Notorious computer hacker identified and arrested, authorities say

Washington (CNN) -- A computer hacker responsible for creating and operating a massive scam that infected as many as 12 million computers worldwide has been identified and arrested, authorities said Wednesday.

The FBI said in a news statement a 23-year-old Slovene known as "Iserdo" was arrested last week for his role in a cyber scam that stole passwords from websites and financial institutions. Authorities believe the Slovenian citizen is responsible for creating and selling the Mariposa botnet.

Botnets are a network of computers infected with a malicious kind of robot software which allow remote access, often without the owner's knowledge.

Police suspect this particular botnet was built with a computer virus known as the "Butterfly Bot," the news statement said. It was designed to steal computer users' credit card and bank information, launch a denial of service attacks and spread viruses.

CNN

Fire breaks out in downtown Moscow

A fire broke out at an administrative building in downtown Moscow in the early hours of Thursday, a local police source said.

The fire that engulfed the two-storey building at Pushkinskaya Square, within walking distance of the Kremlin, reportedly covered between 50 and 100 square meters.

"The fire has been put out, no one has been killed or injured," the source said, adding that the cause of the fire is being investigated.

Moscow has seen record high temperatures for over a month. Ten temperature records have already been broken and each day the temperature is nearing 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). The heat wave in Russia has caused a number of fires, including peat bog fires, creating heavy smog throughout Moscow and the neighboring regions.

RIA Novosti

Serendipitous cosmic ray data gathered

MADISON, Wis., July 28 (UPI) -- A particle observatory at the South Pole has produced a scientific result about a phenomenon the telescope was not even designed to study, researchers say.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, designed to capture evidence of elusive but scientifically important subatomic particles called neutrinos, offered up some unexpected new science about cosmic rays, a University of Wisconsin-Madison release said Tuesday.

A "skymap" of cosmic rays falling on the Earth's Southern Hemisphere showed previously undiscovered patterns, with more detected in some parts of the sky than in others, the release said.

"IceCube was not built to look at cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are considered background," UWM researcher Rasha Abbasi said. "However, we have billions of events of background downward cosmic rays that ended up being very exciting".

A similar unevenness, called "anisotropy," has been detected in the Northern Hemisphere by previous experiments, Abbasi says, but its source is still a mystery.

UPI

MLB: Boston 7, Los Angeles Angels 3

ANAHEIM, Calif., July 28 (UPI) -- Marco Scutaro's eighth-inning grand slam homer broke a tie Wednesday and boosted the Boston Red Sox to a 7-3 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.

The Red Sox loaded the bases with no outs against Fernando Rodney (4-1) when Jeremy Hermida and Bill Hall drew walks and Eric Patterson reached on an infield single.

Scutaro followed by lofting a pitch into the left field stands just inside the foul pole for his second career grand slam, handing Boston a three-game series sweep at Angels Stadium.

Hall, Adrian Beltre and Kevin Youkilis added solo homers for Boston.

UPI

Report: Body of ex-NBA player Wright found

MEMPHIS, July 28 (UPI) -- The body of missing former NBA player Lorenzen Wright was found Wednesday in a wooded area of Memphis, The (Memphis) Commercial Appeal reported.

Citing an unnamed law enforcement source, the newspaper said the body of Wright, 34, was discovered in the southeastern part of the city nine days after he had been reported missing.

The newspaper cited unnamed sources as saying Memphis police were investigating a 911 call made from Wright's cellphone in which the dispatcher heard several gunshot blasts.

Wright's body was found by someone who called police, the report said.

UPI

Iraqi helicopter crashes during a sandstorm

An Iraqi helicopter crashed in eastern Karbala during a sandstorm Wednesday, authorities said.

An investigation is under way, said Mohammed al-Askari of the Iraqi ministry of defense.

Al-Askari did not give further details on how many people were killed.

Earlier, Iraqi state television reported that the plane's crew was killed.

