ARMY: Fort Bliss bunker possibly contaminated with radiation

FORT BLISS, Texas — Army and federal investigators have detected radiation in a former nuclear weapons bunker at Fort Bliss and are trying to determine if anyone or other buildings on the West Texas post may have been contaminated, officials said Tuesday.

A group of investigators from the Army, experts on nuclear and chemical weapons, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations Weapons of Mass Destruction team arrived Tuesday to the desert area where the bunker is located. It sits along with other above-ground concrete storage facilities completely buried in dirt. A yellow and red sign warning of radiation danger could be seen on the steel doors of bunker 11507.


Fort Bliss spokesman Maj. Joe Buccino said epoxy paint was applied to the interior of the bunker years ago to contain the radioactivity, but that over the years the paint has become chipped, allowing the radioactive surface to become exposed.

Although further tests will determine the nature of the radiation Buccino said it originated most likely from uranium of the “old unsealed nuclear weapons” that used to be handled in the bunker.

Buccino said the levels of radiation are low and that the contamination is contained to the immediate area where the bunker is located. He said the closest residential neighborhood is about one mile away and that area residents are safe.

The epoxy paint chips “could have come loose and if you ingest them that’s the concern, they couldn’t have come loose and then gone into the El Paso community, they don’t travel that far”.

However, he said, they will know more once the Army Environmental Command finishes its report. He did not offer an estimate as to when that report might be finished but hinted that “the investigation is in its infancy.”

Rifles and other weaponry have been stored in the bunker since 2003, but Buccino said it’s unlikely that soldiers who used the equipment are contaminated as a result. About 30 people who regularly work in the bunker taking inventory and conducting other tasks were being tested for radioactive contamination.

All personnel that have been working in the bunker, about 30 people, including contractors, civilian employees and service members have been notified of the risk. It was not immediately clear how many people over the past decade were exposed to the radiation.

Panama seizes DPRK ship carrying Fan Song Missile System

The Panamanian authorities impounded a rusting North Korean freighter on a voyage from Cuba toward the Panama Canal and back to its home country, and said the ship was carrying missile system components cloaked in a cargo of sugar. The arms would appear to represent a significant violation of United Nations sanctions imposed on North Korea.

President Ricardo Martinelli of Panama, who announced the seizure late Monday in a radio interview, posted a photograph in a Twitter message of what he described as “sophisticated missile equipment” found in the cargo hold of the vessel, the 450-foot Chong Chon Gang, a 36-year-old freighter that has rarely plied the waters of the Western Hemisphere.

Mr. Martinelli and other Panamanian officials said the vessel’s 35 crew members were taken into custody after they resisted efforts to redirect the vessel to the Panamanian port of Manzanillo, at the Atlantic end of the canal, and that the captain tried to commit suicide after the ship was detained. The captain’s condition was unclear.

The president said the ship would undergo a thorough inspection to look for any more contraband. “We’re going to keep unloading the ship and figure out exactly what was inside,” he said. “You cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal.”

José Raúl Mulino, Panama’s minister of security, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that the suspect cargo had been found in two containers and that “evidently, they are armaments.” Mr. Mulino said all the sugar sacks aboard would be removed before the ship could be completely investigated.

The crew members were detained and taken to a naval base after they disconnected crane cables aboard their ship, in what Mr. Mulino called an act of “rebellion and sabotage.”

Mr. Martinelli said the ship had been stopped initially on suspicion of carrying narcotics. But it is unusual for Panama Canal authorities to detain or search any ship that is merely passing through the waterway and not stopping in Panama to load or unload cargo.

As of midday Tuesday there was no comment on the ship seizure by officials from either North Korea or Cuba. The two countries, known for their antipathy to the United States, have formed close bonds over the years, partly as a consequence of an American-led effort to ostracize them internationally, North Korea in particular.

The United Nations has imposed broad sanctions on North Korea that seek to curtail its ability to export and import weaponry, particularly missile components and technology. Earlier this month, the United States blacklisted a general in Myanmar, Thein Htay, for buying military goods from North Korea.

American officials say North Korea’s arms trade has helped finance the country’s nuclear and missile ambitions. In February, the North carried out its third nuclear test, a detonation that led to a tightened round of sanctions imposed by the United Nations and supported by North Korea’s longtime ally and benefactor, China.

The seizure comes as Panama and South Korea, the North’s sworn enemy, have been strengthening ties and exploring a possible free trade agreement.

