Iranian Hackers Bring Twitter Down

IRANIAN fanatics launched a hack attack on Twitter in REVENGE for the website's role in anti-government protests, experts warned last night.
The trendy micro-blogging site - used by dozens of celebs - was broken into by a group calling itself the "Iranian cyber army".
Twitter users trying to log on were directed instead to a page of political slogans. They were unable to post their messages, or Tweets, for hours.
In June Twitter was used to mobilize protests in Tehran after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadi nejad was declared the winner in disputed elections.
And experts believe the Iranian government was behind yesterday's attack on the site.
Tory MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of Parliament's counter terrorism sub-committee, said: "Iran is one of the most predatory governments in terms of using the internet and e-attacks.
"It seems this was a revenge attack for Twitter's role in unsettling the country's elections."
One message in Arabic left by the hackers read, "Hezbollah is victorious" in a reference to the Islamic terror group.
Terror expert Neil Doyle said: "This attack is a display of power and it shows what can be achieved by penetrating and paralysing technology."
Twitter fans logging on early yesterday were greeted by a black screen with a green flag and a message in Arabic that said "The feast of peace".
A message in Iran's main language Farsi was below the flag.
The hackers also wrote in English: "THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY .
"U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But They Don't, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To...
Embarrassed Twitter bosses blamed the hijack on a DNS attack, where a web address is diverted to another site.
It was fixed a few hours later. But critics slammed Twitter for lax security.
Web commentators Mashable.com said: "This is unacceptable for one of the world's top 20 websites. Twitter must ensure it never happens again."

Democrats plan nearly $2 trillion debt limit hike

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats plan to allow the government's debt to swell by nearly $2 trillion as part of a bill next week to pay for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The amount pretty much equals the total of a year-end spending spree by lawmakers and is big enough to ensure that Congress doesn't have to vote again on going further into debt until after the 2010 elections.
The move has anxious moderate Democrats maneuvering to win new deficit-cutting tools as the price for their votes, igniting battles between the House and the Senate and with powerful interest groups on both the right and the left.
The record increase in the so-called debt limit - the legal cap on the amount of money the government can borrow - is likely to be in the neighborhood of $1.8 trillion to $1.9 trillion, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Friday.
That eye-popping figure is making Democrats woozy but is what is needed to make sure they don't have to vote again before next year's midterm elections. The government's total debt has nearly doubled in the past seven years and is expected to exceed the current ceiling of $12.1 trillion before Jan. 1.
Democratic leaders say they will try to raise the ceiling to nearly $14 trillion as part of a $626 billion bill next week to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and other military programs in 2010. The bill doesn't include the additional $30 billion President Obama is expected to seek early next year to pay for his 30,000-troop buildup in Afghanistan but it might carry an added $50 billion to pay for a six-month extension of unemployment benefits and health care insurance subsidies for the long-term jobless.
The entire strategy, however, is teetering because of brinksmanship involving moderate Senate Democrats who are demanding a bipartisan deficit reduction task force with special powers to recommend spending cuts or tax increases that would be guaranteed House and Senate votes. That idea is a total no-go with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Playing tit for tat, moderate House "Blue Dog" Democrats announced Friday that their votes for any debt limit increase depend on winning a "pay-as-you-go" budget law aimed at ensuring that new tax cuts or new spending programs don't increase deficits.
Under a pay-as-you-go regime, if offsetting cuts or revenue hikes are not found to pay for new policies, across-the-board spending cuts would hit selected programs such as farm subsidies and Medicare.
Minority Republicans, meanwhile, are refusing to provide any support for raising the debt ceiling.
"Instead of reducing the size of government and controlling spending, Democrats are planning to raise the debt limit by $1.8 trillion, putting American taxpayers in even deeper debt to countries like China," said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan.
Vice President Joe Biden, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Blue Dog leaders and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., were involved in several sets of negotiations Friday in an effort to break the impasse between House and Senate Democrats.
If a deal can't be found, Democrats might have to move on to Plan B, which would be to have the Senate pass a smaller, $925 billion increase that's already available to them. That bill passed the House because of a quirky rule that automatically passes debt limit legislation - without an up-or-down vote - when Congress ratifies its annual budget blueprint. That was done last April.
Under the second scenario, the House would adjourn, leaving the Senate no choice but to pass the $925 billion increase in order to avoid a first-ever default on U.S. government obligations.
"We're going to have to face the moment of truth at some point," said Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., who is one of about a dozen Senate Democrats pressing for the special deficit task force as the price for voting for an increase in the debt limit.
The debt limit conundrum comes as Congress is wrapping up its annual appropriations bills, including a $1.1 trillion omnibus measure pending in the Senate. A vote to cut off a GOP filibuster of that measure is scheduled for Saturday morning with a final vote likely on Sunday.
The omnibus appropriations bill is opposed by most Republicans. It awards domestic programs and foreign aid considerable funding boosts and also provides money for more than 5,000 home-state pet projects pushed by lawmakers.
The omnibus bill comes on top of an infusion of cash to domestic agencies in February's economic stimulus bill and a $410 billion measure in March that also bestowed budget increases well above inflation.
The measure survived a test vote Friday that demonstrated it should receive on Saturday the 60 votes needed to overcome the GOP stalling tactics. Three senior Republican members of the Appropriations Committee joined forces with all but three Democrats to keep the measure from effectively being killed.

