israel says iranian reactor use 'totally unacceptable' from ap: Trucks rumbled into Iran's first reactor Saturday to begin loading tons of uranium fuel in a long-delayed startup touted by officials as both a symbol of the country's peaceful intentions to produce nuclear energy as well as a triumph over Western pressure to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
The Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant will be internationally supervised, including a pledge by Russia to safeguard it against materials being diverted for any possible use in creating nuclear weapons. Iran's agreement to allow the oversight was a rare compromise by the Islamic state over its atomic program.
Iran has long declared it has a right like other nations to produce nuclear energy. The country's nuclear chief described the startup as a "symbol of Iranian resistance and patience."
"Despite all pressure, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the startup of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities," Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters inside the plant with its cream-colored dome overlooking the Persian Gulf in southern Iran.
twitter breached again from threat level: A French hacker has posted screenshots backing claims that he breached Twitter’s administrative panel, threatening the security and integrity of high-profile accounts and exposing private information to the public, such as the account holder’s e-mail address, IP address, mobile phone number in some cases and list of accounts blocked by the user. The screen shots show internal settings and information for Twitter accounts belonging to U.S President Barack Obama, actor Ashton Kutcher, and singers Lily Allen and Britney Spears. The info reveals that the Obama account has blocked more than 90 users from sending it messages. The screen shots also revealed a list of users who have been blacklisted by Twitter. Twitter confirmed the intrusion and said that only ten accounts had been compromised and that no information in the accounts had been altered.
secret black box probe will monitor web activity from rinf: Spy chiefs are pressing ahead with secret plans to monitor all internet use and telephone calls in Britain despite an announcement by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, of a ministerial climbdown over public surveillance. GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre, is developing classified technology to intercept and monitor all e-mails, website visits and social networking sessions in Britain. The agency will also be able to track telephone calls made over the internet, as well as all phone calls to land lines and mobiles. The £1 billion snooping project - called Mastering the Internet (MTI) - will rely on thousands of “black box” probes being covertly inserted across online infrastructure. The top-secret programme began to be implemented last year, but its existence has been inadvertently disclosed through a GCHQ job advertisement carried in the computer trade press.
update1: rupert murdoch: 'internet will soon be over' from paul joseph watson: Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave a strange response when asked about plans for mainstream news websites to charge for content, declaring, “The current days of the internet will soon be over.” He was making reference to the fact that corporate media websites cannot continue to survive under their current failing business model. The establishment media is dying and advertising revenue has plummeted as people turn to blogs and the alternative media for their news in an environment of corporate lies and spin.
update2: facebook 'bug' revealed personal email addresses from gadgetwise: Facebook inadvertently gave a “curious” former Peace Corps volunteer and National Guardsman a slew of personal–and likely private–e-mail addresses for other Facebook users, including six Google executives and board members and 61 reporters and editors at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Mike Sheppard, a 29-year-old from Holland, Mich., who earned a masters in statistics in December and has no advanced computer training, sent a mass-blast e-mail to each of The Times and Journal reporters describing a Facebook programming glitch that made it possible. “I wanted to make sure the press knew so Facebook could correct it,” he said in an interview.
pentagon to create force for digital warfare from ap: The U.S. military must reorganize its cyber operations and will use a new command at a Maryland Army facility to create a force for digital warfare, the director of the National Security Agency said Tuesday. Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the Pentagon's leading cyber warfare commander, said the U.S. is determined to lead the global effort to use computer technology to deter or defeat enemies, while still protecting the public's constitutional rights.
authorities hunt hackers in breach of virginia health data from washington post: The FBI and Virginia State Police are searching for hackers who demanded that the state pay them a $10 million ransom by Thursday for the return of millions of personal pharmaceutical records they say they stole from the state's prescription drug database. The hackers claim to have accessed 8 million patient records and 35 million prescriptions collected by the Prescription Monitoring Program. "This was an intentional criminal act against the commonwealth by somebody who was trying to harm others," Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said. "There are breaches that happen by accident or glitches that you try to work out. It's difficult to foil every criminal that may want to do something against you." Although the hackers had threatened to sell the data if they did not receive payment by Thursday, the deadline passed with no immediate sign that they followed through.
from press tv: Mohammed al-Fayedabandons his 10-year campaignto prove that Princess Diana and his son were murdered in a plot by UKsecret services. The father of Dodi al-Fayed, killed in a Paris car crash with Princess Diana in 1997, said on Tuesday he accepted the verdict of an inquest jury and was giving up his legal attempts to show the couple were murdered... "I'm leaving the rest for God to get my revenge, but I'm not doing anything any more," he said.
reporter held in contempt in anthrax case from nytimes: A federal judge found a former reporter for USA Today in contempt of court on Tuesday for refusing to name her confidential sources who had discussed a former Army scientist’s possible role in the 2001 anthrax attacks... Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a onetime bioterrorism expert for the Army, is suing the federal government, saying his reputation was ruined by leaks to the news media from law enforcement officials linking him to the attacks. In 2002, the F.B.I. and John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, described Dr. Hatfill as a “person of interest” in the investigation into the attacks, which killed five people and remain unsolved... “I’m concerned about the ramifications of this order for all journalists, beyond just me,” said Ms. Locy, who now teaches journalism at West Virginia University.
mi6 denies killing princess diana from ap: The former head of MI6 denied Wednesday that the British intelligence agency was responsible for the car accident that killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi al Fayed, in 1997. Sir Richard Dearlove, who was director of special operations for the agency at the time of Diana's Paris accident, testified at the inquest into the pair's death that he also believes an operation by rogue agents would have been impossible. Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, has accused MI6 of engineering the death of his son and the princess at the behest of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II's husband.
mumia abu-jamal loses bid for hearing from ap: Pennsylvania's highest appeals court has rejected a request by convicted killerMumia Abu-Jamal for a hearing into his claims that witnesses in his case perjured themselves. The state Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a unanimous ruling saying the former Black Panther and radio reporter waited too long to file a post-conviction appeal in the matter. Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting to death Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. A federal judge in 2001 overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence but upheld his conviction.
bloomberg: new york count 'fraud' from press tv: Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the results for the New York Democratic presidential primary suggest that 'fraud' has been committed. The New York mayor was pointing to unofficial results in which Senator Barack Obama reportedly received no votes in nearly 80 New York State districts. "If you want to call it significant undercounting, I guess that's a euphemism for fraud," said Bloomberg.
12 steps to financial disaster: US economy risks mother of all meltdowns from financialtimes: Recently, Professor Roubini’s scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He firstpredicted a US recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It is so no longer. Now he states that there is “a rising probability of a ‘catastrophic’ financial and economic outcome”**. The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: “A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe.” Prof Roubini is even fonder of lists than I am. Here are his 12 – yes,12 – steps to financial disaster.
from telegraph: Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer.
An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban."
The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not enter into any negotiations with these people." un admits to talks with anti-gov't forces in afghanistan from raw replay: BBC reports that the United Nations has admited to talks with anti-government forces in Afghanistan. The following video is from BBC’s BBC World, broadcast on December 26, 2007.
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from ap: Trucks rumbled into Iran's first reactor Saturday to begin loading tons of uranium fuel in a long-delayed startup touted by officials as both a symbol of the country's peaceful intentions to produce nuclear energy as well as a triumph over Western pressure to rein in its nuclear ambitions.
