'I didn't have time to read the whole script before I began,' actor tells MTV News of top-secret screenplay.
By Todd Gilchrist, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706817/star-trek-into-darkness-benedict-cumberbatch-plot.jhtml
Super Bowl Ads 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Superbowl Start Time Jim Harbaugh Who Won The Superbowl Super Bowl Halftime Show 2013 Super Bowl Commercials 2013
Terry Cline's drone camera sits stuck in the arm of the Lady Justice statue atop the Marion County Courthouse on Thursday, May 2, 2013. The remote-control helicopter got stuck while he was filming a project. County commissioners say they won't foot the bill for a crane, and they don't think the helicopter owner's suggestion to have someone rappel from a real chopper and snatch the miniature one off is, well, very realistic or worthwhile. (AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Jonathan Quilter)
Terry Cline's drone camera sits stuck in the arm of the Lady Justice statue atop the Marion County Courthouse on Thursday, May 2, 2013. The remote-control helicopter got stuck while he was filming a project. County commissioners say they won't foot the bill for a crane, and they don't think the helicopter owner's suggestion to have someone rappel from a real chopper and snatch the miniature one off is, well, very realistic or worthwhile. (AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Jonathan Quilter)
MARION, Ohio (AP) ? An unwanted modern addition has flown into the arms of a Lady Justice statue that sits atop a county courthouse in north-central Ohio.
A 9-inch, remote-control helicopter flew into Lady Justice on the Marion County Courthouse on April 27 and has been there since ? resting on the hilt of her sword more than 100 feet high.
Video producer Terry Cline tells the Marion Star (http://ohne.ws/YdwsPA) that he was using the $1,500 camera-equipped helicopter to shoot a promotional video for the city when it was caught by an unexpected breeze.
Since then, Cline has been trying figure out how to get the helicopter back.
County officials say they won't pay to remove it or risk anyone's life for it.
For now, Lady Justice gets to keep her new toy.
Associated PressHugo Chavez Dead Bonnie Franklin sinkhole justin bieber Real Madrid Vs Manchester United Duck Dynasty sequestration
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
taylor momsen xbox live update joan rivers gary carter dies oolong tea survivor one world lil kim
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is defending the FBI's handling of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation as Republicans ready for oversight hearings on the attack.
Obama tells the Spanish-language television network Univision he doesn't think it's fair to say law enforcement "dropped the ball"
The president says "there are going to be times where individuals decide they want to cause harm to people for crazy reasons, for no good reason, for ideological reasons."
He says it's a challenge when would-be attackers are "self-radicalizing" and not part of a broad conspiracy. Obama says the FBI "can't arrest somebody just based on a rumor."
The first of a series of House hearings is set for Thursday before the GOP-led House Homeland Security Committee.
Associated PressNBCOlympics Danell Leyva Ye Shiwen OJ Murdock Olympics Live Mens Gymnastics Allison Schmitt
The bar is set high, but the US could begin providing body armor, night-vision goggles, rifles, and other basic arms to Syria's rebels.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, accompanied by British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond speaks during their joint news conference at the Pentagon, Thursday, where they talked about Syria.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Enlarge? A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
Skip to next paragraph Ariel ZirulnickMiddle East Editor
Ariel Zirulnick is the Monitor's Middle East editor, overseeing regional coverage both for CSMonitor.com and the weekly magazine. She is also a contributor to the international desk's terrorism and security blog.?
' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel confirmed yesterday that the US was reexamining its consistent opposition to arming the Syrian rebels, though cautioned that considering action was not the same as taking action.
?You look at and rethink all options," Secretary Hagel said during a Pentagon news conference, according to The New York Times.
Hagel is the first official to publicly acknowledge the shift that most observers assumed was happening, based on comments earlier this week by President Obama. After Hagel's press conference, the president said that the defense secretary's announcement coincided with a view he had held for "months," according to The Daily Star in Lebanon.
The US already provides communication gear and basic rations to Syrian rebels, and could begin including body armor, night-vision goggles, rifles, and other basic arms, The Wall Street Journal reports.?
