England pulled off its greatest World Twenty20 victory on Friday, beating South Africa by two wickets in the highest-ever run chase in the tournament’s history.Joe Root smashed 83 off 44 balls as England survived a very late scare to march to 230-8 in 19.4 overs after South Africa had posted 229-4 on the back of half-centuries from Hashim Amla, JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock.England openers Jason Roy and Alex Hales had provided a roller-coaster start of 48 runs off just 15 deliveries and Root motored along the chase by hitting six fours and four sixes against wayward South African bowling.”It’s just nice to contribute to a game of cricket,” Root said. “Be sensible, play smart cricket … and the guys were so calm under pressure.”England’s remarkable performance in the Group 1 match puts them only second behind West Indies’ highest-ever successful run chase in all Twenty20 internationals when it made 236-6 against South Africa at Johannesburg last year.South Africa seamers were guilty of giving away 20 extra runs from wide deliveries to help England’s cause.Root combined in a match-winning 75-run fifth wicket stand with Jos Buttler (21) off 36 balls as England rebounded in style after being thumped by the West Indies in the opening group match two days ago.Root was brilliantly caught in the deep off Kagiso Rabada’s full toss delivery in the 19th over but by that time England required only 11 off 10 deliveries.With the scores tied England lost two wickets in the first two balls of the 20th over before Moeen Ali drove to mid-off to complete England’s first win in the tournament.advertisement”We’ve all played long enough to know that no score is unchaseable,” South Africa captain Faf du Plessis said. “We said we needed to start with intensity and didn’t do that … the execution of our extras, it makes it very tough because you are always under the pump.”Earlier, Amla blazed 58 off 31 deliveries and de Kock smashed 52 off 24 balls against the same England bowling attack which was destroyed by West Indies’ Chris Gayle at the same Wankhede Stadium.Duminy joined in South Africa’s runfest with an unbeaten 54 off 28 balls with three fours and three sixes as none of the four England seamers could stem the flow of runs.Openers Amla and de Kock cracked seven fours and three sixes each in a rollicking start of 96 off 43 balls after England won the toss and opted to field first.But Roy and Hales matched the brilliance of Amla and de Kock when they smacked Rabada (2-50) and Dale Steyn (0-35) for 43 runs off the first two overs.Abbott, who had dropped Hales at short fine leg off Steyn’s first ball, dismissed both openers in his successive overs, but Root took control.England captain Eoin Morgan said his side had “to play out of our skin” to win the match. “But there’s a lot of talent in our team if we play with freedom.” read more

Tu Hai, the first song from Ashutosh Gowariker’s Mohenjo Daro is here and the video will leave the viewer confused; while the song in itself is great, the visuals accompanying the song is a bit umm…ALSO READ: Rustom and Mohenjo Daro to release together but no rivalry between Akshay Kumar and Hrithik Roshan, only mutual admiration The song composed by AR Rahman and penned by Javed Akhtar has been sung by Rahman himself and Sanah Moidutty and the video features Hrithik Roshan and Pooja Hegde dancing around the Great Bath, one of the best known historical structures from the Indus valley civilization, and the oldest public water tank known to man.Left: The Great Bath of Indus Valley Civilization, Right: The recreation in Ashutosh Gowariker’s Mohenjo Daro Hrithik Roshan sports a headgear that has a horn attached upright to a turban while Hegde as Chaani looks beautiful in her white saree and floral headdress.A still from the Tu Hai video From the day the trailer released, Mohenjo Daro has been bashed left, right and centre for its lack of historical accuracy.ALSO READ: Can we get the old Ashutosh Gowariker back please? The trailer featured such elements as white Arabian horses (which were brought into India by Eurasian tribes from 1500 BC onwards, while the film is set in 2016 BC), feathered headresses (no evidence of them being worn during the Indus valley civilization), characters speaking heavily Sanskritised Hindi, a scene depicting Mohenjo Daro getting flooded (the flood hypothesis is no longer considered as the reason for the civilization’s decline and disappearence), among others.advertisementKeeping in line with the overall make-believe world that we saw in the trailer, the video for Tu Hai too is glossy, opulent, everything that is expected from a big-budget Hrithik Roshan epic and unless you are not anal about getting historical accuracy from Bollywood films, chances are that if you do not like it all, you will at least not mind it.Watch the song and decide for yourself: On that note, the makers of Mohenjo Daro have also released the full soundtrack of the film.Mohenjo Daro, co-starring Kabir Bedi, Arunoday Singh and Suhasini Malay, is scheduled to release on August 12, this year. read more

New Delhi, Dec 3 (PTI) The passing of the much-awaited Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjan) Bill, 2014 is just a “matter of time”, Sports Minister Vijay Goel today said, adding that he would personally talk to the opposition to ensure its passage in Parliament if the need arises.”We are very close to passing the bill in the Parliament. I will myself talk to the Parliamentary affairs minister and if need arises, with opposition too, and request them to pass the bill first and then debate on demonetisation,” said Goel.Speaking at a function to mark World Disability Day, the Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports today said the recent medal winning performance of Indian paralympians stands testimony to how “abled” and “deserving” they are.”Indian paralympians Deepa Malik, Davendra Jhajharia, Mariyappan Thangavelu along with others have broken all boundaries. Their performance has put an end to all talk about limitations of any person,” said Goel.The minister urged the differently-abled present at the “Walk to Freedom” function to join any sport of their liking while promising full support on the governments part.”If you play any sport and think you are good at it, come to me and the ministry will do all that it takes to train you,” he said.BJP leader and MP Meenakshi Lekhi was also present at the event.The event organised by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), in partnership with American India Foundation (AIF), also featured a cultural program that included a mime show and dance performances by children among other acts.advertisement”For us World Disability Day is no less than a festival. In fact, for us its Diwali, Christmas, Eid all packed into one. I hope the celebrations become bigger and better with every passing year,” said Javed Abidi, Founder and Honorary Director, NCPEDP. PTI MG BSA BK read more

