US rushes troops to Haiti earthquake zone

The US is sending up to 3,500 soldiers and 2,200 marines to Haiti to help rescue efforts in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

President Barack Obama pledged one of the biggest relief efforts in recent US history and said Haiti would "not be forgotten" in its hour of need.

The search for survivors continues but rescuers lack heavy lifting equipment and many are using their bare hands.

The Red Cross estimates 45,000-50,000 people are dead and up to 3m affected.

BBC correspondents say the situation is increasingly desperate, with aid only trickling in.

Mr Obama confirmed that some US rescuers were already working on the ground in Haiti.

Speaking in Washington, he promised the country "every element of our national capacity, our diplomacy, and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly, the compassion of our country" following the disaster.

"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forsaken, you will not be forgotten," he said.

However he warned it would take time for much-needed help to reach people.

Mr Obama also promised an immediate $100m for Haiti's relief effort and said that investment would grow over the coming year to aid long-term recovery.

The first 100-strong contingent from the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division is expected to arrive in Haiti by the end of Thursday, with several hundred more due by Friday.

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier will arrive on Thursday. The USS Bataan, carrying a marine expeditionary unit, is also on its way.

The US forces will join Haitians and international search and rescue teams already on the ground.

Aid groups say it is a race against time to find people trapped under the rubble of the collapsed buildings.

Elisabeth Byrs, of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "The priority is to find survivors. We are working against the clock."

The head of Medecins du Monde, Olivier Bernard, told AFP news agency that aid had to arrive by Thursday evening.

"To save lives, surgery must be available ideally within the first 48 hours," he said.

Doctor's assistant Jimitre Coquillon told Associated Press: "This is much worse than a hurricane. There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

The BBC's Matthew Price in Port-au-Prince says Haiti is in massive need of food, water and medicine, as well as bulldozers and heavy lifting equipment.

But perhaps more than anything it needs someone to take charge here, our correspondent says. The government is fragile at the best of times and there is no sense it is able to do anything for now.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Authority said it had stopped civilian flights to Haiti for the moment at the Haitian government's request because there was not enough space on the ground for more planes and only limited fuel for them to leave.

The director of Port-au-Prince's general hospital said that by 1100 (1600 GMT) at least 1,500 bodies were already stacked inside and outside the morgue, with police continuing to bring more corpses on pick-up trucks, Reuters reports.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it could be days before even an estimate of the death toll from the earthquake could be made, but said he feared it would be "very high".

Up to 150 UN staff remain unaccounted for following the collapse of the UN headquarters building in Port-au-Prince and 36 UN military and police personnel are now confirmed dead.

On a note of hope, he recounted the survival of an Estonian UN official who was detected under 4m (13ft) of rubble after scratching noises were heard. He was dug out and is now in hospital.

A few US aid planes and a 50-strong Chinese rescue team with sniffer dogs have landed at the airport serving the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Cuba already had more than 300 doctors in Haiti before the earthquake and they have been treating the injured in field hospitals.

Other plane-loads of rescuers and relief supplies are on the way from the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations.

A British rescue team with heavy lifting gear and dogs has now arrived in Haiti.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The last 24 hours have been truly horrific for the people of Haiti. It's a catastrophe that's still unravelling, it's a tragedy beyond imagination."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled a trip to Asia to deal with the crisis. She said there were tens of thousands of casualties in Haiti and that tens of thousands of buildings had collapsed.

"This is going to be a long-term effort," she said.

Her husband, Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, told the Washington Post the quake was "one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas".

Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an international conference on rebuilding Haiti to be held with the help of nations including the US, Brazil and Canada.

"Haiti must not remain a battered country," he said.

The World Bank is funding $100m of emergency aid. The World Food Programme is working on supplying 15,000 tonnes of food and the Red Cross has begun a $10m appeal.

Would you trust the human eye to spot a bomb?

Airline passengers will undergo full body scans as security measures are stepped up after the alleged plan to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. But the technology is only ever as good as the people who operate it, says Chris Yates.

Security measures for British air passengers are about to get a lot more stringent.

After the alleged attempt to bomb a transatlantic passenger plane over the US on Christmas Day, full body scanners in major British airports have been given the go-ahead.

In addition to these "naked" imaging scanners, there will be a greater reliance on explosive residue detectors and a full scale review of the security system that exists in this country.

Full body scanners, or whole body imaging (WMI), as the technology is known in the trade, will allow airport security staff to see beneath passenger clothing to ensure travelers are not carrying concealed weapons of most types.