British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond appeared alongside Hagel at the press conference, and said that Britain is also cautiously considering providing arms. A European Union arms embargo on Syria is still in place, but its expiration in May paves the way for a debate on so-called "lethal aid."
"It's a rapidly changing situation," Mr. Hammond said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "We've kept all our options open. We have not thus far provided any arms to the rebels, but we have never said it's something we will not do."
Hammond said that the US and Britain "have a great deal of knowledge about the location of chemical weapons" in Syria, but that they have not been able to track all of them, likely because President Bashar al-Assad has ordered them moved around the country.
Although the US has found evidence that the nerve agent sarin gas was used, it has been unable to prove that it was used by regime forces. Some military officials worry that extremist rebel groups may have used the gas to catalyze stronger international support for the opposition, the Wall Street Journal reports.?
The extreme caution with which the US and Britain are approaching the issue is likely a reflection of concern about repeating the mistakes in Iraq, in which the US invaded based on intelligence later proven false.
"There is a strong sense in UK public opinion that we went to war in Iraq on the back of evidence that proved not to be correct," Mr. Hammond said. "In British political space, it is called the dodgy dossier."
... "We have to be absolutely sure we are on firm ground and we're not looking at another dodgy dossier," he said.
However, CNN reports that the level of confidence the Obama administration and Britain want before they commits military aid may be too high a bar, noting that the United Nations' efforts to launch an independent investigation have so far been blocked.?
Yesterday Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also cited the bad intelligence on Iraq and said that the UN should focus on forcing Assad to allow an investigation, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
?The blanket authorization to have unimpeded access to any site or any person in Syria resembles very much the Security Council resolutions in Iraq, and we all remember the end of that story,? Mr. Lavrov said at a press conference.
Even at their most cautious, world leaders seem to be somewhat out of sync with Arab publics on this issue. The Christian Science Monitor reported yesterday that, according to a Pew Research Center poll, Arab citizens remain largely opposed to arming the rebels, either by the US and Europe or other Arab countries.
Eighty percent of Lebanese oppose Western arming of the rebels, and even among Sunnis, who are generally sympathetic to the predominantly Sunni opposition, a solid majority of 66 percent oppose the West sending military aid. Unsurprisingly, almost all (98 percent) of Lebanese Shiites oppose sending arms; the regime's base is predominantly Alawite, a Shiite sect.?
The picture changes slightly when such aid is coming from other Arab countries, but only Lebanese Sunnis join Jordan in supporting the idea ? 65 percent of Jordanians favor sending arms and other military supplies, while 63 percent of Lebanese Sunnis do (to show how starkly divided Lebanon is over the Syrian war, hold that up against the 97 percent of Lebanese Shiites who oppose Arab countries sending military aid).?
The results should be examined with the caveat that the poll was conducted in March, before evidence surfaced that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons.
The New York Times reports that the US shift is not only attributable to a growing conviction that chemical weapons have been used. A senior official said that "growing confidence" in Gen. Salim Idriss, who leads the opposition's Supreme Military Council, is another factor.?
The defected Syrian Army soldier has "impressed?US officials with his moderate instincts, his commitment to inclusiveness, and his pledge to reject extremist elements like Al Nusra, a group that has links to Al Qaeda," according to The New York Times.
The possibly of the conflict becoming further militarized comes as Lakhdar Brahimi, the?United Nations special envoy to Syria, prepares to quit his post, further hampering diplomatic efforts that have barely gotten off the ground, The Daily Star reports.?
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council have urged Mr. Brahimi to stay, but according to one anonymous UN diplomat, he has already stepped down.
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/m-Unhn7rHZM/US-and-Britain-consider-arming-Syrian-rebels
my fair lady conversion disorder the chronicle bob newhart finish line lindsay lohan
BOSTON (AP) ? A suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings died from gunshot wounds and blunt trauma to his head and torso, a funeral director said Friday.
Worcester funeral home owner Peter Stefan has 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body and read details from his death certificate. The certificate cites Tsarnaev's "gunshot wounds of torso and extremities" and lists the time of his death as 1:35 a.m. on April 19, four days after the deadly bombing, Stefan said.
Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him and his brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago. Police have said he ran out of ammunition before his younger brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing.
Tsarnaev's family on Friday was making arrangements for his funeral as investigators searched the woods near a college attended by 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured less than a day after his brother's death.
The funeral parlor in Worcester is familiar with Muslim services and said it will handle arrangements for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose body was released by the state medical examiner Thursday night.
The body initially was taken to a North Attleborough funeral home, where it was greeted by about 20 protesters. Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, an hour's drive west of Boston, said everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of his or her death and he is prepared for protests.
"My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don't want to do it. They don't want to be involved with this," said Stefan, who said dozens of protesters gathered outside his funeral home, upset with his decision to handle the funeral. "I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too."
Meanwhile, two U.S. officials said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators that he and his brother initially considered setting off their bombs on July Fourth.
Boston police said they planned to review security procedures for the Independence Day Boston Pops concert and fireworks display, which draws a crowd of more than 500,000 annually and is broadcast to a national TV audience. Authorities plan to look at security procedures for large events held in other cities, notably the massive New Year's Eve celebration held each year in New York City's Times Square, Massachusetts state police spokesman David Procopio said.
Gov. Deval Patrick said everything possible will be done to assure a safe event.
"I think the most important thing is that we got them, and there's investigation continuing about where the other leads may lead," he said. "I can tell you, having been thoroughly briefed, that the law enforcement at every level is pursuing everything."
As part of the bombing investigation, federal, state and local authorities were searching the woods near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth campus, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a student. Christina DiIorio-Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, could not say what investigators were looking for but said residents should know there is no threat to public safety.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston backyard, faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill. Three of his college classmates were arrested Wednesday and accused of helping after the bombing to remove a laptop and backpack from his dormitory room before the FBI searched it.
The April 15 bombing, using pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards, killed three people and injured more than 260 others near the marathon's finish line.
The brothers decided to carry out the attack before Independence Day when they finished assembling the bombs, the surviving suspect told interrogators after he was arrested, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the investigation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Investigators believe some of the explosives used in the attack were assembled in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's home, though there may have been some assembly elsewhere, one of the officials said. It does not appear that the brothers ever had big, definitive plans, the official said.
The brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security ordered border agents to immediately begin verifying that every international student who arrives in the U.S. has a valid student visa, according to an internal memorandum obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The new procedure is the government's first security change directly related to the Boston bombings.
The order from a senior official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, David J. Murphy, was circulated Thursday and came one day after President Barack Obama's administration acknowledged that one of the students accused of hiding evidence, Azamat Tazhayakov, of Kazakhstan, was allowed to return to the U.S. in January without a valid student visa.
Tazhayakov's lawyer has said he had nothing to do with the bombing and was shocked by it.
A benefit concert featuring Aerosmith, James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett is scheduled for May 30 at the TD Garden in Boston. The proceeds will go to The One Fund, which has taken in more than $28 million for those injured and the families of those who were killed.
The fund's administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, said Friday he plans to hold meetings with victims next week and begin cutting checks by the end of June.
___
Associated Press writers Bridget Murphy and Mark Pratt in Boston and Pete Yost, Eileen Sullivan and Alicia A. Caldwell in Washington contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-bomb-suspect-died-gunshots-blunt-trauma-000018135.html
michael phelps Kerri Strug Ledecky Nadia Comaneci Rebecca Soni Snoop Lion London 2012 Table Tennis
Marianna Tax Choldin
Government control of expression has always been strong in the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, reaching new highs (or lows) during the Soviet period. In the last years of the Soviet Union and the first years of post-Soviet Russia, censorship seemed to disappear, but now there is no doubt that it is on the rise again. Professor Choldin has spent nearly 40 years studying censorship in the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. She will describe the themes and techniques of imperial and Soviet censorship, illustrating their similarities and differences, and will share with us some of her adventures while conducting her research.