Borussia Dortmund sacked coach Peter Bosz on Sunday and immediately replaced him with Peter Stoeger, who himself was fired by Cologne one week earlier after failing to win a league match this season.Dutchman Bosz, who had been in charge for six months, was dismissed a day after Dortmund were jeered off the field following a 2-1 defeat by Werder Bremen, extending their winless run to nine matches in all competitions.”We decided yesterday evening in a chat with Peter Bosz that we must let him go immediately,” Dortmund’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke told a news conference. “He was emotional, but took it calmly.”Stoeger was immediately presented to the media. “I’m enormously happy to be allowed to coach this team, in this stadium,” he said. “You only get this sort of chance once in a lifetime.”Bosz had been appointed in June, shortly after leading Ajax Amsterdam to the Europa League final where they lost 2-0 to Manchester United.Under his leadership, Borussia won six out of 15 Bundesliga matches, leaving them seventh in the table.They also had a miserable campaign in the Champions League, picking up only two points from six games, while in the German Cup they won two games, both against lower division opposition.Stoeger was in his fifth season at Cologne when he was sacked. He won promotion at the first attempt, in 2013-14, and led the Billy Goats to a fifth place finish last season and back into European football after a 25-year absence.”Peter Stoeger has done an outstanding job in developing Cologne over the last four years,” said Dortmund’s sporting director Michael Zorc.advertisementHowever, that run came to an abrupt halt this term and Stoeger was fired after they took three points from their first 14 league games, leaving them anchored to the bottom of the table. read more

Australia all-rounder Ashton Turner became the first batsman to register five straight ducks in Twenty20 cricket after another tame dismissal for Rajasthan Royals in an Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Monday.Turner was dismissed in the first ball that he faced, caught off the bowling of Ishant Sharma, for his third straight “golden duck” in the tournament as Delhi Capitals defeated Royals by six wickets.The 26-year-old’s three scoreless IPL innings follow another first-ball duck for Perth Scorchers in a Big Bash League loss to Adelaide Strikers and a five-ball nought for Australia against India during their two-match T20 series in February.Turner, who was left out of Australia’s squad for the World Cup beginning in England and Wales on May 30, has fared better in the 50-over format scoring an unbeaten 43-ball 84 against India in a one-day international match last month.Delhi, with 14 points from 11 games, leapfrogged Chennai Super Kings to top the standings on net run rate while Rajasthan remained in seventh place in the eight-team league.Hyderabad will host the final of this year’s IPL on May 12, the organisers announced on Monday.Top two finishers will clash in Qualifier 1 in Chennai on May 7 with the winners reaching the title clash.Visakhapatnam will host the eliminator, between the third and fourth-placed teams, on May 8.Qualifier 2, between the winner of the eliminator and loser of Qualifier 1, will decide the second finalist at the same venue two days later.Also Read | Fans give hero’s welcome to Delhi Capitals after 6-wicket win vs Rajasthan RoyalsadvertisementAlso Read | IPL 2019: Delhi Capitals dethrone CSK as No.1 after Pant, Dhawan heroicsAlso Watch | Love the energy of the Indian players in the IPL before World Cup: Virat Kohli read more

Well this isn’t a great look for Mike Gundy. It’s funny, yes, but he comes off as smug after being asked a legitimate question about whether or not OSU prepped for Mizzou’s backup QB.I won’t torch him because maybe there was context I don’t know about (I wasn’t allowed to be there) — and plus it’s kind of humorous given the entire SI saga — but that wasn’t this dude’s work (or fault).Not a very professional response from somebody who usually plays it pretty cool.Also, here’s a look at some comments from Gundy about it afterwards. h/t Austin ChadwickIf you’re looking for the comments section, it has moved to our forum, The Chamber. You can go there to comment and holler about these articles, specifically in these threads. You can register for a free account right here and will need one to comment.If you’re wondering why we decided to do this, we wrote about that here. Thank you and cheers! read more

