Indian American Yahoo co-founder joins Obama team

US President Barack Obama has appointed Chandigarh-born Srinija Srinivasan, 40, one of the three co-founders of Yahoo! as a member of the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.Srinivasan, currently vice-president and Editor-in-Chief at Yahoo! was herself a Presidential Scholar in 1989, a prestigious honour that is awarded to over a 100 high school students each year for outstanding achievements ranging from academia, arts and leadership.

In naming Srinivasan and 11 others to the Commission, Obama said: "The Commission on Presidential Scholars is charged with recognizing the future leaders of our country and honouring them for their outstanding achievements."I am grateful that these impressive men and women have agreed to serve on this commission and help a new generation realize their potential and pursue their dreams."

The eleven will join the National Teacher of the Year, Anthony Mullen, as members on the Commission, the White announcement said.Since joining the company as its fifth employee in 1995, Srinivasan has led a range of editorial and policy functions, beginning with the organization and evolution of the Yahoo! Directory, it noted.

She has overseen network editorial standards and original content development, guided the company's corporate responsibility arm, and directed policy issues including privacy and data use, advertising standards, youth safety, community guidelines, and accessibility.Prior to joining Yahoo!, Srinivasan was involved with the Cyc Project, a ten-year artificial intelligence effort to build an immense database of human commonsense knowledge.

She chairs the Board of Trustees for SFJAZZ, a non-profit organization dedicated to jazz creation, presentation, and education. She is also a member of the 2000 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute.She holds a BS with distinction from Stanford University in Symbolic Systems, and was honoured as a Presidential Scholar in 1989.

Courtesy: Times of India

Now Yahoo accounts hacked in China

The Yahoo e-mail accounts of foreign journalists based in China and Taiwan have been hacked, according to a Beijing-based press association.Rival Google has been involved in a high-profile row with the Chinese government following similar cyber-attacks against Gmail accounts.he Foreign Correspondents' Club of China (FCCC) has confirmed eight cases of Yahoo e-mail hacks in recent weeks.Yahoo said it condemned such cyber-attacks.But the FCCC accused Yahoo of failing to update users about the situation.

"Yahoo has not answered the FCCC's questions about the attacks, nor has it told individual mail users how the accounts were accessed," a spokesman told the news agency.Yahoo said in a statement that it was "committed to protecting user security and privacy".Clifford Coonan, a reporter for the Irish Times, told the AFP news agency that he had an error message when he logged into his Yahoo account this week.

"I don't know who's doing it, what happened. They (Yahoo) haven't given any information, but it seems to be happening to journalists and academics in China, so that's why it's a little suspicious," he said.

Ricky Martin is a Gay

Martin, who has sold more than 60 million albums in a career spanning three decades, said on his website that he felt "blessed to be who he was".He added that he had kept his sexuality hidden so far because advisers had told him coming out could hurt his career.His biggest hit is Livin' La Vida Loca - a 1999 single that reached number one in more than 20 countries.Martin, who fathered two children with a surrogate mother two years ago, said on his website: "Today I have accepted my homosexuality as a gift that gives me life."He said his decision to write his memoirs had helped him to free "things that were too heavy to keep inside".Martin began his career in the 1980s with the Puerto Rican boy-band, Menudo.

Moscow hit by two consecutive terrorist attack

At least 37 people have been killed after two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow Metro trains in the morning rush hour, officials say.Twenty-four died in the first blast at 0756 (0356 GMT) as a train stood at the central Lubyanka station, beneath the offices of the FSB intelligence agency.About 40 minutes later, a second explosion ripped through a train at Park Kultury, leaving another 13 dead.The FSB said it was likely a group from the North Caucasus was responsible.The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says no group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but past suicide bombings in the capital have been carried out by or blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in Chechnya.

In February, Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov said "the zone of military operations will be extended to the territory of Russia... the war is coming to their cities".At an emergency meeting with senior officials, President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to uphold the "policy of suppressing terror and the fight against terrorism"."We will continue operations against terrorists without compromises and to the end," he said.Federal security forces have scored a series of successes against militants in the North Caucasus in recent weeks. In February, at least 20 insurgents were killed in an operation by troops in Ingushetia.

Emergency services ministry spokeswoman Irina Andrianova said the first explosion tore through the second carriage of a train as it stood at Lubyanka at the peak of the rush hour.The station, on both the busy Sokolnicheskaya and Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya lines, lies beneath the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB).

"I was moving up on the escalator when I heard a loud bang, a blast. A door near the passage way arched, was ripped out and a cloud of dust came down on the escalator," an eyewitness named Alexei told Rossiya 24 TV channel.

