Woman executed for allegedly helping the United States, being a prostitute

KHAR, Pakistan - Militants in Pakistan executed a woman after accusing her of being a spy for the U.S. and a prostitute, and said others would face the same fate, a government official and villagers said on Wednesday.

It was the first time that a woman had been killed in northwest Pakistan after being accused of spying, although militants have killed many men they accused of helping U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

The body of the unidentified woman was found dumped beside a road near the town of Khar in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, a hotbed of support for al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

A note was found with the body, a government official said.

“She was killed because she was an American spy and a prostitute and those who found doing such activities will face the same fate,” said the official, who declined to be identified, citing the note.

A villager said the woman had apparently been strangled as there were rope marks on her neck.

“I didn’t see any bullet or knife wounds,” he said.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25090111

Yahoo may consider Google alliance, source says
By Eric Auchard and Megan Davies

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc would consider a business alliance with Google Inc as one way to rebuff a $44.6 billion takeover proposal by Microsoft, a source familiar with Yahoo’s strategy said on Sunday.

Yahoo management is considering revisiting talks it held with Google several months ago on an alliance as an alternative to Microsoft’s bid, that source said. At $31 a share, Yahoo believes the bid undervalues the company, two sources said.

A second source close to Yahoo said it had received a procession of preliminary contacts by media, technology, telephone and financial companies. But the source said they were unaware whether any alternative bid was in the offing.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. raised the specter of Microsoft Corp. using its proposed $42 billion acquisition of Yahoo Inc. to gain illegal control over the Internet, underscoring the online search leader’s queasiness about its two biggest rivals teaming up.

The critical remarks, posted online Sunday by Google’s top lawyer, represented the Mountain View-based company’s first public reaction to Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo since the offer was announced Friday.

“Microsoft’s hostile bid for Yahoo raises troubling questions,” David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, wrote. “This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It’s about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation.”

Google’s opposition isn’t a surprise, given that Microsoft views Yahoo as a crucial weapon in its battle to gain ground on Google in the Internet’s booming search and advertising markets.

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft has been trying to depict a Yahoo takeover as a boon for both advertisers and consumers because the two companies together would be able to compete against Google more effectively.

But Google is painting a starkly different picture, asserting that Microsoft will be able to stifle innovation and leverage its dominating Windows operating system to set up personal computers so consumers are automatically steered to online services, such as e-mail and instant messaging, controlled by the world’s largest software maker.

In a move that illustrates just how badly Google wants to torpedo the deal, Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt called Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang Friday to offer his help in repelling Microsoft, according to a report Sunday on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site, which cited anonymous people familiar with the matter.

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Pakistan test fires nuke-capable missile

 

By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 8 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan on Friday successfully test-fired a medium-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, an event witnessed by the nation’s new army chief, the military said.

The Strategic Missile Group launched the Shaheen-1 missile from an undisclosed location at the conclusion of the army’s annual field training exercises, a statement said. The missile has a range of 420 miles.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan routinely tests the various missiles in its arsenal, designed to match that of neighboring archrival India.

Friday’s launch was witnessed by army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, who congratulated the troops on achieving “high standards of training and excellent results” during the exercise, the statement said.

Kayani recently took over as army chief after President Pervez Musharraf gave up that role in the face of Western and domestic pressure.

The statement quoted Kayani as saying that Pakistan’s armed forces were a “highly professional, motivated and well trained force” and were “capable of safeguarding and securing nuclear assets against all categories of threat.”

Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations and they have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947.

However, relations between them have improved since 2004 when they started a peace process to resolve all disputes, including their competing claims to the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir.

Pakistan became a declared nuclear power in 1998, when it conducted underground nuclear tests in response to those carried out by India. Pakistan also tested its first missile the same year.

Source: Yahoo! News

MySpace, BBC Reach Global Video Deal

 

The online community MySpace is partnering with the BBC to bring some of the British broadcaster’s programs to a worldwide audience in the site’s first global content deal involving a major network. The move, to be announced Thursday, continues MySpace’s push to become a hub for video, music and other content and more similar to Internet portals like Yahoo Inc. By contrast, MySpace’s chief rival, Facebook, has largely focused on messaging, networking and other social tools.

MySpace, owned by media conglomerate News Corp., will present selected BBC programs through its video platform, MySpaceTV. The clips are to include interviews with celebrities, comedy sketches and classic series such as “Doctor Who” and “Robin Hood.” The BBC already has a deal with Google Inc.’s YouTube allowing the popular video-sharing site to show excerpts of news and entertainment programs. Visitors to MySpace will be able to share clips with friends through such means as embedding them into their personal profile pages. “With the global nature of the deal, this is a great opportunity to put the best shows from the BBC in front of new audiences,” Simon Danker, director of digital media for BBC Worldwide, said in a statement.
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Prophet Mohammed cartoon publisher jailed
Pictures caused mass demonstrations across Muslim world
updated 4:07 a.m. ET Jan. 19, 2008
BELARUS - Belarus on Friday jailed for three years an editor of an independent newspaper who reproduced cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that first appeared in Denmark in 2005 and caused mass demonstrations across the Muslim world.