CNN

PayPal Ending Electronic Withdrawals in India Aug. 1

PayPal announced Tuesday that starting Aug. 1, it will only allow check withdrawals for its users in India.

"At present, you can request for either an electronic or check withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account," Dickson Seow from the PayPal corporate communications team wrote in a blog post. "From July 29, 2010 onwards, you will only be able to request for a check withdrawal of funds from your PayPal account".

PayPal said it will refund the $5 check fee charged on withdrawals made on July 29 onwards.

The change stems from a government financial overhaul that has put the future of PayPal in India in jeopardy since earlier this year.

In February, PayPal halted personal payments in India amid questions from Indian regulators about whether personal payments constitute remittances--or money transfers that foreign workers make into their home countries--into India.

This suspension caught many by surprise and meant that some people with money in their PayPal accounts had no way of getting it out. PayPal had planned to start allowing withdrawals to Indian banks on February 14, but complications delayed that move until early March. Personal payments were still suspended.

To gain access to funds, users must click "Withdraw" and then "Request a check from PayPal." Check processing takes 4 to 6 working days, excluding delivery time. More details are available on PayPal's Web site.

PCMag

Dead Fashion Student was Touring Europe with Friend

Giulia, 21, perished in Love Parade crush at Duisburg. MySpace message: “Too rare to die”

MILAN – The Italian woman who died in the Love Parade disaster at Duisburg in Germany has been named. She was Giulia Minola, 21, from Brescia. Ms Minola was studying fashion and design at Milan Polytechnic and was touring Europe with a girlfriend. The two left last Friday on what was to be a week’s holiday. Ms Minola lived with her family in a small residential block in Brescia, where from early on Sunday morning relatives and friends were appearing to offer her parents their condolences. The friend, who is a fellow student from Turin, suffered minor injuries in the disaster. The two women had become separated in the crowd and Irina, the luckier of the two, found out about Giulia’s tragic death when she went to the first aid station for treatment.

“TOO WEIRD TO LIVE” – Giulia had a profile on MySpace, where she used the nickname Purple Haze, probably inspired by the well-known Jimi Hendrix song which begins with a quotation from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: “Too weird to live, too rare to die”. She is also flagged on the site as a “free spirit” with a “crazy personality”. Photos uploaded by Giulia often show her with friends, including some taken at the first of May concert in Piazza San Giovanni in Rome. Giulia was a keen social networker. On Facebook, she had inserted Milan Polytechnic as her network and her photo showed her dancing. Someone with access to her account later substituted this with another photo in which she is smiling into the camera. The profile reflects a young woman with a wide range of tastes in music, from Daft Punk to Mia Martini, Gogol Bordello, Alberto Camerini and the Chemical Brothers, who also loved cinema. Among her favourite films are Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Fight and A Clockwork Orange.

Italian Life

Bear attacks leave one dead, two injured at Montana campgrounds

(CNN) -- Bear attacks on separate campsites in Montana left one person dead and two others injured Wednesday, according to wildlife officials.

Ron Aasheim, a spokesman for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, told CNN that authorities are still trying to determine what type of bear attacked the campers at the remote Soda Butte campgrounds outside Yellowstone National Park, and whether multiple bears were involved.

No food was found in the tent where a middle-aged man was found dead, according to Aasheim, who said officials are unsure of the reason for the maulings.

Aasheim identified the injured as a man and woman. CNN affiliate KTVQ reported that the injured man was bitten on the leg and the woman suffered injuries to her arms.

CNN

Running on empty: culture in the silly season

Sherlock got rave reviews this week, and looks set to win awards. So why is it going out in the dog days of summer?

The overwhelmingly positive response to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's drama Sherlock, which started on BBC1 at the weekend, suggests that it will be a strong contender when it comes to this year's TV prizes. If the scripts, direction and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of a modern Sherlock Holmes continue at the level set by the opener, my own view is that this show may go on to rank as a classic.

Yet many admiring critics have struck the same note of incredulity: why was a show of this quality being broadcast in the third week of July, when British television, run by deputy executives while the real ones holiday in Tuscany or Cape Cod, traditionally resorts to repeats and rejects?

