Sunday, 30 September 2012

Egypt's top military commander promises army overhaul

CAIRO | Sat Sep 29, 2012 4:04pm EDT

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's most senior military commander has promised better training and more modern weaponry for the army in an apparent effort to satisfy officers' demands for change, which have multiplied after an uprising last year.

Commander-in-Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who is also the defense minister, was appointed by the country's first Islamist president Mohamed Mursi only last month and is under pressure to shake up a military which until recently had held the balance of power in Egypt for decades.

Addressing troops last week during the first military drill in a series to mark the 39th anniversary of the 1973 war with Israel, Sisi reassured troops that change was on its way despite the fact that the drill was being conducted using old arms like the Soviet BM-21, a rocket launcher in use for 40 years.

"We will devise a comprehensive programme that develops real training for the forces in all military branches to maximize the performance of individual officers and soldiers during my time here," he said, according to a live recording of his speech obtained by Reuters.

Addressing troops participating in the drill, which took place along Egypt's western border with Libya, Sisi, 57, acknowledged that Egypt's military capabilities trailed those of other armies.

The army would replace some of its arsenal within 3-6 months and was working to extend the range of a missile system known as "Saqr" to 45 kilometers, he said.

"Regarding the status of our military equipment, we may feel that some of it is modest but we must work with what arsenal we have. We will not be able to change all of our hardware completely. What we can do is achieve the highest standards of shooting and efficiency. This will compensate for the modest equipment we are gradually trying to replace," he said.

Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually from the United States but officials say that is not enough for the country to keep up with rivals such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. Officers have said the U.S. money benefits American arms manufacturers as it forces Egypt to buy outdated weaponry.

PRESSURE OVER SINAI

Sisi's comments appeared to be aimed at army officers who have said they view Egypt's revolution - which toppled veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak last year - as their own chance to win better salaries and improved conditions and training.

Sisi is also under pressure to tighten up security in the Sinai Peninsula, a desert area which borders Israel, and to crack down hard on Islamist militants operating there.

President Mursi sacked Sisi's predecessor, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi last month along with other senior military and police officials after an attack blamed on Islamist militants killed 16 Egyptian border guards in the area.

Israel, which has repeatedly urged Egypt's new rulers to tackle the Sinai problem is looking on nervously and is uneasy that Egypt is now being governed by Islamists.

Israeli troops used to occupy the Sinai Peninsula, the scene of several conflicts between it and Cairo, but withdrew in 1982.

To many officers, Sisi's words were a break with previous senior commanders who had been criticized for not developing the army's capacities.

Unlike previous drills, Sisi organized a discussion between lower ranking officers and commanders to try to ensure that lessons were learned and that the concerns of officers were heard.

One commander later remarked that Sisi "had introduced a new approach" to communications between officers and their superiors.

Officers say Sisi's elevation to the country's most senior military role upset many senior commanders who had a longer and richer record of service than him.

Earlier this month, Sisi - in coordination with Mursi - issued a list of long-serving generals who he said would retire, opening the door to more promotions, local papers reported.

(Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/29/us-egypt-military-drill-idUSBRE88S0GJ20120929?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

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Why Angel Investors Don?t Make Money ? And Advice For People Who Are Going To Become Angels Anyway

Andy RachleffEditor's note:?Andy Rachleff is President and CEO of Wealthfront, an SEC-registered online financial advisor. He serves as a member of the board of trustees and vice chairman of the endowment investment committee for University of Pennsylvania and as a member of the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses on technology entrepreneurship.?Prior to Wealthfront, Andy co-founded and was general partner of Benchmark Capital. Everywhere I go in Silicon Valley I hear people discussing their angel investments. The conversations remind me of fish stories. People love recounting the one time they caught a big fish, not the many futile hours they spent waiting for a bite.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2OGsb6_oJCs/

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Suu Kyi could be president -Burma leader

Burmese leader Thein Sein has said he would accept democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi as president if elected, but added he could not alone amend rules that bar her from power.

The former general has paid rare tributes to Burma's Nobel laureate during a landmark tour of the US where he has burnished his reformist credentials by insisting that his country will continue its strides towards democracy after decades of army rule.

The Burmese leader, whose meeting with Suu Kyi in New York marked the latest sign of warm relations between the nation's leader and its most famous former political prisoner, told the BBC that there were 'no problems' between them.