Conservative Sen. Michael MacDonald said it is frustrating that the government continues to dodge the question about what that federal system will cost. McKenna said only that the carbon prices in place now are from individual provinces, each of which did different things with the revenues so the cost to people was different depending on where they lived.That answer did not make MacDonald happy.“You never came close to answering the question,” he said.When the government unveiled its federal plan last year it did include the expected cost it will add to things like gasoline (11.6 cents a litre) and natural gas (9.79 cents per cubic metre). However a government analysis of what those costs could mean overall for an average family has been withheld from documents released to date under access-to-information legislation. OTTAWA, O.N. –  If the federal Liberal government truly believed in carbon taxing, it would come clean on the potential cost to Canadians, Conservative critic Pierre Poilievre charged Tuesday in a sneak preview of the protracted partisan barrage Finance Minister Bill Morneau was likely to face later in the day.Poilievre was set to face off against Morneau in a four-hour, marathon Commons session later Tuesday evening, keen to crack the minister’s message-track veneer and expose what the government’s carbon pricing plan will cost an average Canadian family.Poilievre got the ball rolling earlier in the day during question period, accusing the government of an ongoing “carbon tax cover-up,” refusing to say how much more families can expect to pay for everything from gasoline to home heating to groceries as a result of the measure. “If this is anything more than a tax grab, why will the government not end the carbon tax cover-up and tell us what this tax will cost the average Canadian household?” Poilievre asked.Environment Minister Catherine McKenna fielded that one, accusing the Conservatives of denying both the existence of climate change, the cost it is having from the impacts of major weather events, and the economic opportunity it poses in fostering growth in clean technology.“Canadians know that polluting is not free; it is having an impact right now,” McKenna said.“Canadians are paying billions of dollars in insurance costs, but there is also a huge economic opportunity. Since members of the party opposite like talking about jobs, then maybe they should get on the bandwagon, because there is a $23-trillion opportunity in clean growth.”She did not, however, ever produce any specifics on the government’s understanding of what it will cost the average Canadian family.Neither did she later when she answered questions from senators at a Senate committee reviewing the government’s legislation to make the national carbon price a reality. The legislation, contained in the government’s spring budget implementation bill, would create a federal carbon price system that will be imposed in any province that doesn’t create their own system that meets federal requirements by the end of this year. It is an argument sure to persist into next year’s election campaign. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has promised to scrap the Liberal scheme, saying he will have a plan of his own to meet Canada’s international emissions targets without putting a tax on carbon.Canada’s 2030 target is to cut emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels. Carbon pricing is the most cost-effective, efficient way to get there, says McKenna; any other plan would require regulations and policies that would likely cost industry and families far more than a carbon price.Earlier this month Environment and Climate Change Canada estimated that a $50-per-tonne carbon price would reduce emissions by 80 million to 90 million tonnes per year, at an annual cost to the economy of about $2 billion _ not counting would-be growth in the clean technology industry, which some predict will grow by trillions over the next decade.The government’s numbers differ from those of the parliamentary budget office, which says the GDP impact will be about $10 billion a year. The office released a more detailed explanation of that number Tuesday, saying it reflects the difference between no carbon price anywhere and $50 per tonne everywhere.Ottawa’s numbers were based on the fact that four provinces representing about 80 per cent of the population already had a carbon price scheme of some sort in place or in progress before the government announced every province would be required to have one.Poilievre is also set to go after Morneau over the Trans Mountain pipeline and last week’s promise to “indemnify” would-be investors in the Alberta-B.C. expansion project against any cost overruns resulting from political interference.Morneau has been in talks with pipeline-builder Kinder Morgan since mid-April after the company threatened to pull out of the project, spooked by court threats from B.C. The company has given Ottawa until May 31 to smooth the jangled nerves of investors.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not give many hints about the status of those talks Tuesday but Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said they were progressing.“We are getting closer,” Notley told a news conference in Edmonton.She says she is “reasonably confident” a deal with Kinder Morgan will be in place before the end of the month.(THE CANADIAN PRESS) read more

Rabat – The Islamist organization, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) reportedly issued a new video threatening Spain that it would annex the two occupied enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in the north of Morocco.According to the Europa Press news outlet, the Algerian national Abu Obeida Yusuf Annabi who is the leader of the al-Qaeda branch, voiced the threat in a video message. On screen, Annabi’s voice is heard with his picture and a logo saying ‘Al Andalus’, which refers to the name of the producer who regularly tapes AQIM audiovisual content.This video has been detected by Spain’s major private intelligence and security firm AICS, saying the goal of the terrorists is to regain the two enclaves. According to the same source, the jihadists used the 23 minute long video as an “appeal to the deepest feelings of Muslims, to regain the two cities Ceuta and Melilla.”The same source said that AQIM released last Wednesday a new video in which it threatened to attack Naples, Rome and Madrid.Though al-Qaeda leadership officially cut ties with the Daesh group, the two terrorist groups are reportedly collaborating to carry out an attack in the region.The CEO of Spain’s major private intelligence and security firm AICS told Sputnik on Friday that the two “terrorist groups Daesh and al-Qaeda – are trying to merge their forces in Northern Africa to launch a major offense.” read more

by The Associated Press Posted Nov 10, 2014 4:58 am MDT GENEVA – Thirty of the world’s biggest banks would be required to hold vastly greater capital as a cushion for losses under new rules proposed Monday by a panel of central bankers, regulators and officials.The new rules put forward by the Basel, Switzerland-based Financial Stability Board were crafted in response to a call from leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Russia in 2013; they would not take effect until 2019 at the earliest. They are meant to prevent a repeat of the 2008 global financial crisis by creating a common international standard for the “total loss-absorbing capacity” of global systemic banks.The FSB is based at the Bank for International Settlements, a central bank for central banks, and its new rules would apply to the list of 30 “global systemically important banks” that BIS considers too big to fail.The proposal calls on big banks to hold 16 to 20 per cent of their risk-weighted assets in equity and cancelable debt and “at least twice” the current leverage ratio under the so-called Basel 3 requirement.That does not include equity for other buffers that some of the banks must hold, which could result in large lenders holding what the proposal calls “combined capital buffers” of about 21 to 25 per cent of the risk-weighted assets.The next step, the FSB said, is for more study and public input before submitting final rules to G-20 leaders next year. Central bankers’ panel in Switzerland seeks to increase capital cushion at 30 global banks AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to RedditRedditShare to 電子郵件Email read more

Millions of Charter cable customers lose Univision channels NEW YORK, N.Y. – Spanish-language broadcast network Univision and the company’s cable channels have gone dark for millions of Charter customers because of a payment dispute.A Univision spokesman said Wednesday that customers in 37 markets, including New York and Los Angeles, home to large Hispanic communities, have lost access to Univision, the most popular Spanish-language network.Univision also owns other networks, including cable channels Galavision and sports-focused Univision Deportes. Over-the-air broadcast networks like Univision can be watched by attaching an antenna to a TV, but cable channels aren’t available that way.Charter Communications Inc., the country’s No. 2 cable provider, has roughly 17 million cable customers. Univision says Charter has 2.5 million Hispanic customers, citing research firm SNL Kagan.Cable companies are trying to stem rising costs for the channels they beam out, which trickle down to customer bills. Fights with the owners of the networks can lead to channels being cut off. Blackouts can last just a few hours or for months.New York-based Univision Communications’ argument is that Charter has to negotiate a new distribution deal because it bought Time Warner Cable in 2016. Univision said in a Wednesday statement that Charter wasn’t properly valuing Univision’s content and viewers. Stamford, Connecticut-based Charter said it had a contract with Univision that it expected the company to honour. by Tali Arbel, The Associated Press Posted Feb 1, 2017 1:48 pm MDT Last Updated Feb 1, 2017 at 3:20 pm MDT AddThis Sharing ButtonsShare to TwitterTwitterShare to FacebookFacebookShare to RedditRedditShare to 電子郵件Email read more

