An illegal immigrant from Iran named Hamid Malekpour was discovered last month smuggling a huge load of sniper rifles and high-powered weaponry across the Canadian border into Washington State. He has since been arrested and charged with entering the country illegally with firearms and ammunition, as well as filing a false report with a federal agency.
It has been covered locally and by some bloggers, but that’s pretty much it.
[Agents] found a .50-caliber sniper rifle, two .308-caliber sniper rifles, three .300-caliber sniper rifles, eight law enforcement style .223-caliber rifles, three Glock semi-automatic handguns, 100 .223-caliber magazines, 3,800 rounds of .223-caliber ammunition, various high-powered scopes and other equipment.
[Sheriff] Crabtree marveled at the find. ‘Have you ever seen a .50-caliber round?’ he asked. ‘That’s a big round — the stuff you shoot at airplanes and tanks.’
The only reason Malekpour was caught was that he became sloppy–and that he entered the country from Canada, where the border is at least somewhat controlled.
He repeatedly crossed the border and took trips back and forth to Iran under different aliases, while using a phony gun dealership as a front for his operations called, “McMinnville Hunting & Police Supplies Inc.”–an obscure, shuttered office with no signs that the local police had never heard of, which had a bogus, half-constructed web site and an expired business license.
He was also caught in a number of lies about everything from his passport to why he was entering the country.
Again, even a broken clock is still right twice per day. Eventually, we’re going to have to rely on something more than the persistent incompetence of those seeking to mass-murder us.
Whistleblower lawsuit raises troubling questions about cross-border commerce
As the Obama administration prepares to send some 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest to secure the border, it may well be the nation’s northern border with Canada that has already been breached.
A document detailing that potential threat to U.S. national security surfaced in a lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Canada. That document, an internal Federal Express Canada Ltd. report dubbed the “GTS Update,” reveals that a significant percentage of shipments involving high-value merchandise and/or controlled goods exported using FedEx Canada as the carrier appear to be leaving Canada without the proper Customs paperwork.
Under Canadian Customs law, goods exported to foreign countries, other than those destined for the U.S., that are valued at [Canadian] $2,000 or more, or that are deemed “controlled goods,” must be reported to the Canadian Border Service Agency via an “export declaration,” otherwise known as a B13A form. Proof that the declaration has been filed also must be presented to CBSA at the time the goods are shipped.
Consequently, this class of shipments would likely include a high percentage of controlled goods (defined as strategic, dangerous or regulated, such as nuclear dual-use technology, dangerous chemicals or U.S. goods being shipped from Canada). According to Canadian Customs regulations, these controlled goods are monitored closely, in part, to assure that they don’t pose a security threat to other nations, such as the United States.
The still-pending lawsuit, filed by a former Federal Express Canada Ltd. customs department employee named Nazir Ghany, alleges that FedEx Canada has engaged in “unlawful activities” that violate the Canadian Customs Act. As a consequence of reporting these alleged violations, Ghany contends he was demoted and subjected to retaliation by FedEx Canada management — to the point where he claims he had no choice but to resign from his job.
FedEx Canada has not yet filed a statement of defense with the court in the case. However, a letter penned by one of the company’s legal representatives and directed to Dharamjit Singh, Ghany’s solicitor, or lawyer, argues that Ghany’s pleadings lack “material facts,” are “time barred” and are otherwise not supported by Canadian law.
Singh counters in his pleadings that Ghany will be able to produce evidence at the proper point in the proceedings. He also points to the GTS Update as proof of FedEx Canada’s lack of vigor in following Canadian Customs laws. That GTS Update includes an analysis of the total number of shipments FedEx Canada “exported with out proof of report” — proof that an export declaration, or B13A, had been filed with the Canadian Border Service Agency, or CBSA.
Susan Foster, manager of Customs Regulatory Trade and Compliance for FedEx Canada, in an affidavit filed in the Gh any lawsuit, states the following concerning the shipments involving missing B13A forms:
The GTS Update “shows that there were approximately 19,549 shipments exported without proof of report” and as a result of the foregoing, the potential … penalties to FedEx customers just for the period of May 2005 to April 2006 would have been approximately [Canadian] $19 million.
