(Reuters) - Individuals employed around the world by a sophisticated cyber crime ring stole $45 million from thousands of bank automated teller machines within a matter of hours, using hacked debit-card data, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.
Members of the global criminal organization hacked into two credit card processors and used stolen data to make more than 40,500 withdrawals in 27 countries, during two separate coordinated incidents in December 2012 and February 2013, the Justice Department said.
"In the place of guns and masks, this cyber crime organization used laptops and the Internet. Moving as swiftly as data over the Internet, the organization worked its way from the computer systems of international corporations to the streets of New York City, with the defendants fanning out across Manhattan to steal millions of dollars from hundreds of ATMs in a matter of hours," said US Attorney Loretta Lynch, whose office in Brooklyn, New York, brought the case.
In the December attack, hackers gained access to an Indian credit card processor that handled prepaid Mastercard Inc debit cards for National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC, or RAKBANK, according to a criminal indictment.
In February, the hackers broke into the system of a U.S.-based credit card processor to steal account numbers for prepaid Mastercard debit cards issued by Bank of Muscat, the indictment said.
The second operation was far larger than the first attack, eventually totaling $40 million in losses to Bank of Muscat.
No individual bank accounts were compromised by the scheme, Lynch said.
Authorities said they arrested seven of the eight defendants, all U.S. citizens and residents of Yonkers, New York. They are Jael Mejia Collado, Joan Luis Minier Lara, Evan Jose Peña, Jose Familia Reyes, Elvis Rafael Rodriguez, Emir Yasser Yeje and Chung Yu-Holguin.
The eighth defendant charged in the indictment, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Peña, also known as "Prime" and "Albertico," was murdered on April 27 in the Dominican Republic, according to prosecutors. Lynch said it was unclear whether the murder was related to the cybercrime case.
Money like that could buy a lot of plane tickets and pressure cookers.
Nobody likes paying a telephone bill, landline, cell or otherwise. The long-term contracts, early termination fees and the bewildering array of fees and limits make comparison shopping a drudge. This isnÂ’t so, however, for nearly 1 every 10 Maryland residents who get their telephone free from the Lifeline subsidy program. The rest of us pay for it.
The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday that the number signed up for free telephones in the aptly named Free State has went kaboom! 90-fold from a mere 5,821 in 2008 to nearly 509,000 in 2012. The number would have been higher if not for a targeted Federal Communications Commission audit that pushed more than 230,000 freeloading Marylanders off the program late last year.
The Lifeline program was started as part of the Universal Service Fund in 1985. Legislators from rural states thought it was a great idea to tax the telephones of city dwellers to cover the cost of running telephone lines to remote locations in, for example, Alaska. With tens of billions in taxes paid, the goal of universal service was accomplished. Landline phones are widely available with wireless alternatives available to fill gaps in availability. So the program shifted focus.
[An Nahar] A company that specializes in "Made in La Belle France" underwear has raised nearly 19,000 euros ($25,000) from enthusiastic investors banking on its next titillating creation -- sweet-smelling underpants for men. After you've worn undies for a day or two they just naturally become scented. Perhaps not sweet-smelling, but scented.
The so-called "Indomitable" briefs will be manufactured by "Le Slip Francais", a company set up in 2011 by 27-year-old Guillaume Gibault, who decided to bank on a trend for all things made in La Belle France to sell underwear.
"You want to change the world, you want to change things, start by changing your underpants!" the firm writes on crowdfunding website www.mymajorcompany.com, where it has already raised close to 19,000 euros.
The idea behind crowdfunding is that anyone on the Internet can contribute money to a project, in some cases in exchange for shares in a company or other rewards.
Gibault told Agence La Belle France Presse the briefs will be scented thanks to micro-capsules full of homemade perfume that will be incorporated into the cotton used to make the underpants in the Lille region of northern La Belle France.
As soon as the lucky owner of the briefs moves around, the capsules will release the perfume and the scent will last up to 30 washes, he says.
"It's quite a masculine perfume, not very strong, based on musk and pears," he said.
"Le Slip Francais" has become something of a success story in La Belle France, which is suffering badly from lack of competitiveness and a general perception of hostility towards business owners and entrepreneurs.
