2012-04-13

A 40-year-old Saudi man suffering from mental illness vanished

A 40-year-old Saudi man suffering from mental illness vanished while having treatment at a local hospital and his brother said he could have been snatched by the witches, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Ahmed Ghalib Mousa, a former teacher, had been admitted to hospital in the southern province of Jazan for treatment of sudden psychological problems, the Arabic language daily Sabq said.
“We then brought a local Sheikh to read Koran on him and the Sheikh told us that my brother is under a magic spell,” his younger brother, Abdo Mousa, said.
“After a few days, he just vanished….we later received a phone call from some citizens in another area saying they had seen my brother wearing sport clothes and walking in a small village there.”

2012-04-12

BlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook Fighter jets reported over Pyongyang as North Korea readies rocket

Fighter jets roared through the skies over downtown Pyongyang on Thursday as the world watched to see whether North Korea would defy international warnings and launch a long-range rocket over the Yellow Sea.

The five-day window for the launch of a rocket mounted with an observation satellite opened Thursday as North Koreans woke to details about developments at a Workers' Party conference where leader Kim Jong Un ascended to top posts and brought with him a new generation of officials.

His father, Kim Jong Il, was granted the posthumous title of "eternal general secretary" at the special one-day party conference Wednesday. The immortalization of the late leader provided a glimpse into how North Korea will handle the nation's second hereditary succession and indicates he will be honored much in the same way his father, Kim Il Sung, was made "eternal president" following his 1994 death.

Footage on state TV on Thursday showed Kim Jong Un seated at the front of the conference with white statues of his grandfather and a new statue of his father in his trademark khaki work ensemble, one arm on his hip. On Mansu Hill, once the domain of a huge bronze statue of Kim Il Sung, a second covered statue awaits its unveiling. more

2012-04-08

North Korea moves rocket into position.

North Korea moves rocket into position for launch

Pyongyang vows to go ahead with launch of what it says is a satellite, but US fears is a disguised long-range missile test.

North Korea has moved three stages of a long-range rocket into position for a controversial launch in defiance of international warnings against violating a ban on missile activity.

Foreign news agencies were allowed a firsthand look at preparations under way at the coastal Sohae satellite station in north-western North Korea.

North Korea announced plans last month to launch an observation satellite during mid-April celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il Sung. The US, Japan, Britain and other nations have urged North Korea to cancel the launch, warning that firing the long-range rocket would violate UN resolutions and Pyongyang's promise to refrain from engaging in nuclear and missile activity.

North Korea say that the launch is a intended to improve the nation's faltering economy by providing detailed surveys of the countryside.

"Our country has the right and also the obligation to develop satellites and launching vehicles," Jang Myong Jin, general manager of the launch facility. "No matter what others say, we are doing this for peaceful purposes." Read More

Syria: We will not Pull our Troops and Allow "armed terrorist groups" commit attacks,

(CNN) -- Syria will not commit to pulling armed forces from cities only to have "armed terrorist groups" commit attacks, a Syrian foreign ministry spokesman said Sunday as opposition activists reported more than 30 deaths in the restive nation.

The comments, made by Jihad Maqdisi on state-run TV, came two days before a Tuesday deadline for regime forces to withdraw from cities, which the government had agreed to as part of a peace plan laid out by U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan.

But "Annan did not give written assurances that the armed groups would turn in their weapons," Makdissi said.

Annan has said he expects rebel fighters to also cease fire after the Tuesday deadline, but the deadline itself was for regime forces to withdraw from cities. Read More

2012-04-07

Robber left phone with his photo

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police say an accused armed robber left his cell phone at the crime scene, complete with a digital photo of himself posing with the same handgun he used to threaten his victims.

The Charlotte Observer reports that 27-year-old Joseph Faulk of Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested Wednesday after officers searched a car in which he was a passenger. They found a pistol and a red bandanna stuffed in the waistband of Faulk's pants.

The day before, a man armed with a handgun and wearing a red bandana robbed three men in apartment complexes on the city's east side. During the first robbery, police say Faulk dropped his phone. After his subsequent arrest for firearms possession by a felon, police linked Faulk to the robberies through the phone photo.

2012-04-06

Jose Wejebe Killed.

Authorities say it appears the host of a popular fishing show was killed when his single-engine plane crashed in southwest Florida.

The Collier County Sheriff's Office reports that a small plane owned by Jose Wejebe crashed into a field around 5 p.m. Friday, shortly after taking off from an Everglades City airpark.

One body was recovered from the wreckage. A medical examiner still has to officially confirm the identity, but investigators believe it was Wejebe.

The Cuban-born angler hosted "Spanish Fly," a saltwater fishing show on the Outdoor Channel and formerly ESPN.

