BBC news 2009-12-23 加文本

2009-12-23 BBC

BBC News with Gina Howards.

After a 7-month search, the Obama administration has named a man who will take overall charge of computer security in the United States. He is Howard Schmidt, a former head of cyber security at Microsoft and Ebay. Emilio San Pedro has more.

A White House statement has described Howard Schmidt who had previously served as a cyber advisor to former President Bush as one of the world’s leading experts in the field. And in his new capacity as head of cyber security, Mr. Schmidt will have daily access to President Obama who has described computer hacking as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges the US faces. It’s estimated that US government computer systems come under attempted attacks millions of times a day. Still just by the high profile, Mr. Schmidt reportedly got the job after it was turned down by other candidates who felt that the position lack the finances and policy-making authority needed to be successful.

Reports from the United States say the FBI is investigating the apparent theft of tens of millions of dollars from Citi Bank by computer hackers. The Wall Street Journal newspaper quoted US government officials as saying the hackers were connected to a Russian cyber crime gang. But Citi bank itself denied that its systems had been breached, saying that its customers had not lost any money.

It’s been another day of recriminations over the outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Summit. Describing it as a disaster, the Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said countries outside Europe notably the United States and China had shown a lack of will. He said that the pressure on the US had now risen.

I would say actually or I would draw the claim that expectations and then pressure on the United States has raised after Copenhagen due to the process they have in their country due to the expectations they expressed before Copenhagen, we should expect them to deliver now during this spring and that will be also part of a global agreement later on.

An investigation in Lithuania has found that the CIA set up at least 2 secret detention centers in the country in the aftermath of the attacks on the United States in September 2001. The investigation also concluded that CIA flights into Lithuania may have carried Al-Qaeda suspects without the knowledge of officials or the Lithuanian government. 3 Lithuanian security services officials will face further investigation. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vygaudas Usackas told the BBC that the report hadfound no proof that suspects had been detained on Lithuanian territory.

What is important from this report is that the alleged information about alleged CIA prison about the violation of human rights, about possible detention of the people from the CIA prisons in Guantanamo or somewhere else we are not prove it.

World News from the BBC.

The Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has said that a full military and police operation is underway to rescue a provincial governor who was kidnapped on Monday by suspected left-wing FARC rebels. The authorities say that a group of around 10 armed men seized the governor Luis Fernando Cuellar from his house in Caqueta region. Jeremy McDermott reports from Colombia.

The FARC had been collecting political hostages to combine with some 22 members of the security forces they hold as bargaining chips for a prisoner exchange. However, after the rescue in July 2008 of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages, the rebels unilaterally released all of the politicians they still held. With this seduction, however, it appears the guerrillas have revived their plans to force a prison exchange or at least pressure the government into opening a dialogue with them.

The Mexican President Felipe Calderon has described as an act of cowardice the murder on Monday by suspected drugs traffickers of the family of a Mexican marine. The marine’s mother, his two siblings and his aunt were killed in their home in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, in an attack by gunmen which the authorities are treating as a reprisal killing. The marine had died last week during a raid against drug traffickers in which one of the leaders of a powerful drugs cartel Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed.

The Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi has been dismissed from one of the public posts he’s been holding as the head of Iran’s Arts Institution. The body is affiliated to the office of President Ahmadinajad and Mr. Moussavi had been running it for more than a decade.

The European Union has granted15 million Euros or about 17 million dollars in budget support to Serbia. An EU statement said a similar amount will be forthcoming next year along with loans totaling almost 300 million dollars to maintain Serbia’s economic stability.

BBC News.