Watch CBNNewswatch By Dale Hurd CBN News Senior Reporter

U.S. intelligence is still coming to grips with reports that Al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups are setting up bases in Venezuela.

CBN.com – WASHINGTON, D.C. — While America's attention has been focused on Iraq, it may have a growing terrorist threat in this hemisphere, and in a country you might never expect.

On February 13 this year, at London's Gatwick Airport, a Muslim with suspected links to Al Qaeda was arrested after a grenade was found in his luggage. His ticket shows he flew in from Colombia. But it turns out he actually began his journey in Caracas. He was a Venezuelan. And there are reported to be more like him.

U.S. intelligence is still coming to grips with reports that Al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups are setting up bases in Venezuela. A London newspaper reports Osama bin Laden has established a training camp on Venezuela's Margarita Island, a tourist destination that also has an Arab-Muslim community and a bad reputation as a hangout for smugglers and terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The more you know about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and his list of friends, the less surprising this all seems. Footage shows Hugo hugging Iranian President Khatami. More footage shows Hugo hugging Libya's Moammar Gaddafy. By the way, you won't find any video of Hugo meeting, much less, hugging George W. Bush.

But Chavez has met with Saddam Hussein. In fact, he was the first foreign leader to visit Baghdad after the first Gulf War, and he expressed his admiration for Saddam. He has offered support to convicted terrorist Carlos "The Jackal." He considers Fidel Castro his mentor. He gives sanctuary to Colombia's FARC rebels, a group that is trying to overthrow the Colombian government and has also killed Americans.

Hugo Chavez came to power by tapping into frustration over Venezuela's corrupt political system. He was elected in 1998 by a landslide. Since then, Chavez has been engaged in what has been called a "slow-motion constitutional coup." He has abolished the senate, brought in Cubans as strike-breakers against the oil industry, and organized gangs to beat up opponents.

Venezuelan opposition leader Omar Garcia-Bolivar said, "He was elected, we respect the fact that he was elected. But then he turned to a non-democratic agenda. He violates the constitution, he encourages violence and so on. We Venezuelans are feeling the violation of human rights, the lack of respect of rule of law, the lack of respect to freedom."

Last December, a former high-level Venezuelan major gave sworn testimony that he personally delivered a million dollars to Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan, on behalf of Chavez. Chavez did not condemn the attacks of 9/11 until his silence became a political issue. Then he called the U.S. attack on Afghanistan "terrorism." But would Chavez be bold enough, or some would say stupid enough, to allow Al Qaeda to operate in Venezuela?

"There's a lot that we don’t know about his motives, a lot that he keeps concealed," said Stephen Johnson, a Latin American specialist at the Heritage Foundation.

Johnson says even though the claims about Al Qaeda in Venezuela have not been verified, he considers them to be highly probable.

"It'd be very easy for them to operate there, and they would not be unwelcome in Venezuela. There's testimony, the testimonial evidence. There's anecdotal evidence. But none of this has really been followed up, and it needs to be," Johnson said.

Garcia-Bolivar said, "The fact that President Chavez has met with Saddam Hussein. The fact that President Chavez has met with Moammar Ghaddafy and Al Khatami…the friendship with Fidel Castro, the fact he has not condemned the guerillas in Colombia, all of those things kind of take you to suspect that there is some kind of connection."

General James Hill, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, has recently admitted that in Venezuela the U.S. has a new problem on its hands. Some still believe Chavez will have to clean up his act in order to revive Venezuela's oil industry and woo back its biggest customer, the United States. But on the other hand, Chavez has also said that trade agreements with the United States are "the road to Hell."

Johnson said, "Venezuela is one of the more extreme examples of a failed society; of a democracy that's elected a dictator. You look at Venezuela and the chaos there and the kind of government that has begun to take shape under Hugo Chavez, what you would probably remark is that it is Haiti with oil."

Garcia-Bolivar not only agrees, he sees what could be a dire future ahead. He feels most Venezuelans will not stand for the direction Hugo Chavez wants to take the country, which is probably a Cuban-style dictatorship. "It's gonna get worse. And the worst, we believe, is going to be a civil war. A lot of civilians in Venezuela are now believing that the only way out of this situation they have is violence," he said.

Latin American experts say it is time for the United States to pay attention to this potential threat in our hemisphere.

Chavez’s term does not expire until 2006, although he may soon face a referendum. Most of his political opponents do not believe Chavez will ever give up power without a fight.

