college employees could be asked to submit to DNA tests.

"If some don't, we'll try to do more, but we would likely have to obtain a warrant," he said. "But eventually, we will find out who sent this."

Greek Extremist Group Claims Mail Bomb Campaign  (AFP, 11/22/2010)

ATHENS — A Greek anarchist group claimed responsibility Tuesday for posting more than a dozen parcel bombs to European leaders and embassies, police said, in a campaign that caused alarm but no major injuries.

Two members of the radical Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei who were arrested as the rigged parcels were sent out early this month confirmed their involvement in a letter sent to the Indymedia website, police said.

They claimed "the dispatch of parcel bombs to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the headquarters of the World Court in The Hague and the embassies of Belgium and Mexico in Athens," according to the letter.

"We are very proud of our action ... ," said the letter signed by chemistry student Panayotis Argyriou, 22, and Gerassimos Tsakalos, 24, who were arrested in Athens on November 1.

It added that "even in the difficult conditions of our imprisonment, we are not going to stop publicising our positions in favour of armed violence and revolution".

The men were detained hours after the first booby-trapped parcel, addressed for the Mexican embassy in Athens, exploded in a postal office.

Police then discovered two more, one addressed to Sarkozy and the other for the Belgian embassy in the Greek capital.

Powder-Filled Envelopes Sent to Israeli Lawmakers  (GSN, 11/23/2010)

Four ultra-Orthodox lawmakers in Israel this week received hate mailings delivered in envelopes containing a suspicious white power, Agence France-Presse reported.

The head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, also received one of the letters, said Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

"A white powder found inside has been sent to the lab and we are awaiting the results of testing," Rosenfeld said.

A number of Knesset members received suspicious envelopes this week, Knesset spokesman Giora Fordes said.

"Four MPs from the United Torah Judaism party received threatening letters, two today [Monday] and two yesterday," Fordes said yesterday.

"In one of them was powder -- sugar, salt, something like that," he said, adding the letters were critical of the divisive policy that grants ultra-Orthodox Israelis pursuing religious studies a waiver from mandatory military service.

"We, the enlightened residents of the State of Israel, demand that you people of darkness stop living at our expense, learning all day and not working, not serving in the army or reserve duty," the Jerusalem Post quoted one of the letters as stating.

Suspicious Powder Locks Down Prince William County Courthouse in Virginia  (News and Messenger, 11/23/2010)

Manassas, VA--At least five people underwent decontamination Tuesday afternoon after touching white powder that fell out of an envelope in the mailroom of the Prince William County Courthouse this morning.

None of the five showed any symptoms of an illness, according to Manassas Fire Marshal Francis Teevan.

Six others who were working in an office adjacent to the mailroom are being monitored by emergency personnel for signs of illness.

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has been called in to help investigate.

Manassas fire officials were called to the courthouse at 11:16 a.m. from an employee in the mailroom who said another worker opened a sealed envelope and white powder spilled out.

The bottom two floors of the courthouse were closed off, said Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert.

The city's HAZMAT team set up a tent behind the courthouse where those exposed to the powder -- who could be seen wearing hospital gowns --  were being decontaminated by taking showers.

As a precaution, the Regional Hospital Command Control organization also has been contacted.

Senior Policeman Charged Over Germany-Bound Hoax Bomb  (DPA, 11/23/2010)

A high-ranking airport police officer was charged on Monday over the planting of a fake bomb in luggage on its way from Namibia to Germany.

The 51-year-old man was charged at a magistrates' court in the Namibian capital of Windhoek with breaking airport and explosive laws.

Namibian police said the man had worked for airport security for at least five years, and that there was no apparent motive for the planting of the fake device.

German news agency DPA said that Berlin's ambassador in Windhoek, Egon Kochanke, had denied reports that a security exercise at the airport involving Germany had played a role in the incident.

The fake device was found in a screening area at the airport"There was no such thing as a German security exercise with a dummy luggage bomb," Kochanke said.

Claims of German involvement in exercise

A Namibian newspaper had earlier reported that an unnamed cabinet member from the country had complained that Germany's involvement had been "reckless and irresponsible." The claim that German authorities were involved had also been denied by the Namibian government.

The device was found in a luggage screening area at Windhoek's Hosea Kutako airport and led to the delay of an Air Berlin flight to Munich. 

An X-ray investigation had revealed a detonator wired to batteries was present, along with a clock - but no explosive material was found.

Germany is currently on alert, with warnings of heightened terrorism threats.

Public access to the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, was restricted on Monday after weekend reports that Islamist militants had plans to attack the Berlin landmark.

UCLA Neuroscientist Receives Threatening Package Apparently Sent By Militant Animal-Rights Group  (LA Times, 11/23/2010)

Los Angeles--UCLA neuroscientist J. David Jentsch received a package containing razor blades and a threatening note this month, the university confirmed Tuesday. According to a statement from UCLA, both university police and the FBI are investigating the incident, as well as another claim from a militant animal-rights group that it sent a similar package to a graduate student researcher who works in Jentsch's laboratory. There is no evidence to suggest that the latter package was received.

A group called the Justice Department has claimed responsibility for the incident and alleged in a statement that the razor blades were tainted with the blood of an AIDS-infected person. That statement, posted on a website maintained by the group Animal Liberation Front, accused Jentsch of "addicting primates to phencyclidine known on the streets as PCP and other street drugs using grant money from the federal government."

On its website, the ALF distanced itself from the Justice Department, stating that the latter group doesn't adhere to the ALF's principles of "avoiding harm to all animals, including human ones, and [instead] adopted guidelines more similar to those of the Animal Rights Militia (ARM)."

Jentsch uses vervet monkeys in experiments that have "provided critical insights into the biochemical processes that contribute to methamphetamine addiction and tobacco dependence in teens and the cognitive disabilities affecting behavior, speech and reasoning in schizophrenia patients," UCLA's statement continued. Jentsch -- who organized a rally on campus in favor of animal experimentation last year after his car was set on fire, allegedly by opponents of biomedical research on animals -- has said that animal testing is necessary to save human lives.

Man Arrested After Leaving Fake Bomb At Massachusetts Highway Department  (Georgetown Record, 11/22/2010)

Boxford, MA —A Saugus man was arrested on Friday morning after allegedly entering the Georgetown Highway Department on East Main Street with what he claimed was a bomb, making threatening statements and then fleeing the scene, leaving behind a suspicious device.

According to Georgetown Police Lt. Donald Cudmore, a 911 call came in from Highway Supervisor Peter Durkee reporting the incident.

“We evacuated the building because of the suspicious nature of the package,” said Cudmore, explaining there were some wires sticking out of it. The Highway Department office and garage and the adjacent G. Mello Transfer Station were all evacuated.

The state police bomb squad was called to the scene, and Cudmore explained that the bomb squad used a robot to inspect and x-ray the suspicious device before determining that it was not a live bomb.

After a be-on-the-lookout notice was sent to surrounding towns, Officer Brian Neeley of the Boxford Police Department stopped the vehicle involved on Route 95 southbound.

After a brief investigation the operator of the vehicle, Zachariah A. Alkhatatbih, 23, of Saugus, was identified as the suspect involved and was arrested at the scene by Georgetown Police Officer Keith Deguio and Detective James Rodden and charged with possession of a hoax device as well as disturbing the peace.

A civil violation was also issued for possession of marijuana.

“We could not determine why he chose Georgetown,” Cudmore said. “He was clearly not acting rationally.” For example, Cudmore said that while at the Georgetown Police Department, Alkhatabih also claimed to have planted a bomb in that building.

According to Cudmore, Alkhatatbih’s vehicle was also impounded and searched, but no other devices were found.

Alkhatatbih was transferred to Haverhill District Court at roughly 1:45 p.m. He was arraigned and is being held without bail. Cudmore said that Alkhatabih would most likely be psychologically evaluated as well.

The Highway Department and the transfer station were determined to be safe at about 1:30 p.m., and employees were able to return to work.

Orthodox Israeli Mps Sent Suspect Powder In Hate Mail  (AFP, 11/22/2010)

JERUSALEM — Israeli police are investigating a number of threatening letters containing white powder which were sent to a cabinet minister and four ultra-Orthodox MPs, police and parliamentary officials said on Monday.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said one envelope had been delivered to the office of Interior Minister Eli Yishai, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party.

"A white powder found inside has been sent to the lab and we are awaiting the results of testing," he told AFP.

Following the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, powder-filled envelopes containing the anthrax virus were mailed across the United States, killing five people.

Alerts were then recorded around the world after letters filled with a suspicious white powder were mailed to various recipients. Most turned out to be hoaxes.

Parliamentary spokesman Giora Fordes confirmed that suspect mail had been received by a number of parliamentarians on Sunday and Monday.

"Four MPs from the United Torah Judaism party received threatening letters, two today and two yesterday," he said.

"In one of them was powder -- sugar, salt, something like that," he told AFP, saying the letters addressed the fact that the ultra-Orthodox do not serve in the Israeli army.

One of the letters, quoted by the Jerusalem Post, said: "We, the enlightened residents of the State of Israel, demand that you people of darkness stop living at our expense, learning all day and not working, not serving in the army or reserve duty."

"Stop sucking our blood... Grab your packs and shtreimels, your smelly beards and sideburns, and take off to Brooklyn," it said, referring to the traditional fur hats worn by ultra-Orthodox men.

Ultra-Orthodox men studying religious texts are exempted from serving the customary three years in the military in what is a deeply-contentious issue within Israeli society.

In recent weeks, thousands of university students demonstrated across the country to protest against government plans to pay millions of shekels in stipends to full-time religious students.

The grants are not available to secular students in higher education.

Al-Qaeda Group Calls Failed Plot A 'Bargain'  (Washington Post, 11/22/2010)

Al-Qaeda is threatening to launch a wave of small-scale attacks similar to the recent failed parcel-bomb plot, which the terrorist group describes as a low-budget operation that caused fear and costly countermeasures in the West.

The new threat was published Saturday in the latest issue of the group's English-language magazine, Inspire. The online magazine, published by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, features glossy photographs of United Parcel Service delivery vehicles and asserts that the group spent just $4,200 on a plot aimed at blowing up cargo aircraft headed for the United States.

"We will continue with similar operations and we do not mind at all in this stage if they are intercepted," one article said. "It is such a good bargain for us to spread fear amongst the enemy . . . in exchange for a few months of work and a few thousand bucks."

The publication represents a new propaganda ploy for al-Qaeda, marking the first time that that the terrorist organization has provided such a detailed description of its planning in the aftermath of an attack.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, as the Yemen-based arm is known, has emerged as a top concern of counterterrorism officials over the past two years, in part because of its willingness to experiment with small-scale plots.

The United States has recently begun employing Predator drones in Yemen in an expanding hunt for AQAP leaders, include Anwar al-Aulaqi, a Muslim cleric who was born in the United States.

The package bomb plot was thwarted late last month when authorities in Britain and Dubai - acting on an intelligence tip from Saudi Arabia - intercepted two parcels that had been mailed from Yemen containing ordinary printer cartridges packed with the explosive compound PETN.

Authorities have said the parcels made it past cargo screening systems and contained enough explosives to bring down a plane. The parcels were sent to addresses for Jewish institutions in Chicago but appeared to have been designed to detonate in transit.

Al-Qaeda's core group in Pakistan has traditionally focused on staging elaborate, simultaneous attacks on multiple targets - a preoccupation with the spectacular that made the plots more difficult to execute and easier to detect.

The parcel bomb attempt was aimed at a familiar Al-Qaeda target: aviation. But AQAP has embraced a philosophy of probing for vulnerabilities with plots that are more streamlined and more frequent.

The magazine refers to the parcel-bombr plot as "operation hemorrhage" and asserts that its main objective was to damage the multibillion-dollar air freight industry and trigger a costly security response.

