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Page Last Updated: Monday, April 28, 2003, 12: 04 AM PST

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Police Get Power to Check Prints On The Spot
04/11/2003

Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian
Portland police may soon be asking for more than a license when making a traffic stop, but also requesting a motorist to stick out a thumb and forefinger.

Next month, more than a dozen officers will carry handheld devices on the street that will allow them to instantly verify a person's identity by analyzing their fingerprints.

The Portland Police Bureau was awarded a $250,000 federal COPS grant to equip each of its five precincts with a device and distribute another 10 to investigative officers in the detective, gang enforcement, drugs and vice, and tactical operations divisions.

The Minnesota-based Identix manufactures the technology, which captures fingerprints at the scene and remotely transmits them to a database. The Portland police will run the prints against the FBI's automated fingerprint database, and a database of seven Western states, known as the Western Identification Network.

If there is a match, the system returns the person's name, date of birth and mug shot directly to the officer's handheld terminal, the size of a Palm Pilot. Then the officer can check the person's criminal history and search for any outstanding warrants.

Manufacturers and police tout the time it could save officers, keeping them from needlessly transporting suspects to a police precinct or jail to fingerprint them.

"With shrinking budgets and shrinking staff, we need to capitalize on emerging technology," said Capt. Greg Hendricks, of the bureau's identification division.

Within a year, the bureau intends to expand the pilot purchase of 15 to more than 300 terminals for all patrol officers, under $650,000 set aside for the Portland police by the U.S. Department of Justice and recently approved by Congress.

The devices will also give officers on horseback, bicycles and motorcycles, who do not have the mobile computer terminals that patrol officers have at their fingertips, the ability to access information on people they stop.

"It speeds up the process for the officer to confirm who they've stopped, and reduces mistaken identities on arrests," said Sgt. Jeff Kaer of the bureau's identification division.

Next week, the bureau has invited representatives from 15 police agencies, sheriff's offices and federal law enforcement in the metropolitan area to learn about the handheld fingerprinting device and gauge if there's interest in integrating them into a regional database that could give officers in the field immediate access to criminal histories on suspects in a four-county region. The counties include Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Clark.

"If we integrated this system regionally, all of the agencies could share information with each other," Kaer said. "As you know, crime doesn't stop at the city line."

The City Council is expected to approve the bureau's contract with Identix at its meeting next week.

The same handheld device is also capable of facial recognition, a an emerging technology now used by a number of law enforcement agencies to find wanted criminals whose faces are in databases. Border patrol agencies have used the facial-recognition component to run the faces of people coming into the country against a database of photos of suspected terrorists.

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0724 Milford Mill Academy High School DIPLOMA MD UNITED STATES DAY BOTH STATE

1014 Baltimore City College DIPLOMA MD UNITED STATES DAY BOTH STATE

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Summer Programs teacher trainer workshops The United World College of the American West has hosted summer teacher training workshops for teachers of the International Baccalaureate

curriculum for 19 years.

Participants will enjoy the quiet setting of the United World College Campus located near the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Montezuma, New Mexico. To take a virtual tour of the campus, The UWC-USA is a one hour drive from Santa Fe, NM and six miles from the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico. For more on the surroundings

Welcome to IB North America!

Model UN Program
Model UN Programs are a great way for students of all ages to learn about international relations and to gain a better sense of what a varied and fascinating world we live in. They also are a perfect "hands on" way to gain experience with basic skills -- such as communication, negotiation tactics, and conflict prevention -- that we all need in our day-to-day lives.

We at the U.S. Department of State are striving to become a more active and valuable member of the decentralized network of students, teachers, civic organizations, and individual activists who make up the Model UN community in the United States.

The Bureau of International Organization Affairs, in cooperation with U.S. diplomatic missions to the UN and its agencies, develops and implements U.S. policy in the United Nations. We are also the focal point for much of the State Department's involvement in Model UN programs. In particular, we are working alongside the United Nations Foundation and local schools to put State Department volunteers into high school classrooms in a number of DC schools each week to help organize twice-yearly Model UN conferences.