Watch CBNNewswatch By Dale Hurd CBN News Senior Reporter

U.S. intelligence is still coming to grips with reports that Al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups are setting up bases in Venezuela.

CBN.com – WASHINGTON, D.C. — While America's attention has been focused on Iraq, it may have a growing terrorist threat in this hemisphere, and in a country you might never expect.

On February 13 this year, at London's Gatwick Airport, a Muslim with suspected links to Al Qaeda was arrested after a grenade was found in his luggage. His ticket shows he flew in from Colombia. But it turns out he actually began his journey in Caracas. He was a Venezuelan. And there are reported to be more like him.

U.S. intelligence is still coming to grips with reports that Al Qaeda and other Muslim terrorist groups are setting up bases in Venezuela. A London newspaper reports Osama bin Laden has established a training camp on Venezuela's Margarita Island, a tourist destination that also has an Arab-Muslim community and a bad reputation as a hangout for smugglers and terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The more you know about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and his list of friends, the less surprising this all seems. Footage shows Hugo hugging Iranian President Khatami. More footage shows Hugo hugging Libya's Moammar Gaddafy. By the way, you won't find any video of Hugo meeting, much less, hugging George W. Bush.

But Chavez has met with Saddam Hussein. In fact, he was the first foreign leader to visit Baghdad after the first Gulf War, and he expressed his admiration for Saddam. He has offered support to convicted terrorist Carlos "The Jackal." He considers Fidel Castro his mentor. He gives sanctuary to Colombia's FARC rebels, a group that is trying to overthrow the Colombian government and has also killed Americans.

Hugo Chavez came to power by tapping into frustration over Venezuela's corrupt political system. He was elected in 1998 by a landslide. Since then, Chavez has been engaged in what has been called a "slow-motion constitutional coup." He has abolished the senate, brought in Cubans as strike-breakers against the oil industry, and organized gangs to beat up opponents.

Venezuelan opposition leader Omar Garcia-Bolivar said, "He was elected, we respect the fact that he was elected. But then he turned to a non-democratic agenda. He violates the constitution, he encourages violence and so on. We Venezuelans are feeling the violation of human rights, the lack of respect of rule of law, the lack of respect to freedom."

Last December, a former high-level Venezuelan major gave sworn testimony that he personally delivered a million dollars to Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan, on behalf of Chavez. Chavez did not condemn the attacks of 9/11 until his silence became a political issue. Then he called the U.S. attack on Afghanistan "terrorism." But would Chavez be bold enough, or some would say stupid enough, to allow Al Qaeda to operate in Venezuela?

"There's a lot that we don’t know about his motives, a lot that he keeps concealed," said Stephen Johnson, a Latin American specialist at the Heritage Foundation.

Johnson says even though the claims about Al Qaeda in Venezuela have not been verified, he considers them to be highly probable.

"It'd be very easy for them to operate there, and they would not be unwelcome in Venezuela. There's testimony, the testimonial evidence. There's anecdotal evidence. But none of this has really been followed up, and it needs to be," Johnson said.

Garcia-Bolivar said, "The fact that President Chavez has met with Saddam Hussein. The fact that President Chavez has met with Moammar Ghaddafy and Al Khatami…the friendship with Fidel Castro, the fact he has not condemned the guerillas in Colombia, all of those things kind of take you to suspect that there is some kind of connection."

General James Hill, Commander of the U.S. Southern Command, has recently admitted that in Venezuela the U.S. has a new problem on its hands. Some still believe Chavez will have to clean up his act in order to revive Venezuela's oil industry and woo back its biggest customer, the United States. But on the other hand, Chavez has also said that trade agreements with the United States are "the road to Hell."

Johnson said, "Venezuela is one of the more extreme examples of a failed society; of a democracy that's elected a dictator. You look at Venezuela and the chaos there and the kind of government that has begun to take shape under Hugo Chavez, what you would probably remark is that it is Haiti with oil."

Garcia-Bolivar not only agrees, he sees what could be a dire future ahead. He feels most Venezuelans will not stand for the direction Hugo Chavez wants to take the country, which is probably a Cuban-style dictatorship. "It's gonna get worse. And the worst, we believe, is going to be a civil war. A lot of civilians in Venezuela are now believing that the only way out of this situation they have is violence," he said.

Latin American experts say it is time for the United States to pay attention to this potential threat in our hemisphere.

