US Midwest storm leaves 12 dead and dozens injured

US Midwest storm leaves 12 dead and dozens injured

At least 12 people have been killed by a storm system in the US Midwest that brought devastation to parts of Illinois, Missouri and Kansas.

Three people died in Tennessee hours after reports of deaths in Illinois and in Missouri.More than 100 were hurt and buildings badly damaged across multiple states, with at least 16 tornado sightings.

Rescue workers are searching for survivors trapped in wrecked homes, including a trailer park near Buffalo.Kansas Governor Sam Brownback and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon have declared a state of emergency.It is not clear if the reported tornados were the cause of the deaths in Tenneesee.

The mayor of Harrisburg, Eric Gregg, told CNN: "We've got homes toppled, cars thrown in lakes. You can't imagine how devastating it is until you're there."

"In small communities it's just heart-breaking - we all know each other, we all care very much about each other."He added that he was optimistic that rescue teams would be able to find survivors.In Missouri, the towns of Branson, Buffalo, Cassville, Lebanon and Oak Ridge suffered extensive damage.In downtown Branson, Missouri, a country music hub, debris and scattered road signs littered the streets.One witness, John Moore, who owns a diner damaged in the storm, said a twister rampaged down the main street, appearing to "jump side to side"."The theatre next to me kind of exploded. It went everywhere. The hotels on the two sides of me lost their roofs. Power lines are down. Windows are blown out," he added.

There's major, major destruction. There has to be millions dollars of damage all down the strip." Branson is about 110 miles (177km) from Joplin, where a deadly tornado in May 2011 killed 161 people.
The tornadoes are said to have been generated by a cold storm moving down from the Rocky mountains that hit a warm front as it moved east, said Corey Mead, lead forecaster at the US Storm Prediction Center, Oklahoma.

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Businesses call for 50p top tax rate to be scrapped

More than 500 business leaders have called for the 50p top rate of tax to be scrapped in next month's Budget.
The entrepreneurs accused Chancellor George Osborne of putting "populist politics before sound economics".
Mr Osborne has said the 50p rate is a temporary measure and has asked officials to assess how much extra revenue it actually brings in.There is speculation that wealthy tax payers find ways of avoiding it.

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The letter, from the owners of 537 small and medium-sized businesses, said: "Given the current state of the UK economy, we urge the chancellor to urgently consider scrapping the top rate of tax in his forthcoming Budget.
"The tax, which is in effect a 58p tax after national insurance is taken into account, puts wealth creators like us in a very awkward position.
"We believe the richest should help the poorest in society. 1% of taxpayers are forecast to contribute nearly 28% of income taxes."But penalising high earners through an unfair, politically-motivated tax puts populist politics before sound economics."The letter adds: "The result is that the 50p tax is set to reduce government income and damage the economy, the public services and charitable giving."

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Argentina pursuing policy of confrontation, says No 10

Downing Street has accused Argentina of pursuing a "policy of confrontation" over the Falkland Islands.it comes amid reports that top Argentine companies are being told by their government to stop importing goods from the UK.

PM David Cameron's spokesman said the move was "counterproductive" and was a misreading of British resolve over the disputed islands.Tension has been rising ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War.According to the state news agency Telam, industry minister Debora Giorgi called the bosses of at least 20 firms to urge them to replace imports from Britain with goods produced elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Argentina's top diplomat in the UK - Osvaldo Marsico - was summoned to the Foreign Office on Wednesday to explain the import ban.
A Foreign Office spokesman said: "We made clear that such actions against legitimate commercial activity were a matter of concern not just for the UK, but for the EU as a whole, and that we expect the EU to lodge similar concerns with Argentine authorities."
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Officials were also expected to discuss Argentina's decision to turn back two cruise ships from the Argentine port of Ushuaia on Monday, apparently because they had visited the Falklands - which Argentina claims as the Malvinas.

Mr Cameron's spokesman told reporters at a regular briefing in Westminster: "It is clearly very sad that Argentina continues with their policy of confrontation instead of co-operation."We think that is counterproductive and also a complete misreading of Britain's resolve on this issue."The UK is also a major investor in Argentina and we import goods from Argentina. It is not in Argentina's economic interest to put up barriers of this sort."The right approach here is one of co-operation, not confrontation," he added.

Buenos Aires has complained to the United Nations of British "militarisation" of the south Atlantic after the deployment of a new Royal Navy warship to the Falklands and Prince William's tour of duty on the islands.

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Kenya terrorism police probe link to 7/7 bomber widow

Kenyan police are seeking a terrorism suspect who has used identities including, it is believed, a widow of one of the 7/7 London suicide bombers.

