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Note: The following text is a quote: Travel Alert U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs This information is current as of today, Sat Feb 13 2010 01:05:49 GMT-0800 (PST). Worldwide Caution February 12, 2010 The Department of State has issued this Worldwide Caution to update information on the continuing threat of terrorist actions and violence against U.S. citizens and interests throughout the world. U.S. citizens are reminded to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness. This replaces the Worldwide Caution dated July 29, 2009 to provide updated information on...

THERE is a certain type of political career that has auto-destruction built into its DNA: look no further than the predicament of the pathetic creature pointlessly lingering on in 10 Downing Street, si monumentum requiris. To this category belongs Barack Obama. This, of course, is heresy to the consensus that is still rapturously inhaling the heady fumes of self-delusion - as it did with Tony Blair. What most Obama sceptics would have to concede is some surprise at the speed with which he has launched into self-destruct mode. The President Pantywaist tour on which he embarked, embracing America's enemies, was...

YOU ARE HERE: Home > Reports > Global Security Concerns > Report Top Private-Sector Security Concerns in 2008 GLOBAL SECURITY CONCERNS Worldwide 7 Jan 2009 Printer Friendly Email Article Private Sector Says Terrorism, Maritime Piracy, Corruption Among Growing Threats Terrorism loomed large as one of the top security concerns of 2008 for U.S. businesses, nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions operating overseas, according to private sector constituents of the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). “This past year we saw terrorist attacks against U.S. and other Western interests in northern Africa, the Arabian peninsula, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in Turkey,” said...

US President Barack Obama's call to suspend trials of "war on terror" suspects at Guantanamo raised hopes worldwide that the prison could be closed soon, but not all welcomed the idea of repatriating ex-inmates. EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot hailed Obama's request to prosecutors as a step toward shutting the facility, which has been plagued by accusations of torture and become a symbol of US excesses. "I am delighted that one of the first acts of President Obama has been to turn the page on this sad episode of Guantanamo prison," Barrot said in a statement. He also stressed that...

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Gary Maziarz said patriotism motivated him to join a spy ring, smuggle secret files from Camp Pendleton and give them to law enforcement officers for anti-terrorism work in Southern California. He knew his group was violating national security laws. But he said bureaucratic walls erected by the military and civilian agencies were hampering intelligence sharing and coordination, making the nation more vulnerable to terrorists. Details of Maziarz's case emerged after he pleaded guilty to mishandling more than 100 classified documents from 2004 to last year. The overall breach could be far larger: Investigators believe that as far...

The Nation, a left-leaning magazine, published an article about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's influence over NASA and its budget. The article largely rehashes the issues most regular readers of this blog are familiar with: DeLay's addition of JSC into his Congressional district, his last-minute move to top off NASA’s FY05 budget request, and the recent reorganization of the House Appropriation Committee's subcommittee structure. Like many such articles, it includes an arguably questionable comment from John Pike: "With NASA changing its spending priorities to support President Bush's vision for space exploration that will return humans to the moon and take...

....Treasure trove Military analysts had mixed reactions to the significance of the missing explosives. John Pike, a defense analyst for GlobalSecurity. org, said the explosives, the disappearance of which was first reported in yesterday's New York Times, would prove to be an "unprecedented treasure trove" of bomb-making material. "I think the evil-doers will put it to good use," he said. "You'd have to be concerned. We'll be hearing about it again." The missing cache, reported to be about 380 tons of the explosives HMX and RDX, not only offers a large quantity of material but more importantly has useful "fabrication...

Thursday July 17, 2003 The Guardian As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war. It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses. This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising...

Iran makes no secret of the fact that it manufactures weapons for export, including mortar bombs of the general type found in Iraq. Customers from around the world can log on to the Web site of the government-owned Defense Industries Organization and view a wide array of Iranian-made munitions. If they decide to order, they apparently can pay by credit card, as a VISA logo suggests. The site - which promises "best quality and fast service" - is an example of the vigor with which Iran has moved into a global arms market long dominated by the United States and...