Singh, however, contends the potential damage to the “national security of the USA and Canada” is much greater. He stresses that, according to the GTS Update, the nearly 20,000 “illegal shipments in just one year” represented 21 percent of total B13A-eligible shipments for that period. That means, he alleges, nearly one-fifth of those shipments were exported in violation of Canadian Customs law.
“It would be inconceivable that nuclear and other technology was not involved [in some of those shipments],” Singh contends. “In any event, there is no excuse for these shipments to have been shipped.”
FedEx Canada’s Foster stresses in her affidavit that “exporters of shipments, not carriers such as FedEx Canada, are ultimately accountable for meeting the export reporting requirements [such as filing required B13A documents]. …”
Big Stakes
FedEx Canada, which employs some 5,000 people, is based in Mississauga, Ontario, and is a subsidiary of USA-based FedEx Corp. — which ships some 6 million packages daily to nearly 230 countries. So, in the scheme of things, a total of 20,000 shipments lacking the proper paperwork doesn’t seem like a big deal.
“Unless there’s a pattern to it,” says U.S. attorney Mark Conrad, a former supervisory special agent with the U.S. Customs Service — since integrated into the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
And that pattern, Singh argues, is the fact that the shipments would have involved a high percentage of “controlled” goods destined for foreign nations, including to countries that might serve as transshipment points for materials destined for Iran.
President Barack Obama, Singh stresses, has been very clear about his concern over Iran’s nuclear intentions, expressed most recently in a letterObama sent to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, and last year during a presentation he made at the G20 Conference in Pittsburgh [video below].
Singh also points to an article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun last year that quoted the head of CBSA’s Counter Proliferation Section, George Webb: “We have anything [and everything] to do with a nuclear program going to Iran.”
The story claims Canadian authorities “have seized everything from centrifuge parts to programmable logic controllers that were being illegally shipped to Iran through third countries.”
In fact, Singh adds, a trial is now underway in Toronto involving a Canadian man accused of attempting to ship to Iran, via Dubai, nuclear dual-use goods (10 specialized gas-pressure gauges, which would have required a B13A filing for export from Canada). The gauges, which are commercial products that could have been used to help centrifuges produce the highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon, were purchased from a U.S. company and shipped from Boston to Toronto “and undervalued when declared,” according to a story in the Canadian Globe and Mail. The alleged plot was uncovered in this case because the U.S. company reported the suspicious shipment to law enforcement authorities.
There is no information available publicly on how the accused planned to ship the gauges to Dubai, according to Singh. Still, he says the case is an example of how violations of Canada’s export laws can involve real threats to global security.
One U.S. Customs official who spoke with Narco News explains that even if all the proper paperwork is filed with an export shipment, that still does not guarantee an illegal shipment will be caught by Customs officials, in either the U.S. or Canada, since criminals lie on forms and the government “bureaucracy takes time to have the AM coffee, get up, and get going.”
The Customs official adds that in cases where required export documents are not filled out, it’s usually because the shipper wants to avoid the extra paperwork and duties involved — with the rare exception being a situation where a shipper is part of a criminal conspiracy.
However, if shipments are known to lack the proper customs declarations, as is allegedly the case with the shipments outlined in the GTS Update, then that should raise some red flags, even if it is likely that only a small fraction of those shipments might involve controlled or dangerous goods, the U.S. Customs official points out.
Singh adds that in the case of FedEx Canada, most of the exports destined for foreign nations other than the U.S. are routed first through FedEx terminals in the U.S. Foster, in a separate deposition she underwent as part of Ghany’s litigation, confirms that the B13A-eligible shipments outlined in the GTS Update “go to the U.S.” prior to being transported to their final destinations.
That fact, the Customs official says, creates a whole other set of potential problems on the U.S. Side of the border, where self-regulation is the guiding hand.