The investigation is focused on a woman whose passport picture bears a strong likeness to Samantha Lewthwaite, widow of Germaine Lindsay. The Metropolitan Police in London and the Foreign Office are not commenting. But officials in both countries have not yet been able to rule out that the suspect and Ms Lewthwaite are the same.
Kenya's police commissioner, Matthew Iteere, told the BBC that police investigating alleged terror plots raided a home in Mombasa in late December, looking for a woman called Natalie Faye Webb. The name is thought to belong to another woman who was the victim of an identity theft.
The woman was not in the house, but officers recovered property and placed her on a watch list.

According to the Kenyan police, the white woman has three children and entered the country on a South African passport in January 2011 and may have already left. However, there are questions about the woman's true identity because of her remarkably strong likeness to Ms Lewthwaite and the fact that she has three children.
Mr Iteere said the police were not aware if Natalie Faye Webb was Samantha Lewthwaite, but were co-operating with the Metropolitan Police.

Parkinson’s Drug May Help With Brain Injuries, Report Finds

Daily doses of a drug used to treat Parkinson’s disease significantly improved function in severely brain-injured people thought to be beyond the reach of treatment, scientists reported on Wednesday, providing the first rigorous evidence to date that any therapy reliably helps such patients.       
The improvements were modest, experts said, and hardly amounted to a cure, or a quick means of “waking up” someone who has long been unresponsive. But the progress was meaningful, experts said, and, if replicated, would give rehabilitation doctors something they have never had: a standard treatment for injuries that are not at all standard or predictable in the ways they affect the brain.

Some 50,000 to 100,000 Americans live in states of partial consciousness, and perhaps 15,000 in an unresponsive “vegetative” condition. According to the Department of Defense, more than 6,000 veterans have had severe brain injuries since 2000 and would potentially benefit from this therapy. The new report, appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine, gives doctors a solid basis to address such injuries, if not yet a predictable outcome.

“This study puts the traumatic brain injury field on the first step of the ladder to developing scientific treatments. We’ve been trying to get there for a long time,” said Dr. Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, director of clinical research at the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Rockville, Md., who was not involved in the research. “And there’s no reason to doubt that this therapy would also be effective in people with less severe brain injuries” than in the study.     

   Doctors have long experimented with the Parkinson’s drug — amantadine hydrochloride — as well as many others to treat severe brain injuries, with mixed and uncertain results. Previous studies of amantadine suggested some benefit, but the numbers were small and experts were unsure of the findings.

The new experiment put those doubts to rest, by testing the drug against a placebo in two large groups of patients.

Genetically Altered Bird Flu Virus Not as Dangerous as Believed, Its Maker Asserts

The scientist who made a deadly bird flu virus transmissible in mammals, touching off public fears of a pandemic, said Wednesday that the virus he created was neither as contagious nor as dangerous as people had been led to believe.

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His new revelations have prompted the United States government to ask that the experiments be re-evaluated by a government advisory panel that recommended in December that certain details of the work be kept secret and not published, for fear that terrorists could use them to make bioweapons. Critics of the work had also warned that the virus might leak out of the lab accidentally and start a pandemic.  

  

UK presses for European human rights convention changes

The government is calling for the European Convention on Human Rights to be substantially rewritten so national courts have a greater say.

Ministers have long promised to use the six-month presidency of the Council of Europe for reform in Strasbourg.
They have now circulated a detailed position paper with plans for the human rights court.
The document is the basis for negotiations with other countries ahead of a summit in Brighton in April.

Massive backlog

The position paper - known as the draft Brighton Declaration - says the European Convention should be rewritten so that it includes two key principles.One of "subsidiarity", namely that decisions should be taken at the lowest levels possible, and the "margin of appreciation", namely that national governments should have greater leeway in applying the judgements of the court.The government calls for a new procedure so the Strasbourg court can offer advisory opinions that would not be binding on national courts.And it demands that more judges are appointed to deal with the court's massive backlog of cases. The document also sets out the government's call for a new commission to rethink the whole future of the court and the convention.
The government is under substantial pressure to act to curb the powers of the Strasbourg court.

Many MPs - and many voters - oppose its recent decisions to prevent the deportation of the radical cleric Abu Qatada and allow prisoners the vote.

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The Raspberry Pi computer goes on general sale

A credit-card sized computer designed to help teach children to code goes on general sale for the first time today.