Taking down a plane "would add to the element of fear and shock," according to one article, "but that would have been an additional advantage . . . not a determining factor of its success."

In the same article, AQAP itemizes the plot's ingredients: "Two Nokia mobiles, $150 each, two HP printers, $300 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses."

The cover of the magazine shows the sum $4,200 over the blurred image of a cargo jet. Inside, authors warn that they intend to share details of how to construct their device with followers in countries where mail-screening systems have not caught up.

The magazine offers explanations for some of the decisions involved in the plot. The names in the addresses were drawn from historical figures associated with the Crusades and attacks on Muslims. The packages were sent to synagogues in Chicago, "Obama's city."

The magazine also includes photos of the printers that were shipped, as well as a Charles Dickens novel, "Great Expectations," that was packed in one of the boxes to reflect the group's optimism "about the outcome of this operation."

Al-Qaeda Small-Scale Bomb Threat 'Very Serious': US  (AFP, 11/21/2010)

WASHINGTON — The latest pledge by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to carry out more small-scale bomb attacks is being treated as a "very serious threat," the top US military officer said Sunday.

Responding to the Yemen-based terror group's vow to attack the West with small but frequent strikes such as last month's cargo plane parcel bombs, Admiral Mike Mullen gave credit to people who have so far foiled such plots but expressed concern over AQAP's persistence to break through.

"It's a very serious threat, and I believe what they are saying," the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told ABC News show "This Week."

"They've grown, it's dangerous, and it's a place we need to focus," he added.

AQAP at the weekend unveiled what it described as its "strategy of a thousand cuts" that will "bleed the enemy to death", a monitoring group said.

The group said the packages it put aboard freight planes bound for the US in late October were never intended to cause mass casualties, but were aimed at creating maximum economic damage.

It said the parcels, which were intercepted in Dubai and Britain, were part of "Operation Hemorrhage," a plan that had cost just 4,200 dollars to mount.

When asked if AQAP's strategy worried him, Mullen responded "You bet it worries me."

But he stressed that there was "an awful lot of effort going on to make sure that they don't" succeed.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that Washington wanted to help Yemen battle Al-Qaeda's affiliate in the country, and that providing equipment and training to Yemeni security forces offered the best way to counter the threat.

With more than 100,000 US troops fighting Al-Qaeda's allies in Afghanistan and public skepticism in Yemen over the US military's role there, Gates and other US officials have stressed that Sanaa will lead the fight against Islamist militants.

Arizona Couple Receives Envelope Full Of White Powder  (Arizona Republic, 11/20/2010)

Peoria, AZ--An envelope containing a white powder that a Peoria couple received in the mail Saturday was sent to a state lab for additional tests, authorities said.

A hazardous materials teams from Glendale and Peoria responded Saturday afternoon after a man opened a letter with a white powder inside, said Mike Tellef, a Peoria police spokesman. The couple, who were traveling in a vehicle, pulled over and called 911 near 67th and Olive avenues, Tellef said.

"What they did was perfect," Tellef said. "They let the professionals deal with it."

The hazmat teams field-tested the powder and were unable to determine what it was, Tellef said. Due to protocol, the envelope was sent to a state lab.

Firefighters checked the couple's vital signals and advised them to stay in touch with their family doctor.

"There was no community health hazard. The powder was confined in the envelope the entire time," Tellef said.

Reports of white powder in mail are rare, Tellef said. "We had a spat of reports awhile ago, but this is the first we've had in a long time."

FBI: Threatening Letter, Powder Found At 'Dancing With The Stars' Studio  (MSNBC, 11/20/2010)

LOS ANGELES — A white powder in an envelope with a threatening letter delivered to the "Dancing With the Stars" production office at CBS Studios in Los Angeles was determined to be talcum powder.

ABC spokeswoman Amy Astley released a statement confirming that the envelope was delivered to the show's production office on the CBS Studios lot Friday night.

The statement said ABC was later told by Los Angeles fire officials that the substance was talcum powder.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller says hazardous materials officials with the city of Los Angeles, LAPD and FBI also responded to the scene.

She said an initial screening indicated the substance was not hazardous, but the letter will be transported to a regional lab for further testing, KNBC reported.

She said the FBI and LAPD are investigating.

Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said firefighters also responded to the scene, but no one was treated for injuries.

KCAL-TV reports the powder was found in the mailroom for the ABC show "Dancing With the Stars,'' which is staged on the lot at CBS.

Details of the letter were not revealed.

The FBI would not confirm if any show controversy was behind the unspecified threat, said CBS 2/KCAL 9.

TMZ.com said sources said the powder was in fan mail addressed to teen activist Bristol Palin.

Palin, daughter of former Alaska governor and vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, has won viewer votes keeping her on the show despite getting the lowest performance scores from "Dancing With the Stars'' judges, who have praised her improvement over the season.

Singer-actress Brandy was booted off the show last week while the younger Palin was sent on to the finals, which begin Monday night.

Tools of the Trade: FBI Bomb Technicians  (Dixie Press, 11/19/2010)

Special Agent Bomb Technicians

Another installment in our continuing series about the men and women of the FBI and the equipment they use to get the job done.

They put their lives on the line to deal with suspicious packages and vehicles that might contain bombs or weapons of mass destruction. They are special agent bomb technicians—“bomb techs”—and their prime directive is simple: the preservation of life.

To achieve their mission, bomb techs use a variety of tools—from robots to X-ray machines—to identify, diagnose, and disrupt suspected or real explosive devices. Because a few seconds could mean the difference between success and disaster, every piece of equipment must be in perfect working order and ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.

Facts

    * The special agent bomb technician (SABT) program is part of the FBI’s Hazardous Devices Operations Center in our Critical Incident Response Group.

    * Every field office has at least one SABT. All bomb techs are certified through a rigorous six-week program and recertified every three years.

    * In the field, bomb techs regularly work with the evidence response units and HAZMAT and SWAT teams of our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners.

    * Suspicious packages and suspicious vehicles represent about 90 percent of the calls bomb techs respond to, which could include weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and improvised explosives devices (IEDs).

Truck

Stats:

    * Weight: 32,000 pounds.

    * Load capacity: 3,000 pounds.

    * Length: 32 feet, 10.5 inches.

    * Height: 11 feet, 5.75 inches.

    * Features

    * Computer network allows real-time transfer of vital information to FBI Headquarters or other command posts.

    * Bomb techs can remotely operate robots from two sets of quad monitors inside the truck. Camera tower on roof extends to 25 feet, allowing extended field of view.

    * Self-contained for emergency response, with ample storage inside and out for a variety of equipment.

    * Cell phone and land-line capabilities for communications in all situations.

    * On-board generator allows battery-operated equipment such as the robot to be charged even when the truck’s power is off.

Suit

A bomb tech’s suit weights about 90 pounds and is equipped with a variety of safety and other devices.

    * Pants are constructed of fire-resistant Nomex and Kevlar to provide leg protection.

    * A ceramic “trauma plate” in front provides groin protection.

    * A honeycomb plastic support covers the back and offers maximum absorption to prevent spinal cord injury in the event a blast propels a bomb tech backward.

    * Kevlar jacket includes ceramic trauma plate around chest; also contains quick release toggles so SABTs can spin out of their suits very quickly if necessary.

    * Bomb techs rarely wear gloves, because hand agility and dexterity is critical.

    * Helmet weighs about 15 pounds and is equipped with amplifiers to increase ambient sounds. Also has defogger, lights, and ventilation fan controlled by buttons on sleeve.

    * Power pack on hip powers fan, lights, and defogger.

    * Suit typically contains no communication equipment because such devices are controlled by radio frequency and could trigger an explosive device. But special radios can be mounted on suit if necessary.

Toolkit

Because bombs are often contained within other devices, bomb techs carry a toolkit that includes standard items like screw drivers, drill bits, and flashlights.

Robot

    * Weighs 800 pounds.

    * Runs on two marine batteries, but can be hardwired for continuous power.

    * Can gain access to almost any location on land.

    * Always the first response option, to keep humans from danger.

    * Can be operated remotely or by bomb tech with on-board hand controls.

    * Equipped with three cameras and two-way microphone (used for speaking to people in hostage situations).

    * Custom attachment allows render-safe devices to be deployed directly from the robot.

    * Front “claw” does everything a hand does. Has attachments sensitive enough to open a car door or carry a saw for cutting.

X-Ray

    * Primary diagnostic tool for suspicious packages and devices.

    * Portable device takes standard X-ray images, which are displayed on a laptop computer.

    * Results are enlarged and digitally manipulated for further analysis, then transmitted wirelessly to command posts or other bomb experts.

Pan Disrupter

    * Primary deployment tool for disrupting suspicious packages or real or potential improvised explosive devices.

    * Horizontally angled weapons grade high strength stainless steel canon can fire water or specialized ammunition to disrupt or dismantle an explosive device.

Total Containment Vessel

    * Used to safely transport an explosive device to a remote location for investigation or detonation.

    * Round steel ball is up to 12 inches thick and can hold 10 pounds of explosives. Other models vary in capacity.

    * Newest models are automated, allowing robots to place explosives safely inside the vessel.

Animal Researcher Sent Hazardous Mail By Animal Rights Extremists Posts an Open Letter

Open Letter to the Justice Department

Posted on November 19, 2010 by speakingofresearch

In recent days, the Justice Department (the moniker of an animal rights terrorist group) sent a letter to my home that contained razor blades and graphic threats to “cut my throat”, and they have openly announced that they sent similar letters to at least one of my trainees. The letter that was sent to my home, which amounted to an amateurish attempt at instilling fear, is the latest in a series of psychological attacks by animal rights activists who have focused their attention on UCLA researchers. The threat to send such a letter to my graduate student is pathetic, desperate and horribly misguided.

Putting aside the miserable cruelty required to construct and send these missives, the letters lack the gravitas required to react to them with fear. They make claims that are almost laughable. The letter to me claimed that the writer knew “…where I got my dry cleaning done,” but I haven’t been to a dry cleaner in more than 5 years. It’s hard to take a threat seriously when it is based upon such daft statements. As for the razor blades that have been dipped in “AIDS blood”, it is impossible to react fearfully to any threat that is both factually wrong (it was obvious to me that the razor blades sent to me had no blood on them) and scientifically ridiculous (the HIV virus cannot survive in dried blood on a razor blade sent in the mail, even if the blood was there to begin with).Here is my message to the Justice Department and to any others that think it is acceptable to use intimidation tactics to stop researchers: you will not succeed.

Responsible use of animals in research aimed at improving the health and welfare of the mentally ill is the right thing to do, and we will continue because we have a moral responsibility to society to use our skills for the betterment of the world. Every day that my students and I work in my lab, we are contributing to the progress of humanity. You, on the other hand, take civilized society backwards with your zealous determination to punish any and all that do not share your philosophy on human-animal relationships.

Even if you choose to continue acting like childish bullies (toothless though you often are), I will not give up my hard work in the laboratory on behalf of those who need my help. I will not feel fear in response to your increasingly desperate and puerile attempts to frighten. In the end, you will fail.

David Jentsch

White Powder Causes Passport Center Evacuation in New Hampshire  (Portsmouth Herald, 11/17/2010)

PORTSMOUTH, NH — A “suspicious white powder” found on a package in the mail room at the National Passport/Visa Center at Pease prompted an evacuation Tuesday night.

According to Assistant Fire Chief Steve Achilles, firefighters and members of the hazardous materials team were called to the 31 Rochester Ave. facility around 8:30 p.m. after an employee in the mail room reported finding the substance.

Achilles said first responders were quickly able to determine the powder was not a threat after testing the substance.