The U.S. Customs officials explains:
You are looking into a truly bottomless pit. First, the shipper has to be honest. Then, the common carrier, say FedEx, has to be honest. All of the employees at both companies have to be honest; no one can be bribed, because generally, all it takes is one person taking a bribe to fiddle with the paperwork. Self-regulation does not work for precisely this reason. You only need one weak link, and that criminal doesn’t have to be a boss, or a senior manager; it can be a clerk in the shipping office.
“Gaping Hole”
In the case of controlled goods exported from Canada and destined for the U.S., there is no requirement for a B13A filing under Canadian law. That’s because Canada and the U.S. have in place a memorandum of understanding that calls for each nation to exchange import data.
However, major criticisms have been raised about U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s reliance on self-regulation under programs such as “C-TPAT,” which allows qualifying private-sector companies to oversee their own shipment security. In exchange, these C-TPAT-approved companies are granted a reduction in cargo examinations as well as expedited processing when their shipments are selected for examination.
The rational for such programs is that it allows U.S. border enforcers to better allocate scarce resources toward monitoring the immense volume of goods moved by shippers who have not been prescreened through C-TPAT and similar self-regulation programs.
Over the first six months of fiscal 2009, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, goods shipped via C-TPAT and a sister program called Importer Self Assessment (ISA), accounted for about half of all U.S. import value for the period — some $454 billion worth of goods.
The Washington, D.C.-based Project on Government Oversight (POGO), in a letter sent to members of Congress late last year, pointed out some serious flaws in this self-regulation model.
In our efforts to further this mission, we want to bring to your attention two troubling self-policing programs—the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and Importer Self-Assessment (ISA) programs—administered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Inherent in this sort of self-regulation is a reduction of federal oversight of imported goods coming into the country. POGO believes that self-regulation programs, by their very nature, are unsound because they are not objective or reliable, and that they are ripe for abuse, placing U.S. citizens in jeopardy.
… Specifically, POGO has received insider information that importers non-compliant with trade laws and regulations have been approved and are applying for the C-TPAT and ISA programs.
… It must also be noted that a number of the known C-TPAT companies have committed serious trade violations in the past, yet have been granted membership into C-TPAT and ISA, without testing to verify their problems have been corrected.
…. It is easy to conclude that all of these programs are, in part, the result of limited resources to monitor the hundreds of billions of dollars of goods that enter the U.S. each year. However, the risk inherent with that strategy becomes a financial, security, and safety issue.
Although CBP does not make public the list of companies participating in C-TPAT or ISA, POGO was able to identify a number of those firms via government and company Web sites. Among the companies in the program, according to POGO, are BP America, Tektronix, Target Corp. and FedEx.
Singh concedes he does not yet know how FedEx Canada knew about the 20,000 or so shipments lacking the proper B13A filings, or when they discovered the problem. However, he contends that the confidential FedEx Canada GTS Update report now entered into evidence in Ghany’s lawsuit — even though it is some four years old — is not an isolated document and that FedEx has been tracking this data across multiple years.
“We haven’t gone for discoveries as yet,” Singh says. “But my client did tell me that there were status reports every year and FedEx obviously knew of these shortcomings.”
For its part, FedEx Canada is not conceding the GTS Update is or is not part of a regular reporting regime, nor that the report included in the lawsuit was even seen by the company’s top management.
Whether the nearly 20,000 exports that left Canada absent the proper export declaration, per the GTS Update, are part of a continuing pattern or not, or whether some of those shipments might have contained materials destined for a foreign arms program, is simply not known at this point.
However, according to former U.S. Customs supervisory special agent Conrad, the questions raised by the Ghany case are not new.
“All of us in law enforcement that dealt with technology theft from the U.S. by the old USSR were aware that high-speed, efficient organizations such as FedEx … were problems because of their need to move things through the system faster than the government could [track it],” Conrad says. “That is still the case today.
“It is it a huge gaping hole. … The bad guys are always thinking of ways and means to beat us.”
A Canadian anarchist group has claimed responsibility for a firebomb attack in Ottawa on the country’s largest commercial bank and is threatening to disrupt next months’ G8 and G20 summits in Ontario.
In a statement after the attack, a self-proclaimed group of anarchists said the Royal Bank was targeted because it was a sponsor of the Vancouver Olympic Games, which the group claims was held on stolen indigenous land.
