User talk:Mizanbdit

Cuber-terrorism a real and growing threat: FBI
Terrorists, crooks and nation states are ramping up cyberassaults that are eating away at data, cash and security in the United States, the head of the FBI said Thursday.

"The risks are right at our doorsteps and in some cases they are in the house," Federal Bureau of Investigation chief Robert Mueller said in a speech at an RSA Conference of computer security professionals here.

"Working together we can find the people taking shots at us and stop those attacks."

Mueller was the third high-ranking federal official in as many days to urge private industry cyber warriors to join forces with the US government to battle spies, terrorists and crooks plaguing the Internet.

"As you well know, a cyberattack could have the same impact as a well-placed bomb," Mueller said.

"In the past ten years, al-Qaeda's online presence has become as potent as its in-world presence."

al-Qaeda uses for the Internet range from recruiting and inciting to posting ways to make bio-weapons and forming social-networks for aspiring terrorists, according to Mueller. Source:http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details

'Brown's military funding failure cost British lives
Gordon Brown's failure to properly fund the military as finance minister cost soldiers' lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former British armed forces chief said Friday, a newspaper reported.

The accusation piled fresh pressure on Brown, now British prime minister, hours ahead of his appearance at a public inquiry into the Iraq war, where he is expected to be challenged over allegations he cut military funding.

"Not fully funding the army in the way they had asked... undoubtedly cost the lives of soldiers," General Charles Ronald Llewelyn Guthrie told the Times newspaper.

"He should be asked why he was so unsympathetic towards defence and so sympathetic to other departments," said Guthrie, who led the armed forces from 1997 to 2001.

The attack comes amid growing criticism of Brown's role during the 2003 US-led invasion and will heighten fears in his administration the hearing could damage the ruling Labour Party as the general election approaches.

In his testimony to the inquiry in January, the defence secretary at the time, Geoff Hoon, said his ministry had lacked funds for years before the war.

Much of the funding criticisms have focused on the use of lightly armoured Snatch Land Rovers in Iraq and Afghanistan, lambasted by critics who claim they were unable to withstand roadside bombs used by insurgents in both conflicts.

Susan Smith, whose son died in Iraq in 2005 in one of the vehicles, also accused Brown Friday of having failed to protect British forces. Source:http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details

Singapore boosts security over terrorist threat
Singapore bolstered security measures after receiving information of a plot by terrorists to attack ships off the coast of the city-state, a Cabinet minister said yesterday.

The government has increased security at land checkpoints, on the sea and at high-risk targets such as two new casino resorts, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng told Parliament.

Wong did not say which terrorist group was planning the reported attack.

"We received intelligence from our liaison partners about this possible plot to go and attack vessels coming through Singapore waters through the Malacca Strait," Wong said. "The threat is real and we are not immune to it."

Singapore's navy warned Thursday that a terrorist group was planning attacks on oil tankers and other vessels in the Malacca Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia said Thursday they have stepped up maritime and air patrols in the waterway, through which 15 million barrels of oil a day passed in 2006, according to the US Energy Information Agency. Source:http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details

NATO forces close to victory in Afghanistan: Petraeus
General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, has stated that Canada's decision to pull out troops from Afghanistan has come at a time when the Nato forces are heading toward a decisive victory against the Taliban.

"Having worked hard this past year to get the inputs right ... now [the International Security Assistance Force] and its Afghan partners can start to see the progress that is possible," the Globe and Mail quoted him, as saying.

While Gen Petraeus declined to comment on the effect that Canada's 2011 exit from Kandahar next year will have on Nato's broader mission in Afghanistan, he admitted:............................. Source:http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details

Thousands of women murdered in honour killings yearly: UN
Some 5,000 women are murdered in honour killings every year, the UN's top human rights official said Thursday, calling it an "extreme symptom of discrimination" against women.

"It has been estimated that as many as one in three women across the world has been beaten, raped or otherwise abused during the course of her lifetime," said Navi Pillay in a statement.

"And the most common source of such violence comes from within the family. Amongst the most extreme forms of abuse is what is known as 'honour killing'," added the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

She pointed out that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that in some countries, legal systems "exempt individuals guilty of honour killings from punishment."

"Honour killings are, however, not something that can be simply brushed aside as some bizarre and retrograde atrocity that happens somewhere else," she said, stressing that under international laws, there is a "clear state responsibility" to ensure that women are not discriminated against. Source:http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details

Avatar still rules the world
bdnews24.com/Reuters: The latest celebrity news including "Avatar's" grip on the international box office title and "The Hurt Locker" throws down Oscar gauntlet with strong BAFTA performance.