Dec 11, 5:48 PM (ET)

By ANDREW TAYLOR
myway.com news

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China Population control

Population control called key to deal
COPENHAGEN: Population and climate change are intertwined but the population issue has remained a blind spot when countries discuss ways to mitigate climate change and slow down global warming, according to Zhao Baige, vice-minister of National Population and Family Planning Commission of China (NPFPC) .
"Dealing with climate change is not simply an issue of CO2 emission reduction but a comprehensive challenge involving political, economic, social, cultural and ecological issues, and the population concern fits right into the picture," said Zhao, who is a member of the Chinese government delegation.
Many studies link population growth with emissions and the effect of climate change.
"Calculations of the contribution of population growth to emissions growth globally produce a consistent finding that most of past population growth has been responsible for between 40 per cent and 60 percent of emissions growth," so stated by the 2009 State of World Population, released earlier by the UN Population Fund.
Although China's family planning policy has received criticism over the past three decades, Zhao said that China's population program has made a great historic contribution to the well-being of society.
As a result of the family planning policy, China has seen 400 million fewer births, which has resulted in 18 million fewer tons of CO2 emissions a year, Zhao said.
The UN report projected that if the global population would remain 8 billion by the year 2050 instead of a little more than 9 billion according to medium-growth scenario, "it might result in 1 billion to 2 billion fewer tons of carbon emissions".
Meanwhile, she said studies have also shown that family planning programs are more efficient in helping cut emissions, citing research by Thomas Wire of London School of Economics that states: "Each $7 spent on basic family planning would reduce CO2 emissions by more than one ton" whereas it would cost $13 for reduced deforestation, $24 to use wind technology, $51 for solar power, $93 for introducing hybrid cars and $131 electric vehicles.
She admitted that China's population program is not without consequences, as the country is entering the aging society fast and facing the problem of gender imbalance.
"I'm not saying that what we have done is 100 percent right, but I'm sure we are going in the right direction and now 1.3 billion people have benefited," she said.
She said some 85 percent of the Chinese women in reproductive age use contraceptives, the highest rate in the world. This has been achieved largely through education and improvement of people's lives, she said.
This holistic approach that integrates policy on population and development, a strategy promoting sustainable development of population, resources and environment should serve as a model for integrating population programs into the framework of climate change adaptation, she said.