Extremely concerned by the continuing deterioration of the security situation in the South Sudanese town of Yei, where an estimated 100,000 people are trapped, the United Nations mission in the African country today called on warring factions to immediately end all hostilities.The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has received “deeply disturbing reports of horrific violence perpetrated against innocent and vulnerable civilians, including women and infants,” said the statement issued by the Mission’s principle public information officer.“UNMISS is also concerned at the humanitarian crisis unfolding, with a population unable to move freely, tend to their farms, or feed themselves, due to various restrictions on their movement, and the inability of humanitarian partners to freely access the area and provide much needed assistance,” the statement noted.According to UN agencies, it has been estimated that some 100,000 South Sudanese are trapped in Yei, which is situated in Central Equatoria state, about 150 kilometres south-west of Juba, the capital, and close to the country’s borders with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Until recently, Yei had been largely spared from the violence and attacks that have plagued the country since December 2013.The Mission is alarmed that deadly attacks on civilians and looting of private property on 11 and 13 September, and the displacement of several thousand others from nearby Lainya County since mid-July, has affected over 100,000 South Sudanese in Yei, despite their civilian non-combatant status, the statement said.“UNMISS calls on all parties to refrain from further violence, ensure that commanders control their forces and protect civilians and their property and to cease all hostilities,” the statement said, adding that “we also call on the authorities to grant immediate and unfettered access to UNMISS and humanitarian actors […] and further reiterate that there can be no military solution to the situation in South Sudan.”UNMISS, was set up in 2011 after South Sudan gained independence from Sudan. It played a major role in trying to protect civilians when war broke out in 2013 between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and those of then Vice-President Riek Machar.Deteriorating security in South Sudan has forced more than 200,000 people to flee the country since a fresh fighting broke out around Juba, the capital, on 8 July 2016, bringing the number of South Sudanese refugees in neighbouring countries to over 1 million. Within the national border, more than 1.61 million people are internally displaced and another 261,000 are refugees from Sudan, DRC, Ethiopia, and Central African Republic. read more

Gwon Han-naKorea Handball ← Previous Story VIDEO: Dominik Klein isn’t angry at Kiel… Next Story → DENMARK 2015: Ruthless Montenegro and host team book eight-finals spots! South Korea drew in second match in a row at the Women’s World Championship 2015 start. Koreans played 22:22 with France, only two days since their classy opener against Brazil 29:29. One of the best Korean players was playmaker Gwon Han-na, the girl who reminds on legendary Ivano Balic with her style.One of the best moments of the match by 26 years-old playmaker was definitely “Balić style” read more

THE ARMY BOMB DISPOSAL team has made safe a quantity of the unstable chemical Picric Acid which was found at a Co Tipperary school.The operation was carried out yesterday evening, when gardaí requested the help of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team, following a call from the Christian Brothers School (CBS) in Thurles.The EOD team arrived at the scene at 7pm and made safe the unstable chemical, which had been found in the school laboratory. The chemical was moved to a safe location where a controlled explosion was carried out.The school was evacuated and a nearby road was closed off to traffic until the scene was declared safe at 8.30pm.Picric Acid, which is also known by its chemical name “trinitrophenol” is routinely used in laboratories throughout the country but can become unstable over time. read more

