News Stories

[ganbaru]

Blaze at locked Chinese poultry slaughterhouse kills 119: state media
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...95202O20130603

Bank of America $8.5 billion settlement heads for court showdown
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9520BX20130603

Edit: China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/wo...-oil-boom.html

China already buys nearly half the oil that Iraq produces, nearly 1.5 million barrels a day, and is angling for an even bigger share, bidding for a stake now owned by Exxon Mobil in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields.

“The Chinese are the biggest beneficiary of this post-Saddam oil boom in Iraq,” said Denise Natali, a Middle East expert at the National Defense University in Washington. “They need energy, and they want to get into the market.”

[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by Vexx

To some extent, Russia has the same problem we do -- arms dealers who need to keep making and selling arms to the government even if it involves manufacturing "unreal" threats.

Russia wants actor Seagal to be face of weapons industry

Moscow (June 4, Tue): Russia is looking at Hollywood action movie star Steven Seagal to be the face of its weapons industry as it guns for first place on the world arms market.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Seagal may head up an international marketing campaign to promote the Degtarev arms plant, Russian news agencies reported. He accompanied Seagal on a visit there today.

Russian officials are big fans of Seagal, who met President Vladimir Putin in March and claimed to have set up a meeting with Mr Rogozin for a Congressional delegation last week.

AP

[ganbaru]

Baby boomers are killing themselves at an alarming rate, raising question: Why?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...8ca_print.html

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Edit: China Is Reaping Biggest Benefits of Iraq Oil Boom
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/03/wo...-oil-boom.html

So America incur trillion in debt from China, lost thousands of its youths to bombs and insurgents, lost its credibility as a bastion of freedom and human rights.

So China can expand its oil resource

Maybe Bush was really the Manchurian candidate

I mean, it even scans. Elder Bush was ambassador to China, younger Bush lived in Bejing, a black bag op in the middle of night, brainwash, and reactive years later once Bush reach "maturity", then presto and invasion!

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Russia wants actor Seagal to be face of weapons industry

isn't Seagal too fat for this?

[maplehurry]

Senkaku row shelved in ’70s: former chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka

In a new ripple to Japan’s assertion of ownership of the disputed Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, former chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said leaders from Japan and China had agreed to shelve the territory row when the two countries normalized relations in the early 1970s.

[Ithekro]

The dispute was shelved because they wanted to wait for cooler heads in the future.

The future doesn't seem to have any of those.

According to how things were divided after the war, the US had the Senkaku Islands without any dispute that I am aware of. The US handed those over to Japan with Okinawa, as that was were the US administered those islands from. After that the US washed its hands of the matter.

[ganbaru]

U.S. blacklists global network of Iranian 'front' companies
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9530ST20130604

Obama takes action to curb frivolous patent lawsuits
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9530KJ20130604

[mistress_kisara]

American tourist gang-raped in northern India

Not again...

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by mistress_kisara

American tourist gang-raped in northern India

Not again...

Didn't she get in a truck in the middle of a night?

[ganbaru]

^ While it's stupid (if she did it) it's isn't a reason for raping someone.

Obama to tap Susan Rice as top security adviser
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9540MM20130605

[RokokuKankokuChugoku]

Chinese beauty queen fired for dating Naomi Campbell's Ex, Russian billionaire Vladimir Doronin

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by ganbaru

Obama takes action to curb frivolous patent lawsuits
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9530KJ20130604

I find it amusing that Apple is one of the companies pushing for this.

Sorry, Apple, you don't get to say shit about patent trolls until you stop trying to sue Samsung because you invented the rectangle.

[ganbaru]

Building collapses in Philadelphia, 14 pulled from rubble
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...9540ZN20130605

[maplehurry]

Army sergeant pleads guilty in Afghan village killings.

[KiraYamatoFan]

Originally Posted by maplehurry

Army sergeant pleads guilty in Afghan village killings.

Pleading guilty or not guilty, he should be executed for what he did. There's no excuse for what he did.

[AnimeFan188]

The NSA Is Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Americans:

"We're being watched. Or listened to. Or recorded. Probably all three. The National
Security Agency is collecting the phone records of millions of US citizens on Verizon
right now. It's ongoing. It's daily. It's happening right now. How is that possible? A
top secret court order forced Verizon to give up the call data.

The Guardian, which got a hold of the court order made by the secret Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, reports that the government basically has "unlimited
authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19."
The order was granted on April 25th, so data has been collected since then."

See:

http://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-is-collec...amer-511565570

[ganbaru]

Insight: Steeped in tradition, Israel's ultra-Orthodox face reform drive
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...95506220130606

Edit: Man charged with killing couple, raping toddler hours after release from prison
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...94S07420130529

A 24-year-old man has been charged with killing an elderly couple and raping their 2-year-old great-grandchild, in a crime that occurred just hours after he was released from prison in a separate sexual-assault case, state officials said on Tuesday

[0utf0xZer0]

Leader of Steubenville anonymour campaign gives account of FBI raid.

1) Would it be cynical to take bets on whether he ends up getting a longer prison sentence than the rapists?
2) Is it standard procedure to send a dozen men with automatic weapons to execute a search warrant on someone's computer? On one hand, it strikes me as a deliberate (and extremely douchebag) show of force. On the other hand, this seems to be a running theme among accounts I've read of police raids on hackers, alleged pirates etc. (namely a couple older German cases: the raid on Crytek's offices after someone alleged they were using pirated software and the arrest of the kid (now a security researcher!) who hacked Valve and released the Half Life 2 source code back in like 2003).

[Irenicus]

What the fucking fuck? Is this real?

Two major newspapers claim the existence of a massive NSA surveillance program, perhaps the single most intrusive surveillance program ever.

No, not the phone one in AnimeFan's article above. Worse.

Guardian

Originally Posted by Guardian

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

[...]

Some of the world's largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007. Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan "Your privacy is our priority" – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.

It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.

Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks.

Washington Post

Originally Posted by WaPo

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track foreign targets, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.
Equally unusual is the way the NSA extracts what it wants, according to the document: “Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”

PRISM was launched from the ashes of President George W. Bush’s secret program of warrantless domestic surveillance in 2007, after news media disclosures, lawsuits and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court forced the president to look for new authority.

Congress obliged with the Protect America Act in 2007 and the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, which immunized private companies that cooperated voluntarily with U.S. intelligence collection. PRISM recruited its first partner, Microsoft, and began six years of rapidly growing data collection beneath the surface of a roiling national debate on surveillance and privacy. Late last year, when critics in Congress sought changes in the FISA Amendments Act, the only lawmakers who knew about PRISM were bound by oaths of office to hold their tongues.

The big names uniformly expressed shock and denial, of sorts:

Google, like the other companies, denied that it permitted direct government access to its servers.

“Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data,” a company spokesman said. “We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a ‘back door’ for the government to access private user data.”

Microsoft also provided a statement: “We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it.”

Yahoo also issued a denial.

“Yahoo! takes users’ privacy very seriously,” the company said in a statement. “We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network.”

Seriously, what the fuck? Is this a hoax?