Obama defends US wars as he accepts peace prize

OSLO (AP) - President Barack Obama entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners Thursday with humble words, acknowledging his own few accomplishments while delivering a robust defense of war and promising to use the prestigious award to "reach for the world that ought to be." A wartime president honored for peace, Obama became the first sitting U.S. president in 90 years and the third ever to win the prize - some say prematurely. In this damp, chilly Nordic capital to pick it up, he and his wife, Michelle, whirled through a day filled with Nobel pomp and ceremony. And yet Obama was staying here only about 24 hours and skipping the traditional second day of festivities. This miffed some in Norway but reflects a White House that sees little value in extra pictures of the president, his poll numbers dropping at home, taking an overseas victory lap while thousands of U.S. troops prepare to go off to war and millions of Americans remain jobless. Just nine days after ordering 30,000 more U.S. troops into battle in Afghanistan, Obama delivered a Nobel acceptance speech that he saw as a treatise on war's use and prevention. He crafted much of the address himself and the scholarly remarks - at about 4,000 words - were nearly twice as long as his inaugural address. In them, Obama refused to renounce war for his nation or under his leadership, saying defiantly that "I face the world as it is" and that he is obliged to protect and defend the United States. "A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms," Obama said. "To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism, it is a recognition of history." The president laid out the circumstances where war is justified - in self-defense, to come to the aid of an invaded nation and on humanitarian grounds, such as when civilians are slaughtered by their own government or a civil war threatens to engulf an entire region. "The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it," he said. He also spoke bluntly of the cost of war, saying of the Afghanistan buildup he just ordered that "some will kill, some will be killed." "No matter how justified, war promises human tragedy," he said. But he also stressed the need to fight war according to "rules of conduct" that reject torture and other methods. And he emphasized the need to exhaust alternatives to violence, using diplomatic outreach and sanctions with teeth to confront nations such as Iran or North Korea that defy international demands to halt their nuclear programs or those such as Sudan, Congo or Burma that brutalize their citizens. "Let us reach for the world that ought to be," Obama said. "We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace." In awarding the prize to Obama, the Nobel panel cited his call for a world free of nuclear weapons, for a more engaged U.S. role in combating global warming, for his support of the United Nations and multilateral diplomacy and for broadly capturing the attention of the world and giving its people "hope." But the Nobel committee made its announcement in October when he wasn't even nine months on the job, recognizing his aspirations more than his achievements. Echoing the surprise that seemed the most common reaction to his win, Obama started his 36-minute speech by saying that others who have done more and suffered more may better deserve the honor. "I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage," the president said. "Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize ... my accomplishments are slight." The list of Nobel peace laureates over the last 100 years includes transformative figures and giants of the world stage. They include heroes of the president, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and others he has long admired, like George Marshall, who launched a postwar recovery plan for Europe. Earlier, Obama had said that the criticism might recede if he advances some of his goals. But, he added, proving doubters wrong is "not really my concern." "If I'm not successful, then all the praise in the world won't disguise that fact," he said. The timing of the award ceremonies, coming so soon after Obama's Afghanistan announcement, lent inspiration to peace activists. The president's motorcade arrived at Oslo's high-rise government complex for Obama's meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg as a few dozen anti-war protesters gathered behind wire fences nearby. Dressed in black hoods and waving banners, the demonstrators banged drums and chanted anti-war slogans. "The Afghan people are paying the price," some shouted. Greenpeace and anti-war activists planned larger demonstrations later that were expected to draw several thousand people. Protesters have plastered posters around the city, featuring an Obama campaign poster altered with skepticism to say, "Change?" The debate at home over his Afghanistan decision also followed the president here. He told reporters that that the July 2011 date he set for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to begin will not slip - but that the pace of the full drawdown will be gradual and conditions-based. "We're not going to see some sharp cliff, some precipitous drawdown," Obama said. Obama's first stop in Oslo was the Norwegian Nobel Institute, where the Nobel committee meets to make its decisions. After signing the guest book, Obama told reporters he had penned thanks to the committee and noted the pictures of former winners filling the wall, many of whom gave "voice to the voiceless." In the evening, Obama is expected to wave to a torchlight procession from his hotel balcony and stroll with Norwegian royalty to a dinner banquet. He will offer comments a second time there and cap his brisk jaunt to Europe. The president and his wife, Michelle, arrived here in the morning, coming off Air Force One holding hands and smiling. Having left Washington Wednesday night, Obama was due back by midday Friday. The Nobel honor comes with a $1.4 million prize. The White House says Obama will give that to charities but has not yet decided which ones.