It may be that some at the BBC failed to appreciate the hit they had on their hands. It could be that Sherlock was simply unlucky in being ready for broadcast in 2010: any spring and summer in which a general election is followed by a World Cup significantly reduces the slots available for drama.

The most welcome explanation, however, would be that Sherlock was deliberately placed in this unfashionable period in the hope of challenging the still-pervasive idea that there is a calendar of validity in the arts. Broadcasting still sticks with surprising rigidity to the belief that nothing cultural happens in July or August, resulting in a division of the artistic year into quasi-scholastic terms. The BBC's film review show, which Claudia Winkleman is about to take over from Jonathan Ross, has always vanished for the hottest months, as do arts programmes such as The Culture Show (except for a visit to the Edinburgh festival).

The assumption behind these seasons – that entertainment takes a vacation – is becoming less and less true. Hollywood has increasingly developed the genre of the "summer blockbuster", especially since the rise of child-friendly cinema, which makes it sensible to release key material during the long school summer holidays. This year's holidaying TV arts shows have missed Toy Story 3, which seems likely to feature in most lists of 2010's best releases, as well as Christopher Nolan's Inception, one of the most talked-about movies of the year.

The premieres of major theatrical productions have also become less sensitive to the weather. David Tennant's Hamlet, an undoubted highlight of 2008, opened in Stratford in August, forcing some critics to interrupt or delay planned holidays. One reason for the summer premiere was Tennant's Doctor Who filming schedule: the TV and film industries generally take a summer hiatus, which often results in big July and August openings in the theatre. David Hyde Pierce, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Goldblum and Rachel Weisz have all debuted in the West End in the summer months, a spell that producers might until recently have dismissed as a wasteland.

The Guardian

Afghan soldiers, Combat Oupost Ware, southern Afghanistan

Images of 10 of almost 40 soldiers from the Afghan national army, who patrol from a US outpost in the Arghandab valley, near Kandahar. The army is largely made up of northerners, who fought the Pashtun-dominated Taliban from the south of the country. Portraits by Kevin Frayer

The Guardian

Jonathan grounded by faulty aircraft in Uganda

A mishap was prevented yesterday when the jet conveying President Goodluck Jonathan back to Nigeria developed a fault barely ten minutes after taking off from the international airport in Entebbe, Uganda. Pilots had to return the aircraft to Uganda to be fixed before it could undertake the journey again.

The President was returning from the African Union summit, which ended on Tuesday, and was expected to attend the weekly federal executive council meeting with his cabinet.

NEXT gathered that minutes after take off, the pilot and co-pilot of the presidential jet noticed they were getting strange signals as a result of a technical fault in the aircraft.

A source who was on the trip, said the same aircraft was repaired in Kampala and was later used to bring the president and his entourage to Nigeria. They arrived the country by noon yesterday.

The source explained that two of the three jets on the presidential air fleet used for the Uganda trip developed faults and had to be repaired in the East African country.

One of the jets had earlier conveyed the wife of the President, Patience, from Kampala. She was scheduled to be in Germany to visit Nigeria’s team at the ongoing Fifa Under-20 women’s world Cup ahead of their semi-final match against Colombia.

Yesterday’s incident occurred barely two weeks after NEXT reported on July 18 that Mr. Jonathan had ordered the probe of key aides to late President Umaru Yar’Adua including the commander of the Presidential Air Fleet, Aminu Adamu, over allegations of misappropriation of the funds budgeted for the maintenance of presidential jets.

About three months ago, NEXT reported in its April 11 edition that “Presidency sources also say that the N234 million approved for the “completion of the presidential air fleet (PAF) quarters in the 2009 budget, is unaccounted for, some four months into 2010”.

The report also said, “the same goes for the maintenance of presidential aircraft, which had a budget increased by over 50 percent to N970 million in 2009”.