The equipment has been around for some time, with a current trial at Manchester airport, but until now plans to roll it out have been held back by concerns about privacy. The scanners effectively render a naked image of each passenger - highlighting any objects stored close to the body as well as more intimate details.

Yet the fact such concerns have been swiftly swept aside in the immediate aftermath of the Christmas Day scare is evidence of how international air travellers are about to witness another tightening of the security net.

But how effective are these full body scanners and are we relying on them too heavily?

Regardless of whether Whole Body Imaging (WMI) could have identified the explosive device allegedly used in the failed Christmas Day attack, this type of technology in the airport environment is a potential game changer for the safety of air passengers. It also gives security personnel much needed additional capability.

Human error

But it cannot be seen as the panacea to the threats we face today.

Full body scanners are often only as good as the people paid to be behind the screens, analysing the succession of complex images scrolling in front of their eyes.

Staff monitoring screens typically only do so for a two-hour stretch - one of a rotation of duties to stop them from getting bored.

But even then, they are only human and it's a human frailty that when attention is focused on a mundane task, it can easily wander - distracted by the sight of an attractive man or woman or a passing celebrity.

There are moves at the moment to relocate the operatives looking at screens to a remote area - a darkened room where there are no distractions. It's one of the ways that the security industry is looking at improving scanning and minimising human error.

So maybe the alternative is to go for something that minimises, even sidesteps, human error. entirely. With some emerging technologies, such as liquid detectors, the machines themselves make the call.

Given that the alleged Christmas Day plot is said to have relied on liquid for the in-flight bomb, there is clearly a case for liquid detectors at airports sooner rather than later.

The hardware and software is already available.

Green light scanner

A bottle scanner device has undergone pilot trials at Newcastle Airport and is being assessed by Manchester airport.

The scanner is an ingenious piece of kit - a standalone system providing a highly accurate means to positively verify whether the content of a bottle is safe for carriage in the passenger cabin or otherwise. It literally gives a green light for "OK" or a red light.

Or there is a piece of technology which can be used with existing baggage X-ray systems to detect liquid explosives and chemical threats in real time, for a fraction of the cost of deploying new hardware.

Gordon Brown has also signalled that passengers could see greater use of explosive residue detection systems that are already deployed at UK airports for random screening of passenger belongings.

Many of us are familiar with having items of hand luggage swabbed and analysed by these labour intensive devices at airports. However, this method of detection is evolving dramatically.

An explosive residue detection system developed by Loughborough University and presently being commercialised can remotely scan crowded areas, such as airports and train stations, automatically alerting an operator if it detects traces of explosives.

A hand-held variant of the system is also under development and is ideally suited to deployment in the central screening areas within airports.

PR exercise?

Of course, it could be pointed out that for all the money and time spent on elaborate scanning equipment, as far as I know, they have yet to be instrumental in foiling a terrorist plot.

Indeed, many people will say that scanning at airports is nothing but a PR exercise - there to reassure the overwhelming majority of law-abiding passengers while also acting as a deterrent for violent fanatics.

That could perhaps have been said of the old style X-ray scanners. But the level of sophistication we have nowadays gives much greater capability to detect weapons.

Yet security at airports is as much about technique as technology. The technique involves, amongst other things, passenger profiling. Rudimentary forms of profiling have been commonplace at airports for very many years and we're all used to the sort of basic questions asked of us prior to and during the check in process.

Traditionally, the UK has shied away from full on profiling of the kind passengers travelling to Israel might undergo for example. However, there is now a strong case for much greater use of this technique at airports.

Civil liberties groups have long been opposed to passenger profiling, citing issues surrounding whether individuals might be profiled on grounds of ethnic background and so forth. There is though no reason why greater profiling cannot be conducted without recourse to contentious issues such as race and religion.

The aviation industry routinely collects vast amounts of data on our travelling habits that can be used to build up an extremely useful profile. Information regarding the destination, frequency and duration of overseas trips allows those tasked with ensuring the security of flights to positively identify passengers who may travel to regions of the world determined to be high-risk for example. That enables higher levels of security to be applied to that person as he or she passes through the airport.

What is required is a system of systems comprising both technique and technology. The technique must include greater use of passenger profiling whilst the technology must include advanced tools giving greater detection capability.

Such techniques, when combined with greater use of advanced technologies, give us much greater detection capability on the frontline at our airports.

Chris Yates is an aviation security analyst with Jane's Information Group.

US pilot admits being over alcohol limit

A US pilot has pleaded guilty to being over the alcohol limit as he prepared to take off from Heathrow Airport.

Erwin Washington, 51, from Lakewood, Colorado, was arrested in November last year on a flight that was due to leave Heathrow Airport.

