CBRNe News November 2008
Gwyn Winfield examines the latest news in the world of CBRNE
Product Watch
Sold!
Bruhn Newtech announced both new owners and a new direction, when they were bought in the middle of October. A group of private investors, which included the management team of Bruhn, a software company called Gatehouse, a piezosensor company called Ryan Holdings and the IMK private fund, have decided that they will strengthen their C4i products and to increase their share of the homeland security market. This decision is to bring their ‘solutions based on experience and technological leadership’ said their CEO Jacob Nielsen, yet presumably this will revolve around their warning and reporting and software systems.
This is always going to be a tougher market to crack, Nato with its A E/T P45 allows a certain amount of framework that companies can base their products on – and this has been the basis of Bruhn’s military success - yet this is missing in civilian requirements and will see Bruhn taking on a far wider, and less specialised, group of opponents. As evidence of this new focus Bruhn announced their participation in an EADS primed project called Firecontrol. This will see Bruhn get a share of the £300 million contract to provide their hazard prediction software into the UK’s nine regional control centres.
More Smiths news
Smiths announced a $6 million order from the Transport Security Administration for their IonScan 500DT explosive detector for US airports. The IMS, desktop device was the first dual explosive detector to be placed on the TSA’s Qualified Products List.
Air cooled
Wl Gore launched their Active Cooling vest, a two layer ensemble that has air pumped through the layers to lower the thermal load. The air is cooled by a 150W blower and offers 8.5 hours of battery powered cooling, and has a low audio signature. The vest can be integrated with other garments and even worn under body armour.
The new series of ER!
Inficon have introduced their new Hazmat ER VOC detector. Hazmat ER now determines the correct sampling distance to get high quality results; it also offers sample inlet options with pre-installed operating methods and also has a shorter run time and lower consumable usage.
Tide is high
Veritide announced their new handheld biological detector –new company and information can be found on www.veritide.com. Their ‘Scout’ uses non-invasive UV light and detection algorithms to identify bacterial spores. Developed to deal with white powder threats, it already detects anthrax and the team are hoping to adapt it to detect botulinum toxin and ricin.
Tex appeal
Bluecher, manufacturers of Saratoga, announced that they had bought the semi-permeable membrane company Texplorer. This will give them feet in both the SPM and carbon markets (if they can get an impermeable suit then they would have the unique ability to have a ‘foot’ in three markets!) and will give them an indomitable position in the future soldier (IDZ) project in Germany.
Valour - IT
Previously we have given recommendations on other charities, and CBRNe World would like to offer a similar recommendation for Project Valour IT (http://soldiersangels.org/index.php?page=project-valour-it). Project Valour IT produces voice controlled laptops to soldiers that have had hand/arm wounds or other life threatening injuries. Considering how many casualties of the sort are caused by IEDs we would recommend that people dig deep, the problem is not going to go away.
A birdie told me
Chris Wrenn, who people may remember from his stint at RAE Systems, announced that he had joined Environics USA as their Senior Sales Director. We wish him well.
Threat Watch
It’s in the post
The Israeli MoD announced that due to budget disputes the distribution of respirators to the public has been delayed until late 2009. The respirators had been collected in for a refurbishment last year and had been due to be rolled out in January 2009, the delay is expected to last for six months, but critics say that it is undermining the ‘protective’ envelope that both protects the population and deters potential users. Deterrence in Israel’s case is always a loaded term, any CBW attack on Israel’s soil will play well with Islamic fundamentalists, but would result in draconian measures for any state that was sponsoring or harbouring the group.
Speaker’s corner
As the replacement to Trident was debated in the UK (with the majority of the media deciding that nuclear weapons are bad), Australia was hosting the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament in Sydney. Prime Minister Rudd is trying to invigorate the nuclear debate before the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is reviewed in 2010. 2010 will be an interesting time for the debate, with North Korea and Iran presumably coming under greater scrutiny.
Chemical Tiger?
There is no doubt that Government forces in Sri Lanka have put the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, under extreme pressure and that this might bring an end to conventional military operations. As a result of this pressure the Daily Star, in Sri Lanka, have quoted Army sources stating that the Tamil Tigers have launched “poisonous gas attacks” to try and retard the Army’s offensive. The same sources suggested that this “poisonous gas” had been a riot control agent, which the troops had withstood. LTTE sources have been promising gas attacks, and doomsday weapons, on government forces for the last 18 months and hopefully this, if true, is the limit of them.
Porton’s away-days
Brigadier Chip Chapman, Director of Counter Terrorism and UK Ops, told the UK’s House of Commons Defence Committee that Porton’s Immediate Response Teams had been called out “a number of times.” Quite what this number was, and under what circumstances they were he was not able to confirm for “security reasons.” Lord West, the security minister, said that he didn’t know where all the troops that could be deployed on operations were, but was sure that he could “straight away” if needed in an emergency.
He also stated that he didn’t know how many hospital beds would be made available for a mass casualty event - but that the Department of Health would know. Wonderful old ‘muddle through’ Britain, sadly the Committee didn’t ask what these military troops were going to do and whether they were trained and exercised for, neither was Lord West asked how many intensive care beds, isolation wards or even what would happen to all the previous owners of those beds. “Make Do and Mend” shall be our watchword...