As at press time, it was not clear if the Presidency is holding anyone responsible for the faulty jets or will take more drastic action in the probe of how money appropriated for their maintenance was spent.

Next

Man gets 90 days for tarantula theft

WESTMINSTER, Md., July 28 (UPI) -- A Maryland man convicted of theft for taking a tarantula from a library was sentenced to 90 days in jail for the crime and 4 years for violating his probation.

Randy Humple, 27, of Westminster, was sentenced Monday in Carroll County Circuit Court to 90 days for the May theft of the tarantula from the Westminster branch of the Carroll County Public Library and another incident a few days later when police found marijuana in his sock at the time of his arrest, the Carroll County Times reported Wednesday.

Humple was also sentenced by Judge J. Barry Hughes to 4 years in prison for violating his probation from a 2007 assault case. Hughes said the sentences will run concurrently.

UPI

Abuse in lift lands Sri Lankan in jail

A Sri Lankan foreman has been sentenced to a three-month jail term followed by deportation for attempting to assault an Iranian hairdresser.

The verdict was issued by the Dubai Criminal Court on Wednesday.

 

The incident occurred when the woman was distributing promotional leaflets in the building where the man lives.

 

AI, 34, hairdresser, Iranian, had decided to distribute the leaflets promoting the salon where she works in the Discovery Gardens area. On May 11, her third day in the area, she reached building No36.

 

She took the lift to the fourth floor and starting distributing the brochures at the doors. A man opened the door and asked her something related to the brochure but since she does not understand English she continued her work.

 

As she was about to leave the floor, he caught her by her hand. While she tried to wriggle herself out of his grip, he got hold of her clothes, she alleged.

 

She managed to press the lift button by her free left hand, but he tried to block the lift’s door while holding on to her clothes.

 

When the lift arrived, she managed to pull herself in but he also got in and blocked the lift’s door from closing.

Emirates Business

'Pet' tiger found in SAfrica after two days on the run

JOHANNESBURG — A tiger kept as a pet in South Africa was finally cornered after two days on the run, thanks to a tracker, sniffer dogs, a piece of meat -- and his master's voice.

Panjo, a 17-month-old 140-kilo Bengal tiger made a break for it on Monday while being taken to the vet, sparking a hunt involving thousand of people.

They finally tracked him sown near the town of Bronkhorstspruit, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Pretoria, Radio 702 reported.

A tracker came across his prints, tracker dogs were put on his trail and when they finally caught up with him, a piece of meat and the voice of his master helped bring him in unharmed, the radio station reported.

Panjo was bought by his present owners at the age of three months from a privately run reserve.

During the hunt, the couple insisted to the media that he was perfectly harmless and should be treated just like a dog.

But numerous experts stressed how dangerous tigers could could be and advised the public not to approach him.

South Africa has several centres devoted to raising and protecting tigers.

AFP

BlackBerry server in China? India wants a monitoring unit too

NEW DELHI: India wants the Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM), makers of BlackBerry, to address its security concerns or face closure. Essentially, India wants the handset-maker to allow it to set up a monitoring facility here with Indian access to its encryption technology, which it needs for security reasons, a fact recently flagged by security agencies. 

This is the second time that the government has threatened to block the operations of BlackBerry. In the earlier instance, tensions were defused after RIM agreed to provide its encryption code to security agencies burdened with having to monitor the chatter among increasingly tech-savvy terrorists. 

The fresh confrontation comes after reports that RIM was ready to set up a server in China to address Chinese security concerns. 

The home ministry has asked the department of telecommunication (DoT) to check the veracity of reports of a server being set up in China and then press the Canadian company to do the same in India. 

According to security agencies, this will help India monitor email and SMS traffic on these popular phones. In the current system, Indian agencies have to approach the Canadian company every time it wants access, which is time-consuming and ultimately, they feel, counter-productive. 

Sources in government say that security agencies have reasons to resent their inability to access the details of BlackBerry subscribers, because of their experience with the satellite phone Thuraya. Thuraya's refusal to share their codes with Indian security agencies have encouraged terrorists in J&K as well as those behind the 26/11 attacks to exploit the chink. 

