Drone attacks follow ISI chief to Pakistan after modest gains in US visit

WASHINGTON: A pair of US drone attacks on Wednesday that killed six suspected militants inPakistan followed the country's intelligence chief back home after his high-wire engagement in Washington during which he is said to have won modest concessions. 

ISI chief Shuja Pasha's 24-hour visit here on Monday for talks with his CIA opposite number saw the US promise greater transparency and accountability of CIA operations in Pakistan without any specific commitments, while rejecting the demand for a halt to drone strikes. Washington followed it up its unremitting stand with two drone strikes hours after Pasha returned to Pakistan. 

The strikes -- the first in more than two weeks -- indicated the two sides are still at odds despite Washington's effort to mollify its angry ally with a series of affable public statements. Asked if the strains between the United States and Pakistan's government are inhibiting counterterrorism efforts, White House spokesman Jay Carney skirted the question while saying the "relationship... cooperation between our two countries...has been important, and continues to this day." 

"We are engaged in a shared goal of defeating insurgents and terrorist groups. ... I can't discuss specifics about intelligence operations, but I can tell you that the cooperation between our two countries is important and continues," he added. 

At the State Department, officials indicated that the US would consider Pakistan's demand to scale down its contingent of intelligence operatives and special ops forces, but said it was having ongoing conversations about the size of US programs to train the Pakistan military. "We want to keep that program alive," spokesman Mark Toner told reporters. "We think it's important." 

Pakistan's military wants to downsize the program and get a better handle on it because it suspects Washington is using it for espionage. It also wants to be kept in the loop about US tracking of organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (which is what led to the Raymand Davis shoot-out), which Washington suspects of having close ties with the Pakistani military establishment. 

But outside the polite bromides issued for public consumption, Pakistan has clearly fallen foul of the Washington establishment and US public opinion over what is widely seen as its two-faced approach to terrorism, including using it as a policy instrument in the region. Even as ISI chief Pasha left Washington, a top US general indicated that Pakistan continued to be dodgy about terrorist outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, while warning that the organization had spread its tentacles beyond the subcontinent. 

"The discussion regarding the government of Pakistan's relationship to LeT is a very sensitive one," Admiral Robert Willard, head of the US Pacific Command, pointedly told a Senate hearing even asIslamabad continued to allow LeT supremo Hafeez Mohammed Saeed a free run in Pakistan, while Pakistani fingerprints appeared in terrorism cases far and wide. 

In the US, on either side of ISI chief Pasha's day-long visit, two Pakistani expats were in the news for exporting what is now jokingly referred to as the country chief produce – terrorism. 

Farooque Ahmed, 35, a naturalized US citizen born in Pakistan, who prosecutors said wanted to "kill as many Americans as possible" by bombing Washington transit hubs, was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Monday. In Massachusetts, Aftab Khan, a Pakistani man who was arrested in connection with the Times Square bombing, agreed to be deported back to Pakistan under a plea deal after spending 11 months in prison. 

Such adverse publicity for Pakistan, including being implicated by the Headley-Rana duo for theMumbai attack during Pasha's visit, has hardly deterred the country's military establishment from pushing the envelope with Washington. While intelligence mavens would struggle to name the spy agencies and chief spooks of countries such as China and Russia, the ISI chief arrived in Washington in a blizzard of pre-visit hype and publicity, having put the country's demands -- stop drone strikes; withdraw CIA personnel -- on the table in background leaks before the trip. 

"It was a 21st-century way to open the high-level bargaining over new rules for the US-Pakistani intelligence relationship," commentator David Ignatius noted in a blog detailing the Pakistani high-wire strategy. What returns Pasha got for his labors will become apparent in the coming weeks. But the drone strikes within hours of his return to Pakistan provide an inkling.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Drone-attacks-follow-ISI-chief-to-Pakistan-after-modest-gains-in-US-visit/articleshow/7972880.cms

Ottawa networks hit in cyber-attack

Washington: Unidentified hackers deployed a technique known as “spear-phishing” to breach top-secret caches within the computer networks of the Government of Canada, media reported on Thursday.

Unnamed government sources speaking to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation admitted the hackers, who used Chinese-origin servers, managed to obtain highly classified data from three departments of the government — the Finance Department, the Treasury Board, and Defence Research and Development Canada.

In a series of cyber-attacks against the Canadian government that was initially detected in early January, the hackers were said to have somehow obtained access to the files of senior government officials and then masqueraded as the officials to trick government technicians into revealing network passwords.

Using this technique of spear phishing, the hackers also sent emails to government employees that unleashed viral data mining programmes, said the CBC report. When the embarrassing scale of the security breach was discovered, reports said, officials cut off Internet access to the thousands of employees in the affected departments.

Officials were however cautious in indicating the source of the attack. Sources speaking to CBC said though the source of the hack was traced to servers in China, that did not necessarily imply that the hackers were Chinese. Rather, said the sources, the attackers could have routed their paths through China to hide their identities.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in his first comments on the attack, said at a press conference on Thursday his government did have a strategy in place to protect computer networks. This week's revelations suggest that the most recent in a spate of cyber-attacks took place despite a June 2009 warning from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, that such attacks “on government, university and industry computers had been growing significantly”.

Source:-http://www.hindu.com/2011/02/19/stories/2011021968391900.htm

Tri Valley: Radio tags removed from three more Indian students

Washington:  The US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) have removed radio tags from three more Indian students of the now shut-down Tri Valley University (TVU) in California and also returned their passports.

Susmita Gongulee Thomas, the Consul General, Indian Consulate San Francisco, said ICE has returned the passports of these three students along with the two others, from whom radio tags were removed last week.