Showing minimal box office fatigue at the foreign box office, "Avatar" logged a 10th consecutive weekend at No. 1. Director James Cameron's record-setting blockbuster has now earned nearly 1.8 billion internationally, with its worldwide tally weighing in at nearly 2.5 billion.

"Avatar," though, was bested by the Iraq war drama "The Hurt Locker" at the BAFTA British film awards over the weekend. The Iraq war drama picked up honors for best film and best director for Kathryn Bigelow among its six prizes, laying down a marker for the upcoming Oscars.

Actor and director Kevin Costner and his band Modern West took the stage in Madrid over the weekend where they presented their new album "Turn it on." The "Dances With Wolves" star didn't disappoint his fans with a mix of rock, country and folk.

Pop princess Britney Spears has a sweet new gig - as the face of Candie's. The 28 year old singer took fans behind the scenes of her photo shoot for the teenage clothing brand's Spring advertising campaign. Spears joins the ranks of previous Candie's spokespeople, including Fergie, Hilary Duff and the Dixie Chicks.

Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton took to the stage along with other castmates in Hollywood to meet fans and promote their new film, "Alice in Wonderland."a

Victor Yanukovych sworn in as Ukraine president
Feb 25: Viktor Yanukovych was inaugurated as Ukrainian president on Thursday, six years after massive protests over vote fraud got his first election victory tossed out. This time the pro-Russian leader promised to make Ukraine a European nation outside of any bloc. Yanukovych took the oath of office in the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament that has been the scene of intense maneuvering over the future of his rival Yulia Tymoshenko, who aims to stay on as prime minister. Yanukovych narrowly defeated Tymoshenko in a presidential election runoff on Feb. 7. Tymoshenko alleges vote fraud, but she has dropped her court case on the issue, claiming the court was controlled by Yanukovych's supporters.

Somali pirates seize Indian-manned ship
AFP, NAIROBI Feb 25: Somali pirates have hijacked a small cargo ship with a crew of nine Indians, an NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region said Thursday. Ecoterra International said in a statement that the 40-metre ship, the Abdul Razak, was taken earlier this week before heading into the Gulf of Aden, on its way from Kandala, India, to Dubai. "No information concerning the condition of the crew was immediately available," Ecoterra said. "Reportedly a gang from Garacad, a notorious pirate den at the Indian Ocean coast of northeastern Somalia, is now commandeering M.S.V. Abdul Razak," the organisation said.

Offensive against Ulfa to go on despite peace move
The Indian government is ready to hold talks with Assam's insurgent group Ulfa without their demand for sovereignty of state and ruled out immediate suspension of operations against the banned outfit, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said yesterday.

Meanwhile, Ulfa Publicity Secretary Mithinga Daimary who was released from jail on Thursday, said peace talks could not take place if the outfit's top leaders were kept in jail.

"All our top leaders, including Chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa, are in jail and it is not possible to hold talks unless they are released," Daimary told reporters outside Guwahati Central Jail.

Talking to reporters after a meeting with Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram, Gogoi told reporters "the government is ready for talks with Ulfa but there will be no discussion on sovereignty issue. Also, there is no plan to suspend operations against the group now."

On participation of Ulfa leaders in the talks, he said the government will try to bring everyone to the negotiating table.

"We will even try to bring ('military chief') Paresh Barua. But if he does not come, we will go ahead," he said.

According to him, the indication from the Ulfa is positive and the government is hopeful of initiating the dialogue process soon. But he did not specify any timeframe for the talks.

During the meeting with Chidambaram, Gogoi discussed modalities of the talks and also briefed the Home Minister about the state's preparedness for the discussions.

Judgment day for former Thai PM Thaksin Independent Online
Thailand's top court will decide Friday whether to seize the 2.3-billion-dollar fortune of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra in a ruling that could unleash fresh political turmoil.

Dubbed "Judgement Day" by local media, the looming verdict has prompted the government to deploy tens of thousands of security forces across the country amid warnings of potential violence by Thaksin's supporters.

The nine judges arrived at the court in bulletproof cars and began meeting to discuss their individual decisions, which will later be merged into the final, common verdict, local television said.

The case centres on the frozen proceeds from the sale of Thaksin's telecommunications company in 2006 -- the year he was ousted in a military coup -- and Thaksin said ahead of the judgement that it was all earned honestly.

