Pentagon Forcing Many Workers Back to Blackberry

Some military members who were working off Apple and Android-based smartphones and tablets now must return to using older model BlackBerrys because of a security service switchover, according to an email obtained byNextgov and confirmed by Pentagon officials. The Defense Department … Continue reading →

Is it Morally right to Celebrate bin Laden Death ?

By John Blake, CNN

(CNN) – Festive crowds gathered to cheer his assassination.

One newspaper headline eulogy read, “Rot in Hell.” Televised chants echoed:
“U.S.A.! U.S.A!”

Americans spilled into the streets for spontaneous celebrations after news spread that Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, had been assassinated.

Yet another reaction took place in more sober moments as people of faith watched the giddy celebrations with a tangled mix of emotions.

Is it morally wrong to celebrate the assassination of bin Laden in such a festive, patriotic way?

That’s the question that troubled Danielle Tumminio, an Episcopal priest, who fought back tears as she digested the news that bin Laden had been killed.

Tumminio was in New York on September 11, 2001. Her Long Island neighborhood, filled with lawyers, stockbrokers and firefighters, lost scores of people in the attacks.

“I remember coming home and smelling the smoke, seeing the debris and going to the funerals,” Tumminio says. “I actually studied abroad because I wanted to get away from feeling unsafe.”

But when Tumminio saw images of Americans celebrating, she felt something else: moral ambivalence.

Osama bin Laden’s death: How should we feel?

“My first reaction was, ‘I wish I was with them,’” Tumminio says. “My second reaction was, ‘This is disgusting. We shouldn’t be celebrating the death of anybody.’ It felt gross.”

Jubilance, exaltation, revulsion – all those emotions mingled as people of faith struggled to find an appropriate response to bin Laden’s death.

No one we interviewed for this story denied the importance of bin Laden’s death; the heroism of the American soldiers; the importance of serving justice.

But religious leaders of different faiths say no one should rejoice in the death of a person, even a hated enemy.

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld says that when people hear about the downfall of an enemy, rabbis often remind them of a verse from Proverbs: “Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles.”

Herzfeld – who is the rabbi of Ohev Sholom, The National Synagogue, the oldest and largest Orthodox synagogue in Washington, D.C. – says that according to the Talmud, “God does not rejoice with the fall of the wicked.”

“As the rabbinic teaching goes, as the children of Israel were crossing the sea and the army of Pharaoh was drowning, God rebuked the angels for showing excessive joy,” Herzfeld says.

Emad El-Din Shahin, a professor of religion at the University of Notre Dame, says the Quran also teaches reverence for every life, even the most repugnant ones.

He says Islam stresses that the death of a person should be observed in a respectful and solemn way for all people, not just Muslims.

He told a story from Islam to illustrate his point.

The Prophet Mohammad was sitting by a road one day when a funeral procession came by. The prophet stood up out of respect, says Shahin.

“The people with him told him, ‘But he’s not a Muslim.’

“The Prophet Mohammad said, ‘Isn’t it a human soul?’”

Shahin says most Muslims reject the notion that bin Laden was a Muslim leader.

“Bin Laden did not represent Islam or Muslims,” Shahin says. “He was an aberration. Most of the teachings and practices of al Qaeda were condemned by the majority of Muslim scholars and populations.”

One Christian leader pointed to a biblical story from the life of Jesus. Scott Appleby, a history professor who studies the roots of religious violence at Notre Dame, said that when Jesus was surrounded by guards near the end of his life, one of his disciples picked up a sword.

Jesus rebuked the disciple, saying, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword.”

“Certainly Osama bin Laden, who lived by the sword, received the world’s form of justice,” says Appleby. “But do we really think that violence, even a ‘justified’ act of violence, has the capacity to heal the wounds inflicted by violence – or to end the cycle of violence?”

Some leaders say that dancing on bin Laden’s grave is wrong from an ethical point of view as well.

“Killing someone should never be a cause for celebration or joy,” says Rick Halperin, past chairman of the board of directors of Amnesty International USA.

“We as a nation are repulsed when we see Muslims dancing over the death of
Americans. Why would we think our reaction would not be seen as disgusting behavior to them?”

The best reaction would be “somber reflection,” says Halperin, who is also director ofSouthern Methodist University’s Embrey Human Rights Program.

