Experts Divided On Treatment of Birdflu (H5N1)

Some researchers in Thailand are saying that H5N1, also refered to as birdflu or avainflu should be treated with higer doses of Tamiflu.

However United States based researchers are saying that this will result in the virus becoming resistant to Tamiflu instead.

From Reuters article:

The H5N1 has infected 433 people around the world since 2003, killing 262 of them, according to the latest tally by the World Health Organisation. The WHO recommends treating patients with Roche AG's (ROG.VX) Tamiflu at a dose of 75 mg twice daily for five days.

Al-Qaeda Declares It Will Use Pakistan’s Nukes To Strike Unites States

Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the top Al-Qaesa leader in Afghanistan has declared that Al-Qaeda will use Partisan's nuclear weapons against the United States during an interview with al-Jazeera television.

In a statement during the interview he directly said, "God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the Mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans."

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari maintains that his country has a strong command-and-control system for its nuclear weapons and has ruled out the possibility that their nuclear weapons might fall into militant hands.

However, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid believes that pro-Taliban forces can overpower the Pakistani military in thein the northwestern areas and get hold of the nuclear weapons. He went on to say,"We expect that the Pakistani army would be defeated (in Swat) ... and that would be its end everywhere, God willing."

During an April interview with Fox News, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said the US was worried about the "unthinkable" in Pakistan -- that the Taliban and al-Qaeda could topple the government, and get their hands on "the keys to nuclear arsenal."

I've been warning about this issue for a while now, see these posts:

Pakistans President Announces Nukes May Fall Into Terrorist Hands

Taliban May Already Hold Some Key Nuke Sites In Pakistan

Pakistan Near Collapse, Nukes Will Fall Into Terrorist Hands

National Guard Drill Last Week In Des Moines, Iowa

National Guard units from three States Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska along with 500 members of other emergency response agencies took part in a a large scale drill last week.

The exercise was called vigilant Guard 2009, and included a simulated train wreak and about 166 Iowans took part in the drill playing injured and dead victims.

"Nine-Ball" Attack Has Compromised 40,000 Sites

According to SC Magazine:

The attack is called “Nine-Ball” because of the name of the final, malicious landing page, which is loaded with drive-by exploits, that unsuspecting users automatically are redirected to if they visit one of the compromised sites.

Ninetoraq.in, the exploit site, contains malicious code that looks for already patched vulnerabilities in Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) and AOL SuperBuddy, which it then attempts to exploit, Stephan Chenette, manager of security research at Websense, told SCMagazineUS.com on Wednesday.

The flaws have all been patched; some date back to 2006, Chenette said. But, the Reader and QuickTime vulnerabilities are newer, making it less likely that users are patched for them. If the maliciouscode finds an unpatched vulnerability to exploit, it either drops a malicious PDF file or a trojan designed to steal user information, Chanette said.

All of the exploits currently have low detection rates, he added.

For Full Story:

"Nine-Ball" mass injection attack compromised 40,000 sites

Kern County 911 Emergency Communications Center, Still Under Fire

A follow up investigation finds that the Kern County Emergency Communication Center responsible for answering calls to the County 911 system is still falling short of federal guidelines.

The County answers about 1,400 calls per day but during the investigation it was found that 581 calls took one to two minutes to be answered far longer than the 10 seconds required under federal guidelines.

While the County is taking steps to address the staffing issue they attribute to the problem, it looks as if the County Sheriffs Department may not even recognize that a problem exists.

Consider these statements made buy RoseMary Wahl, the Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy:

"Those are federal guidelines. We're not breaking any laws or anything by not getting to them in 10 seconds though we do strive for those."

"We're doing a good job. We're not getting a lot of complaints so that tells me we're responding to the communities needs."

However the grand jury committee doesn't feel the same. It said the Communication Center has "A perceived unwillingness to improve" its problems which could "affect officer and public safety."