The Raspberry Pi is a bare-bones, low-cost computer created by volunteers mostly drawn from academia and the UK tech industry.Sold uncased without keyboard or monitor, the Pi has drawn interest from educators and enthusiasts.
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Supporters hope the machines could help reverse a lack of programming skills in the UK.

"It has been six years in the making; the number of things that had to go right for this to happen is enormous. I couldn't be more pleased," said Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi Foundation which is based in Cambridge.

Massive demand for the computer has caused the website of one supplier, Leeds-based Premier Farnell, to crash under the weight of heavy traffic.

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Mitt Romney secures wins in Arizona and Michigan

US Republican White House contender Mitt Romney has pulled off a double win in the Michigan and Arizona primaries.We didn't win by a lot, but we won by enough and that's what counts," Mr Romney said in Michigan.

With almost all votes counted, Mr Romney had an unassailable lead in both states over Rick Santorum in second.

Michigan was seen as vital for Mr Romney, who was born in the state, but he had struggled to win over conservative voters. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul did not actively campaign in Arizona and Michigan, focusing on contests scheduled for next week.in Arizona, Mr Romney had 47% of the votes to Mr Santorum's 27%; and was ahead in Michigan by 41% to 38%.

Mr Gingrich was on course to poll 16% in Arizona, with Mr Paul on 8%. In Michigan, Mr Paul has won 12% of the vote, with 7% for Mr Gingrich.

The two primaries come ahead of "Super Tuesday" on 6 March, when Republicans in 10 states will vote for their chosen presidential delegate.

Those contests could prove decisive in naming a Republican winner to take on President Barack Obama in November.Proclaiming his win in Novi, Michigan, Mr Romney told supporters he would hammer home a consistent campaign message in the coming weeks.

"We need more jobs, less debt and smaller government. We've got to hear that day-in and day-out," he said.

Mr Romney - whose father served as Michigan's governor - also criticised Mr Obama for his economic policy and argued that the US "needs a recovery from this recovery".

What we can't afford is four more years of Barack Obama with nothing to answer to."
Moments after he called Mr Romney to concede victory, Mr Santorum thanked his voters for their backing.

He told supporters he came into "the backyard of his opponent" and did better than expected.

Mr Santorum used his speech to say that as president, he would reclaim manufacturing jobs, cut the corporate tax rate to zero and "repeal every single one of Barack Obama's big government regulations on day one".

Mr Romney will be awarded all of Arizona's 29 presidential nominating delegates, but will share Michigan's 30 delegates, as a district-based system is in place in the Wolverine State.
The Arizona win comes after a barely contested race there, with campaign resources mainly deployed elsewhere in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, Mr Romney appeared to acknowledge that he has had trouble winning over conservative voters in a state where he was expected to do well.
He said his disconnect with the party's right-wing stemmed from his unwillingness to make "incendiary" comments.

Mr Romney is a multimillionnaire former governor of Massachusetts who has made much of his business background on his well-funded campaign trail.

In the end, exit polling in both Michican and Arizona showed that about half of voters "strongly" backed the candidate they voted for.In Michigan, the state's primary rules allow non-Republicans to register as party members and vote in the primary - meaning that around 10% of all voters identified themselves as Democrats.Tuesday's two primaries were the first test for Mr Santorum since a three-state sweep in primary and caucus earlier in February.
Mr Romney won earlier contests in New Hampshire and Florida, but had struggled in recent weeks.



 

Can three minutes of exercise a week help make you fit?

A few relatively short bursts of intense exercise, amounting to only a few minutes a week, can deliver many of the health and fitness benefits of hours of conventional exercise, according to new research, says Dr Michael Mosley. But how much benefit you get from either may well depend on your genes.
Genetic test
So if I could improve my insulin sensitivity and my aerobic fitness then that should improve my general health. But Jamie said there was a potential sting in the tail. There was a possibility that I wouldn't improve. Not because HIT doesn't work but because I've inherited the wrong genes.

FIND OUT MORE

The fact is that people respond to exercise in very different ways. In one international study 1,000 people were asked to exercise four hours a week for 20 weeks. Their aerobic fitness was measured before and after starting this regime and the results were striking.Although 15% of people made huge strides (so-called "super-responders"), 20% showed no real improvement at all ("non-responders").

There is no suggestion that the non-responders weren't exercising properly, it was simply that the exercise they were doing was not making them any aerobically fitter.


Full throttle
It's actually very simple. You get on an exercise bike, warm up by doing gentle cycling for a couple of minutes, then go flat out for 20 seconds.

A couple of minutes to catch your breath, then another 20 seconds at full throttle. Another couple of minutes gentle cycling, then a final 20 seconds going hell for leather. And that's it.

