TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2012
NEWS
The Soyuz TMA-04M capsule carrying the International Space Station (ISS) crew of US astronaut Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin lands near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan yesterday. — AP
US linked to cyber viruses Continued from Page 1 Anti-virus software makers Symantec Corp of the United States and Kaspersky Lab of Russia disclosed yesterday that they have found evidence that Flame’s operators may have also worked with three other viruses that have yet to be discovered. The two security firms, which conducted their analyses separately, declined to comment on who was behind Flame. But current and former Western national security officials have told Reuters that the United States played a role in creating Flame. The Washington Post has reported that Israel was also involved. Current and former US government sources also told Reuters that the United States was behind Stuxnet. Kaspersky and Symantec linked Stuxnet to Flame in June, saying that part of the Flame program is nearly identical to code found in a 2009 version of Stuxnet. For now, the two firms know very little about the newly identified viruses, except that one of them is currently deployed in the Middle East. They are not sure what the malicious software was designed to do. “It could be anything,” said Costin Raiu, director of Kaspersky Lab’s Global Research and Analysis Team. Kaspersky and Symantec released their findings in reports describing analysis of “command and control” servers used to communicate with and control computers infected with Flame. Researchers from both firms said the Flame operation was managed using a piece of software named “Newsforyou” that was built by a team of four software developers starting in 2006. It was
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designed to look like a common program for managing content on websites, which was likely done in a bid to disguise its real purpose from hosting providers or investigators so that the operation would not be compromised, Kaspersky said in its report. Newsforyou handled four types of malicious software: Flame and programs code-named SP, SPE and IP, according to both firms. Neither firm has obtained samples of the other three pieces of malware. Kaspersky Lab said it believes that SP, SPE and IP were espionage or sabotage tools separate from Flame. Symantec said it was not sure if they were simply variations of Flame or completely different pieces of software. “We know that it is definitely out there. We just can’t figure out a way to actually get our hands on it. We are trying,” Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said in an interview. About a dozen computers in Iran and Lebanon that are infected with one of the newly identified pieces of malware are trying to communicate with command and control servers, according to Kaspersky Lab. The researchers found a large cache of data on one of the command and control servers, but cannot analyze it because it is encrypted using a password that they said would be virtually impossible to crack. They believe that it was encrypted so heavily because the people coordinating the attack did not want the workers using the Newsforyou program to be able to read potentially sensitive information. “This approach to uploading packages and downloading data fits the profile of military and/or intelligence operations,” Symantec said in its report. — Reuters
Violent clashes rage over anti-Islam film Continued from Page 1 public appearance. “O Prophet (PBUH), we die for you, my soul and my blood are for you,” he said, urging the crowd to repeat the words after him for the whole world to hear. Nasrallah, whose Lebanese movement is blacklisted in the United States as a terrorist group, has called for a week of protests across the country over the film, describing it as the “worst attack ever on Islam”. “America must understand... the US must understand that releasing the entire film will have dangerous, very dangerous, repercussions around the world,” he told yesterday’s rally. “All our people and governments must put pressure on the international community to issue international and national laws to criminalise insults of the three world religions,” he said, referring to Christianity, Islam and Judaism. “America, great Satan! Israel, enemy of the Muslims!” cried men, women and children. The movie entitled “Innocence of Muslims”, believed to have been produced by a small group of extremist Christians, has sparked a week of furious protests outside US embassies and other American symbols in at least 20 countries. In Pakistan, thousands of students burned US flags and chanted anti-American slogans in the northwestern city of Peshawar, where Osama bin Laden kept a home during the 1980s jihad against Soviet troops in adjacent Afghanistan. In the nearby district of Upper Dir, a protester was killed and two others wounded in a shootout with police. The crowd of about 800 people set fire to a magistrate’s house and the local press club. In Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city, another demonstrator died after being shot in the head during clashes with police near the US consulate on Sunday. Around 500 angry protesters in the