A breath test showed Washington was more than three times the permitted limit to fly a plane.

The United Airlines pilot will be sentenced on 5 February, Uxbridge Magistrates' Court ruled.

Flight cancelled

Washington was due to captain a Boeing 767 bound for Chicago with 124 passengers and 11 crew members on board on 9 November last year.

The plane's departure was imminent when a colleague smelled alcohol on his breath. Police arrived and arrested him.

The flight was subsequently cancelled and passengers were put on other planes.

Kevin Christie, prosecuting, said: "Mr Washington was arrested as it was believed he had reported for work and had intended to fly the aircraft in the role of captain."

The court heard that on his arrest Washington, who has a military record, replied: "Okay, fine."

A breath test recorded a reading of 31 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath, with the legal limit being nine micrograms.

A blood test revealed 50 milligrams of alcohol in 100ml of blood. The limit for pilots is 20 milligrams of alcohol, compared to the legal limit of 80 milligrams for motorists.

Defending, Chris Humphreys said Washington was "remorseful".

Legislation regarding aviation staff over the legal limit for flying has only been used seven times since it was introduced in 2003, Mr Humphreys said.

He added: "There are, thankfully, very few cases of this sort."

Magistrates' chairman Geoff Edwards said their powers were insufficient to sentence Washington, who will instead be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court in February.

Magistrates could have imposed a maximum £5,000 fine, a Crown Prosecution spokesman said.

But at crown court, Washington could be jailed for a maximum of two years and given a fine, or solely face a fine.

The pilot was released on unconditional bail.

Obama set to tighten air security

US President Barack Obama is set to announce tightened airline security, after his officials update him on reviews prompted by a plane bomb plot.

Reviews of airport screening and of the US watch-list system were ordered after a Nigerian man known to US officials allegedly got on a plane with a device.

He tried to blow up the plane on 25 December as it prepared to land in the US city of Detroit, investigators say.

It has prompted changes to airport screening around the world.

Fourteen countries, including Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, have been singled out by Washington for enhanced security measures for travellers.

On Tuesday at the White House, President Obama is expected to outline steps to improve watch-lists and deter future attacks, after his meeting with about 20 security and intelligence officials.

Prosecution investigation

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, CIA Director Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller are among those expected at the meeting, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Mr Obama will be updated on the investigation focusing on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who remains in custody, charged with attempting to destroy a plane.

Mr Abdulmutallab began his journey in Lagos, Nigeria, and changed planes at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

His name was in a US database of about 550,000 suspected terrorists, but was not on a list that would have subjected him to additional security screening or kept him from boarding the flight.

Since the incident, officials have moved dozens of names on to "watch-" and "no-fly" lists, as they seek to overhaul security, White House spokesman Bill Burton said earlier.

Watch-list update

Those on the watch-list are subject to extra security checks, while those on the no-fly list are not allowed to board flights to the US.

Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said last week it had trained and equipped Mr Abdulmutallab for the plane plot.

The US re-opened its embassy in Yemen on Tuesday, following what it called successful counter-terrorism operations by government security forces on Monday north of the capital.

A BBC correspondent in the Yemeni capital Sanaa says the embassy was referring to a strike that reportedly killed two al-Qaeda operatives.

The embassy had closed on Sunday in response to what it said were al-Qaeda threats. The British and French embassies have resumed operations, but remain closed to the public.

Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.

Iraq drama honoured by US film critics

Iraq drama The Hurt Locker has been named the best picture of 2009 by the National Society of Film Critics.

The film, about US bomb disposal experts stationed in Baghdad, also won honours for director Kathryn Bigelow and actor Jeremy Renner.

Yolande Moreau was named best actress for her performance in French film Seraphine, about the painter Seraphine de Senlis.

Joel and Ethan Coen won best screenplay for A Serious Man.

The National Society of Film Critics includes 64 critics from leading US publications and websites.

The society often picks foreign films or films popular with critics, and rarely do the winners mirror those at the Oscars, which are set for 7 March this year.

Abusive mother

Other winners included The Beaches of Agnes 40, an autobiographical documentary about the life of director Agnes Varda, which was chosen as the best non-fiction film.

Summer Hours, a story of three siblings by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, won best foreign language film.

US comedian Mo'Nique, best known for her TV work, was named best supporting actress for her portrayal of an abusive mother in Precious.

Austrian Christoph Waltz won for best supporting actor for his work as a charismatic Gestapo officer in Quentin Tarentino's Inglourious Basterds.

Last month, The Hurt Locker was named the best picture of 2009 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

It also featured in the American Film Institute's annual rundown of the year's 10 best movies.