"People started running, panicking, falling on each other," he said.The second blast at Park Kultury, which is six stops away from Lubyanka on the Sokolnicheskaya line, came at 0838 (0438 GMT). It struck at the back of the train as people were getting on board."I was in the middle of the train when somewhere in the first or second carriage there was a loud blast. I felt the vibrations reverberate through my body," one passenger told the RIA news agency.
"People were yelling like hell," he said. "There was a lot of smoke and within about two minutes everything was covered in smoke."More than 100 people were injured in the two attacks, 30 of them badly, officials said.

US CreditCard Hacker Sentenced

Computer hacker Albert Gonzalez has been jailed for 20 years in the US for his part in stealing the details of more than 130m credit and debit cards.One judge described the crime as "the largest and most costly example of computer hacking in US history".

The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to three cases of fraud at his trial last year.Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years for the first two cases on Thursday, and 20 years and one day on Friday for the third. The terms will run concurrently.The judge in the third case said he had to serve the extra 24 hours because the crime had been committed when he was working for the US Secret Service as an informant, reportedly receiving as much as $75,000 a year.

As part of a plea agreement, Gonzalez also agreed to hand over $1m that he had buried in his parents' garden, a condo in his hometown of Miami, a car, a diamond ring and several expensive watches.

Gonzalez was accused last August, along with two Russian co-conspirators, of hacking into the payment systems of retailers.They targeted more than 250 US companies including payment processor Heartland Payment Systems, food and drink store 7-Eleven and American supermarket Hannaford Brothers Co.

Gonzalez was found to have used SQL injection attacks to exploit weaknesses in payment software programmes and access data, stealing millions of customer card details.He blamed "curiosity and addiction" for his crimes.Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Department of Justice said that on a daily basis "cyber criminals try to steal the debit and credit card numbers of unsuspecting American consumers."

"These sentences - some of the longest ever imposed for hacking crimes - send a powerful message to hackers around the globe that US law enforcement will not allow them to breach American computer networks and payment systems, or illegally obtain identities."

Osama's new threat

World's most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden has warned that al-Qaida will kill American soldiers if the self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is executed. "The day America will take such decision [to execute Khalid Mohamed and any others] it would have taken a decision to execute whoever we capture," Bin Laden said in the latest audio record, broadcast on Al-Jazeera.

He also said that US president Barack Obama was "following the footsteps of his predecessor", a reference to George Bush, the former US president. "The politicians in the White House were practicing injustice against us and still they are. Especially by supporting Israel in its continuous occupation of Palestine. "They used to think that America across the oceans is protected from the rage of the oppressed until our reaction was loudly heard at your home on the 9/11 with God's help," he said in the recording.

Osama's threat comes as Obama administration has announced it would try Khalid Mohammed and four other accused at a New York courthouse just steps from where the World Trade Centre once stood. Sheikh Mohammed and the other accused are detained at Guantanamo as they await trial over the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed close to 3,000 people, most in New York.
Osama bin Laden's last audio recording was released on January 24, earlier this year in which he claimed responsibility for alleged attempted attack on an airliner on Christmas Day and vowed there would be further attacks on the US unless Obama took steps to resolves the Palestinian situation.

Haiti Earthquake

The quake Tuesday flattened much of the capital of 2 million people, wrecking buildings great and small – from shacks in shantytowns to President Rene Preval's gleaming white National Palace, where a dome tilted ominously above the manicured grounds.Hospitals, schools and the main prison collapsed. The capital's Roman Catholic archbishop was killed in his ruined office at the main cathedral. The head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission was missing in the ruins of the organization's multistory headquarters.

Several buildings belonging to the archdiocese collapsed, killing at least 100 priests and seminarians, the Vatican said.At a triage center improvised in a hotel parking lot, people with cuts, broken bones and crushed ribs moaned under tent-like covers fashioned from bloody sheets."This is much worse than a hurricane," said Jimitre Coquillon, a doctors assistant. "There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

Haiti's leaders struggled to comprehend the extent of the catastrophe – the worst earthquake to hit the country in 200 years – even as aftershocks reverberated."It's incredible," Preval told CNN. "A lot of houses destroyed, hospitals, schools, personal homes. A lot of people in the street dead. ... I'm still looking to understand the magnitude of the event and how to manage."

Preval said thousands of people were probably killed, but it was "too early to give a number."Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive predicted the death toll could reach 100,000.The international Red Cross said a third of the country's 9 million people may need emergency aid, a burden that would test any nation and a crushing catastrophe for impoverished Haiti.

President Barack Obama promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort, and U.S. officials said they were responding with ships, helicopters, transport planes and a 2,000-member Marine unit, as well as civilian emergency teams from across the U.S.
"We have to be there for them in their hour of need," Obama said.

The U.S. Embassy had no confirmed reports of deaths among the estimated 45,000 Americans who live in Haiti, but many were trying to find a way out of the country.
Governments and aid agencies from around the world began marshaling supplies and staffs, but the obstacles proved frustrating just one day after the powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit. Power and phone service were out.