'If the people accept her, I will have to accept her. As I said before, we are now working together,' he told the BBC in an interview aired on Saturday.

But he said he could not act alone to remove the barriers impeding the democracy champion's route to the presidency, as the country heads towards crucial 2015 elections.

Burma's constitution prohibits those with close foreign relatives from holding high office and Suu Kyi, who married a British academic, has two sons living in the West.

'I alone cannot change the constitution. This depends on the wish of the people and also the wishes of the members of parliament,' Thein Sein said.

The leader has won international plaudits - and the suspension or lifting of most Western sanctions - for the fast pace of change in Burma since he took the helm of a quasi-civilian regime last year.

Hundreds of political prisoners have been freed and Suu Kyi - herself locked up for a total of 15 years - has now entered parliament after her National League for Democracy won key by-elections in April.

Thein Sein, who was a senior figure in the previous junta, has met Suu Kyi on several occasions amid efforts to steer the long-isolated country towards democracy and economic prosperity.

In his address to the UN this week, the Burmese leader went further than ever in his praise of the veteran activist, whose struggle for change in her impoverished homeland has earned her deep affection both at home and abroad.

Source: http://bigpondnews.com/articles/TopStories/2012/09/30/Suu_Kyi_could_be_president_-Burma_leader_800709.html

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Saturday, 29 September 2012

AP Interview: Iran opposition chief sees rebirth

AUVERS-SUR-OISE, France (AP) ? The leader of an Iranian militant group that was taken off the U.S. terror list on Friday says the move will change her group's "balance of power" with the world ? predicting a higher profile in politics, fundraising and diplomacy as well as increased anti-regime activity in Iran.

The U.S. State Department said the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) hasn't committed terror for more than a decade. The decision means that effective immediately, any assets the group has in the United States are unblocked and Americans are permitted to do business with the organization.

Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in a rare interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government.

Rajavi praised the "courage" of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for what MEK believes was a long overdue decision. A court order had given Clinton until Oct. 1 to act. The group was removed from the European Union's terrorist list in 2009.

"It now has become evident for everyone that these (terror) allegations were untrue," she said. "This is a movement for freedom and democracy in Iran."

The Iranian regime is likely to be furious at the U.S. decision to delist MEK ? for years the only armed exile opposition group. The group, which began as a guerrilla movement fighting Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, helped overthrow the monarch in 1979 then quickly fell out with the Islamic Republic's first leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

MEK later teamed up with Iraq to battle Iran in an eight-year war in the 1980s, then from its Iraqi base continued military action against neighboring Iran.

A senior State Department official said Washington does not view the group as an opposition movement that can promote democratic values in Iran. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

"They are not part of our picture in terms of the future of Iran," the official said.

Still, the U.S. credited the group's 3,000-plus members at a paramilitary base near Iraq's border with Iran with a peaceful departure to another camp, a major step in their eventual departure from Iraq.

The United States contends the group was responsible for the killing of several American military officials and defense contractors in the 1970s, carrying out attacks on Iran from its base in Iraq.

Rajavi, 58, wore what has become a trademark headscarf among MEK women during the interview Friday at MEK's headquarters in the leafy town of Auvers-Sur-Oise north of Paris. She denied claims by critics that MEK has all the earmarks of a cult, blaming Iran for such allegations.

"All the energy and potential of our movement were chained" during the 15 years that MEK was listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, she said, speaking in French as well as the Iranian language of Farsi through a translator.

At its headquarters, the group was preparing for a jubilant fete on Saturday, plastering walls on the street with red drapes and photographs of "martyrs," as it refers to members who have been killed.

"The diplomatic scene will be completely different" because the group's status as a pariah will evaporate, Rajavi said, reiterating MEK's long-standing denial of terrorism.

But, she said, "the most important impact ... will be seen inside Iran."

"The balance of power, the balance of power is going to change. For example, the first message for the Iranian people will be they won't fear increasing their activity and increasing their demonstrations," she said. The fear "will evaporate ... and that will lead to the expansion of anti-regime activities within Iran."

With a clean bill of health in the West, the Iranian regime "will no longer have the excuse" of acting against an organization deemed terrorist by the United States.