The 12 cartoons portraying the founder of Islam, including one showing the prophet with a bomb in his turban, outraged Muslims who saw them as blasphemous. More than 50 people died in protests across the world the following year.

Belarussian authorities shut down the “Zgoda” (Consensus) paper in March 2006, around the time when other European journals began reprinting the cartoons. The security service, still known by its Soviet-era name, the KGB, began an investigation after Muslims in the ex-Soviet state complained.

Editor Alexander Sdvizhkov was sentenced to three years in jail in a closed session of the court for incitement of religious and national hatred.

“May God and the holy cross be with us,” Sdvizhkov said afterwards. His lawyer said she would appeal.

Muslims constitute about two or three percent of the 10 million residents of the country wedged between Russia and three members of the European Union. The Muslim community had called for leniency in the case.

Miklos Haraszti, media freedom representative for the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, protested against Sdvizhkov’s jailing, calling the case against him “shocking” and saying he should be freed.

“Persecution of journalists for trying to inform the public on important issues is a misuse of hate speech laws,” Haraszti said in a statement from Vienna. “In fact the Belarus government has used the international controversy around the cartoons as a pretext to eliminate a critical voice from public life.”

President Alexander Lukashenko is accused by the West of ruling the country with an iron grip, jailing opponents, shutting down independent media and rigging polls, including his own re-election to a third term in 2006.

PARIS (AFP) - Fossil hunters have uncovered the greatest rodent that ever lived — a one-tonne behemoth that bestrode the swamplands of South America some four million years ago.

The newly-identified species is the greatest-known member of the order Rodentia and by comparison makes the biggest rodent alive today, the 60-kilo (132-pound) capybara, look like a pygmy shrew.

The skull of the extraordinary beast was found in a broken boulder on Kiyu Beach on the coast of Uruguay’s River Plate region, palaeontologists reported in a study on Wednesday.

Measuring a whopping 53 centimetres (21 inches), the skull has massive incisors several centimetres long.

Despite this fearsome look, the creature was not carnivorous and looked more hippo-like than rat-like.

Its small grinding teeth suggest it had only weak masticatory muscles for chewing food, and probably tucked into soft vegetation, fruit and squidgy aquatic plants in deltas, the experts say.

Its food intake must have been vast, given its huge size.

Other denizens of this world of marsh and forest would have included sabre-toothed cats, flesh-eating birds and armadillos.

The newly-found species has been dubbed Josephoartigasia monesi, in honour of Alvaro Mones, a Uruguayan palaeontologist who specialised in South American rodents.

Authors Andres Rinderknecht of the National Museum of Natural History and Anthropology and Ernesto Blanco of the Institute of Physics in Montevideo say there are several ways to estimate J. monesi’s size.

The ranges run from 468 kilos (1,029 pounds) to 2.5 tonnes.

But, they say, the most reliable figure is an average of 1,008 kilos (1.008 tonnes, 2,217 pounds) which is derived from comparing the giant to its closest living relatives, called hystricognath rodents.

The previous rodent record-breaker, Phoberomys pattersoni, was found in Venezuela in 2003 and was estimated at 700 kilos (1,540 pounds) in its prime.

The study is published by Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is Britain’s de-facto Academy of Sciences.

 

Unauthorised laptop software causes security breach at Pfizer

Pfizer has admitted that the identities of 17,000 current and former employees were compromised when an employee’s spouse installed unauthorised file-sharing software on a company laptop where the data was stored.

Pfizer attorney Bernard Nash said in a letter (.pdf) to attorneys general in states where affected employees live that names and Social Security numbers were exposed and that the pharmaceutical company will offer them a free year of credit monitoring.

“This software allowed outsiders access to a number of files that included the names and Social Security numbers of the affected employees.” Nash said in the letter. “Based on Pfizer’s thorough investigation to this point, it appears that the affected employees can be grouped into two categories — approximately 15,700 who actually had their data accessed and copied, and approximately 1,250 who may have had their data accessed and copied.”

Nash’s letter included copies of notices being sent to employees.

“Our investigation revealed that certain files containing your data were accessed and copied,” the letter to those exposed said. “Based on our investigation to date, we have no reason to believe that any other personally identifiable information was exposed. Also, because the laptop was being used to access the Internet outside the Pfizer network environment, there are no associated risks to any other data systems maintained by Pfizer. We apologise for this incident and sincerely regret any inconvenience that these events and responding to this notice may cause you.”

The company recommended employees call 866-274-3891 to get the credit monitoring services.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (305 Pfizer employees in Connecticut) has asked Pfizer to provide details on whatever security policies were in place before the breach, as well as information about when the breach was discovered and how Pfizer responded. Blumenthal also wants the company to explain how it was able to determine which information was actually exposed. The company has until June 22 to answer those questions.

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Benazir Bhutto killed in attack

 

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack.

News of her death was confirmed by a military spokesman and members of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

Ms Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally in the town of Rawalpindi when the attack occurred.

At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country’s prime minister.

She had been campaigning ahead of elections due in January.

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