It employs five people in its Gay Paree headquarters, and outsources the manufacture of the underwear to factories in different parts of La Belle France, including Lille and the southwestern Dordogne region.
The firm has so far sold some 20,000 of its red, white, blue and black briefs, and plans to develop its presence abroad, with Japanese people proving to be particularly enthusiastic clients.
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Passing gas is usefull now, "pardon the noise, just freshening up the room..."
ABC gets there first, wherever it is.
[NYPOST] Top ABC News editor Don Ennis walked into his Manhattan office on Friday in a "little black dress" and a brunette bobbed wig and announced to colleagues that from now on, he would like to be known as Dawn.
The 49-year-old father of three said he's splitting from his wife of 17 years to become a woman, or Dawn Stacey Ennis, as she is now known on her governmental records.
"Today I begin anew," she wrote on her Facebook timeline, where she debuted a flirty new profile picture.
"Please understand: This is not a game of dress-up, or make-believe. It is my affirmation of who I now am and what I must do to be happy, in response to a soul-crushing secret that my wife and I have been dealing with for more than seven years, mostly in secret."
Ennis said she suffers from an "unusual hormonal imbalance," and blames her mother, who fed her female hormones as a child to prolong a commercial acting career. The hormones made the little boy look and sound young, but Ennis said she eventually developed breasts.
Doctors can't explain or remedy her condition, and she's been undergoing hormone-replacement therapy to maintain "mysteriously a more female than male body."
"I have a rare medical condition -- nothing deadly or infectious -- but it has resulted in an unusual hormonal imbalance, " she said.
"One so profound that I don't resemble the man you first met 10 years ago."
She hasn't undergone a surgical sex change, but says her marriage is "wrecked" and her personality and way of thinking have changed.
The day after she announced her decision to colleagues, she left her wife, Wendy, and moved out of the home they shared with their three young children.
"Despite the heartbreak, [Wendy] has encouraged me to start this new life that we both believe better fits who I now am," Ennis wrote on Facebook.
"Trust me, this is NOT the midlife crisis I was counting on -- I'd much prefer to have bought a sports car.
"Even an affair, I think, would have been something we might have recovered from.
The balding journalist, who has worked at the network for 10 years, admits that her confession might be a bombshell.
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"I have a rare medical condition -- nothing deadly
[USNEWS.NBCNEWS] Residents of a Houston neighborhood are being warned to stay away from giant African land snails after a woman found one in her garden and snapped a photo of it.
The snails, researchers warn, are potentially dangerous to touch, in part because they can carry meningitis. Scientists have warned anyone who comes in contact with them to wash their hands thoroughly.
"They also carry a parasitic disease that can cause a lot of harm to humans and sometimes even death," Autumn Smith-Herron, director of the Institute for the Study of Invasive Species at Sam Houston State University, told NBC Houston affiliate KPRC.
A woman gardening in the Briar Forest neighborhood of Houston found the snail and notified workers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center who deal with invasive plants. It is the first reported sighting of the mollusk in Texas, and no one seems to know how it got there.
The giant snails can lay 100 eggs per month, and though only one has been found, it is believed more are in the area.
Jack Fendrick, who lives near where the slimy giant was discovered, said he will do his part to warn of the potentially deadly snails.
"I think most kids especially would look at a big snail and want to touch it," he said. "That's scary."
Posted by: Fred ||
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Not only do they carry a parasite, they EAT STUCCO! We're doomed, I tell ya!
#6
so this thing gets in an auto race where instead of num, bers, the first letter of what they are is painted on the vehicle; t for turtle, r for rabbit, etc. surprisingly the snail wins. And from the bleachersis young voice comes th: " Wow, Mommy, look at that S car go...."
Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has pushed Egypt's sovereign credit ratings deeper into junk status, citing "continued pressure" on foreign reserves.
In a setback to the already worsening economy, S&P said in a statement Thursday that it cut Egypt's long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings to CCC+ and C, from B- and B.
Who in their right mind would buy an Egyptian government bond today, whatever the rating?