Mujahedeen, protected in Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein, were disarmed after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and are disliked by the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite Muslims like those in Iran.

The United States had insisted the MEK's members leave Camp Ashraf, their home in Iraq, as a condition for removal from the terrorist list. All but several hundred militants are now located in Camp Liberty, a former U.S. base outside Baghdad, looking for placement in third countries.

Among those transferred to Camp Liberty were Rajavi's 30-year-old daughter and her 32-year-old son, she said.

A veil of mystery has long surrounded the group, not the least over the whereabouts of its main founder, Massoud Rajavi, who married Maryam and, though not seen since at least 2003, continues as its co-leader.

There has been speculation that he is dead. Rajavi said Friday he is alive but would not say where he is living.

___

Bradley Klapper contributed to this story from New York.

___

Follow Elaine Ganley at ?www.twitter.com/Elaine_Ganley.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-interview-iran-opposition-chief-sees-rebirth-232148640.html

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NASA's Curiosity Finds Water Once Flowed On Mars

NASA says it has found proof that water shaped the rocks on the left, in a photograph taken by the Mars rover Curiosity (left). For comparison, the agency released an image of rocks from the Earth (right). Enlarge NASA

NASA says it has found proof that water shaped the rocks on the left, in a photograph taken by the Mars rover Curiosity (left). For comparison, the agency released an image of rocks from the Earth (right).

NASA

NASA says it has found proof that water shaped the rocks on the left, in a photograph taken by the Mars rover Curiosity (left). For comparison, the agency released an image of rocks from the Earth (right).

NASA's newest Mars rover, Curiosity, has snapped photos of rocky outcroppings that jut out from the alien soil, and scientists say they look like the remnants of an ancient stream bed where water once flowed on the surface of the red planet.

The exposed rocks look like broken slabs of concrete sidewalk, about four inches thick, and they are made of rounded bits of gravel in a sandy matrix. The rock has eroded a little bit, and some of the smooth pebbles -? about the size of M&M candies ? have fallen down into a little pile.

Scientists looked at all this, and came to this conclusion: "This is a rock that was formed in the presence of water," says John Grotzinger, project scientist for the mission at the California Institute of Technology.

And not just any water, but a flowing stream.

Scientists have believed for a long time that Mars once had liquid water on its surface. Orbiting spacecraft can see canyons that must have been carved by water. In fact, researchers deliberately picked Curiosity's landing site because it looked like a place where a canyon stream had spilled water onto a plain ? and now it looks like they were right.

Before, we never really saw a rock on Mars where we could tell whether it was wind or water that was doing the transport. And now we have a clear sign of flowing water on Mars and we can get estimates of the size of the flow and so on. It's really fascinating.

Jim Bell, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University who is working on this mission, says the rounded pebbles and cemented sandstones look like what you would find if you were "walking up a stream in your favorite little canyon somewhere. These are all telling us that there was water really flowing across the surface there, and probably pretty deep water ? ankle-deep, knee-deep water ? like you'd have in an occasional desert flood on the Earth, in the Southwest, for example."

Other researchers agree that this is convincing evidence of flowing water. Peter Doran, at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says the rounded grains in that rock are big enough that they couldn't have been carried and smoothed by the wind.

"Before, we never really saw a rock on Mars where we could tell whether it was wind or water that was doing the transport," Doran says. "And now we have a clear sign of flowing water on Mars and we can get estimates of the size of the flow and so on. It's really fascinating."

Other Mars rovers have seen some evidence of water, but nothing like this. Andrew Knoll, a planetary sciences professor at Harvard University, says earlier rovers saw things that could be associated with groundwater that might occasionally bubble up -? not the kind of flowing surface water that made these newly discovered rocks.

"Something happened on Mars that simply doesn't happen today," Knoll says. "And that is, there was water flowing at high rates over the Martian surface. That's really what they've found."

Water is important, of course, because it's needed for life. And Curiosity's main mission is to search for evidence that Mars was once capable of supporting life. Its mission is expected to last about two years.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/28/161925428/nasas-curiosity-finds-water-once-flowed-on-mars?ft=1&f=1007

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U.S. cyber warrior accuses China of targeting Pentagon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Cyber Command's top intelligence officer accused China on Thursday of persistent efforts to pierce Pentagon computer networks and said a proposal was moving forward to boost the cyber command in the U.S. military hierarchy.

