SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Following revelations of hackers accessing files at companies including Apple and Facebook, Microsoft revealed today it also found evidence of intrusions. In a blog post on the Microsoft Security Response Center, general manager Matt Thomlinson indicated "a small number of computers, including some in our Mac business unit" were affected by malware of the type described in the other attacks. As he mentions, such cyberattacks are no surprise to a company with Microsoft's profile, however one wonders if the folks in Redmond aren't having a chuckle that Macs appear to have been exploited in this case. He continued to state that the investigation is ongoing, however it does not appear that any customer data was at risk.-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: Engadget

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Apple has revealed that it was attacked by hackers and a small group of its employees Macintosh computers were infected. The good news is no data appears to be stolen, but the company will continue to be watchful.

Apparently, the attack on the Cupertino’s was from the same hackers who had targeted Facebook last month. According to a report by Reuters, the unidentified hackers are from China and Apple would continue to work with law enforcements to track them down.

Meanwhile, Apple is said to be releasing a new software tool to protect its consumer against the malicious software used in the attacks.-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: GSM Arena

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The opposition governor of Lara state in central Venezuela says he and his followers were attacked with guns, tear gas and stones during a political event, presumably by rival ruling party supporters.

Henri Falcon, who is running for re-election in Lara, said Tuesday that six people were injured in the violence, though he didn't describe the injuries or their severity.

The opposition governor said in a press release the alleged attack took place during a campaign swing in northeast Barquisimeto, the capital of Lara state.

Falcon told Venezuelan TV channel Globovision that "we were attacked ... Various times we tried to evade the official groups."

Falcon accused government supporters of carrying out the attack.

Government officials didn't immediately comment on the alleged incident.- www.shfaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) - A Washington bearded Sikh taxi driver was viciously attacked by a passenger who was shouting anti-Muslim slurs, reflecting growing Islamophobia in the American society.

“Two witnesses saw the attack which was described as savage, and the defendant continued his tirade after officers arrived,” Deputy Prosecutor Gretchen Holmgren told the court, Seattle Post Intelligencer reported.

The attack occurred on October 17 when Auburn police called a cab to pick up Jamie W. Larson, who was apparently too intoxicated to drive or walk.

According to charging documents submitted by King County prosecutors, the drive picked Larson from police station to drive him to his Federal Way home.

During the ride, Larson began questioning the driver about his turban.

Larson then attacked the driver while making anti-Muslim comments, a Federal Way detective told the court.

The driver was able to stop the car in the 1200 block of Southwest 301st Street, where police found him injured and Larson attempting to return to the parked taxi.

Even after police arrived, Larson continued making bigoted comments about the driver, an immigrant from India.

According to police, Larson referred to him derisively as Iranian and Iraqi, and used several anti-Arab slurs before also using an anti-gay slur.

“We have Americans fighting overseas in his country and why doesn’t he go back to there?” Larson allegedly asked officers at the scene.

Police report the attack left the driver, who was taken to a hospital, dazed and with a loose tooth.

Larson was arrested at the scene and has since been charged with malicious harassment under Washington’s hate crime statute.

He remains jailed on $60,000 bail.

Hate

Prosecutors confirmed that the racist attack were not only hateful but based on his misperception of the driver’s heritage.

“Officers noted that (the driver), a follower of the Sikhism religion, wore a turban headdress, kirpana, kara and a Kanga; items that symbolize (his) religion,” the detective told the court.

The United States is home to about 500,000 Sikhs, nearly all of Indian origin.

The men are easily identifiable by their beards and turbans, a tradition that has lasted for 500 years.

Sikhs are obliged to wear five symbols at all times, including turbans and no hair cut (for adult males) and iron bracelet; Kara (for women).

According to Sikhism, such symbols are worn for identification and representation of the ideals of Sikhism.

The attack on the sick taxi driver is not the first by anti-Muslim racists.

Since the 9/11 attacks, Sikhs have sometimes been confused publicly with Muslims because of their turban headdress and beards.

At least seven people were killed when a gunman attacked people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last August.

US Muslims, estimated at between six to seven million, have strongly condemned the shooting, expressing solidarity with Sikhs.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: On Islam

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) - A hooligan ran on to the field whilst a football game was on between two teams in the city of Sheffield in England. The game was between Sheffield Wednesday and visiting Leeds United. In the 77th minute of the game, seconds after Leeds had equalised, a hooligan supporting Leeds team ran towards the opponent’s keeper and knocked him down. He then returned to the stand while trouble continued around him, with a number of other travelling supporters invading the field of play.

