Eideard

A program that allows airports to replace government screeners with private screeners is being brought to a standstill, just a month after the Transportation Security Administration said it was “neutral” on the program.

TSA chief John Pistole said Friday he has decided not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports, saying he does not see any advantage to it.

Though little known, the Screening Partnership Program allowed airports to replace government screeners with private contractors who wear TSA-like uniforms, meet TSA standards and work under TSA oversight. Among the airports that have “opted out” of government screening are San Francisco and Kansas City.

The push to “opt out” gained attention in December amid the fury over the TSA’s enhanced pat downs, which some travelers called intrusive. “If airports chose this route, we are going to work with them to do it,” a TSA spokesman said in late December.

But on Friday, the TSA denied an application by Springfield-Branson Airport in Missouri to privatize its checkpoint workforce, and in a statement, Pistole indicated other applications likewise will be denied…

He said airports that currently use contractor screening will continue to be allowed to.

Pistole said he has been reviewing TSA policies with the goal of helping the agency “evolve into a more agile, high-performance organization.”

I wonder how he intends to increase agility? Dance lessons? Dodgeball practice?

Nearly three billion people in the developing world cook their meals on primitive indoor stoves fueled by crop waste, wood, coal and dung. Every year, according to the United Nations, smoke from these stoves kills 1.9 million people, mostly women and children, from lung and heart diseases and low birth weight.

The stoves also contribute to global warming as a result of the millions of tons of soot they spew into the atmosphere and the deforestation caused by cutting down trees to fuel them.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to announce a significant commitment to a group working to address the problem, with a goal of providing 100 million clean-burning stoves to villages in Africa, Asia and South America by 2020. The United States is providing about $50 million in seed money over five years for the project, known as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves…

Mrs. Clinton called the problem of indoor pollution from primitive cookstoves a “cross-cutting issue” that affects health, the environment and women’s status in much of the world. “That’s what makes it such a good subject for a coordinated approach of governments, aid organizations and the private sector,” she said in a telephone interview…

Although the toxic smoke from the primitive stoves is one of the leading environmental causes of death and disease, and perhaps the second biggest contributor to global warming, after the industrial use of fossil fuels, it has long been neglected by governments and private aid organizations.

RTFA. Simple solutions to an essential problem. Probably way too reasonable for most beancounters and politicians to support.

I picked the video up top that is one of the first widely distributed about a charity answering this need – excerpted from a documentary about one of my favorite footballers, Shaun Wright-Phillips. He spends his summer off working in Guatemala installing alternative stoves.

U.S. General Michael Oates and British general Andy Salmon

After six years as America’s closest western ally in Iraq, Britain handed over command in the Basra area to the United States on Tuesday as a prelude to withdrawing its last 4,100 troops from the country.

At its height, the British commitment to the American-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 totaled more than 40,000 personnel, including ground troops and pilots. But with its army stretched by a growing deployment in Afghanistan, Britain has gradually scaled back its presence and handed over security duties to Iraqi forces.

At a ceremony at a civilian air terminal here, Maj. Gen. Andy Salmon of Britain’s Royal Marines handed control of forces in the Basra area to American Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, who will command the British forces as they draw down.

Most are scheduled to leave the country by the end of July, but several hundred will be left an advisory capacity…

Iraqis security forces are technically in control of Basra, and the remaining American troops will primarily serve as advisors, General Oates said.

Bring ‘em all home from Iraq. Both sides of the pond.