U.S. Is Paying European Teams to Hunt Stray Munitions in Libya

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is paying British and Swiss mine-clearing groups nearly $1 million to search for loose antiaircraft missiles in Libya and dispose of them, so they do not fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

The State Department’s hiring of the teams was prompted by fears that terrorists could use scavenged man-portable air defense systems, known as Manpads, to attack civilian aircraft around the world.

The Libyan military had amassed nearly 20,000 of the weapons before the popular uprising began in March. Most of them are still held by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, but some bases and ammunition dumps in contested or rebel-held areas have been looted, and an unknown number of the weapons have gone astray.

The search teams, who will also keep an eye out for mines and other deadly munitions, will be allowed to work in rebel-held areas away from active combat zones. American and allied authorities have told Libyan opposition figures that their cooperation would be a factor in decisions about future aid, according to American and United Nations officials who are familiar with the discussions.

“From the U.S. point of view, it was an issue of paramount importance,” said Justin Baker, officer-in-charge of the United Nations Mine Action Service, which is overseeing the weapons disposal effort in Libya. “The Libyans seemed to get the big picture of what was necessary to present a credible international face.”

The disposal effort will not affect areas or munitions still under the Qaddafi government’s control. “I can’t imagine the U.S. can do anything about Qaddafi’s inventory until they defeat him or negotiate his exit,” said Matthew Schroeder, an arms expert with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “But even without that, securing any Manpads loose in Libya is a good thing.”

The Obama administration mentioned the anti-Manpads effort in its report to Congress this week defending the legality of its intervention in Libya. The report included classified documents detailing a “threat assessment of Manpads, ballistic missiles and chemical weapons in Libya.”

Most American and NATO warplanes have electronic evasion systems and can fly above the range of the portable missiles, but most civilian aircraft do not, and are vulnerable to attack. Nearly a dozen cargo and passenger planes have been brought down in Africa and Asia in the past decade using the missiles.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks from officials in Algeria and Chad, and recently in the Russian news media, saying that antiaircraft missiles and launchers looted from Libyan government caches were already in the hands of a North African terrorist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. American officials have yet to confirm any of those reports.

The two groups hired by the State Department are the Mines Advisory Group of Britain and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action.

Officials with the groups said that almost all of the Libyan weapons depots they had surveyed in recent weeks showed clear signs of looting. Libyan opposition forces took anything they could use from the depots in the opening weeks of the conflict, they said, and there were few surviving inventory records, making it impossible to account for the depots’ contents or say what was missing.

“The ammo dumps we’ve seen are either partially destroyed or picked clean,” said Alexander Griffiths, director of operations for the Swiss group, which now has 35 disposal experts working in rebel territory under a $470,000 American grant. “We haven’t seen Manpads so far, and my guess is we won’t see many, because they’re such a high-value item. They would be the first items to go.”

The British mine disposal group located and destroyed two of the portable missile systems last week near Ajdabiya in rebel-held northeastern Libya, according to Kate Wiggans, a spokeswoman. Two other stray antiaircraft missiles were found in May and destroyed, she said. All four were SA-7s — Russian-made portable missiles that date from the 1970s. Experts say that many of the Libyan Manpads were probably of similar vintage, and that some may be too decayed to use.

The Mines Advisory Group has three workers in Libya but plans to expand to at least 20, operating with $486,000 from the State Department and $290,000 in British government aid, Ms. Wiggans said.

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U.S. Is Paying European Teams to Hunt Stray Munitions in Libya

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is paying British and Swiss mine-clearing groups nearly $1 million to search for loose antiaircraft missiles in Libya and dispose of them, so they do not fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

The State Department’s hiring of the teams was prompted by fears that terrorists could use scavenged man-portable air defense systems, known as Manpads, to attack civilian aircraft around the world.

The Libyan military had amassed nearly 20,000 of the weapons before the popular uprising began in March. Most of them are still held by the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, but some bases and ammunition dumps in contested or rebel-held areas have been looted, and an unknown number of the weapons have gone astray.

