Sunday, 21 June 2009
Primary care trusts are to set up anti-viral drug distribution centres and swine flu testing clinics amid fears that the infection could spread out of control.
The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, wrote to health authorities last week urging hospitals to test all patients who show signs of flu-like symptoms. He wrote: "Transmission from person to person in this country is increasingly common. There is evidence that sporadic cases are arising with no apparent link either to cases elsewhere in the UK or to travel abroad."
The letter followed an earlier warning from Sir Liam that millions of Britons could fall victim to swine flu in the coming months. Government officials admitted last night that illness rates from the virus could reach 50 per cent.
Primary care trusts are now being briefed to expect that the pandemic could affect as much as 40 per cent of the workforce before the end of the year, with many worried that there could be a surge of cases in the autumn, according to health industry sources.
The Department of Health sought to reassure the public last night. A spokesman said: "Previous pandemics have seen total illness levels of 25-35 per cent. So our plans are as robust as possible, we have based them on illness rates of 50 per cent, though we do not anticipate it being this high in the current pandemic. Based on this figure, the workforce could be reduced by 15-20 per cent at the pandemic's peak. In the unlikely event that every school closed, this could rise to 35 per cent." He said it was impossible to predict when the pandemic would peak, but added: "As part of ongoing planning, the NHS is being asked to ensure that antiviral collection points could, if needed, be put into action in a week."
Keen to avoid panic, the Government is careful to present official statistics showing "laboratory-confirmed" cases, which currently stand at 2,244. Yet the true scale of infections is far higher than headline figures suggest. The total number of cases either confirmed by laboratory tests or "clinically presumed" currently stands at 3,725.
Almost 400 cases of swine flu in Britain have occurred as a result of in-country transmission, according to latest figures from the European Centre for Disease Control. The virus is continuing to gain ground, with a number of people falling ill without having been abroad or in contact with previously confirmed cases – a signal that transmission is "growing in some areas of the country", according to the Health Protection Agency. The HPA said: "We would need to have a significant number of people where you really don't know how they have got it for it to be classified as sustained community transmission. We are getting closer to that, but are not there yet."
This comes a week after Jacqui Fleming, 38, of Glasgow, became the first person to die from swine flu outside North America. Since then, health officials in Birmingham have said they can no longer contain the spread of the virus, and in Glasgow, a series of swine flu testing clinics have been set up.
Meanwhile, calls to NHS hotlines have almost doubled in the past week. Latest figures from NHS Direct reveal that 2,356 calls about swine flu were made on Thursday 18 June, up from 1,280 a week earlier.
Under a new scheme that began in June, hundreds of people calling NHS Direct about swine flu have been sent swab kits to return for testing.
Economic toll: Pandemic to cost Britain £42bn
£42bn losses are predicted to hit Britain as a result of a three per cent fall in gross domestic product (GDP) due to the swine flu pandemic, according to a new report from the Oxford Economics think tank, due to be released tomorrow. Researchers claim that swine flu could threaten already fragile businesses and put further strains on financial markets in what could become a "vicious cycle that postpones the recovery".
Deflation is a "significant risk" as a result of the pandemic's impact on the economy – putting back economic recovery by two years, says the report. The predictions are based on a 30 per cent infection rate, should a pandemic begin in October and last for six months.
A $2.5 trillion cut in global GDP is a possibility – with a flu outbreak in the autumn hitting the world economy just as it starts to recover from the credit crunch.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/swine-flu-could-infect-up-to-half-the-population-1711552.html
Prof. Dr. Sigmundur Gudbjarnason and associates’ research carried out since 1992 reveals that the seeds and leaves of the Icelandic variety of Angelica archangelica contain potent bioactive compounds that help prevent viral infections, such as cold and flu.
The compounds found in the Icelandic angelica herb are known to restrict viral proliferation and strengthen the body against infection by viruses, according to Dr. Gudbjarnason, head of research and development at SagaMedica and former President of the University of Iceland.
What can we learn from the 1918 flu pandemic to help prevent Influenza A (swine flu)?
Dr. Gudbjarnason says, “There are several important antiviral compounds in Angelica archangelica that might be important in prevention of viral infections. This should be considered if the Influenza A becomes a more severe epidemic and flu medication becomes scarce”
During the time of the Spanish influenza (1), there are accounts of Angelica archangelica being used as flu treatment in Denmark. Recent studies linking the origin of the swine flu virus to the Spanish influenza (2) of 1918 further suggest that the herb may prove to be an effective prophylactic for swine flu prevention people can use to avoid infection if the Influenza A virus becomes more severe.