They also say the Royal is a major backer of Alberta’s tar sands, which they describe as one of the most destructive industrial projects in human history.
The statement was posted on a website along with a video showing the attack on the bank.
The group has vowed to take their protest to Ontario for the G8 and G20 summits, where they say decisions will be made to further exploit people and the environment.
Stewart Bell, National Post Published: Thursday, January 14, 2010
TORONTO — A Pakistani-Canadian businessman was indicted by a U.S. grand jury on Thursday for his alleged role in the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India that killed more than 160 people.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana was charged with providing material support to both the Mumbai attacks and Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, the Pakistani terrorist group that was responsible.
Mr. Rana, 49, was already facing charges alleging he had participated in a plot to attack a Danish newspaper that published a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.
But on Thursday a grand jury returned a new indictment that, for the first time, also implicated him in the Mumbai massacre, a three-day terror rampage in India’s largest city. Two Canadians were among the dead.
The owner of First World Immigration, which has offices in Toronto, Chicago and New York, Mr. Rana was arrested last October in Illinois, where he had been working, although he owns a home in Ottawa.
The grand jury also indicted Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistani terrorist who was allegedly in regular contact with al-Qaeda, and Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, a retired major in the Pakistani military.
A fourth defendant, David Coleman Headley, a Pakistani-born American who had trained at Lashkar camps in Pakistan, was indicted last month for his alleged roles in the Danish and Indian plots.
The indictment alleges that in 2006, after changing his name from Daood Gilani so he would appear more American, Mr. Headley began studying targets in Mumbai. Mr. Rana allegedly helped by giving him a cover story.
“In approximately June 2006, Headley allegedly traveled to Chicago, advised Rana of his assignment to scout potential targets in India, and obtained approval from Rana, who owned First World Immigration Services in Chicago and elsewhere, to open a First World office in Mumbai as cover for his activities,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
“Rana allegedly directed an individual associated with First World to prepare documents supporting Headley’s cover story of opening a First World office in Mumbai, and advised Headley how to obtain a visa for travel to India.”
During the planning stages of the Mumbai attacks, Mr. Headley made five trips to the Indian city to take photographs and record videotapes of potential targets.
“Before each trip, Lashkar members and associates allegedly instructed Headley regarding specific locations where he was to conduct surveillance, and Headley traveled to Pakistan after each trip to meet with Lashkar members and associates, report on the results of his surveillance, and provide the surveillance photos and videos,” the statement says.
The indictment suggests that Lashkar conducted careful planning which included constructing a Styrofoam model of the Taj Mahal hotel. Lashkar also gave Mr. Headley a GPS device so he could record the locations of targets and sites where the terrorists could land the boat in which they were to travel from Pakistan.
During Headley’s July 2008 surveillance mission to Mumbai, one of the Pakistani terrorist planners allegedly communicated with him “by passing messages to him through Rana,” the indictment alleges.
The Mumbai attacks began on Nov. 26, 2008 and continuing until Nov. 28. Ten gunmen trained by Lashkar used rifles, grenades and explosives to attack the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, the Leopold Café, Chabad House and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus train station – all of which Headley allegedly had scouted in advance.
The indictment similarly accuses Mr. Rana of helping Mr. Headley scout targets in Denmark, where Pakistani terrorists were planning a second attack, this time against the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, its cartoonist and his editor.
“In late December 2008 and early January 2009, after reviewing with Rana how he had performed surveillance of the targets attacked in Mumbai, Headley advised Rana of the planned attack on the Danish newspaper and his intended travel to Denmark to conduct surveillance of its facilities,” the statement says.
It says Mr. Rana again helped Mr. Headley travel as a representative of First World, so he could gain access to the newspaper office by claiming he wanted to buy advertising.
Mr. Rana has pleaded not guilty to the charges related to the Danish plot. No date has been set for his arraignment on the new charges related to the Mumbai attacks.
Canadian airports remained on heightened alert Tuesday after renewed fears of a terrorist threat led Transport Canada to issue a warning to “exercise increased vigilance.”