Tumminio, the Episcopal priest, has already arrived at that place. She says she plans to preach a sermon about the appropriate reaction to bin Laden’s death. She’s still sorting through what she will say.

“I think people have a right to celebrate. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with holding up American flags. But I don’t think we should celebrate the taking of life.”

There’s at least one sentiment she feels no ambivalence about.

Bin Laden’s death should give the United States something else its citizens have craved since September 11, 2001.

“I think this is going to be unifying for us,” she says. “Very few things have been unifying for us in the past 10 years.”

Posted by: John Blake – CNN Writer

Taken from “CNN“

“No Land Alternative” Prompts bin Laden Sea Burial

From Chris Lawrence, CNN

Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from the deck of a U.S. aircraft carrier because there was no alternative to bury him on land within the 24 hours required by Islamic law, President Barack Obama’s homeland security and counter terrorism adviser said Monday.

“The disposal of — the burial of bin Laden’s remains was done in strict conformance with Islamic precepts and practices. It was prepared in accordance with the Islamic requirements,” adviser John Brennan told reporters at a White House briefing. “We early on made provisions for that type of burial and we wanted to make sure that it was going to be done, again, in strictest conformance.”

The religious rites were conducted on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea, with the ceremony starting at 1:10 a.m. and finishing at 2:10 a.m. ET, according to a senior Defense official.

“The body was washed and placed in a white sheet. A military official read prepared remarks, which were then translated into Arabic by a native speaker, The body of Osama bin Laden was placed on a flat board, which was then tipped up, and allowed to slide into the sea,” the official said.

Planning for bin Laden’s burial began months ago as part of contingency planning that took into account numerous possibilities involving the terrorist leader’s capture or death, Brennan said.

A senior Defense official said no country was willing or able to take bin Laden’s body for a funeral.

Taking the body to another country and trying to arrange a funeral would have violated the Islamic rule requiring a burial within 24 hours, Brennan said.

“There were certain steps that had to be taken because of the nature of the operation,” Brennan said. “We wanted to make sure we were able to do that in the time period allotted for it. Going to another country, making those arrangements, requirements, would have exceed that time period, in our view.”

The descriptions of the burial appear to indicate U.S. forces did attempt to follow Islamic burial rules, said Juan Campo, a professor of religious studies at the University of California in Santa Barbara who has studied burial rites in the Muslim world.

Questions, however, do remain about the rites, Campo said.

For one, Islamic law requires that a Muslim read a special funeral prayer during the ceremony. A Muslim chaplain or even a rank-and-file sailor who practices Islam could read the prayer, he said. U.S. officials’ statements do not indicate whether the native Arabic speaker was a Muslim.

Also, an Islamic authority would normally grant authority to bury a body at sea when a land burial is not an option. Campo said he would want to know who, if anyone, gave that authority.

In his briefing, Brennan said U.S. authorities did seek guidance on the burial.

“We consulted the appropriate specialists and experts, and there was unanimity that this would be the best way to handle that,” he said.

That the U.S. forces performed a ritual aboard ship instead of dumping bin Laden’s body from an airborne helicopter would mute some criticism of the burial from radical Muslims, Campo said.

“That may temper a lot of that,” he said.

Another concern expressed by U.S. officials was that bin Laden’s grave site would become a shrine — a practice Campo said bin Laden detested but nevertheless likely would have occurred.

Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said burying bin Laden at sea was “prudent.”

“He was given a proper burial. It removes this — any thought that there’ll be any shrine to Osama bin Laden or grave robbing or any other lasting impact for this death,” Rogers said.

Maher Hathout, senior adviser of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, said that while the decision was not consistent with Muslim tradition because his death “did not occur in the ocean,” the method was pragmatic.

“I don’t think it was meant to humiliate, it was meant as an easy way out so we don’t have a tomb because there are some people who will sentimentally attach to him, and we should not apologize for that decision,” Hathout said.

Taken from “CNN“

Obama watched live video of bin Laden raid, U.S. Official Said

As special-operations military troops prepared for a firefight about 7,000 miles away, President Barack Obama entered a room in the Washington area early in the afternoon on Sunday to follow along.