5:00 pm Exhibition Tour (Recipes for Domesticity: Cookery, Household Management, and the Notion of Expertise)
5:45 pm Lecture
6:45 pm Reception
7:30 pm Dinner, by reservation only
Please RSVP no later than Thursday, May 2, 2013
Free valet parking will be available in front of Regenstein Library from 4:45 p.m. ? 9:00 p.m.
For further details or assistance, please call
Barbara Palmer-Bostick at 773.702.7695
Grandparents Day 2012 army wives 60 minutes go daddy Tom Kenny Long Island Medium Alfonso Ribeiro
As a result, it's easy to forget just how much the lack of gravity dictates life for today's space explorers. Motion sickness, difficulty remaining stationary and oriented, and bone and muscle deterioration are just a few of the problems astronauts can face. So why don't we have artificial gravity on ISS?
The most realistic method of producing artificial gravity aboard a space station is using centripetal force to produce a pulling sensation toward the "floor" that would mimic the effects of gravity. Physics blogger Matthew Francis tells PM that it's a lot like one of our favorite boardwalk attractions. "If you've ever ridden on a carnival ride," he says, "you know that spinning very fast makes you feel heavier, and can even hold you against the wall of the ride if the floor drops?like in the old Gravitron ride." In a rotating spaceship, objects inside would be pushed toward the hull.
In a spaceship designed to produce artificial gravity, you'd walk around perpendicular to the "wall" you were stuck to, and parallel to what would, in a Gravitron, be the floor. The wall would become the floor, and the floor would become the inner wall of the ship. A person can get a pretty good idea of what it would look like from 2001: A Space Odyssey's iconic jogging scene, or from this old NASA test video.
Why haven't we built ourselves a centripetal space station yet? One problem is size. John Page, a lecturer on aerospace design for University of South Wales, told ABC Science that the scale of such a craft would pose some problems. "The smaller the spacecraft is, the faster it has to rotate," he says, "so if you're going to generate gravity, it's got to be done with a very large spacecraft that spins very slowly. The bigger the disk, the slower you can rotate it. Plus, says Francis, "it'll be disorienting if your ship has any windows in it." And what would an ISS mission be without Chris Hadfield sending back pictures of Earth?
Besides, a lack of windows wouldn't make dizziness a nonissue: If a spacecraft's rotating portion were too small, residents would feel a huge difference in the force imposed on their heads and what they felt on their feet. They'd end up dizzy and lightheaded because blood would be drawn down, away from the brain. "At this stage," Page said, "there's no spacecraft on the drawing board big enough to do this. It would have to very large?much larger than a football field." ISS, in comparison, is basically the size of a small apartment. Francis points out that at a viable scale, a rotating spacecraft becomes one heck of an added expense. "Making a really big spaceship is an expensive problem too," he says, "since every piece of it has to be boosted from Earth into orbit."
Short-term space travel doesn't really need artificial gravity. In fact, most of the research done on ISS relies on the lack of gravity. And on a long-term mission, say, to Mars, the last thing NASA wants is an even bigger, fuel-hungrier, more expensive spacecraft.
As far as alternatives to a spinning ship, Star Trek credits its ships' artificial gravity to the use of "gravity plating" under the decks. Without that kind of gee-whiz sci-fi tech, modern astronauts exercise with pulleys and gizmos that simulate gravity (albeit pretty awkwardly), and NASA is researching the use of an astronaut-size centrifuge that you could spend a certain amount of time in every day. It's nausea-inducing and far from as good as the real thing, but for now a spinning gurney is the cheapest, most practical, and most realistic option for simulating gravity in space.
Isaac Hurricane earthquake san diego Hurricane Isaac Sam Claflin Tony Farmer West Nile virus symptoms snooki
Scientists figure out why pulsing corals pulse
By Stephen Ornes
Web edition: May 3, 2013
Water swirlers
Scientists say pulsing corals make their motion to bring in needed nutrients.
Credit: M. Kremien et al/PNAS 2013
Here?s a new exercise: Call it the ?pulsing coral.? While waving your arms slowly in the air, gently bring all of your fingertips on each hand together. Then spread them out again. Then bring them in again. Keep going, opening and closing, every few seconds, all of the time ? and preferably underwater.
