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"BEIJING - In China's first official response to Google's threat to leave the country, the government Thursday said foreign Internet companies are welcome but must obey the law and gave no hint of a possible compromise over Web censorship. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, without mentioning Google by name, said Beijing prohibits e-mail hacking, another issue cited by the company. She was responding to questions about Google at a regular ministry briefing. "China's Internet is open," Jiang said. "China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law." Google Inc. said Tuesday it would stop censoring search results in China and might shut down its China-based Google.cn site, citing attempts to break into accounts on its Gmail service used by human rights activists."

"No presidential statement or White House press briefing was held on it. In fact, all that can be found about it on the official White House Web site is the Dec. 17 announcement and one-paragraph text of President Obama's Executive Order 12425, with this innocuous headline: "Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a public international organization entitled to enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities."In fact, this new directive from Obama may be the most destructive blow ever struck against American constitutional civil liberties. No wonder the White House said as little as possible about it. There are multiple reasons why this Obama decision is so deeply disturbing. First, the Obama order reverses a 1983 Reagan administration decision in order to grant Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, two key privileges. First, Obama has granted Interpol the ability to operate within the territorial limits of the United States without being subject to the same constitutional restraints that apply to all domestic law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. Second, Obama has exempted Interpol's domestic facilities -- including its office within the U.S. Department of Justice -- from search and seizure by U.S. authorities and from disclosure of archived documents in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by U.S. citizens. Think very carefully about what you just read: Obama has given an international law enforcement organization that is accountable to no other national authority the ability to operate as it pleases within our own borders, and he has freed it from the most basic measure of official transparency and accountability, the FOIA. The Examiner has asked for but not yet received from the White House press office an explanation of why the president signed this executive order and who among his advisers was involved in the process leading to his doing so. Unless the White House can provide credible reasons to t

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida. Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation. Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site. "This is a pretty significant cold snap," Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. "This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop." He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. "The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week," he said. Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said. Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.

"Look at what FoxNews says. The code that was used to hack Gmail accounts in China is now publicly available on the Internet, and security experts are urging computer users throughout the world to be highly vigilant until a patch can be developed. The hack involves Internet Explorer 6, the browser that came with the Windows XP operating system that, while outdated, still powers millions of businesses and home computers and is now dangerously compromised. Hacks based on this security flaw led Google to threaten to drop its www.google.cn Web site and leave China last week. The Internet behemoth believes these security intrusions are a quest not just for political knowledge but also for intellectual property. Experts warn that as many as 30 other companies have been hacked, ranging from software firms like Adobe and Juniper Networks to Northrop Grumman - a major U.S. defense contractor and manufacturer of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and the Global Hawk unmanned drone. Microsoft has yet to patch the hole in IE 6, a flaw so serious it's prompted the German government to suggest citizens avoid IE. Microsoft has posted a security advisory detailing the problem, and urging users to upgrade to newer browsers. The main strategy or process that these hackers are following is said to be known as Spearphishing. They target the user with an e-mail that would appeal to them, one that leads to a site that launches malicious code onto your system. And the IE 6 exploit makes it particularly easy to slip that code on your computer. India's security chief, M.K. Narayanan, is claiming that Chinese hackers have attempted to hack into India's most sensitive government office. Tensions between China and India have been resizing lately ever nice India's relationship with the U.S. has improved to the point that the U.S. is poised to be selling them billions of dollars worth of weapons. Although there is no way for the Indian office to now for sure, they are pretty sure

"TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's supreme leader is predicting the destruction of Israel in one of his harshest comments in years about the Jewish state. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says the timeline for Israel's demise depends on how Muslim nations "approach the issue." He did not elaborate. The Iranian leader made the remarks on Tuesday during a meeting with the Mauritanian president in Tehran. He posted the comments on his office Web site on Wednesday. Khamenei has previously called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must be removed from the map. But his new comments mark the first time in years Khamenei has publicly predicted Israel's downfall. The remarks also come as Jews mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-run Auschwitz death camp."

"Four missiles fired by a US drone aircraft in the northern Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan have killed three militants, officials say. They say that a militant camp was also destroyed by the missiles. Separately Pakistani intelligence officials say US drone missiles recently killed a militant on the FBI's most-wanted terrorists list. The man, named as Jamal Saeed Abdul Rahim, is believed to have died on 9 January in North Waziristan. The FBI's Web site says that Mr Rahim has a $5m bounty on his head and is wanted for his alleged role in the 1986 hijacking of Pan American World Airways flight during a stop in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi. Taliban sanctuaries More than 700 people have been killed in about 77 US drone strikes since August 2008. A surge in such strikes has been ordered by US President Barack Obama, with seven drones hitting the tribal north-west this month alone. "

"It's a new year, which means it's time to make resolutions, take on fresh challenges, learn new things and change our lives for the better. Perhaps you want to lose 10 pounds, travel more, or get the job you really want? Mashable (Mashable) has been building a vast archive of how-to guides on everything from professional networking to planning a vacation online - what better time to release a combined list than at the beginning of a new decade? If you're looking to improve your life in 2010, we hope you'll find these 40+ How-To guides useful. You can find even more How-To guides and tips in the How-To section of this site."