• New York City opens counterterrorism center

    The $100 million project was launched after 9/11; the facility would eventually receive video footage from 3,000 cameras posted in and near the financial district, an area of about 1.7 square miles

  • Grappling with the pirate problem

    The Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia, and the Gulf of Aden, are among the most sensitive choke points in global commerce; trouble is, the stable, the comparatively wealthy Southeast Asian countries that line the Malacca Strait have committed their naval and coastal forces to stamping out hijackings and piracy, but the Gulf of Aden is bordered by poor or dysfunctional countries like Djibouti, Yemen, and particularly Somalia

  • Briefly noted

    Raytheon awarded contract for exploratory nuclear detection research… Navies may get tougher on piracy after tanker seizure… U.S. donates nuclear detection equipment to Nigeria

  • Modern-day piracy poses growing threats, challenges

    Forget Captain Kidd, wooden legs, or treasure maps; modern pirates are equipped with supercharged speedboats, large-caliber weaponry, and all the radio intercept technology they need to identify and locate valuable ocean-going booty; on 9/11 we saw what damage a jumbo jet could do when used as a weapon; how about a supertanker as a weapon?

  • DHS to regulate ammonium nitrate

    Ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil commonly is used as an explosive in mining and has been used by terrorists — such as Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma; DHS proposes to regulate its use

  • Turkish ship seized in Gulf of Aden

    Piracy off the Somali coast is becoming a serious problem; so far this year there have been 81 pirates attacks in the region, including 32 hijackings

  • Turkey studying U.S. counterterrorism strategy model

    The Turkish government a comprehensive study for a new counterterrorism strategy, using the U.S. model for counterterrorism coordination as a possible base

  • U.K. local authorities lack intelligence for effective counter-terrorism

    A government study finds that government counter-terrorism funding to local authorities and neighborhood policing over the last two years has yet to translate into a coherent strategy to stop people from becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremists

  • Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository too small

    Congress has placed a 77,000-ton limit on the amount of nuclear waste that can be buried in Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository (the repository will open in 2020 at the earliest); trouble is, the 104 active U.S. nuclear reactors, together with the Pentagon, produce that amount of waste in two years

  • Cyberattacks target U.K. national infrastructure

    The computer systems of critical businesses in the United Kingdom, such as power companies and large financial institutions, are being repeatedly probed to steal information or uncover weaknesses that could take them down