Beyond our partnership with local high schools, we also at times can help with speakers and information on foreign policy issues. Below are a few documents and links that might be useful for some Model UN participants.

the U.N=TEACHER UNIONS

Probe of FBI's DNA Lab Practices Widens
1 hour, 50 minutes ago Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo!


By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - With defense lawyers stepping up challenges to genetic evidence, the Justice Department (news - web sites) inspector general is examining the FBI (news - web sites) lab unit that analyzes DNA in hundreds of cases a year after a technician was caught failing to follow proper procedure.


AP Photo



The inquiry, expected to last several more months, already has led to changes inside the lab's DNA unit in response to advice from outside scientists brought in by Justice investigators, government officials told The Associated Press.


The inspector general, an independent watchdog, is trying to identify any vulnerabilities in the lab after an FBI technician went undetected for two years as she failed to follow required procedure in analyzing DNA evidence, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.


DNA evidence has become increasingly important in criminal cases and in appeals from old convictions before such biological evidence was widely used.


The investigation, coupled with recent revelations of DNA irregularities in a few local crime labs that work with the FBI, could affect Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites)'s project to create a national DNA database to help law enforcers identify crime suspects through their genetic fingerprints.


Criminal defense lawyers are planning challenges to the database and to DNA evidence in cases involving the FBI lab technician or the local crime labs accused of wrongdoing.


"All of us are depending on DNA as a gold standard in forensics work — innocence projects, prosecutors and defense lawyers. And now we don't have a gold standard. The gold has been tarnished," said Frederic Whitehurst, a lawyer and former FBI lab employee whose whistle-blower allegations led to major changes in the lab in the mid-1990s.


The AP reported this month that FBI lab technician Jacquelyn Blake quit while under investigation for failing to follow required scientific procedures while analyzing 103 DNA samples over the past couple of years, and a second lab employee was indicted for allegedly providing false testimony.


Inspector General Glenn Fine expanded the Blake inquiry to examine the FBI lab's broader practices in DNA cases. The FBI has been cooperating, the government officials said.


The officials said the goal of the investigation is to identify vulnerabilities in lab procedure that could affect the quality of the FBI's DNA analyses or permit a rogue employee to go undetected.


FBI Lab Director Dwight Adams, himself a DNA scientist, disclosed the existence of the wider Justice Department inquiry during recent briefings on Capitol Hill, law enforcement and congressional officials said.


Adams told lawmakers and their staffs the DNA section has put changes in place to deal with issues raised by the outside scientists brought in by the inspector general, the officials said.


"We want correct and unassailable results and objective testimony, and to do that we've got to be open to outside scrutiny and outside review," Adams told the AP.


The investigation is the broadest inspector general's review of the FBI lab since one concluded in 1997 that scientists in the lab's explosive units engaged in bad science and gave inaccurate testimony. Those findings led to an overhaul of the world-renowned forensics facility.


FBI officials also are facing questions about how to protect the bureau's national DNA database from a growing number of problems at local police crime labs.


The police lab in Houston is under grand jury investigation for its DNA work. A police lab in Fort Worth, Texas, is facing a criminal inquiry after revelations that a senior forensic analyst ignored proper DNA procedures. Florida is grappling with a state crime lab worker in Orlando who falsified DNA data.


FBI officials have pulled DNA samples from the Houston lab from its national database and said they will examine the allegations involving Fort Worth and Orlando to determine if any action is required to protect the national DNA registry.





The inspector general has pressed the FBI to conduct regular audits of state and local labs that put DNA evidence into the national registry. An audit in 2001 disclosed half the local labs examined were not in compliance with FBI DNA standards (news - web sites).

"No such audits of the DNA profiles in CODIS (the Combined DNA Index System) were being conducted at any level," the inspector general's report said.