2012-04-05

North Korea invites 8 nations, Europe to observe satellite launch

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- North Korea has invited the space agencies of eight countries, including Japan, the United States, China and Russia, and the European Space Agency to observe the launch of an Earth observation satellite on a long-distance rocket sometime between April 12 and 16, Japanese government sources said Wednesday.

The invitation to the eight countries and the ESA is seen as Pyongyang's attempt to gain international recognition for North Korea as an advanced nation in space development, the sources said.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, has declined the invitation, while the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, also informed North Korea on Tuesday that, at the direction of the Japanese Cabinet, no one from the agency will be attending the launch.

While the Japanese government is urging Russia and China to also refrain from attending the event, there are voices within the Japanese government saying that by not attending the launch, Japan ''has missed a prime opportunity to collect information related to the development of missiles'' in North Korea, the sources said. Read More

2012-04-03

Syria Violence continues.

Syria violence undiminished by ceasefire deal

(Reuters) - Opposition activists accused Syrian troops of shelling two cities on Tuesday in a campaign to weaken forces fighting President Bashar al-Assad's government before a ceasefire deadline next week.

Rebel fighters also kept up their attacks, killing three soldiers in separate actions in northern Syria, activists said.

Assad has agreed to a ceasefire negotiated by international peace envoy Kofi Annan from April 10, the latest effort to end a year of bloodshed stemming from an uprising against his rule.

An advance team from the U.N. peacekeeping department is due in Damascus this week to see how observers can monitor the truce, Annan's spokesman said in Geneva.

But Syrian opposition figures as well as Western governments have made clear they are not convinced that Assad, who has failed to honor past commitments, would keep his word. Read More

US faces limited options on North Korea

WASHINGTON (AP) Despite tough talk from President Barack Obama, the United States and its allies have limited options if North Korea goes ahead with its planned long-range rocket launch in mid-April.

Washington is likely to take the matter to the U.N. Security Council, analysts say, and could tighten its already tough sanctions. Such efforts would struggle without support from China, which can be expected to resist any moves that might threaten the stability of its neighbor.

There also is deep uncertainty about where turning the screw further on North Korea would lead. After the Security Council condemned its previous long-range rocket launch in 2009, North Korea responded by kicking out U.N. nuclear inspectors, pulling out of aid-for-disarmament negotiations and conducting its second detonation of an atomic device.

"At minimum, there has to be a statement of criticism" at the Security Council, said Gordon Flake, a Washington-based Korea analyst. "The question is how North Korea will react, and history suggests it won't react well." Read More

Tornadoes reported near Dallas-Fort Worth area

The National Weather Service says tornadoes have touched down in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and there is at least one report of damage.

Weather service advisories issued Tuesday said storm spotters and radar revealed separate tornadoes south of Dallas and Fort Worth. The weather service says the tornado south of Fort Worth caused "considerable damage" near Cleburne.

Local television footage shows a large funnel cloud on the ground near Interstate 35 south of Dallas. The weather service says the "large and extremely dangerous" tornado was near Lancaster about 20 miles south of Dallas and moving north.

The weather service is also reporting other developing tornadoes as a band of severe ststorms moves through the area.

A tornado watch is in effect for most of the counties in north Texas.

Levi Johnston hasn't learned anything yet?

Levi Johnston appears not to have learned any lessons about birth control after impregnating Bristol Palin at age 18.
TMZ reports that Johnston's girlfriend of a year and a half, 20-year-old preschool teacher Sunny Oglesby, is pregnant. Sources tell the site that she is less than three months along and thus has not widely announced the news. Johnston is reported to be "so excited" about becoming a father for the second time.
Johnston was thrust into the national spotlight in September of 2008, holding then-girlfriend Bristol Palin's hand as her mother Sarah Palin accepted the vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention. As it was announced that Bristol Palin was pregnant, Johnston told the Associated Press that he was excited to have a son and marry his girlfriend, denying reports that he was being pressured into a wedding.

Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic.com

Levi Johnston's new girlfriend is reported to be pregnant. This would be Johnston's second child.

Facebook/Sunny Oglesby

Johnston and Sunny Oglesby have been dating for a year and a half.

2012-04-02

George Zimmerman's Death

George Zimmerman’s Brother Says Shooter ‘Would Be Dead’ Had He Not Killed Trayvon Martin

2012-04-01

US credit card security breach

Visa, MasterCard, American Express, discover hit

Reuters

Published Sunday, April 01, 2012

The US Secret Service is investigating a major cyber intrusion at an Atlanta-based payment processor that could expose millions of MasterCard, Visa, American Express and Discover cardholders to fraudulent charges.

Processor Global Payments Inc said on Friday it had found "unauthorised access" into its system early in March and notified law enforcement and financial institutions.