The rating agency said it expected "financing pressures to remain elevated" and donor support "to remain elusive."
That was a reference to stalled talks between the Egyptian government and the International Monetary Fund over a $4.8 billion loan to help heal the budget deficit and improve the economic outlook.
The negative rating came despite a $1 billion rise in net international reserves in April to $14.4 billion, thanks to Libyan cash deposits to Egypt's central bank.
[Al Ahram] A criminal court in Alexandria has sentenced notorious criminal Sabry Nakhnoukh to 28 years in prison for possessing weapons and drugs.
Nakhnoukh, who admitted facilitating large-scale vote rigging in favour of the now-defunct National Democratic Party, was jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in August at his villa near Alexandria on charges of "thuggery," unlicensed possession of weapons, drugs possession and involvement in prostitution.
He had earlier accused Moslem Brüderbund leader Mohamed El-Beltagy of being behind the charges against him, and of orchestrating his arrest due to Nakhnoukh's "opposition to Brotherhood rule in Egypt."
According to Nakhnoukh's lawyer Gamal Sweid, El-Beltagy accused Nakhnoukh on television of being involved in attacking peaceful protesters during the January 25 revolution.
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[An Nahar] Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... troops went on a rape rampage, attacking at least 135 women and girls as they retreated from a rebel advance last year, according to a U.N. report released Wednesday.
Soldiers raped women at gunpoint, killed a boy who tried to save his goat and beat men who tried to defend their wives and homes, according to the latest harrowing episode from more than two decades of conflict in eastern DR Congo.
U.N. human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... Sherlocks said the army and M23 rebels, who routed government forces as they took the major eastern city of Goma in November, could face international crimes against humanity charges.
Congo authorities should promptly bring to trial rebel and army commanders "regardless of their rank", said the Sherlocks. They also called on "neighboring states" to hand over M23 leaders implicated in the atrocities.
M23 fighters carried out a rape and killing spree in Goma as they took over on November 20 with U.N. peacekeepers powerless to stop them alone.
Thousands of DR Congo army troops retreated to Minova in South Kivu province where they went on their own rampage in the town and eight surrounding villages.
According to a toll given by the U.N. Sherlocks, 17 people, including two boys, were killed in the week-long offensive to take Goma.
During their 10-day occupation of Goma and the nearby town of Sake, "at least 11 civilians were arbitrarily executed" and there were 58 rapes by M23 fighters.
M23 took over a Goma military camp where at least 49 women -- mainly the wives of soldiers who had fled -- were raped or sexually assaulted, said the report.
The militia also forcibly recruited child soldiers and slave labor.
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troops went on a rape rampage
Bastids! That's our job! /UN
The lengthy article in the People's Daily, China's most-circulated newspaper and the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that China may have rights to the Ryukyu island chain, which includes Okinawa.
Don't I know it - in fact, iff China doesn't wish to confront the USN's NIMITZ-class CVNS + BGS, + Gator Amphibs just off its shores in the East China Sea, Taiwan-Okinawa Straits, Koreas + South China Sea, IMO GUAM MAY EASILY END UP BEING ATTACKED FIRST OR AT THE SAME TIME AS TAIWAN + POSSIBLY THE NORTHERN PHILIPPINES.
Presuming, of course, that the Bammer decides to militarily intervene in defense of the US' overseas allies despite the US Debt Burden, includ the on-going Sequester, new future QES/MES = "Fiscal Cliffs', + OWG-GFUS starting in 2015.
Also, China has claimed that the ancestors of Native American Indians-Eskimos includ Lower Americas came from China, ergo CONUS-NORAM + CENTAM + SOAM are just more "lost/stolen" Chinese territory to be eventually recovered + returned to China.
E.G. CHINA DAILY FORUM > INSIDE CHINA: PLA SAYS WAR WID USA IMMINENT.
* SAME > NO TURNING ACK ON STATUS QUO ANTE ON DIAOYUDAO [Senkakus/Diaoyus].
FYI Chinese CMS ships have again again again .... intentionally violated Japan's territorial waters around the Senkakus, + did so despite the pullback of forces from Ladakh + North Korea withdrawing two of its MUSUDANS MBMS.
