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Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Is Obama's drone doctrine counter-productive? - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...world-us-canada-18270490

US Military UAVs

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 May 12 - No Cached
  • some say they simply do not have the desired result. Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University is an expert on Yemen and he told me that the rain of drone attacks has strengthened the hand of terrorists there. "Look at Yemen on Christmas Day 2009, the day the so-called underwear bomber attempted to bring down a flight over Detroit. "On that day al-Qaeda numbered about 200 to 300 individuals and they controlled no territory. Now today, two-and-a-half years later, despite all the drone strikes al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has tripled in size, it's now around 1,000 members and it controls significant territory. "The more the US bombs, the more they grow."
  • The president may think very carefully before he approves individual killings, but in the end, as a strategy, drone attacks have too many attractions compared to doing nothing or sending in the troops.
Pedro Gonçalves

UPDATE 4-Powerful 'Flame' cyber weapon found in Iran | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ar-flame-idUKL1E8GS1FJ20120528

Iran Israel US Cyber Warfare Stuxnet Duqu Flame

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 29 May 12 - No Cached
  • a highly sophisticated computer virus is infecting computers in Iran and other Middle East countries and may have been deployed at least five years ago to engage in state-sponsored cyber espionage. Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran's nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab
  • Iran has accused the United States and Israel of deploying Stuxnet.
  • Kaspersky's research shows the largest number of infected machines are in Iran, followed by Israel and the Palestinian territories, then Sudan and Syria.
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  • There is some controversy over who was behind Stuxnet and Duqu. Some experts suspect the United States and Israel, a view that was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine what they say are Iran's efforts to build a bomb.
  • Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats.
  • Hungarian researcher Boldizsar Bencsath, whose Laboratory of Cryptography and Systems Security first discovered Duqu, said his analysis shows that Flame may have been active for at least five years and perhaps eight years or more. That implies it was active long before Stuxnet.
  • "The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now," Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.
Pedro Gonçalves

Greek pro-bailout conservatives regain lead - polls | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ion-poll-idUKBRE84P06F20120526

Greece EU Euro

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 27 May 12 - No Cached
  • New Democracy would get between 25.6 percent and 27.7 percent of the vote if the election was held today, according to the polls by Eleftheros Typos/Pulse, Proto Thema/Alco, Real News/MRB, To Vima/Kapa and Ethnos/MARC. SYRIZA's support was between 20.1 and 26 percent.According to the Pulse and MARC polls, New Democracy and the next-biggest pro-bailout party, the socialist PASOK, would together win a parliamentary majority of between 11 and 16 seats in the country's 300-seat parliament.
  • Sixty-five percent of respondents in the Ethnos/MARC survey said that the country should "negotiate hard" to revise the bailout's terms, while 54 percent believed that there was no way Athens could leave the euro. A total of 82 percent said the country should keep the single currency.
  • "We're not willing to pour money into a bottomless pit," German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told newspaper Leipziger Volkszeitung.IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Greeks had to take responsibility for their fate, adding that deprived children in Africa needed more help than people in Greece."I think they (the Greeks) should help themselves collectively ... by all paying their tax," she was quoted as saying in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper.
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  • Analysts said New Democracy's lead was precarious. "These polls show that people got scared from SYRIZA's lead in previous surveys," said political analyst John Loulis."This is still a very tight race. New Democracy has a small advantage but whoever called them favourites would be dead wrong," he added.
  • SYRIZA, led by its charismatic 37-year old leader Alexis Tsipras, is doing particularly well among the young who are particularly hit by unemployment, pollster Pulse said.New Democracy, by contrast, had a big lead among the over-60s, Pulse said.
  • In a bid to woo anti-bailout voters, conservative leader Samaras said on Saturday Greece should be given more time to comply with a bailout term to generate about 11.5 billion euros in savings over the next two years."All new spending cuts ... should take place over four years, not two," he was quoted as saying by Real News.
  • Without new bailout funds, Athens may run out of cash by end of June, newspaper To Vima reported, citing a memo compiled by former Prime Minister Lucas Papademos on May 11."From June 20, the government's available cash will cross negative territory to the tune of 1 billion euros," the document said, confirming earlier reports by finance ministry officials that Greece might run out cash by the end of June.
Pedro Gonçalves

Parma mayor becomes Italy's most-watched politician | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...ly-parma-idUKBRE84Q01U20120527