eastern Pakistani city of Lahore tried to reach the US consulate but were driven back by police with tear gas. In neighbouring Afghanistan, protests turned violent for the first time when more than 1,000 people protested in Kabul, setting police cars and containers ablaze, police told AFP. Between 40 and 50 policemen were “very slightly wounded” by stone-throwers and members of the crowd waving sticks, said Kabul police chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi. A police official, who gave his name only as Hafiz, said protesters also threw stones at Camp Phoenix, a US-run military base in the capital, but were later driven back. Google has barred access to the video in Egypt, India, Indonesia, Libya and Malaysia, while the government has restricted access to Google-owned YouTube in Afghanistan. Later, Pakistan blocked access to YouTube after an order from Prime Minister Pervez Ashraf to do so over blasphemous material, following the video-sharing website’s failure to take down the anti-Islam film. In Jakarta, protesters hurled petrol bombs and clashed with Indonesian police outside the US embassy shouting “America, America go to hell”, as demonstrations in the world’s most populous Muslim nation turned violent. Police were seen kicking or dragging away some of the protesters, while one policeman was taken away in an ambulance with his face bleeding. Many of the protesters were supporters of hardline Islamic groups and were dressed in identical white garb. The capital’s police chief Untung Rajab said 11 policemen and a protester were injured and taken to hospital, and that four protesters were arrested. In Tunisia, a Salafist leader escaped from a mosque that had been surrounded by security forces seeking to arrest him over clashes at the US Embassy last week, a Reuters witness said. Saif-Allah Benahssine, leader of the
Tunisian branch of the hardline Islamist Ansar Al-Sharia, slipped away after hundreds of his followers stormed out of alFatah mosque in Tunis. Benahssine told his supporters earlier he was not involved in the protests, in which two people were killed when police opened fire as protesters ransacked the US mission. Also yesterday, police in Azerbaijan arrested about 15 people who tried to protest outside the US Embassy in Baku. Rallies had taken place as far afield as Britain and Australia at the weekend, showing the global scale of the outrage at the film. German authorities are considering whether to ban the public screening of the film, titled “Innocence of Muslims” because it could endanger public security, Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday. A fringe far-right political party says it plans to show the film in Berlin in November. In other developments, Iran condemned the film as offensive and vowed to pursue those responsible for making it. “Certainly it will search for, track, and pursue this guilty person who has insulted 1.5 billion Muslims in the world,” First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi told a cabinet meeting. Iranian officials have demanded the United States apologise to Muslims for the film, saying it is only the latest in a series of Western insults aimed at Islam’s holy figures. At the weekend, President Barack Obama called top US diplomats in Libya, Tunisia, Yemen and Sudan to assure them their safety is a top priority, the White House said. Mass demonstrations after the main weekly Muslim prayers on Friday saw 11 protesters killed as police battled to defend US missions from mobs in Egypt, Lebanon, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen. The unrest began in Cairo, where protesters stormed the US embassy late Tuesday, replacing the Stars and Stripes with an Islamic flag. — Agencies
Kuwait to boost rainy day fund Continued from Page 1 excess of $300 billion. The KIA was not immediately available for comment. Kuwait booked a record budget surplus of KD 13.2 billion ($47 billion) in the fiscal year that ended in March thanks to robust oil income and lower spending than planned. “This move shows the state is aware of the need to put financial surpluses into reserves rather than having increases in salaries and handouts,” former finance minister Bader Al-Humaidi told Reuters. More than half of Kuwaiti nationals are under 25,
