The thing I'm most interested to know is: is it just the threat from terrorists?

if this had happened a week ago and i had been stuck at heathrow i would have taken it as an omen and never come home



all the way to london i was looking for a sign to make me turn around and go back to newcastle. this would have been perfect

oh well.

__________________
you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

Have you considered seeking asylum in the UK? I'm told it's quite easy. Just say "Yeah, I'm fleeing, like, oppression and stuff, in my home country, because it's full of fucking douchebags" and they'll let you in. If you mention that they're also fat they'll probably give you free cable.

As a travel agent, this is what I have been telling people...

IF YOU ARE TRAVELLING IN THE NEXT FIVE DAYS:

Only travel documents, small wallets and purses will be allowed in the cabin. Everything else will be held in the hold, and will NOT be allowed into the cabin.

Extra security checks are in place at the moment - please comply with these to keep down inevitable delays. Allow plenty of time for check in and prepare to have your bags searched.

If you are in any doubt, please contact your airline or the Foreign Office. The FCO website is at www.fco.gov.uk.

i can't really see how they'd think i wa being opressed, seeing as i'm white and middle class from south africa which is like being really really really rich in europe. if that makes sense. lol.

__________________
you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking

did you know of this before we knew of this?

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[ o ]==#

Yesterday was history
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift - that's why it's called the present
- Babatunde Olatunji (and Kung Fu Panda)

but will i still be able to smuggle my gear

Just be all like "If I go back to my country, I'll be tortured" and if they persist just say "Married With Children... Married... With... Children!!!" over and over again and hug your knees in the middle of the floor.

It flashed up on my screen when I logged in first thing this morning.

omg its the matrix!!!!!!

3 Visiting Egyptian Students Held; 8 Missing

By Dan Eggen and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 10, 2006; Page A16

Three Egyptian college students were arrested in Minnesota and New Jersey yesterday after a nationwide alert by the FBI, which said the men were among a group of 11 students who had disappeared after failing to show up for an exchange program at Montana State University.

Authorities said yesterday that preliminary questioning of the three men, along with interviews with friends and relatives overseas, had revealed no apparent ties to terrorist or criminal groups.

The episode is the latest in a series of cases since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have gone to great lengths to locate individuals even when there is no clear evidence of a threat.

"In the post-9/11 world, the rules have changed," Special Agent Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman, said in a statement about the case earlier this week. "The U.S. wants to assure that foreign students that register to come to the U.S. attend the schools for which they were granted a visa. This is simply out of an abundance of caution."

One of the students, Eslam Ibrahim Mohamed El-Dessouki, 21, was arrested in Minneapolis. Two others, Mohamed Ragab Mohamed Abd Alla and Ebrahim Mabrouk Moustafa Abdocame, both 22, turned themselves in to police in Manville, N.J., who then turned them over to federal immigration agents, officials said. The student visas of the three arrested and the eight who are missing have been revoked, and the men will be deported, authorities said.

They offered no further explanation late yesterday for why the students had disappeared.

It is common for foreigners to overstay or violate student visas. In 2005, the United States reviewed 85,000 potential violations, referred 2,333 for investigation and made 592 arrests. More than 766,000 visitors and 115,000 dependents held U.S. student and exchange visas as of the end of last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported.

The missing Egyptians were among 17 students from Mansoura University, located north of Cairo, who arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on July 29 on their way to a month-long exchange program at Montana State in Bozeman, according to officials from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the college.

But by July 31, only six had arrived on campus, school and government officials said.

News of the disappearances emerged Monday after media reports about the FBI alert. Federal officials said they never sought to make the search public, and stressed that there was no evidence linking the group to terrorism or any other threatening behavior.

"Obviously, for days we've had all their names and dates of birth," said Dean Boyd, spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We've been talking to people around the globe, and at this point we have not turned up any evidence of ties with any known terrorist or criminal organizations."

Kolko said that preliminary investigations have not revealed any "credible or imminent threat" from the students. "The FBI and ICE investigation is ongoing," he said.

The government was notified about the missing students by the university under new rules implemented after the Sept. 11 attacks. Three of the hijackers had student visas.

The students were part of a new English-language training and cultural exchange program initiated by Mansoura, said David Engberg, director of training and special programs at Montana State. Mansoura picked 20 students for the program, but three were denied visas or did not receive them in time from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Engberg said.

The remaining 17 arrived together at Kennedy airport but said they were separated during interviews by customs officers, he said.

"The challenge is a lot of these guys have low English skills," Engberg said. "The process of going through customs and immigration is a lengthy one. . . . if you're an Egyptian male, it can take longer. The group got separated."

I work in a clothes shop in the departure lounge of Liverpool airport,it's my day off today.
I'm assuming that, as no hand luggage is allowed, the shop wont be doing any business today? hm. i'm just trying to contact them to find out what the deal is.
I'm back in tomorrow afternoon/

Doubt it. From all the travel agency inside wires, I guess this will carry on until Saturday.

i cant be fucked reading about it, ill wait till the movie comes out.

just spoke to work, and they're trading as usual. I guess it's because our shop is past the check-in point.

maybe it was that thing on richard and jusy where you put a mentos mint in a bottle of coca cola.

Eh? I wanna know what happens when you do that!

i was just joking, it makes a massive fountain, i bet if you google it you could find out how to do it properly. it looked funny. I am watching too much daytime tv.

I´ve never been afraid of air travel. I´ve only been traveling in the so-called ´post 9-11 world´ so I have no idea what air travel was before that. But this really struck home for me. I was at Heathrow last weekend trying to get here and I am flying out of there to NYC in the beginning of September. I´m truly not someone who is easily alarmed or fearful to travel nor am I easily intimidated by those who express anti-american sentiments. Is the same true after this morning? I can´t say for sure. This year I´ve done a fair amount of travel between the UK and the US and I guess it never truly ocurred to me that all of this wasn´t over. Perhaps it was wishful thinking or me being naive...or maybe the fact that it´s just as foolish to live in fear.

Believe me, I am not one of those zealous Americans who throw the words 9-11 around at all but this morning I couldn´t stop thinking of getting ready for school that morning and all of sudden seeing an airplane crash into the world trade center.

The UK authorities will be criticized by everyone and who knows, they might be right. This might just be a plot to make us fearful of al-qaeda or whomever. Truthfully though...in an airplane you´re incredibly vulnerable and if I am not allowed to being my Ipod on board so be it.

I´m not sure why I feel so fucked up about this.