The search teams, who will also keep an eye out for mines and other deadly munitions, will be allowed to work in rebel-held areas away from active combat zones. American and allied authorities have told Libyan opposition figures that their cooperation would be a factor in decisions about future aid, according to American and United Nations officials who are familiar with the discussions.

“From the U.S. point of view, it was an issue of paramount importance,” said Justin Baker, officer-in-charge of the United Nations Mine Action Service, which is overseeing the weapons disposal effort in Libya. “The Libyans seemed to get the big picture of what was necessary to present a credible international face.”

The disposal effort will not affect areas or munitions still under the Qaddafi government’s control. “I can’t imagine the U.S. can do anything about Qaddafi’s inventory until they defeat him or negotiate his exit,” said Matthew Schroeder, an arms expert with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. “But even without that, securing any Manpads loose in Libya is a good thing.”

The Obama administration mentioned the anti-Manpads effort in its report to Congress this week defending the legality of its intervention in Libya. The report included classified documents detailing a “threat assessment of Manpads, ballistic missiles and chemical weapons in Libya.”

Most American and NATO warplanes have electronic evasion systems and can fly above the range of the portable missiles, but most civilian aircraft do not, and are vulnerable to attack. Nearly a dozen cargo and passenger planes have been brought down in Africa and Asia in the past decade using the missiles.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks from officials in Algeria and Chad, and recently in the Russian news media, saying that antiaircraft missiles and launchers looted from Libyan government caches were already in the hands of a North African terrorist group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. American officials have yet to confirm any of those reports.

The two groups hired by the State Department are the Mines Advisory Group of Britain and the Swiss Foundation for Mine Action.

Officials with the groups said that almost all of the Libyan weapons depots they had surveyed in recent weeks showed clear signs of looting. Libyan opposition forces took anything they could use from the depots in the opening weeks of the conflict, they said, and there were few surviving inventory records, making it impossible to account for the depots’ contents or say what was missing.

“The ammo dumps we’ve seen are either partially destroyed or picked clean,” said Alexander Griffiths, director of operations for the Swiss group, which now has 35 disposal experts working in rebel territory under a $470,000 American grant. “We haven’t seen Manpads so far, and my guess is we won’t see many, because they’re such a high-value item. They would be the first items to go.”

The British mine disposal group located and destroyed two of the portable missile systems last week near Ajdabiya in rebel-held northeastern Libya, according to Kate Wiggans, a spokeswoman. Two other stray antiaircraft missiles were found in May and destroyed, she said. All four were SA-7s — Russian-made portable missiles that date from the 1970s. Experts say that many of the Libyan Manpads were probably of similar vintage, and that some may be too decayed to use.

The Mines Advisory Group has three workers in Libya but plans to expand to at least 20, operating with $486,000 from the State Department and $290,000 in British government aid, Ms. Wiggans said.

View the original article here

Court Lets U.S. Resume Paying for Embryo Study

The 2-to-1 ruling, by a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocks a lower-court decision last August holding that such research is illegal under a law that bans public spending on research in which human embryos are damaged or destroyed.

The stem cells are derived from donated human embryos left over from fertility treatments; the embryos are destroyed in the process, leading some opponents of abortion to liken the research to murder.

But the appellate court said Friday that because the law is written in the present tense, “it does not extend to past actions.”

Samuel B. Casey, a lawyer for two scientists who sued the government to stop paying for research into human embryonic stem cells, said that he was “a little disappointed” but also pleased that the appeals court kept his suit alive, and that he was considering an appeal.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said she was “extremely pleased with this decision.” But she promised to push for unambiguous legislation that would allow such research to continue.

The ruling sends the case back to Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court in Washington, who concluded in August that the Obama administration was so unlikely to win the case that he issued an immediate ban on any federal spending on human embryonic research.

That decision shocked government scientists, who said it would force the cancellation of dozens of experiments on an array of diseases, from diabetes to Parkinson’s. The government appealed, and the appeals court stopped the ban from going into effect while it heard arguments in the case. Friday’s ruling is the end of the first phase of the litigation.

