U.S. to Insist That Travel Industry Get FingerprintsBy Spencer S. Hsu and Del Quentin Wilber
23/04/08 “
Washington Post” — – The U.S. government today will order commercial airlines and cruise lines to prepare to collect digital fingerprints of all foreigners before they depart the country under a security initiative that the industry has condemned as costly and burdensome.
The proposal does not say where airlines must collect fingerprints — at airport check-in counters, departure gates or kiosks somewhere in between. But the government estimates the undertaking will cost airlines $2.3 billion over 10 years, a U.S. homeland security official said.
The overall economic impact on companies, passengers and the government is expected to exceed $3.5 billion, industry lobbyists said, at a time when carriers are struggling with safety concerns, high fuel costs and passenger complaints.
Formal announcement of the plan to track the departure of foreign visitors, as part of the Homeland Security Department’s US-VISIT program, comes after an extended battle between the security agency and airlines.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff linked the effort to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws recently, saying airlines were obstructing the measure for commercial reasons.
“If we don’t have US-VISIT air exit by this time next year, it will only be because the airline industry killed it,” Chertoff said recently. “We have to decide who is going to win this fight. Is it going to be the airline industry, or is it going to be the people who believe we should know who leaves the country by air?”
Doug Lavin, regional vice president for the International Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. and international carriers, said the government, not airlines, should collect fingerprints. “This is ludicrous,” Lavin said. “We can’t afford anything in the billions to support a program that should be a government program.”
Fingerprinting an estimated 33 million departing foreign passengers a year will result in “delayed departures, missed connections here and around the world,” Lavin said.
Launched after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, US-VISIT is intended to automate the processing of visitors entering and exiting the country, using fingerprints and digital photographs to help find criminals, potential terrorists and people who overstay visas and join the nation’s illegal immigrant population.
While the program has succeeded in recording nearly 100 million people entering the country since 2004, the DHS has struggled to implement the exit portion. Frustrated at the department’s slow pace, Congress last year set a June 2009 deadline for DHS to collect fingerprints from departing air passengers in a law to implement recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Otherwise, Congress said, the government cannot expand the Visa Waiver Program, under which residents of 27 friendly countries can visit the United States without a visa. Inclusion is a priority for nations including South Korea and Greece, and the tourism industry has also targeted South America for expansion.
The proposal will be open for a 60-day comment period. DHS could decide after that time where fingerprinting must be conducted, or it could leave the decision up to airlines, a U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the proposal has not been formally announced.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
April 24, 2008
U.S. to Insist That Travel Industry Get Fingerprints
UN Cuts School Children’s Meals
Once again the poor suffer the wrath of war, environmental changes, use of biofuel etc. Britain is willing to donate $US 900 million to this cause. I am not so sure which other countries are going to take action against this.
I think, WE – the PEOPLE of the DEVELOPED WORLD, should start caring about our own way of living and how it impacts others. WE should undergo this process of self-realization and self-amendment. I need to work on this too. From experience, I realize, it’s a life long struggle. But as long as some positive change can be implemented, it’s all cool.
At the end of this news article, I have put some resources that would help us take action against this.
UN Cuts School Children’s Meals
By Jeremy Lovell in London
23/04/08 “SMH” — – A “SILENT tsunami” unleashed by costlier food is threatening 100million people, the United Nations has warned, revealing that its World Food Program has begun cutting the provision of school meals to some of the world’s poorest children as the global food-price crisis worsens.
Aid bodies said there was enough food to go round but the key was to help the poor afford it, and urged producing nations not to curb exports to stockpile food at home.
In London, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, said Britain would seek changes to EU biofuels targets if it was shown that planting crops for fuel was driving up food prices – a day after the bloc stood by its plans to boost biofuel use.
Britain has also pledged $US900million ($947 million) to help the UN World Food Program alleviate its immediate problems and address longer-term solutions to “help put food on the table for nearly a billion people going hungry across the world”.
In a meeting of experts which Mr Brown called on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, the head of the World Food Program, Josette Sheeran, said a “silent tsunami” threatened to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger.
“This is the new face of hunger; the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are,” she said.
Riots in poor Asian and African countries have followed steep rises in food prices caused by many factors: rising demand from consumers in developing countries such as China and India, the effect of climate change on food production, dearer fuel and the conversion of land to grow crops for biofuel.
Rice from Thailand has more than doubled in price this year.
Ms Sheeran said artificially created shortages, such as those caused by countries that have slowed or stopped exports, were worsening the problem.
The major food exporters Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Egypt and Cambodia have closed their stocks to safeguard supplies.
“The world has been consuming more than it has been producing for the past three years, so stocks have been drawn down,” Ms Sheeran said.
“The world knows how to produce food and will do so. But we will have a couple of challenging years.”
Rising prices meant the UN food program was running short of money to buy food.
A program providing meals for 450,000 Cambodian children has been suspended and Ms Sheeran said a similar program in Kenya, serving 1.2 million children, was facing cuts of nearly 50per cent.
She said the cutbacks reflected “heartbreaking decisions” and were the biggest challenges of the program in 45 years.
“The era of cheap food is over,” said Rajat Nag, managing director general of the Asian Development Bank.
He urged Asian governments not to distort markets with export curbs but use fiscal measures to help the poor.
“We want to temper what we think is a bit of an over-reaction. There is still enough supply,” he said.
Mr Brown raised further doubts about the wisdom of using crops to help produce fuel, an idea whose recent popularity in the United States and Europe has been dented by fears that it harms the environment and makes food dearer.
“We need to look closely at the impact on food prices and the environment of different production methods and to ensure we are more selective in our support [for biofuels],” Mr Brown said
ACT NOW
So what can we do about this? Just casually thinking about it, this is how I think, WE-the PEOPLE, may combat this issue.
1- Decrease consumption. Watch our own shopping patterns. Cut back from consuming anything more than we really need.
http://www.volunteernow.ca/take_action/issues_consumerism.htm
2-Assist in Re-forestation activities. Also, we must pressure the government for more re-forestation activities.
http://www.celticreforestation.com/
Please do search for more re-forestation/tree planting groups in your area. If you can take some time and grow a plant in your backyard that would be just awesome.
3-Take actions to ensure positive influence on environment individually and also via the government.
Personally, I like working on saving water and electrical energy. I just came up with this idea that having a 1 hour BlackOut just in my room, daily, would make a big difference eh! We can all try that. Just go for a walk every hour or read a book for an hour daily. I am sure your electricity bills will be lower and the environment will be relatively healthier. And you will be a happier person as well.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=FD9B0E51-1
http://vladglebov.com/2008/01/07/its-getting-hot-in-heeere/
Sigh! struggle, struggle, struggle. Thank God, at least we aren’t LAZY! 
Stay safe
Take care
Later Days