Chavez’s term does not expire until 2006, although he may soon face a referendum. Most of his political opponents do not believe Chavez will ever give up power without a fight.

Post-gazette.com Monday, April 21, 2003 By Byron Spice, Post-Gazette Science Editor

Something odd was happening as the Boeing 737 made its approach to Chicago's Midway Airport. A cockpit instrument called the course deviation indicator, or CDI, showed the plane was on course, but the pilots, peering through the night sky at the lights below, thought they were too far south. An air traffic controller radioed the same concern.

Then the CDI's vertical needle suddenly swung to the left, showing the plane north of its course. After the captain made a scheduled turn to align the plane with the runway, the CDI needle again indicated the plane was on course. But then the needle swung again, showing the plane too far south.

By this time, the runway was in view and the pilots could see they were too high and too far north to land.

The apparent cause of these electronic gremlins was discovered as the plane circled around for another approach and the captain asked the passengers to make sure they had turned off all electronic devices.

The flight attendants reported that a woman passenger had been talking on her cell phone. When she turned it off, the instruments immediately settled down and the plane landed safely.

This incident, which the captain reported last year to NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, is just one example of how portable electronic devices -- everything from cell phones to Game Boys -- can interfere with the electronic navigation and communication systems aboard a modern airliner.

No one has yet blamed an aircraft accident on a malfunctioning laptop computer or an overactive pager, but the profusion of cell phones, laptops, CD/DVD players, game systems and personal digital assistants, or PDAs, that passengers now carry onboard is raising concern about electronic interference with avionic equipment..

"I don't have a sense [electronic interference] is increasing, but I sure see the potential there," said Kent Horton, general manager of avionics engineering for Delta Airlines.

It's not just the sheer number of devices being carried onboard, but their changing capabilties. A particular worry are wireless technologies, which go by such names as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a new one called ultrawideband. They allow laptops and PDAs to communicate with each other or connect with the Internet.

"They're so new we don't know a lot about these things," Horton said.

The wireless technologies operate at very low power but, like cell phones, are designed as transmitters, increasing the likelihood of interference. The Federal Aviation Administration has asked the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, a private, not-for-profit group that advises the agency, to convene a special committee this summer to evaluate the new technology and determine whether it poses a threat to safety.

Cell phone use already is prohibited aboard planes and the FAA recommends that use of all portable electronic devices be limited below altitudes of 10,000 feet. But technological changes are making it more difficult to enforce those rules.

"As wireless devices become embedded into other devices, such as laptops, and the antennas for other devices become less conspicuous, it places a greater challenge on our flight crews to identify potential interference sources," said Timothy W. Shaver, program leader for flight avionics engineering at United Airlines.

None of this suggests that a crisis is at hand, emphasized Granger Morgan, head of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

"Air travel is getting safer and safer," Morgan said. "We've got most of the big things under control." Attention to portable electronic devices, however, could help prevent a small threat from becoming something more. "At the most fundamental level, we need to increase the level of vigilance across the board."

Electronic interference alone might not be a major threat, but combined with other factors, such as bad weather or pilot fatigue, could contribute to accidents, said Bill Strauss, an avionics engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center in Patuxent River, Md.

It's more than just a safety threat, noted Strauss, who is working toward a doctorate at Carnegie Mellon. Incidents of interference end up costing airlines money, as planes get pulled from service and technicians look in vain for something wrong.

Enforcing restrictions on portable electronic devices can trigger confrontations between passengers and crew.

An airliner was forced to taxi back to the gate at the airport in Caracas, Venezuela, early last year when a passenger refused to turn off his cell phone, at one point slipping into a lavatory to continue a conversation. Last summer, the crew of an MD-80 landing in Atlanta summoned the state police to board the plane after landing when a doctor became abusive when asked to turn off his CD player as the plane descended. And, on a flight from Miami to Chicago O'Hare, a passenger wouldn't turn off her cell phone until the captain came into the cabin to talk with her; after the plane landed, she went into the cockpit and gave the captain an earful.

"She just kept stating that it was very upsetting to her that she was reprimanded for not turning off her cell phone," a flight attendant said in a report filed for NASA's ASRS database.

"The air rage potential right now is probably a worse scenario than any interference events we are aware of," Strauss said.

Some people seem particularly skeptical about the in-flight ban on cell phone use, suggesting it's an airline effort to force passengers to use extra-cost phones located in the seatbacks.

