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Fake bomb detectors still in use

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  • Siggie
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Thailand is still using these bogus detectors while there are blast after blast at the Malayasian border.

    Thailand's army chief vowed Thursday that troops would continue using a British-made bomb scanner that failed a series of tests, as a fresh blast in the troubled south wounded 13 people.

    The government and army have both faced criticism since Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Tuesday that tests showed the scanners, on which Thailand has spent 21 million dollars, performed worse than sniffer dogs.


    Human Rights Watch issued a statement Thursday calling on the government to stop arresting people based on evidence gathered using the GT200 wand, made by British firm ATSC.


    But army chief General Anupong Paojinda told reporters that the machines, which are widely used in the insurgency-hit, Muslim-majority south, would stay in use and had proved successful on 300 occasions.


    "What the army is trying to tell the public as well as the media is that low-ranking soldiers in the south have used it and have had success in protecting people's lives," Aung he told press conference.


    "I respect the scientific tests but at this stage there is no banning order by the government so the army will continue to use it," he said.


    The detectors have already been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Anupong's comments came hours after a bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded in the southern town of Pattani, which has been hit by frequent attacks since a separatist insurgency broke out in the south in 2004.


    The blast wounded 13 people, two critically, a hospital worker said.


    In nearby Yala province a 26 year old man was shot dead by suspected insurgents late Wednesday, police said.


    More than 4,100 people have died in bomb blasts, shootings, beheadings and crucifixions during the six-year insurgency in the southernmost Thai provinces bordering Malaysia.


    The region was an autonomous Malay Muslim sultanate until it was annexed in 1902 by mainly Buddhist Thailand and tensions have bubbled there ever since.
    Source

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  • KanadaHye
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Originally posted by bell-the-cat View Post
    It's not just dogs for sniffing out explosives that some Muslims find objectionable. It also includes guide-dogs. There was a bizarre photo circulating a few months ago of a blind Muslim woman and her "guide pony", which she was (thanks to someone taking anti-disability discrimination laws to the extreme) actually allowed to take onto public buses!
    Maybe she's allergic to dogs

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  • bell-the-cat
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Originally posted by KanadaHye View Post
    I can't see them opposing them for sniffing out bombs though. I know Turkey is known for its Kangal breed of dogs which are like giant shepherd dogs. Maybe its more of a Shia thing.

    It's not just dogs for sniffing out explosives that some Muslims find objectionable. It also includes guide-dogs. There was a bizarre photo circulating a few months ago of a blind Muslim woman and her "guide pony", which she was (thanks to someone taking anti-disability discrimination laws to the extreme) actually allowed to take onto public buses!

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  • londontsi
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Originally posted by bell-the-cat View Post
    Iraqis, being Muslim, will refuse to work with dogs.
    Just for the record pigs have a better smell sense than dogs.

    Pretty sure not be a solution to the problem.

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  • KanadaHye
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Has anyone seen these being used in airports or anywhere else for that matter?

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  • Federate
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Originally posted by KanadaHye View Post
    I can't see them opposing them for sniffing out bombs though. I know Turkey is known for its Kangal breed of dogs which are like giant shepherd dogs. Maybe its more of a Shia thing.

    Turkey as a state is largely secular which is why bomb sniffing dogs are not a problem. And unlike Iraq, it does not have checkpoints at every corner of the capital so even if they have a problem with the dogs, they will be of relative limited use compared to Iraq. The article I linked says both Sunnis and Shi'as consider dogs unclean though.

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  • KanadaHye
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    I can't see them opposing them for sniffing out bombs though. I know Turkey is known for its Kangal breed of dogs which are like giant shepherd dogs. Maybe its more of a Shia thing.

    Leave a comment:


  • Federate
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Originally posted by bell-the-cat View Post
    Iraqis, being Muslim, will refuse to work with dogs.
    True, which is what led them to choose the fake bomb detectors in the first place I guess. They don't want 'unclean animals' running around all over the hundreds of Baghdad checkpoints sniffing people. For more info on the views on dogs in Islam, check this Wiki-article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_animals#Dogs

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  • bell-the-cat
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    The Baghdad Operations Command announced Tuesday that it had purchased an additional 100 detection devices, but General Rowe said five to eight bomb-sniffing dogs could be purchased for $60,000, with provable results.
    Iraqis, being Muslim, will refuse to work with dogs.

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  • KanadaHye
    replied
    Re: Fake bomb detectors still in use

    Here is another article I found which sounds awfully similar to the one Siggie posted. Just imagine the kickbacks received from these transactions.

    SEC: Bomb Detector—Bought by Military—Was Front for Scam
    by Michael Grabell, ProPublica - July 17, 2008

    Last year, while working at The Dallas Morning News, a colleague and I wrote a story about a purported explosives detection device called Sniffex. According to the company, Sniffex could detect explosives up to a football field away by reading the "interference between the magnetic field of the earth, the explosive, the device itself and the human body."



    International Critics called it a sham. Yet one unit in the U.S. military bought the device -- eight for about $6,000 each -- even though the military’s own tests (PDF) said the Sniffex performed no better than random chance. (The testers concluded that the Sniffex operates according to the same principles as a Ouija board.)

    Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Sniffex of being little more than the front for a $32 million stock fraud scheme that enriched insiders at the expense of unsuspecting investors.

    According to the SEC complaint (PDF) filed Tuesday, Sniffex -- which later became Homeland Safety International -- installed a figurehead CEO, named Paul B. Johnson, to hide the involvement of two Bulgarian residents who actually controlled the company.

    The company then issued a series of what the SEC alleges were false press releases, including one that touted “impressive” results from tests conducted by the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. In reality, the tests were conducted by Johnson himself and the results were inconclusive, the SEC says.

    The SEC’s complaint also alleges that in 2005 one of the Bulgarians coordinated a spam campaign to hype the stock, taking advantage of the London subway bombings to make his pitch.

    The stock rocketed from 80 cents a share to $6 a share in less than three months. While the stock price increased, the insiders sold. The stock plummeted and now trades at one tenth of a penny.

    The story on Sniffex was part of a series (see sidebar) The Dallas Morning News did on penny stocks and a group of lawyers, stock brokers and financiers whom the SEC suspects were sending out junk faxes and spam to manipulate the prices of several stocks. The SEC dubbed them the "shell creation group."

    In a second complaint (PDF) filed earlier this week, the SEC alleges that the "shell creation group" made about $20 million by sending out junk faxes and spam on several penny stocks, including one e-mail (PDF) after Hurricane Katrina that read "Get Filthy Rich as the Recovery Begins."

    Mark Lindberg (no surprise ), a businessman named in both the Sniffex and shell creation group complaints, was charged (PDF) Monday by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to commit securities fraud. (Neither Lindberg nor his lawyer returned calls for comment.)

    We tried to reach the Bulgarian businessmen through their Web site [14], but the listed phone number was disconnected. No one we talked to had contact information for them or their lawyers. The attorney for Sniffex CEO Paul Johnson said his client didn’t make money from the stock sales and hasn’t done anything wrong. "From what we understand he was really a pawn in how this happened," said Kip Mendrygal, Johnson's attorney.

    http://www.propublica.org/feature/se...t-for-scam-717
    Last edited by KanadaHye; 01-27-2010, 09:46 AM.

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