Daily Newspaper

The latest sensation amongst the media officials of China is the passing of a light like thing from the sky which has been given the title of an Unidentified Flying Object.

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UFO over China 2010

LOS ANGELES — Security cutbacks have made Los Angeles International Airport vulnerable to a terrorist attack, its police union complained in a letter to airport officials who deny the allegation.

The Airport Police Officers Association told their police chief in a letter last month that the force was spread too thin in the central terminal area, and there have been fewer random checks of vehicles entering the airport.

Reductions in the deployment of personnel and cuts to the budget for training are making the airport “more vulnerable to a terrorist attack than at any time since 9/11,” wrote Marshall McClain, president of the police union.

The airport was the intended target of a bomb plot by an al-Qaida-trained terrorist who was arrested in December 1999 as he entered the U.S. from Canada in a car with explosives in its trunk. The ticket counter for the Israeli airline El Al was the site of a gunman’s fatal attack in 2002.

Gina Marie Lindsey, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, disputed the union allegations. She said the airport police budget has increased annually since 9/11.

“There is no evidence to support allegations … of budget reductions or staff cutbacks,” Lindsey said in a statement.

She said the airport meets or exceeds the police deployment requirements of the federal Transportation Security Administration, which monitors the airport’s security program.

McClain accused airport administrators of playing a numbers game, claiming that while no layoffs have occurred, the airport has eliminated about 30 unfilled positions through attrition.

Airport officials contend the police force has increased from 263 officers in 2002 to 447 officers today.

McClain denied raising terrorism fears in the interest of creating more jobs.

“What we’re talking about is a potential terrorist event. We need to go beyond erring on the side of caution because no one wants that to happen,” he said. “We have to be right 100 percent of the time.”

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LAX Vulnerable To Terror Attack

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — The main runway at Reagan National Airport has reopened after a vintage aircraft flipped when it landed.

Film producer Pietro Serapiglia says the aircraft was part of a group of vintage biplanes flying in Tuesday morning to promote the opening of 3-D film “Legends of Flight.” Serapiglia says the plane landed, but then flipped over.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority says no commercial planes were involved. The main runway was closed for about an hour and a half, but has reopened. Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Arlene Salac says flight inspectors will investigate.

FAA records show the 1943 Boeing is registered to Michael Truschel of Nokesville, Va.

The Washington Post reports that Ashley Halsey III, the newspaper’s transportation writer, was the passenger and neither he nor the pilot were injured.

WATCH: The same crash from a different perspective

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Vintage Plane Crash (VIDEO): Biplane Flips On Reagan Airport Runway With Reporter Onboard

DUBLIN: A new cloud of ash from a volcano in Iceland triggered fresh disruptions in European air travel on Sunday, as Britain and Ireland shut down major airports and a no-fly zone was imposed across southern parts of UK airspace reported by A Pakista News .

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New Ash Cloud Disrupts UK, Ireland Air Travel

LISBON: Airspace above France, Italy and Portugal was closed Sunday and dozens of flights cancelled because of an ash cloud drifting over from a volcano in Iceland that caused air travel chaos last month.

French authorities said the cloud forced the suspension of about 20 flights at the airport in Nice, the nearest international airport to Cannes which is to host its flagship international film festival in three days” time.

Most of the affected planes were from British company easyJet and included flights to or from Paris, London, Geneva and other major European centres, airport officials said.

All flights to the city of Porto in northern Portugal were suspended until 1200 GMT Sunday, airport officials there said, after authorities had cancelled dozens of flights in the country on Saturday because of risks from the ash.

“All flights have been cancelled until 1:00 pm (12H00 GMT) because of the closure of airspace above the region,” an official at the city”s Sa Carneiro international airport said.

“The airport is open but air traffic control operations are no longer possible because of the cloud,” the official said.

Italian authorities said separately they closed airspace in the north of the country between 0600 GMT and 1200 GMT for the same reason.

The civil aviation authority said in a statement that the closure affected Milan airports but those in Venice and Trieste, also in the north, were spared.

The Eyjafjoell volcano began erupting on April 14 and caused travel chaos worldwide with airspaces closed over several European nations for a week because of fears the ash would damage aircraft engines with fatal results.

It was the biggest aerial shutdown in Europe since World War II, with more than 100,000 flights cancelled and eight million passengers affected. The airline industry said it lost some 2.5 billion euros.

The volcano began fresh and intensive ash eruptions overnight Thursday and caused Ireland and the Faroe Islands to shut their airspace for a time.

The ash caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights on Saturday as air traffic was disrupted in Spain, France and Portugal, while many transatlantic services were delayed as they skirted the plume of debris from the volcano.

Spanish air traffic was returning to normal Sunday, with the remaining three of around 20 airports closed on Saturday due to open in the morning, a spokesman for the Aena air control authority said.

More than 900 flights were cancelled in northern Spain on Saturday with the major hub of Barcelona among the airports that were closed.

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Ash cloud closes airspace in France, Italy, Portugal

MADRID: Fifteen airports in northern Spain were closed Saturday because of the ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano, Spain”s airport and air traffic authority Aena announced.

“The movement of the volcanic ash cloud coming from Iceland has forced us to close starting at noon (1000 GMT) the airports in Bilbao, San Sebastian, Vitoria, Saragossa, Pamplona and La Rioja,” Aena said in a statement.

Nine other airports in northern Spain which were already shut down due to the volcanic ash.

The airports will remain closed until at least 6 pm (1600 GMT) Saturday, Aena said.

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Spain closes 15 airports due to volcanic ash

Airline passengers face major disruption after ash from Iceland’s volcanic eruption moves into UK and Europe airspace with all airports closed on Thursday.

All flights in Norway and northern Sweden, as well as all London flights, were cancelled because of the risks posed by volcanic ash, which can also damage aircraft engines.

Between 700 and 800 people were evacuated from their homes in the remote, lightly populated area 125kms (75 miles) east of Reykjavik, as melted glacier water caused massive flooding. Last month, the first volcano eruption at the Eyjafjallajokull glacier since 1823 – and Iceland’s first since 2004 – briefly forced 600 people from their homes in the same area.

That eruption, which gushed lava for just over three weeks, ended on Tuesday.

Some flights in Denmark and northern Finland also appeared to be disrupted. However, airports in Iceland stayed open on Thursday. ‘Flights to and from Iceland are still ok.
The wind is blowing the ash to the east,’ Hjordis Gudmundsdottir of the Icelandic Airport Authority told reporters.

Iceland’s main airport Keflavik, to the west, ‘and all other airports in Iceland are open today. It’s amazing really’, she said.

‘Things here should be fine for the next 12 hours at least, and we think probably all day, judging from the weather forecast,’ she added.

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Iceland Volcanoe Halts UK, Europe Air Traffic

KARACHI: At least 2 persons were injured when some unknown assailants opened fire on them as they were sitting outside a hotel here at Rashid Minhas Road while the criminals were succeeded to flee, sources said.

According to police, the injured were identified as Mohammad Umer (18) son of Mohammad Ismael and Mohammed Arif (31) son of Mohammed Zain.

The incident was also reported at Azizabad police station and the injured persons were shifted to JPMC hospital for medical treatment.
2 hurt in Karachi shooting

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2 hurt in Karachi shooting

LAHORE: Lahore-Islamabad motorway Saturday night has been closed for all types of traffic till Bhera interchange.

Meanwhile, most flights bound to and off Lahore airport have been delayed or diverted to other airports in country.

Spokesman motorway said all domestic and international flights at Lahore airport were suspended late on Saturday night at around 22:00 hours while Lahore motorway was also closed for all genre of traffic as the visibility had reached to ‘Zero’ level on both places.

The other major cities blanketed with thick fog included Sahiwal, Pindi Bhattian, Okara, Multan, Faisalabad, Sheikhupura and Hafizabad, claimed met office.

Metrological office has forecast the arrival of a series of Westside winds as late as January 27, which may cause rainfall over upper parts of country including Punjab.

The minimum temperature remained prevailing in Lahore was 5 degrees centigrade during last 24 hours, met office said.
Relentless fog closes motorway, delays flights

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Relentless fog closes motorway, delays flights

Are Muslim only lines at airports next? The thought is offensive, disgusting, and blatantly unconstitutional. But it’s hardly far-fetched. Three years before suspected Nigerian airline terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was hauled off a Northwest airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with a powder and liquid explosive device stuffed in his underwear, British Department of Transportation officials openly discussed corralling men of Asian or Middle Eastern appearance at airports for intense questioning, checks and searches. The plan outraged Muslim leaders and British officials backed off the systematic profiling of Muslims. However, single men of Asian and Middle Eastern appearance were still subject to intense checks and searches. Britain was not alone. France and the Netherlands had already imposed de facto profiling of Muslim appearing young men and families at airports since the September, 2001 terror attacks. Polls showed that a substantial majority of Europeans agreed that racial profiling was not repugnant if it made airline travel safer and thwarted a possible terror attack. The clamor for a racial crackdown was first heard in the U.S. following the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1996.

Then President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno had the good sense not rush to judgment and scapegoat Muslims. The swift arrest of Timothy McVeigh squelched the building mob hysteria against them. But it didn’t squelch public suspicions that all Muslims were potential terrorists. The federal building bombing propelled Clinton’s 1996 Antiterrorism Act through Congress. Civil rights and civil liberties groups had waged a protracted battle against the bill. The law gave the FBI broad power to infiltrate groups, quash fundraising by foreigners, monitor airline travel, and seize motel and hotel records and trash due process by permitting the admission of secret evidence to expel immigrants. The implication was that present and future attacks would likely be launched by those with an Arab name and face rather than by men like McVeigh.

President Bush, as Clinton, took the high ground after the 911 attack. He did not reflexively finger-point Muslims. The Bush administration publicly assured that profiling was reprehensible and violated legal and constitutional principles, and that it would not be done. But the attack stirred tremors among Muslims that they would routinely be targeted, subject to search and surveillance, and profiled at airports.

The profiling alarm bells went off again after a soldier with a Muslim name shot up the military base at Ft. Hood back in November. The Council on American-Islamic Relations wasted no time and issued a loud and vigorous denunciation of the mass killing. The Council didn’t know at that moment whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter, was a Muslim by birth, a converted Muslim, or even a Muslim at all. The name and the horrific murder spree was enough to drive the group to quickly distance itself from the rampage. Other Muslim organizations instantly followed suit and issued their own equally strong disavowal of Hasan.

This didn’t stop the pack of Fox Network commentators, conservative radio talk show hosts, writers, and some officials from again openly shouting for even tighter scrutiny of Muslim groups. Terror suspect Abdulmutallab has simply raised the decibel level on their call for transportation officials to openly profile Muslims at airports, train stations, and even on the open highways.
Some elected officials have even jumped on the profiling bandwagon. Congressman Peter King, ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, predictably loudly called for the profiling of Muslims. Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind went further and announced he’d reintroduce the bill he first introduced in 2005 to let police stop and search anyone they deem to be suspicious. Hikind didn’t specifically finger Muslims, but the intent of the bill was unmistakable, namely to target Muslims.
The New York Assembly will reject Hikind’s bill again. But the rejection isn’t likely to be unanimous. Legislators read the papers and the polls. Informal on line polls taken immediately after Abdulmutallab’s failed terror attempt found that a majority of Americans are ready to turn a blind eye to law, the constitution and just plain human decency to target Muslims, any Muslim, for special scrutiny. No matter that a potential terrorist can come in any shape, size, color, gender, and disguise. The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights noted that convicted terrorists John Walker Lindh were white, and Richard Reid was Jamaican and British. Abdulmutallab is Nigerian, but from all appearances he could just as easily be mistaken for a young African-American hip hop artist.

Broad-based ethnic profiling creates in turn panic and the false sense of security that airlines are actually preventing terrorist attacks. It also causes law enforcement resources to be squandered chasing the wrong targets. Worse, it’s a witch-hunt against a group based solely on their religion and ethnicity. This fuels even greater racial division, fear and hysteria. The public whispers and the right wing’s open talk of Muslim only airport lines do the same.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.

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Earl Ofari Hutchinson: What’s Next–Muslim Only Lines at Airports?

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Earl Ofari Hutchinson: What’s Next–Muslim Only Lines at Airports?