"I want to reaffirm that I and my family earned all of the money with our hard work, brains, and sweat. We have never been corrupt as accused," he said on Twitter early Friday from his current base in Dubai.

But the troubled tycoon urged his supporters in Thailand, known as the Red Shirts, not to go to the court to protest as his family members would not be there either.

Up to 35,000 police and soldiers have been ordered to secure Bangkok and provinces where Thaksin is popular, and around 450 police officers will be deployed at the Supreme Court alone. Key facts of the case against ex-Thai PM Thaksin

Security was also tight around the offices of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whose resignation the Red Shirts have demanded, and the government said it had prepared several safe houses for him.

"As of today security will intensify to the maximum," government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said.

The judges have various options, such as ruling that the government should confiscate all or none of Thaksin's wealth, or that it should take only part of the money, for example the portion he earned after taking power.

Thaksin was ousted after months of protests over the January 2006 sale by his family of nearly 50 percent of shares in his Shin Corp telecoms giant to Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

The funds were frozen by the country's anti-graft commission shortly afterwards on the grounds that Thaksin had became "unusually rich" by abusing his power after becoming prime minister in 2001.

Thaksin's lawyers have argued that the assets actually belong to his former partner, their children and other family members and cannot be seized by the government.

Thaksin is living abroad, with his main base in Dubai, to avoid a jail term imposed in absentia in 2008 for corruption.

The case goes to the heart of the rifts that have opened up in Thai society since the coup forced Thaksin into exile. Key dates in saga of Thailand's Thaksin

The Red Shirts, largely from his stronghold in Thailand's impoverished north and northeast, loved his populist policies and accuse the current government of being an unelected elite that has hijacked their democratic rights.

The tycoon's opponents in the Bangkok-based circles around the palace, military and bureaucracy accuse Thaksin of being corrupt, dictatorial and of threatening Thailand's widely revered monarchy.

"Thailand is dreading the Supreme Court's verdict..." analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

"No matter how his wealth is disposed, given Thailand's political polarization the only certainty is that no one will be satisfied."

The main Red Shirt movement says it will not demonstrate outside the court on Friday but they will hold mass protests in Bangkok from March 12.

Police said they expected only a few hundred protesters from a splinter group to gather near the court on Friday and up to 3,000 elsewhere in the capital.

Somali pirates seize Indian-manned ship
AFP, NAIROBI Feb 25: Somali pirates have hijacked a small cargo ship with a crew of nine Indians, an NGO monitoring maritime activity in the region said Thursday. Ecoterra International said in a statement that the 40-metre ship, the Abdul Razak, was taken earlier this week before heading into the Gulf of Aden, on its way from Kandala, India, to Dubai. "No information concerning the condition of the crew was immediately available," Ecoterra said. "Reportedly a gang from Garacad, a notorious pirate den at the Indian Ocean coast of northeastern Somalia, is now commandeering M.S.V. Abdul Razak," the organisation said.

S Korea’s birth rate hits four-year low
South Korea’s birth rate hit a four-year low last year as more couples delayed marriage in the economic downturn, officials said Thursday. Statistics Korea said the birth rate — the average number of babies born during a woman’s lifetime — was 1.15 in 2009, the lowest since 1.08 in 2005. Some 445,000 babies were born last year, 4.4 per cent down from 466,000 in 2008. ‘South Korea would have the world’s lowest birth rate were it not for some city-states such as Singapore and Hong Kong,’ Kim Dong-Hoy, who handles the population issue at the statistical body, said. ‘It is largely due to a growing number of couples who delay or shun marriage amid an economic downturn.’ The number of marriages decreased five per cent year-on-year in 2009 while the divorce rate increased eight per cent. South Korea has offered a variety of incentives to encourage people to have children. Officials fear a shrinking workforce will hit growth and will be unable to foot the bill for a rapidly ageing population. The health ministry last month said it was turning off the lights in its offices once a month to encourage staff to go home early and make more babies. Authorities warn that the population, currently almost 50 million, could start declining within a decade.