According to the Police, bottles and seats were thrown. Riot police were also present at the game and tried to diffuse ugly scenes in the stadium. After the match Sheffield manager Dave Jones described Leeds fans as "vile animals", adding: "You talk about racism, the chanting, that's a form of racism. Then (for the Leeds players) to go and wave at them ... not in my book. You don't wave at them after that."

Leeds manager said: "They should get the guy and prosecute him and put him in prison. I am not proud of being Leeds manager when I see that. To see things like that on the field of play there is no place for it - I am absolutely embarrassed. Despite claims by authorities that there are no such problems, racism and hooliganism are two ugly sides of football in England.

www.shafaqna.com/english

Source: Sky News

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — Hundreds of Buddhists who fled their southern Bangladesh villages in the wake of attacks by Muslims started returning home Monday amid heightened security and more than 160 arrests.

The Buddhists moved to safety after an overnight weekend attack in which thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims burned at least 10 Buddhist temples and 40 homes in anger over a Facebook photo of a burned Qur'an.

Army soldiers, paramilitary border guards and police were deployed, and the government has banned all public gatherings in the troubled areas near the southern border with Myanmar, said Lt. Col. Jaed Hossain, a military commander who was helping to install tents for displaced Buddhists.

"They are coming back. We are giving them protection," Hossain said at Merunglua village in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar on Monday.

Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters in Dhaka on Monday that security officials detained 166 people in Cox's Bazar and neighbouring Chittagong district in connection with the attacks. Hossain said about 1,000 Buddhist families fled their homes after the attacks were launched late Saturday.

As the unrest continued through early Sunday, many Buddhist-owned homes and shops were looted. Nojibul Islam, a Cox's Bazar police chief, said at least 20 people were injured.

Lost everything

Many in the impoverished neighbourhood of Merunglua lost everything.

"I was in my shop. They suddenly came and set my shop on fire," grocery owner Prodip Barua told The Associated Press. "I started running and took my two children and wife from my home and fled the area."

He knew his shop had been burned to ashes, but when he returned Monday he was shocked to see that his home was also destroyed. "How will I survive now? How will I send my children to schools?" he sobbed. "I have lost everything."

The government has pledged to rebuild the victims' homes.

Home Minister Alamgir said after visiting the area that the affected people would get security and support from the government. The attacks began after a photo of a burned copy of the Muslim holy book was posted on Facebook. The rioters blamed the photo on a 25-year-old local Buddhist, though it was not immediately clear if he actually posted the photo.

Only about 300,000 Bangladeshis, or about 0.2 per cent of the country's 150 million people, are Facebook users.

Facebook account closed

Bangladesh's English-language Daily Star newspaper quoted the man blamed for the photos as saying that someone else mistakenly tagged it on his Facebook profile. The newspaper reported that soon after the violence started, the man's Facebook account was closed and police escorted him and his mother to safety.

Joinul Bari, chief government administrator in Cox's Bazar, said authorities detained the man's parents and were investigating. Buddhists make up less than one per cent of Muslim-majority Bangladesh, but followers of the two religions usually coexist peacefully.

Some of the Buddhist families displaced by the attacks took shelter at the homes of Muslim neighbours, and on Monday, many Muslim families offered food to the victims.

The Bangladeshi violence follows protests that erupted in Muslim countries over the past month after a low-budget film produced by a U.S. citizen denigrated the Prophet Muhammad by portraying Islam's holiest figure as a fraud, womanizer and child molester.

Some two dozen demonstrators have been killed in protests that attacked symbols of U.S. and the West, including diplomatic compounds.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: CBC

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — Iran has warned it is ready to retaliate against attack after "Israel’s" prime minister urged a red line to be drawn over its nuclear program.

Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.N. time was running out to stop Iran having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.

In response, Iran’s deputy U.N. ambassador said his country was strong enough to defend itself.

Iran’s U.N. mission said Israel had made “baseless and absurd allegations against (its) exclusively peaceful nuclear program.”

It also said Israel “on a daily basis, threatens countries in the region, particularly my country (with) military attack.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is strong enough to defend itself and reserves its full right to retaliate with full force against any attack,” the Iranian mission said in a written statement.

Netanyahu had said on Thursday the only way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons was by setting “a clear red line” to stop its atomic program.

“At this late hour, there is only one way to peacefully prevent Iran from getting atomic bombs and that’s by placing a clear red line on Iran's nuclear weapons program,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. “Red lines don’t lead to war; red lines prevent war.”

“The hour is late, very late,” Netanyahu said, alleging Iran was already 70 percent of the way through the process of enriching enough uranium to fuel a bomb, and must be prevented from reaching the 90 percent level.

He said that by next summer, Iran will be on brink of having enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb.