“There’s some specific information that certainly causes me concern, causes our security officials concern, and I think we’ve got to maintain heightened vigilance at this time,” said Transport Minister John Baird.
Baird said new, specific information about a potential attack led his agency to issue the warning, which comes in the wake of the thwarted Christmas Day attack on a U.S. airliner.
Baird wouldn’t discuss the threat specifically, but he said it’s not considered imminent and isn’t anything like 9-11. The warnings are not meant to create panic, he said.
Transport Canada spokeswoman Maryse Durette said no new security measures will be put in place in response to the warning.
“Basically we want them (the airports) to … exercise increased vigilance when they do their work.”
Durette could not say why the warning was issued.
“I do not have those details,” she said, deferring comment on the cause of the warning to public safety.
Public Safety Canada did not immediately return requests for comment.
The Greater Toronto Airport Authority was tight-lipped about any changes that might take place at Pearson International Airport, saying only that the airport authority complies with any instructions from Transport Canada.
“We get directives and regulations from Transport Canada and we follow those directives,” said spokesman Scott Armstrong. “I cannot give details on security.”
Transport Canada announced last week that full body scanners will be placed in some airports over the next few months as part of more stringent security measures for trips into the U.S. put in place on Dec. 26 in response to the alleged terrorist attempt.
But the government has no immediate plans to accelerate the deployment of full-body scanners at airports as a result of the warnings, Baird said, and airport authorities said there’s no set date for when they might be put in place.
“We are slowly starting to receive the scanners this week,” said Mathieu Larocque, Canadian Air Transport Security Authority spokesman.
Larocque said the scanners are only for passengers travelling to the U.S., and passengers can still request the traditional pat down.
CTV Ottawa reported Tuesday that the airports were put on “high alert” Saturday after “credible intelligence” of a potential terrorist threat. The news agency also reported that Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with national security ministers on Monday, two days after the warning was issued.
Passengers travelling to the U.S. are no longer allowed to bring any carry-on luggage into the plane, except for small purses, cameras, coats, medications, items for the care of small children, laptop computers and canes or walkers. Additional searches of passengers travelling to the U.S. will also be conducted before boarding. Travellers to the U.S. are being encouraged to arrive at the airport at least three hours before their departure time.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is accused of trying to ignite a chemical-laden explosive on a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, was arraigned Friday in a Detroit court.
Authorities say the young Nigerian with Al Qaeda links was travelling from Amsterdam to Detroit when he tried to destroy the Northwest Airlines plane carrying nearly 300 people by injecting chemicals into a package of explosives.
Magistrate Judge Mark Randon entered a not guilty plea for the 23-year-old, who could face up to life in prison for attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Two months before the opening of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canadian security officials said Wednesday they are on pace to deploy about 15,000 police, private security and military personnel as part of an extensive security effort expected to cost nearly $1 billion.
Airspace restrictions will cover 30 miles around the city and competition venues; an undisclosed number of agents will be dispatched to Canada’s southern border with the USA to speed visitors to the host city and competition venues. And to guard against the possible spread of the H1N1 virus, security officers are being vaccinated.
There are no credible threats against the international sports spectacle, which begins Feb. 12. But Olympic security coordinator Ward Elcock said Canadian authorities have built a security plan “around the worst possible threat” — a terrorist attack.
Not since the 1996 Atlanta Games — when a pipebomb left two dead in a crowded downtown park — has the Olympics been a target for violence.
But security costs have soared since then, especially in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In Atlanta, for example, Olympic organizers spent $98 million for security. In Salt Lake City, just months after the Sept. 11 attacks, security costs topped $300 million. By 2004, Athens spent more than $1 billion.
Beijing, which dispatched more than 100,000 security officers to protect the Summer Games last year, has not disclosed its costs.
In a meeting with reporters in Washington, Elcock also acknowledged security costs in Canada have increased sharply. After starting with a budget of $175 million, costs have increased to about $900 million.
“The reality is that there is an expectation of what you do to protect the Olympics,” Elcock said.