Certain corals known as xeniids (ZEE nee idz) do this day and night with only a few breaks. New research now suggests an explanation for all of?that ?hand waving.?
Visit the new Science News for Kids website and read the full story: Motion in the ocean.
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350189/title/FOR_KIDS_Motion_in_the_ocean
davy jones deep impact miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy usssa baseball alex o loughlin the godfather
All WWE programming, talent names, images, likenesses, slogans, wrestling moves, trademarks, logos and copyrights are the exclusive property of WWE, Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. ? 2013 WWE, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This website is based in the United States. By submitting personal information to this website you consent to your information being maintained in the U.S., subject to applicable U.S. laws. U.S. law may be different than the law of your home country. WrestleMania XXIX (NY/NJ) logo TM & ? 2013 WWE. All Rights Reserved. The Empire State Building design is a registered trademark and used with permission by ESBC.
Source: http://www.wwe.com/inside/overtheropes/your-wwe-horoscope-may-2013
cape breton bowling green marysville tornados dr. seuss the temptations rush limbaugh sandra fluke
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi's prepaid college tuition plan may be underfunded by more than $100 million, auditors from a private consultant told the board that oversees it Tuesday.
However, the actuaries say the plan can be at least partially fixed by charging more for future contracts. If the board doesn't make changes, either colleges or the Legislature would have to make up the deficit, the actuaries from Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Co. warned in a Tuesday meeting of the board that governs the Mississippi Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Program.
State Treasurer Lynn Fitch, whose office administers the program, told board members she wants to overhaul the program and continue it.
"The bottom line is we want to reopen this program," the Republican said.
The board, at Fitch's request, blocked the sale of new contracts during last fall's enrollment period. Under the plan, parents or grandparents typically buy tuition contracts for children who expect to later attend college. Their money is invested by the plan to cover the cost of future attendance.
Although several board members said they want to reopen the program this fall, Fitch said 2014 is a more likely target.
Actuary Ken Alberts told board members that the current expectation of earning 7.8 percent a year in investments is unrealistic. His firm recommended lowering the investment target to 7 percent a year.
The fund currently has $278 million in assets. Under the current assumptions, it has 80 percent of the money it needs to pay future benefits, but has an unfunded liability of $80 million. At a lower investment return, the gap widens to $100 million, and the funding share falls below 26 percent. If no new contract holders sign up, the fund would run out of money by about 2024.
"If we continue along this process without making changes, we will destroy the program," Fitch said.
Actuaries proposed increasing the price of a contract by 17 percent to build reserves, cover administrative costs, and account for the fact that contract holders are more likely to attend the state's highest-priced colleges: the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University and the University of Southern Mississippi.
Those changes could bring the program's funding ratio to 88 percent, actuaries estimated.
"We think this is a good program, we'd like to see it reopen, but we'd like to see the pricing fixed before you reopen it," Alberts said.
However, a combination of increasing the price for new contracts, lowering the expected investment return to 7 percent and assuming tuition will continue to climb at more than 6 percent a year could raise the price of new contracts by $4,000 or $5,000 over the current level of $25,886, driving down purchases from the historical average of 1,300 or so a year. That would be bad because the plan would count on new money to help cover the current deficit.
Other options to cover the current deficit include limiting tuition increases or having lawmakers subsidize the program. Actuaries said tuition would have to be limited to roughly a 1 percent annual increase to wipe out a $100 million deficit, compared to the 5 percent a year it's risen over the life of the plan. If tuition isn't limited, the state could have to kick in $5 million a year to bridge the gap.
Higher Education Commissioner Hank Bounds said he's uncomfortable forcing colleges and universities to absorb the gap, saying it would effectively make other students subsidize contract holders.
Contracts currently pay for 128 credit hours, even though only 124 are required in most cases to earn an undergraduate degree.
That means students could receive full-time tuition for as many as 10 semesters if they took 12 credit hours a semester. That level counts as a full-time student, but isn't high enough to earn a degree in four years. Bounds repeatedly expressed concern about that provision, and said he wanted the board to determine if it could legally change its guarantee for current contract holders to eight semesters of full-time tuition.