In all radio tags so far has been removed from five of the 18 Indian students. These students were taken to ICE by two immigration attorneys, Kalpana Peddibhotla and Manpreet Gahra.

Encouraged by the positive development, Thomas said 10 more students would be taken to ICE next week by these two immigration attorneys and they are very optimistic of the same positive outcome.

"Five of the 18 students are now free of the radio tags. Students were feeling very badly about. It was humiliating to go around with these tags," Thomas told PTI.

The Consul General said, three of the students who have radio tags have gone to their own lawyers, so she has no information about them.

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The two immigration attorneys -- Kalpana Peddibhotla and Manpreet Gahra are from the South Asian Bar Association, who in association with the Consulate had held free legal aid camp for the Tri Valley Students.

"Our primary concern and priority was to get these radio tags removed," she said.

Thomas said community organisations in the Bay area, especially the Telugu Association of North America, have been supporting these students in distress. She urged other community organisations to come forward with their resources to help these students.

The Consul General said the TVU students are from various parts of the country, not only from Andhra Pradesh alone.

"There are students from Kerala; some are from (West) Bengal. Some are from Madhya Pradesh. Some are Gujaratis," she said.

Source:-http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/tri-valley-radio-tags-removed-from-three-more-indian-students-85957

U.S. asks duped sham varsity students to look for options - General news

Washington: U.S. immigration authorities have asked duped students of a sham university in California, most of them from India, to contact them directly to find out what options they have to pursue their studies in America.

Over 1,500 students of California-based Tri Valley University (TVU), some 90 percent of them from India, mostly Andhra Pradesh, face the prospect of deportation following the closure of the school on charges of visa fraud unless they can get admission in another institution.

"Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken further steps to ensure SEVP (Student and Exchange Visitor Programme)-certified schools and former Tri-Valley students have the information that they need to make informed decisions in light of the ongoing investigation," spokeswoman, Lori K. Haley said Wednesday.

ICE has posted an advisory on the SEVP link on ICE's website -- http://www.ice.gov/sevis/tri-valley-110118.htm -- to direct students how to contact an SEVP representative to obtain information about their options.

"When you call, SEVP will provide you with your options including the option to depart from the United States without an otherwise possibly applicable bar to re-admission in the future," says the advisory issued to the TVU students.

Lori said due to the ongoing investigation, ICE is not discussing the details related to the Tri Valley case. SEVP terminated the records of all F-1 students enrolled at TVU as of Jan 18, after ICE shut down TVU following an investigation.

According to a federal complaint filed in a California court in January, the university helped foreign nationals illegally acquire immigration status.

The complaint alleged that while students were admitted to various residential and on-line courses of the university and on paper lived in California, in reality they "illegally" worked in places as far away as Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Texas.

For a student to maintain an active immigration status, they must show proof that they are making reasonable progress toward completing coursework and physically attend classes.

Source: U.S. asks duped sham varsity students to look for options - General news

Obama Sets 2035 Clean Electricity Target - Planet Ark

U.S. President Barack Obama set a target for power plants to produce mostly clean electricity by 2035 -- including power from sources like clean coal and natural gas -- in his State of the Union address on Tuesday.

Obama also called for investment in clean technologies and urged Congress to eliminate billions of dollars in subsidies for oil companies.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own," Obama said about oil company profits. "So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's."

Such a move, which Obama has repeatedly urged since taking office in 2009, would hit U.S. operations of oil majors such as Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum and ConocoPhillips. In last year's budget Obama had called for an end to nearly $40 billion in subsidies for oil, gas and coal companies, a proposal that failed.

But while he took aim again at oil companies, Obama sought a centrist message on an issue that has sharply divided Washington, saying nuclear power and two fossil fuels, clean coal and natural gas, would be needed to meet a goal of 80 percent clean energy in less than 25 years.

"Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas," Obama said. "To meet this goal, we will need them all and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen."

After a comprehensive energy bill that included a cap and trade market on carbon emissions failed in the Senate, Obama said last year that climate change policy would have to be achieved in smaller chunks.

Josh Freed, the director of the clean energy program at the nonpartisan think tank Third Way, said Obama's inclusion of nuclear power and natural gas in his targets for clean energy could attract the necessary votes in Congress.

"There's a large faction of Republicans and some Democrats who don't believe we can make the transition to clean energy without including nuclear power," he said.

A group of bi-partisan senators tried last year to push a clean energy mandate that did not include nuclear, clean coal or natural gas, but the measure was not brought up for a vote, in part because it was uncertain whether there was enough support.

The power industry has been hoping for a so-called nuclear energy renaissance, but investors have been hesitant to put money in new plants that can cost up to $10 billion.

To help push investments, the Department of Energy has offered billions in loan guarantees to help build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly three decades.

Capturing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from power plants and burying it underground before it reaches the smokestack, is the main clean coal technology.

Energy experts say clean coal will be needed in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions dramatically since the country currently gets about half of its power from the fossil fuel.

In his speech on Tuesday, Obama cast the call for more investment in clean energy research on technologies both as a way for the United States to become more energy independent and as a challenge to surpass rapidly developing countries like China and India on development of renewable

"With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with biofuels, and become the first country to have 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015," he said.

However, some Republicans were quickly dismissive of Obama's comments on energy, saying the administration should also focus on conventional energy by loosening restrictions on drilling for domestic oil.

"Today, American families are facing the harsh realities of rising gas prices, higher electricity costs and near double-digit unemployment," said Doc Hastings, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

"Instead of addressing these issues head-on, the Administration has spent the past two years blocking access to America's resources that create jobs and produce more energy."

Source: World Environment News - Obama Sets 2035 Clean Electricity Target - Planet Ark