Preventing colds and flu with natural herbs
Icelandic Angelica archangelica provides the basis for a variety of supplements from SagaMedica.
Herbal remedies SagaPro and Voxis lozenges are made using angelica leaf and therefore contain the antiviral compounds in question. They may be used to prevent viral infection.
More information at www.sagamedica.com
http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/06/16/icelandic-angelica-prevention-for-swine-flu
Is this the death of the dollar?
After two smugglers were stopped last week with what at first appeared to be $134bn in US state bonds, the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the dollar hit a new high.
By Edmund Conway Published: 7:32PM BST 20 Jun 2009
Border guards in Chiasso see plenty of smugglers and plenty of false-bottomed suitcases, but no one in the town, which straddles the Italian-Swiss frontier, had ever seen anything like this. Trussed up in front of the police in the train station were two Japanese men, and beside them a suitcase with a booty unlike any other. Concealed at the bottom of the bag were some rather incredible sheets of paper. The documents were apparently dollar-denominated US government bonds with a face value of a staggering $134bn (£81bn).
How on earth did these two men, who at first refused to identify themselves, come to be there, trying to ride the train into Switzerland carrying bonds worth more than the gross domestic product of Singapore? If the bonds were genuine, the pair would have been America's fourth-biggest creditor, ahead of the UK and just behind Russia. No sooner had the story leaked out from the Italian lakes region last week than it sparked a panoply of conspiracy tales. But one resounded more than any other: that the men were agents of the Japanese finance ministry, in the country for the G8 meeting, making a surreptitious journey into Switzerland to sell off one small chunk of the massive mountain of US bonds stacked up in the Japanese Treasury vaults.
In the event, late last week American officials confirmed that the notes were forgeries. The men, it appeared, were nothing more than ambitious scamsters. But many remain unconvinced. And whether fake or otherwise, the story underlines one important point about the world economy at the moment: that the tension and paranoia surrounding the fate of the US dollar has hit a new high. It went to the heart of the big question: will the central bankers in Japan, China and elsewhere continue to support the greenback even in the wake of the worst financial crisis in modern history, or will they abandon it as America's economic hegemony dissipates?
Dollar obituaries are nothing new. The currency has been presumed dead more times than Shane Macgowan. But like the lead singer of The Pogues, the greenback has somehow withstood repeated knocks and scrapes over the years and lived on, battered, bruised and a couple of teeth the lighter, to fight another day. In the 1970s and 1980s there were plenty predicting its demise, although at that point the main challenger was the Japanese yen. And in the years preceding this crisis, economists and investors including Peter Schiff and George Soros were lining up to declare the dollar's demise as the world's reserve currency. In the late 1990s, the creation of the euro gave dollar sceptics another stick to beat the currency with, and no doubt the European currency has claimed some of the prominence in its first decade.
Now, following the collapse of the global financial system, those warnings have become louder still, and ever more difficult to dismiss – because this time around there are threatening noises coming from those who actually have the power to do something about it. First came a paper from Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China (PBoC), a couple of months ago, positing the idea of introducing the special drawing right (SDR) – a kind of internal currency at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – as an international reserve currency. These calls were then repeated, with more force, by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who last week declared that the world needed new reserve currencies in addition to the dollar.
And this time around, the dollar is most certainly suffering. Since 2002 its trade-weighted strength – calculated against a basket of other currencies – has fallen by more than a quarter, from 112 to 81 points. In the same period, the proportion of dollars held by reserve managers in leading central banks has also taken a dive. According to figures from the IMF, confirmed holdings of dollars in government vaults, from Beijing and Tokyo to London and Paris, fell from 71pc of reserves to 64.5pc between 2002 and 2008.
However, detecting what is really happening in the world of foreign exchange reserves is notoriously closer to an art than a science. For instance, figures from April seemed to suggest a fall in China's holdings of US Treasuries – something 'dollapocalypticists' pounced on at the time. But according to Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations, the country was merely rejigging its Treasury portfolio rather than liquidating parts of it. In such an opaque world it is little wonder the conspiracy theories over those two Japanese smugglers show little sign of dissipating.
Nonetheless, for US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who has inherited his predecessors' role as dollar wallah-in-chief, the currency's travails have made it all the more difficult for him to repeat the mantra that he "believes in a strong dollar" while keeping a straight face. Indeed, when he tried to insist at a university lecture in Beijing earlier this month that "Chinese financial assets are very safe," it drew floods of laughter from the audience.
