Washington: Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said that she was open to a possible White House run in 2012 but has not made up her mind.

“I think that it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country,” Palin told Fox News Sunday. “I won’t close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future.”

The Republican former Alaska governor, who was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 election, said she thought Democratic President Barack Obama would be vulnerable in a re-election fight in 2-1/2 years if he continues to pursue his current agenda.

Palin rallied conservatives on Saturday night at the Nashville, Tennessee convention of the national “Tea Party” movement. The Tea Party group hopes to have an impact on the November congressional races in which Democrats, who hold a majority in both houses of Congress, are at risk of seeing an erosion of their dominance.

In her speech, Palin hammered Obama on the rising U.S. debt and on national security issues.

Palin was recently hired by Fox News as a commentator. She has assembled a group of advisers — some of whom are former aides to the McCain campaign — who email her briefings each morning on domestic and foreign policy issues.

Source: Reuters

Shanghai: China has closed what it claims to be the largest hacker training website in the country and arrested three of its members, domestic media reported on Monday.
The “Black Hawk Safety Net” website taught hacking techniques and provided malicious software downloads for its 12,000 members in exchange for a fee, the Wuhan Evening News newspaper reported this weekend, citing police in Huanggang, just east of Wuhan.

Hacking from China has received international attention since Google Inc threatened to quit China last month after a serious hacking attempt originating from China, resulting in the theft of its intellectual property.

China has denied involvement in the hacking episode and said it does not condone hacking.
The website was shut in late November and three of its members arrested on suspicion of criminal activity, the newspaper reported, without saying why the news was only released now.

Wuhan happens to be home to the Communication Command Academy, which trains hackers, according to U.S. congressional testimony by cyber expert James Mulvenon in 2008.

The popularity of hacking in China, and hackers’ use of multiple addresses and servers, in Taiwan and elsewhere, makes it hard to prove how or by whom they are coordinated.

Would-be hackers in China do not have to look far to figure out how to do it, thanks to a healthy hacking industry and sites such as Black Hawk Safety Net (www.3800hk.com), which was unavailable on Monday.

Source: Reuters

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — Search and rescue crews braved icy weather late into the evening Sunday to look for possible survivors who might be buried in the wreckage at the site of a power plant where hours earlier an explosion rocked this central Connecticut college town, killing five people.
Their efforts were being frustrated by a sheer absence of information about how many people were working at the site, where construction crews were completing work on the power plant being built by Kleen Energy Systems. City and state officials said as many as 100 to 200 might have been on the job when the explosion occurred Sunday morning, but other officials put the count as low as 50. By nightfall they had counted five dead and more than two dozen with unspecified injuries.

Officials said they believed many workers may have fled the scene unharmed. But dealing with an unknown number of contractors and subcontractors on the project, officials on Sunday night, more than seven hours after the explosion, still had no list of names of people who were supposed to have been on the job and who might still be missing.

“It’s one thing to say we don’t know who was on the job in the morning after the incident,” the Middletown mayor, Sebastian N. Giuliano, said at his office Sunday evening. “But at this stage of the game to still be fuddling around with this is extremely frustrating.”

The accident was one of the worst in memory in this town of about 45,000 people, where church steeples and old Colonial buildings are common and industrial smokestacks are rare. About 15 miles south of Hartford, the town is home to Wesleyan University. That the accident happened on Super Bowl Sunday was only adding to the confusion, Mr. Giuliano said.

“We’re trying to figure out who was on the site today and is home now, sitting at home watching the Super Bowl, and who might be still under the rubble,” Mr. Giuliano said.

Mr. Giuliano added that it was still unclear whether all the contractors involved in the project had been contacted, efforts that might also be hampered by the game. He was unsure how many contractors were even involved, he said.

At a family assistance center set up by the Red Cross at City Hall, a handful of people came throughout the day to look for information, and more people called, but it was not the flood of people that might be expected given the uncertainty of who might have been working.

Mark Brinkerhoff, a spokesman for the Middlesex County Red Cross, said the people calling in were looking for the same thing everyone else was: a list of names.

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “They’re calling the hospitals, hospitals tell them to call the police, police tell them to call the Red Cross; nobody has this information.”

The blast could be heard throughout the town and neighboring communities, breaking some windows near the site, officials said.