Have you heard the one about the U.S. government and transportation agencies secretly trying to lay the groundwork for a "NAFTA Superhighway," and a North American Union with no borders between Canada, the United States and Mexico and one currency for everyone? You may have heard that an organization called NASCO -- North America's SuperCorridor Coalition -- has allegedly been working secretly to construct a "NAFTA Superhighway" from Mexico through the United States to Canada, erase our borders and freely allow illegal immigrants and terrorists into our country. Plus, the group is allegedly working to get a Mexican customs facility...

Commandos Get Duty on U.S. Soil By ERIC SCHMITT ASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before. As part of the extraordinary army of 13,000 troops, police officers and federal agents marshaled to secure the inauguration, these elite forces were poised to act under a 1997 program that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but nonetheless departs from how the...

Arms control activists urged U.N. treaty writers on Monday to approve a system for tracking small arms sales around the world, saying it was easier to track lost airline luggage than a machine gun. Amnesty International, Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms called for a legally binding global marking and tracing treaty covering small arms and ammunition at the start of a two-week U.N. conference weighing how to deal with the problem. "A piece of lost luggage can be traced from San Francisco to Sierra Leone within hours, yet deadly weapons disappear without trace on a...

Diego Garcia was not affected by the Andaman Tsunami of 26 December 2004. It is located south of the tip of India, well with in range of what the tsunami, with a max elevation of 22 and an average elevation of only 4 feet. Civilians monitoring shortwave radio reported on rec.radio.shortwave that a female operator, in answer to a query from an aircraft after giving weather information, reported no ill effects from the earthquake.

LONDON, Nov 29 (IranMania) - According to an interview released Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the international community is doing too little to counter Iran's efforts to make a nuclar bomb. "It seems that the steps taken by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and the Europeans are insufficient to stop Iran's nuclear programme," Sharon said, according to The Washington Post. "The only real solution is a major international effort to exert economic and diplomatic pressure, and to bring the issue to the UN Security Council, where sanctions can be imposed." The Israeli leader said "Iran is making every...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 - Despite having collected substantial information about Iran's nuclear and weapons programs over the last several ears, Western officials have limited intelligence about the crucial question of whether Tehran is trying to meld those two programs to produce a nuclear warhead that can be carried by a missile, administration officials said Friday. The inability to answer that question so far poses an obstacle to the Bush administration's efforts to press for a hard line against the Tehran government. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said this week that he had seen intelligence indicating that Iran was "working...

Even as the Pentagon struggles with the low-tech reality of war in Iraq, it looks to increasingly bizarre-sounding technology for next-gen fighting systems. On the following pages, five chapters from the Pentagon's sci-fi future. If U.S. military weapons planners have learned anything from the varied conflicts of the past quarter century, it is that the challenges are not getting any more predictable. With the nature and capabilities of U.S. opponents changing on practically an engagement-by-engagement basis, deciding which new weapon technologies will best serve soldiers in the battle theaters of the future remains a high-stakes guessing game. The enemy is...

A barrage of explosions interspersed with loud automatic fire echoed across Baghdad as an airplane circled overhead in what the military said could be part of an ongoing operation. It was the most intense military activity in the capital for weeks. The explosions, louder than mortars, began about 12:30 am (2130 GMT) and continued intermittently for about 20 minutes, sometimes interspersed with bursts of automatic fire. The activity may be related to an operation known as Iron Justice and "may involve explosions and aerial activity," a military spokeswoman said. There was intense activity, too, in Iraq's northern capital of Mosul...

13 February 2003 U.S. Committed to Multilateralism, Rademaker Says(Rademaker addresses Conference on Disarmament in Geneva) (4120) The United States is "profoundly multilateralist," and in a number of recent instances "we have chosen to provide the leadership -- the backbone -- required for multilateralism to succeed," a key State Department official says. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker told the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva February 13 that the United States has "stayed the multilateral course" over the last three months "even as Iraq has attempted to pick and choose the terms of its compliance (with U.N....