"The FBI needs to improve its oversight ... to ensure the laboratories are in compliance with the act, the FBI's quality assurance standards and the FBI requirements for laboratories participating in the national index," it said.

___

On the Net: FBI: http://www.fbi.gov/

Combined DNA Index System: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/codis/index1.htm

North Korea: A Gangster State

By Owen Rathbone on 04/27/03



With North Korea now in possession of nuclear weapons technology and ready to export it to the highest bidder, tensions on the Korean peninsula could not be higher. Yet even if the nuclear issue is resolved – which it will not be easily – North Korea will continue to be a thorn in the side of many nations for a reason not known to many outsiders: It is a virtual gangster state kept alive by rackets ranging from illegal drug sales to counterfeit money schemes.

Some estimates, in fact, suggest that North Korea’s illegal exports earn nearly as much in foreign currency as its legal trading activities. According to U.S. News and World Report, Pyongyang’s illicit trade represents $500 million a year in earnings, while official exports account for $650 million a year. Missile exports are in the range of $100 million a year – an amount less than the proceeds from illicit trade. North Korea’s rulers, in other words, appear heavily reliant on earnings from criminal activities to prop up their ailing regime.

The DPRK’s drug peddling days date back to the 1970s, when the Kim Il-sung government saw the drug trade as a quick and easy way to earn foreign currency. Opium became the drug of choice, as it could be produced cheaply and efficiently in mountainous areas throughout the country. When North Korea’s economic situation worsened in the 1980s and 1990s, Pyongyang became a drug trafficker on a more massive scale.

Isolated from the international community, plagued by food crises and crippled by escalating costs to support its military and nuclear program, North Korea today shows no signs of getting out of the drug trade. The Stalinist state is now thought to produce at least 44 tons of opium a year for export. Not only has the North increased opium production, but it has also branched out into amphetamines and heroin.

The most lucrative market for North Korean drugs is Japan, which has an illegal stimulant market estimated at more than $9.3 billion annually. From 1998 to 2001, over 2,473 pounds of methamphetamines from North Korea were confiscated by Japanese customs. In 1999, the National Police Agency traced back 40 percent of all illegal stimulants seized in Japan to the reclusive communist state.

North Korean ships have been caught with large shipments of illegal drugs on numerous occasions. In 1997, Japanese investigators discovered $95 million worth of amphetamines in the cargo of a North Korean ship docked at Hososhima. In the summer of 2001, Taiwanese authorities seized more than 154 pounds of heroin from another vessel. And Australian authorities last week, after a five day chase, captured a North Korean ship with $48 million worth of heroin in its hold.

The DPRK’s share of the Japanese drug market has grown exponentially in recent years, revealing Pyongyang’s economic desperation. Although China and North Korea each account for about one-third of illegal drug sales in Japan, more and more drugs are making their way from the North. "Recently there has been an alarming increase of drugs coming from North Korea," says Naoto Takeuchi of Japan's National Police Agency. "The drugs are high-quality and neatly packed. This leads us to believe that a well-organized, well-funded body is behind this drug smuggling,” adds the National Public Safety Commission's Sadakazu Tanikagi.

Not content merely with earning foreign currency illegally through drug sales, North Korea has gone one better by actually producing fake American dollars and Japanese yen. Heading a massive counterfeiting operation that extends worldwide, the Kim Jong-il government is said to have sophisticated underground printing facilities that produce banknotes of exceptional quality.

In common with the drug trade, North Korea’s counterfeiting activities escalated in the 1990s during worsening economic times. At that time, the North improved the quality of counterfeit bills and issued them through its foreign trade and foreign missions overseas. Several high profile incidents revealed clear government involvement in counterfeit operations. In 1996, the North Korean trade councilor to Romania was expelled for exchanging $50,000 in forged bills. Also that year, another DPRK official was arrested in Ulan Bator, Mongolia for dumping $100,000 worth of counterfeit bills onto the black market.