So how does it work? According to Jamie, and other researchers I spoke to, part of the explanation is (probably) that HIT uses far more of our muscle tissue than classic aerobic exercise.When you do HIT, you are using not just the leg muscles, but also the upper body including arms and shoulders, so that 80% of the body's muscle cells are activated, compared to 20-40% for walking or moderate intensity jogging or cycling.
Active exercise also seems to be needed to break down the body's stores of glucose, deposited in your muscles as a substance called glycogen. Smash up these glycogen stores and you create room for more glucose to be sucked out of the blood and stored.

Somewhat sceptical I went off and dutifully did my four weeks of HIT, making a grand total of 12 minutes of intense exercise and 36 minutes of gentle pedalling. I then went back to the lab to be retested.
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The results were mixed. My insulin sensitivity had improved by a remarkable 24%, which was extremely satisfying, but my aerobic fitness had not improved at all.

St Paul's protest: Occupy London camp evicted

Police and bailiffs have evicted anti-capitalist protesters and removed tents from the Occupy London camp at St Paul's Cathedral.The operation, which began just after midnight, was mostly peaceful but there were 20 arrests.

Occupy London was refused permission to appeal against a High Court decision to allow their eviction to proceed.The City of London Corporation said it "regretted" that it had become necessary to evict the protesters.Occupy London, which campaigns against corporate greed, set up the camp on 15 October.Protesters in the square outside the cathedral stressed their action was far from over, but most did not resist police and bailiffs as they removed tents and other equipment from the site.

Occupy London, which campaigns against corporate greed, set up the camp on 15 October.Protesters in the square outside the cathedral stressed their action was far from over, but most did not resist police and bailiffs as they removed tents and other equipment from the site.
'Drama of event' A handful defied police by erecting a temporary structure from wooden pallets in the square outside St Paul's but the platform was eventually dismantled.
The High Court decided last week that the City of London Corporation's move to evict the camp was "lawful and justified".
The City of London Corporation was granted orders of possession and injunctions by the court

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George Barda, one of the five protesters who appealed against the High Court's decision, told the BBC he had "mixed emotions".
But he said: "It's not the beginning of the end, it's the end of the beginning.
"My personal concern is that we don't allow the drama of this event to eclipse the huge and important issues that we in this country and billions across the world are increasingly facing.


'Maintain order'

The City of London Corporation said in a statement: "The City of London Corporation has begun to enforce the High Court orders for the removal of the tents and equipment outside St Paul's.

"We regret that it has come to this but the High Court Judgment speaks for itself and the Court of Appeal has confirmed that judgment.

Occupy protester George Barda believes the group will continue to grow

"High Court enforcement officers employed by the City of London Corporation are undertaking the removal with the police present to ensure public safety and maintain order. The City of London Corporation is ensuring vulnerable people are being helped and supported to find appropriate accommodation in partnership with Broadway, a charity for the homeless."
A statement from City of London Police said: "At 12.10 tonight, bailiffs employed by the City of London Corporation began enforcing a High Court order for the removal of tents and equipment outside St Paul's Cathedral.

"Officers from the City of London Police supported by Metropolitan Police are present to ensure public safety, maintain order and facilitate lawful protest.

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Once Film-Focused, Netflix Transitions to TV Shows

Belying the “flix” in its name, Netflix is now primarily an Internet streaming service for television shows, not feature films.       
TV series now account for more than half of all Netflix viewing. That helps to explain why this Wednesday — the long-awaited moment when motion picture classics like “Scarface” and newer hits like “Toy Story 3” will vanish from the streaming service — is not the doomsday that it was once expected to be.

The vanishing films are from Starz. Its three-and-a-half-year-old deal helped Netflix persuade millions of people to sign up for Internet streaming, hastening the company’s leap to digital distribution from physical DVDs.

It became clear about a year ago that the deal would not be renewed. By then, though, Netflix was bulking up on old TV episodes and, in a direct challenge to HBO, beginning to distribute its own original shows for the streaming service.

Analysts say the prioritizing of television partly explains why the company has been able to retain about 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the United States — totaling one in four households that have broadband — despite complaints about an inadequate feature film selection. It’s a transition that Netflix has made rather successfully in the last six to 12 months, in stark contrast to its botched plan to spin off DVD-by-mail into a separate company called Qwikster last fall.

While the end of the Starz deal is bad news for Netflix, said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research, “given the significant increase in TV viewing, it’s not the catastrophic event that everyone thought it would be a year ago.”