Payment network operators MasterCard Inc, Visa Inc , American Express Co and Discover Financial Services confirmed they were affected, along with banks and other franchises that issue cards bearing their logos.

A spokesman for the Secret Service said the agency is leading investigations into the case but declined to give any details.

Though Global Payments is far from a household name, middlemen such as the company is prized targets f or hackers because of the vast amount of sensitive financial information they handle.

The company's stock fell more than 9 percent on the news before trading was halted. It said it would discuss the breach in a phone call for investors on Monday.

It was not immediately clear how Global Payments was penetrated or how many accounts were exposed. Consumers who detect fraud usually can be reimbursed. That leaves merchants on the hook financially, though they could file claims against Global Payments.

Analyst s said MasterCard and Visa are unlikely to face costs from the breach, but MasterCard shares fell 1.8 percent to close at $420.54 and Visa shares dropped 0.8 percent to $118.

The security breach is just the latest in a long string of incidents that have put the personal information of millions of credit and debit cardholders at risk.

Individual banks and processors said they had not yet determined the full extent of the breach, but the blog Krebs on Security, which first reported the breach, said it was "massive" and could affect more than 10 million cardholders.

Some industry experts suggested the figure might be much lower, perhaps on the order of tens of thousands. Bernstein Research analyst Rod Bourgeois noted that Global Payments is a relatively small player in the transactions services industry, servicing 800,000 merchants with a 3.5 percent market share. By contrast, the largest competitor, First Data, services millions of merchants, with 22.6 percent of the market.

JPMorgan Chase & Co, as well as American Express and Discover, which issue their own cards, said they are monitoring customers' accounts and would issue new cards to anyone whose information may have been compromised.

Citigroup Inc said it has been notified by processors of the breach. Bank of America Corp declined to comment on the matter and Wells Fargo & Co said it was too early to comment on the impact.

Banks and processors emphasized customers would not be held liable for any fraudulent charges that may occur.

Michael Simons, chief executive of real-estate research company Altos Research, said he may have been a victim.

Simons said he was contacted by Bank of America last week about his Visa card. Although there were no unauthorized transactions, the representative told him a vendor or law enforcement agency had flagged his account as compromised and so he would receive a new one.

"It was very unusual," he said.

PROCESSING PIPELINE

Global Payments, which has about 3,700 employees, was spun off from information-services firm National Data Corp in 2001. For the fiscal year ended May 31, Global Payment reported revenue of $1.9 billion, up 13 percent from the year-earlier period. According to a company presentation in January, it estimated fiscal 2012 revenue at about $2.15 billion.

Global Payments is scheduled to report fiscal third-quarter results on Wednesday and an improvement is expected. On Wednesday, Sterner Agee raised its stock price target for Global Payments to $65 from $58.

Global Payments is one of dozens of companies that operate along the payment-processing chain, between the time a person swipes a card to pay and the time the payment is delivered.

The account number, expiration date and possibly the cardholder's name is sent from the point of payment to a processor, which then connects to Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover. Information is then sent to the card issuer - often a bank - which ultimately authorises the transaction.

The actual transfer of money occurs later.

Processing companies, which perform millions of authorizations each day, are supposed to encrypt card information. But a breach could occur if someone gains access to the system and identifies a gap in the encryption.

The information that was likely collected illegally from Global Payments is called Track 1 and Track 2 data. A person improperly using the information can transfer the account number and expiration date to a magnetic strip on a card and then try to use the card on a website.

Thousands of U.S. banks that issue credit and debit cards receive daily alerts regarding breaches, said Thomas McCrohan, an analyst with Jane Capital Markets.

The illegal use of the data could be stymied if an online merchant asks for the three or four digits printed on a card known as the "CV code."

"The systems can all be made tighter, but if they're too tight no transactions would ever be approved," said Edward Lawrence, a director at Auriemma Consulting Group, a payment systems consultant. "You still have to allow commerce to occur."

Rep. Mary Bono, a California Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade, condemned the Global Payments breach and urged Congress to adopt stronger data-security legislation this year.

"You shouldn't have to cross your fingers and whisper a prayer when you type in a credit card number on your computer and hit 'enter,'" she said in a statement.

RIPPLE EFFECTS

The breach is the first major instance this year of consumer information put at risk by technological flaws or hacking, but there are plenty of examples of massive data breaches in recent years affecting banks, retailers, technology companies and payment processors.

Last June, Citigroup said computer hackers breached the bank's network and accessed data of about 200,000 cardholders in North America.

Sony Corp also reported several recent attacks, including one last year in which hackers accessed the personal information on 77 million PlayStation Network accounts.