In fact, the prohibition is a Federal Communications Commission rule. An activated cell phone, even when not being used for conversation, sends signals to the nearest base station. High in the air, a cell phone can "light up" base stations in a wide swath beneath the airplane's path and cause headaches for the cell network.

Even without the FCC rule, the FAA and airlines would want to restrict "intentional emitters" such as cell phones. But devices such as laptops, CD players, and the insulin pumps used by diabetics also can emit radio signals, though they are not designed to do so. Dropping a laptop, for instance, can damage it in ways that cause it to emit excessive amounts of electromagnetic radiation.

About 60 percent of all interference caused by portable electronics has been linked in reports to either cell phone or laptop use. But proving a cause-and-effect relationship is daunting.

"A lot of people in the field call it 'black magic,'" Strauss said.

The numbers of possible sources and possible interference paths are virtually impossible to count. Most airliners have 12 to 15 different antennas for various systems, Delta's Horton said, and radio emissions that escape through windows or around doors can reach one or more of these antennas, depending on the device's frequency, power and location.

Strauss said the devices also can cause interference within the plane, infiltrating electronic control boxes or the plane's wiring. A worn bit of electrical insulation, a missing shield, or a grounding wire mistakenly left disconnected may leave aircraft electronics vulnerable.

Even having what appears to be the culprit device in hand doesn't help. Horton said the airline has confiscated cell phones and other items suspected of causing in-flight interference, but has never been able to duplicate the interference.

Other factors no doubt are at work, Horton said. For instance, a passenger's low-power device might not affect voice communications when the plane is near a ground station, where the signals are strongest, but might interfere when the plane is far away from the station and receiving weaker signals.

Strauss suspects that more than one device may be causing interference in some cases. Several low-power devices operating in the passenger cabin can have additive effects, resulting in emissions stronger than any single device could generate, he explained. Turning one of those devices off might alleviate the interference and cause cockpit instruments to return to normal, but trying to recreate the effect using only that one device would be impossible.

Delta has done extensive measurements on the ground of "path loss," noting how a radio emitter might affect various antennas from various locations within different aircraft.

Up to now, though, there haven't been measurements during commercial flights. Strauss and Morgan have obtained a small FAA grant to perform what they say are the first in-flight measurements of the radiofrequency environment. Carrying a spectrum analyzer and an antenna aboard commercial airliners, Strauss will attempt to record the types and amounts of electrical emissions that occur at various points during the flights.

His own analysis of ASRS reports of interference incidents from 1995 through 2001 has convinced Strauss that a lot of cell phones are being switched on during landing approaches. Passengers may be eager to call people on the ground to let them know they have arrived, he reasoned, and may not realize that the cell phone can cause interference when it's turned on, not just when a call is being made or received.

Some of the solutions may simply be procedural, like the rule limiting the use of electronics at altitudes below 10,000 feet. The FAA says the number of interference incidents dropped dramatically when that recommendation was made in 1996.

In addition to direct observation by flight attendants, it may be possible to monitor electronics use by equipping planes with radiofrequency detectors. Handheld detectors could help the crew identify individual devices, particularly those generating excessive radiation, Morgan and Strauss suggest.

Greater cooperation between the FCC and FAA, they added, might result in wireless devices being designed with an override capability so that a centrally transmitted control signal could disable the devices during critical phases of flight.

Byron Spice can be reached at bspice@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578.

3 April 2003  BY TRACY BURROWS, <a href=www.itweb.co.za>ITWEB JOURNALIST

[Johannesburg, 3 April 2003] - A group of international ICT consultants has embarked on a four-month tour of southern Africa, to help meet the technology needs of non-profit organisations in the region.

The concept, known as eRiding, is described as a globally successful non-profit ICT consultation model, with representation in over 20 countries. eRiding is an ICT consultancy tailored to the needs of non-profit organisations, where the eRider delivers ICT training, planning and networking solutions for little or no cost.

The eRider tour has been launched by Ungana-Afrika, a new project aimed at bridging the digital divide by improving the technological capacity of civil society organisations. Ungana-Afrika is a collaborative project between the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and AIESEC, described as the world's largest student organisation.

Rudi von Staden, a South African member of the Ungana-Afrika team, says: "During the past few weeks we have been setting up the infrastructure of Ungana-Afrika and initiating communication with the non-profit community in nine SADC countries. Now we are ready to visit them in person."