It was the morning of 9 March, 2005. Panayiotis Tsalikidis was heading to have coffee with his brother Costas in Kolonos, downtown Athens, before a meeting. As he entered the building, he heard his mother screaming: “Cut him down!”He entered the apartment and saw his brother’s body hanging in front of the bathroom door. “I immediately called my wife and asked her to bring a high-definition camera so I could take some pictures on the spot, because I didn’t believe it was a suicide,” says Panayiotis today.A decade later, the Tsalikidis family continues to believe that the death of the 39-year-old Vodafone technician was instigated by a third party. The evidence they have managed to painstakingly gather over the years, together with the written statements of the judicial authorities who worked on the case, clearly suggest that Costas Tsalikidis’ death is inextricably linked to the bugging through the Vodafone network of the phones of high-ranking government officials during the administration of Costas Karamanlis, including the prime minister himself.“It’s not easy to talk about such a loss,” says Panayiotis’ wife, Eleni, her eyes brimming with tears. “We still feel kind of guilty for being unable – through no fault of our own – to get answers. I’d like to believe that there are people who will choose to talk one day.”Kathimerini, in a joint investigation with international publication The Intercept and noted reporter James Bamford, spent months researching the case both in Greece and the USA, and now presents, for the first time, testimonies from high-ranking US intelligence officials who either took part or have knowledge of the phone-tapping operation in Greece. The Kathimerini investigation also brought to light for the first time previously unpublished NSA documents pertaining to Greece and the wiretapping scandal that emerged by gaining exclusive access to the archive of former US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden.HELPING WITH SECURITY AHEAD OF THE OLYMPICS The 2004 Athens Olympics were the first Summer Games to take place after 9/11. Safety concerns were evident in both the international media as well the constant pressure from American officials on their Greek counterparts.As it emerges from previously unpublished documents from the Snowden archive, US intelligence agencies started drawing up operation plans for the Games some two years in advance. According to one of the documents seen by Kathimerini, at least four NSA strategists had been working on the subject of gathering information for the Athens Olympics since 2002 and, in cooperation with other departments within the agency, ensured “that an analytic attack was in place and that the targets’ social networks are defined”.“Although the first race, dive, and somersault are still a year away the intelligence community is in full ‘training mode’ for the event,” reads another document, dated 15 August, 2003. “In truth, NSA has been gearing up for the 2004 Olympics for quite some time, in anticipation of playing a larger role than ever before at the international games.”According to the same document, cooperation between the Greek and the American intelligence agencies was to be very close. “The security organisation that the NSA will support is EYP,” says the document, referring to the Greek National Intelligence Service, while another explains that “the co-location of IC (Intelligence Community) analysts both at the US embassy in Athens as well as at the Greek Intelligence agency” significantly enhanced the capabilities and quality of information collection.However, despite the fact that cooperation was close and NSA officials had been placed inside EYP, the one bone of contention that remained between the Greek and US authorities in the period leading up to the Games was the technical inability of Greece’s law enforcement to surveil suspicious phone calls and electronic communications on a mass scale. EYP’s capabilities were limited to very localised surveillance within a very specific distance. “From an American point of view, that was terrifyingly primitive,” says Brady Kiesling, who resigned his post as head of the political section of the US Embassy in Athens in protest at the US invasion of Iraq just a few months before the Games. Under immense pressure from the US, the Public Order Ministry leadership under the PASOK government had already called a meeting in December 2003 between the three cell phone providers at the time (Vodafone, Cosmote, Tim) to discuss how lawful interception could take place.General elections scheduled for March, however, made it impossible for the necessary – yet politically sensitive – presidential decree to be issued.However, even after the elections, when a New Democracy government came to power and the ministry was taken over by Giorgos Voulgarakis – who had said in similar meetings in April 2004 that lawful interception was “just a matter of a week’s preparation” on the part of the providers – until the flame was lit at the Olympic Stadium in Athens, no legal framework for lawful taps was in place.In any case, on 4 August, 2004, some 6,500 lines of code were added to the source code of the software used by Vodafone to operate its network. The developer of that software, which is used by cell phone companies all over the world, was Swedish tech giant Ericsson. The input of those 6,500 lines of code of illegal software activated a subsystem of the Ericsson software called Lawful Intercept, normally used by authorities to intercept phone calls.The Lawful Intercept subsystem – which up until then was part of the Vodafone network but not active as the provider had not purchased the digital key needed to activate it – was now able to forward a stream of intercepted calls to 14 shadow cell phones and possibly to digital data recorders for storing and processing.More than a decade since that day, and for the first time, a former high-ranking US intelligence official who was involved with the 2004 phone tapping in Greece openly admits that the secret operation was carried out by the NSA and that, in its initial stage at least, it had the green light from the Greek government: “The Greeks identified terrorist nets, so NSA put these devices in there and they told the Greeks, ‘OK, when it’s done we’ll turn it off.’ They put them in the Athens communications system, with the knowledge and approval of the Greek government, this was to help with security during the Olympics.”EVIDENCE POINTS TO LARGE NUMBER OF OPERATIVES According to classified NSA documents from the Snowden archive brought to light by Kathimerini, the preparations of the US intelligence agencies were unprecedented for any event.According to a classified NSA report seen by Kathimerini, such information was available to the US intelligence community and had, in fact, been collected prior to the Games by the CIA, which “recorded the GSM networks in Athens”, referring to the Global System for Mobile communications. The NSA documents confirm that the US intelligence mission to Athens during the Games included members of both groups, while TAO – according to a 2004 NSA report – “performed CNE [Computer Network Exploitation] operations against Greek communications providers.”According to a report by the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE) in 2006 though, the participation of Vodafone insiders was “absolutely necessary” in certain phases of the wiretapping operation. This, as Snowden’s documents show, may have been the work of the CIA.Another group that works under the NSA is the Special Collection Service (SCS), staffed by the NSA and CIA.Known inside the agency as F6, the group is not just mentioned in the PowerPoint presentation as one of the ways of accessing the Lawful Intercept subsystem, but also, according to previous NSA document leaks, was permanently headquartered inside the US Embassy in Athens.Furthermore, a former US intelligence official involved in the wiretapping operation explains that recruiting telecom company employees around the world is standard practice, in which the CIA and the NSA work together. “For example, at a foreign Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, if NSA determines it needs to get access to that system, NSA and/or the CIA in coordination would come up with a mechanism that would allow them to replicate the existing switch to be swapped out. The CIA would then go and seek out the person who had access to that switch, go in there, and then it would be the CIA that would effect the operation. And then the take from it would be exploited by the NSA.”“Human intelligence guys can provide sometimes the needed physical access without which you just can’t do the signals intelligence activity,” confirms General Michael Hayden, NSA head from 1999 to 2005, who, according to the documents published in the Snowden archive so far, ran America’s biggest domestic bugging operation without the necessary warrants. Asked whether he remembers the Greek bugging case, he said it is “not something I can talk about”.Chris Inglis, deputy director of the NSA from 2006 to 2014, was also asked whether the agency was involved in the Greek wiretapping, which he neither confirmed nor denied. “I couldn’t say whether NSA was involved in that or any other activity that might have been alleged to be conducted by an intelligence service, let alone NSA,” he said.So the question of who could have carried out the operation in Greece remained unanswered for years, until the name of William Basil came to the fore.THE ‘TELEPHONE MAN’ WHO GREW UP ON KARPATHOS Two months before the bugging operation began, a woman walked into a store on Akti Miaouli Street in Piraeus and bought four cell phones with SIM cards. A 2011 ADAE investigation found that within a few weeks of purchase, the devices were used as shadow phones to receive the calls intercepted from the Vodafone network, while at least one was later used with a SIM card registered to the US Embassy in Athens and made calls to the central exchange, the emergency line, the Marine guard and the FBI office in the building on Vassilissis Sofias Avenue. The devices and cards, according to the testimony of the store manager, were purchased by the wife of William Basil, a CIA agent whose family came from the island of Karpathos.