“This is a momentous day not only for science but for the hopes of thousands of patients and their families who are relying on N.I.H.-funded scientists to pursue life-saving discoveries and therapies that could come from stem cell research,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

David A. Prentice of the Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group, said he was disappointed. “Federal taxpayer funds should go towards helping patients first, not unethical experiments,” he said.

The research potential for embryonic stem cells, which were discovered in 1998, arises from their ability to morph into any cell in the body and possibly form new organs.

President George W. Bush was the first to allow federal financing of human embryonic stem cell research, but he limited the research to 21 cell lines already in existence to discourage further destruction of embryos.

President Obama promised in his campaign to expand the research and ordered the health institutes soon after his inauguration to do just that.

Judge Lamberth’s ruling was so sweeping that the Obama administration interpreted it as a ban on all stem cell research, including projects that passed muster under his predecessor.

Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplant program at Children’s Hospital Boston, said he was happy with the ruling. “But it’s tempered by the fact that there’s a court case that is still pending,” he added.

Dr. Daley’s laboratory is using embryonic stem cells to research cures into bone marrow failure, a rare genetic condition sometimes called “bubble boy disease” because it forces children to live in sterile environments.

His lab is also comparing the relative properties of embryonic stem cells and so-called pluripotent stem cells derived from adult tissue; some anti-abortion activists say the pluripotent cells, which have the potential to turn into the many kinds of specialized cells in the body, are an ethical alternative to the embryonic kind.

The plaintiffs in the case are two scientists, Theresa Deisher and Dr. James L. Sherley, who use only adult stem cells in their research. They argue that the administration’s policy puts their own research at a disadvantage in the competition for government financing.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, the dissenter in Friday’s appeals court ruling, wrote that her colleagues “perform linguistic jujitsu” to arrive at their conclusion.

The plain language of the law bars financing for all research that follows the destruction of embryos, she wrote, and it is meaningless to try to separate the process of destruction from the use of the stem cells that result from that destruction.

Mr. Casey, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Judge Henderson’s dissent might lead him to ask the full Court of Appeals to reconsider the case.

“But my mother told me to always sleep on these things, so that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

 

Court Lets U.S. Resume Paying for Embryo Study

The 2-to-1 ruling, by a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocks a lower-court decision last August holding that such research is illegal under a law that bans public spending on research in which human embryos are damaged or destroyed.

The stem cells are derived from donated human embryos left over from fertility treatments; the embryos are destroyed in the process, leading some opponents of abortion to liken the research to murder.

But the appellate court said Friday that because the law is written in the present tense, “it does not extend to past actions.”

Samuel B. Casey, a lawyer for two scientists who sued the government to stop paying for research into human embryonic stem cells, said that he was “a little disappointed” but also pleased that the appeals court kept his suit alive, and that he was considering an appeal.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said she was “extremely pleased with this decision.” But she promised to push for unambiguous legislation that would allow such research to continue.

The ruling sends the case back to Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court in Washington, who concluded in August that the Obama administration was so unlikely to win the case that he issued an immediate ban on any federal spending on human embryonic research.

That decision shocked government scientists, who said it would force the cancellation of dozens of experiments on an array of diseases, from diabetes to Parkinson’s. The government appealed, and the appeals court stopped the ban from going into effect while it heard arguments in the case. Friday’s ruling is the end of the first phase of the litigation.

“This is a momentous day not only for science but for the hopes of thousands of patients and their families who are relying on N.I.H.-funded scientists to pursue life-saving discoveries and therapies that could come from stem cell research,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

David A. Prentice of the Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group, said he was disappointed. “Federal taxpayer funds should go towards helping patients first, not unethical experiments,” he said.

The research potential for embryonic stem cells, which were discovered in 1998, arises from their ability to morph into any cell in the body and possibly form new organs.

President George W. Bush was the first to allow federal financing of human embryonic stem cell research, but he limited the research to 21 cell lines already in existence to discourage further destruction of embryos.

President Obama promised in his campaign to expand the research and ordered the health institutes soon after his inauguration to do just that.

