• Kenyan security forces in “final assault” on terrorist-held mall

    Kenyan security forces last evening were preparing what they described as a “final assault” on the luxury shopping mall in Nairobi where armed Islamic militants were still holding about thirty hostages. As night fell on Nairobi, loud explosions could be heard from the Westgate mall where the members of the Somali jihadist group al-Shabaab had been barricaded since shooting their way into the mall on Saturday. The Kenyan authorities say that so far they have counted sixty-eight dead, 175 injured, and forty-nine missing, but that toll will likely rise. Unconfirmed reports said that three of the attackers were U.S. citizens of Somali descent.

  • Border communities decry Washington’s misguided emphasis on border security

    Billions of dollars have been spent in an effort to secure the U.S.-Mexico border. Many border communities see investment in cross-border commerce, rather than spending money on fences and patrol agents, as a better way to reduce crime and illegal immigration. “We don’t need more Border Patrol agents — we need more customs agents,” says El Paso mayor John Cook.

  • Paul Goldenberg appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council

    Paul G. Goldenberg, president of Hamilton, New Jersey-based Cardinal Point Strategies, was appointed to the Homeland Security Advisory Council to serve a 3-year term. Goldenberg has built a career as a criminal justice executive with experience in a variety of government and non-governmental organizations.

  • Iran indicates willingness to rethink nuclear program in exchange for sanction relief

    As part of a series of steps designed to present post-election Iran as more pragmatic, President Hassan Rouhani and his advisers indicated they would be willing to consider curbs on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from the crippling economic sanctions imposed on Iran. Some Western experts say that all these steps are more than mere cosmetic changes, while skeptics note that Obama has reached out to Iran before, with no results. Veterans of past nuclear negotiations with Iran also noted that it is likely that Rouhani’s team may not yet fully understand the kinds of concessions that the Islamic republic would be required to make to have the most painful economic sanctions lifted.

  • Congress urged to support broad legislative agenda for science

    With the U.S. Senate poised to revisit S. 1392, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013, the American Chemical Society (ACS) announced its support for the bill as part of a larger, legislative science agenda for 2013.

  • Aon calls on U.S. to extend expiring Terrorism Risk Insurance Act

    Aon plc called on the U.S. government to extend the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), saying that TRIA remains the best solution for handling the terrorism insurance exposure in the United States. Aon says that if the program is allowed to expire, more than 85 percent of insurers will no longer continue to insure terrorism risk. Ultimately, in the unfortunate event of a large-scale attack, the U.S. government would face the full burden of the associated costs of said terrorism.

  • The side of Homeland Security you won't see on TV

    The way the Department of Homeland Security is often portrayed in popular culture — surveillance and secret agents — leaves out a crucial aspect of its role. It also works on technology to detect attacks as they are happening, and helps federal and local governments prepare for all kinds of disasters, from hurricanes to accidental chemical spills to anthrax attacks. Argonne Laboratory engineers contribute to this effort, helping local and state governments form emergency plans, run drills for a pandemic flu outbreak in the city of Chicago, and analyzed ways to enhance security at plants and factories across the country.

  • Improving resilience of DHS work force

    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security should develop and promote a unified strategy and common vision to build and sustain work-force readiness and resilience across the entire agency, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences. DHS expressed concern that it was not reaching the level of impact that it had hoped to achieve with its program to build resilience at the agency and asked the IOM to review its efforts, identify shortcomings, and provide recommendations for a five-year strategic plan.

  • Experts question ambitious Syria chemical weapons agreement

    The announcements in Geneva by Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were bold: President Bashar al-Assad has a week to provide detailed, accurate, and comprehensive information about Syria’s entire chemical weapons program: research labs, production facilities, test sites, chemical storage depots, and munitions kept by every military unit. Experts say that the tight timetable the agreement requires for disclosure of stockpile, destruction of production facilities, and the destruction of the chemical weapons themselves, would not only set a speed record, but that that it cannot be accomplished even with Syria’s full cooperation.

  • Syria’s chemical program, inventory

    The Syrian chemical weapons program began in the 1970s when the Hafez al-Assad regime purchased chemical munitions from the Soviet Union. In the 1980s, Syria launched a broad program of acquiring the materials, products, and knowledge necessary to set up an autonomous chemical weapons production capacity. In the nearly four decades of acquisition, research, development, and production, Syria has amassed what experts consider to be the world’s largest chemical weapons stockpile, consisting of about 1,000 tons of chemical agents and precursor chemicals.

  • New report highlights unfulfilled recommendation by 9/11 Commission

    New report says that failure to enact one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission – consolidated congressional oversight of DHS – poses a risk to U.S. national security. “While the failure to reform DHS oversight may be invisible to the public, it is not without consequence or risk. Fragmented jurisdiction impedes DHS’ ability to deal with three major vulnerabilities: the threats posed by small aircraft and boats; cyberattacks; and biological weapons,” one of the report’s authors says.

  • New study shows link between rates of gun ownership and homicides

    A new study shows that U.S. states with higher estimated rates of gun ownership experience a higher number of firearms-related homicides. The study, covering thirty years (1981-2010) in all fifty states, found a “robust correlation” between estimated levels of gun ownership and actual gun homicides at the state level, even when controlling for factors typically associated with homicides. For each 1 percentage point increase in the prevalence of gun ownership, the state firearm homicide rate increases by 0.9 percent, the authors found.

  • California granting driver's licenses to illegal aliens threatens homeland security: critics

    Last Thursday night’s approval of AB 60 by both houses of the California Legislature, granting driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, poses a serious threat to the security of all Americans, critics charge. The critics say that in 2005, in response to recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Congress enacted the REAL ID Act in order to discourage state governments from issuing driver’s licenses and other identity documents to illegal aliens – and that California’s AB 60 is designed to circumvent requirements of REAL ID Act.

  • Nigerian terrorist to be extradited to U.S.

    Nigeria is set to extradite Lawal Babafemi, also known as Abdullah Ayatollah Mustapher, to the United States to answer terrorism charges. Babafemi was paid $8,600 by AQAP to recruit English speaking Nigerians to work in AQAP’s English-language media network, al-Malahem, which includes a magazine titled Inspire.

  • Obama: Russia’s chemical weapons proposal may be a “significant breakthrough”

    President Obama on Monday described a Russian proposal for Syria to turn over control of its chemical weapons to international monitors in order to avoid a military strike a “potentially positive development,” which could represent a “significant breakthrough.” Obama said, though, that the proposal should be taken “with a grain of salt,” and it was viewed with some skepticism by the administration, with senior officials saying the proposal could possibly be a delaying tactic aimed to undermine Obama’s already tenuous efforts to push for a military strike. The Russian proposal called for Syria to open its chemical weapons stocks to international inspections and give complete account of its stocks; begin the process of supervised destruction of these weapons; and join the Chemical Weapons Convention.