A senior government official said, "Though RIM has been fully cooperating ever since the matter was taken up with it in 2008, reports of the company's move to set up a server in China forced us to look at it in a different way".

Officials here believe that if the Canadian company can take care of China's concerns by reportedly setting up a server there, it can do the same for India which is an equally big market for BlackBerry. 

The Times of India

UN chief to pay tribute to victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

UNITED NATIONS, July 29 (RIA Novosti) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit Japan next week to pay tribute to the victims of U.S. nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II and hold talks with the country's government, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky has said.

"The secretary general hopes that his visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki will draw attention to the urgent need to achieve global nuclear disarmament," Nesirky said on Wednesday.

Ban will be the first UN chief to take part in an annual ceremony commemorating the victims of the 1945 tragedy, he said, adding that the exact dates of the visit will be announced later.

Ban is expected to begin his visit with talks with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada in Tokyo, Nesirky said.

The memorial ceremony will take place on August 6. On this day in 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima; Nagasaki was attacked three days later.

The bombings, the world's only nuclear attacks, killed at least 215,000 people and survivors have developed various illnesses from the exposure to radiation, including cancer and liver disease.

RIA Novosti

Blast at Ukraine Orthodox church kills woman of 80

An 80-year-old woman has died after an explosion at an Orthodox Christian church in southern Ukraine which injured at least eight other people, officials say.

The blast in the city of Zaporizhzhya is believed to have been caused by a homemade explosive device. It is not clear who is behind the explosion.

It came towards the end of a visit to Ukraine by the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I which has attracted protests by right-wing nationalists.

Wednesday saw Orthodox church celebrations in the region of the anniversary of the adoption of Christianity in 988 AD.

As well as heading the Russian Orthodox church, Patriarch Kirill also leads the largest branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox church. However some clergy in Ukraine have declared themselves to be independent of Moscow.

BBC News

Nats pave the way for cull on rural schools

Scores of small schools across Scotland face the threat of closure after ministers refused to save a 52-pupil primary, campaigners warned last night.

The Scottish Government has rejected an appeal to keep open Crossroads Primary, near Kilmarnock, despite an SNP manifesto pledge to protect against rural school closures.

The Scottish Rural Schools Network said the move would give a green light to local authorities across the country that want to save money by shutting small primary schools.

Sandy Longmuir, a spokesman for the network, said parents at many of the 600 Scottish primaries with fewer than 70 pupils will now have cause for concern.

“This is a bitterly disappointing decision by Scottish ministers which we believe sets a dangerous precedent and will result in a flood of proposals to shut rural schools,” he said.

The warning came after Scottish Government ministers decided not to intervene in the decision by SNP-led East Ayrshire Council to close Crossroads Primary.

The council has stated the school, which serves a farming community, is unsafe and too expensive to renovate.

However, parents argue the school is a vital focal point for the community and believe a scaled-back refurbishment is both affordable and would make the school safe.

Crucially, under the terms of new legislation brought in by the SNP Government to protect local schools against being unfairly shut, parents appealed to ministers to call in the decision. The Government, however, has now ­decided East Ayrshire fulfilled its obligations under the 2010 Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act, and, therefore, will not review the decision.

“The decision is particularly disappointing and, possibly, a seminal moment in the future of Scotland’s rural schools,” said Longmuir.

“The first test of the Government’s Act, which was supposed to safeguard our rural schools, has failed at the first hurdle.

“Scotland’s rural schools are now in a far worse position than before the new legislation was enacted.

“We fear this decision may herald a cull of rural schools across Scotland”.

Des McNulty, education spokesman for the Scottish Labour Party, also went on the attack stating: “Once again pledges made by the SNP in its election manifesto have turned out to be worthless”.

However, a Scottish Government spokeswoman defended the decision, which she said would benefit the school population in the area.

Herald Scotland