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August 1, 2001, Chandigarh, India    |
Gunmen hijack bus with 41
Internet worm may cause more
damage |
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UN to impose curbs on
Taliban Stop dam building:
Nepal Indians get most FRG green cards |
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Canada okays medical
use of cannabis Typhoon toll 61
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Gunmen hijack bus with 41 Moscow, July 31 “The main thing now is to free the hostages, but no one is going to make concessions to the terrorists,” Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said in televised comments in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city. The gunmen seized a commuter bus near Nevinnomyssk, some 1,500 km south of Moscow. They later moved to a site outside the biggest airport in the region, in Mineralnye Vody. Russian television showed pictures of armoured cars massed at the scene and commandos creeping through high grass, apparently to take up positions. Large trucks had been placed across roads leading to the airport. An aide to the prosecutor of Russia’s southerly Stavropol region said an operation to free the hostages had started. But officials at the scene quickly denied this. A spokesman for the FSB security service in Stavropol said the hostage-takers gunmen had specifically referred to an incident in May 1994 when gunmen tried to escape to Chechnya on a helicopter with a $ 10 million ransom and several hostages. Four gunmen were captured and sentenced to long prison terms. Interfax quoted a press office of President Vladimir Putin’s special representative in southern Russia as saying six people had been allowed to leave the bus as it was travelling, including one injured passenger later taken to hospital. Interfax later reported that three more people had been released. But officials could not immediately confirm this.
Reuters |
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Internet worm may cause more damage Washington, July 31 “Code Red”, which first surfaced in mid-July, is expected to re-emerge today, according to the FBI’s national infrastructure protection center (NIPC) and other online security watchers. “There is reason for concern that mass traffic associated with the worm’s propagation could degrade the overall functioning of the Internet and affect ordinary users,” said NIPC Director Ronald Dick at a news conference. Computers running the windows nt or windows 2000 operating systems and microsoft’s Internet information server (iis) software version 4.0 or 5.0 are vulnerable to infection and the users should install a software patch. Instructions for the patch are available at www.Digitalisland.Net/codered. Computer users running windows 95, windows 98 or windows me are less vulnerable, and no action was recommended for them. For infected computers, turning the machine off and then on gets rid of the worm but does not provide immunity from future infection. “Code Red” was first noticed in mid-July and appeared to spread most virulently on July 19, but has been largely dormant since about July 23, experts from industry and government said at the news conference to publicize the software patch. The worm was expected to strike again today evening at the hour corresponding to the first instant of Wednesday, August 1, based on so-called universal time, which is the same as Greenwich Mean Time. The worm, named for a caffeinated soft drink favoured by computer programmers, works by installing itself on server computers that then are instructed to blitz government web sites and others with data, which can slow them down. “What makes this one different from any other is how dramatically it has been able to propagate itself and the viciousness associated with that,” Mr Dick said. The worm can also deface sites, though in two of the three known variants, no vandalism is apparent to computer users. In last week’s hits, some US Government sites showed the message “hacked by Chinese.” It scans the Internet, looking for other computers to infect, and as more and more computers are infected the scanning gets more widespread. SINGAPORE: Singapore has issued warnings on the “Code Red” Internet worm which is expected to re-emerge on Wednesday after disrupting US government websites last week. “From a technical standpoint, the “Code Red” worm can be quite serious,” the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) said in a statement on Tuesday. Only two cases of the worm have been reported in Singapore so far. BEIJING: A Chinese computer virus expert said today the fast-spreading “Code Red” Internet worm which disrupted US government web sites last week was not made in China, despite web site defacings that said “hacked by Chinese.” The worm, which US oficials said was likely to start multiplying again today and could slow the Internet worldwide, had surfaced little in China, experts said. “One thing I can be sure of is that it was not created by a Chinese person. Its appearance and its spreading did not start in China,’’ said Mr Wang Jianfeng, assistant manager of technical support at Ruixing Computer Development Co, a virus protection company in Beijing. “The virus has had more of an effect in Europe and the USA,” Mr Wang said. Mr Ronald Dick, director of the FBI’s National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), said the worm had infected more than 250,000 computer systems on July 19, a day of heavy attacks. The worm installs itself on server computers which then are instructed to blitz government and other web sites and can slow them
down. Reuters |
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UN to impose curbs on Taliban United Nations, July 31 A resolution unanimously approved yesterday calls for sending experts to countries neighbouring Afghanistan to assist local authorities in preventing flow of arms and drugs smuggling in the war-ravaged nation. It also authorised creation of a five-member task force at the Headquarters in New York to oversee enforcement of sanctions. The resolution allows substantial increase in the number of monitors if needed and calls on the countries to contribute experts. Diplomats said these would include experts in the field of terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking. The USA and Russia, who were the prime movers to impose and enforce sanctions against the Taliban, are expected to be among the nations whose experts will work in the field. Russia joined the USA in moving the resolution as terrorists trained in Afghanistan were operating in Chechnya.
PTI |
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Stop dam building: Nepal Kathmandu, July 31 “The Nepal Government has formally taken up the issue with the Indian Government through diplomatic channels and we have already requested India to stop the construction of the barrage,” said Minister for Water Resources Bijaya Gachchedar. Four months ago, India began building the Rassiyal-Khurda -Lautan dam across the Danav River, just 200 metres from the border south of Lumbini, where Buddha was born as Gautama Siddhartha. The area is about 270 km southwest of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. UNESCO has recognised Lumbini as the place where Buddha was born and declared the area a World Heritage Site. The six-metre high dam has come under fire from Buddhist scholars and Nepalese political parties, who accuse India of violating international laws that bar such constructions within 8 km of an international border.
AP |
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Indians get most
FRG green cards Berlin, July 31 The FRG Labour Office said 8,556 green cards had been issued since August 1,2000, to foreign IT experts. Of these, Indians were issued 1,782 green cards — or nearly a fifth of the total - and formed the largest contingent of recipients. The green cards are de facto annually renewable labour permits valid for a maximum of five years.
IANS |
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Canada okays medical use of cannabis London, July 31 Under pressure from people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis (MS) who say cannabis brings them relief, the UK Government has agreed to scientific trials to establish whether it has medical benefits and how it — or extracts of it - can be taken without smoking, which itself damages health. But the Canadian Government has taken the greater leap and allowed people whose doctors certify they have certain conditions to roll a legal joint. Those with terminal illnesses —with the expectation of only a year to live - and those with certain specified conditions will be eligible for the weed, if their doctor and two other experts sign the legal forms. The conditions include AIDS, arthritis, cancer, MS, epilepsy and degenerative muscle and bone illnesses. The Guardian London |
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Typhoon toll 61 Taipei, July 31 The bulk of the fatalities occurred in Hualien county on the east coast and adjacent Nantou county, where 37 persons were reported dead and more than 100 were missing after the typhoon ravaged the area. Many were buried alive or swept into the sea when Toraji hit Hualien early yesterday, triggering landslides that engulfed their homes. Later today, the typhoon, which had lost much of its power, hit the southern coast of the Chinese mainland, where some minor damage was reported but no casualties, the official Xinhua news agency said from Beijing.
DPA |
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