“We used to call him the telephone man,” said a former CIA colleague of Basil’s in Athens. “All we do is we buy burner phones.”Basil, 65, was born in Baltimore in December 1950. He and his sister travelled to Karpathos when they were still children to witness their father’s second marriage after he divorced their mother, Madeleine. A few months after returning to America, in the early 1960s, the family returned to Karpathos for good. Today, childhood friends on the island still remember ‘Billy’. “He was a bit Americanised,” one of them said. “We were a big group of kids swimming all day beneath the houses at the port. Billy had a canoe; he had things other kids didn’t.”Basil and his cousin, Nikos Kritikos, grew up in the same house. “Our aunt Marigoula raised us. He’s amazingly smart.” Nikos’ father and Basil’s uncle, retired schoolteacher Manolis Kritikos, remembers Billy as a restless kid with a passion for the island’s history and that of his father’s village. “He enjoyed talking to the elders. And he loved Greece and [the village of] Olympos more than anything.”When Basil got older he moved to Athens to attend the American Community Schools, graduating in 1968. He returned to the US, enlisted in the army and served in Alaska. At the end of his service he became a deputy sheriff in Baltimore County for a spell and then went on to work, for the next two decades, at the CIA Security Office as a polygraph expert. He grew tired of the job and, citing his knowledge of Greek, applied to and was accepted in the operational arm of the CIA, where he often enjoyed diplomatic immunity. Basil soon found himself serving as secretary at the US Embassy in Athens, even though in reality he worked for the CIA station situated on the top floor of the embassy, as a terrorism expert. “He never hid what he did,” says his cousin, Nikos Kritikos, who believed that Basil was chief of security at the embassy. “He’d often call and say he was in the Middle East. His job was to get a feel of these societies and write reports.”A colleague from the embassy remembers Basil wearing a bullet-proof vest under his shirt, with a 9mm pistol clipped to his belt and driving an armoured car. It appears that his duties also included maintaining contacts with the Greek security and intelligence services. “He worked with the Greek police and conducted seminars for Greek policemen,” says Kritikos. “He gave the impression that he had friends in high places, that he knew interior and public order ministers.”LEAVING VODAFONE WAS ‘MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH’ Costas Tsalikidis, 39, was an engineer with a broad range of interests. He liked to go to the Monastiraki market in downtown Athens to look for rare vinyl records. He loved traveling around Greece, while shortly before his death, he had been looking for an apartment for himself and his fiancee. Everyone close to him agrees that there was nothing in his behavior to suggest he could have killed himself.In the last year of his life he was responsible for redesigning the Vodafone network in light of the Athens Olympics but also for its transition to 3G technology. A person of method, he kept detailed notes in a series of blue notebooks. In one of these, a few weeks before his death, he wrote the word ‘Fever’, citing an overload in parts of the network.“It is certain that he found something which led to his demise,” says his brother, Panayiotis. A month-and-a-half before Costas was found hanging in front of his bathroom door, on 24 January, 2005 someone had attempted to install additional illegal software at Vodafone’s headquarters in Paeania, east of Athens. By the next morning, thousands of subscribers had called complaining that they were unable to send text messages. The alarm was raised immediately both at Vodafone and at supplier Ericsson, while technicians in Greece and abroad scrambled to find out what was wrong.A few days later, on January 31, Costas submitted his resignation. He was convinced to take a few days off, from February 2 to 8, and to return to work, at least until a replacement was found. Shortly before that he had told his fiancee – without going into detail – that he was afraid the company was about to go bust. He made her swear she wouldn’t tell anyone. He also said that he felt he had to leave Vodafone, that it was “a matter of life and death”.After weeks of checks, on Friday 4 March, Ericsson technicians informed Vodafone in Greece that they had found evidence of unauthorised software. The following Monday, the malware was isolated at Ericsson HQ in Sweden, while at Vodafone in Athens, Costas sat in on a number of closed-door meetings where tempers were running high.“In one visit by his foreign bosses, he was criticised for his work,” Costas’ fiancee said in her testimony to the police. “The phrase ‘take a bucket of shit and stick your heads in it’ was also heard” on that visit, she added.The day after that, the CEO of Vodafone Greece, Giorgos Koronias, ordered the malware deactivated and removed from the company’s network. The only opportunity the Greek authorities had to catch the perpetrators of the wiretaps in the act was gone for good. That was also the day that Costas had his last telephone conversation with his fiancee.“He told me he was worried about his mother because she was running a high fever,” she testified. “How can someone who is worried about his mother hang himself at night knowing that she would be the one to find him in the morning?”The day after Costas’ death, on 10 March, 2005, Koronias asked Yiannis Angelou, head of the PM’s political office, to schedule a meeting with Karamanlis on the issue of the wiretaps. The premier was in Madrid, so Angelou arranged it so that Koronias would meet with him and Public Order Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis. That was also the day that the presidential decree allowing wiretaps was published in the Government Gazette, bearing the signatures of Voulgarakis, among other officials. It was the one thing missing before the Olympics – a decree granting authorities the permission they needed to conduct legal wiretaps via telecom providers.THE POLITICAL BURIAL OF AN INVESTIGATION “Coincidences happen,” says a high-ranking official in the Karamanlis government in regard to the publication of the decree the next day after Costas’ death.When confronted by Kathimerini with the testimony of a former US intelligence agent involved in the Athens operation who said that the wiretaps began “with the knowledge and approval of the Greek government”, the former government official didn’t have to think twice before responding: “That makes sense. I’m not surprised.”The Greek government that had given the green light for the wiretaps to start did not ensure that they would ever end, so the trap that had been set up for potential terrorists eyeing the Athens Games as a target ended up snaring the government itself. Why did this happen? According to a Snowden document, joint CIA-NSA task forces often intercept the communications of host countries, as they “on a number of occasions and for whatever reason have been unwilling to share information”.A former NSA official with extensive bugging experience offers his own explanation: “They never (remove it),” the official said with a laugh, about such software.“Once you have access, you have access. You have the opportunity to put implants in, that’s an opportunity.”Two weeks after the death of Costas Tsalikidis, in a closed meeting between Karamanlis’ associates at the Maximos Mansion, the idea was floated to bury the whole affair. According to sources close to the former premier, he quashed the plan over fears it could emerge later.Meanwhile, Basil left Athens for Sudan. A few months later, on 4 August, 2005, he was issued a visa by the Greek Embassy in Khartoum and returned to Greece with a diplomatic passport granting him full immunity.The investigation into Costas’ death was left to the police, without the family being informed about the wider implications, while the case of the wiretaps was forwarded for preliminary investigation by then head of the Athens prosecutor’s office and later justice minister Dimitris Papangelopoulos, as well as to EYP.In February 2006, Minister of State Theodoros Roussopoulos, Voulgarakis and Justice Minister Anastasis Papaligouras briefed the media on the affair and said that an 11-month secret investigation had not yielded any tangible evidence. At the same press conference, Voulgarakis praised Koronias for his handling of the issue on the part of Vodafone.The Tsakalidis family has had its own cross to bear these past 10 years as the case has been forwarded from one prosecutor to another – well-known names in judicial circles – without result and was at times even closed despite the plethora of evidence and the clearly perfunctory investigations.The case appeared to gather fresh momentum when it was undertaken by magistrate Dimitris Foukas. In 2014, reports regarding his findings made mention of an American agent who may have knowledge of the bugging operation. That same period, according to well-informed sources, Basil made a call to a prominent lawyer, Ilias Anagnostopoulos, who met in person with the prosecutor and said that his client was willing to testify.If there are questions then of course I will answer them,” the lawyer was told by Basil, who, before retiring from service, was promoted to CIA deputy station chief in Islamabad and later returned to the US, where he was appointed to chief of human resources in the service’s counterterrorism unit. In the meantime, Basil’s name and speculation about his involvement in the operation was leaked to the Greek press. Worried about the attention, he called Anagnostopoulos again and told him to drop the subject.His cousin, Nikos Kritikos, does not believe that Basil could be responsible for the bugging.“There is no way he would do what they say he did,” said Kritikos. “They know how much he loves Greece and they would have sent someone else to do something like this. There’s no way he did it.”The last time he was seen and photographed in Athens was at his daughter’s wedding in 2013.In February, Foukas issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of espionage and violating communications privacy laws based on the evidence suggesting that his wife bought the shadow phones from Piraeus on his behalf.The magistrate also drafted a report – something that legal experts say is unusual at this stage of proceedings. The document, which does not make any mention of Costas Tsalikidis’ death, was lumped together with other wiretapping cases allegedly involving EYP officers, as well as with that related to a suspected attempt on Karamanlis’ life. No connection between the cases is made in the documents; they are simply filed together.Foukas asserts that the hardest part of the case is knowing “where criminal liability begins and politics end”.For its part, the Tsalikidis family, uninterested in political games, insists on asking questions about why and how Costas died.Source: Kathimerini Facebook Twitter: @NeosKosmos Instagram read more