The evacuation was routine and part of procedure whenever anything suspicious in nature is found at a government facility, said Achilles.

“Everyone followed procedure and worked very well together,” he said.

Contract Postal Driver in Alabama Accused Of Stealing Prescription Drugs Mailed To Veterans  (Press-Register, 11/18/2010)

MOBILE, Ala. -- An Evergreen man who worked as a contract truck driver for the U.S. Postal Service pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges that he stole prescription drugs shipped by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Derek Wayne Reed faces a single count of theft of mail matter by an officer or employee. He faces a maximum of five years in prison if convicted, although defendants with no criminal record typically receive probation sentences for mail theft.

Reed worked as contract route carrier in the Evergreen area for about five years, according to the U.S. Postal Service. The federal indictment, the latest in a string of criminal charges against postal workers and contractors in southwest Alabama, accuses him of opening packages intended for veterans and stealing prescription medications in March.

His court-appointed attorney, Bill Scully, said following Wednesday’s brief hearing that he had just gotten a compact disc containing the prosecution’s evidence but had not had a chance to review it.

“I literally just got the case,” Scully said. “I don’t know what any of the evidence is. I don’t know what gave rise to the allegations.”

Scully said his client lost his job as a result of the investigation by the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, and Reed told U.S. Magistrate Judge Sonja Bivins that he has not worked since and has been living off of unemployment checks.

Bivins ordered Reed to take a drug test and said he could stay out of jail without restrictions while the case is pending if he passes. She set the case for trial in January.

Joe Birindelli, a Vietnam War veteran from Fairhope who has been active in a number of veterans’ causes, said he gets prescription drugs from the VA. He added that the packaging makes it instantly recognizable.

“It angers me,” he said. “I think it’s something really slimy. Not only does it show a lack of respect, but (it could cause) possible physical harm to a veteran.”

Joseph Breckenridge, a spokesman for the Postal Service, said contract haulers typically move mail from one postal facility to the other, although some have mail delivery duties, as well. He said drivers pick up mail from sorting facilities and take it to local post offices, where carriers then take it to people’s homes and businesses.

Breckenridge said contractors bid on the work, and their compensation varies depending on the nature of the work. He said the trucking company holding the contract may assign the task to different drivers at different times based on the requirements of the operation.

Across the nation, contractors long have provided almost all truck transportation connecting post offices and plants, Breckenridge said.

Hoax Parcel Bomb Found on Plane Bound for Germany May Be Part of Dry Run  (The Sun, 11/18/2010)

SIX Britons were caught up in a terrorist flight drama as it was feared al-Qaeda had targeted air travel again.

A suspect device inside a freight container was removed from an Airbus passenger jet due to leave Nambia in Africa for Germany yesterday.

The Britons were among 306 passengers and crew due to board the plane which was delayed for six hours while further checks were made.

The discovery was a grim reminder of the seizure of two ink cartridge bombs on cargo planes bound for the United States.

The latest device reportedly comprised wires, a battery and a clock - but no explosive.

It was retrieved when the alarm on a baggage scanner was triggered at the airport in the Namibian capital Windhoek.

The container was due to be loaded into the hold of Air Berlin flight 7377 which was scheduled to take-off for Munich.

Last night airline security expert Chris Yates said: "We may be looking here at a continuing threat to the aviation industry.

"What happened might be a dry run of some kind.

"This is not surprising. The threat can now come from anywhere on the planet and the aviation industry is of course global."

A British intelligence source added: "It may just have been an attempt to keep people off balance about flying."

According to reports from South Africa, the batteries were wired up to a detonator and a ticking clock.

A spokeswoman for Air Berlin insisted yesterday that no explosives were found in the device.

Passengers disembarked and baggage that had been loaded on to the flight was removed and re-checked to ensure it was safe.

All the travellers, including the Britons, were asked to identify their luggage.

The flight took off six hours late and touched down in Munich this morning.

Agents from Germany's equivalent of the FBI, the BKA, flew to Namibia from Germany and South Africa to investigate the find.

Al-Qaeda is known to have fanatics in Namibia's neighbour South Africa and the border is regarded as "porous".

Germany's Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said: "There is information from our foreign partners that planned attacks are allegedly to be carried out at the end of November."

He referred to what he described as "a new situation", with regard to the extremist threat.

It has been suggested that Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate as well as the city's main railway station together with the luxury Adlon Hotel were possible targets.

Armed police brandishing Heckler and Koch machine guns were posted at these sites as well as locations in Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart.

Armoured vehicles patrolled the perimeters of the country's major airports.

A number of extremists are thought to have returned to Germany in recent months after visits to terror training camps in Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda is known to want vengeance against Germany for stationing its troops in Afghanistan and for permitting British and US military bases in Afghanistan.

A British security source said: "The discovery in Namibia looks a purely German issue at this stage."

The threat of a terrorist outrage in Britain is currently rated severe meaning an attack is highly likely.

White Powder Scare Clears Fedex Facility in Canada  (Global Television, 11/17/2010)

Burnaby, BC, Canada--Workers at a FedEx sorting facility just north of Highway No. 1 in Burnaby are back on the job after a hazardous materials scare on Monday night.

At about 8 p.m., emergency crews were called to the Dawson Street facility to deal with a package that contained an unknown white powder.

Workers were evacuated from the building while the emergency personnel dealt with the package.

The area was declared safe for workers later Monday evening, but the white powder has been taken for further analysis.

Nobody was hurt in the incident.

Retired Elementary Teacher Charged In 'White Powder Mail Scares' in NYC  (Queens Gazette, 11/17/2010)

Queens, NY-- A troubled former Queens elementary school teacher remains in federal prison this week, charged with setting off a terrorist-related scare by sending nearly two-dozen envelopes containing a white powder to former colleagues, neighbors and acquaintances, authorities said.

Court papers filed last month by the U.S. Attorney’s office explain how good investigative skills by NYPD detectives and a tip from a confidential informant led agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to Anna Catalanotto, 61, as the prime suspect in the mailings.

In a complaint and affidavit requesting a search warrant for Catalanotto’s Glendale residence, prosecutors describe a series of bizarre actions by the retired teacher that made her a suspect. The document also releases some of the information provided by the anonymous tipster that led Queens detectives and FBI agents to arrest Catalanotto.

The informant clearly identifies Catalanotto as the individual who sent the letters “containing a white powder” through the U.S. Postal Service and offers retaliation as a motive for her actions.

The tipster said Catalanotto retired from her teaching position at P.S. 91 in Glendale several years ago “with a poor rating”. Catalanotto apparently blamed the school principal and several teaching colleagues “who picked on her” for the rating, the informant said.

Armed with the anonymous tip and surveillance evidence showing “a woman matching the description of Catalanotto” mailing suspect letters, FBI agents were able to secure a search warrant that was executed following Catalanotto’s arrest on October 28, authorities said.

FBI agents recovered 13 letters mailed by the woman on October 23, each of which “exhibited detectable signs that they contained powder”, court documents state. One of the retrieved letters was mailed to an individual at P.S. 91.

Police and firefighters at the FDNY HAZMAT Unit last month responded to more than five incidents reported by recipients of the powder-filled letters.

In filing the complaint, FBI officials said that while the powder contained in the letters was not hazardous, the intent was clear to create fear in the recipient that he or she has been exposed to a hazardous or deadly substance.

Federal prosecutors said Catalanotto would remain behind bars at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Manhattan pending disposition of the charges.

Third Mail Collection Box Stolen in Phoenix  (KPHO, 11/16/2010)

PHOENIX, AZ -- The U.S. Postal Inspection Service has said they are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the persons responsible for the theft of a blue collection box stolen from 18th Avenue and West Maryland Avenue.

It was reported missing on Tuesday morning.

The last collection from the box was 1:41 p.m. Monday. Customers who deposited mail in the box after that should call the Postal Inspection Service at (877) 876-2455 and select option 3 and file a mail theft complaint.

There is reason to believe the box was stolen and loaded into a late-model, white Nissan Sentra sometime between 12:30 and 1 a.m. Tuesday.

A replacement box is being installed.

This is the third collection box stolen this month. The first was stolen sometime November 4 or 5. The second was stolen sometime over the weekend of November 5.

Mail carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison.

Sticky Mail Boxes Raise Theft Concern  (WSBTV News, 11/16/2010)

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. -- April Thomas knew something was wrong the moment she tried to mail a bundle of letters at one of the big, blue mailboxes outside the Embry Hills post office three months ago.

“We noticed it wouldn’t go down into the box,” she told Channel 2 Action News reporter Richard Elliot. “So I reached in there, and I felt that there was glue along the lining of the box.”

And when Thomas looked inside, she said she saw letters stuck there in the chute, within easy reach of anyone who wanted to take them. She’s convinced someone has spread a sticky substance inside the mailboxes in an effort to steal mail. Thomas said she alerted post office officials, and from time to time, she said the sticky substance has been wiped clean, only to be replaced a few days later.

“My fear, especially with the holidays coming up, is that people are going to have mail stolen and money and gifts and anything else that can stick there,” she said outside the post office on Chamblee-Tucker Road.

Right now, there’s no indication any mail was, in fact, stolen out of these mailboxes, and main post office officials told Elliot that they were not aware of the situation. Stealing mail is a federal offense, and postal inspectors take any infractions very seriously.

Thomas warned customers to make sure their letters make it all the way down the chute into the box before driving away.

“I would say check it. Double and triple check it when you put your mail in there,” she told Elliot. “Make sure it’s going all the way down or don’t mail it that way.”

After officials at the main post office first told Elliot that they were not aware of the situation, they later called to say the problem is actually widespread.

Postal Service spokesman Michael Miles said someone has been putting a glue-like substance inside the mailboxes for a couple of months in the Tucker, Chamblee and Doraville areas. He said right now, there's no indication any mail was stolen, but he stressed that any mail theft and tampering with mailboxes is a federal crime.

‘Unconscionable’ Practices: Professor Uses Strong Words To Criticize Response To Suspicious Mail at Northern Kentucky University  (The Northener, 11/17/2010)

Highland Heights, KY--U.S. Postal Inspectors say they are not actively investigating the recent suspicious packages, one bearing the words “small pox,” sent to Northern Kentucky University’s anthropology department all while one professor has called the decisions not to notify campus or interview the people in the anthropology department to which they were addressed “unconscionable.”

Sharlotte Neely, professor and coordinator of anthropology, sent an e-mail to her supervisors, division chair Terry Pence and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Samuel Zachary, calling on them to question the NKU administration and Department of Public Safety (DPS) for failing to notify anyone in the anthropology department about the packages.

“This is unconscionable on two levels. First, if there is any danger, we should have been given a heads up. Second, someone from DPS and the U.S. Postal Inspectors should have contacted and interviewed those in our department for any ideas of who could be behind this,” Neely wrote. “This disregard for our safety cannot continue.”

The new NKU police chief, who had not yet started his job until after both packages were received, said he is looking into the way these cases were handled in light of Neely’s concerns.

“I’m looking into it and I am currently working with those involved to figure out how we can improve on our communications,” said Chief Jason Willis.

The Postal Inspectors said they followed protocol for packages of this type. After a package has been deemed safe and the package lacks an explicit threat, the Postal Inspectors say there is little they can do because of the amount of resources they have.

“It being nonthreatening, there’s nothing really else we can do about it now. We won’t be actively investigating it up until the point there is a threat,” Lisa Fitzpatrick, public information officer for the Postal Inspectors, said.

The perpetrator wrote “small pox” on the September envelope, which included several other written statements that investigators indicated do not seem to make sense. However, the envelope did not threaten the use of small pox nor specifically say that it contained small pox. The October envelope had similar characteristics to the one sent in September, but did not contain any threats.