He wasn't playing for laughs, but the irony of the situation is plain to see. If there were a textbook list of actions one could take to weaken a currency, the US (alongside most other developed nations) would be following it to the letter. It has cut interest rates to a whisker above zero; it has engaged in quantitative easing, pumping cash directly into the economy; it has committed to spending trillions of dollars on a fiscal stimulus package designed to pull the country out of recession; it has pledged tacitly to support its stricken banks so that no major institution is allowed to collapse. In any normal circumstances, actions like these would hammer a currency.
According to Stephen Jen of BlueGold Capital Management: "People are having second thoughts not simply because they don't like the dollar, but they are having second thoughts about whether US assets are obviously the strongest assets to own."
Like everything else, the currency's fate depends on how well the US authorities manage the crisis. The US is balanced on a knife-edge between possible Japan-style deflation as the weight of all its debts bear down on it and potential inflation as the force of all its powerful stimulus measures take root. No one knows for sure which way it will fall, but neither would be particularly good for the currency, and by extension for those who hold much in the way of dollar assets.
And China and all other major central banks which have trillions of dollars in their vaults, face something of a dilemma. Any fall in the greenback will cause the value of their investments to slide. Even if they wanted to exit, there seems no easy way of doing so without provoking some serious self-harm. Indeed, according to Olivier Accominotti, a PhD economist at Paris's Sciences Po university, the situation is not unlike that faced by France in the 1920s, as it sought to reduce its massive sterling reserves. The Bank of France found itself in a "sterling trap" in which it "could not continue selling pounds without precipitating a sterling collapse and a huge exchange loss for itself".
Neil Mellor, of Bank of New York Mellon, said: "We've got a situation where Geithner is smiling and has no choice but to stress the credibility and stability of the US financial and economic system, while the creditors [such as the Chinese] smile back and say they believe him, while at the same time giving hand signals to their reserve managers to get rid of these things."
Rather like the brinksmanship on display throughout the Cold War, it is a dilemma which applies itself to game theory. Both sides know that the dollar is set to weaken, but both could be set to suffer if they both allowed it to collapse at the same time. "If you are the Chinese it is in your interest to play the game – you've got a lot of dollars at stake – but in the long run you surely want to reduce your holdings and diversify them at the margins," says Mellor.
Still, with every passing week, the conjunction of different warning signals for the US currency seems to evolve and intensify. Recently, the alarm bell ringing most loudly has been the increase in yields on US Treasuries – a sign, some fear, of acute nervousness among institutional investors about the sheer scale of the cash the Obama administration is planning to borrow in coming years. The Federal Reserve's meeting next week is likely to be watched attentively by everyone with a stake in the game, as the central bank indicates whether it is planning to plough more dollars of newly-created cash into the economy.
But while the debate fixates on the greenback, the issues at heart here go far deeper. The dollar's fate is intertwined with that of the global economy. America is on the brink of losing its economic superpower status, which it will have to share with China at least, if not others, in the coming years. Holding such a position confers important responsibilities, none of which is more symbolic than providing the world's reserve currency – the currency against which all major commodities are denominated, and the de facto international unit of exchange in trade and finance.
It was a position enjoyed by UK sterling during the first waves of globalisation in the Victorian era and the final decades of the British Empire. Eventually, around the time of the Second World War, the dollar inherited the mantle. At first this was something enshrined in the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944, which fixed world currencies to the dollar, but although that system broke down in the 1960s and 1970s, it has remained the de facto currency of choice.
In a globalised world, with trade being carried out between hundreds of different nations by thousands of different companies, having an international standard makes sense: it enables traders to exchange goods more quickly and efficiently than they would have done otherwise. It may be invisible to us, but the vast majority of foreign exchange transactions – particularly those between smaller nations – involve the dollar. Exchange your sterling for Thai baht and you're actually swapping pounds for dollars for baht, whatever the exchange booth says. Even the much-vaunted exchange arrangements by the Brazilian and Chinese are designed not to disrupt these foundations, but merely to smooth things over for importers and exporters.
But a by-product of the dollar's dominance has been the skewing of the world's monetary system. By dint of having this blessed position, the US has been able to finance ever-larger current account and fiscal deficits, with both the government and the public borrowing from overseas, at cheap rates of interest. It has been able to sell US Treasuries at interest rates that other countries can only dream of because of this position as reserve currency. It has had a captive consumer – both because its government bonds are something of a safe haven and because those wishing to peg their currencies against the dollar and enhance their trade flows have little choice but to buy US Treasuries.