"I just wonder if we're paying for five years of college when we're promising them four." Bound said.
Treasury officials indicated they believed the state was legally bound to 128 credit hours for current contract owners.
___
Follow Jeff Amy at http://twitter.com/jeffamy
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/higher-prices-could-fix-miss-152147328.html
michael bay ninja turtles san antonio weather mike daisey nicollette sheridan apple dividend snow white and the huntsman snow white and the huntsman
The pro-Syrian cyberhackers behind the recent attacks on major media outlets? Twitter accounts claim to be members of a grass-roots organization defending the honor of the nation, but are likely nothing more than government-backed cyberwarriors, some researchers say.
The hacks by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) on Twitter reflect an intensifying effort in recent weeks to disseminate pro-Syrian propaganda and attack Syria?s perceived enemies in the media. The emphasis marks an apparent shift for the group, which previously had focused more on attacking and defacing websites and Facebook pages of members of Syria?s opposition and others they perceived as anti-Syrian, according to close observers of the group.
The most recent attack came Monday, with the SEA hacking into several Twitter accounts belonging to the British newspaper, The Guardian.
RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about cybersecurity? Take our quiz.
Shortly after, Twitter warned news organization in an e-mail that their accounts could be vulnerable. Twitter has been shutting down the latest versions of the official SEA Twitter channel (the group was on its 12th) as fast as the San Francisco-based company can find them.
Citing ?several recent incidents of high-profile news and media Twitter handles being compromised,? the company wrote that: ?We believe that these attacks will continue, and that news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to hackers.?
Twitter hack victims have so far included CBS, NPR, and the BBC. Previously hacked organizations included Human Rights Watch, Reuters, Sky News Arabia, and even the FIFA World Cup organization. The AP and BBC both reported that ?phishing? e-mails were sent to their staff about the same time accounts got hacked.
Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.
But the biggest ?twit-hit? was on April 25, when the official Twitter account of the Associated Press was hijacked and used to tweet a hoax that the White House had been hit by bombs and President Obama injured. The US stock market immediately plummeted 145 points, the fake news erasing an estimated $200 billion in market value ? at least for a few minutes ? before it rebounded.
The group has now hit ?basically every media outlet on the planet from ABC News, to Reuters, to now the Associated Press," Jared Keller, Bloomberg News social media director told the BBC.
What?s behind the Twitter hacks is a bald effort to win attention for Syria?s cause and to attack the nation?s perceived enemies in the media, several close observers say.
Some researchers who have been tracking the SEA for years say the group appears to have at least ?tacit support? from Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Others argue the group is operated out of Dubai by deep-pocketed supporters of the Syrian regime. Still others say the connection with the Assad regime is quite direct.
?The SEA definitely has a close relationship with the regime,? says Amjad Baiazy, an independent cyber-researcher in London who was held in detention by the regime in 2011. ?I can?t say if they are also supported by certain individuals, but I can say they are funded by the regime. There are also strong indications that members of the group are trained by Iranian [information technology] experts.?
The fact that the group?s website is hosted on the national Syrian network, where local web hosting is highly politicized, indicates at the very least ?tacit support? from the Assad regime, according to Helmi Noman, a senior researcher with Citizen Lab, a cyber-research center at the University of Toronto.
Such ?local hosting of sensitive content indicates state approval or at least tolerance of the content and the people behind the content,? Mr. Noman writes in an e-mail interview. Even so, ?I do not have information that suggests that the SEA is a Syrian state operation, but the tacit support which we have documented can potentially amount to sponsorship.?
It is significant, as well, that President Assad thanked the group in a major televised speech in 2011, which Noman calls ?a prerequisite political blessing without which such a group with questionable activities cannot operate.?
In that speech to Damascus University, Assad likened online cyberwarriors to his best troops: "The army consists of the brothers of every Syrian citizen,? he said. ?Young people have an important role to play at this stage, because they have proven themselves to be an active power. There is the electronic army, which has been a real army in virtual reality."