“It shook my whole house, and I live six and half miles from here,” said Essie Spencer, a Red Cross volunteer from Higganum, a small community south of Middletown. “We thought it was an earthquake or dynamite. It really shook. Every window in my house rattled. My dog freaked out.”

Watching the Super Bowl at a bar on Main Street in Middletown on Sunday evening, Jon Johnson, 38, said he learned of the explosion after seeing a flurry of posts on Facebook during a lunch break in Wallingford.

“The first message I saw was, ‘Don’t go to Middletown, it’s in chaos,’ ” said Mr. Johnson, who lives in Portland, across the Connecticut River from the plant. “I started asking, ‘What the heck happened?’ ”

But what confusion the blast had caused had calmed by evening. Even at the Red Cross center, volunteers were watching the game in the pauses between calls.

The release of the victims’ identities was being delayed until their relatives had been notified. The mayor said he expected that search-and-rescue efforts would continue into the morning and last as long as three days.

One victim was identified by friends and relatives as Raymond Dobratz, 57, a pipe fitter from nearby Old Saybrook, where he had also served for more than a decade on the Police Commission and the parks and recreation commission, and had been an officer with the Westbrook Elks Lodge.

“He’s a man who served the community for many, many years,” said Adam Stillman, of the Old Saybrook Democratic Town Committee. “Obviously his loss is a terrible tragedy.”

Mr. Dobratz had two adult sons and a wife who works as a nurse, said Richard Metsack, a friend who served with Mr. Dobratz on the police commission. Sometimes he would help his son with his small fishing charter business.

Mr. Dobratz had even once coached the town’s current chief of police in Little League.

“He just loved the town,” Mr. Metsack said.

Reporting was contributed by Robert Davey and Thomas Kaplan in Middletown, and Michael S. Schmidt and A. G. Sulzberger in New York.

Dubai: China may replace India in the proposed India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) gas pipeline project as New Delhi has been dithering over the deal, a media report has said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki claimed that Tehran was ready to start anytime the IPI “peace pipeline” project, originally conceived to include Iran, Pakistan and India. China might replace India in the proposed project soon as India has been dithering over the deal, Mottaki is reported to have said. All the details between Pakistan and Iran in this regard have already been finalised, according to a report in Tehran Times newspaper.

India still needed some time but “we can even start the project without India”, Mottaki was quoted as saying by the daily.

The IPI project was conceived in 1995 and, after almost 13 years, India finally decided to quit the project in 2008. India walked out of the proposed 2,775-km project, mainly due to the hefty transit fee demanded by Pakistan.

Mootaki blamed the US for trying to sabotage the gas pipeline project, saying: “Growing relations between the US and India should not affect the relations of India with other countries of the region.”

Source: Business Standard

By Abukar Arman

Indonesian Muslims take part in an anti U.S.-Israel-Egypt protest in front of the Egyptian embassy in Jakarta on Jan. 17, demonstrating against an underground wall being built to block a network of tunnels crossing Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip. (Photo: Bay Ismoyo/ AFP-Getty Images)

The recent Egyptian government’s decision to seal the few “tunnels of life” that allowed people of Gaza to bypass the ongoing inhumane economic strangulation—along with its harassment and cruel treatment of the participants of Gaza Freedom March and the Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy—earned it a prominent position in history’s page of shame. A page crowded by wealthy Arab nations who failed the Palestinian people and abandoned them at their most vulnerable time.

However, by no means should that sideline drama veil or in any way divert attention away from the root cause of the problem—the over six decades of oppression imposed upon the Palestinian people.

In that period, the state of Israel has occupied Palestine with an iron fist, denying Palestinians the right to self-determination and coercing part of their “elite” to surrender to what seems like a condition of eternal subjugation. However, the gravest of the Palestinian sufferings is embodied in the suffering of the people of Gaza as they endure a vicious economic strangulation unilaterally imposed by Israel. And despite worldwide condemnation of that egregious draconian policy, Israel continues to operate with impunity, devoid of conscience.

In their 575-page report released last September, the fact-finding mission on Israel’s disproportionate use of force in Gaza appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Commission has confirmed the ugly truth that most of the Western media were inoculated to under-report or outright ignore. The mission was led by Judge Richard Goldstone, former member of the South African Constitutional Court and former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. While the report also blamed Hamas, it highlighted that “there was strong evidence to establish that numerous serious violations of international law, both humanitarian law and human rights law, were committed by Israel during the military operations in Gaza. … Actions amounting to war crimes and possibly, in some respects, crimes against humanity, were committed by the Israel Defense Force.”