In another case two years later in Vladivostok, Russia, a senior North Korean Workers Party official was caught attempting to exchange $30,000 in fake currency for rubles. A videotape also purportedly exists of Kim Jong-nam, the son of Kim Jong-il, using fake dollars at a casino in Macao.

At present, North Korea is thought to print around $15 million in counterfeit U.S. dollars every year.

Less well-known is North Korea’s dealings in counterfeit yen. It is unclear how much fake yen has been printed by Pyongyang, but a former executive of a North Korea-affiliated bank, interviewed by Japan’s Weekly Post, claims as much as 600 billion yen has flooded the Japanese market over the past few years. “Economic disaster is encouraging the North Korean government to print more,” said the executive, who accused the Japanese government of a massive cover up.

Although it is not possible to verify if the 600 billion yen figure is accurate, the number of reported cases of counterfeit yen seems to be on the increase. A former Japanese diplomat, also interviewed by the Weekly Post, remarked, "While the North Korean government is encouraging its people living in Japan to remit money to North Korea, it is increasing the smuggling of counterfeit yen. The printing factory is believed to exist underground near Pyongyang."

Whether it is trafficking drugs or printing fake currency, the North Korean regime appears willing to engage in any activity to perpetuate its existence. Kim Jong-il’s more recent venture into nuclear blackmail merely conforms to an earlier pattern of Mafioso style leadership. For the United States and countries throughout Asia, a major question that arises – if the nuclear problem can be solved first – will be how to wean North Korea from its illegal sources of income and encourage it to engage in legitimate commerce. If a miracle occurs and Pyongyang proves willing to change – or if it is forced to change – the U.S. and others will still need to provide massive economic assistance to prevent the North from going back to its gangster roots. But how to give such aid without being conned once again, that is a question with no simple answer.

German businessman suspected of helping North Korea's nuclear programme State prosecutors in Germany confirmed that the director of a Stuttgart-based company suspected of supplying aluminium tubes for North Korea's nuclear programme has been detained for questioning.

The weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reported that 22 tonnes of aluminium tubes were loaded onto a French ship in Hamburg earlier this month.

The shipment, officially on its way to China, was stopped by German authorities. Precision aluminium tubes are required for facilities to produce enriched uranium. Last week's talks between the U.S., North Korea and China were broken off on Thursday.

U.S. envoy to Asia James Kelly said Pyongyang had revealed it possesses at least one nuclear weapon. Kelly is currently briefing allies in the region on the results of the talks.

The Bureau is largely composed of top notch professionals.

The Bureau are the the cops for the world lets do America first

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New reality of American power


By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent



US foreign policy no longer makes any pretence of being humble

There is a new reality in the world - American power.

It was used to achieve a swift victory in Iraq, as it had been in Afghanistan.

The question which arises, is whether it is now poised to make itself felt elsewhere in the world.

The policies have already been laid out.

They comprise the war on terror which President Bush declared soon after the 11 September attacks, and the effort to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction to so-called rogue states.

Doctrine of pre-emption

There is a doctrine which goes along with this: Pre-emptive action.

We are hopeful that a number of regimes will draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is not in their national interest

John R Bolton
US Under-secretary of State

It was a long time ago that US President George W Bush, during his election campaign, spoke of the need for American foreign policy to be "humble".

The language is different now.

Mr Bush declared at the White House on 15 April: "The United States of America, and our coalition, will defend ourselves.

"When we make a pledge, we mean it. We keep our word; and what we begin, we will finish."

Applying the doctrine

John R Bolton, the US Under-secretary of State for international security, and a man not afraid of spelling out American policy, said:


With Saddam Hussein ousted, who will be next?

"We are hopeful that a number of regimes will draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is not in their national interest."

The application of the new reality will probably vary.

But in each case, America's opponents will have to take it into account.

Was it just diplomacy which has forced North Korea to the table?

Or was it the sight of American power being deployed in Iraq?

We shall probably never know, since North Korea is harder to read than the German Enigma codes.