Judge Lamberth’s ruling was so sweeping that the Obama administration interpreted it as a ban on all stem cell research, including projects that passed muster under his predecessor.

Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplant program at Children’s Hospital Boston, said he was happy with the ruling. “But it’s tempered by the fact that there’s a court case that is still pending,” he added.

Dr. Daley’s laboratory is using embryonic stem cells to research cures into bone marrow failure, a rare genetic condition sometimes called “bubble boy disease” because it forces children to live in sterile environments.

His lab is also comparing the relative properties of embryonic stem cells and so-called pluripotent stem cells derived from adult tissue; some anti-abortion activists say the pluripotent cells, which have the potential to turn into the many kinds of specialized cells in the body, are an ethical alternative to the embryonic kind.

The plaintiffs in the case are two scientists, Theresa Deisher and Dr. James L. Sherley, who use only adult stem cells in their research. They argue that the administration’s policy puts their own research at a disadvantage in the competition for government financing.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, the dissenter in Friday’s appeals court ruling, wrote that her colleagues “perform linguistic jujitsu” to arrive at their conclusion.

The plain language of the law bars financing for all research that follows the destruction of embryos, she wrote, and it is meaningless to try to separate the process of destruction from the use of the stem cells that result from that destruction.

Mr. Casey, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Judge Henderson’s dissent might lead him to ask the full Court of Appeals to reconsider the case.

“But my mother told me to always sleep on these things, so that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

 

Court Lets U.S. Resume Paying for Embryo Study

The 2-to-1 ruling, by a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocks a lower-court decision last August holding that such research is illegal under a law that bans public spending on research in which human embryos are damaged or destroyed.

The stem cells are derived from donated human embryos left over from fertility treatments; the embryos are destroyed in the process, leading some opponents of abortion to liken the research to murder.

But the appellate court said Friday that because the law is written in the present tense, “it does not extend to past actions.”

Samuel B. Casey, a lawyer for two scientists who sued the government to stop paying for research into human embryonic stem cells, said that he was “a little disappointed” but also pleased that the appeals court kept his suit alive, and that he was considering an appeal.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said she was “extremely pleased with this decision.” But she promised to push for unambiguous legislation that would allow such research to continue.

The ruling sends the case back to Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court in Washington, who concluded in August that the Obama administration was so unlikely to win the case that he issued an immediate ban on any federal spending on human embryonic research.

That decision shocked government scientists, who said it would force the cancellation of dozens of experiments on an array of diseases, from diabetes to Parkinson’s. The government appealed, and the appeals court stopped the ban from going into effect while it heard arguments in the case. Friday’s ruling is the end of the first phase of the litigation.

“This is a momentous day not only for science but for the hopes of thousands of patients and their families who are relying on N.I.H.-funded scientists to pursue life-saving discoveries and therapies that could come from stem cell research,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

David A. Prentice of the Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group, said he was disappointed. “Federal taxpayer funds should go towards helping patients first, not unethical experiments,” he said.

The research potential for embryonic stem cells, which were discovered in 1998, arises from their ability to morph into any cell in the body and possibly form new organs.

President George W. Bush was the first to allow federal financing of human embryonic stem cell research, but he limited the research to 21 cell lines already in existence to discourage further destruction of embryos.

President Obama promised in his campaign to expand the research and ordered the health institutes soon after his inauguration to do just that.

Judge Lamberth’s ruling was so sweeping that the Obama administration interpreted it as a ban on all stem cell research, including projects that passed muster under his predecessor.

Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplant program at Children’s Hospital Boston, said he was happy with the ruling. “But it’s tempered by the fact that there’s a court case that is still pending,” he added.

Dr. Daley’s laboratory is using embryonic stem cells to research cures into bone marrow failure, a rare genetic condition sometimes called “bubble boy disease” because it forces children to live in sterile environments.

His lab is also comparing the relative properties of embryonic stem cells and so-called pluripotent stem cells derived from adult tissue; some anti-abortion activists say the pluripotent cells, which have the potential to turn into the many kinds of specialized cells in the body, are an ethical alternative to the embryonic kind.