according to 2009 figures from the Public Authority for Civil Information. A long-running political crisis has held up investment in the state, especially in large infrastructure projects, allowing the budget surplus to grow. A KD 30 billion ($107 billion) development plan aimed at boosting and diversifying the economy has stalled. The political crisis revolves around a row between the elected parliament and the appointed government led by the Al-Sabah ruling family. The government also grappled with strikes by public sector workers earlier this year, who had called for pay hikes of more than 25 percent. — Reuters
Continued from Page 1 statement said. Apple’s US website said orders placed would be shipped in two to three weeks. The iPhone 5 will be available from the Apple Online Store and its retail stores, and for US customers through AT&T, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Best Buy, RadioShack, Target and Walmart stores and other resellers. AT&T said in a statement it set a sales record with iPhone 5 over the weekend, making it the fastestselling iPhone the company has ever offered, but gave no specific numbers. The carrier said it will be selling the iPhone 5 in AT&T retail stores on Friday. In New York, a handful of people were already camped outside the Apple store on Fifth Avenue awaiting the new smartphone, but all were
sponsored by companies or apps seeking publicity. First in line was a man identifying himself as Sagitarius Catharsis, equipped with a chair, small table and blanket, who said he was promoting a local chat service called App Vibe. Also in the queue was Keenen Thompson, 22, who said he works in “fashion” and was sponsored by Gazelle, a company which buy old phones and old computers in trade-ins. “We already waited 18 days for iPhone 4S last year,” he told AFP. “We decided to do it again. There’s no fun in ordering it on Internet. Here people pass by and talk.” Joshua Chinchilla, 23, an account manager for the mobile banking app Refundo, said he anda a colleague plan to be among the first to get the new iPhone early Friday. He said his company is providing chairs, and sweaters and that “tomorrow there
will be thunderstorms, hopefully we’ll get umbrellas too.” Some analysts say Apple could sell 10 million in the opening days and 50 million before the end of 2012. Apple shares extended their rally yesterday, gaining 1.0 percent to a new record $698.62 in midday trade, giving the world’s most valuable firm a market worth of $654 billion. Many analysts remained bullish on Apple because of the iPhone and other products, including a rumored new mini-iPad expected to be launched later this year. “Bolstered by the iPhone 5, we believe Apple’s industry-leading software ecosystem and integrated hardware expertise will lead to a strong multiyear product cycle,” said Michael Walkley at Canaccord Genuity. “We reiterate our buy rating and $797 price target.” — AFP
Iran alleges explosives cut power to nuke... Continued from Page 1 Tehran denies seeking nuclear arms, and Abbasi - an Iranian vice president whom the agency suspects may have been involved in nuclear weapons research - insisted yesterday that his country’s nuclear program is aimed only at making reactor fuel and doing medical research. “The Islamic Republic of Iran ... has always opposed and will always denounce the manufacture and use of weapons of mass destruction,” he said. Tehran has long dismissed suspicions that it may re-engineer its uranium enrichment program from making reactor fuel to produce nuclear warheads and says accusations that it has worked secretly on nuclear arms are based on fabricated US and Israeli intelligence. It also frequently accuses the IAEA of anti-Iran bias in its push to ensure that all of Tehran’s nuclear activities are peaceful. But Abbasi’s comments yesterday were the harshest on the agency itself. “Terrorists and saboteurs might have intruded the agency and might be making decisions covertly,” he said. Citing what he said was an example of sabotage on Aug 17 at an underground enrichment plant,
he said IAEA inspectors arrived to inspect it shortly after power lines were blown up. “Does this visit have any connection to that detonation?” he asked. It appeared to be the first mention of the alleged sabotage attack. The plant at Fordo, about 70 km south of Tehran, is of particular concern to Israel because it is buried deep in a mountainside to protect it from assault. It also is being used to enrich uranium closer to the level needed for a nuclear warhead than what is used to power most industrial reactors, although Iran says it needs the higher level both because its present research reactor runs on the higher-grade material and because it plans to build more such reactors. Asked by reporters to expand on the alleged sabotage attempt, Abbasi said it was foiled “by using backup batteries and diesel generators” that prevented any disruption to centrifuges used to spin uranium to enriched levels. He also said a separate attack on the country’s centrifuges - through tiny explosions meant to disable key parts of the machines - was discovered before the timed blasts could go off. Abbasi did not elaborate on the date or other details of that