US lifts HIV/Aids immigration ban

he US has lifted a 22-year immigration ban which has stopped anyone with HIV/Aids from entering the country.

President Obama said the ban was not compatible with US plans to be a leader in the fight against the disease.

The new rules come into force on Monday and the US plans to host a bi-annual global HIV/Aids summit for the first time in 2012.

The ban was imposed at the height of a global panic about the disease at the end of the 1980s.

It put the US in a group of just 12 countries, also including Libya and Saudi Arabia, that excluded anyone suffering from HIV/Aids.

The BBC's Charles Scanlon, in Miami, says that improving treatments and evolving public perceptions have helped to bring about the change.

Rachel Tiven, head of the campaign group Immigration Equality, told the BBC that the step was long overdue.

"The 2012 World Aids Conference, due to be held in the United States, was in jeopardy as a result of the restrictions. It's now likely to go ahead as planned," she said.

In October, President Obama said the entry ban had been "rooted in fear rather than fact".

He said: "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country."

France follows Britain and US in shutting Yemen embassy

France has become the third Western nation to shut its Yemen embassy, after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot, the foreign ministry in Paris announced.

The US and UK missions, which closed on Sunday, remain shut.

Reports that the closures were prompted by Yemeni security forces losing track of six trucks full of arms were denied by British officials.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula last week said it was behind an alleged plot to bomb a US airliner.

It urged attacks on "crusaders" in embassies.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Yemen was a threat both regionally and globally.

Threats to US interests in Yemen pre-dated the Christmas holiday period, and the embassy would be re-opened only when circumstances permitted, she said in Washington.

From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government.

Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions.

Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random.

On Monday in Paris, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters their Yemen ambassador had decided the previous day to suspend public access to the embassy.

French citizens in the country had been warned to be vigilant and limit their movements, he added.

The US was the first to announce the closure of its embassy on Sunday, citing "ongoing threats" by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and the UK followed suit.

A US diplomat told the Reuters news agency on Monday: "The embassy is still closed again today... We are continuing to make the security review."

The Japanese foreign ministry said consular services had been suspended at its embassy in Yemen but other business was continuing, AFP news agency reported.

The German foreign ministry confirmed security had been tightened at its mission but that the embassy remained open

Spain restricted public access to its embassy.

The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.

Yemeni security forces, meanwhile, shot dead two militants north of the capital, Sanaa, said officials.

The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which 19 people died, including a young American woman. The attack was blamed on AQAP.

On Sunday, the US deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism said there were "indications that al-Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of Sanaa, possibly our embassy".

John Brennan told ABC the group had "several hundred members" in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and was posing an increasing threat.

Last week, AQAP urged Muslims to help in "killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places".

The group also said it was behind an alleged failed attempt to destroy an Amsterdam-Detroit flight with nearly 300 people aboard on Christmas Day.

Mr Brennan told CNN there were "indications" a radical US cleric of Yemeni origin had links both to the Nigerian charged with the bomb plot, and the man accused of November's shootings at a Texas military base.

He said the preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, had had contact with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, while he was allegedly being trained by AQAP operatives last year.

It was clear, he said, that Mr Awlaki had also been in touch with Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army major charged with shooting dead 13 people at Fort Hood.

On Saturday, the head of US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus, visited Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh to pledge support for its fight with al-Qaeda, after Washington doubled its counter-terrorism aid.

Yemeni officials last week said they had sent more troops to hunt down al-Qaeda militants in the provinces of Abyan, Baida and Shabwa.

Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.

But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.

US radio star Rush Limbaugh's health scare over

Right-wing US talk show host Rush Limbaugh says tests taken after he was admitted to hospital with chest pains showed nothing wrong with his heart.

Mr Limbaugh said he was being released from the Queen's Medical Center, in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he had been since Wednesday.

He said he did not know what had caused the chest pains.

Mr Limbaugh, 58, is highly influential in the US and his radio show is one of the most popular in the country.

It is broadcast on some 600 stations across the country and heard by more than 14 million people every week.

Earlier, standing in on Mr Limbaugh's radio show, guest host Walter E Williams had described the radio star's pains as similar to the feeling of a "heart attack coming on".

But doctors said Mr Limbaugh had not had a heart attack and did not suffer from heart disease, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Mr Limbaugh is in Hawaii on holiday.

US aware 'Nigerian' prepared for terror attack

The US was aware that "a Nigerian" in Yemen was being prepared for a terrorist attack - weeks before an attempted bombing on a US plane.

ABC News and the New York Times say there was intelligence to this effect, but its source is unclear.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam before changing planes for a flight to Detroit on which he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb.