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > A LOSS OF FACE [for India] IN THE HIMALAYAS - LIVEMIND.
ARTIC = By any measure, CHINA CAME OUT THE WINNER AT LADAKH.
RELATED ...
> SAME = INDIA DEMOLISHED HIMALAYAN OUTPOST TO END CHINA STANDOFF - FIRSTPOST.
> SAME > INDIAN ARMY DESTROYS BUNKERS IN CHUMAR IN LADAKH.
> SAME > [India TV News] HEAVY LOGISTICS MOVEMENTS GAVE AWAY INDIAN ARMY'S POISTION IN CHUMAR TO CHINA: SOURCES.
> TOPIX = [NewsKerala] CHINA MAY HAVE CLEARED LAC NOT WANTING TO UPSET SINO-INDIAN BILATERALS.
[An Nahar] Spain's Constitutional Court on Wednesday put a brake on Catalonia's drive for a referendum on independence by opening the door to a legal challenge against the region's claim to illusory sovereignty.
Catalonia's regional parliament in January passed a "declaration of illusory sovereignty" which it said gave Catalonia grounds "to exercise its right to decide" its political future.
The national government rejected efforts by Catalonia's leaders for greater independence, fanned by the economic crisis, and challenged the resolution as a threat to the "unity" of Spain guaranteed by the constitution.
Continued on Page 49
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Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) entered a letter from law enforcement officials nationwide warning of the dangers of the immigration bill S.744 into the judiciary committee record today.
The letter To Congress from the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council of the American Federation of Government Employees Affiliated with AFL-CIO warns of the discretionary power the bill gives to "political appointees" and takes away from law enforcers: Who needs a nation of laws when you have someone like Big Cyst can issue Imperial Edicts?
"This same section (Section 2101 of S. 744) gives the Secretary of Homeland Security virtually unlimited discretion to waive any manner of crimes that would otherwise make an individual ineligible for legal status----for such expansive reasons as family unity, humanitarian purposes, or what the Secretary believes is in the public interest." Meaning that she can enact a blanket policy to allow all members of a terrorist organization (for example the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Quada) in with no-questions asked.
The letter concludes that ICE officers would continue to be "powerless" to protect the public and do their jobs if the bill becomes law:
"If this legislation were enacted tomorrow, ICE officers would continue to be powerless to effectively enforce our nation's laws and provide for public safety as S. 744 does nothing to end these dangerous agency- and department-level directives." Plan:
1) Make states powerless to insure the integrity of the ballot box.
2) Make ICE powerless to enforce our borders.
3) Allow millions more undocumented democrats to cross the border with de-facto 'Amnesty'.
4) Profit at the ballot box.
No wonder Dem's have hopes of turning Texas and Arizona blue.
[Dawn] An ally in the outgoing coalition government led by the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Wednesday announced to withdraw all its electoral candidates in the Sindh province except Karachi and Hyderabad cities in favour of the latter.One National Assembly contestant and eight candidates for the Sindh's provincial assembly are withdrawn from the election race, said a press release issued by the Awami National Party (ANP).However, all the party candidates, contesting from Karachi and Hyderabad, will partake in the May 11 general elections with zeal and fervour, it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] The caretaker government has decided to impose a ban on the use of air-conditioners in all government departments and offices in a move to conserve power in the energy-starved country.
According to a blurb from the Prime Minister House on Wednesday, the ban would come into effect from May 15, 2013 and shall continue until such time that there is substantial improvement in the energy situation in Pakistain.
"The Prime Minister House had already discontinued use of air conditioners as part of its austerity and conservation drive," said the blurb.
Continued on Page 49
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[Dawn] Ever since the start of election season, live tigers and lions are a constant feature at Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N) political rallies. You just can't argue with divine displeasure. Yesterday Imran, today Nawaz. Who'll be next?
The party chief's daughter, Maryam Nawaz, in particular enjoyed bringing the white tiger to her rallies because of the attention it attracted. But the show stopper tiger is no more .
Sources told Dawn.com that the rare tiger was brought unconscious to the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Lahore on Tuesday evening. The veterinary doctors tried to revive the animal but failed and the rare specie died this morning.