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The new-release movies provided by Starz account for just 2 percent of all viewing, Netflix says, down from 8 percent a year ago — illuminating the fact that the company has spent lavishly on new streaming titles that subscribers want to watch instead. (“I would contend Netflix spends wisely rather than lavishly,” a Netflix spokesman, Steve Swasey, said in response.)

Many of the new titles are full seasons of TV series like “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “Lost” that Netflix executives call “26-hour movies.”

The pivot to TV reruns was necessitated in part by the tightening of the movie spigot by major movie studios. Fearing that Netflix might grow too popular or powerful, the studios “have decided to dramatically raise prices” for films and shows, said Youssef H. Squali, a managing director for Jefferies & Company.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Gains More Power After Political Crisis

BAGHDAD — When Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki rounded up hundreds of former Baathists, accused the vice president of running a hit squad and threatened to use the apparatus of state to target other top Sunni leaders, some rivals and critics said that Mr. Maliki’s authoritarian streak had finally antagonized enough of Iraq’s political class to jeopardize his hold on power.       

Instead, Mr. Maliki appears to have emerged from a potentially destabilizing political crisis with even more power over the Iraqi state and more popularity among his Shiite constituents, many people here said.

“People trust him more and more after this,” said Rahman Tal Jukon, a retired businessman in Hilla, a town in the Shiite-dominated south where expressions of support for Mr. Maliki, once tepid, are now more common and enthusiastic. “He is a brave man. He has guts.”

Mr. Maliki’s political calculus, pushing to the edge of a full-blown crisis, appears to have paid off, though worries remain that Iraq is sliding toward one-man, one-party rule under Mr. Maliki. His rivals among the Sunnis are busy retrenching as their political leadership fractures, causing a pervasive feeling that Sunnis have lost any meaningful stake in Iraqi public life.      

In a recent report, Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, wrote: “It is clear that Maliki has come out as the winner in the political crisis he provoked. He has made it more difficult for his Shia rivals to dissent while simultaneously confining his Sunni opponents in a position suitable for exerting pressure and exploiting divisions within their ranks.”

Iraqiya, the largely Sunni bloc of lawmakers that is led by a secular Shiite, Ayad Allawi, was forced to end boycotts of Parliament and the cabinet that were staged to protest Mr. Maliki’s actions, without winning any rewards. Members of the bloc have split, and some ministers refused to participate in the boycott, adding to a sense that Sunni optimism after the 2010 parliamentary elections, when Iraqiya won the most seats, has dissipated completely.       

Zuhair Araji, a former Iraqiya member who withdrew from the party, called the boycott “unwise” and said the alliance had embarrassed itself.       

Similar sentiments are heard in the capital’s Sunni neighborhoods. “Iraqiya came back to the Parliament and the government because they failed and they have lost all their popularity in Iraq,” said Aymen Fakhry, who lives in Adhamiya.

Obaida al-Jobori, a Sunni and a restaurant owner in the Karada neighborhood of Baghdad, said: “Sunnis made a big mistake when they decided not to participate in the political process with the Shias and Kurds. They proved Sunni leaders are not experienced enough to help their people in the right manner.”       

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Obama’s Deficit Dilemma

WASHINGTON — President Obama was backstage at an auditorium at George Washington University last April preparing to give a major speech, when William M. Daley, then his chief of staff, spied an unexpected guest in the audience: Representative Paul D. Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, whose budget plan Mr. Obama was about to shred.
Try to tell the president!” Mr. Daley directed an aide.

It was too late to deliver a warning. Mr. Obama went on stage and outlined his proposal to reduce deficits — but not before he flayed the Ryan plan, saying its deep tax cuts and deeper spending reductions would harm students, seniors, the disabled and the nation.

“It’s not going to happen as long as I’m president,” Mr. Obama vowed.

Ten months later, the attack that left Mr. Ryan fuming in the front row is better remembered than the ideas Mr. Obama presented that day, administration supporters lament.

It came just a few months after the president had opted not to endorse the recommendations of a deficit commission he had created in hopes of brokering a bold, bipartisan deficit deal. That gave rise to a portrayal that has stuck, popularized by Republicans, pundits and some Democrats: that the president, out of political timidity, snubbed his own panel’s plan.

Mitt Romney, a Republican presidential candidate, recently charged that Mr. Obama “simply brushed aside” the plan by the so-called Bowles-Simpson commission (named after its two chairmen) — even though he and most Republicans reject it for its proposed tax increases. Warren E. Buffett, an Obama ally, has said ignoring the plan was “a travesty.” Former Representative John M. Spratt Jr., a Democrat on the commission, said the administration had had an opportunity “to stand up and be counted, and for the most part they weren’t there.”