“We don’t want to make it seem like we don’t care about people’s safety. We truly believe there is no threat with these letters,” Fitzpatrick explained. “We’re still going to have an open file on it in case it does escalate, but as of right now, we don’t have a lot to go on.”

That can change if tips and information come in. Anyone with information on who is sending the letters should contact the U.S. Postal Inspectors at 1-877-876-2455.

NKU Police is not planning to investigate further unless they are given reason to do so, even though the Postal Inspectors said they would welcome the help.

“We turned the investigation over to the postal inspector, however we welcome anyone with information regarding these packages or any other suspicious activity to contact us,” Willis said.

Fitzpatrick also said the Postal Inspectors would be willing to train the university on how to deal with these packages, including the anthropology department. She also said they would gladly take any information that Neely or anyone at the university has about the threat.

Seattle Attorney Who Sent Suspicious Letter To GOP Senator Sentenced  (Post Intelligencer, 11/16/2010)

Seattle, WA--A retired Seattle attorney who mailed a baking soda-filled envelope to a U.S. senator has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

On May 8, a mail handler examining a letter sent to Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., was hit in the face by a blast of white powder emanating from the envelope. Concerned that the powder could be anthrax -- the biological agent that killed five in a string of attacks beginning in 2001 -- the mail handler was decontaminated and the substance analyzed.

The letter carried a handwritten message -- "I hope you choke on your own excrement such as this" -- and the name of Blake Howe, a 77-year-old Seattle man who pleaded guilty to related charges in July.

Confronted at his Westlake neighborhood home, Howe admitted to sending the letter after receiving an anti-union mailer from DeMint's office. Howe said he intended only to "gum up the works" of DeMint's mail-processing equipment and claimed to be unaware of the deadly anthrax attacks.

"Howe admitted he mailed (the letter) and said he should have taken his name off the letter," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Miyake said in a sentencing memo. "He asked how he should package powder next time so that the mailing doesn't leak."

Writing the court, Howe, a bicycle activist and Navy veteran with no criminal history, admitted to the misconduct and apologized for his actions.

"It was a foolish thing to do," Howe said in a statement submitted to the court by his attorney. "He sent me a letter that I found insulting, and I wanted him to take notice and give my letter special attention.

"My actions were quick and impulsive. I've made efforts to better deal with being provoked and appropriately handling myself."

The sentence came a month after a Selah man who'd admitted to threatening to kill Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was sentenced to one year in prison. That man, 64-year-old Charles Alan Wilson, pleaded guilty to a more serious crime, threatening a federal official.

Howe pleaded guilty to a single count of attempted destruction of government property following an agreement with prosecutors that saw them agree to a sentence of probation.

On Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Tsuchida imposed that sentence. Howe had not been jailed.

White Powder Found At Federal Building in Minnesota Was Talc  (AP, 11/16/2010)

ST. PAUL, MN — A mysterious white powder that prompted part of a federal office building in St. Paul to be evacuated appears to be harmless.

    An employee discovered a suspicious package containing the powder Monday at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. The employee had to be decontaminated after opening the package and getting a small amount of the powder on his hands.

    KARE-TV reports employees working in that section were evacuated while a hazmat team removed the package.

    A spokesman for the U.S. General Services Administration, David Wilkinson, tells The Associated Press initial tests show the white powder is harmless talc.

    The building houses six federal agencies and about 1,900 employees.

US Warns Of Bioterrorism Threat In East Africa  (Christian Science Monitor, 11/16/2010)

On one side of the seven-foot brick wall, topped with rusting barbed wire and a four-strand electric fence, lies Africa’s largest slum – a barely policed square mile of tin-roofed shacks that is home to 700,000 people.

On the other is Kenya’s premier medical research laboratory, where samples of diseases considered among the biggest threats to humanity – including plague, anthrax, and Ebola – are studied and stored.

But not stored safely enough, according to a team of senior Pentagon and congressional officials who visited the facility earlier this month during an East Africa tour focused on the increasing threat of bioterrorism.

Defense analysts are concerned that security in the region’s laboratories is too weak to withstand the threat from regional terror groups, including Al Qaeda, which are hunting for ingredients for biological weapons.

Risky germs

It’s a “potentially disastrous predicament,” said Republican senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the ranking minority leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who led the delegation.

He should know. Senator Lugar, along with former senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, spearheaded US-funded efforts to find and destroy or decommission nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in the former Soviet Union after its collapse in 1991.

“We saw the production of biological weapons, we saw how pathogens were developed into ways that could kill tens of millions of people,” he said.

East Africa was high on the list for the post-Soviet focus of the Nunn-Lugar Programme, “(This was) because of the nexus between active terrorist groups, ungoverned spaces, and human and animal health laboratories working on endemic diseases, some of which are rare and exotic,” said Andy Weber, assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, who was part of the US delegation that visited Uganda and Burundi en route to Kenya.

“We want to make sure that the pathogens that could be used by terrorists are better secured and that there’s an enhanced capability to monitor infectious disease outbreaks,” added Mr Weber.

But scientists caution that medical laboratories aren’t the only sources of raw material for potential bioterrorists. These diseases are already prevalent in the region – that’s why they are being studied, points out Gigi Kwik Gronvall, senior associate at the UPMC Centre for Biosecurity in Pittsburgh.

“You shouldn’t make it easy to find this stuff, but if you really want it, there are plenty of places to get it,” she says.

In East Africa, where al Qaeda is gaining an increasingly secure toehold, Lugar says, “It’s less bioweapons – they are too expensive and sophisticated – than, unhappily, simply the malicious spread of viruses and diseases that would be injurious to whichever population terrorists would want to afflict.”

Stolen pathogens, he suggested, could be used by attackers who would circulate in populated areas and try to spread the disease.

He said that during his tour Friday of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) in Nairobi, there were “a couple of frightening moments, if you use your imagination.”

Waste from experiments was poorly stored before being incinerated, cooler boxes of disease samples (although not the most deadly) were stockpiled in corridors, and then there was the cheek-by-jowl proximity of homes just beyond Kemri’s basic perimeter.

“People are literally living up against the wall,” said Lugar, adding that such sensitive facilities are usually far from towns and cities.

“I won’t try to describe all the scenarios which could follow if a malicious human being seized a container of whatever is stored here, but it would not take enormous imagination,” he said. “Al Shabab, or al Qaeda, clearly has a few persons who are specialized in this malice but still lack the raw material to carry out this mission.”

Solomon Mpoke, Kemri’s director, conceded that security at his laboratories was “average” and that at times incineration and storage facilities are “overwhelmed.”

“We’ve not had any threat,” he said. “But who knows, the next thing could be a biological threat.”

There have been a series of recent warnings that Islamic terrorists with Western targets in their sights are increasing their influence – and recruiting – in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, and Yemen.

Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Islamist insurgent group, Al Shabab, this year launched its first deadly attack in another country with twin suicide bombings that killed almost 80 people in Kampala, Uganda. Nairobi could also be a target, for its support of Somalia’s government.

Letter Carriers Add Bioterror Response to the Postal Service  (GovTech, 11/16/2010)

An attack on the United States using weaponized anthrax — although considered a low-probability event — would have a high impact on the affected communities. If left untreated, the death rate for those who inhale anthrax is more than 99 percent, according to the Military Vaccine Agency.

Anthrax, an acute infectious disease caused by spore-forming bacteria, can be used for biological warfare because the spores can be spread using missiles, artillery, aerial bombs and other methods, making it easily airborne. The good news is that oral medications can be used to treat people who have been exposed; however, the medication must be administered within 48 hours of infection. A bioterrorist attack would likely take place in a large, metropolitan area, and depending on wind speed and direction, the spores could travel hundreds of miles.

In response, state and local health departments are prepared to set up mass dispensing sites to distribute medication from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Strategic National Stockpile to people who may have been infected. But the federal government sought additional methods to dispense the medical countermeasures, and in its planning found a partner in a program that visits nearly all U.S. residences Monday through Saturday — the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The plan was put on the federal front burner in December 2009 when President Barack Obama signed an executive order stating: “The U.S. Postal Service has the capacity for rapid residential delivery of medical countermeasures for self-administration across all communities in the United States.” The order gave the USPS and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 180 days to create a national dispensing model for U.S. cities to respond to a large-scale anthrax attack.

The result was a program — the postal plan — that uses the nation’s letter carriers to deliver medical countermeasures. “The postal plan puts letter carriers on the street to deliver medications in the event of such an attack,” said Peter Nowacki, a USPS spokesman in Minneapolis. “Mail delivery would be curtailed, and they would just be going house to house delivering the medication along with information sheets telling people how to take the medication or whether they could take the medication.”

The postal plan was identified as a viable delivery method following an anthrax attack, because postal workers would be doing their everyday job, but with a different material.

“It’s something that enhances the existing capabilities to do the distribution and goes further to helping protect our American people in the event of this kind of crisis,” said John Koerner, chief of the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Branch within the HHS’ Division of Preparedness Planning.

The “postal plan,” as people working on the initiative call it, is being tested in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area for locations within the ZIP codes beginning with 551 and 554. The plan is part of the CDC’s Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI), which enhances preparedness in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas and has developed a set of strategies for the rapid delivery of preventive medication to people living in major metropolitan areas following a biological attack. Although the executive order was issued in late 2009, the CRI began in 2004. Cities are selected based on criteria, including population and potential vulnerability to a bioterrorism threat.

Preparing the Nation

The question that comes to many minds is why focus on anthrax when there’s a broad spectrum of potential biological weapons. “The CDC has identified a criteria list of certain agents that we could anticipate being used for such purposes,” Koerner said, “and some of the intelligence and other information we have suggest that if one is going to be used, anthrax is, for a number of reasons, probably the likeliest agent.”

Before the president called for the creation of a national dispensing model in 2009, proof-of-concept exercises had been conducted in Boston, Philadelphia and Seattle. During the exercises, letter carriers delivered mock antimicrobial agents to 20,000, 40,000 and 50,000 separate housing units in each jurisdiction, Koerner said.

“The process went well, and it took only about six to nine hours for them to cover their route and make sure all those folks — the 20, 40 and 50 thousand — received their mock antibiotics in a timely fashion,” he said. “The proof of concept showed that it can work.”

The planning regiment that was used in the drills was applied to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area’s postal plan. USPS representatives visited some post offices within the 551 and 554 ZIP codes and spoke with managers, letter carriers and delegates from the letter carriers’ union to outline the program and its expectations, as well as enlist volunteers to participate in the pilot, Nowacki said.

Before the volunteer postal workers began training, they completed a medical screening to ensure that they could ingest the antibiotics and were fitted for safety equipment. Volunteers were trained on what types of safety equipment to wear; where they’d report if called upon to distribute the medication; what their specific assignments would be; and the procedures for obtaining the medication, loading it into their vehicles and how to deliver it.

About 400 people — including letter carriers, USPS supervisors and public health representatives — in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area are participating in the pilot program, Nowacki said.

Collaboration Is Key

Jude Plessas, executive manager of counter- measures delivery and distribution at USPS Headquarters, stressed that this project requires collaboration and participation from all the parties involved. “If one party decides that they’re not interested in pursuing this, we basically have to pick up our tents and go home,” he said. “But what we saw in Minneapolis/St. Paul was really an extraordinary collaboration between the Postal Service, Health and Human Services, the public health departments — principally the Minnesota Department of Health, which is the regional planning lead — and also law enforcement agencies, because we require security for our volunteer carriers as they’re performing this mission.”

The cities approached the USPS about participating in the postal plan when the concept was floating around, Plessas said, adding that the Minnesota Department of Health looked at its dispensing network and determined it needed methods to supplement its primary distribution model: mass dispensing sites.