Like a page plucked from a Hollywood screenplay, Obama and other principal coordinators for the mission that killed Osama bin Laden convened in a “situation room” to remotely monitor the situation, John Brennan, the U.S. counterterrorism chief, said in a White House news briefing on Monday.

Obama arrived after many of the mission’s leaders had assembled there, but the president joined before the attack on bin Laden’s mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan, began, Brennan said.

“We were able to monitor on a real-time basis the progress of the operation, from its commencement, to its time on target, to the extraction of the remains,” Brennan said. “We were able to have regular updates to ensure that we had real-time visibility into the progress of the operation.”

The mood in the room was anxious because the stakes were so high, Brennan said.

“There were some very tense moments,” he said. “We were just saying our prayers that everything would go according to plan.”

The White House and Central Intelligence Agency didn’t have access to a live audio feed, but they were able to tap other communications, a U.S. official told CNN. There was some live video, though the official declined to elaborate on the nature of that footage. 

 Brennan declined to say whether they had access to a video feed or radio communications. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Google, Apple and other Internet companies have mastered the process of streaming live video from events to the world. But that task would get much trickier if the cameramen are also carrying rifles and broadcasting from an untested, faraway locale.

After Obama had signed off on the operation, CIA Director Leon Panetta gave the official order around midday Sunday for the operation to commence, the Times reported.

“We have rid the world of the most infamous terrorist of our time,” Panetta said in a statement Monday. “We gave President Obama and his team accurate, relevant, timely intelligence — providing the information and insight they needed at key points as this mission developed.”

The CIA had been tracking bin Laden and provided intelligence to the White House saying the agency was “confident” the terrorist leader was inside the Pakistan compound, Brennan said.

“It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here yesterday,” Brennan said. “The minutes passed like days, and the president was very concerned about the security of our personnel. That was what was on his mind throughout.”

Shortly after taking office in 2009, Obama had directed Panetta “to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda,” the president said in his speech Sunday night. “We give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names.”

However, Obama apparently does get to see their work as it’s being carried out.

CNN’s Pam Benson contri

Taken from “CNN“

How U.S. Force Killed Osama bin Laden

This gallery contains 3 photos.

In the dark of night, U.S. helicopters approached a high-walled compound in Pakistan on a mission to capture or kill one of the world’s most notorious terrorist leaders. Less than 40 minutes later — early Monday morning in Pakistan — … Continue reading →

MV Sinar Kudus has been release by the Somalian Pirates

This gallery contains 1 photos.

Metrotvnews.com, Jakarta: After going through the process of tough negotiations, government and company PT Samudera Indonesia finally managed to free 20 crews of the MV. Sinar Kudus from Somali pirates hostage. Today, MV. Sinar Kudus and its 20 crew on … Continue reading →

Quick Response Code

A QR code (short for Quick Response) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code), readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera phones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be text, URL or other data.

Common in Japan, where it was created by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave in 1994, the QR code is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcode. QR is the abbreviation for Quick Response, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed.

The technology has seen a large uptake in Japan and South Korea. However, in the West there has been a far slower adoption of QR codes.

Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are now used in a much broader context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (termed mobile tagging). QR codes can be used to display text to the user, to add a vCard contact to the user’s device, to open a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or to compose an email or text message. Users can also generate and print their own QR codes for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR code generating sites.

QR codes storing addresses and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards, or almost any object about which users might need information. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader application can scan the image of the QR code to display text, contact information, connect to a wireless network, or open a web page in the phone’s browser. This act of linking from physical world objects is termed hard linking or object hyperlinking.

Google’s mobile Android operating system supports QR codes by natively including the barcode scanner (ZXing) on some models, and the browser supports URI redirection, which allows QR codes to send metadata to existing applications on the device. Nokia’s Symbian operating system is also provided with a barcode scanner, which is able to read QR codes, while mbarcode is a QR code reader for the Maemo operating system. In the Apple iOS, a QR code reader is not natively included, but over 50 free apps are available with reader and metadata browser URI redirection ability.

