FROM MAAN NEWS

Fury after US vetoes UN settlements resolution



BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A top Fatah leader and former Palestinian intelligence official called Saturday for a "day of rage" against America after the Obama administration blocked a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements.

Tawfik Tirawi said Palestinians would protest next Friday, a week after the US directed its UN ambassador to kill the draft Security Council resolution even though the 14 other members of the 15-nation council voted in favor.

Tirawi told Ma’an that the move amounted to "blackmail" and exposed the true face of America as well as the extent to which its role in the Middle East peace process harmed Palestinian interests. 

America's refusal to take a real stand against settlements, despite total opposition in the Security Council and longstanding US policy, shows "they are liars who pretend to support democracy and peace. Far from it."

Tirawi also said the Palestinians would continue to push for statehood even if they suffer a financial crisis absent US funding: "This will not affect our steadfastness and insistence on our rights." 

Asked about the peace process, he said "there will be no negotiations with settlements." 

Israeli officials took an alternative position, praising the vote as beneficial to peace. 

"We seek a solution that will integrate the legitimate Palestinian aspirations with Israeli requirement of security and recognition," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. 

"The US decision makes it clear that the only way to peace is through negotiations. We are ready to vigorously advance negotiations and are interested in beginning the process of achieving secure peace and hope that the Palestinians will join the process." 

In New York, US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said Washington had "regrettably" chosen to oppose the resolution, sponsored by some 130 countries, after seeking its compromise measure was rejected.

"This draft resolution risks hardening the positions of both sides," Rice said. "It could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations."


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THE TELEGRAPH

US vetoes UN condemnation of Israeli settlements

The Obama administration wielded its first veto at the UN security council last night in a move to swipe down a resolution condemning Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory.

The US stood alone among the 15 members of the security council in failing to condemn the resumption of settlement building that has caused a serious rift between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority and derailed attempts to kick-start the peace process. The Palestinians have made clear that they will not return to the negotiating table until Israel suspends settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

The decision placed the US in a controversial position at a time when it is already struggling to define its strategy in a tumultuous Middle East.

The 14 member countries backing the Arab-drafted resolution included Britain and France.

The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said the decision to use the veto power – open to the five permanent members of the UN, of which the US is one – "should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity".

She said Washington's view was that the Israeli settlements lacked legitimacy, but added: "Unfortunately, this draft resolution risks hardening the positions of both sides and could encourage the parties to stay out of negotiations."

But the isolated stance of the Obama administration risked the appearance of weakness in its approach to the search for Middle East peace and set it on a contradictory course to its earlier tough language against the settlements.

The Palestinian observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said the veto was unfortunate. "We fear ... that the message sent today may be one that only encourages further Israeli intransigence and impunity," he said.


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FROM FAST SHILL COMPANY


Will Syria's Revolution Be Organized... on Facebook?

BY E.B. BOYDMon Jan 31, 2011

Tunisia has been overthrown. Egypt is tottering. Now Facebook pages are calling for protests to begin in Syria later this week.Tunisia has been overthrown. Egypt is tottering. Think there'll be more to come? Maybe. In the wake of those uprisings, pages have begun popping up on Facebook, calling for protests to begin in Syria on February 4 and 5.

“After Friday prayers, February 4 is the first day of anger for the proud Syrian people. Comprehensive civil disobedience in all cities,” reads one of the pages, titled “The Syrian Revolution 2011.”

It’s not clear what impact these pages will actually have on the ground. A few thousand people have “Liked” them--a small number relative to the tens of thousands who “Liked” pages calling for demonstrations in Cairo last week (before, of course, the Egyptian government put the kibosh on the Internet). The fact that Facebook is officially banned in Syria makes getting the word out more difficult, though many users find their ways around using proxy servers.

It’s also not clear that the Syrian people themselves are ready to rise up, the way Tunisians and Egyptians were. Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has kept a tight grip on the country, and in the wake of the Tunisian unrest, he started jiggling a few levers, presumably to diffuse any impulse toward protest, including raising a fuel subsidy and, according to Reuters, tightening controls on the Internet.

Over the weekend, Assad seemed to be suggesting to The Wall Street Journal that Syria wouldn’t be witnessing the same kind of tumult that has gripped its neighbors. "Syria is stable,” he said.

Authorities might also be keeping a firm hand on things. According to the Middle East Research Institute (a think tank founded by a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence), Syria nipped solidarity protests with Egypt in the bud on Saturday, and the country’s security chief has been conferring with regional and police commanders about possible protests.