Last Updated: Monday, December 7, 2009 | 8:19 PM PT
A civil rights group is expressing concern as Vancouver begins to install dozens of closed-circuit video cameras to monitor activity in parts of the downtown core during the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association believes several of the cameras are being permanently installed, a suggestion the city denies.
The city said in a release Monday the cameras will be deactivated and no further monitoring will take place after March 28.
The Granville entertainment strip between Robson and Drake streets routinely requires extra police presence on weekend nights to deal with fights, assaults and rowdy behaviour, especially as patrons spill out of bars after 3 a.m.
Signs will warn of cameras
Vancouver’s police department has pushed to have closed-circuit cameras put on the strip permanently, and a spokeswoman with the B.C. Civil Liberties Association believes police will now get their wish.
“The city has established a permanent control centre for these temporary cameras,” Vonn told CBC News on Monday.
“There’s been a massive shell game going on relative to the cameras. The Olympics are a smokescreen for bringing these cameras in and we’ve got a fight on our hands.”
Crews will install about 100 cameras over the next two months in the following areas:
Granville Street – Drake to Cordova.
Robson Street – Bute to Beatty.
Hamilton/Mainland – Georgia to Drake.
LiveCity Yaletown.
LiveCity Downtown.
The city said locations selected for monitoring are high-traffic zones with large numbers of pedestrians and visitors expected throughout the Games period in February.
Canada’s major airports will soon have new X-ray scanning gear for carry-on baggage that could speed up the trip through security and make it easier to spot potential threats, officials say.
The equipment, which will be in the airports by February, also holds the potential of relaxing blanket restrictions on carrying liquids aboard flights.
The Canadian Air Transportation Security Authority has given a $27 million contract to UK-based Smiths Detection to replace the company’s single-view X-ray scanners with units that capture four views of each piece of luggage.
“This additional data that is created contributes to better decisions by our screening officers and obviously an improvement on the security at the checkpoint,” Mathieu Larocque, the authority’s communications officer, said from Ottawa.
In 8 airports by 2011
The new system is being installed this year in five Canadian airports: Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal and Halifax.
Larocque said Canada’s other three Class 1 airports — Calgary, Winnipeg and Ottawa — will get the units in the next fiscal year. There are no plans to upgrade the scanners at smaller regional airports, he said.
Scanners for checked baggage already use the technology, he added.
Vancouver International Airport, which is preparing for an influx of travellers for the Winter Olympics in February, recently finished a successful test run.
“We did a pilot in Vancouver with one unit and I believe other units are installed or being installed as we speak,” Larocque said. “The Games played an important role in the pilot.”
Views from more angles
Current scanners for carry-on luggage provide an image comparable to a medical X-ray, Cherif Rizkalla, Smiths’ president of security and inspection, said from Montreal.
The new units, including a model capable of handling larger items such as strollers, will make two views available for the operator but use data from four views of the object.
A computer software algorithm automatically identifies threatening objects such as explosives and frames them in red on the screen.
Could reduce delays
The new system is more accurate than current scanners and should reduce delays caused by having to run bags through scanners more than once or pulling them aside for hand searches, Rizkalla said.
“It gives more tools to the operator to essentially make a quicker, more accurate decision, and that will help throughput.”
Larocque was more cautious about whether the equipment will speed up the screening process.
“We’re not quite sure yet but it has definitely the potential,” he said. “Because screening officers will see the object at different angles, they will be able to make better decisions, which may indeed lead to more efficient and faster screening.”
Rizkalla said the software can be updated to detect new threats as they emerge.
No liquid explosive detector yet
Before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, there had been little change in the kinds of threats being addressed, he said. Since then, security screenings have dealt with things such as shoe-borne and liquid explosives.
Although the new system is capable of detecting liquid explosives, this function isn’t being actively used yet, Larocque said.
“We’re not using it in the deployment right now because we’re still testing it,” he said.
Larocque stressed that any decision to ease restrictions on carry-on liquids would only come if there’s a consensus with the security authority’s counterparts in the United States and the European Community, where the new scanning equipment is already in use.
GlaxoSmithKline has advised doctors in Canada to stop using a batch of its swine flu vaccine, amid reports of severe side-effects in some patients.