In an anthrax attack in the area, most residents would receive antibiotics by visiting a mass dispensing site, which will be located throughout the metropolitan area, according to Buddy Ferguson, a risk communication specialist with the Minnesota Department of Health. “However, initially we also may activate the postal plan and have postal personnel deliver antibiotics to addresses in selected high-density, highly populated ZIP codes,” he said, “basically so we can take some of the pressure off the mass dispensing sites.”

Although some people will receive the pills through the mail service, affected individuals will need to visit a dispensing site at some point. Each household will initially receive 20 pills, Ferguson said, but individuals exposed to anthrax must take the medication for 60 days. Also, people who cannot take doxycycline — “the first-choice antibiotic” according to Ferguson — will have to visit a mass dispensing site to obtain alternative medication.

“If we can get everyone started within 48 hours, that’s the goal,” he said. “That’s what we would need to do to prevent the very serious outcome that we would see if there were a mass attack using airborne anthrax.”

As of press time, the Minneapolis/St. Paul area had yet to complete an on-the-ground test of putting letter carriers on the street delivering mock antibiotics, but the plan is in place and ready for execution. “Right now in Minneapolis/St. Paul, the plan — at least for the first sector in 20 ZIP codes — is operational,” Plessas said. “If we received the call from the Minnesota Department of Health and the governor made the request, we would follow through on bringing carriers in and we would perform the mission.”

A Bridge to the Future

Before the postal program is expanded to other cities, another pilot will take place in Louisville, Ky. Plessas said the city, like the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, completed a strategic security plan, and the USPS is working with Louisville officials on the initiative.

“We would like to take some lessons learned from what we went through in Minneapolis/St. Paul and tweak a few things when it comes to the solicitation process, screening process and overall planning process,” he said. “So Louisville will probably be our bridge between the pilot and full program implementation.”

However, as with all initiatives during this economic climate, the program’s future depends on funding. There’s very little funding available for the postal program, Plessas said, and it costs money to screen and train volunteers, equip delivery units with supplies, and exercise the plan. It should also be noted that none of the funding for this initiative comes from stamp sales — it’s funded through HHS appropriations in the annual budget. “If they continue to show up and we can continue to put together that selection process,” Plessas said, “we should be able to expand it to other cities.”

Many major municipalities already have contacted the HHS about the postal program, Koerner said, and he urged interested localities that want to participate to do the same.  “The idea is that over the next couple of years we’ll expand this particular program to help supplement, augment and enhance whatever is existing in a locality,” Koerner said.

Modeling Preparedness

Jurisdictions that aren’t included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Cities Readiness Initiative, which develops preparedness programs in large cities and metropolitan areas, can still actively equip their agencies for a bioterrorist event like an anthrax attack. John Koerner, chief of the U.S. Health and Human Service’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Branch, said the first piece in preparing for such an emergency is to ensure that jurisdictions’ planning is evidence-based by using existing experience and expertise to inform plans and processes.

He recommends the department’s Public Health Emergency website, www.phe.gov, as a reference for planning and preparedness. An anthrax playbook on the website offers a high-level description of what the federal response to an anthrax attack looks like and planning factors that must be identified.

St. Louis Postal Worker Stole $2,500 In Birthday Money From Students  (Riverfront Times, 11/16/2010)

St. Louis, MO--Is nothing sacred?

​

Thomas Riner, who sorted mail at the U.S. Postal Service processing center downtown, was convicted in a federal court last Wednesday, November 10, of nine counts of mail tampering and one count of mail theft. All ten cases involved taking money and gift cards from brightly-colored envelopes addressed to students at Washington and Fontbonne Universities.

That's right: Riner was stealing those poor kids' birthday money. Between October and December, 2009, he pocketed $2,500.

The post office began an investigation late last year after workers at several local post offices reported finding already-open envelopes. (Well, hey, at least Riner wanted to make sure everybody was still receiving their birthday greetings.) Surveillance cameras were installed in the main processing center downtown. In mid-December, Riner was caught on-camera ripping open an envelope and nabbing a $20 bill.

Riner, who is 48 and lives in Caseyville, was relieved of his position last December 17.

"[Tampering] ceased soon after," Peggy Smith, the manager of Wash. U.'s mail services told the student paper, Student Life. "We get an occasional open envelope from equipment or otherwise. This was a targeted situation. It was not a common occurrence, but we were very mindful of things coming in that are opened or damaged."

Riner will be sentenced in February. He could be fined as much as $250,000 and spend as long as five years in jail. And he might have to pay back the stolen money.

Police in North Carolina Investigating Threatening Letter Sent To School Board Member  (WSOC TV News, 11/15/2010)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg NAACP is firing back against accusations that his organization is advocating violence against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education members.

On Friday, CMS board member Kaye McGarry received a threatening letter in the mail at her home. A detective said the contents of the note would cause concern for a person’s physical well-being.

Police are investigating to find the source of the letter.

On Monday, former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory said he believes the use of the chant, “No justice, no peace,” is just as much of a threat to CMS board members as the letter McGarry received.

“The comment, ‘No justice, no peace,’ means no justice, violence,” McCrory said. “The opposite of peace is violence.”

The chant was used by local NAACP president Kojo Nantambu at a CMS board meeting.

Eyewitness News took McCrory’s strong accusations to Nantambu.

“It goes to show you how stupid he is, because in the Bible, Christ says, ‘I come not bring peace but to bring a sword,’” he said. “That didn’t mean he came to bring violence. When you say, ‘No justice, no peace,’ it doesn’t mean you’re going to bring violence, it means you’re not going to let things remain just as they are.”

McCrory is encouraging other political and business leaders to speak out against any type of threats against the board’s decision to close 10 schools and make changes at dozens of others.

“You can agree to disagree, but you shouldn’t say, ‘No peace,’” he said.

In response to the threatening letter sent to McGarry, Nantambu said, “I do sympathize with her and I understand because that’s not good and that’s not right but that doesn’t have anything to do with the (NAACP).”

McCrory said, “I know of no direct role, but saying, ‘No justice, no peace,’ is a threat to our community. The letter is a threat to an elected official, which should also not be tolerated,” he said.

Nantambu said his game plan has not changed.

“We’re going to keep saying, ‘No justice, no peace,’ because what the school board has done should not be tolerated,” he said.

Eyewitness News reached out to the group Save our Schools, who are also opponents of the board’s vote to close schools. The group sent an e-mail to Kaye McGarry on Sunday, condemning the threatening letter and calling it repugnant and cowardly. The group also said regardless of their vote, CMS board members should not be intimidated, harassed or mistreated as human beings.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police are interviewing adults and CMS students about the threatening letter. Police said charges will depend on the suspect and his or her intent. The suspect could also face federal charges for sending the letter through the United States Postal Service.

“Book Bomb” Attempt Foiled At Pakistan Government Office  (Express Tribune, 11/16/2010)

ISLAMABAD: Police on Monday foiled an attempt to target the office of Criminal Investigations Agency (CIA) with a parcel bomb and arrested an alleged terrorist. Police personnel recovered a parcel containing two books which were connected to each other by cable and fitted with a detonator.

Over four kilogrammes of explosives were concealed in the books, the Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) officials said. “It had to go off on opening any of the books and could easily destroy a room or even beyond,” said a BDS expert.

Police said a suspected terrorist, Muhammad Rafeeq, came to the office of the CIA with a parcel containing two books and requested a meeting with the Deputy Superintendant of Police (DSP) CIA Abdur Razzaq.

He told the security guards deputed at the entrance that the DSP had asked for the books that he had come to deliver. He was told that the officer was not in, upon which he asked the guards to deliver the parcel to him. However, the security guards refused to keep the parcel without the permission of the DSP and asked the suspect to wait until they checked with their officer. Upon hearing the reply from the security guards, the suspect tried to escape, leaving the parcel at the gate of the CIA office, but was arrested by the police guards.

During investigations, the 44-year-old suspect Rafeeq revealed that he was involved in suicide attacks on the office of the World Food Programme (WFP) in October last year. He told investigators that the suicide bomber who had targeted the Naval Complex Gate in Islamabad last year was his son, Muhammad Hanif.

Rafeeq was a resident of Orakzai Agency and was an active member of a local chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He had a Bachelor’s degree and had also served as reader in the courts of many Taliban commanders.

He had been involved in more than seven high-profile kidnappings for ransom and was also responsible for recruiting young boys for suicide bombings which he had started with his own son. He revealed to the investigators that his son had to target a car coming out of Zardari House and went into Naval Headquarters mistakenly.

Official: White Powder Mailed To Federal Building in Minnesota Triggers Incident and Investigation  (Pioneer Press, 11/15/2010)

St. Paul, MN--The FBI was called to a federal building at Fort Snelling this morning on report of white powder found, but did not find any suspicious white powder or threatening communication, said Special Agent Steve Warfield.

A spokesman for the U.S. General Services Administration, David Wilkinson, said initial tests show the white powder is harmless talc, the Associated Press reported.

Firefighters were called to 1 Federal Drive after 9 a.m., when an employee at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building opened an envelope and got white powder on his hands, said St. Paul Deputy Fire Chief Dennis Appleton. St. Paul has a contract to provide fire and hazardous materials service there.

The worker washed his hands after opening the envelope, Appleton said. Firefighters decontaminated the worker, who did not have symptoms, he said.

The substance found was sent to the Minnesota Health Department for testing, Appleton said.

The federal agency that received the envelope is a tenant in the building, but Peter Panos, public affairs officer for the Veterans Benefit Administration, St. Paul regional office, wouldn't say what agency it is. More than 20 agencies are in the building, he said.

The building houses about 1,900 employees, the AP reported.

About half the floor where the envelope was found was evacuated, Appleton said.

Individual agencies decided whether to send employees home for the day or have them continue working, Panos said.

Bomb Scare At Defense Force Building in New Zealand  (ONE News, 11/16/2010)

Wellington, NZ--Police have cleared the scene of a bomb scare in central Wellington.

The bomb disposal squad was called to the Defense Force headquarters in Thorndon just before 8am morning, after the discovery of a suspicious package.

Police spokesman Ken Climo said the Army received the package in the mail and simply didn't like the look of it.

He told ONE News that part of the Defence Force building had been evacuated but that nothing suspicious had been found.

He said the area was evacuated and cordoned off but has now been given the all clear.

New Jersey Inmate Incorrectly Addresses Envelope of Powder and Triggers Hazmat Scare at Correctional Facility  (Times of Trenton, 11/16/2010)

HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP, NJ -- An inmate at the Mercer County Correction Center who hoped to get someone to take his case instead sparked a hazmat scare with an envelope full of white powder yesterday afternoon, police said.

The envelope full of paint shavings, denture cream and grass spores harmed no one and apparently wasn't intended to terrorize, said Hopewell Lt. Tom Puskas.

"It was addressed to a law office in Philadelphia, and the inmate was attempting to draw attention to some conditions at the correction center," Puskas said.

But the inmate made a mistake while writing the law firm's address, leading the letter to be returned to the correctional facility. Two corrections officers opening mail in a secure room found the envelope and immediately initiated hazardous condition procedures.

They secured the envelope, shut off the ventilation in the area, notified master control, and went outside, Puskas said.

"It had little effect on the corrections center daily operations because it was in a remote area," he said.

The Union Fire Co. was dispatched to the scene, and the Hazmat Task Force from the Trenton Fire Department headed for the jail at 1:30 p.m.

The officers did not report any symptoms, and Trenton firefighters entered the mail room without protective gear and used portable equipment to determine what the materials were, officials said. They cleared the scene by 2:30 p.m.

Township police interviewed the inmate, who admitted sending the letter.

Police believe he may have obtained the items he enclosed from the shower or dormitory area, and was trying to make a point about sanitary concerns in the facility.