According to Article 39 of the report, the Israeli forces intentionally targeted and attacked Al Quds Hospital in the adjacent ambulance depot in Gaza with white phosphorous shells, an internationally banned chemical substance that, among other things, instantaneously burns the human being into skeleton.

Although the key recommendation of Goldstone was for the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution mandating a credible investigation into the war-crimes allegations by the International Criminal Court, no such action has been taken.

In reaction to the report, the U.S. Congress—while succumbing to the “Israel Lobby”—has passed a non-binding resolution condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution was intended to express unequivocal blind loyalty to Israel, and to pressure the Obama administration to use its veto power (as a permanent member of the Security Council) against any resolution that might expose Israel. Apparently, the strategy worked; the report is now piling dust in the oblivion.

For whatever it’s worth, it is this kind of culture of impunity that, according to Goldstone, “emboldens Israel and her conviction of being untouchable.” This concern was immediately dismissed as anti-Semitic by loyalists and supporters of oppressive Zionism. Never mind that Judge Goldstone is Jewish and is a supporter of Israel’s right to exist.

Make no mistake, anti-Semitism is a real racist phenomenon; however, the politically motivated excessive use of the term to character-assassinate and silence legitimate critics and peace and justice advocates, such as former President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, simply defeats the purpose.

Meanwhile, though the Obama administration is showing signs of discomfort with the current Israeli government, the U.S. foreign policy toward Middle East is still driven by unconditional loyalty.

As the Obama administration tries to reduce the post-9/11tension between the United States and the Islamic world and rein in the rapid growth of extremism, the Palestine issue remains an open sore that is festering in America’s foreign policy. While the current administration has attempted to demonstrate its intention of becoming an honest broker by appointing a credible diplomat—former Senator George Mitchell—as the Middle East envoy, Israel continues its belligerent oppression and expansionist policy by defiantly building new settlements.

Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel is adamant to continue the ever-expanding land grab driven by illegal home demolitions and confiscations, daily dreadful human rights abuses at check points, random imprisonment and assassinations, suppression of independent media, and systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. This, needless to say, has frustrated the Obama administration, whose out-of-the-ordinary reaction to Netanyahu’s visit to the United States has caused Israel a big embarrassment.

In an article intended to rally the troops against Obama, Jerusalem Post’s hawkish columnist, Caroline Glick, wrote, “It isn’t every day that a visiting leader from a strategically vital U.S. ally is brought into the White House in an unmarked van in the middle of the night rather than greeted like a friend at the front door; is forbidden to have his picture taken with the president; is forced to leave the White House alone, through a side exit.”

Though this was not a decision to stop or even suspend the roughly $3 billion of unrestricted aid given to Israel every year, it still turned many heads and galvanized the usual suspects to come after Obama with all sorts of accusations.

Not since 1990 when then Secretary of State James Baker sent a blunt public message to then Israeli Prime Minister Ytsakh Shamir, telling him “call us when you are serious about peace … the telephone number is 1-202-546-1414,’ has U.S. leadership sent Israel a stern message that its actions are unacceptable.

At the end of the day, convincing Israel to do the right thing and stop establishing new facts on the ground to further complicate an already complex political issue will require more than symbolism. And nothing substantive is likely to happen until the United States modifies its one-sided Middle East policy. Meanwhile, Israel will continue business as usual. It might invade Gaza again. Some opinion makers in Israel are already boasting about what “Operation Cast Lead 2″ would look like with the use of “advanced Israeli-made Marakava 4 tanks.”

Nothing equates to oppression more than the inaction of an apathetic witness.

To read more please click below…
Muffled Screams of Gaza

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday blamed U.S. President Barack Obama for delaying the resumption of Middle East peace talks by not standing firm on his demand to see a complete freeze in West Bank settlements.

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Abbas said that he would not rescind his own stance on the matter. He added that the Palestinians expected Obama to convince Israel to announce a complete freeze, accusing the American administration of having changed its stance on the matter.

