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 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