Tourists lost in Sahara

[escargot]

Tourists missing in Sahara

German police were set on Monday to join a hunt in Algeria's vast southern Sahara desert for about 30 European tourists, including 15 Germans, some missing without trace since February

What interests me is this bit-

Monday's Quotidien d'Oran daily said the tourists may simply have got lost because US forces in Iraq have been scrambling Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) systems to confuse the enemy.

A sort of second-hand friendly fire.

 

[Anonymous]

Deliberately, or not, the 'Quotidien d'Oran' information is untrue. GPS has never been scambled. It's fairly basic stuff. Until recently, the public civilian version was deliberately less accurate than it is now. GPS is a US military system and ultimately they can do what they like with it. Nobody is supposed to rely on it for navigation etc. This clip explains:

Prior to 2000, civilian GPS signals were deliberately degraded, leaving nonmilitary equipment with a margin of error of about 300 feet. But that year, then-President Bill Clinton ordered the so-called selective availability, or SA, feature turned off. That made the systems the business community uses accurate to within 30 feet and sparked a lot of the increased usage we see today. .... So far, civilian signal accuracy has held, even after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan; SA has remained off during the war in Iraq.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/business/SciTech/forbes_gps_030403.html

also:

GPS Unaffected By War

 

[tzb57r]

There has been more on this today on the FT front page linking to The Independent. In this story it tells of the hidden "tunnels" under the Sahara.

I was listening to the Algerian Ambassador being interviewed on the Today Programme on Radio 4 yesterday and he said that "Tunnel" was a mis-translation and that it should be "canyon". This makes a bit more sense. He also said that the caves were well known and that local people had used them for shade when out in the desert for 100s if not 1000s of years. When looked at like this, it makes more sense but unfortunately is a lot less mysterious.


My friend Dave King was in this area about 8 years ago and he says that the people are really nice but really poor.

 

[Philo_T]

Jackie Chan & the secret of the NAZI gold!

:heh:

 

[naitaka]

Telegraph story, April 14:

Missing Sahara tourists 'kidnapped but alive'

Ten Austrians who have been missing in the Sahara desert with other European tourists for more than a month have been kidnapped but are still alive, Austrian television reported yesterday.

Quoting Algerian military sources, a correspondent said the kidnappers and their demands were not yet known.

The travellers had apparently been divided into two groups, the correspondent said. As well as the Austrians, 15 Germans, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede have been reported missing, some since as long ago as February.

The Austrian correspondent gave no indication in his report of the possible fate of the others missing.

The German interior minister, Otto Schily, said on television yesterday he was "cautiously hopeful" that all 31 were still alive.

The Austrian foreign minister, Benita-Maria Ferrero-Waldner, said on Saturday there was still a glimmer of hope for the Austrians. She said Algerian officials had told her they were still alive last week.

There has been speculation that the tourists were kidnapped by a radical Islamic group.