Israel has warned that it could launch military action against Iran in order to prevent it reaching a certain nuclear threshold, and has urged the international community to force Tehran to abandon its atomic quest.

Iran denies it is building a nuclear weapon and has dismissed the "Israeli" threat.

Meanwhile, China said on Thursday that the disagreement over Iran’s nuclear program had reached “a new, crucial stage,” calling for Tehran to begin a new round of talks with world powers, something a U.S. official said could happen at some point.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi spoke several hours after Netanyahu’s U.N. General Assembly address and after a meeting of officials from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China - and Germany yielded no obvious signs of progress toward a diplomatic solution.

“The Iranian nuclear issue has reached a new, crucial stage,” Yang said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. “The relevant parties should remain committed to a diplomatic solution and begin a new round of dialogue as soon as possible.”

A senior U.S. official said “at some point” the group would likely return for a fourth round of talks with Iran.

“I think we’ve got some additional work to do first, so I would not expect that to happen immediately, but I would hope that we will get there in the not-too-distant future,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The push to resume talks comes at a time when tensions between Iran and "Israel" are rising and diplomatic efforts to resolve the decade-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear work have foundered.

Israel, the United States, the European Union and their allies say Iran is amassing the capability to produce a nuclear bomb, an allegation the Islamic Republic denies.

The six world powers, represented by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, have sought to persuade Iran to scale back the enrichment of uranium through intensifying economic sanctions and diplomacy.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Al Arabiya

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — A senior Iranian commander has warned that should “Israel” translate its threats of attacking Iran into action, there would no longer be a “thing called the Zionist regime.”

Responding to the “Israeli” threats of a military aggression against the Islamic Republic, Commander of the Aerospace Division of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Amir-Ali Hajizadeh said, “The Zionist regime can only begin the confrontation.”

“But we (Iran) will decide on the duration, management, level of combat, and the endpoint of the war. If the Zionist regime [of “Israel”] makes such a move, there will no longer be a thing called the Zionist regime,” he said.

Hajizadeh said the Iranian Armed Forces are “fully prepared” and are in “favorable” conditions from both quantitative and qualitative standpoints.

“The Zionist regime cannot even imagine our response to the military attack of this regime,” he added.

“Israel” has recently stepped up threats of carrying out a unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear energy facilities.

The threats are based on the unsubstantiated claims that the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic have been diverted toward military purposes.

On September 19, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said the Islamic Republic currently enjoys the defensive military capacity to obliterate the “Israeli” regime.

“The defense capability of the Islamic Iran against threats by the Zionist regime (of Israel) has been developed to an extent that it will be able to wipe the [“Israeli”] regime off the scene,” he added.—www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Press TV

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — The” Israeli” targeting of Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007 happened after the seizure of intelligence during a raid of a Syrian official home in Vienna, a magazine publishing excerpts of a book written by a Middle East expert reported on Monday.

David Makovsky said “Israeli” agents uncovered detailed photographs of Syria’s nuclear facility, al-Kibar, after breaking into the Vienna home of Ibrahim Othman, the head of Syria’s program, in his excerpts cited by the New Yorker.

The photos provided information that there were North Korean workers at Kibar and showed structural similarities with the North Korean reactor in Yongbyon.

“Israel” struck the Syrian reactor using four F-15 and four F-16 planes, dropping some 17 tons of explosives on the reactor between the hours of 12:40 and 12:53 a.m. on September 5, 2007, according to the New Yorker.

In 2007, Ehud Olmert, “Israel’s” prime minister at the time, decided to unilaterally attack Syria by invoking the Menachem Begin Doctrine—a policy to never allow enemy countries to obtain nuclear weapons. In 1981, “Israel” unilaterally attacked Iraq’s Osirak reactor.

The United States under the Administration of George W. Bush in 2007 did not think that there was enough evidence for a preemptive strike against Syria.—www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Al arabiya

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — The deputy commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has said that Iran would carry the war into the enemies’ borders if it comes under military attack.

“In case of any aggression against Iran, we will take the war into the enemies’ borders, and they will realize how powerful we are,” the Sepahnews on Saturday quoted Brigadier General Hossein Salami as saying.

“We will not allow any war to be dragged into our land,” he added.

He also said that the enemy has resorted to every plot to undermine the Islamic Republic over the past 34 years.

“The enemy, united with economic powers, tried to paralyze Iran’s economy through an all-out economic war, but everyone saw that the enemy itself went into an economic crisis, and each day, our people introduced several new advancements,” he said.

In addition, Salami said that the enemy dreams of defeating Iran day and night, but Iranian martyrs have strengthened the country’s independence in such a way that no power would be able undermine the dignity of the Iranian nation.—www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Tehran Times