The Netherlands is to introduce body scanners on US flights within weeks.

Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst said Mr Abdulmutallab did not raise any concerns as he passed through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to board the flight.

She said the airport would be able to use body scanners on all flights to the US from the airport in three weeks. Nigerian authorities also said they would start using the machines next year.

Obama denounces lapses

Ms Ter Horst said that though the US had previously not wanted the scanners to be used because of privacy concerns, Washington had now agreed that "all possible measures will be used on flights to the US".

"It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster," she said.

US President Barack Obama has acknowledged unacceptable security failures.

He said a systemic failure allowed Mr Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, to fly to the US on 25 December despite family members warning officials in November that he had extremist views.

The source of the intelligence about "a Nigerian" in Yemen was reported as coming from the Yemeni government or from US intercept intelligence, which can refer to intercepted e-mail and phone calls.

Mr Obama said he wanted to know why a warning weeks ago from Mr Abdulmutallab's father did not lead to the accused being placed on a no-fly list.

"We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix flaws in the system," Mr Obama said.

Some passengers and crew tackled Mr Abdulmutallab in his seat about 20 minutes before landing in Detroit as he allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his underwear.

Initial investigations found he had used the explosive PETN and a syringe filled with liquid.

The Dutch interior minister described the bomb as professionally made but executed in an "amateurish" way.

She said Mr Abdulmutallab had passed through standard security checks, including a metal detector and a hand baggage scan, without raising suspicions.

Nigerian airports 'safe'

Mr Abdulmutallab has reportedly told investigators that he trained in Yemen with al-Qaeda.

He was living in Yemen from August to early December, the foreign ministry said, according to an earlier report from the official Saba news agency.

He had a visa to study Arabic at an institute in the capital, Sanaa.

US rejects Russian missile shield concerns

The United States has rejected fresh concerns raised by Moscow about its planned missile defence system.

The State Department statement came after Russian PM Vladimir Putin said the US plans were holding up a new nuclear disarmament treaty.

The statement said the two issues were completely separate, and discussions would continue separately.

Russia and the US are yet to find a successor to the Cold War-era Start I treaty, which expired on 5 December.

Analysts say Moscow wants a clause in the new treaty that would limit the scale of any US defence shield.

The US has shelved plans for missile defence stations in Central Europe, but intends to use a sea-based system.

The BBC's Imtiaz Tyab in Washington says it is clear from Mr Putin's comments Russia still sees any missile shield as a threat - one it is now pledged to counter.

But the hardening of Russia's position must be frustrating for US President Barack Obama, our correspondent says, after the concessions he has made.

'Keeping the balance'

The US statement said that Washington and Moscow's joint position recognising the inter-relationship between defensive and offensive weapons systems had not changed.

"While the US has long agreed that there is a relationship between missile offence and defence, we believe the Start follow-on agreement is not the appropriate vehicle for addressing it," it said.

"We have agreed to continue to discuss the topic of missile defence with Russia in a separate venue."

Earlier Mr Putin said the US plans would allow them to do whatever they wanted and thus upset the balance.

He said that "to preserve the balance, we must develop offensive weapons systems", but did not specify what kinds he had in mind.

Earlier this month, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would continue to develop new warheads, delivery vehicles and launchers despite the disarmament talks, describing this as "routine practice".

Russia and the US are negotiating in Geneva on the details of a new treaty. Last week, the Russian foreign minister said a deal was very close.

The 1991 Start I treaty led to deep cuts in nuclear arsenals by Washington and Moscow.

Both sides have agreed to continue observing Start I until they reach a new agreement.

Under a joint understanding signed in July, deployed nuclear warheads should be cut to fewer than 1,700 on each side within seven years of a new treaty - a huge cut on Soviet-era levels.

Nonetheless, between them the two countries will retain enough firepower to destroy the world several times over.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow says that Russia's nuclear arsenal is the only part of its military that remains world-class, and therefore it fears that it could be disadvantaged by cuts to nuclear capability.

Mr Putin's comments could be a negotiating ploy, rather than a reversal of Russia's commitment to a treaty, our correspondent says.

Analysts in Moscow think what Mr Putin really wants is a commitment from Washington to only deploy a small-scale missile defence system, that would be effective against Iran and North Korea but would not neutralise Russia's nuclear missile force, he adds.

Obama orders air security review after jet bomb attempt

US President Barack Obama has ordered a review of air security measures after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jet on Christmas Day.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president wanted to know how a man carrying dangerous substance PETN had managed to board a flight in Amsterdam.

He said the system of watch-lists would also be examined after it emerged the man was listed and known to officials.

A US record for 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was created last month.