Strange White Powder Sent to Minnesota Health Dept. Triggers Evacuation of Federal Building in St. Paul  (Star-Tribune, 11/15/2010)

St. Paul, MN--Hazmat and the St. Paul Fire Department are investigating a white powder found at the Henry Whipple Federal Building on Monday morning, but Deputy Fire Chief Dennis Appleton said it does not appear to be a risk.

"We're pretty convinced there was no problem," he said.

Authorities were called to the building at 1 Federal Drive about 9 a.m. when a man working on the fourth floor opened an envelope and got white powder on his hands. He washed off the powder and was decontaminated and evaluated by authorities, Appleton said.

Half of the fourth floor was evacuated.

The powder was sent to the Minnesota Department of Health, Appleton said.

University of British Columbia Researchers Concerned Over Animal Activists  (The Phoenix News, 11/15/2010)

VANCOUVER, BC, Canada — A university-wide email and the removal of rocks around a research building are both part of the University of British Columbia’s response to the surge of interest around their animal research program.

On Oct. 25, John Hepburn, UBC’s vice-president of research, sent out a broadcast email to all UBC students, faculty and staff defending the university against “misleading information” that they believe is being spread by STOP UBC Animal Research.

“A group of activists is campaigning to end animal research at UBC by distributing misleading information in an attempt to recruit people to their cause,” the email said. “They have succeeded in gaining some media attention and we expect to see more.

“Animal activists use shock tactics in an effort to gain public sympathy via news media. In other parts of the world, such sensationalist tactics have escalated to violence against researchers, and in North Vancouver earlier this month a group called the Animal Liberation Front resorted to acts of vandalism against an individual in the fur trade.”

Hepburn was referring to Eugene Klein, the operator of Capilano Furs, whose home was vandalized on Thanksgiving Sunday. His house was tarred and his son’s girlfriend’s tires were slashed. The ALF, a self-described animal liberation group that uses illegal tactics that include vandalism and arson, took credit for the attack on their website.

Brian Vincent, the spokesperson for STOP, said that it was unfair for the university to associate his group with the ALF.

“Why throw that out there? Clearly it’s to whip up hysteria. He paints a broad brush that all animal advocates are this way,” Vincent said. “And for him to imply that we are associated with those kinds of activities is flat wrong.

“However, I think [the email] shows the effectiveness of our campaign. If UBC didn’t take us seriously and didn’t think we were tarnishing the university’s reputation, they wouldn’t be sending out an email.”

Hepburn said the email was sent out in response to “researchers [who] were getting concerned that UBC wasn’t defending them.”

In addition, Hepburn said that he knows of at least one UBC neuroscientist who has been threatened, although he only found out about the incident after the broadcast email had been sent out.

“The context of the call is important: This particular incident was a late-night ‘we know where you live’ call from an unidentifiable harasser, not a professional inquiry during office hours,” said Hepburn.

He went on to say that it “occurred after the STOP campaign was publicly underway,” and that “a concern is that STOP’s activities, while legitimate to date, will incite people capable of illegal activities.”

Vincent, however, did not entirely trust Hepburn’s claim that a professor was threatened. “I don’t know if that’s true,” he said. “This is a very common tactic that universities use to deflect attention away from the real issue. And the real issue is that UBC is using taxpayer dollars to conduct experiments on animals behind closed doors with little public scrutiny. “[However] if someone did make such a call, I certainly would condemn that.” Hepburn’s broadcast email appears to reflect a new-found fear throughout parts of the research community at UBC.

In an internal departmental email obtained by The Ubyssey, Gary MacIsaac, the director of IT services for the psychology department, told faculty and students to keep objects away from the psychology building for fear they could be used to vandalize it.

“A large rock has been sitting by the NE rear door of the building. With some of the issues around campus it’s been suggested we not leave rocks around where they can be pitched through windows or jam doors open after hours. So this rock will disappear … preferably not to be replaced by another.“

N.J. Corrections Officers Carefully Sift Through Prisoners' Mail Looking For Contraband  (Star-Ledger, 11/15/2010)

NEWARK, NJ — Corrections officer Deborah Roberts sits at a metal desk facing a cinder block wall. Her job this morning is to help open every piece of mail entering Northern State Prison in Newark, one of New Jersey’s most secure facilities.

Inside one envelope is a colorful Halloween card with pumpkins on the front. When she opens it, a tiny speaker embedded in the card plays a muffled song. Roberts takes a letter opener the size of a screwdriver and pries the device from the card. Then the mailroom supervisor disconnects the battery, and the tinny music dies.

Roberts runs her hands over the card, checking for drugs in the seams. Finding none, she places it back in the envelope and seals it with a single piece of tape.

The inmate got his cheerful card, without musical accompaniment.

"You’ve got the batteries, you’ve got the wiring." said Sgt. Scott Holliday, the mailroom supervisor. "It’s not authorized. Some of these guys are extremely smart. They can figure out how to make other things. They have a lot of time on their hands."

On the average day, 3,000 pieces of mail arrive at Northern State Prison. That number approaches 5,000 during the holiday season.

For the Department of Corrections, it’s both a logistical and security issue. Mail is one of several ways contraband enters a prison, and officials said they have made screening mail a priority. Recently officers have started sending all mail through X-ray machines and inspecting it with dogs trained to detect drugs and cell phones.

"The mailroom is a huge avenue for contraband," said Martin Horn, a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who previously ran New York City’s prison system. "It’s very costly and time consuming to go through the incoming mail."

"A substantial percentage" of New Jersey’s intercepted contraband is found in the mailroom, Corrections spokesman Matt Schuman said. Still, officials said, it’s hard to know exactly where the chinks in the prison’s armor are.

"If you knew where it’s coming from, it wouldn’t be coming in," Corrections Commissioner Gary Lanigan said.

Northern State Prison’s mailroom is a long room near the prison’s entrance, and it’s a way station for almost everything inmates receive from the outside world. On the wall is a list of banned magazines, including Stuff and Maxim.

Every day a Corrections officer drives to a nearby post office to drop off outgoing correspondence and pick up incoming mail.

Except for correspondence from lawyers, every letter is opened in the mailroom. Officers quickly unfold the paper, look for contraband and place it back in the envelope without reading it. The mail is sorted in brown paper bags and distributed in the prison’s cell blocks. Holliday said they try to cycle through every piece of mail in less than 30 hours.

In addition to drugs and weapons, officials look for cell phones, considered a serious threat because they allow inmates to coordinate illegal activity behind bars.

Scott Russo, a principal investigator with the Special Investigations Division, said he’s seen plenty of inventive ways to hide cell phones. One inmate tried to hide a phone in a book’s spine, Russo said. Another tried to sneak in two Blackberries in his rectum. In the first nine months of this year, 259 phones were confiscated in the state’s 13 prisons.

There are rules about legal items, too. For example, Holliday said there’s only one prayer rug allowed per person.

"Guys would order multiple ones and sell them," he said. "They would try to run a store."

Prison security has evolved, officials said. There once were vending machines in visiting rooms, but visitors would plant contraband in the machines or sneak it through in bags of chips

Today, inmates with good behavior can receive food packages up to 25 lbs. twice a year. To keep out contraband, inmates are required to order from a pre-approved vendor, who collects the food order and ships it to the prison.

Two dogs are used to sniff the packages, one searching for cell phones, the other for drugs. Then, officers unpack them to check their contents: rotisserie chicken, mozzarella cheese, Pringles sour cream chips, Papa John’s pizza, cinnamon raisin bagels.

"There’s no files in the cakes," said Russo. "That’s in the movies."

Man Brings Suspicious White Powder Into Jupiter, FL Police Department  (Palm Beach Post, 11/14/2010)

Jupiter, FL--White powder delivered by mail to a Jupiter resident's home is being investigated by county health officials.

The man, who was not identified, brought an envelope Sunday into the Jupiter Police Department about 1 p.m. The man told police he found the white powder inside when he opened the envelope, said Jupiter Sgt. Mike Barbera.

Barbera said he did not know the size or anything else about the envelope.

Jupiter police called Palm Beach Fire/Rescue officials, who placed the envelope into a sealed container. The container was turned over to Palm Beach County Health Department officials, who will perform an investigation, said Barbera.

The man did not report any injuries. The department was not evacuated, said Barbera.

The last time white powder that had been delivered by mail was brought into the police department was following Sept. 11, 2001, Barbera said.

Envelope Containing White Powder, Written Threats Sent To Mosque In France  (Canadian Press, 11/12/2010)

PARIS — An official at Strasbourg City Hall says an area mosque has received an envelope containing a suspicious white powder and anti-Muslim threats.

The official said two employees of the Eyyub Sultan mosque, serving Strasbourg's Turkish community, opened the letter Friday. It contained a half-burned page from the Qur’an and a threatening letter, the official said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak with the media.

She says the powder has not yet been identified, but is not anthrax.

In a statement, Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries condemned the "racist act" and pledged to identify those behind it as soon as possible.

Parcel Bombs: The Case Of Exploding Letters  (Express Tribune, 11/13/2010)

ISLAMABAD: A recent wave of attempted parcel bombings in Europe and United States has invoked fresh fears that the phenomenon might gain traction in regions already plagued with terrorism, including Afghanistan and Pakistan where al Qaeda presence is an established fact.

“A parcel bomb is the best technique to take out an individual high-value target,” said an official of the bomb disposal squad of Islamabad Police.

Experts believe the parcel bombs can be easily detected, provided an effective detection mechanism is in place at ports, post offices, courier services offices and, most importantly, at sensitive installations.

Officials in the postal services and customs fear that Pakistan, due to the lack of such mechanisms, is extremely vulnerable to terrorist attacks by parcel bombs.

“If there is a threat from a parcel bomb it would most likely come from within the country since terrorist outfits based in our tribal belt are very much capable of acquiring such bombs and using them,” said Amir Rana, an expert on counter-terrorism.

The seriousness of the issue moved the Special Branch of the Islamabad Police to prepare a descriptive report about letter or parcel bombs for security agencies, police and those responsible for VIP security.

The report stated that “a parcel bomb is an explosive device sent via postal service, designed to kill or injure the recipient on opening it”. The phenomenon is as old as 1950s and has been used effectively by terrorists to kill important personalities across the world, it added.

What makes a parcel bomb deadly is the use of pentacrithritol trinitrate (PETN), a highly potent explosive which is difficult to detect in security screenings. PETN has a very low vapour pressure, which means very little of it gets into the air and hence, cannot be easily detected. This property makes PETN one of the most effective weapons in the hands of terrorists.

Recently at least one of the packages sent to US from Yemen contained PETN. The package was traced back to Al-Qaeda’s Saudi and Yemen branches, which merged in January 2009.

“One gram of PETN is sufficient to kill the recipient,” said Major Tabassum, incharge of Islamabad Police’s bomb disposal squad. What’s worrisome is that about eight to 10 grams of PETN can be packed in a normal-sized parcel, he added.

While a parcel bomb can be detected through a visual scanner, such as those at ports, it is not very practical to implement everywhere. “Visually scanning all parcels for detecting explosives at ports and post offices is not be humanly possible,” said Ashar Azeem, a customs official.

“I think we should have particle analyzers fixed at ports and our post offices,” he added.

The particles analyze, already being used by security agencies for detecting explosives, is one possible solution to the problem as it can detect explosives without human input. “It is like a sniffer dog but with a very sharp nose,” said Azeem.

However such a machine is only available at a few five-star hotels and sensitive government installations in the capital.

The lack of preparation makes terrorist attacks using parcel bombs a disaster waiting to happen.

“Terrorists are aware of this technique. Letters was used to disseminate anthrax in Karachi in 2003-4,” Rana, the expert, said. He added, “No parcel bombs have so far been used in Pakistan probably because the suicide bombings have not been much of a problem for them so far.”