When the domain names of the SEA were seized last month by US authorities, the SEA survived the interruption by launching a new country code top-level domain name ? sea.sy ? for its website, Noman writes. Doing so, ?implies that the national agency in charge of domain name registration does not find the SEA's hacking and compromising activities objectionable,? he notes.
Still, the SEA has steadfastly denied on its website any links to the Syrian regime, portraying itself as just a group of self-organized volunteers.
?We are a group of enthusiastic Syrian youths who could not stay passive towards the massive distortion of facts about the recent uprising in Syria, and this distortion is carried out by many Facebook pages that deliberately work to spread hatred and sectarian intolerance between the peoples of Syria to fuel the uprising,? the group?s description says on its website.
Distancing itself is not surprising, the researchers say.
?The state needs this distance so that it cannot be held legally, politically, or even financially responsible for the SEA's activities,? Noman writes. ?On the other hand, I won't be surprised if the Syrian institutions at some point defend their support [for] the SEA, arguing that their activities come in the context of a legitimate cyberwar. In fact, that is how the local media is portraying them in its celebratory reports which I have been looking at.?
The SEA has shifted from defacing political and mostly apolitical websites to targeting the media, which it perceives as hostile to the Syrian regime. The SEA, for instance, has not targeted "friendly" Russian or Iranian media, observers say. The group also likes media attention, and compromising the online presence of media outlets amplifies their exposure to the media, they agree.
?Basically they want to become famous to tell their story to the international community,? says Mr. Baiazy. ?To do this, they have to catch attention. So they target, for example, the Twitter account for Reuters. Believe it or not, they actually are trying to leave a positive impression about Syria.?
Baiazy, who was imprisoned in Syria in 2011 and interrogated about his online activities, says those questioning him were very young and barely computer literate. If so, it remain a question about the far more sophisticated actors also said to be part of the Syrian Electronic Army, which has been systematically and clandestinely luring opposition sympathizers with tainted video links in e-mail, fake Skype encryption tools, and tainted online documents.
Those hackers believed to be allied to Syria's government have deployed a fairly sophisticated array of powerful spyware with names like DarkComet, backdoor.bruet, and Blackshades. Available on the Internet, these malware are used to infiltrate the personal computers of opposition figures and rights activists and send back information on their friends and contacts as well as passwords, cybersecurity experts say.
Also of note, The Guardian reports that defectors from inside the SEA claim many in the organization moved last year from Damascus to a secret base in Dubai funded by Assad's billionaire cousin, Rami Makhlouf, who controls it.
Pro-Assad activists are said to receive $500 to $1,000 for attacks on major Western targets ? a huge sum for most Syrians, The Guardian reported.
RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about cybersecurity? Take our quiz.
Related stories
Read this story at csmonitor.com
Become a part of the Monitor community
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/twitter-hacking-syrian-electronic-army-much-state-support-222151700.html
total eclipse of the heart jionni lavalle earthquake san francisco donald payne elizabeth berkley lenny dykstra mlb 12 the show
The US-Government sponsored Commission on International Religious Freedom has issued its latest report this week and one of its authors concludes that "aggressive secularism" is rife in Western Europe.
The Commission, which was set up to monitor the state of "religious freedom" round the world, was particularly harsh when commenting on bans on face veils in some European countries. It was also highly critical of attempts to control the ritual slaughter of animals and the practice of circumcising boys for religious reasons. It also criticises Switzerland for its ban on the building of minarets.
Because Western Europe generally has a very good record, "it's easy to overlook the fact that there are some questions and problematic issues emerging there" related to religious dress and customs, commission chair Katrina Lantos Swett told a press conference.
"In some countries a very aggressive secularism is putting people of religious faith in uncomfortable and difficult positions."
"These, along with limits on freedom of conscience and hate speech laws, are creating a growing atmosphere of intimidation against certain forms of religious activity in Western Europe," the report said. "These restrictions also seriously limit social integration and educational and employment opportunities for the individuals affected."
The review also referred to measures against religious groups characterised as "cults" and "sects," saying France has the most extensive restrictions but also mentioning Germany, Austria and Belgium.