Mr Gibbs told ABC News that the review would examine, firstly, the system of watch-lists used by government agencies, which includes three lists which become progressively shorter as risk increases.

'Dangerous substance'

The lists include a watch-list, with some 550,000 names on it, a "selectee" list with 18,000 people within the higher-risk category, and a "no-fly" list with 4,000 names of people who are not permitted to board planes.

Mr Abdulmutallab was placed on the lowest-risk list by US authorities in November 2009, after his father alerted authorities about the behaviour of his son.

Mr Gibbs said the number of people on the watch-list was "a huge number".

"The president has asked that a review be undertaken to ensure that any information gets to where it needs to go, to the people making the decisions. The president wants to review some of these procedures and see if they need to be updated," he said.

On 24 December Mr Abdulmutallab travelled from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit with an explosive device attached to his body, US officials say.

Shortly before the flight was due to land in the US, he allegedly attempted to detonate the device beneath a blanket but he was overpowered by passengers and crew.

Mr Abdulmutallab, the son of a prominent Nigerian banker, has been charged by US authorities with trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight as it was coming in to land.

US airlines especially have tightened security after the attempt, increasing screenings and body searches and, in some cases, confining passengers to their seats without pillows or blankets for the last hour of their flight.

Mitigation measures

Mr Gibbs said "air detection capabilities" would also be examined as part of the review.

"The president has asked the Department of Homeland Security to answer the - quite frankly - the very real question about how somebody with something as dangerous as PETN could have gotten onto a plane in Amsterdam."

PETN, or pentaerythritol, is the same material used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

Mr Abdulmutallab's route originally began in Yemen, from where he travelled to Ethiopia, then to Ghana and finally Nigeria.

According to Nigeria's information minister, Mr Abdulmutallab had arrived and flown out of Nigeria in the space of a single day.

"The man in question has been living outside the country for a while," said Dora Akunyili.

"He sneaked into Nigeria on the 24th of December and left the same day."

Nigerian authorities, who on Sunday pledged to co-operate fully with the US investigation, said screening would be enforced for all passengers passing through the country's 22 airports.

Wealthy or influential people and their families are often allowed to skip checks, media reports say.

Speaking to ABC News, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was no immediate indication that Mr Abdulmutallab was part of a broader terror plot.

"Right now we have no indication that it is part of anything larger. But obviously the investigation continues. And we have instituted more screening and what we call mitigation measures at airports," she said.

Midwest US states face fresh blizzards

A severe winter storm in the US that has seen record amounts of snow fall is set to continue, forecasts say.

Blizzard warnings are still in place for parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The storm has already dumped 14in (35cm) in Oklahoma City - 11.5in more than the previous record snowfall.

Icy roads had been blamed for at least 21 deaths since the storm hit a few days ago.

Drivers in Minnesota reported brief white-out (zero visibility) conditions, and while some managed to continue to their destinations, others were stuck either in their cars or accommodation as the snow made roads impassable.

In Texas, volunteer fire-fighters and sheriff's deputies rescued hundreds of people stranded along Interstate 44 and Texas State Highway 287 near Wichita Falls.

Thirteen inches of snow fell in the area, a National Weather Service meteorologist said

"It's really been horrible," Wichita County Sheriff David Duke said.

"Although we live in north Texas and get a lot of cold weather, we weren't prepared for the significant amount of snow that we've received."

Interstate roads were also closed in North Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming.

Snow drifts and strong winds could cause further whiteouts, meteorologists warned.

Flights were cancelled, including at Sioux Falls Regional Airport, Rapid City Regional Airport and Pierre Regional Airport.

The Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma's largest airport, was not expected to fully reopen for another two to three days.

National Weather Service meteorologist Kevin Kraujalis said the strong winds were producing snow drifts as deep as 5ft.

"It's awful, it's just awful," he told AP news agency.

"It's a big workout just walking outside to check my weather equipment."

US condemns Taliban video of captive soldier

The US has condemned a Taliban video of an American soldier captured by the militants in Afghanistan last June as an affront to his family at Christmas.

The man in the film, identifying himself as Private Bowe Robert Bergdahl, criticises the US over the Afghan war and relations with Muslims.

A Taliban spokesman then calls for the release of captured insurgents in exchange for the 23-year-old.

His parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, responded by appealing for his release.

The Western military alliance Nato confirmed that the man in the video - seen wearing sunglasses, a military helmet and uniform - was Pte Bergdahl.

It said he had clearly been forced to read a prepared statement. It is not clear when the video, released on Friday, was recorded.

The airborne infantryman, originally from the US state of Idaho, spoke clearly and appeared healthy.