While terrorists have not yet used parcel bombs, Rana said that the improving security measures at sensitive locations might force terrorists to reconsider their tactics. And, he said, proper precautions are needed to prepare for such an eventuality.

Razorblades-In-Mail Threat Has Tulane Primate Center On Alert  (WDSU, 11/11/2010)

COVINGTON, La. -- The Tulane National Primate Research Center on the Northshore is on alert after a nationwide threat from a radical animal rights group.

The threat involves dangerous pieces of mail, and though it is not directed specifically at the Tulane center, leaders there aren't taking any changes.

The primate research center is often under close scrutiny by animal groups. A letter Wednesday from the group Americans for Medical Progress -- with which Tulane works closely -- cautions about a potential threat.

"Letters could contain razor blades, so one should be cautious when opening mail not from recognizable source," said Laura Levy, Tulane's vice president of research. "We thought it was useful and credible."

The letter said a scientist on the West Coast got a letter with a death threat and containing razor blades. It was signed by a group called "The Justice Department." The extremist group also apparently sent out a call to action to other animal rights activists.

"Mark our words, we will destroy all who fall into our focus," the group said. "The animals still need our help, so we must strike hard and fast. This will be a turning point."

The Tulane Primate Research Center is located near Covington. It houses nearly 4,000 for medical testing.

Tulane Chief Deputy of Police Randy Berggren said he would rather be safe than sorry, so he has directed all faculty and staff to take extra precautions when it comes to opening mail.

"It's much easier for me to tell you to start opening letters with (an) opener, rather see than not telling anyone and we get a call saying someone cut their hand," he said.

Levy said animal research has been invaluable in creating products and treatments for various diseases, and that all of their animals are treated ethically and responsibly.

Change-Of-Address Letter Was Cause Of Bomb Scare at UK Post Office  (Cambridge News, 11/12/2010)

Cambridge, England--A suspect package which sparked a bomb alert turned out to be a harmless letter.

Conkers Stores and Barton Post Office in Comberton Road was cordoned off by police and RAF bomb disposal experts, and other shops were evacuated after the package was spotted.

But it turned out that the item, from Jordan, that was simply addressed to The Postmaster was to inform the sub-postmaster of a change of address.

The drama began when sub-postmaster Richard Sockett’s wife, Maria, grew suspicious of the package, which had Arabic script on it.

Crowds gathered around the store as experts examined the package.

Mr Sockett has been praised for triggering the alert – because at least it was “good practice” for the bomb squad.

He said: “The bomb squad said that I was right to call it in as you never know, and it’s better safe than sorry. They said it was all right because they needed calls like this, because they don’t get much chance to deal with suspicious packages and it was good practice for them.”

The sight of a police van and bomb squad outside the post office drew crowds.

Mr Sockett said: “Footfall in the store was definitely up but takings were not. There has been a lot of talk about it in the village. It was all very dramatic. It’s all quiet on the western front now.”

Village resident and countryside campaigner Robin Page, who uses the store and was the star of TV show One Man and his Dog, praised Mr Sockett.

He said: “He did the right thing by calling in the police. You just can’t be too careful these days.”

The police also praised the postmaster for reporting his fears.

A spokesman said: “The postmaster did the right thing. The package was harmless and had been sent by a former resident of the village to tell the post office they had changed address.”

U.S. Officials Concerned Over Potential For Terrorists to Access Biohazards At Uganda Labs  (NY Times, 11/10/2010)

ENTEBBE, Uganda — The laboratories of Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animals, Industry and Fisheries sit on the top of a quiet hill on a turnoff near the airport, behind an eroded fence. At the end of a hallway is a room with an unlocked refrigerator.

That is where the anthrax is kept.

Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, and a delegation of Pentagon officials visited the laboratories on Wednesday for the first stop on a three-country tour of East Africa to assess the next generation of American security concerns.

The team also visited the Uganda Virus Research Institute, where the Ebola and Marburg viruses are taken to study and kept in a spare room in a regular refrigerator near the bottom of the compound. Warning signs say “restricted access,” but the doctors there say that hardly means the area is secure.

The laboratories here in Entebbe, a warm and sleepy city on the shores of Lake Victoria, are part of what the delegation called the front lines of the struggle to counter terrorist threats around the world.

“We need to tighten the security of vulnerable public health laboratories in East Africa,” said Andrew C. Weber, assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear and chemical and biological defense programs. “Preventing terrorist acquisition of dangerous pathogens, the seed material for biological weapons, is a security imperative.”

The rise of the Shabab, the powerful Islamist insurgent group that claimed responsibility for deadly suicide bombings in Uganda as crowds gathered to watch the final match of the World Cup, has refocused attention on East Africa as a frontier in American security interests.

In 2004, Congress expanded the mandate of the Nunn-Lugar program, which originally focused on dismantling warheads in former Soviet states, to include geographic regions like this one. Now, Mr. Lugar’s trip will take the delegation to Uganda, Burundi and then Kenya.

Uganda, a longtime military ally of the United States, may be the most vivid illustration of the concerns. Warm, wet and on the equator, Uganda is a biological petri dish. Anthrax has killed hundreds of hippopotamuses in recent years. In 2008, a Dutch tourist died from Marburg disease after visiting a cave in a national park. In 2007, an Ebola outbreak killed more than 20 people.

This is the stuff of “The Hot Zone” and “Outbreak” books that have dramatized the dangers of viral outbreaks. But the underlying threat, American officials contend, is that lax security at the poorly financed labs that collect and study these diseases pose a bioterrorism risk.

Ugandan officials also say the country’s push to create new federal districts, part of what the government calls an effort to decentralize the country, has spread the bureaucracy so thin that disease samples can take weeks to make it to a laboratory, or never arrive at all.

“It makes it difficult to report new cases,” said Dr. Nicholas Kauta, a commissioner at the Ministry of Agriculture. “We don’t know what is around us.”

The laboratories at the Ministry of Agriculture, built in the 1920s, have broken windows, and a chain-link fence surrounding the compound is ripped. According to the commissioner, there used to be over 200 technical staff members, but now there are only six. In the anthrax laboratory, one doctor showed how to use a cellphone camera placed on top of a microscope to study the bacteria, a demonstration of the lack of proper equipment.

“These are cries for assistance that the U. S. is eager to provide,” Mr. Lugar said.

At the Uganda Virus Research Institute, there are state-of-the-art facilities run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an American agency, but not at all of it. The deadliest agents, including Ebola, are still kept downstairs in a room intended to handle lesser infectious diseases like influenza.

“This is the end-state,” said Lt. Col. Jay Hall, from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, pointing out the disease control agency laboratories upstairs. “This is where we want to get all other labs.”

Powder In Suspicious Envelope At NY Sports Clubs Offices Not A Bioweapon  (Journal News, 11/10/2010)

GREENBURGH, NY — The white powder found at the corporate office of the firm that owns and operates New York Sports Clubs was not a biological weapon and was mailed from somewhere in New York state, police said today.

The offices of Town Sports International, 399 Executive Blvd., had been evacuated Tuesday morning after receiving a suspicious envelope.

The white business-sized envelope was not addressed to any particular person, police Capt. Christopher McNerney said. He said the envelope was mailed from outside Westchester County but from within the state. He declined to offer further details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Four employees made contact with the letter after it was delivered at 10 a.m., including a woman who touched an unknown white powdery substance along the folding ridge line of the letter, police said. She reported skin irritation and itching.

More than 70 people were evacuated from the first floor of the building, where a mobile decontamination station was set up to treat the four employees and one postal worker.

The Greenburgh and Fairview Fire Department's joint Hazmat-Tech Rescue Team was assisted by the Westchester County police bomb squad, the county Department of Emergency Services and Hazmat team, the county Office of Emergency Management, the state police Joint Terrorist Task Force, the FBI and the Elmsford Volunteer Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services.

Germany Conducts Surprise Security Checks At Logistics Firms After Letter Bomb Scare  (The Local, 11/10/2010)

Germany--Officers from the Federal Office of Civil Aviation have conducted unannounced checks on more than 20 shipping and logistics companies in Germany in what appears to be a reaction to two separate parcel bomb incidents last week.

Government sources told daily Rheinische Post on Thursday that the security checks took place across the country on Wednesday, but were focused mainly in the populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

In the coming weeks some 650 such companies will undergo similar examination, the paper said.

Five logistics and shipping companies in North Rhine-Westphalia were checked, including the freight center at the Cologne-Bonn airport.

No major security violations or problems were found, but several of the X-ray machines did not meet technical regulations, the paper said.

“Here an immediate technical overhaul was ordered,” the report said.

German Transportation Peter Ramsauer said he wanted to put tougher controls in place for mail services provided by airlines.

“We must make the links of the delivery chain more secure,” he told the paper, adding that companies should expect “unannounced checks at any time.”

Last week German authorities banned all flights from Yemen in reaction to parcel bombs posted in the country that were found on US-bound cargo flights. One of the packages - allegedly connected to an al-Qaida plot - had passed through the Cologne airport over the weekend without being stopped until it was discovered in Britain.

Then security officials seized and disarmed an explosive package delivered to the Chancellery in Berlin on November 2. The package was intercepted the same day similar parcel bombs exploded at the Swiss and Russian embassies in Athens in a wave of attacks linked to leftist extremists in Greece.

The next day, Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded better international coordination on security measures for cargo and postal services, calling on the world to remain vigilant against terrorism.

Over the weekend the government said it was considering a "black list" for airports around the world that do not meet security standards.

Suspicious Parcel Sent to UK Post Office Triggers Bomb Scare  (Cambridge News, 11/11/2010)

Cambridge, England--A suspicious package sent to a village post office from the Middle East triggered a bomb alert.

The incident brought home the war on terror to Barton villagers – on the eve of Remembrance Day.

Shops were evacuated and Barton post office was cordoned off as RAF bomb disposal experts moved in.

They were called after the package from Jordan – simply addressed to ‘The Postmaster’ – sparked suspicion.

Post offices across the Cambridge area were alerted by police officers who asked them to look out for similar packages.

Bomb experts were called in to examine the package delivered to Conkers Stores and Post Office in Comberton Road.

The drama began when sub-postmaster Richard Sockett’s wife Maria grew suspicious of the package, which had Arabic script on it.

The couple called the police who advised them to put the envelope-sized package – which felt as though it had a substance inside it – outside in a container.

Police arrived at 10am, moved the package into a field next to the store and cordoned off the area.

Mr Sockett said: “I was just about to open it when my wife said ‘Who do you know in Jordan?’.

“I called the police and they said to put the package in a container outside the store. When they arrived they asked if it was wise to put it right next to a gas container. They moved it into the field.

“We have never received any mail from the Middle East. You just never know. There was no name on it and whoever sent it didn’t even know the name of the post office or shop. It just had the address and the postcode.

“I thought it might have been a test parcel just to see if people called the police about it.”

An RAF bomb disposal team arrived at around 2.30pm as crowds gathered and a wider cordon was put up, closing off the three shops.

Mr Sockett said: “One good thing is that we’ve never had so many customers. It is like the Dunkirk spirit. Everyone is rallying round.”

Shop assistant Nicola Marsh, whose brother fought in Basra and whose son is with the Royal Fusiliers and could be sent to Afghanistan, said: “The package was very suspicious and really got me thinking, what with Remembrance Day and what’s been happening recently. It brought it home to me that we are at war.”

A police spokesman said: “Police were called after a suspicious package was reported. Bomb disposal experts retrieved the package and the cordon was lifted at 3.30pm.”

The suspicious package turned out to be harmless – but police praised the postmaster for reporting his fears.

A spokesman said: “The postmaster did the right thing.

"The package was harmless and had been sent by a former resident of the village to tell the post office they had changed address.”