World warming unhindered by cold spells
The pace of global warming continues unabated, scientists said on Thursday, despite images of Europe crippled by a deep freeze and parts of the United States blasted by blizzards. The bitter cold, with more intense winter weather forecast for March in parts of the United States, have led some to question if global warming has stalled. Understanding the overall trend is crucial for estimating consumption of energy supplies, such as demand for winter heating oil in the US northeast, and impacts on agricultural production. ‘It’s not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven’t warmed in the past 50 years,’ veteran Australian climate scientist Neville Nicholls told an online climate science media briefing. ‘January, according to satellite (data), was the hottest January we’ve ever seen,’ said Nicholls of Monash University’s School of Geography and Environmental Science in Melbourne. ‘Last November was the hottest November we’ve ever seen, November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen,’ he said of the satellite data record since 1979. The World Meteorological Organisation said in December that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850, and that 2009 would likely be the fifth warmest year on record. WMO data show that eight out of the 10 hottest years on record have all been since 2000. Britain’s official forecaster, the UK Met Office, said severe winter freezes like the one this year, one of the coldest winters in the country for nearly 30 years, could become increasingly rare because of the overall warming trend. Scientists say global warming is not uniform in all areas and that climate models predict there will likely be greater extremes of cold and heat, floods and droughts. ‘Global warming is a trend superimposed upon natural variability, variability that still exists despite global warming,’ said Kevin Walsh, associate professor of meteorology at the University of Melbourne. ‘It would be much more surprising if the global average temperature just kept on going up, year after year, without some years of slightly cooler temperatures,’ he said in a written reply to questions for the briefing. The scientists also defended the UN climate panel after it came under attack for including an error about the estimated thaw of Himalayan glaciers in a major 2007 report. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produces reports based on the work of thousands of scientists that are the main guides for policymakers on tackling global warming. The discovery of the error has been seized upon by climate sceptics. The 2007 report wrongly said Himalayan glaciers could all melt by 2035, an apparent typographical error that stemmed from using ‘grey literature’ outside peer-reviewed scientific journals. Nicholls said grey literature could play a key role in the climate debate and that not all valuable data or reports were published formally in journals. Such examples included reports on extreme weather events by government meteorological agencies. ‘The IPCC does not exclude the use of that sort of grey literature because it would be stupid to talk about extremes, for instance, and not include that sort of grey literature,’ he said. The scientists said more stringent checks were needed for the next IPCC reports but that the inclusion of one or two wrong predictions didn’t undermine the whole peer-reviewed IPCC process because scientific study was always evolving.

S Korea’s birth rate hits four-year low
South Korea’s birth rate hit a four-year low last year as more couples delayed marriage in the economic downturn, officials said Thursday. Statistics Korea said the birth rate — the average number of babies born during a woman’s lifetime — was 1.15 in 2009, the lowest since 1.08 in 2005. Some 445,000 babies were born last year, 4.4 per cent down from 466,000 in 2008. ‘South Korea would have the world’s lowest birth rate were it not for some city-states such as Singapore and Hong Kong,’ Kim Dong-Hoy, who handles the population issue at the statistical body, said. ‘It is largely due to a growing number of couples who delay or shun marriage amid an economic downturn.’ The number of marriages decreased five per cent year-on-year in 2009 while the divorce rate increased eight per cent. South Korea has offered a variety of incentives to encourage people to have children. Officials fear a shrinking workforce will hit growth and will be unable to foot the bill for a rapidly ageing population. The health ministry last month said it was turning off the lights in its offices once a month to encourage staff to go home early and make more babies. Authorities warn that the population, currently almost 50 million, could start declining within a decade.

More UK, Irish passports used in Dubai killing
Feb 23: The United Arab Emirates has identified four more suspects who carried British and Irish passports in the Dubai killing of a Hamas commander, a source familiar with the investigation said on Tuesday. The use of fraudulent passports from European Union countries by the killers of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has drawn censure from the bloc. Dubai has accused Israel of being behind the assassination, but the Israeli foreign minister has said there was no proof his country carried out the killing. "The UAE has identified two British suspects holding British travel documents and as part of the ongoing investigation has shared the information with the British government," the source in the UAE told Reuters.

More UK, Irish passports used in Dubai killing
Feb 23: The United Arab Emirates has identified four more suspects who carried British and Irish passports in the Dubai killing of a Hamas commander, a source familiar with the investigation said on Tuesday. The use of fraudulent passports from European Union countries by the killers of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has drawn censure from the bloc. Dubai has accused Israel of being behind the assassination, but the Israeli foreign minister has said there was no proof his country carried out the killing. "The UAE has identified two British suspects holding British travel documents and as part of the ongoing investigation has shared the information with the British government," the source in the UAE told Reuters.