"Their level of effort against the Department of Defense is constant" while alleged Chinese attempts to steal corporate trade secrets has been growing, Rear Admiral Samuel Cox, the command's director of intelligence, told Reuters after remarks to a forum on the history of cyber threats.

The Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a U.S. intelligence arm, said in a landmark report a year ago that "Chinese actors are the world's most persistent perpetrators of economic espionage."

"It's continuing apace," Cox said. "In fact, I'd say it's still accelerating." He accused China of trying to "exfiltrate" Pentagon secrets, jargon for sneaking them out.

Asked whether any classified U.S. networks had been successfully penetrated - something not publicly known to have occurred - Cox replied: "I can't really get into that."

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the past Chinese officials have denied such accusations.

Cyber Command is responsible for defending Defense Department networks as well as mounting any U.S. offensive operations in cyberspace. It was created about two years ago as a unit of the U.S. Strategic Command, the outfit responsible for U.S. nuclear and space operations.

Cox said a proposal was moving forward to elevate the cyberwarfare unit to the status of a full unified combatant command. This would put it on the same footing as its parent Strategic Command and the Defense Department's eight other top-level military units.

The matter was headed to the secretary of defense and the president for a decision that possibly would come by the end of the year, he said.

Cox spoke after telling a conference hosted by the Atlantic Council think tank that the overall sophistication and danger of cyber threats is increasing at "an accelerating rate, not a linear rate."

"So the potential for these things to do destructive damage is very high," he said.

The United States is among the few countries reliably reported to have mounted a destructive keyboard-launched attack - against Iran's disputed nuclear centrifuges using malicious code known as Stuxnet that surfaced in 2010.

Army General Keith Alexander, who simultaneously heads Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, told a forum in July that unspecified foreign countries, hackers and criminal gangs contributed to a 17-fold jump in cyber attacks on U.S. infrastructure from 2009 to 2011.

Promoting Cyber Command in the military hierarchy would simplify its operations in cyberspace and boost its ability to work directly with U.S. government agencies, allies and coalition partners.

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Jim Loney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-cyber-warrior-accuses-china-targeting-pentagon-011916520.html

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Man Jailed for Accidentally Sexting His Whole Address Book (Including Some Tweens) [WTFriday]

You know that episode of The Newsroom where the sassy British lady accidentally emails the whole staff from her BackBerry instead of her boss? A 24-year-old swimming coach did that, but with a fairly graphic sex message. And for extra credit, he had some underaged girls in his phone. That meant trouble. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/QbsHS3zOCJI/man-jailed-for-accidentally-sexting-his-whole-address-book-including-some-tweens

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Vsion are Offering Web Design, Web Hosting & SEO Deals At ...

PRLog (Press Release) ? Sep 27, 2012 ?
Vsion Media (http://www.vsion.co.uk), a leading company from Northern Ireland specialising in web design, hosting and SEO services, today announced the launch of ?a new range of website packages at affordable prices too small to medium size businesses.

Belfast based web design (http://www.vsion.co.uk/web-design/web-design-belfast/), hosting and SEO service provider. Vsion Media is a provider of Innovative website related services and solutions for businesses both locally in Ireland & UK and internationally and are offering custom website development packages at unbeatable prices. Included in the packages that are on offer by Vsion Media to start-up or existing businesses is the wide range of web development services to fit any budget.

A spokesperson for the company said, ?This is a great time for us to be in a position to support businesses locally in Northern Ireland and also internationally with our ?affordable web design, web hosting and seo services. We listen to our customers and research your business to understand your goals and to continually improve our services to meet with the demands of today?s challenging times and business markets, most business owners are looking for high impact & creative web designs with the backup and support of additional services to get the results required in a competitive marketplace, but also reducing operational and setup costs with increased profitability and a wider reach into the marketplace.?

?At Vsion Media, clients can achieve results from our first class web designs and related services backed up by an eye for detail, friendly technical and customer support, and at affordable prices. Our newly adapted web design packages are tailor-made to suit any project size to meet the requirements of our customers, and with Vsion Media using some of the latest state-of-the-art technology available on the marketplace today clients can have access to some of the best performance driven online solutions available at a remarkably low price. We are able to provide high impact web designs and related online services that can give your business that extra reach in the market place to attract more visitors to your website and online business.?