And this mutated international monetary system that has evolved since the 1960s is largely responsible for the crisis into which the world has tipped. Because it was able to borrow off other countries at such low rates without enduring the market punishment – in other words higher interest rates – America was able to build up massive current account deficits which poured a record amount of debt throughout its economy, which manifested itself in the financial crisis.
Indeed, as Mervyn King said in a speech earlier this year: "At the heart of the crisis was the problem identified but not solved at Bretton Woods – the need to impose symmetric obligations on countries that run persistent current account surpluses and not just on countries that run deficits. From that failure stemmed a chain of events, no one of which alone appeared to threaten stability, but which taken together led to the worst financial crisis any of us can recall."
When the PBoC's Zhou referred to the SDRs he was not merely questioning the dollar's pre-eminence. He was indicating something far more radical – that China supports plans for a new Bretton Woods-style agreement to manage the flows of cash around the world. At that seminal conference in 1944, John Maynard Keynes's original idea, which was watered down by Harry Dexter White of the US Treasury, was for an international reserve currency, Bancor, fixed against a basket of 30 currencies, and that countries would be penalised if their current accounts swung too far into surplus or deficit. It is an idea which is now being dusted off from history books by officials in finance ministries around the world, including in China.
Such a radical shake-up would cause earthquakes in the currency markets, a prospect which perhaps makes it unlikely. So in the absence of such a deal, how is the dollar's role likely to evolve in the coming years? The short answer is that no one should expect it to lose its reserve currency status any time soon. It took around half a century for Britain to cede this position to the US, even after being overtaken in true economic might.
One possibility is that the SDR may be used increasingly as a means of denominating assets in accounts, but this is something which would take place gradually, over a course of some years. But even if that is a bridge towards a multi-polar world, in which other currencies vie with the dollar for influence, it will take some time – perhaps 30 years or more, according to Stephen Jen. "People should look at history," he said, referring to sterling's pre-eminence in the first part of the 20th century. "There's a real incumbency advantage."
Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs, sees the next few years as something of a "vacuum period".
"The BRIC countries [Brazil, Russia, India and China] are becoming so much more important, while the G7, including the US declines, which raises issues about the degree of dominance of the dollar. The problem is that the currencies of the BRICS are the ones that matter, but they won't let you export or use their currencies.
"Until we see another five years' of evidence over whether China is a more consumer-driven economy, becoming bigger and bigger, and whether the euro can have a successful second decade, the dollar looks set to remain dominant."
China has made some hints about loosening its hold over the yuan in recent months, but these are only early manoeuvres. A second step would be to allow the yuan to become a part of the SDR – whose own value is determined by those of a basket of currencies including the dollar, pound and euro. As Jen adds, there are certain prerequisites any contender to the crown of world reserve currency needs in its pocket.
"We have to ask this question: is Russia going to provide asset market that will be as liquid, reliable property rights, the rule of law, currency convertibility and so on? Will we see the same from the likes of China? Their task is very daunting."
Referring to the forged Treasury bonds picked up on the Japanese smugglers on the Swiss border, he adds: "There is a message here: we haven't heard much about anyone counterfeiting roubles. That is probably telling you something."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/5586543/Is-this-the-death-of-the-dollar.html
US regulators close 3 small banks
June 20, 2009 - 2:42pm By MADLEN READ AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Regulators have shut down three more small banks, pushing this year's tally of failed banks to 40.
One bank closed Friday was in North Carolina, another in Georgia, and the third was in Kansas. The wave of bank failures is expected to continue throughout the year as the weak housing market and rising unemployment rate cause more borrowers to default on their loans.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of Cooperative Bank of Wilmington, N.C., Southern Community Bank of Fayetteville, Ga., and First National Bank of Anthony in Anthony, Kan.
The FDIC agreed to have First Bank of Troy, N.C., take over Cooperative Bank's 24 branches and nearly all of its assets. Cooperative Bank had total assets of $970 million and total deposits of $774 million.
United Community Bank of Blairsville, Ga., will assume Southern Community bank's five branches, its $307 million in deposits, and nearly all of its $377 million in assets.
And Bank of Kansas of South Hutchinson, Kan., will acquire First National Bank of Anthony's six branches, its $142.5 million in deposits, and nearly all of its $156.9 million in assets.