But it is a change of tack by the North Koreans which is worth noting.

New targets?

Iran is another case study to watch.


Wolfowitz: An insult to say Arab world cannot be democratic

It, too, is developing a nuclear industry, but Washington suspects that it is also developing a nuclear weapon.

Iran says that it is not.

For the moment, the US is letting the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, take the lead in questioning and inspecting Iran.

But it might not wait for long.

Syria is already on the defensive regarding accusations that it helped Iraq with military equipment and is hiding fugitives from Saddam Hussein's clique.

It may decide to rein back on the activities of radical Hezbollah guerrillas along Israel's border with South Lebanon.

If it does not, then it can expect further US pressure.

'Democracy domino'

There are broadly three views about this spread of US influence.

They reflect the curious phenomenon that the US is at the same time praised and attacked but also doubted.

The first view is that US power - whether exercised through military might or diplomatic and economic persuasion - is good for mankind as it helps to spread freedom and democracy.

Just as Germany and Japan changed, this argument goes, so too can other countries.

The "democracy domino" effect is much talked of in Washington.

Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary said recently that it was an "insult" to the Arab world to think that it was not suitable for democracy.

People had said the same things about the South Koreans, he said.

'Compliance not democracy'

In a recent interview, the Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa called for more action led by America against dictators.

Our paradigm now seems to be: Something terrible happened to us on 11 September and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with

Former US President Bill Clinton
"If a dictator could be popular in Germany, one of the world's most civilised countries, any nation could find itself under dictatorship," he said.

"Dictators are in power because of lack of international mobilisation."

The second view is that what the US wants is not democracy but compliance.

It has insisted on this in its own hemisphere for more than a century, runs this side of the argument, and is now intent on insisting on it in the rest of the world.

The US, it is argued, will act in the 21st Century as Great Britain did in the 19th Century, and that is in its own interests.

The guns of the Royal Navy have given way to the precision guided weapons of the US Air Force.

Hostile sentiment

US actions have already divided the Western allies and have called into question the future of the UN and Nato.

But sentiment hostile to American policy unites quite a range of political forces from left-wing to right-wing.

The former US President Bill Clinton reflected some of the unease, even among Americans.

"Our paradigm now seems to be: Something terrible happened to us on 11 September and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with," he said in a speech.

"And if they don't, they can go straight to hell."

US 'on probation'

Then there is the third point of view.

It was summed up by the British writer Timothy Garton Ash, champion of freedom for Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

"America is on probation," is how he put it.

"America can still prove, by what it does over the next few years in the Middle East, that it was right in what it did during this last month of war."

But the third point of view is still waiting to be convinced.

It is not ideologically for or against the use of American power but looks at the results.

What it does know is that there is this power, and that it is the new reality.

WTO

Sunday, 1 September, 2002, 12:19 GMT 13:19 UK
Russia begins work on Iranian reactor


The US is unnerved by Iran's friendliness with Russia

Russian technicians have begun assembling heavy equipment due to form part of the first reactor at a nuclear power plant in Iran.
Russia is going ahead with the $800m project - at the port of Bushehr - despite strong objections from the United States, which says it is concerned that Iran intends to develop weapons-grade plutonium there.


The plant is scheduled to begin operating in June 2004 with the loading of nuclear fuel into the reactor set for December 2003, Russia's atomic energy ministry said.

That represents a delay from the September 2003 start date originally promised by the Russian firm who took on the project which was started by a German firm in 1972 but abandoned after the Iranian revolution in 1979.

The main shell of the water-cooled nuclear reactor, built in St Petersburg, was delivered to Iran last November.

Viktor Kozlov, director general of Atomstroyexport which is building the reactor, said there were now 600 Russian experts in Iran, and the number would increase to about 2,000 by the end of the year.

"They will be joined by their families and will live in a special village that has been set up for them near the site of the plant," he said.

