Not only has the US economy been “stuck in a rut,” but now a “destructive passivity has overtaken our discourse,” writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times . The common wisdom today is that there is nothing the government can do in the short run to help the economy, so…
Continue reading …A Riverside County politician is so sick of the “left wing” state “ripping off” his wealthy constituents that he wants “South California” to become the nation’s 51st state. Local Republican Supervisor Jeff Stone envisions a new state of 13 counties to escape the “ungovernable” financial catastrophe threatening to destroy California….
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Senior source inside hacker collective seeks to embarrass Metropolitan police and judges with ‘explosive’ revelations Figures at the top of hackers’ collective Anonymous are threatening to attack the Metropolitan police’s computer systems and those controlled by the UK judicial system, warning that Tuesday will be “the biggest day in Anonymous’s history”. The collective is understood to be seeking to express anger over News International’s phone hacking and at the threatened extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A Twitter feed purporting to belong to Sabu, a senior figure within the group and the founder of the spin-off group LulzSec, which hacked a site linked to the CIA and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, promised two releases of information would be launched within a day. “Everyone brace,” he tweeted . “This will be literally explosive.” A follow-up message read: “ATTN Intelligence community: Your contractors have failed you. Tomorrow is the beginning.” The account, @anonymouSabu, has not been verified as belonging to Sabu – but it has over 7,700 followers and has been referenced by the “official” Anonymous @anon_central account on Twitter. Sources close to the collective were unusually close-lipped about the targets of tomorrow’s hack, but talk within chat channels has suggested several top-level members of Anonymous are eager to launch attacks based around Julian Assange’s appeal hearing against extradition, which begins on Tuesday. Others are also believed to have proposed targeting the Met in retaliation for alleged payments to police officers by News of the World reporters, and the general response to the phone hacking scandal. Other speculation centres around material claimed to have been obtained last week from contractors relating to security and secrecy of “former world leaders”, or plans to target a senior leaders’ retreat at Bohemian Grove, California. As is typical in the chaotic and occasionally paranoid Anonymous community, other sources close to the collective are warning some prominent members are probably engaging in “disinformation campaigns” ahead of any action. Communication problems around the planned releases were compounded as the main chat channel used by Anonymous was offline for much of Monday, leaving even those close to senior members of the collective unable to verify rumours ahead of the release. Rumours on Friday suggested that one Anonymous member had broken into the News International servers and taken copies of some internal emails which were being offered for sale or even ransom. However this could not be confirmed, and the Guardian has not seen any evidence that the claimed email stash is legitimate, although News International’s site is understood to have been “probed” by members of Anonymous at the end of last week. Last Wednesday, two days after the Dowler revelations, a listing of emails of NoW staff appeared on Pastebin , a favourite site for posting the results – or beginnings – of attacks against all sorts of sites by Anonymous and other hacker groups. One source told the Guardian that News International’s server had been probed for up to 30 minutes at a time last week by hackers using “proxy chaining” – a method of logging in via a number of remote computers – to disguise their identity. “Everyone thinks Interpol will get involved at some point,” the source said. The hackers’ anger at the company was ignited by the revelation last week that a private detective acting for NoW had listened into voicemails on the phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler, which may have interfered with the police investigation to find her. Anonymous has previously attacked PayPal and Visa over their refusal, following orders from the US government, to process donations for WikiLeaks. It has also carried out online attacks against the Church of Scientology over what is seen as suppression of information. Hacking Anonymous Police Phone hacking Julian Assange WikiLeaks James Ball Charles Arthur guardian.co.uk