The FDIC will retain the remaining unacquired assets of all three failed banks to sell later. And with all three acquirers, the FDIC has entered into loss-sharing agreements to maximize returns on the assets and minimize disruptions for loan customers.
The FDIC said it estimates that Cooperative Bank's failure will cost the deposit insurance fund $217 million. Southern Community Bank's will cost $114 million, and First National Bank of Anthony's will cost $32.2 million.
The number of banks on the FDIC's list of "problem" institutions leaped to 305 in the first quarter _ the highest number since 1994, during the savings and loan crisis _ from 252 in the fourth quarter. The combined assets of those banks rose to $220 billion from $159 billion.
To be sure, most "problem" institutions don't fail, but the pace of failures has been much higher this year than in past years. The 40 institutions that have closed this year compare with 25 in all of 2008 and just three in 2007.
One silver lining is that while more banks are being shuttered this year than last, the size of the banks has tended to be smaller.
The largest U.S. bank failure ever was last year: Seattle-based thrift Washington Mutual Inc. fell in September, with about $307 billion in assets. It was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion in a deal brokered by the FDIC.
The costliest bank failure was also in 2008, when the big California lender IndyMac Bank got seized and cost the FDIC's insurance fund an estimated $10.7 billion.
The FDIC expects U.S. bank failures to cost the deposit insurance fund around $70 billion through 2013.
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=111&sid=1659999
Struggle among Iran's clerics bursts into the open
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — A backstage struggle among Iran's ruling clerics burst into the open Sunday when the government said it had arrested the daughter and other relatives of an ayatollah who is one of the country's most powerful men.
Tehran's streets fell mostly quiet for the first time since a bitterly disputed June 12 presidential election, but cries of "God is great!" echoed again from rooftops after dark, a sign of seething anger at a government crackdown that peaked with at least 10 protesters' deaths Saturday.
The killings drove the official death toll to at least 17 after a week of massive street demonstrations by protesters who say hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole his re-election win. But searing images posted online — including gruesome video purporting to show the fatal shooting of a teenage girl — hinted the true toll may be higher.
Police and the feared Basij militia swarmed the streets of Tehran to prevent more protests and the government intensified a crackdown on independent media — expelling a BBC correspondent, suspending the Dubai-based network Al-Arabiya and detaining at least two local journalists for U.S. magazines.
English-language state television said an exile group known as the People's Mujahedeen had a hand in street violence and broadcast what it said were confessions of British-controlled agents in an indication of the government's readiness to crack down even harder.
Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi warned supporters of danger ahead, and said he would stand by the protesters "at all times." But in letters posted on his allies' websites Saturday and Sunday, he said he would "never allow anybody's life to be endangered because of my actions" and called for pursuing fraud claims through an independent board.
The former prime minister, a longtime loyalist of the Islamic government, also called the Basij and military "our brothers" and "protectors of our revolution and regime." He may be trying to constrain his followers' demands before they pose a mortal threat to Iran's quixotic system of limited democracy constrained by Shiite clerics, who have ultimate authority.
His chances of success within the system would be far higher if he has backers among those clerics.
In the clearest sign yet of a splintering among the ayatollahs, state media announced the arrests of five family members of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani including his daughter Faezeh, a 46-year-old reformist politician vilified by hardliners for her open support of Mousavi.
"We are in uncharted territory," said Ahmad Sadri, a professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois who writes a column for an Iranian newspaper associated with reformist presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi.
Rafsanjani heads the cleric-run Assembly of Experts, which can remove the supreme leader, the country's most powerful figure. He also chairs the Expediency Council, a body that arbitrates disputes between parliament and the unelected Guardian Council.
Rafsanjani and his family have been accused of corruption by Ahmadinejad. And the 75-year-old ayatollah was conspicuously absent Friday from an address by the country's supreme leader calling for national unity and siding with the president.
That fueled speculation that Rafsanjani, who has made no public comment since the election, may be working behind the scenes and favoring Mousavi.
The Assembly of Experts has not publicly reprimanded Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei since he succeeded Islamic Revolution founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989. But this crisis has rattled the once-untouchable stature of the supreme leader.
Protesters have openly defied his orders to leave the streets and witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations — a once unthinkable challenge.
State media said Rafsanjani's relatives had been held for their own protection and released later Sunday but experts said the message was clear.
"That is a major escalation and ratchets up the conflict with Rafsanjani," said Michael Wahid Hanna, a regional affairs analyst with the Century Foundation, a New York think tank. "It really raises the stakes."