He was captured in Paktika province, a Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, on 30 June.

US Navy Rear Adm Gregory Smith said in a statement: "It reflects nothing more than the violent, deceitful tactics of the Taliban insurgency.

"To release this video on Christmas Day is an affront to the deeply concerned family and friends of Bowe Bergdahl."

The Bergdahl family later issued a statement through the Idaho National Guard, urging the captors "to let our only son come home".

And to Pte Bergdahl, the family said: "We love you and we believe in you. Stay strong."

'Next Vietnam'

In the video, Pte Bergdahl gives his rank, date and place of birth, and deployment details.

"This is just going to be the next Vietnam unless the American people stand up and stop all this nonsense," he says.

He adds: "You are not fighting a small group of terrorist guerrilla fighters.

"You are fighting an organised guerrilla army that has perfected guerrilla warfare better than any country has ever perfected it in history."

A statement read by a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, appears at the end of the video and renews demands for a "limited number of prisoners" to be exchanged for Pte Bergdahl.

The insurgents also released a video of the American a few weeks after he was captured.

The Pentagon has said Pte Bergdahl was serving with an Alaska-based infantry regiment in Paktika province.

He vanished from his base, near the border with Pakistan, just five months after arriving in Afghanistan.

The military has been trying to locate him ever since, and a reward has been offered for his safe return.

He is believed to be the first soldier seized in either Iraq or Afghanistan for at least two years.

Bernard Madoff was not attacked, US prison says

Disgraced US financier Bernard Madoff is being treated in a prison hospital for hypertension and dizziness, a US Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman has said.

Traci Billingsley denied earlier media reports that Madoff was assaulted at a prison in North Carolina.

Madoff, aged 71, is serving 150 years for a $65bn (£41bn) fraud.

He admitted defrauding thousands of investors through a Ponzi scheme, which pays out using new investors' money rather than from any profits.

He said the scheme had been running since the early 1990s.

It unravelled when Madoff's investors, hit by the economic downturn, tried to withdraw about $7bn, but he could not produce the money.

The list of his victims included film director Steven Spielberg's charitable foundation.

Google's Admob plans scrutinised by US regulator

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has asked for more information about Google's plans to buy Admob, a company specialising in ads for small screens.

The search engine giant said last month that it hoped to buy the Silicon Valley start-up for $750m (£449m) in stocks.

Google's group product manager Paul Feng wrote in a blog post that the company "doesn't see any regulatory issues" with the proposed deal.

He admitted that the scrutiny meant the deal would not be closed immediately.

It took months for the FTC to approve Google's earlier purchase of another internet advert company, DoubleClick.

"Closer scrutiny has been one consequence of Google's success," added Mr Feng.

Admob was founded four years ago and sells adverts designed to run on mobile phones.

US balloon boy parents are given jail sentences

A US man who triggered a major alert by falsely claiming his son was adrift in a helium balloon has been sentenced to 90 days in jail - and his wife to 20.

Richard Heene, 48, and his 45-year-old wife Mayumi said in October their son had been carried off by the balloon.
Six-year-old Falcon Heene was finally found hiding at home.
In court in Colorado, Heene appeared to fight back tears as he apologised to rescue workers and the community, saying he was "very, very sorry".
The judge also ordered four years of supervised probation for the couple and banned them from receiving any form of financial benefit from the case.
Heene and his wife Mayumi had pleaded guilty to charges that they carried out the balloon stunt to promote a reality TV show.
'Wasted money'
The prosecutor had argued the couple should face time in jail to act as a deterrent to others who may be considering mounting similar stunts for financial gain and publicity.
He said Heene had "wasted a lot of man power and a lot of money in wanting to get himself some publicity".
He argued that the couple had acted not on the behest of any TV companies, but that "they came up with it all on their own, not necessarily just to get a TV show but at least to put their name out there again and maybe in hopes that somebody would pick them up".
"For that," he said, "they do need to be punished".
Richard Heene will be allowed to serve 60 days of his 90-day sentence on release, allowing him to work as a construction contractor during the day, while spending the night in jail.
He will start his sentence on 11 January 2010.
Mayumi Heene will begin her sentence after her husband's to ensure their children are still cared for.
She will be allowed to report to jail on two days a week, return home at night, and serve the sentence through jail-supervised community service.
The judge also ruled that her husband must serve 100 hours of community service and write a letter of apology to the community and public service agencies which helped search for his son.
The couple have already been ordered to pay $42,000 (£26,000) in restitution for the emergency services' rescue efforts.