The plaintiffs in the case are two scientists, Theresa Deisher and Dr. James L. Sherley, who use only adult stem cells in their research. They argue that the administration’s policy puts their own research at a disadvantage in the competition for government financing.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, the dissenter in Friday’s appeals court ruling, wrote that her colleagues “perform linguistic jujitsu” to arrive at their conclusion.

The plain language of the law bars financing for all research that follows the destruction of embryos, she wrote, and it is meaningless to try to separate the process of destruction from the use of the stem cells that result from that destruction.

Mr. Casey, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Judge Henderson’s dissent might lead him to ask the full Court of Appeals to reconsider the case.

“But my mother told me to always sleep on these things, so that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

 

Court Lets U.S. Resume Paying for Embryo Study

 

The 2-to-1 ruling, by a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, blocks a lower-court decision last August holding that such research is illegal under a law that bans public spending on research in which human embryos are damaged or destroyed.

The stem cells are derived from donated human embryos left over from fertility treatments; the embryos are destroyed in the process, leading some opponents of abortion to liken the research to murder.

But the appellate court said Friday that because the law is written in the present tense, “it does not extend to past actions.”

Samuel B. Casey, a lawyer for two scientists who sued the government to stop paying for research into human embryonic stem cells, said that he was “a little disappointed” but also pleased that the appeals court kept his suit alive, and that he was considering an appeal.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, said she was “extremely pleased with this decision.” But she promised to push for unambiguous legislation that would allow such research to continue.

The ruling sends the case back to Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court in Washington, who concluded in August that the Obama administration was so unlikely to win the case that he issued an immediate ban on any federal spending on human embryonic research.

That decision shocked government scientists, who said it would force the cancellation of dozens of experiments on an array of diseases, from diabetes to Parkinson’s. The government appealed, and the appeals court stopped the ban from going into effect while it heard arguments in the case. Friday’s ruling is the end of the first phase of the litigation.

“This is a momentous day not only for science but for the hopes of thousands of patients and their families who are relying on N.I.H.-funded scientists to pursue life-saving discoveries and therapies that could come from stem cell research,” said Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

David A. Prentice of the Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group, said he was disappointed. “Federal taxpayer funds should go towards helping patients first, not unethical experiments,” he said.

The research potential for embryonic stem cells, which were discovered in 1998, arises from their ability to morph into any cell in the body and possibly form new organs.

President George W. Bush was the first to allow federal financing of human embryonic stem cell research, but he limited the research to 21 cell lines already in existence to discourage further destruction of embryos.

President Obama promised in his campaign to expand the research and ordered the health institutes soon after his inauguration to do just that.

Judge Lamberth’s ruling was so sweeping that the Obama administration interpreted it as a ban on all stem cell research, including projects that passed muster under his predecessor.

Dr. George Q. Daley, director of the stem cell transplant program at Children’s Hospital Boston, said he was happy with the ruling. “But it’s tempered by the fact that there’s a court case that is still pending,” he added.

Dr. Daley’s laboratory is using embryonic stem cells to research cures into bone marrow failure, a rare genetic condition sometimes called “bubble boy disease” because it forces children to live in sterile environments.

His lab is also comparing the relative properties of embryonic stem cells and so-called pluripotent stem cells derived from adult tissue; some anti-abortion activists say the pluripotent cells, which have the potential to turn into the many kinds of specialized cells in the body, are an ethical alternative to the embryonic kind.

The plaintiffs in the case are two scientists, Theresa Deisher and Dr. James L. Sherley, who use only adult stem cells in their research. They argue that the administration’s policy puts their own research at a disadvantage in the competition for government financing.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, the dissenter in Friday’s appeals court ruling, wrote that her colleagues “perform linguistic jujitsu” to arrive at their conclusion.

The plain language of the law bars financing for all research that follows the destruction of embryos, she wrote, and it is meaningless to try to separate the process of destruction from the use of the stem cells that result from that destruction.

Mr. Casey, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Judge Henderson’s dissent might lead him to ask the full Court of Appeals to reconsider the case.

“But my mother told me to always sleep on these things, so that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.