Warming ties

The nuclear project has been the result of warming ties between the two countries which have also seen Iranian President Mohammed Khatami travel to Moscow for friendly talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The relationship has unnerved the US which had said the building of the Bushehr reactor was an issue of "great concern".

US President George W Bush has named Iran, alongside Iraq and North Korea, as part of an "axis of evil" which he claims is seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Russian officials, however, have insisted that its nuclear co-operation programme with Iran is transparent, legitimate and in line with Russia's commitments under the non-proliferation treaty.

Scientists recreating deadly 1918 flu virus

By Rick Wiles
May 2001
Copyright American Freedom News

Teams of scientists in the USA and Great Britain are working to recreate the virus responsible for the most deadly plague in recorded human history.

Between 20 million and 40 million people died worldwide in the 1918 outbreak of “Spanish flu.” Although the flu had nothing to do with Spain or World War I, the virus quickly spread around the world, attacking even strong and healthy humans. With the exception of Iceland and America Samoa, the deadly virus ravaged every place on Earth.

The first evidence of the virus in 1918 was an army camp in the US. Some scientists believe the virus was transported with US troops to France during World War I.

The epidemic came in two waves in the spring and fall of 1918. The fall wave produced a higher mortality rate. Many virologists believe the springtime virus acquired mutated and became even more deadly later that year.

The violent influenza ripped holes in the lungs of its victims. Their hands and feet turned black from a lack of oxygen. As the body fought for survival, the victims’ faces turned purple as they gasped for oxygen.

Now scientists want to bring the virus back – in the laboratory – to discover what made it so deadly.

That’s has some folks afraid the virus will escape and another plague will strike down possibly hundreds of millions of people the next time.

Professor John Oxford, of the Royal London Medical College, spearheaded the drive to recreate the virus. He began collecting in the mid-1990s tissue samples of people who died in the 1918 plague. Oxford believes genetic material extracted from the bodies of the victims will help scientists “resurrect” the virus.

He’s doing the research because scientists are expecting another worldwide flu plague anytime.

Oxford and his fellow scientist hope that be recreating the virus, and allowing it to infect human cells cultured in the laboratory, scientists will learn how to stop a future flu virus from killing so many people.

“We have go samples from 1918. We want to recreate the virus, look at it genetically and see if there was anything special about it,” Professor Oxford told the London Times in 1996. “We are only just beginning. We have identified the specimens. That has taken a year, to get eight lungs certified from people who died of influenza and not from anything else. We have also got eight brains from people who died of encephalitis lethargica which followed after in 1921-22,” the professor said.

Teams of scientists have searched permafrost burial grounds for the corpses of victims of the 1918 epidemic. Virus samples were taken from the bodies of six Norwegian coal miners who died in 1918 from the virus and were buried in the permafrost on Spitzbergen Island, inside the Arctic Circle.

The tissue samples taken from the remote gravesites are now kept in the US National Tissue Repository in the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington. The lungs of other flu victims, preserved in paraffin wax in 1918, are also stored in AFIP and have been used to decode the virus’ DNA sequence.

The scientific project is making major strides in bringing back the virus. The US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has already worked out the sequence of two of the most important genes in the virus. The scientific team used materials from the institute’s tissue archives and from a woman who died of the flu and was buried in the Alaskan permafrost.

The London Times reported last year that a team led by Professor George Brownlee of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology in Oxford has developed a method for recreating old viruses from DNA molecules.

“The technique is very simple,” Professor Brownlee said. “It involves adding 12 plasmids – rings – of DNA to a cell in tissue culture, and out pops a virus.”

Several months ago, scientists working on the project reported that their research has yet to reveal what made the virus so deadly in 1918. So far, they’ve been unable to find any signs of mutations or unusual properties in the genes taken from the flu’s DNA.

“What it says is that, once again, we don’t have a simple answer,” said Jeffery K. Taubenberger, a scientist at AFIP.

we have talking to North Korean for 50 years. its time to stop talking and ACT

Its now time to stop talking and ACT