The United States will work with an intergovernmental customs group in a bid to gain assistance from countries, private firms and international entities in augmenting cargo security measures around the world, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 3).
Cooperation with the Belgium-based World Customs Organization would focus on countering attempts by extremists to tap global shipping networks in carrying out attacks, safeguarding critical global supply chain infrastructure, and ensuring continuity of operations in the event of an attack, Napolitano said in a speech in Belgium.
The World Customs Organization and the Homeland Security Department would together lobby to implement tighter cargo security measures worldwide, such as sophisticated mechanisms to account for and find sensitive « precursor chemicals » that could be used to build bombs, WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya said.
Under Project Global Shield, 60 countries have already started exchanging cargo data in an effort to prevent the use of chemicals for illicit ends, according to a DHS press release. The effort has facilitated the seizure of potentially dangerous deliveries and provided information on illicit chemical transfers into Afghanistan and Pakistan, says the statement.
« The recent air cargo incidents show the necessity for international cooperation in enhancing trade security using a risk management approach as embodied in the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards, » Mikuriya said (see GSN, Nov. 3, 2010). « Therefore I appreciate Secretary Napolitano’s efforts to address cargo security through the WCO and other international organizations. »
Napolitano said her department would work this year with the departments of Defense Department and State to augment and organize technical education and assistance for customs agencies in partner nations (U.S. Homeland Security Department release, Jan. 6).
Substances sought by extremists « can be … chemicals used in the manufacture of bombs, but you’re also talking chemical, biological, potentially radiological (weapons). All the things that we need to be concerned about in today’s threat environment, » the Press Trust of India yesterday quoted her as saying separately in an interview with Fox News (Lalit Jha, Press Trust of India/Zee News, Jan. 6).
http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110107_7154.php