Yet starting with that April speech, Mr. Obama has come to adopt most of the major tenets supported by a majority of the commission’s members, though his proposals do not go as far. He has called for cutting deficits more than $4 trillion over 10 years by shaving all spending, including for the military, Medicare and Social Security; overhauling the tax code to raise revenues and lower rates; and writing rules to lock in savings.

But he did so months after the commission’s report in December 2010, and largely without acknowledging that he was borrowing from its recommendations. That caution reflected White House concerns about liberals’ hostility to the plan and, aides say, Mr. Obama’s certainty that Republicans would reject anything he endorsed.

The story of how Mr. Obama dealt with Bowles-Simpson illuminates his struggles with the deficit politics that have curbed his ambitions and forced him to confront the limits of his persuasive powers. Faced with an even more intransigent opposition after Republicans captured the House in the 2010 elections, Mr. Obama made a tactical retreat, suppressing his instincts to “go big” in favor of a go-slow approach.

He settled into trench warfare, waiting for House Republicans to make their fiscal moves and betting they would get so much criticism that ultimately they would compromise — much like what happened between President Bill Clinton and Republicans in the 1990s. Last summer, Mr. Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner nearly clinched a “grand bargain” reducing deficits up to $3 trillion over 10 years, but the deal fell apart over taxing the wealthy — an issue that continues to divide the parties.
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In Attack on Vatican Web Site, a Glimpse of Hackers’ Tactics

SAN FRANCISCO — The elusive hacker movement known as Anonymous has carried out Internet attacks on well-known organizations like Sony and PBS. In August, the group went after its most prominent target .
The campaign against the Vatican, which did not receive wide attention at the time, involved hundreds of people, some with hacking skills and some without. A core group of participants openly drummed up support for the attack using YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Others searched for vulnerabilities on a Vatican Web site and, when that failed, enlisted amateur recruits to flood the site with traffic, hoping it would crash, according to a computer security firm’s report to be released this week.

The attack, albeit an unsuccessful one, provides a rare glimpse into the recruiting, reconnaissance and warfare tactics used by the shadowy hacking collective.

The group’s attack on the Vatican was confirmed by the hackers and is detailed in a report that Imperva, a computer security company based in Redwood City, Calif., plans to release ahead of a computer security conference here this week. It may be the first end-to-end record of a full Anonymous attack.

Though Imperva declined to identify the target of the attack and kept any mention of the Vatican out of its report, two people briefed on the investigation confirmed that it had been the target. Imperva had a unique window into the situation because it had been hired by the Vatican’s security team as a subcontractor to block and record the assault.

We have seen the tools and the techniques that were used in this attack used by other criminal groups on the Web,” said Amichai Shulman, Imperva’s chief technology officer. “What set this attack apart from others is it had a clear timeline and evolution, starting from an announcement and recruitment phase that was very public.”

The Vatican declined to comment on the attack. In an e-mail intended for a colleague but accidentally sent to a reporter, a church official wrote: “I do not think it is convenient to respond to journalists on real or potential attacks,” adding, “The more we are silent in this area the better.”

The attack was called Operation Pharisee in a reference to the sect that Jesus called hypocrites. It was initially organized by hackers in South America and Mexico before spreading to other countries, and it was timed to coincide with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Madrid in August 2011 for World Youth Day, an international event held every other year that regularly attracts more than a million Catholic youths.

Hackers initially tried to take down a Web site set up by the church to promote the event, handle registrations and sell merchandise. Their goal — according to YouTube messages delivered by an Anonymous figure in a Guy Fawkes mask — was to disrupt the event and draw attention to child sexual abuse by priests, among other issues.

The videos, which have been viewed more than 77,000 times, include a verbal attack on the pope and the young people who “have forgotten the abominations of the Catholic Church.” One calls on volunteers to “prepare your weapons, my dear brother, for this August 17th to Sunday August 21st, we will drop anger over the Vatican.”

Much as in a grass-roots lobbying campaign, the hackers spent weeks spreading their message through their own Web site and social sites like Twitter and Flickr. Their Facebook page called on volunteers to download free attack software and implored them to “stop child abuse” by joining the cause. It featured split-screen images of the pope seated on a gilded throne on one side and starving African children on the other. And it linked to articles about sexual abuse cases and blog posts itemizing the church’s assets.