Italy EU Five-Star Movement

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 27 May 12 - No Cached
  • Pizzarotti's leap to fame comes thanks to the grassroots Five-Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo, which dealt a stunning blow to the parties that have governed Italy for the past two decades in this month's local elections.
  • The movement, which was created just three years ago and relies extensively on the Internet, has become the country's second most popular party with more than 18 percent support and more than half of Italians would consider voting for it, according to opinion polls.
  • Something like an Italian Michael Moore, Grillo's language is irreverent and outlandish. He uses the most vulgar Italian swear words without hesitation, and awards his political rivals colourful nicknames.Monti is "Rigor Montis," and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi is the "psycho-midget". Italy's established parties are dead, he says, and their leaders are "zombies, vampires, mummies".
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  • The bear-like Grillo, who sports a beard and a mop of tangled white hair, says Italy should dump the euro, devalue the lira, and force foreign banks to accept debt payments - at a loss - in the new currency.
  • Pizzarotti chooses his words carefully and does not swear. Instead of attacking rivals, he talks about finding "common ground". He sidesteps the question of the euro, saying he is not an economist."We do different jobs," Pizzarotti said of the movement's leader. "He's our loudspeaker, he shakes up people's consciences. He is like a plough that shifts the earth. We are the ones planting the seeds."
  • Grillo refuses to call the movement a party, and bans his candidates from going on TV talk shows. The Internet, his blog and social networks are the movement's main means of communication.It accepts no public campaign financing, unlike the millions of euros pocketed by the established parties every year, funding itself instead from the proceeds of Grillo's stand up shows, and sales of books, videos and T shirts. Pizzarotti spent just over 6,000 euros ($7,500) on his entire campaign.
Pedro Gonçalves

College Degrees: More and More, They're Just a Piece of Paper - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...eyre-just-a-piece-of-paper.php

Education Entrepreneurship Jobs

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 May 12 - No Cached
  • “A computer science degree from 1987 isn’t worth much if they haven’t stayed current. I’d rather present a self-taught developer if he has a couple of shipped products under his belt.” She does admit that a degree can be a good tie-breaker, and a paper from a top-tier school shows an applicant “was at least smart enough to get in.” In the end, though, “Clients are interested in ability. If you have the chops and the experience, you’re getting hired – unless [the client] is looking for a front-pager.”
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran has enough uranium for 5 bombs - expert | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...-uranium-idUKBRE84P04Q20120526

Iran Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear Weapons IAEA ISIS

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 May 12 - No Cached
  • Iran has significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear weapons if refined much further, a U.S. security institute said.
  • Friday's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based U.N. body, showed Iran was pressing ahead with its uranium enrichment work in defiance of U.N. resolutions calling on it to suspend the activity.It said Iran had produced almost 6.2 tonnes of uranium enriched to a level of 3.5 percent since it began the work in 2007 - some of which has subsequently been further processed into higher-grade material.This is nearly 750 kg more than in the previous IAEA report issued in February, and ISIS said Iran's monthly production had risen by roughly a third."This total amount of 3.5 percent low enriched uranium hexafluoride, if further enriched to weapon grade, is enough to make over five nuclear weapons," ISIS said in its analysis.
  • It added, however, that some of Iran's higher-grade uranium had been converted into reactor fuel and would not be available for nuclear weapons, at least not quickly.
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  • Iran began enriching uranium to a fissile concentration of 20 percent in 2010, saying it needed this to fuel a medical research reactor. It later expanded the work sharply by launching enrichment at Fordow.It alarmed a suspicious West since such enhanced enrichment accomplishes much of the technical leap towards 90 percent - or weapons-grade - uranium.
  • ISIS said Iran still appeared to be experiencing problems in its testing of production-scale units of more advanced centrifuges that would allow it to refine uranium faster, even though it had made some progress.
Pedro Gonçalves

How Iran's Clerics Can Undermine Ahmadinejad - International Analyst Network - 0 views

www.analyst-network.com/article.php

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Qom Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Iranian Revolutionary Guards Bonyads Ali Khamenei Expediency Council

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 22 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Although the president has the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC), the clerics still have considerable power over the country's charitable foundations (Bonyads). These multibillion dollar business organizations don't report their income or pay taxes. They report directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Their participation in the economy is crucial. They could make life difficult for Ahmadinejad's presidency by increasing their business clout in areas where the IRGC is trying to muscle in. These industries include energy, construction and the import/export sector. Last year, these clerics scored a major victory. Bonyade Mostazafin (Charity foundation for the dispossessed) was allowed to buy and sell oil, allowing them to compete directly with Iran's National Oil Company. This raised the fury of Ahmadinejad's supporters. As means of checking Ahmadinejad's power, they could expand further into this sector, or compete in the lucrative construction sector. These companies also have huge financial assets. These can be used to finance new businesses which compete directly with the IRGC.
  • They could also side with Ayatollah Rafsanjani. It is an accepted fact that Rafsanjani financed part of Mousavi's campaign. This obviously dented Ahmadinejad's popularity. So much so, apparently, that Ayatollah Khamenei felt compelled to assist the president by allowing fraud. Rafsanjani is already a millionaire many times over. Should the clergy start helping him financially, using his political muscle in the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, he could further challenge Ahmadinejad politically.
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