At least some lower-ranking clergy also appeared to have broken with the supreme leader. Photos posted by a moderate conservative news website showed what appeared to be mullahs in brown robes and white turbans protesting alongside a crowd of young men, some wearing the green shirts or sashes symbolizing Mousavi's self-described "Green Wave" movement.
The images could not immediately be independently verified due to government restrictions on foreign media, who were banned from reporting on Tehran's streets.
Ahmadinejad appeared to be courting clerical support. State television showed him meeting with clerics at the presidential palace and telling them the election had demonstrated popular love for the regime.
He criticized British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Obama, who on Saturday urged Iranian authorities to halt "all violent and unjust actions against its own people."
"With that behavior you will not be among Iran's friends," Ahmadinejad said, in a potentially ominous sign for Obama's recent efforts to warm relations with Iran.
Strengthening Ahmadinejad's position, Iran's military issued a thinly veiled warning to Mousavi after days of silence.
"We are determined to confront plots by enemies aimed at creating a rift in the nation," said Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, acting joint chief of the armed forces.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused Britain of sending spies to manipulate the election, blasted France for "treacherous and unjust approaches" and said Germany had unfairly criticized Iran's government.
Blaming foreign conspirators is a staple of Iranian government rhetoric that resonates for many in a country with a long history of direct manipulation by Britain, the U.S., Russia and other powers.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband "categorically" denied his country was meddling and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Iran anew to conduct a complete and transparent recount.
"This can only damage Iran's standing in the eyes of the world," Miliband said.
The British Broadcasting Corp. said its Tehran-based correspondent, Jon Leyne, had been asked to leave the country but its office remained open. Newsweek said journalist Maziar Bahari, a Canadian citizen, had been detained without charge and LIFE reported the arrest of the photojournalist who took an iconic photograph of a young woman in a headscarf making a "V" for victory gesture at the camera as white smoke roiled in the background. It did not reveal the photographer's name.
Reporters Without Borders said 23 journalists had been arrested during the past week.
There were unconfirmed reports of small demonstrations and clashes Sunday, and stores were closed in Tehran neighborhoods that saw violence the day. Life appeared to be normal in other parts of Tehran on Sunday, a weekday in Iran, but experts cautioned that it could be a brief lull and not the end of Iran's worst internal turmoil in three decades.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-06-20-iran-saturday_N.htm
Suit accuses TSA of unreasonable airport detention
By JIM SALTER – 2 days ago
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A lawsuit filed Thursday against the Transportation Security Administration alleges a Ron Paul supporter was unreasonably detained at the St. Louis airport because he was carrying about $4,700 in cash.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of Steven Bierfeldt, director of development for the Campaign for Liberty, an organization that grew out of Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.
The organization had hosted an event in St. Louis that included the sale of tickets, T-shirts, stickers and other materials and Bierfeldt said he was carrying the cash proceeds in a metal box when he was detained at Lambert Airport for about 30 minutes on March 29.
The lawsuit does not seek money but asks the court to declare the TSA's actions unconstitutional and to prohibit the agency from similar searches when there is no evidence aircraft are endangered.
"It's obviously important that the safety of flights be ensured," Bierfeldt said in a telephone interview. "But subjecting innocent travelers like me who are doing nothing wrong — I think it diverts TSA away from its core mission of safeguarding air travel."
TSA spokesman Greg Soule said the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
Bierfeldt said he refused to answer when a TSA official asked what was in the box. Another TSA official arrived, and Bierfeldt was taken into a separate room where he used an iPhone in his jacket pocket to record the officials' questioning.
An audio clip provided by the ACLU includes repeated questions from a TSA official about why Bierfeldt was carrying so much money, and his repeated refusal to answer. On one occasion, the questioner swears and asks, "Is there any reason you're not answering questions?"
Bierfeldt answers, "Am I legally required to answer the question?"
Soule said while there is no limit to the amount of cash a person can travel with domestically, travelers must cooperate with the TSA screening process.
"Cooperation may involve answering questions about their property," Soule said. "A passenger who refuses to answer questions may be referred to appropriate authorities for further inquiry."
Bierfeldt's attorney, Ben Wizner, said the lawsuit does not challenge TSA's authority to search and detain those suspected of taking weapons, explosives or other dangerous objects onto planes.
"That's the whole purpose of airport searches," Wizner said. "These are not, however, open-ended criminal searches."
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gSn_6PR94lxb-8eilNzijc--1U1QD98TCATO0
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