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Nelson Mandela spends night in hospital

Former South African President Nelson Mandela has spent a night in hospital following what officials described as a "diagnostic procedure".Doctors stressed that 93-year-old Mr Mandela's life was not in danger and the treatment was for a long-standing abdominal complaint.The Nobel peace laureate's health has declined in recent years and he rarely appears in public.Mr Mandela is due to be discharged from hospital by Monday, officials said.On Saturday night he was said to be in a stable and comfortable condition.Earlier, President Jacob Zuma said in a statement that Mr Mandela "has had a long-standing abdominal complaint and doctors feel it needs proper specialist medical attention".

He later said that Mr Mandela had undergone a planned, undisclosed procedure.He said Mr Mandela - affectionately known in South Africa by his clan name, Madiba - was "fully conscious"."The doctors are satisfied with his condition, which they say is consistent with his age. We are happy that he is not in any danger."

It was not revealed which hospital the former leader was being treated in, however journalists set up camp outside a military hospital in the capital, Pretoria.

Mr Mandela spent 27 years in prison for fighting apartheid rule and became South Africa's first black president in 1994, serving one five-year term.

His home is in Qunu, a small rural village in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province where he was raised.

Deadly gun and bomb attack in Nigerian city of Gombe

At least four people have been killed in the northern Nigerian city of Gombe in a gun and bomb attack on a prison and police station, officials say.

Police say they repulsed the attack which they blamed on the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram.

The groups has carried out deadly attacks and assassinations across northern Nigeria in recent months.

Earlier on Friday, gunmen killed five people at a mosque in Kano, the main city in northern Nigeria, police said.

A police spokesman said the attackers arrived on motorcycles and opened fire at worshippers.Nigeria is experiencing a surge in ethnic and sectarian violence.Gombe has previously been targeted by Boko Haram. In January, an attack on a church in the city left six worshippers dead.In the latest attack, police said they successfully defended a federal prison and police station following multiple explosions and a two-hour gun battle.
In the latest attack, police said they successfully defended a federal prison and police station following multiple explosions and a two-hour gun battle.
Officials said four civilians were killed and police and army officers were injured. Last week Boko Haram said it was behind a similar attack on a prison in Kogi State which freed more than 100 prisoners.Friday's attack in Kano followed the killing of several police officers in the city. The BBC's Mark Lobel in Lagos said a member of a local militia working with the government against Boko Haram was also reported to be among the dead.
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Russia, China boycott Syria conference

The Tunisian capital, Tunis, is hosting an international conference on Syria, minus Russia and China — two key members of the United Nations Security Council — amid suspicions that the meeting, backed by the West, will seek fresh avenues to remove Bashar al-Assad from the Syrian presidency.

The meeting of the Friends of Syria is taking place outside the fold of the United Nations, where Russia and China have blocked moves to unseat Mr. Assad.

Analysts say the meeting in Tunis resembled a similar effort earlier to form the Libya Contact Group, which played a considerable part in forcing the exit of Muammar Qadhafi, who was eventually executed.

At the conference, the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC), urged participants to allow the group to import weapons and benefit from military support from member countries in order to achieve its political goals. “If the regime fails to accept the terms of the political initiative outlined by the Arab League and end violence against citizens, the Friends of Syria should not constrain individual countries from aiding the Syrian opposition by means of military advisers, training and provision of arms to defend themselves,” it said in a statement.

The conference is expected to designate the SNC as the “legitimate” representative of the opposition, just short of accepting it as a government-in-waiting. Later, the conference, is likely to ask Syria, in the form of a declaration, to announce a ceasefire and permit humanitarian assistance in the areas that are badly engulfed in violence.

In a telephone conversation with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, was explicit in defining Western motives in Syria. Iran's Fars News Agency (FNA) quoted him as saying that “certain trans-regional powers seek Syria's disintegration which is a threat to Middle East security”.

Mr. Ahmadinejad, on his part, focused on joint activism with Russia on Syria. “Given their common views and positions, Iran and Russia must make more effort to help establish peace in the region and prevent foreign intervention.” The Iranian President, joining Russia and China whose leaders hold similar views, said that the Syrian crisis could end if foreign intervention was stopped, and reforms proposed by the Assad government were adequately enforced.

Russia and Iran appear to be covering considerable common ground on Syria. Both countries have recently sent their warships to the Syrian port of Tartus, to demonstrate their tangible support for Mr. Assad.

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In secret deal, ISI allows U.S. drone war to resume

Pakistan's military has agreed to the resumption of the United States' drone strikes against terrorist groups operating on its soil, highly-placed diplomatic sources told The Hindu.