Airlines hit back at US criticism of tie-up plans

American Airlines has hit back at a US Justice Department report that says its tie-up with British Airways and Iberia could lead to 'competitive harm'.

In papers filed this week, the Justice Department said fares between six transatlantic routes "could increase up to 15% under the proposed agreements."

The report advised removing some of the carriers' take-off and landing slots.

American Airlines said it disagreed with the report and believed the deal would be approved.

"American looks forward to rebutting the points made," the airline said.

British Airways also said it would "be making a robust response" to the Justice Department's comments.

Competition

The airlines want to operate as a joint business, called the Oneworld alliance, on flights between Europe and the US.

The Department of Justice wants the Department of Transportation to impose conditions to protect competition.

The report notes that "American and Iberia are the only current non-stop competitors between Miami and Madrid."

Fares between Boston and London, Chicago and London, Dallas and London, Miami and London, Miami and Madrid, and New York and London could be affected.

The routes in question serve 2.5 million passengers a year.

President Barack Obama hails US Senate healthcare vote

US President Barack Obama has hailed the Senate's healthcare vote as a "big victory for the American people".

Senators voted in the early hours of Monday to end debate on a compromise bill, putting the legislation on course to face a final vote on Christmas Eve.

President Obama has set health reform as a key plank of his first term.

The legislation, which aims to cover 31 million uninsured Americans, could lead to the biggest change in US healthcare in decades, if approved.

"The United States Senate knocked down a filibuster aimed at blocking a final vote on healthcare reform and scored a big victory for the American people," Mr Obama said.

Acrimonious debate

He said the Senate showed it could "stand up to the special interests" and move the nation closer to a health insurance overhaul for the country as a whole.

He said the bill would reduce the deficit in the long term, countering Republican criticism that the legislation is too expensive.

After a long, often acrimonious debate Senators voted 60 to 40 along party lines to end debate on the bill at 0100 (0600 GMT) on Monday.

Four further votes are scheduled this week on the issue before the final Senate vote on Christmas Eve.

Under the Senate bill, most Americans would have to have health insurance.

Private insurers would be banned from refusing to provide insurance because applicants had pre-existing medical conditions.

If passed, the Senate bill would have to be reconciled with a more expansive one passed last month by the House of Representatives.

Key differences in the House version include a government-run health insurance plan, or public option, and how to pay for the reform.

BP oil refinery workers in Texas win damages of $100m

A US jury has awarded $100m (£62m) in damages to 10 workers who said a leak at a BP oil refinery in Texas in 2007 had made them sick.

The source of the leak at the refinery south of Houston was never identified and environmental agencies reported no evidence linking it to the refinery.

BP concluded that any toxic substance had come from outside.

But lawyers for the workers argued the odour had come from a sulphur recovery unit at the plant.

They described BP as a serial polluter.

The Texas jury agreed with the lawyers' case and imposed punitive damages.

A hundred workers at the refinery were sent to hospital after being overcome by a toxic substance and a further 90 claims are to come.

The workers said their injuries had included dizziness and sore throats, with one employee passing out after inhaling the substance, but none suffered long-term damage to their lungs, their lawyer said.

'Utterly unjustified'

BP said it was outraged by the verdict reached by the jury in Galveston, and would appeal.

"The verdict, and punitive damages award in particular, is utterly unjustified, improper and unsupportable," it added.

Tony Buzbee, a lawyer for the workers, said his clients were pleased with the jury's decision, adding that he had approached BP before the trial and had offered to settle for $10,000 for each worker.

BP had rejected the proposal, he said.

"They tried to minimise it, attack the credibility of the workers," Mr Buzbee said.

"They simply would not admit that they had released something."

The refinery was the site of a 2005 explosion that killed 15 people and injured 170, the worst US industrial accident since 1990.

It has a history of fires, chemical releases and worker deaths, The Associated Press reports.

Eastern US prepares for severe winter storm

The eastern United States is preparing for a major winter storm moving up the Atlantic coast.

Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine declared a state of emergency as forecasters predicted up to 20in (50cm) of snow in some areas of the state.

The governor placed the National Guard on stand-by, warning that snow and high winds could cause power outages and other serious problems.

Blizzard watches are in effect in Long Island, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The US National Weather Service said the storm system over the Gulf of Mexico was forecast to move north through the south-eastern US on Friday, hitting the North Carolina coast by Saturday morning and reaching as far north as Massachusetts on Sunday.

Heavy snow is expected to fall from North Carolina to New York, with major cities including Baltimore and Philadelphia bracing themselves for a foot (30cm) or more.

Washington DC is preparing to be hit by what could be its worst winter storm since the capital was covered in 27in (68cm) of snow in 2003.