Égyptologie : Cléopâtre aurait succombé à un poison et non à une morsure de serpentAllemagne – Un historien présente la thèse qu’il a développée suite à ses voyages d’étude à Alexandrie : la dernière reine d’Égypte se serait donné la mort avec un cocktail toxique, et non en se faisant mordre par un serpent, comme le veut la légende.Connue pour sa beauté et 2.040 ans après sa mort (selon les calendriers officiels), la reine Cléopâtre fascine toujours. Un historien rattaché à l’université de Trèves (Allemagne), Christoph Schaefer, a enquêté sur place, consultant d’anciens textes médicaux et interrogeant des experts en serpents : selon lui, une femme aussi attachée à son aspect physique, même au-delà de la mort, n’a sans doute pas pu opter pour une morsure de serpent, comme le veut la légende. À lire aussiLa tragique histoire de l’homme évacué d’un avion à cause de son odeurLa morsure du cobra d’Égypte (Naja haje) entraîne une mort lente, douloureuse et risque d’altérer tissus et traits du visage. Or le mélange d’opium, de ciguë et d’aconitum (plante contenant des alcaloïdes toxiques) était un poison radical très en vogue à l’époque, et paraît une solution bien plus vraisemblable. C’est en tout cas la théorie qu’a exposée lors de plusieurs émissions de TV le chercheur, auteur d’un best-seller sur Cléopâtre. Une théorie qui ne bouleverse pas les données généralement admises par les historiens concernant la belle souveraine, Cléopâtre VII Théa Philopator de son vrai nom, qui se serait suicidée en 30 avant JC après la défaite et la mort de son amant Marc Antoine.          Le 3 juillet 2010 à 13:08 • Emmanuel Perrin read more