The agreement, the sources said, was hammered out by Inter-Services Intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Shuja Ahmad Pasha and Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus at a secret meeting in Doha last month.

The pact ends a six-week cessation of operation that began after a November 26, 2011 U.S. airstrike claimed the lives of 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Islamabad had responded to the deaths by shutting down drone flights from the Shamsi in Balochistan, and ordering dozens of CIA staff out of the country.

Pakistan's intelligence chief also agreed, the sources said, to allow the CIA to expand its presence at the Shahbaz airbase near Abbottabad. The base is a key hub for the CIA's field networks to identify targets and plant electronic microchips that guide drone-fired missiles to their targets.

The drone agreement, a senior western official familiar with the negotiations told The Hindu, was driven by Pakistani intelligence's desire for greater influence in ongoing negotiations in Doha between the U.S. and the Taliban.

It also reflected, he said, the realisation that the U.S. support would be critical to rescheduling repayment of loans from the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral institutions.

Nine drone strikes have taken place since the meeting. Badr Mansoor, believed by the CIA to be al-Qaeda's seniormost Pakistani commander, was killed in one attack on February 9. Aslam Awan, another alleged al-Qaeda commander, was killed in a strike on January 10.

Even though upwards of 30 people have been killed in the new wave of strikes, there have been no protest from the Pakistan Army or politicians — in stark contrast to the fury aroused by similar attacks last year.

ISI about-turn

Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables show that both Pakistan Army Chief Parvez Kayani and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had secretly authorised the drone campaign, even while opposing it in public.

The Pakistan Army, however, stepped up its opposition to the drone programme last year, seeking to use it as a bargaining chip to deter CIA operations targeting terrorist networks with close links to the ISI, like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Afghan jihadist Sirajuddin Haqqani's networks.

Following a strike directed at Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, which claimed over 40 lives, General Kayani called the drone operations “intolerable.”

The drone war, his aides privately argued, had made Pakistan a target of retaliatory bombings by terrorists, and diminished the ISI's influence with jihadist groups at home and in Afghanistan.
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Carnival dazzles Rio de Janeiro

A reveller from the Unidos da Tijuca samba school takes part in the second night of the annual Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, February 21, 2012. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes (BRAZIL  )

Drum queen Bruna Almeida of the Sao Clemente samba school takes part in a parade on the second night of the annual Carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome, February 20, 2012. REUTERS/Sergio Moraes  

Resolute Putin Faces a Russia That’s Changed

MOSCOW — A guest hovering around the doorway of an elegant restaurant last fall glimpsed a ritual worthy of a czar.       

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin stopped in his tracks, eyes ahead, arms hovering at his sides. An aide materialized, silently whisked away Mr. Putin’s parka, and vanished. A second aide appeared with a sport jacket and slipped it over his shoulders. Then Mr. Putin resumed walking without a word or a look, “almost as if he had never stopped,” noted the guest, Clifford G. Gaddy, an American scholar.

Mr. Putin, who grew up in a hardscrabble Soviet housing block, has spent more than a decade in a byzantine world of petitioners and servants. Now, in the year he turns 60, he will face his biggest challenge: coming to grips with a society that has greatly changed under his watch, while he has remained essentially the same.

Mr. Putin now seems assured of a convincing victory in the first round of the presidential election on March 4, making a runoff unnecessary. The emerging threat to his rule has slid beneath the surface. But it will follow him across the six years of his third presidential term, as he will be forced to respond to a populace beginning to demand more of a stake in the governing of Russia.

With his once phenomenal popularity gradually waning, Mr. Putin will have to find other ways to guarantee his legitimacy.

On Thursday, Mr. Putin made a surprise appearance at a campaign rally. According to police estimates, 130,000 people jammed into Luzhniki Stadium, waving signs with messages like “Putin, the path to the future” and “We don’t want revolution” and “There is no alternative.” When Mr. Putin stepped onto the stage — a small figure in a black parka — the atmosphere in the stadium seemed to twitch, and he was met with a sustained roar of approval. 

 The pomp cannot obscure the fact that Mr. Putin, who served eight years as president and four as prime minister, is embarking on his final act as Russia’s leader. A banker close to Mr. Putin advised him in a recent article not to extend his rule after this six-year term, commenting that “in the opinion of many people, it is not simply a very long time, it is too long.” In 2008, the Constitution was amended to lengthen the presidential term to six years from four.

New tasks are at hand, like searching for a trusted person to whom Mr. Putin can eventually transfer his authority, just as Boris N. Yeltsin did with Mr. Putin 12 years ago.  

           

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