Florida Man Finds Powder With Retirement Check , Then Contaminates  Police Department  (Daily Commercial, 11/10/2010)

Clermont, FL--The Clermont Police Department was evacuated for about one hour just after 2 p.m. Tuesday after a man walked in the front door with an envelope full of a white powder.

And although the powder turned out to be a substance used in some envelopes to prevent the two sides from sticking together, it caused quite a stir just the same.

According to Clermont Captain John Johnson, Kenard Harrison, 70, had just come from the Minneola Post Office after checking his box for mail.

Before pulling his retirement check out of the envelope however, Harrison noticed white powder falling out of it.

"It was just something I saw that seemed important enough to report," said the Harrison, who lives in Minneola.

Police say Harrison began opening the envelope and noticed a little bit of white powder. The more he opened, the more powder he saw.

That's when he placed the partially opened envelope into a plastic shopping bag and drove it to the Clermont police department as a precautionary measure.

Johnson said when Harrison entered the station with the bag, the station was considered contaminated.

The Clermont Fire Department was called to the scene and all emergency calls at that point were routed from the police department to the Lake County Sheriff's office.

Officers out on the road were told to stay on the road until further notice and the streets were closed off from 8th and 9th Streets to Montrose and DeSoto near the station.

"There was no sense in them coming back to the office and getting contaminated, too," Johnson said.

According to Fire Department spokeswoman Pam McDuffee, a call involving white powder calls for a specific protocol be used, as done Tuesday by the city's Special Operations Unit.

Fire personnel in hazmat suits were seen walking in and around the police department building and decontamination areas and crews were put in place.

Harrison and his car were checked for any possible effects of anthrax but, after two negative tests on the suspicious powder, were cleared from danger.

McDuffee said although the substance turned out to be nothing, she's glad it was reported.

"In the situation of a powder you're not sure of, it's best to report it as a precaution, especially if it's identified as something you would not normally see," McDuffee said.

Police personnel were allowed back into their building at 3:30 p.m. and the roads were reopened to the public.

NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly Talks About Increased Terror Threat During Holiday Season (DNA, 11/10/2010)

New York — In the wake of a recent failed terrorist plot to explode parcel packages, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly spoke Wednesday about the threat of similar attempts heading into the holiday season.

"We’ve been attacked successfully twice. So obviously we’re concerned about extra parcel traffic," Kelly said at an anti-terrorism conference held at One Police Plaza Wednesday morning. "People have to remain vigilant...Be aware of parcels coming in."

Since bombs were found in October aboard a U.S.-bound plane in the U.K. and another flight in Dubai, authorities in both the U.S. and England have stepped up their inspection of cargo and increased restrictions  on certain kinds of cargo on planes, according to NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau inspector Jack Nicholson.

"The aviation industry remains the top Al Qaeda target," said Nicholson during the conference. "The intent of the attack was to detonate these devices while it was in flight."

Kelly reiterated the need for individuals and organizations to be aware of any strange packages they receive.

FBI: Al-Qaida's Yemen Group Behind Mail Bombs But Not UPS Cargo Plane Crash As They Claimed  (AP, 11/10/2010)

WASHINGTON — The FBI and Homeland Security say al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen was not behind the Sept. 3 crash of a UPS cargo plane in Dubai.

The terror group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for that crash last week along with taking the blame for the recent mail bomb plots. The FBI and Homeland Security say they do believe the group is responsible for the mail bomb plot, but add that the group falsely took credit for the Dubai crash to bolster their image. This is according to an internal bulletin obtained by The Associated Press.

Crash investigators have found no evidence of an explosion on board the UPS cargo plane.

Scottish Police Investigate Threatening Mail Sent to Minister Who Had Confessed His Part In a Killing  (Edinburgh Evening News, 11/11/2010)

Edinburgh, Scotland--POLICE are investigating after threatening mail was sent to a convicted killer turned church minister who has publicly confessed his past.

Reverend Keith Johnston of Dalkeith Baptist Church received the threatening letter following his revelation that he had killed a friend during a fight in 1990 but later found religion.

Mr Johnston was just 16 years old when he used a kitchen knife to stab victim Steven Hughes through the heart outside his grandmother's home in Bonnyrigg. Despite standing trial for murder, Mr Johnston was found guilty of the lesser crime of culpable homicide and served five years of a seven-year sentence.

While in prison the teenager turned to Christianity following visits from Christian Prison Ministries and on his release he trained as a minister, and was eventually inducted to Dalkeith Baptist Church.

"Through my faith, I now know my life doesn't have to be a waste. I'm trying to bring a sense of good to society."

Jeremy Shaw, senior pastor at Dalkeith Baptist Church, said most of the congregation was aware of Reverend Johnston's past but the cleric had elected to speak publicly in a bid to help other young people caught up in violence.

"Keith has been transparent all the way along with us about his past, and most people here know his story," he reportedly said. Some in our congregation may be more comfortable than others about his background... I believe he is an inspiration to many people."

It is understood the letter had been delivered to Dalkeith Baptist Church on North Wynd rather than the minister's home address. Police have refused to release details of its contents or comment on when it was sent.

Margo Russell, deputy provost of Midlothian Council, declined to comment on the recent revelations saying they were a "personal matter" between the minister and the church.

She said: "For me it's a personal matter between the minister, the church and the congregation who I would suggest would be most affected by it."

But the councilor condemned the threatening letter subsequently sent to the minister, saying: "Any action like this must be abhorrent to any right-minded person."

Police are working to trace the author of the letter and a spokesman said: "Lothian and Borders Police are investigating after mail of a threatening nature was delivered to an address in North Wynd, Dalkeith.

"Enquiries are under way to identify those responsible and anyone with information that can assist with our investigation is asked to come forward to police."

Postal Worker in St. Louis Convicted Of Opening Students' Mail  (AP, 11/11/2010)

ST. LOUIS, MO--Sentencing will be early next year for a U.S. postal worker convicted of opening envelopes addressed to college students.

A federal jury in St. Louis convicted 48-year-old Thomas Riner of Caseyville, Ill., of five felony counts of delaying or destroying mail. Jurors acquitted him of five other counts.

Riner was indicted in March after a federal investigation dating to late 2009, when authorities tipped off to possible theft from mail at a certain sorting site put Riner under video surveillance.

Prosecutors say Riner was seen opening brightly colored envelopes that often contained gift-bearing greeting cards, in this case addressed to students at St. Louis' Washington University and Fontbonne University.

Riner, who at trial denied all the charges, faces up to five years in prison for which he was convicted. Sentencing will be Feb. 4.

Mail Carrier in Georgia Guilty Of Disclosing Confidential Info  (Atlanta Journal Constitution, 11/10/2010)

Atlanta, GA--A mail carrier from Fayetteville pleaded guilty Tuesday to disclosing confidential information relating to a federal investigation.

Randall T. Smith, 53, "was entrusted as a postal employee with sensitive information and chose the wrong side," said Martin D. Phanco, postal inspector in charge of the Atlanta Division.

According to federal authorities, Smith, who worked for the U.S. Postal Service in East Point, in June, 2008, disclosed confidential information to the occupant of a residence that was the target of an investigation.

Smith is expected to be sentenced on the misdemeanor charge in January and could receive a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000.

Northern Kentucky University Receives Second Suspicious Letter, Feds Say It’s Linked To First Smallpox Threat Letter  (The Northener, 11/10/2010)

Federal agents responded to a call from Northern Kentucky University after another suspicious package addressed to the anthropology department was received in the campus mail room exactly one month after an envelope bearing the words “small pox” prompted concern and investigation.

The second envelope was declared safe and is now under investigation as charges are considered. Additional charges could be brought against the sender if it is the same person.

Postal Inspectors said they believe there is a link between the Sept. 28 “small pox” envelope and the Oct. 28 envelope.

The second envelope bore the same characteristics as the first, including the same handwriting style and the use of many random statements on the envelope. However, this envelope did not contain a specific threat or the words “small pox” on it, according to Lisa Fitzpatrick, public information officer with the U.S. Postal Inspectors. Nonetheless, the Postal Inspectors assumed a threat and examined the envelope for any danger before declaring it safe.

“Bonanno for President,” “House break-in candidates,” ”Bank of America says Country-wide,” “$surf-board safari Elections N.Y.,” were the phrases listed on the front of the envelope.

Again, the second letter contained only newspaper clippings which did not, according to Fitzpatrick, “pertain to anything.” This time the clippings were from the Suffolk Times in New York state.

“At this point, (Postal Inspectors) are just trying to find out who’s doing it,” Fitzpatrick said, and she appealed to the NKU community for tips. Anyone with information about these alleged crimes should contact the United States Postal Inspectors at 1-877-876-2455.

Despite the previous envelope labeled “small pox,” this similar envelope also did not prompt any emergency procedures such as building evacuations or the activation of Norse Alert, the emergency address system for NKU.

Ink Cartridge Bombs 'Were Primed To Explode Once Aircraft Reached Eastern Seaboard Of U.S.'  (Daily Mail, 11/10/2010)

At least one of the bombs planted on cargo planes heading for Chicago last month was primed to explode once the aircraft reached the U.S. mainland, security officials have revealed.

The terror plot was thwarted after the two devices - hidden inside printer cartridges - were intercepted at airports in Nottingham and Dubai on October 29.

Yesterday  a Scotland Yard spokesman confirmed that the device discovered at East Midland airport was timed to explode at 10.30am BST. Had the aircraft continued on its flight schedule as normal, it would have been in U.S. air space at that time.

'Forensic examination has indicated that if the device had activated it would have been at 10.30am BST,' the spokesman said.

'If the device had not been removed from the aircraft the activation could have occurred over the eastern seaboard of the US.'

Both bombs were in packages which originated in Yemen and were addressed to Jewish organizations in Chicago.

The UK parcel had travelled from Yemen through a UPS hub in Germany before being detected in the UK, officials said.

Authorities moved in after receiving a tip-off from a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and Al Qaeda fighter.

Both bombs contained quantities of the powerful explosive PETN. The device discovered in the UK contained 400 grams of the lethal ingredient – 50 times more than needed to punch a hole in the aircraft’s skin – and was wired to a mobile phone.

It has also been revealed that the device discovered in Dubai was transported on two passenger jets from Yemen before it was intercepted.

U.S. security experts have warned that the two lethal packages could just as easily have ended up on passenger planes, which carry more than half of the international air cargo coming into the country.

The U.S. has now banned toner and ink cartridges from passenger aircraft in the wake of last month's failed bomb plot. 

Cargo flights from Somalia and Yemen are also banned as strict as part of strict new security measure.

A Saudi bomb maker has been named as a key suspect in the plot to bring down the cargo jets.

Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who tops a Saudi Arabian terrorism list, is the brother of a suicide bomber killed in an attempt to kill Saudi counter-terrorism chief Prince Mohammed bin Nayef last year.

Yemeni police today released a medical student arrested in connection with the plot. It is believed a SIM card found attached to the Dubai bomb was linked to the woman.

Investigators said the suspect was detained as part of a manhunt for a number of people believed to have used forged documents and ID cards that played a role in the plot. All of them are believed to have links to Al Qaeda's faction in Yemen.

Prime Minister David Cameron had earlier confirmed that intelligence analysis suggested that the bomb discovered in Britain was intended to go off in a Lockerbie-style attack in mid-air.

Speaking last night before a meeting at Chequers with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Mr Cameron said: ‘A package that started in Yemen, that landed in Germany, that landed in Britain en route to America, it just shows how united and determined we have to be to defeat terrorism.’

He confirmed he had spoken to U.S. president Barack Obama, adding: ‘I have also spoken to President Saleh of Yemen, making the point that we have to do even more to crack down and cut out the cancer of Al Qaeda in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula.