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Kirkuk lawmaker wary of city's status
Published: May 13, 2008 at 6:46 PM
BAGHDAD, May 13 (UPI) -- A Kurdish lawmaker Tuesday said Baghdad is so divided over a constitutional provision concerning the legal status of Kirkuk that it won't address the issue. -
Iraqi NGO calls for international funds
Published: May 13, 2008 at 6:44 PM
BAGHDAD, May 13 (UPI) -- The head of a consortium of Iraqi aid groups appealed to international donors to help displaced Iraqis and called on Baghdad to do better in helping its own. -
Iraqi girls' school gets upgrade
Published: May 13, 2008 at 6:36 PM
BAGHDAD, May 13 (UPI) -- Iraqi citizens, local leaders and a representative from the Ministry of Education attended a ceremony marking the completion of a girls' school in Mahmudiyah.
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Outside View: Open letter to candidates
Published: May 13, 2008 at 5:58 PM
By NEIL WOLLMAN and ABIGAIL FULLER
UPI Outside View Commentators
Thus far, your debate on the war in Iraq -- like the public and media debate -- has focused mainly on the questions of progress in security and political reconciliation, with some limited discussion on the war's effects on the U.S. economy and on our military preparedness elsewhere. -
Iraq Press Roundup
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:29 PM
By HIBA DAWOOD
UPI Correspondent
The daily Al Sabah newspaper said in its editorial Tuesday that Hezbollah's taking over part of Beirut reminds us of similarities with the situation in Iraq. -
Feature: Notes on Iraq
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:14 PM
By RICHARD TOMKINS
FOB NORMANDY, Iraq, May 13 (UPI) -- FOBs and COPs may sound like a new board game or Xbox distraction, but they're acronyms that actually define the lives of U.S. troops here. -
Analysis: Cybercrooks get credit card data
Published: May 13, 2008 at 12:00 PM
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Three men who hacked into the Dave and Busters restaurant chain and stole its customers' credit card data face federal fraud and conspiracy charges. -
Feature: Divisions, al-Qaida leave legacy
Published: May 13, 2008 at 10:01 AM
By RICHARD TOMKINS
MUQDADIYA, Iraq, May 12 (UPI) -- Hassan Abbas Mahmoud is an optimist, a desperate man or both. -
Atlantic Eye: Of kings and kingmakers
Published: May 12, 2008 at 3:05 PM
By MARC S. ELLENBOGEN
UPI International Columnist
BLOIS, France, May 12 (UPI) -- Lord Holme of Cheltenham was the former chairman of the British Liberal Party -- a classic European free-market oriented, centrist party. He was chair of the English College Foundation in Prague, where we became friends. To his enemies, he spent 30 years as the phantom behind the scenes, the kingmaker. A member of Global Panel America's Advisory Board, he lost his fight to brain cancer last week.
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Analysis: Experts: Ricin terror overblown
Published: March 4, 2008 at 10:18 AM
By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Ricin has been a byword for terrorism in the mass media since Colin Powell used it to link Iraq-based terrorists to groups plotting attacks in Europe as part of the U.S. case for invasion in 2003. But the ricin in that incident turned out to be no more real than Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and experts say that the toxin is so difficult to purify it is unlikely to ever be used successfully in a terror attack.
Samples of the substance found in a Las Vegas motel room last week after its occupant was hospitalized with breathing difficulties will be analyzed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the FBI's Hazardous Materials Response Unit, officials told United Press International Monday.
Two CDC specialists were already in Las Vegas at the request of state and local authorities, the agency's spokesman Von Roebuck told UPI. He said they were working to help ascertain what had sickened Roger Von Bergendorff, a resident at the Extended Stay America motel who was hospitalized Feb. 14 and remains in critical condition.
Experts say that with no conclusive analysis of either the substance or the patient it is hard to tell what might have been found in Bergendorff's room, and some accuse local officials -- and the news media -- of getting out ahead of the story.
"There are field tests, but the lab testing will eliminate the possibility of a false positive," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko acknowledged.
Roebuck told UPI the agency's lab had received samples for confirmatory testing Monday but could not say when the results would be available.
Ramon Denby, a spokesman for the Las Vegas police who recovered the substance after it was handed to the motel management, told UPI a hazmat unit called the Armor Team had conducted field tests on the substance and determined that it contained ricin.
He said the tests had been "conclusively confirmed" by a U.S. military lab. "It was 100 percent positive for ricin," he said.
But a spokeswoman for the Nevada National Guard's 92nd Civilian Support Team who carried out the second set of tests told UPI the results were only preliminary and operated on the precautionary principle.
"The mobile lab rolls in when requested by law enforcement," Capt. April Conway said. "Their job is to take the first cut on what (any substance found) is. They tell the first responders, 'We think you're dealing with ricin,' or whatever it is. … The aim is to protect first responders."
Experts say field testing only reveals the presence of ricin, a protein derived from castor beans that in its purest form is highly toxic.
"You can grind castor beans into powder, and that will contain a tiny amount of ricin," said George Smith, specialist in protein chemistry and a senior fellow with the think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
He said the quantities involved, less than 1 percent of the powder, would be far too small to be usable as a poison but large enough to register in field tests.
Smith said this was what happened in the Wood Green ricin case, made famous by Powell's presentation to the United Nations in February 2003, when he linked it with a training camp allegedly run in Iraq by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
But, as evidence at the Wood Green trial later revealed, the initial reports about the presence of ricin in the apartment British police raided Jan. 5 turned out to be wrong.
"Subsequent confirmatory tests on the material from the pestle and mortar did not detect the presence of ricin. It is my opinion therefore that toxins are not detectable in the pestle and mortar," wrote Martin Pearce, leader of the Biological Weapon Identification Group at the British military research lab at Porton Down.
To eliminate the possibility of false positives and determine the purity of the sample takes laboratory testing, Smith said.
Other experts agreed that it was too soon to say how dangerous was the substance Bergendorff was apparently trying to make -- The New York Times reported authorities had also found castor beans and "a book about anarchy tabbed to a page explaining how to manufacture ricin."
"We need a proper lab analysis of the substance and a proper medical analysis of the patient and we don't have either of them," commented Milton Leitenberg, a bio-weapons specialist at the University of Maryland.
"We don't really know anything at this point," said Leitenberg, adding he was surprised by some of comments he had seen from local officials and some of the media coverage.
"The information out there seems largely inaccurate," he said.
Smith said many media reports were citing CDC figures that as little as 500 micrograms of the pure toxin -- a dose about the size of a pinhead -- can be fatal, without mentioning the difficulty in manufacturing to that level of purity.
Smith said the kind of recipes for ricin typically found in anarchist books or Internet publications could not produce anything that was really useable, even as a poison against individuals.
He said the kind of processing they recommended "actually reduces the amount of ricin present" in the powder.
"There is no practical way to get the required quantities into the victim," he said of the homemade castor bean paste that would result.
"There are laboratory procedures you can perform that will produce pure ricin, but none of these kinds of recipes do that," Smith said, adding, "You have to have some level of technical expertise. Not someone who was good at chemistry at high school. Not even someone with a bachelor's degree in chemistry."
Lawrence Sands, chief health officer of the Southern Nevada Health District, said his agency was working with the CDC and others to identify samples that could help establish whether Bergendorff had been exposed to ricin.
"We have been consulting with doctors (at the hospital) to identify the type of specimens required for testing," he said, adding that could include samples from personal effects or clothing as well as clinical samples.
The long period of time Bergendorff had been hospitalized also "presents some difficulties," Sands said. Any ricin he had been exposed to "might have been metabolized out" by this time.
As it stood, he added, there was no evidence that Bergendorff had been exposed. "Acute respiratory distress (like Bergendorff's) is a common presentation at ER," he said.
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Ricin has been a byword for terrorism in the mass media since Colin Powell used it to link Iraq-based terrorists to groups plotting attacks in Europe as part of the U.S. case for invasion in 2003. But the ricin in that incident turned out to be no more real than Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, and experts say that the toxin is so difficult to purify it is unlikely to ever be used successfully in a terror attack.
Samples of the substance found in a Las Vegas motel room last week after its occupant was hospitalized with breathing difficulties will be analyzed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the FBI's Hazardous Materials Response Unit, officials told United Press International Monday.
Two CDC specialists were already in Las Vegas at the request of state and local authorities, the agency's spokesman Von Roebuck told UPI. He said they were working to help ascertain what had sickened Roger Von Bergendorff, a resident at the Extended Stay America motel who was hospitalized Feb. 14 and remains in critical condition.
Experts say that with no conclusive analysis of either the substance or the patient it is hard to tell what might have been found in Bergendorff's room, and some accuse local officials -- and the news media -- of getting out ahead of the story.
"There are field tests, but the lab testing will eliminate the possibility of a false positive," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko acknowledged.
Roebuck told UPI the agency's lab had received samples for confirmatory testing Monday but could not say when the results would be available.
Ramon Denby, a spokesman for the Las Vegas police who recovered the substance after it was handed to the motel management, told UPI a hazmat unit called the Armor Team had conducted field tests on the substance and determined that it contained ricin.
He said the tests had been "conclusively confirmed" by a U.S. military lab. "It was 100 percent positive for ricin," he said.
But a spokeswoman for the Nevada National Guard's 92nd Civilian Support Team who carried out the second set of tests told UPI the results were only preliminary and operated on the precautionary principle.
"The mobile lab rolls in when requested by law enforcement," Capt. April Conway said. "Their job is to take the first cut on what (any substance found) is. They tell the first responders, 'We think you're dealing with ricin,' or whatever it is. … The aim is to protect first responders."
Experts say field testing only reveals the presence of ricin, a protein derived from castor beans that in its purest form is highly toxic.
"You can grind castor beans into powder, and that will contain a tiny amount of ricin," said George Smith, specialist in protein chemistry and a senior fellow with the think tank GlobalSecurity.org.
He said the quantities involved, less than 1 percent of the powder, would be far too small to be usable as a poison but large enough to register in field tests.
Smith said this was what happened in the Wood Green ricin case, made famous by Powell's presentation to the United Nations in February 2003, when he linked it with a training camp allegedly run in Iraq by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
But, as evidence at the Wood Green trial later revealed, the initial reports about the presence of ricin in the apartment British police raided Jan. 5 turned out to be wrong.
"Subsequent confirmatory tests on the material from the pestle and mortar did not detect the presence of ricin. It is my opinion therefore that toxins are not detectable in the pestle and mortar," wrote Martin Pearce, leader of the Biological Weapon Identification Group at the British military research lab at Porton Down.
To eliminate the possibility of false positives and determine the purity of the sample takes laboratory testing, Smith said.
Other experts agreed that it was too soon to say how dangerous was the substance Bergendorff was apparently trying to make -- The New York Times reported authorities had also found castor beans and "a book about anarchy tabbed to a page explaining how to manufacture ricin."
"We need a proper lab analysis of the substance and a proper medical analysis of the patient and we don't have either of them," commented Milton Leitenberg, a bio-weapons specialist at the University of Maryland.
"We don't really know anything at this point," said Leitenberg, adding he was surprised by some of comments he had seen from local officials and some of the media coverage.
"The information out there seems largely inaccurate," he said.
Smith said many media reports were citing CDC figures that as little as 500 micrograms of the pure toxin -- a dose about the size of a pinhead -- can be fatal, without mentioning the difficulty in manufacturing to that level of purity.
Smith said the kind of recipes for ricin typically found in anarchist books or Internet publications could not produce anything that was really useable, even as a poison against individuals.
He said the kind of processing they recommended "actually reduces the amount of ricin present" in the powder.
"There is no practical way to get the required quantities into the victim," he said of the homemade castor bean paste that would result.
"There are laboratory procedures you can perform that will produce pure ricin, but none of these kinds of recipes do that," Smith said, adding, "You have to have some level of technical expertise. Not someone who was good at chemistry at high school. Not even someone with a bachelor's degree in chemistry."
Lawrence Sands, chief health officer of the Southern Nevada Health District, said his agency was working with the CDC and others to identify samples that could help establish whether Bergendorff had been exposed to ricin.
"We have been consulting with doctors (at the hospital) to identify the type of specimens required for testing," he said, adding that could include samples from personal effects or clothing as well as clinical samples.
The long period of time Bergendorff had been hospitalized also "presents some difficulties," Sands said. Any ricin he had been exposed to "might have been metabolized out" by this time.
As it stood, he added, there was no evidence that Bergendorff had been exposed. "Acute respiratory distress (like Bergendorff's) is a common presentation at ER," he said.
© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
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