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If you’re one of the lucky ones who landed themselves a Google+ account, you might have felt a little less fortunate when your inbox was bombarded by repeated notifications. Vic Gundotra , the Goog’s social mastermind, took to the fledgling service to apologize and explain what happened. Turns out the servers in charge of tracking notifications ran out of disk space for about 80 minutes — causing them to repeatedly send and resend the same messages. In his Plus posting Gundotra admitted, “we didn’t expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have.” Sure, it may have been annoying to get 17 alerts that your old college roommate added you to his circles, but we’ve got to give credit to Vic for owning this mini fail. The company better hope it can scale up capacity quick — Google+ invites are still a hot property and it’s got a lot of growing to do before it can truly compete with the likes of Facebook. Filed under: Internet Google+ runs out of disk space, floods inboxes with notification spam originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The FBI believes the murder of a missing high school student is linked to a child pornography operation, sources have told ABC News . Investigators are seeking Facebook conversations and emails between North Carolina 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes , and four Baltimore men, according to court documents. Investigators have “reason to believe” the…
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If you believe the adage “once a cheater, always a cheater”, you’re going to love this site. (You’re probably also a little too suspicious for your own good. Just sayin’.) The website Cheaterville.com purports to keep tabs on two-timers by collecting info on the details of their cheating ways. With a tagline that reads, “Don’t
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Youngsters aged 8-12 are killed when truck bringing them home from a soccer tournament overturns into canal A cargo truck packed with schoolchildren returning home from a football tournament crashed into a canal in south-east Bangladesh, killing at least 42 people. About 60 children aged from eight to 12 were on board. The death toll may rise as more bodies are feared to be trapped inside the sunken vehicle. Rescuers recovered 42 bodies from the wreckage in Chittagong district, 136 miles (216km) south-east of the capital, Dhaka. It was not clear if the driver was among the dead. Troops joined the rescue teams, and doctors from nearby towns were deployed to help treat the survivors. “According to several witnesses the boys were singing and dancing on board the truck,” said a police spokesman. “The truck skidded off the muddy road and turned [over] as it plunged into the canal.” Angry residents vandalised some vehicles nearby, complaining that the rescuers were late to reach the scene. In Bangladesh it is common practice to hire cargo trucks to carry large groups during festivals or celebrations. Bangladesh guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Youngsters aged 8-12 are killed when truck bringing them home from a soccer tournament overturns into canal A cargo truck packed with schoolchildren returning home from a football tournament crashed into a canal in south-east Bangladesh, killing at least 42 people. About 60 children aged from eight to 12 were on board. The death toll may rise as more bodies are feared to be trapped inside the sunken vehicle. Rescuers recovered 42 bodies from the wreckage in Chittagong district, 136 miles (216km) south-east of the capital, Dhaka. It was not clear if the driver was among the dead. Troops joined the rescue teams, and doctors from nearby towns were deployed to help treat the survivors. “According to several witnesses the boys were singing and dancing on board the truck,” said a police spokesman. “The truck skidded off the muddy road and turned [over] as it plunged into the canal.” Angry residents vandalised some vehicles nearby, complaining that the rescuers were late to reach the scene. In Bangladesh it is common practice to hire cargo trucks to carry large groups during festivals or celebrations. Bangladesh guardian.co.uk
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Italian bailout fears grow but finance minister promises austerity measures in attempt to ‘send the markets a strong signal’ Italy was firmly in the eye of the eurozone debt storm on Monday as it became the target of potentially self-fulfilling fears that it will be unable to pay off its huge public debts . In an attempt to stem selling surges in the bond and equity markets, Italy’s finance minister Giulio Tremonti, promised to “send the markets a strong signal”. He said a package of measures to reduce the budget deficit would be “armour-plated” and approved by parliament within a week: “Something that has never happened in the history of Italy.” The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said she had discussed the situation on Sunday with Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. She told a press conference in Berlin that Italy had to agree “on a budget that meets the need for frugality and consolidation”, adding: “I have full confidence the Italian government will pass exactly this kind of budget.” Concern over the effectiveness of the package was central to the sell-off of Italian shares and bonds that began on Friday. But neither Tremonti’s nor Merkel’s words managed to stem the panic. The yield on benchmark 10-year government bonds soared to 5.565% – the highest since May 2001 – which sharply increases the state’s borrowing costs. At one point, the spread between the Italian benchmark bond and its German equivalent reached a record 290 percentage points. The concern over bonds infected the stock market where Italian banks, leading holders of their country’s