At the same time, North Korea and Cuba have been further strengthening ties as well. Two weeks ago the North Korean armed forces chief of staff, Kim Kyok-sik, visited Cuba and met with President Raul Castro, Cuban news media reported. Such a visit by a high-ranking North Korea official like Mr. Kim did not go unnoticed elsewhere.

“There are very few states where the North Korean chief of staff is welcomed for a high-level meeting,” Hugh Griffiths, an international arms trafficking expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said in a telephone interview.

Mr. Griffiths said that against the context of Mr. Kim’s visit to Cuba, a seizure of arms on a North Korean vessel that had recently departed from Cuba would not be entirely surprising.

Still, he said, it was unusual that this particular vessel was in the area. He said the ship’s itinerary history showed that it had spent most of its working life in Asian and European waters, and the last known time it had been to Panama was in 2002.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Ethiopian Dreamliner catches fire at Heathrow - Boeing stock plunges.

LONDON -- A fire on an empty Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane forced Heathrow Airport to close both its runways Friday, suspending all arrivals and departures.

The airport said in a tweet that there were no passengers aboard the Ethiopian Airlines plane, and British police said the fire is being treated as unexplained. London's fire department said its firefighters were on standby to assist Heathrow's crews.

Television images showed nearly a dozen fire trucks on the scene and firefighters standing around the Ethiopian Airlines plane, which was parked on a remote stand.

Fire-retardant foam appeared to have been sprayed, but no damage to the plane was immediately apparent.

The incident is likely to heap more pressure on Boeing Co., which makes the Dreamliner.

The Dreamliner was grounded for three months earlier this year amid concerns about overheating lithium-ion batteries. Shares in Boeing have fallen more than 1.3 percent on the news.

9-11 terrorist mastermind builds Top Secret vacuum cleaner for the CIA?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confined to the basement of a CIA secret prison in Romania about a decade ago, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, asked his jailers whether he could embark on an unusual project: Would the spy agency allow Mohammed, who had earned his bachelor's in mechanical engineering, to design a vacuum cleaner?

The agency officer in charge of the prison called CIA headquarters and a manager approved the request, a former senior CIA official told The Associated Press.

Mohammed had endured the most brutal of the CIA's harsh interrogation methods and had confessed to a career of atrocities. But the agency had no long-term plan for him. Someday, he might prove useful. Perhaps, he'd even stand trial one day.

And for that, he'd need to be sane.

"We didn't want them to go nuts," the former senior CIA official said, one of several who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the now-shuttered CIA prisons or Mohammed's interest in vacuums.

So, using schematics from the Internet as his guide, Mohammed began re-engineering one of the most mundane of household appliances.

That the CIA may be in possession of the world's most highly classified vacuum cleaner blueprints is but one peculiar, lasting byproduct of the controversial U.S. detention and interrogation program.

By the CIA's own account, the program's methods were "designed to psychologically 'dislocate'" people. But once interrogations stopped, the agency had to try to undo the psychological damage inflicted on the detainees.

The CIA apparently succeeded in keeping Mohammed sane. He appears to be in good health, according to military records.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

X-47B UCAS lands on aircraft carrier

click to enlarge

USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH, at sea (NNS) -- The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completed its first-ever carrier-based arrested landing on board USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) off the coast of Virginia July 10.

"It isn't very often you get a glimpse of the future. Today, those of us aboard USS George H.W. Bush got that chance as we witnessed the X-47B make its first ever arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier," said Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus. "The operational unmanned aircraft soon to be developed have the opportunity to radically change the way presence and combat power are delivered from our aircraft carriers."

Today's demonstration was the first time a tailless, unmanned autonomous aircraft landed on a modern aircraft carrier.

This test marks an historic event for naval aviation that Navy leaders believe will impact the way the Navy integrates manned and unmanned aircraft on the carrier flight deck in the future.

In May 2013, the X-47B successfully completed underway carrier deck operations aboard USS George H. W. Bush to include a first-ever catapult launch and nine touch-and-gos.

"We have certainly come a long way in the 102 years since Eugene Ely made the first arrested landing aboard an aircraft carrier. Naval aviators have always been at the forefront of operational and tactical innovation, and today was no exception," said Mabus. "People make unmanned aviation possible and it is people who will provide the fresh thinking and new ideas so crucial to successes like the X-47B program and the unmanned aircraft of the future."