The batch of some 170,000 doses was put on voluntary hold because of a reported higher than usual number of patients having anaphylactic reactions.
This may include breathing problems, raised heart rate and skin rashes.
The pharmaceutical company said it had advised that one lot of the Arepanrix vaccine should not be used.
Reports said one in 20,000 people suffered adverse reactions to the batch.
This is five times the expected number. None of the patients reportedly suffered long-term ill-effects.
Voluntary hold
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the company said that following discussions with Canadian health authorities, it was advising a batch of the Arepanrix vaccine with the lot number A80CA007A to be put on hold as a precautionary measure.
GSK said it was taking this action “as a result of a higher than expected rate of serious allergic reactions related to this lot number compared to other lots”.
The company said no such reactions had been seen with other lots and that they were unaffected by the voluntary hold.
To date some 15 million doses of Arepanrix have been distributed across Canada and overall the frequency of severe allergic reaction following immunisation was less than one event per 100,000, GSK’s statement said.
“This rate does not exceed the rates typically reported for other vaccines,” GSK said.
Vancouver police have a new crowd control device capable of emitting painfully loud blasts of sound, just in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, CBC News has learned.
Vancouver police have a new crowd control device capable of emitting painfully loud blasts of sound, just in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics, CBC News has learned.
The medium-range acoustic device (MRAD) can use sound as a weapon, emitting piercing sounds at frequency levels that cross the human threshold of pain and are potentially damaging to hearing, say audio experts.
But it is primarily designed as a communications device that’s clearly audible up to a kilometre away, say police.
Const. Lindsay Houghton said the device was first tested this summer as a public address system during the Celebration of Light fireworks events in Vancouver.
‘Backing into things like this without proper public discussion … is simply not good policy.”
?Robert Holmes, president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association
Houghton said police don’t plan to use the device for anything more than communication.
“The primary function we’re using the device for is its ability to communicate with very large groups with respect to crowd control, evacuations, tactical situations where we may need the loudspeaker portion of it,” he said.
Military design put to civilian use
The device ? which is a compact version of its predecessor, the Long Range Acoustic Device ? can be mounted on top of a vehicle. It is capable of emitting a blast of directional sound measuring an estimated 146 decibels at one metre away and an estimated 99 decibels at 500 metres.
Sound above the range of 120 to 140 decibels is considered painful and damaging to human hearing.
The devices were originally designed for the American military and was first used publicly in North America in September as police in Pittsburgh tried to control anti-G20 demonstrators.
The device has been used in military and civilian ship defence systems to repel would-be pirates, by the U.S. military to drive away insurgents in Iraq and by Japanese whaling ships to drive away protesters.
But police in Vancouver have no plans to use the device as a sonic weapon, said Houghton.
“It was looked at solely for its effectiveness at delivering a message to a large number of people,” said Houghton.
Lack of regulations raises concerns
SFU criminologist David MacAlister, whose research focuses on police powers and civil liberties, said the public should be concerned about the police bringing in new tactics just months before the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Protesters have threatened to hold large public demonstrations and possibly attempt to disrupt the Games.
“We want to be concerned whenever we’re putting a new weapon in the hands of the police and they’re basically telling us ‘Trust us, we’re not going to use it,’” said MacAlister.
“I’m always concerned when the police have a device like this that can be deployed and have that incidental effect on people who aren’t necessarily the target of its use,” he said.
Protocols and policies must be put in place to govern how the MRAD will be used during the Olympics, MacAlister maintains.
“The very fact they have the device and it has a weapon capability to it, there’s always a risk its going to be used and I think we have to ask some serious questions whether this is the kind of device we want in the hands of the police,” said MacAlister.
“It takes time to get cases into court and get definitive rulings on whether the police should have power or access to a given device,” he said.
Robert Holmes, the president of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, also is concerned that police have the device.
“We have new gadgets on the go handed out to officers. Who knows what or how they’re going to be used,” said Holmes.
“Backing into things like this without proper public discussion and assuring everyone there are protocols in place for their use is simply not good policy,” said Holmes.