The issue of live animals at PML-N rallies had also been brought to the Election Commission's attention last week, which retorted saying the matter is out of it's jurisdiction.
According to WWF, white tigers are endangered and are extremely sensitive to heat and noise. With temperatures soaring past 30 degrees Celsius in Lahore and there being nothing but noise at political rallies, the white tiger fell sick and lost strength due to dehydration.
The WWF also confirmed that famed actor and conservationist Faryal Gohar will be filing a petition with the Lahore High Court (LHC) against the illegal use of wildlife animals at rallies and other such activities. The WWF will be supporting the petition.
The white tiger belonged to a party worker who showed off his 'pet' at Maryam Nawaz's political rallies. The animal was extensively seen in PML-N rallies across Punjab.
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#1
But the show stopper tiger is no more .
Something wrong with the yellow markup script? Or is that real copy?
#3
I was talking to a friend a few months back who had lost his wife and 3 children to an assault snail, I remember comforting him by the saying, "In death there is life.. and life death and we gotta keep moving and rolling with the time" then I started to dance the white tiger. It was moving.
Experts warn of danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.
Lord May of Oxford, a former government chief scientist and past president of the Royal Society, denounced the study published 1 May 2013 in the journal Science [online version here] as doing nothing to further the understanding and prevention of flu pandemics.
"They claim they are doing this to help develop vaccines and such like. In fact the real reason is that they are driven by blind ambition with no common sense whatsoever," Lord May told The Independent.
"The record of containment in labs like this is not reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It's appallingly irresponsible," he said.
The controversial study into viral mixing was carried out by a team led by Professor Hualan Chen, director of China's National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute.
Professor Chen and her colleagues deliberately mixed the H5N1 bird-flu virus, which is highly lethal but not easily transmitted between people, with a 2009 strain of H1N1 flu virus, which is very infectious to humans.
#1
Definitely an option for China iff military confrontation + the crushing US debt burden don't work in getting the US to voluntarily pullback to EASTPAC.
Twas only a few weeks ago that a PLA Colonel accused the US of deliberately but covertly launching deadly "Bird Flu" centric BioWar/
Terrorism agz China. UNDOUBTEDLY CHINA + PLA WILL CLAIM THEIR RESPONSE WAS MERELY RETALIATORY PAYBACK FOR THE US TERROR ACTION(S?) LAUNCHED AGZ THEM.
[CNSNEWS] Bishop Thomas Tobin, head of the Catholic diocese of Providence, said the "gay marriage" bill signed into law in Rhode Island by its governor, Lincoln Chafee, constituted a "new challenge of the post-Christian era into which, clearly, we have now entered."
Chafee, a liberal Independent who used to belong to the Republican Party, signed the bill making "gay marriage" legal in the Ocean State on Thursday, May. 2. That same day, Bishop Tobin, who represents 680,000 Catholics in 143 parishes, issued a pastoral letter to Catholics on the approval of "same-sex marriage."
"In particular, I wish to invite members of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island to a moment of prayer and reflection as we respond to this new challenge of the post-Christian era into which, clearly, we have now entered," said Bp. Tobin.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/09/2013 00:00 ||
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Since the purpose of marriage is children,
It's self curing, two people of the same sex cannot have children, they can adopt, but what court would let them.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[An Nahar] A company that specializes in "Made in 
[USNEWS.NBCNEWS] Residents of a Houston neighborhood are being warned to stay away from giant African land snails after a woman found one in her garden and snapped a photo of it.
The lengthy article in the People's Daily, China's most-circulated newspaper and the mouthpiece of the ruling Communist party, argued that China may have rights to the Ryukyu island chain, which includes Okinawa.
[An Nahar] Spain's Constitutional Court on Wednesday put a brake on Catalonia's drive for a referendum on independence by opening the door to a legal challenge against the region's claim to 
[Dawn] Ever since the start of election season, live tigers and lions are a constant feature at Pakistain 
Experts warn of danger that the new viral strains created by mixing bird-flu virus with human influenza could escape from the laboratory to cause a global pandemic killing millions of people.