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China hails bilateral ties with Iran

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhai Jun says he believes political cooperation between his country and the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to grow.

Zhai Jun said on Monday that the leaders of the two nations have been actively involved in a constant trust-building process, IRNA reported. 

Meeting with Iran's Ambassador to China Mehdi Safari in Beijing, the Chinese official praised Iran's remarkable achievements over the past three decades since the victory of the Islamic revolution. 

The Iranian ambassador also confirmed that the trade volume between the two sides exceeded $30 billion in 2010 and expressed optimism that the figure would reach $50 billion by the end of the current year. 

Earlier in February, Chairman of the Sino-Iranian Chamber of Commerce Asadollah Asgaroladi said the volume of Iran's trade with China has reached $38 billion, up from $7 billion 10 years ago. 

He said the direct trade between the two countries currently stands at $29 billion, a figure that would reach $38 billion taking into account indirect Iran-China trade through the UAE, Afghanistan and Pakistan.


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FROM FINANCIAL POST

Cyber attacks hit Iran as U.S. reaches out via Twitter

Welcome to the modern world of Web warfare.

The infamous Stuxnet worm has been consistently attacking the computerized control systems of several Iranian industrial facilities over the past year, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Based on a report released by security software provider Symantec Corp. on Friday, the U.S. newspaper suggested the attacks could shed some light on efforts by hackers to gain control of Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. Stuxnet works by changing the source code of industrial control software so attackers can access those systems remotely in real-time.

Symantec researchers were able to trace more than 12,000 Stuxnet infections in Iran to just five initial locations. Of those five, none were directly connected to classified nuclear sites such as Natanz.

However, the Times story highlighted the fact that such sites are generally not directly connected to the Internet in the first place, suggesting the goal of the attackers was to infect industrial facilities likely to share data with Natanz, thereby passing along the malicious software as well.

“We know the exact configuration of the system they were looking for,” said Liam O Murchu, a Symantec security researcher, in an interview with the NYT.

“We know they were looking for a certain number of frequency converters. And each of those frequency converters controls a certain number of motors. And those numbers fit in with what you expect to see in a uranium enrichment facility,” he said.

Shortly after the first successful Iranian Stuxnet infection in June 2009, international nuclear inspectors arrived at Natanz to find more than 1,000 gas centrifuges were taken offline. The suspicion at the time was that the Stuxnet had successfully managed to disable part of the complex.

Little is known about the perpetrators of the attacks, aside from apparently originated from within Iran via an infected email message or a hand-held USB data storage key. Citing a previous New York Times story describing a classified Israeli nuclear testing facility, which included a reproduction of the Iranian uranium enrichment plant, Sunday’s report subtly but clearly suggested that neighboring Israel was behind the attacks.

“Such a test site would have been necessary for the design of the attack software,” the U.S. newspaper said.

The United States government has long believed the Iranian nuclear program is a thinly veiled attempt to domestically produce nuclear weapons, which would be in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which Iran has been a signatory since the NPT was approved by the United Nations in 1968. Iran has vehemently denied that and the disagreement has placed significant strain on the relationship between the two countries since.



Read more: http://business.financialpost.com/2011/02/14/cyber-attacks-hit-iran-as-u-s-reaches-out-via-twitter/#ixzz1E3Z3hsPj

Pakistan court orders arrest of ex-president Musharraf Yesterday

A Pakistani court on Saturday issued an arrest warrant for exiled former president Pervez Musharraf in connection with the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, officially implicating him for first time in the death of the former prime minister and rival.

Bhutto, who was an opponent of Musharraf's rule, was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi on December 27, 2007, weeks after she returned to Pakistan following years in self-imposed exile.

Her assassination was one of the most shocking events in Pakistan's turbulent history and remains shrouded in mystery.

"The court has issued an arrest warrant and asked that he (Musharraf) should be produced before the court during the next hearing on February 19," said Musharraf spokesman Mohammad Ali Saif, adding that Musharraf is accused of not providing adequate security for Bhutto.

"There is a frivolous allegation, a baseless allegation... that he was involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto."

Since Musharraf has limited support within Pakistan, the arrest warrant is unlikely to stir up a backlash against the government of this unstable U.S. ally where a coalition headed by the Pakistan People's Party of the late Bhutto is in power.

Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, is now president and is struggling to cope with the multiple challenges, including a stubborn Taliban insurgency and a stagnant economy.