alleged assault attempt. Tehran has acknowledged that the Stuxnet computer worm affected a limited number of centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment facility in the central city of Natanz two years ago. As well, assassins killed three scientists with links to Iran’s nuclear programs in 2010 and 2011. Dozens of unexplained explosions have hit the country’s gas pipelines, and Iran’s first nuclear power plant suffered major equipment failures delaying its operations for decades before going on line this year - delays that some experts attribute to acts of sabotage. But Tehran says it has improved its defenses since the Stuxnet attack - a point made again yesterday by Abbasi who challenged would-be saboteurs. “We are a powerful country. We can confront any kind of industrial espionage whether it is an explosive or a virus,” he told reporters. “We are eager and interested to ask the other side to have more (attacks) because having more we would be more experienced.” Inside the IAEA meeting, he said Iran now can “ward off threats by targeting ... cyber-attacks, industrial sabotage and use of explosives,” without elaborating. — AP
Massive naval exercise in Gulf Continued from Page 1 disrupt freedom of navigation,” he added. US Vice Admiral John Miller, the head of the US Naval Forces in the wider Gulf region, echoed his comments. “This exercise is about mines and the international effort to clear them,” he said in a statement. Analysts however argue that the anti-mine manoeuvres are designed to counter Iran’s escalating threats to block the strategic straits. This is “a message to all parties in the region: to the allies and Iran, that the US is ready to defend their common interests, keep the straits and maritime routes open and respond to any attacks against its bases in the region” said Riad Kahwaji, of the Institute for near East and Gulf military analysis in Dubai. More than 500 ships, 60 percent of which are energy carriers, pass through the Straits every week, a strategic chokepoint that connects the Arabian Gulf, and some of the world’s top oil producing nations to the rest of the world. “ This is a vital region where sea lanes and resources and international interests all intersect,” said Raelson. “Defending these interests against a sea mine attack is really a core mission of navy mine warfare... and this exercise is an effort to decrease the international threat of mining and to enhance our combined capabilities to provide long-term stability and security.” The anti-mine manoeuvres will last through Sept 27 and involve more than 30 nations including the United States, Britain, Japan, France, Yemen and Jordan. Raelson said no manoeuvres “at all” will take place in the actual Strait of Hormuz, adding that a variety of anti-mine techniques will be practised, including “mine-hunting operations, helicopter mine countermeasures operations, dive operations, small boat exercises and international cross
platform refuelling training.” Iranian military officials sounded a relaxed note, reassuring their own public: “This exercise is a defensive exercise and we don’t perceive any threats from it,” said Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. “We are not conducting exercises in response.” Jafari told a news conference in Tehran on Sunday that the strait would be a legitimate target for Iran should it be attacked. Jafari also suggested that US military bases - the two largest in Bahrain and Qatar would be fair game for retaliation by Iran or proxy forces. The US also has several military bases in Kuwait and a military presence in the United Arab Emirates. And if Israeli jets or missiles struck Iran, “nothing of Israel will be left, considering its size”, warned Jafari. Anthony Skinner of the Maplecroft consultancy said the exercise would, however, remind Iran of Washington’s ability to blunt its offensive capabilities: “Iran would likely mine the Strait of Hormuz and possibly deploy suicide bombing skiffs in the event of air strikes against its nuclear facilities. “Washington wants to show that it’s prepared for such an eventuality,” Skinner said. “I see this exercise as part of broader initiative to sustain the pressure on Iran. Giving sanctions the time to work is clearly the preferred option for the Obama administration, at least in the medium term.” Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian expert in Israel, suggested that publicity for the exercise was primarily aimed at American voters and the Israeli leadership: “This military exercise is Obama’s way of showing US voters, especially Israel’s supporters in the US, and Netanyahu that when it comes to Iran, he is not only relying on talks,” he said. “To show that when he said ‘I have Israel’s back’ in March ... he meant it.” — Agencies