Veronica Pena, one of the international eRiders from Venezuela, says: "eRiding is an excellent way to have a true impact because civil society organisations working in a variety of developmental capacities often suffer from a lack of ICT infrastructure, connectivity and skills. We are here to use our experience and training to help bridge the digital divide, which the whole African continent is increasingly facing."

Toni Eliasz, Ungana-Afrika's project manager from Finland, says having the support of AIESEC and OSISA is "one of the best possible combinations we could dream of. Besides their existing network, both organisations offer important resources, OSISA by funding the project and AIESEC by providing affordable international consultants.”

Eliasz says the future of Ungana-Afrika has been secured until early next year but sustainability is one of this year's main objectives. “We are trying to find relevant funding organisations and new partners from the private sector."

Business 2.0 By Erick Schonfeld, Gary Hamel, April 2003 Issue April 1, 2003  

Resources are cheap. The competition is paralyzed. The last thing you should do right now is play it safe.

R.J. Pittman is a classic business daredevil, a 33-year-old with a new technology and a taste for adventure. Larry Brilliant is a more established quantity, a four-time entrepreneur who co-founded the Well, the prototypical online community, in 1985. Though the two haven't met, the novice and the veteran are united in an act that, in this forbidding business environment, isn't just daring. It's practically unnatural. They are starting businesses.

Pittman is launching Groxis, which is built around software that makes Web searches more efficient. While some may question the appetite people have for such a product right now, Pittman thinks this is a far more auspicious time for entrepreneurs than, say, 1999. "Office space is cheap, and talent is available," he points out. "And the signal-to-noise ratio is much better now that all the junk dotcoms are out of the picture." Brilliant, for his part, recently founded Cometa Networks, a joint venture that is planning a nationwide system of wireless broadband Internet access spots. Building out yet another communications network may seem like the errand of someone who missed the memo about the telecom bust. But Brilliant dismisses any doubts. "The irrational exuberance of the 1990s has been replaced by an irrational lethargy," he says. He sees Wi-Fi as a huge opportunity, and he doesn't intend to let recession or war or corporate paralysis keep him from it.

This entrepreneurial bravado, so common just a few years ago, stands in marked contrast to the apprehension that seems to grip so many hearts in business today. Wherever you look, the forces of retrenchment are on the march. During the past two years, capital investment has declined about 11 percent -- more than during the 1990-91 recession and almost as much as during the recession of 1981-82. Billions of dollars are disappearing from balance sheets as companies write down the value of poorly conceived acquisitions, struggling venture divisions, and unsold inventory. The hiring slump is persisting, with more than 1.5 million jobs lost since the start of the 2001 recession. And among venture capitalists, 70 percent of current cash goes to fix problems at existing companies rather than to fund fresh ideas.

While retrenchment is a perfectly understandable reaction to an unexpected drop in revenues, at too many companies it threatens to become a habit. The trick in tough times is to downsize your cost base without downsizing your future. Even as your company sweats off fat, it needs to bulk up on some of the courage and faith in innovation shown by Pittman and Brilliant (tempered, of course, by a healthy dose of prudence). No company ever beat a bear market by starving itself.

You can't move forward when you're cutting back. Like a crash diet, retrenchment may help you look less like an inflated marshmallow, but the improvement will be temporary unless you commit yourself to better nutrition and a sustained exercise regime. "Denominator management" -- whacking away at head count, paring down inventory, and slashing capital budgets to buttress your financial ratios -- can take you only so far.

Retrenchment doesn't fundamentally transform a company's cost structure; it simply establishes a new, lower equilibrium between revenues and expenses. It doesn't create competitive advantage -- not unless you're taking costs out a lot faster than your competitors are and doing so in ways that don't imperil long-term success. In other words, retrenchment can buy you time, but it can't buy you a future.

At some point, in fact, it becomes retreat. Studies suggest that this point often comes sooner than most businesspeople expect. A Mercer Management study of 116 companies that aggressively cut costs in the 1990-91 recession, for instance, determined that only 29 percent of them grew profitably in the latter half of the decade. A more recent study by Strategos, the Chicago-based consultancy chaired by author Hamel, demonstrated the limits to a single-minded focus on cost cutting. It showed that while a company can grow earnings faster than revenues for a few years -- a sure sign of denominator management -- one that grows earnings more than five times faster than revenues for more than three years in succession is almost certain to see a subsequent collapse in growth. The point is simple: Retrenchment makes you smaller, not better. Story continued on next page Article Page: 1 2 3 | Next >

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