Share Authorities say a single-engine plane crashed on the top of a Houston warehouse in an accident that left the pilot injured.Officials say the crash happened around 11 p.m. Sunday.A Houston Fire Department statement says air traffic controllers reported a small plane went off radar about 4 miles north of Hobby Airport. The wreckage of the Cessna 172 was located atop the warehouse, with help from emergency beacons.Authorities say the pilot was transported to a Houston hospital. His name and condition weren’t immediately released.Federal investigators will work to determine what caused the crash. read more

I’ll be honest: When I first got the pitch for “the first blockchain-based video game console,” I assumed it must be some kind of gimmick.But Jimmy Chen, co-founder and CEO of Blok.Party, said the Ethereum blockchain is “a critical part of this experience,” allowing his team to create “this seamless bridge between the digital and physical worlds.”Today, Blok.Party is unveiling its PlayTable console, which combines elements of tabletop and console gaming.This isn’t the first time someone’s tried to incorporate real-world objects into video games — for example, there was Disney Infinity, which shut down a couple of years ago. But by using blockchain technology, Chen said he can avoid many of the pitfalls that tripped up previous efforts.For one thing, instead of manufacturing new toys and pieces for every game, PlayTable uses RFID tags, which can be attached to existing objects. So players can use the tags to incorporate their own toys and cards into the games.“We’ve been trying to make toys smart for a very, very long time, but all we’ve been doing is stuffing resistors and transistors inside of them, making them incresingly more inaccessible,” Chen said. Blok.Party, in contrast, is “creating a data set that is inexpensive, that can easily attach to the physical object.”[embedded content]He demonstrated PlayTable for me using Battlegrid, a card-based fantasy duel game developed by Blok.Party, which Chen described as “if Magic the Gathering, Hearthstone and Skylanders had a baby.” I won’t pretend that I followed all the ins and outs of the battle, but I saw that Chen could place different cards and pieces down and the table would recognize them and bring the related characters into play.“The core of it, the physical manifestation of it that exists only in one space, has proven to be fairly difficult [in the past],” Chen added. “By creating that backend infrastructure, we can make the system a lot more successful. The element that blockchain really enables is this idea of having a truly unique, open dataset that people can contribute to and can build on top of.”Chen said Blok.Party is working with third-party developers to create about 25 different titles, some of them based on classic games like poker and mah jong.The PlayTable is currently available for pre-order at a discounted price of $349. (The company says the regular price will be $599.) The plan is to ship the console in the fourth quarter of this year. read more

New trend alert! Finding the exact spot where 3 states meet Share By: Pat Eaton-Robb Source: The Associated Press << Previous PostNext Post >> Friday, July 28, 2017 Tags: America, Trend Watch THOMPSON, Conn. — There’s an unusual travel hobby that has people visiting the woods of Thompson, Connecticut, and other remote spots across the country.They’re looking for spots where at least three states meet, such as the Connecticut-Rhode Island-Massachusetts point.Brian Butler of Holliston, Massachusetts, has created a website devoted to the hobby. He says there are 65 sites in the U.S. where at least three states intersect, 38 of them on land.Some, like the one in southern New England, are marked with monuments. Others have survey markers in the ground, and others aren’t marked at all. Many are on private land, some are in water and most are in remote areas.Utah border surveyor Dan Webb says multistate border spots in the area are getting a lot more visitors since GPS became readily accessible. read more

Go back to the e-newsletter >Four Pillars Gin has collaborated with the Rockpool Mixologists to craft a limited-edition gin for Qantas, aptly named the ‘Modern Australian Gin’.Rockpool Mixologists, Ryan Gavin, Max Gurtler and Jacob Dykes, along with Four Pillars’ distiller Cameron Mackenzie, handpicked the botanicals which include red and green Szechuan, quandong, macadamia nuts, fresh grapefruit peel, tangelos and Rosie Glow apples. Combined with the traditional Four Pillars botanicals, the result is an Asian-inspired, Modern Australian gin with softness and spice.The ‘Modern Australian Gin’ will be poured in the Qantas First lounges in Sydney, Melbourne and Los Angeles, as well as the Hong Kong and Singapore lounges. The Rockpool Mixologists have designed three special cocktails – Hanky Panky, Gin Spritzer and The Doctor’s Order – which will be featured in the Sydney and Melbourne First Lounge.The gin will also be poured throughout Rockpool Group restaurants across Australia and will be available to purchase through Qantas epiQure, via the Four Pillars website and at the Four Pillars Distillery.Cameron Mackenzie, Four Pillars Distiller said it was a great partnership that has resulted in an even greater product.“As it says on the side of the bottle, when the opportunity arose to make a gin with the Rockpool Mixologists for Qantas, how could we say no? We’re really excited to extend our Bartender Series and welcome the newest member of the family; the Modern Australian Gin,” said Mackenzie.“The gin itself is exceptional. The Asian spices give it a lovely warm mouthfeel, while the macadamia nuts give it softness and the apple and quandong give it freshness and a touch of the exotic. It’s delicious, it’s different and it will make a great drink, however you choose to enjoy it,” Mackenzie continued.The limited-edition drop is available to purchase for Qantas epiQure members for $80 at Qantas epiQure, or at the Four Pillars Distillery in Healesville or via the Four Pillars website, for $85 from 3 December 2015.Go back to the e-newsletter > read more

but it is also responding to unease about corporate control of the food supply, Fashola. adding that he is currently on bail in that case. and their bread. such things happen almost every day in this administration. the Army revised that number to 588. Neil Newhouse, while just 9% involved individuals. “In 2006.

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which announced the charges Tuesday afternoon."Of course Brazilians will support their team,Segun Agbaje and his two older brothers, Nepalgunj in the mid-western and Mahendranagar in the far western regions— said CAAN. it threatens the very foundation of our democracy. read more