
Oddest story of the day:
"A suspect package containing a detonator, batteries and a ticking clock was found on a suitcase checked onto a Munich-bound plane, German police have said.
The bag was detected before it could be loaded on the flight from Namibia."
It's always something, ain't it? It's just that this time, it comes from about as far away as it gets. Of course, Namibia was a German colony (hence the flight - Air Berlin AB7377 from Windhoek to Munich) and just now Germany is taut with terror tension.
But note the low-key way the Namibian authorities handled things:
"It was detected at the luggage screening point prior to loading, said the Namibia Airports Company (NAC).
"We are still investigating the suspicious object," a Namibian police spokesman told the BBC. "It's too early to say if it's terrorist-related. We will only pronounce when the investigation is completed."
Further security checks were carried out on passengers, luggage and the plane itself before the LTU/Air Berlin flight was allowed to depart.
No explosives were found in the bag, Air Berlin said.
All passengers had to identify their own bags before they were reloaded.
However, cargo due to be loaded on the flight was kept back for further investigation, said a statement from NAC."
They held the cargo back, put everybody's bags out, had the passengers point to their own, loaded everybody and their bags up and sent them home.
It's fortunate for the Namibian Airports Company that Namibia has no non-stop flights to the USA. The TSA would transform Windhoek airport, a casual, relaxed, shoulders-down kind of place, into a grim, locked-down, angst-laden perpetrator-processing boiler room filled with bins of empty water bottles and toothpaste tubes, brooking no dissent as passengers are manhandled one by one for their own good.
Hang in there, Namibia.
It's much better the way it is.
(Photo from the tarmac at Windhoek Hosea Kutako International Airport from the Namibia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.)