About Vsion Media

Vsion Media is a Belfast provider of innovative web design, web hosting solutions and SEO solutions for individuals and businesses at affordable prices. The company also specialises in web development, software development, internet marketing, WordPress, Magento, email marketing, job board software, recruitment software, logo design, branding and graphic design. Vsion Media?s commitment to customer service and quality has given its customers a solid partner to work alongside with, covering a wide variety of markets and industries. The Northern Ireland based company can deliver website design services and related online solutions at affordable prices.

Contact Information:

Vsion Media

Forsyth House
Cromac Square,
Belfast
BT2 8LA
Phone: 02890 511328
Email: info@vsion.co.uk

Source: http://pr.techneologism.com/2012/09/27/vsion-are-offering-web-design-web-hosting-seo-deals-at-affordable-prices-across-northern-ireland/

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Friday, 28 September 2012

Pre-caffeine tech: Underwater Google, Apple picking!?

2 hrs.

Our?pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning.

Thousands of images from Australia's Great Barrier Reef and other coral locales are being stitched together into an eye-popping array of 360-degree panoramas for Google Maps' Street View feature?? but this million-dollar-plus project isn't just about pretty pictures. It's about sharing the wonders and the woes of the world's coral reefs with people around the globe. Pretty!

Speaking of Google, the?search giant will release Google Maps app for iOS later this year... in case you can't bear Apple's Maps.

Meanwhile,?Apple tells us that the iPhone 5 offers "even longer battery life" than any of its predecessors, but can the new smartphone keep up ?with ?? or beat ? the competition??Let's find out!

In other iPhone 5 news,?complaints about the propensity of the?device's paint?job to scratch and chip are flooding in ... Apple says such cosmetic issues are "normal."

Oh, and?Apple's?iPhones and other products are so popular in New York City they're flying off shelves ? and into the hands of thieves.

Twitter is most active in China ... a country where it's banned.?

Driverless cars just got the green light in California.

Here's a startup that lets you text people blocking your driveway.?

In other inevitable robot overlord news, Japan just made one that can take exams.?

In closing,? Austrian artist has coerced some hermit crabs into adopting shells created by a 3-D printer ? shells in the shape of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Check it out!

Compiled?by?Helen A.S. Popkin,?who invites you to?join her on?Twitter?and/or?Facebook. Also,?Google+. ?

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/pre-caffeine-tech-underwater-google-apple-picking-1B6102052

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Thursday, 27 September 2012

BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize Android App Player for Fusion, Radeon chips (video)

BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize its Android App Player for AMD chips video

AMD has a disproportionately large $6.4 million investment in BlueStacks, and now we're seeing one clear reason why. The two companies have teamed up to create a special version of the BlueStacks App Player that's tuned for AMD's Fusion-based processors and Radeon graphics cards, running Android apps with the full help of the chip desgner's hardware in Windows 7 and 8 PCs. Accordingly, over 500,000 Android apps are invading AMD's new AppZone portal without any needed tweaks of their own, giving the service a much larger catalog than if it had gone with Windows alone. Both companies have a clear incentive to this melding of desktop and mobile: BlueStacks suddenly gets exposure to as many as 100 million AMD-running users, while AMD can tout a giant app catalog that may be preloaded on future PCs using its components. We don't know if the world needs yet another avenue for playing Angry Birds, especially when many AMD-based PCs won't have touchscreens, but the BlueStacks partnership could be a strong lure for new PC buyers who'd like an instant software library.

Continue reading BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize Android App Player for Fusion, Radeon chips (video)

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BlueStacks teams with AMD to optimize Android App Player for Fusion, Radeon chips (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  sourceAMD AppZone  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/09/27/bluestacks-teams-with-amd-to-optimize-its-android-app-player/

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Wednesday, 26 September 2012

easybooks accounting & business services | Graphic Design | Logo ...

easybooks accounting & business services | Graphic Design | Logo Design

Attention Scriptlance users, Scriptlance has been acquired by Freelancer.com! Find out more

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need a logo for my book keeping business - my business is promoted as assisting the business owner to grow their business so something with leaves/green/trees/plabts would be good

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