He told the daily that the optimism he had felt following Obama’s election had waned, and he was no longer satisfied with the American president’s performance.
Abbas has made similar remarks over the last few months, both with regard to his disappointment with Obama as well as his demand for a settlement freeze as a condition for re-launching peace talks.

Obama’s special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has laid blame for the stalled talks on Abbas.

Mitchell believed the Palestinians were showing little enthusiasm for talks because inaction was safer than reentering dialogue when the outcome was so uncertain, the London-based A-Sharq-al-Awsat reported a few days ago.

Mitchell has urged Europe to step up pressure on Abbas in an attempt to kick-start stalled peace talks with Israel, said the paper.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed late last year to a 10-month temporary construction freeze, but the Palestinians have declared that to be insufficient.
Source. haaretz.com

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday the destruction of Israel was assured, while pledging to “defend Palestinians due to their heartfelt beliefs.”

”Israel is going downhill toward decline and fall and God willing its obliteration is certain,” Khamenei said during a meeting with Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, according to the Teheran Times.

“Today Palestine is the symbol of life, determination, faithfulness, diligence, and dignity,” Khamenei explained, adding that the Palestinians had proved that they were “spiritually more powerful than Zionists,” which is why the IDF has been unable “defeat them.”

“Palestinians’ faith is the main factor in their resistance,” he said.

Khamenei went on to call Israel “a symbol of atrocity, viciousness, and ugliness,” and said the West’s “support for the Zionist regime is ineffective.”
Source: JPOST.COM

Tehran: Iran has begun production of the Qaem anti-helicopter missile and Toofan 5 anti-armour missile, a media report said Sunday.

The Toofan 5 has two warheads and is one of the most advanced anti-armour missiles, Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Saturday at the inauguration ceremony for missile production.

This type of missile is able to penetrate armoured vehicles, personnel carriers and tanks with strong force and destroy them, Mehr news agency quoted Vahidi as saying.

The Qaem missile is a lightweight guided missile that can hit targets flying at low speed and low altitude, particularly armoured combat helicopters, he said.

Since the Qaem missiles are controlled by laser, they are not susceptible to electronic warfare or any other disruption caused by the enemy, he noted.

When mass production of these modern weapons is in full swing and they are delivered to the armed forces, the country’s defence capability in land and air warfare will improve, Vahidi added.

Source: IANS

Mumbai: A Dubai-bound Emirates flight with 356 passengers, including crew, on board was grounded here after a terror alert call, an airport official said.

The flight EK 505 was grounded after an anonymous call was received saying that there were some suspected terrorists on board the plane, a Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) spokesperson said.

The aircraft had pushed back for the runway at 0959 hours when the Air Traffic Control (ATC) informed MIAL about a security hazard on board, the spokesperson said.

The plane was taxied to Tango Bay at 1047 hours. All the passengers were deplaned and a thorough checking of the passengers and luggage was carried out by the security agencies.

One or two passengers have been held back and they are being questioned by the security agencies, the spokesperson added. According to police, the caller, who identified himself as Suresh Chavan, claimed one of the passengers on board by name Shahbaz Khan was an ‘Al-Qaeda’ terrorist.

“The caller identified himself as Suresh Chavan. He had called the cargo supervisor of Emirates flight claiming that he overheard someone saying Shahbaz was a terrorist,” the police said.

Cairo: A top Egyptian cleric has issued a fatwa forbidding the use of the popular social networking site Facebook, saying Muslims using such sites must be considered “sinners”.

Statistics show that divorce rates have rise since the advent of Facebook and it has sharply increased marital infidelity, Sheikh Abdel Hamid al-Atras said.

“It’s an instrument that destroys the family because it encourages spouses to have relations with other people which break Islamic sharia law,” said al-Atrash, quoted by pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat.

He is the former head of the fatwa commission at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University. “While one or other of the spouses is at work, the other is chatting online with someone else, wasting their time and flouting the Sharia. This endangers the Muslim family,” said al-Atrash.

The edict followed the publication earlier this week of a study claiming one out of five of divorces in Egypt had been caused by liaisons begun on Facebook or other social networking sites.

Like satellite TV, social networking sites are a “double-edged sword”, al-Atrash said. “While they permit the spread of Islam, they allow people forbidden love and relations. “That is why whoever uses such websites must be considered a sinner,” he said.