"One of the problems with these sorts of laws, that are singling out a particular minority religious group, is that they send a signal that some people may take justified discrimination against members of that group," Elizabeth Cassidy, the commission's deputy director, told AFP.
The report is also critical of "hate speech" laws which it says can be used to silence religious voices. It quotes several of the cases that the NSS highlighted during its campaign to remove the world "insulting" from Section 5 of the Public Order Act. The report was written before this change in the law was made.
It is also critical of the amendments made to the Racial and Religious Hatred Act in order to protect free speech. The National Secular Society was at the head of the campaign to have these changes made.
The Commission also mentions the Eweida and Ladele cases, presenting them as abuses of religious freedom, although the report does not cover the period in which the cases reached the European Court of Human Rights.
Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: "This report seems to start from the assumption that religion can do no wrong and that its 'rights' are paramount and everyone else's must be subservient. It even criticises the French attempt to outlaw the forced wearing of veils, saying it potentially interferes with the rights of parents. Do children and women have no rights to refuse to wear the veil if their community or family insists that they do?
"We agree that there are many religious restrictions around the world that clearly are abuses of human rights ? such things as the proliferation of blasphemy laws accompanied by swingeing punishments for falling foul of them. The report rightly draws attention to such infringements.
"But Western Europe is a model of religious freedom. Its human rights charters place religious freedom at the very top of the list.
"We cannot be complacent, of course, and must be ever-vigilant for examples of restrictions on real religious freedom. But we must also be very careful of a newly-defined idea of 'religious freedom' that demands the power to trample on the rights of others.
"This Commission may have the best of intentions, and many of its findings are eye-opening. But it is not balanced and, as far as Western Europe is concerned, it is positively off the beam."
Read the report here (pdf)
See also: Scientology still a red flag in Germany
Protest after prosecutors refuse to stop ritual slaughter of animals
tim tebow press conference tebow press conference trina rob dyrdek oberon donald driver donald driver
DUBAI (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell will partner Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) in a multi-billion-dollar project to develop the Bab sour gas field, the partners said on Tuesday.
The choice of Shell ahead of rival bidder Total to help treat the potentially deadly gases in Bab offers Europe's largest energy company a chance to prove the effectiveness of its latest gas technology.
The 30-year Bab venture also puts the Anglo-Dutch giant in a strong position to renew its role in the UAE's largest onshore oil concession, on which the Bab field stands, when that contract comes up for renewal early next year.
"We value our long and successful partnership with ADNOC, and look forward to continuing to play a role in helping the United Arab Emirates meet its energy needs," Shell Chief Executive Peter Voser said in a statement.
Shell had been widely expected to win the contract to develop Abu Dhabi's Shah gas field in 2011, but lost out to Occidental Petroleum.
UAE state news agency WAM said earlier on Tuesday that ADNOC would own 60 percent of the Bab joint venture's equity and Shell would hold the rest.
Total was overlooked for the Bab project despite a French charm offensive which included a visit to the UAE by French President Francois Hollande in January.
Bab, and the almost as technically challenging Shah sour gas project, are vital to limit the UAE's growing gas imports over the next decade.
Shah, which was developed first because it is seen as less difficult than Bab to develop, is on track for completion by the end of 2014.
Because Bab sits in one of the fields that make up the UAE's onshore oil concession, some industry observers believe the selection of Shell is likely to support its efforts to continue operating the oil fields for decades.
The UAE oil concession system allows international energy companies to acquire equity in the OPEC member country's hydrocarbon resources.
Big western oil companies including Shell are long-standing partners with ADNOC in the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations but face rival bids to run the fields, which produce about 1.5 million barrels per day from Asian companies.
Bids from international oil companies hoping to operate the onshore fields beyond 2014 are due by the start of October.
(Reporting by Yara Bayoumy and Daniel Fineren, writing by Daniel Fineren)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/shell-fends-off-total-become-uaes-sour-gas-125328934.html
mexico news the talented mr ripley weather new orleans orcl the hartford illinois primary 2012 michael bay