Google Inc suffered a major attack on its Gmail accounts in 2011 that it said appeared to originate in China. Attacks against Gmail users involved direct attempts to compromise accounts by tricking users into revealing information - so-called "phishing" - or by gathering their passwords from other websites, rather than compromising Google systems, according to the company.

Separately, TJX Co Inc and Heartland Payment Systems Inc have had their systems compromised.

On Friday, retailers were already beginning to look for fraudulent purchases from the compromised card accounts stemming from the Global Payments breach. They will bear the financial brunt of those crimes under rules worked out with the card associations and issuers, analysts said.

"Our merchant community is sitting here girding itself and looking at their own fraud-prevention strategies and bracing for the influx of bad transactions," said Tom Donlea, managing director for the Americas at the nonprofit Merchant Risk Council. "After Heartland and after the Sony breach, there was an increase in fraud activity."

Egyptian hacks off man's penis

Egyptian family hacks off mum’s lover's body part

A family was arrested in Cairo for chopping off a man’s penis, reported an Egyptian daily.

Published Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A family was arrested in Cairo for chopping off a man’s penis, reported an Egyptian daily.

The 46-year old mother, identified as NZB, was in an illicit relationship with a man identified as MMA who is 38-years old.

The woman had been away from home for a month when her family discovered about the relationship.

NZB’s children and her husband decided to take revenge. MMA was dragged into a nearby village where the men along with three other people cut off his reproductive organ.

The police found the victim after they received a tip off from the residents of the village.

MMA was found in the village with clothes soaked in blood.

The victim and the mother were living together in an apartment purchased by NZB.

Investigations revealed that MMA was interested in NZB only because of her money.

The accused were arrested after four days of investigation.

U.S. halting food aid means scrapping food-for-nuke deal: North Korea

BEIJING (Kyodo) -- North Korea warned the United States on Saturday that suspending food aid to the country under a bilateral food-for-nuclear deal would amount to scrapping the agreement "in its entirety."

The deal, struck in Beijing and announced Feb. 29, commits North Korea to implement moratoriums on nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and uranium enrichment activities in exchange for 240,000 tons of U.S. food aid.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry sounded the warning in criticizing the United States for signaling the suspension of planned food aid if Pyongyang goes ahead with the launch of a "satellite" in mid-April that Washington says violates a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution.

The United States "responded to the DPRK's planned satellite launch with the announcement to stop following through on its commitment to food aid. This would be a regrettable act of scrapping the DPRK-U.S. agreement in its entirety as it is a violation of the core articles of the February 29 DPRK-U.S. agreement," a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official Korean Central News Agency. Read More

Bomb attacks by Muslim Separatists in southern Thailand kill 16, injuring more than 400 People

BANGKOK (Kyodo) -- Muslim separatists unleashed a series of bomb attacks in southern Thailand on Saturday, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 400, authorities said Sunday.

National police chief Gen. Priewphan Damapong said a deadly explosion and fire at a hotel and shopping complex in Hat Yai, Songkhla Province, on Saturday was caused by a car bomb planted in an underground parking area.

The blast and fire, which occurred at around noon at the 33-story Lee Gardens Plaza Hotel building, killed five people, including a Malaysian national, and injured more than 300 others, local police officials said.

An hour earlier, three explosions in rapid succession occurred in a busy downtown area of Yala city, Yala Province, killing 11 people and injuring 127 others, the Public Health Ministry said. Read More

Britons urged to leave Mali as rebel gunmen attack northern city of Gao ten days after claiming capital

British citizens currently in Mali, in west Africa are being urged to leave.

The Foreign Office has changed its travel advice, urging all but those who have urgent business there to leave.

The new advice follows an attempted coup last week and specifically warns those in the capital, Bamako, to be cautious.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said: 'We advise against all travel to Mali and you should leave if you have no pressing need to remain.'

It said a curfew that had been imposed from 6pm to 6am had now been lifted, but added: 'We continue to advise British nationals in Bamako to exercise caution and stay away from crowds and demonstrations when travelling around the city.

'There have been reports of some shops beginning to run low on supplies and of long queues forming outside some banks. Read More

Mali: Army Forced Back By Major Rebel Assault

Mali's army has reportedly abandoned its military bases around the key northern garrison town of Gao after a fierce assault by heavily-armed rebels.

The defeat was the latest for the army after a lightning 48-hour advance by northern rebels seeking to capitalise on chaos in the West African country after last week's coup.

Junta leader Captain Amadou Sanogo read a statement on state television, saying: "Given the proximity of the camps to residential areas, our forces decided not to fight."

One civilian source told Reuters news agency that rebels had already occupied both main bases around the town while another source said just one of the two camps was now under rebel control. No fighting was visible in Gao itself.

"The army has hit the road to Bamako," said the civilian source of the road towards the capital around 600 miles further south. Read More

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