Zed’s dead baby... Zed’s dead
The Sudan Tribune announced that a former member of the Eritrean intelligence unit accused the Eritrean government of using ‘Zed’ poison to kill 26 members of Kunama ethnic civilians. Sudan and Eritrea have had a troubled past of late, with suggestions of Eritrean backing for Darfur militants and accusation of attempted Presidential assassinations. Quite why Eritrea decided to poison them when they could have easily as shot them is not clear.
Going down?
Mafalec, a French company involved in the manufacture of lift buttons, sparked a national scare after 600 Otis lifts were refurbished with new cobalt 60 buttons! The cobalt is alleged to have been part of a shipment of contaminated material from India and 20, out of 30, workers at the plant were found to have radiation higher than legal safe limits. I wonder how many ports with radiation detectors those buttons went through...?
Number Two!
South Korea became the second possessor state to destroy its stockpile of chemical munitions in October. Albania, was the first and now South Korea are leaving India, Libya, the US and Russia in their wake. Admittedly Albania destroyed 16 tons, and South Korea a little over 3,000 tons (compared to Russia’s 40,000 and the US’ 31,000), but this is still a major feather in OPCW’s cap and a real benefit to the region. It will certainly put increased pressure on North Korea to follow suit – or at least to do something positive! Meanwhile the OPCW announced that Russia had destroyed 30 per cent of its CWA, Russia claimed that it was “the highest among other states.” The US’ comments on this last claim were not recorded.
Say something... anything!
In the run-up to the US election, clearly trying to ensure that things are kept in the spotlight, the ex-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that terrorists were looking to create biological and nuclear weapons and that all efforts must be taken to secure any sources. Hopefully the new Secretary, Janet Napolitano can be encouraged not to just point out the obvious. Chertoff later used the spectre of chemical and biological labs to warrant US strikes on countries suspected of harbouring such facilities. “'International law must begin to recognise that part of the responsibility of sovereignty is the responsibility to make sure that your own country does not become a platform for attacking other countries,” he stated - a terrifying prospect.
Woolsorters and drum-makers.
Another drum maker died in the UK after inhaling anthrax from the skins he used to make drums. Fernando Gomez denied after a week in hospital, eight other people were given antibiotics and the HPA was trying to trace where the skins were coming from. While we have sympathy and condolences for Mr Gomez’s family, one bright spot from this is every benign death/incident from inhalatory anthrax allows emergency procedures to be practiced and hopefully perfected to such a degree that should there ever be a release that lives might be saved that would otherwise be lost.
Dead Man’s Chest
Whatever was in the ship MV Iran Deyanat it was certainly not pieces of eight. What is known is that the ship was captured by Somali pirates on August 21 and unloaded in Rotterdam, via Oman, on the 11th of November. The bit in the middle seems to be a froth of theories, certainly one of the most popular is that there was radioactive sand sold to the Iranian’s by the Chinese, with the plot uncovered by Russian media.
My word Moneypenny! This sand was to be exploded once exiting the Suez Canal covering Israeli cities with radioactive sand. Apart from the probity of the Russian media the other ‘confirmatory’ factors was the ‘fact’ that 16 Somali pirates died - after hair loss - following their opening of sealed drums in the hold. These ‘facts’ were touted by Puntland’s Minister of Materials and an online blog quoting unnamed sources. Lloyd’s List however denied that according to the Charterer that any pirates fell ill and that the Deyanat unloaded food and minerals. Clearly there could be no Intelligence agency at work suggesting that Iran, with China’s help, might be about to attack Israel with radioactive sand. While there might be something murky going on, it is more likely to be black propaganda.
Vietnamese CW usage?
Recently ousted Thai Prime Minister, Somchai Wongsawat, visited the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic sparking concern from human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, about the treatment of Hmong civilians by Vietnamese and Lao forces. His visit clearly brought international attention to the Republic, as Thailand has no role in the action, and the groups are keen to draw attention to the use of ‘chemical weapons’ on Hmong and Laotian citizens. CBRNe World is trying to find out more information on the likelihood of this attack.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck…
The IAEA said that the building in Syria bombed by the Israelis in September had features resembling those of a nuclear reactor. While they suggested that the al-Kibar site could have been used for other, non-nuclear, purposes, it was difficult to ascertain as the Syrians had now built on top of the site and were denying any more investigative trips – clearly a sign of innocence! Syria has also not produced the documentation that the IAEA has requested (still waiting for the ink to dry no doubt), but it appears that the uranium found at the site was not used in weapons production. Since the site was not operational this is not a surprise, and Syrian agencies have suggested, and common sense avers, that the radiation came from the type of munition released by the Israeli Air Force (some form of bunker buster with DU elements would seem likely). The IAEA is still asking for transparency from all parties involved, but this can only be seen as a vote for military action and against the IAEA.
A different South American crop
Argentine police arrested a scientist involved in drug production, Mario Roberto Segovia, in Rosario, Argentina. As well as having a large amount of precursors involved in the production of ephedrine, Segovia also had 500 grammes of ricinine and aconitine. The suggestion is that the drug lords now have a sideline in producing toxins for terrorist groups…
Please forward any items for consideration in this section to the editor, Gwyn Winfield This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it