NEWS,19.02.2013

Italy Elections 2013: Nearly A Third Of Population Undecided Or Will Not Vote, According To Final Poll

Five days before national elections almost a third of Italians have yet to decide who to vote for or are considering not voting at all, a survey showed on Tuesday, highlighting uncertainty over the outcome. The poll in Corriere della Sera daily showed the proportion of Italians undecided or tempted to abstain has declined from 51.5 percent in December but remains at a significant 27.7 percent less than a week before the vote on Sunday and Monday. Final polls on Feb. 8, before a legal black-out period set in, indicated that the centre-left Democratic Party would win a lower house majority but will need to form a coalition with outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti's centrist grouping. Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right alliance was about 6 percentage points behind the frontrunners. But the hefty proportion of undecided voters means the outcome is still unpredictable and the final days of campaigning will be crucial. Publication of polls is illegal in the two weeks leading up to the Feb. 24-25 election but analysts are permitted to reveal data on likely participation rates. Most of the undecided are middle-aged housewives or pensioners with relatively low education levels, mainly living in the south of Italy, and with little interest in politics, pollster Renato Mannheimer of the ISPO institute said. "More than half of those who are currently undecided or potential abstainers say they can't place themselves on the right or the left," Mannheimer told the Milan daily. He added it was likely that many people who were yet to decide would probably not vote, based on past electoral trends. But historical participation rates suggest about 5 million people, or 10 percent of voters, will make up their minds in the last few days, swayed by last-minute promises from party leaders regardless of their place on the political spectrum, he said. Many polls over the last year have shown Italians disenchanted with a political class clinging to its privileges as the euro zone's third biggest but chronically uncompetitive economy descended deeper into crisis.

China Suspected Of Hacking Attacks Against The U.S.

A secretive Chinese military unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S. computer security company said, prompting a strong denial by China and accusations that it was in fact the victim of U.S. hacking. The company, Mandiant, identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely driving force behind the hacking. Mandiant said it believed the unit had carried out "sustained" attacks on a wide range of industries. "The nature of 'Unit 61398's' work is considered by China to be a state secret; however, we believe it engages in harmful 'Computer Network Operations'," Mandiant said in a report released in the United States on Monday. "It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively," it said. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the government firmly opposed hacking, adding that it doubted the evidence provided in the report. "Hacking attacks are Trans national and anonymous. Determining their origins is extremely difficult. We don't know how the evidence in this so-called report can be tenable," spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing."Arbitrary criticism based on rudimentary data is irresponsible, unprofessional and not helpful in resolving the issue."Hong cited a Chinese study which pointed to the United States as being behind hacking in China. "Of the above mentioned Internet hacking attacks, attacks originating from the United States rank first. "China's Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the report. Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai's Pudong district, China's financial and banking hub, and is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations, Mandiant said in its report.The unit had stolen "hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organisations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006", it said.Most of the victims were located in the United States, with smaller numbers in Canada and Britain. The information stolen ranged from details on mergers and acquisitions to the emails of senior employees, the company said.The 12-storey building, which houses the unit, sits in an unassuming residential area and is surrounded by a wall adorned with military propaganda photos and slogans; outside the gate a sign warns members of the public they are in a restricted military area and should not take pictures. There were no obvious signs of extra security on Tuesday. "ECONOMIC CYBER ESPIONAGE" Some experts said they doubted Chinese government denials of military involvement in the hacking. "The PLA plays a key role in China's multi-faceted security strategy, so it makes sense that its resources would be used to facilitate economic cyber espionage that helps the Chinese economy," said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder of CrowdStrike, one of Mandiant's competitors. Though privately held and little known to the general public, Mandiant is one of a handful of U.S. cyber-security companies that specialise in attempting to detect, prevent and trace the most advanced hacking attacks, instead of the garden-variety viruses and criminal intrusions that befoul corporate networks on a daily basis. But Mandiant does not promote its analysis in public and only rarely issues topical papers about changes in techniques or behaviours. It has never before given the apparent proper names of suspected hackers or directly tied them to a military branch of the Chinese government, giving the new report special resonance. The company published details of the attack programmes and dummy websites used to infiltrate U.S. companies, typically via deceptive emails. U.S. officials have complained in the past to China about sanctioned trade-secret theft, but have had a limited public record to point to. Mandiant said it knew the PLA would shift tactics and programmes in response to its report but concluded that the disclosure was worth it because of the scale of the harm and the ability of China to issue denials in the past and duck accountability.The company traced Unit 61398's presence on the Internet including registration data for a question-and-answer session with a Chinese professor and numeric Internet addresses within a block assigned to the PLA unit and concluded that it was a major contributor to operations against the U.S. companies. Members of Congress and intelligence authorities in the United States have publicised the same general conclusions: that economic espionage is an official mission of the PLA and other elements of the Chinese government, and that hacking is a primary method. In November 2011, the U.S. National Counterintelligence Executive publicly decried China in particular as the biggest known thief of U.S. trade secrets. The Mandiant report comes a week after U.S. President Barack Obama issued a long-awaited executive order aimed at getting the private owners of power plants and other critical infrastructure to share data on attacks with officials and to begin to follow consensus best practices on security.Both U.S. Democrats and Republicans have said more powerful legislation is needed, citing Chinese penetration not just of the largest companies but of operations essential to a functioning country, including those comprising the electric grid.