debt, were particularly badly hit. Intesa SanPaolo’s shares lost more than 6% as the FTSE MIB index of Milan bourse blue chips slid 3.3% by early afternoon. One of the concerns driving markets was that the return on Italy’s bonds could reach a level that was unsustainable for its treasury. The rise in yields, the effective interest rate Italy must pay to borrow, comes at a particularly awkward moment: Bloomberg estimated last week that between now and the end of 2012, the government will have to re-finance 26% of its public debt. The state’s accumulated borrowing has risen to almost 120% of GDP – the second highest level in the EU after Greece. As part of a programme for its reduction, Tremonti last week unveiled a four-year, €40bn plus package of deficit-cutting measures . But, with Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition partners in the Northern League clamouring for tax cuts to buy back the government’s lost popularity, all but €6bn of the adjustments was postponed until the next legislature. Fears that the package could be watered down – or that Tremonti may not be around to see them through – contributed to a growing sense of unease among investors. Berlusconi has long been impatient of the straitjacket put on him by his finance minister, and at the end of last week his exasperation with Tremonti spilled into the open in an interview in which he accused him of intellectual arrogance. At the same time, Tremonti has been caught up in a scandal that prejudices his chances of survival: he has admitted that an adviser, who faces arrest on corruption charges, paid the rent on the €8,500 a month flat he used in Rome. European debt crisis European banks Italy Financial crisis Europe Europe Silvio Berlusconi Global recession John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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Italian bailout fears grow but finance minister promises austerity measures in attempt to ‘send the markets a strong signal’ Italy was firmly in the eye of the eurozone debt storm on Monday as it became the target of potentially self-fulfilling fears that it will be unable to pay off its huge public debts . In an attempt to stem selling surges in the bond and equity markets, Italy’s finance minister Giulio Tremonti, promised to “send the markets a strong signal”. He said a package of measures to reduce the budget deficit would be “armour-plated” and approved by parliament within a week: “Something that has never happened in the history of Italy.” The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said she had discussed the situation on Sunday with Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. She told a press conference in Berlin that Italy had to agree “on a budget that meets the need for frugality and consolidation”, adding: “I have full confidence the Italian government will pass exactly this kind of budget.” Concern over the effectiveness of the package was central to the sell-off of Italian shares and bonds that began on Friday. But neither Tremonti’s nor Merkel’s words managed to stem the panic. The yield on benchmark 10-year government bonds soared to 5.565% – the highest since May 2001 – which sharply increases the state’s borrowing costs. At one point, the spread between the Italian benchmark bond and its German equivalent reached a record 290 percentage points. The concern over bonds infected the stock market where Italian banks, leading holders of their country’s debt, were particularly badly hit. Intesa SanPaolo’s shares lost more than 6% as the FTSE MIB index of Milan bourse blue chips slid 3.3% by early afternoon. One of the concerns driving markets was that the return on Italy’s bonds could reach a level that was unsustainable for its treasury. The rise in yields, the effective interest rate Italy must pay to borrow, comes at a particularly awkward moment: Bloomberg estimated last week that between now and the end of 2012, the government will have to re-finance 26% of its public debt. The state’s accumulated borrowing has risen to almost 120% of GDP – the second highest level in the EU after Greece. As part of a programme for its reduction, Tremonti last week unveiled a four-year, €40bn plus package of deficit-cutting measures . But, with Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition partners in the Northern League clamouring for tax cuts to buy back the government’s lost popularity, all but €6bn of the adjustments was postponed until the next legislature. Fears that the package could be watered down – or that Tremonti may not be around to see them through – contributed to a growing sense of unease among investors. Berlusconi has long been impatient of the straitjacket put on him by his finance minister, and at the end of last week his exasperation with Tremonti spilled into the open in an interview in which he accused him of intellectual arrogance. At the same time, Tremonti has been caught up in a scandal that prejudices his chances of survival: he has admitted that an adviser, who faces arrest on corruption charges, paid the rent on the €8,500 a month flat he used in Rome. European debt crisis European banks Italy Financial crisis Europe Europe Silvio Berlusconi Global recession John Hooper guardian.co.uk
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