Saif said Musharraf would cooperate with the judiciary if asked to recount his version of events, but did not say if he would appear in court.

The former military chief, who came to power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has lived in self-imposed exile since he stepped down under threat of impeachment in 2008. He spends most of his time in London and Dubai.

Prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali said the warrant had been issued on the recommendations of a joint investigation team which "had attached evidence" against Musharraf and declared him an absconder. He did not elaborate.

Shafqat Mahmood, a political analyst, described the arrest warrant as a "symbolic gesture" that would have no impact on Pakistani politics.

"Nothing is happening. Musharraf actually doesn't mean much in Pakistani politics. We are making too much of him," he said.


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FROM BOEING WEBSITE

EL SEGUNDO, Calif., Feb. 10, 2011 --

Boeing [NYSE: BA] has received a $900,000 study contract from the Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) Systems Directorate of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Under the agreement, Boeing will explore ways to modify existing commercial satellite capabilities to meet MILSATCOM needs.

Boeing will focus on communications-on-the-move missions as well as connectivity for low-altitude airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (AISR) platforms operating on Ka-band frequencies. Boeing also will make recommendations about innovative and feasible acquisition alternatives, which will include ways to apply commercial satellite procurement practices to the military acquisition process. The study recommendations are scheduled to be delivered to the Air Force in July.

"Boeing's vision for the future MILSATCOM architecture is one that includes core owned assets such as Wideband Global SATCOM, plus complementary hosted or free-flier payloads," said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems. "We expect to play a large role in increasing the United States' MILSATCOM assets."

Hosted payloads are one of Boeing’s key recommendations for MILSATCOM augmentation. They are additional payloads added to a commercial satellite for the purpose of being leased to a government user. One of the primary benefits of a hosted payload is the speed of delivery -- a commercial satellite carrying a hosted payload can generally be delivered in less than three years.

"Boeing received orders for five hosted payloads in the past 18 months," Cooning said. "These are a win-win for the military, which needs the bandwidth, and the commercial SATCOM service providers, which benefit from a secondary revenue stream. Our partnership with commercial satellite industry and our legacy of government support will result in many creative approaches to assisting this country's men and women in uniform."


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WIRED news


Sudan Dictator: I’ll Use Facebook to Crush Opposition!

After Tunisia and Egypt, most Mideastern strongmen worry that social media will help their subjects dislodge them from power. One of them wants it to help him hang in there.

Omar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, isn’t known for being a technophile. He’s more famous for being an indicted war criminal, owing to his role in the Darfur genocide. But like his northern neighbor Hosni Mubarak, he’s endured two weeks of protests by youths banding together through social networks and text messages. So now Bashir wants to beat them at their own game.

According to the official Sudanese news agency, Bashir today instructed his government to expand rural electrification efforts “so that the younger citizens can use computers and Internet to combat opposition through social networking sites such as Facebook.” (Hat tip: The Awl.)

Where Bashir’s legion of Facebook warriors will come from is something of a mystery. But if Hosni Mubarak’s friends can troll anti-regime Facebook pages, then maybe Bashir’s onto something. This up-with-Sudan Facebook page hosts Bashir’s image, for instance.

Except his connectivity efforts will have to happen rapidly. Only about 10 percent of Sudan’s 41 million people have Internet access. The protests Bashir faces aren’t as massive as those in Egypt, and his goons have arrested opposition figures after texting them anonymously to lure them into traps.


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FROM FOX NEWS

Targeting the Taliban? There's an iPhone App For That



An iPhone app that tracks down the Taliban has been developed by a U.S. soldier -- who put $26,000 of his own money into the project.

The idea for a smartphone application to assist soldiers in combat came to Capt. Jonathan J. Springer in a dream last July, he said Monday. The 31-year-old, from Fort Wayne, Ind., has worked with programmers ever since to make the idea a reality.

Tactical Nav, which is expected to be available through Apple’s App Store next month, assists soldiers in mapping, plotting and photographing waypoints on a battleground and conveying coordinates to supporting units.

Springer used a variety of armored vehicles, remote observation posts and harsh combat conditions to test the accuracy of his invention, which can also be used to direct artillery fire on enemy positions or call in helicopter support.

Springer, who serves as a battalion fire support officer in eastern Afghanistan, said most soldiers use smartphones and the app has been designed specifically for them.

“Since day one, I always believed that smartphones could be utilized by the U.S. military for combat purposes,” he said.



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/01/25/targeting-taliban-iphone-app/#ixzz1DW9K6BdO