Chavez returns to Venezuela from Cuba

 

President Hugo Chavez returned to Venezuela early Monday after more than two months of treatment in Cuba following cancer surgery, his government said, triggering street celebrations by supporters who welcomed him home while he remained out of sight at Caracas' military hospital. Chavez's return was announced in a series of messages on his Twitter account, the first of them reading: "We've arrived once again in our Venezuelan homeland. Thank you, my God!! Thank you, beloved nation!! We will continue our treatmen there. "They were the first messages to appear on Chavez's Twitter account since Nov.1."I'm clinging to Christ and trusting in my doctors and nurses," another tweet on Chavez's account said. "Onward toward victor always!! "Vice President Nicolas Maduro said Chavez arrived at 2:30 a.m. and was taken to the Dr.Carlos Arvelo Military Hospital in Caracas. Chavez's return came fewer than three days after the government released the first photos of the president in more than two months, showing him looking bloated and smiling alongside his daughters. The government didn't release any additional images of Chavez upon his arrival in Caracas, and unanswered questions remain about where he stands in a difficult and prolonged struggle with an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer. Chavez was re-elected to a new six-year term in October, and his inauguration, originally scheduled for Jan. 10, was indefinitely postponed by lawmakers in a decision that the Supreme Court upheld despite complaints by the opposition. Some speculated that with Chavez back, he could finally be swornin. Hundreds of Chavez supporters celebrated his return in downtown Caracas, chanting his name and holding photos of the president in Bolivar Plaza. Supporters also gathered outside the hospital. "I want to see my president," said Alicia Morrow, a seamstress who stood outside the hospital on the verge of tears. "I've missed him a lot because Chavez is the spirit of the poor. "Chavez's precise condition and the sort of cancer treatments he is undergoing remain a mystery, and speculation has grown recently that he may not be able to stay on as president. The Venezuelan Constitution says that if a president dies or steps down, a new vote must be called and held within 30days. The 58-year-old president hasn't spoken publicly since he left for Cuba on Dec. 10. He underwent his fourth cancer-related surgery on Dec. 11, and the government says that he is now breathing through a tracheal tube that makes talking difficult.

Israeli leader brings dovish rival into coalition

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday added his first coalition partner as he works to build a new government, agreeing to bring in a dovish rival to oversee contacts with the Palestinians in what could signal a new approach to peacemaking by the hard line leader. Under the deal, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will serve as justice minister in the next Israeli government, in charge of peace efforts with the Palestinians. Livni, who led negotiations during the last substantive round of peace talks four years ago, has a good relationship with Palestinian President Mohmoud Abbas and favours a softer line than Netanyahu. Standing alongside Livni at a news conference Tuesday evening, Netanyahu vowed to make a serious attempt to reach peace under his next government. He said bringing in Livni, who has been a fierce critic, was part of his goal of forming a "wide and stable" government. "We need a Palestinian partner and I hope we will find a Palestinian partner who will take seriously Israel's security needs and that will be willing to end the conflict once and for all. Today Israel outstretches its hand to peace once again," he said. Netanyahu, who has come under heavy criticism, both at home and abroad, for the deadlock in peace efforts during his previous term, has promised to take a more aggressive approach under his next government. But he has given no details on whether he is prepared to make any new concessions, and it remained unclear whether Livni's addition to his Cabinet would be enough to lure the Palestinians back to negotiations. "What is important is the policies that will be adopted and implemented by the incoming Israeli government," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top adviser to Abbas. He said that if Netanyahu stuck to his policies of building settlements on occupied land, "it's better for Livni to search for another mission." As foreign minister, Livni served as the chief negotiator with the Palestinians under former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. While both sides have said they made great progress during that time, the talks collapsed in late 2008 and have remained virtually frozen since Netanyahu took office early the following year. The Palestinians have refused to negotiate with Netanyahu while he continues to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim both areas, along with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, for their future state. The Palestinians also want negotiations to resume from the point where they broke off under Olmert and Livni. Olmert has said he offered a near total withdrawal from the West Bank and shared control over Jerusalem. Netanyahu has said these concessions were far too generous and that negotiations should begin without any preconditions. He also has claimed that even when he imposed a partial freeze on settlement construction, the Palestinians did not enter substantive negotiations. But after four years of deadlock, the international community has grown impatient with the Israeli leader. In a sign of the international disapproval, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted in November in favour of an independent Palestinian state in all of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza. Although largely symbolic, the vote signified an international endorsement of key Palestinian demands on future borders. With President Barack Obama scheduled to visit in late March, Netanyahu is eager to present a new face to the international community. Livni's addition to his Cabinet is a step in that direction. In addition to her good working relationship with the Palestinians, Livni is well known and well respected around the world, and has appeared on lists of the world's most influential women compiled by magazines like Forbes and Time.