Taken From “Wikipedia“

Android dominated the smartphone growth, Windows Phone trend to beat Blackberry

In a press release on Friday, research firm Ovum stated that the smartphone market will double by 2016, led by devices running Google’s Android operating system. Ovum predicts that Android will drive smartphone growth moving forward, and that it will amass 38% of the global market by 2016. At that time, Apple will own 17.5% of the smartphone market and BlackBerry maker RIM will hold a 16.5% market share. Despite Nokia’s current seat at the top of the cell phone market, Ovum sees the Finnish giant only helping Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform to eek a 17.2% share of the smartphone market. While this would place Windows Phone in the No. 3 spot ahead of RIM’s BlackBerry OS, it also suggests that Nokia’s share will decline rapidly over the next five years. Ovum predicts that annual smartphone shipments will reach 653 million units by 2016. Hit the jump for the full press release.

Android to drive doubling of smartphone market by 2016

Android to drive doubling of smartphone market by 2016

• Global shipments to hit 653 million by 2016
• Android will take 38% market share compared to Apple’s 17.5%
• Nokia–Microsoft deal re-draws the smartphone landscape

The global smartphone market will double in size by 2016 to hit shipments of 653 million, predicts Ovum in a new forecast*. Android will drive the growth and will emerge as the dominant platform, dramatically outperforming Apple with a massive 20.5 per cent lead on market share, finds the independent telecoms analyst.

Ovum predicts that smartphones will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 14.5 per cent between 2010 and 2016 and will account for approximately 40 per cent of the mobile phone market. Asia-Pacific will be the largest region, shipping just over 200 million units by 2016. Western Europe and North America will remain strong markets with 175 million and 165 million shipments respectively.

Ovum principal analyst Adam Leach said: “The smartphone market will see significant growth over the next five years, once again outperforming the wider mobile phone market. We will see dramatic shifts in dominance for smartphone software platforms, with Android storming into the lead with 38 per cent market share, compared to Apple iOS’ 17.5 per cent, by 2016.

“The success of the Android platform is being driven by the sheer number of hardware vendors supporting it at both the high and low ends of the market.”

According to Ovum’s forecast, just behind Apple iOS will be Windows Phone, with 17.2 per cent market share by 2016, followed by BlackBerry OS, with 16.5 per cent.

Leach continued:  “We expect at least one other platform to achieve mainstream success within the forecast period. This could be an existing player in the market such as Bada, WebOS, or MeeGo, or it could be a new entrant to the market place.”

According to Leach, the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft has redrawn the smartphone market and will result in a significant reduction in shipments of Symbian-based handsets as Nokia transitions to Windows Phone as its primary smartphone platform. However, Nokia still expects to ship 150 million Symbian-based handsets so there will be shipments beyond 2012 and in some regions into 2016.

Leach continued: “For Microsoft the deal provides a committed handset partner that has the potential to make Windows Phone a mainstream smartphone platform. The risk to Microsoft is that other handset makers may choose not to compete with Nokia and may turn their backs on Windows Phone.”

Taken From www.brb.com

8.8 Earth Quake and Tsunami Hit Japan

Friday, March 11, 2011, 8.8 Earth Quake and Tsunami Hit Japan.

Rescue efforts began with the first light as military helicopters plucked survivors from roofs and carried them to safety.

The 8.9-magnitude temblor, which was centered near the east coast of Japan, killed hundreds of people, caused the formation of 30-foot walls of water that swept across rice fields, engulfed entire towns, dragged houses onto highways, and tossed cars and boats like toys. Some waves reached six miles (10 kilometers) inland in Miyagi Prefecture on Japan’s east coast.

“The earth shook with such ferocity,” said Andy Clark, who said he had gotten used to earthquakes during his 20 years in Japan but never experienced what he felt Friday at the airport outside Tokyo. “I thought things were coming to an end … it was simply terrifying.”

Buildings shook, heaved and collapsed by the score, and numerous fires ignited.

Hundreds more people were missing, Japanese media reported, citing local and national police. Tens of thousands of people were displaced, according to Japan’s Kyodo News Agency.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the “enormously powerful” earthquake had caused “tremendous damage over a wide area.”

Taken from CNN.com

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, cancelled his trip to Netherland

Metrotvnews.com, Jakarta: Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono cancelled his 3 days trip to Netherlands. President could not accept treatment that held the hearing to decide the arrest of him as the President of Indonesia concerning the human rights violations (Human Rights). … Continue reading →