News

Israeli forces pound Gaza Strip

Israel presses on with attacks on Gaza where at least 32 militants and civilians have died in the past 48 hours.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

U.N. Names Panel on Security in Wake of Attacks

The panel's director said that in many parts of the world the U.N. was no longer viewed as impartial and was therefore increasingly vulnerable.
Read more [nytimes.com New York Times - International]

French Finance Group Wary of Iranian Banks

The Paris-based organization called for all countries to be wary of Iran’s banking system because of concerns over money laundering and aid to terrorism.
Read more [nytimes.com New York Times - International]

China to log its worst polluters

The Chinese government is to survey the country's major sources of pollution and compile a national census.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Conrad Black must start jail term

A court has told the former media boss Conrad Black he must report to jail on March 3 to start his sentence.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Immigration points system begins

The UK's immigration system is overhauled with the launch of a points-based system for foreign workers.
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Proposed Bill in Tennessee Penalizes Schools for Allowing Piracy

An anonymous reader brings us an Ars Technica report about a proposed bill in Tennessee which would require state-funded universities to enforce anti-piracy standards. The universities would be forced to "track down and stop infringing activity" or risk losing their funding. The U.S. Congress requested last year that certain universities do this voluntarily. Quoting: "Efforts taken by universities thus far to deter and prevent piracy have had mixed results. The University of Utah, for instance, claims that it has reduced MPAA and RIAA complaints by 90 percent and saved $1.2 million in bandwidth costs by instituting anti-piracy filtering mechanisms. However, the school revealed that their filtering system hasn't been able to stop encrypted P2P traffic and noted that students will find ways to circumvent any system. The end result, some say, will be a costly arms race as students perpetually work to circumvent anti-piracy systems put in place by universities."

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US warship deployed to Lebanon

The US orders a warship into position off the coast of Lebanon as a "show of support for regional stability".
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Cuba signs human rights pledges

As communist Cuba signs legally binding UN covenants on human rights, critics call for dissidents to be freed.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

EU Views Net Censorship As a "Trade Barrier"

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The European Parliament just passed a proposal to treat internet censorship as a trade barrier, in particular the 'Great Firewall of China.' If passed by the European Council, the issue would be raised in trade negotiations and could lead to economic sanctions and trade restrictions for those countries unwilling to remove oppressive Net censorship." We have discussed some of the ways in which the EU, and its member countries, engage in their own brand of censorship.

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New clue in motor neurone puzzle

Researchers say the discovery of a genetic mutation is the most significant breakthrough for Motor Neurone Disease in 15 years.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Oil price hits a new record high

Oil prices hit another record level because of the weakening dollar and US economic slowdown fears.
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Researchers Expose New Credit Card Fraud Risk

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered flaws in the card payment systems used by millions of customers worldwide. Ross Anderson, Saar Drimer, and Steven Murdoch demonstrated how a simple paper clip can be used to capture account numbers and PINs from so-called 'tamper-proof' equipment. In their paper (PDF), they warn how with a little technical skill and off-the-shelf electronics, fraudsters could empty customers' accounts. British television featured a demonstration of the attack on BBC Newsnight."

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Kenya Rivals Reach Peace Agreement

The agreement to end a political standoff creates a powerful prime minister position for the top opposition leader.
Read more [nytimes.com New York Times - International]

Military Steps Up War On Blogs

An anonymous reader writes "The military's war on blogs, first reported last spring, is picking up. Now the Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read. One senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so 'utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.'"

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Missile Kills 8 in Pakistan Tribal Area

Eight suspected Islamic militants were killed by missiles that appeared to have been launched from NATO-held territory in Afghanistan.
Read more [nytimes.com New York Times - International]

Critical VMware Vulnerability, Exploit Released

BaCa writes "Core Security has issued an advisory disclosing a vulnerability that could severely impact organizations relying on VMware's desktop virtualization software. It involves directory traversal using VMware's shared folders, and could allow an attacker access to the host system from a guest VM. Core also released an exploit for the vulnerability."

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Prince Harry in Taleban fighting

Prince Harry has been on the front line in Afghanistan for 10 weeks, the Ministry of Defence says.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

JotSpot Relaunched As Google Sites

Gaveen writes "The popular JotSpot, which was acquired by Google some time ago, is now officially part of the family. JotSpot is now integrated into Google Apps as Google Sites. InfoWorld has a writeup on the service."

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Bank Julius Baer Issues Statement On WikiLeaks

dtwood writes "The bank that got WikiLeaks.org erased from DNS finally hired a PR agency and issued a press release filled with half truths and non-statements. Tynan on Tech has it, along with some brief commentary. Worth a look."

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Hepatitis C warning for US clinic

As many as 40,000 people who used a Las Vegas clinic are urged to be tested for HIV and hepatitis C, officials say.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Hundreds of Pashmina goats dead

Some 600 rare goats that give the wool for Kashmir's prized Pashmina shawls have reportedly died of starvation.
Read more [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

Turkey Resists Gates on Ending Iraq Push

Turkish leaders resisted calls by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for a swift end to Turkey’s offensive against Kurdish guerrillas on Thursday, offering no timetable for withdrawing their troops from northern Iraq.
Read more [nytimes.com New York Times - International]

Sweden and Norway Hold 6 on Terror-Related Charges

In coordinated raids, six people were arrested on suspicion of financing or otherwise taking part in terrorist activity.
Read more [nytimes.com New York Times - International]

Microsoft Internal Emails Show Dismay With Vista

bfwebster writes "Microsoft is currently facing a class-action suit over its designation of allegedly under-powered hardware as being 'Vista Capable.' The discovery process of that lawsuit has now compelled Microsoft to produce some internal emails discussing those issues. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has published extracts of some of those emails, along with a link to a a PDF file containing a more extensive email exchange. The emails reflect a lot of frustration among senior Microsoft personnel about Vista's performance problems and hardware incompatibilities. They also appear to indicate that Microsoft lowered the hardware requirements for 'Vista Capable' in order to include certain lower-end Intel chipsets, apparently as a favor to Intel: 'In the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.' Read the whole PDF; it is informative, interesting, and at times (unintentionally) funny."

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