India’s BJP looks set to make gains in state polls

India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janta Party is poised to emerge as an important political player in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, as votes in local elections are being counted.

By midday Tuesday, the BJP led in over 24 seats of the region’s 87-strong state legislature, a significant jump from the 11 seats it currently holds. The party had led an ambitious campaign aiming for a majority in India’s only Muslim-majority state, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting several times.

All the BJP’s seats continue to be in the Hindu-dominated areas of the Jammu region in Jammu-Kashmir state. The party failed to make inroads in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.

The BJP also looks set to win a clear majority in Jharkhand state.

Final results will be announced late Tuesday

Source: Associated press

North Korea’s Internet links restored amid U.S. hacking dispute

As the internet saga between US, Sony and North Korea continues ,North Korea experienced a complete Internet outage for hours before links were restored on Tuesday, but U.S. officials said Washington was not involved.

U.S.-based Dyn, a company that monitors Internet infrastructure, said the reason for the outage was not known but could range from technological glitches to a hacking attack. Several U.S. officials close to the investigations of the attack on Sony Pictures said the U.S. government had not taken any cyber action against Pyongyang.

U.S. President Barack Obama had vowed on Friday to respond to the major cyberattack, which he blamed on North Korea, “in a place and time and manner that we choose.”

Dyn said North Korea’s Internet links were unstable on Monday and the country later went completely offline. Links were restored at 0146 GMT on Tuesday, and the possibilities for the outage could be attacks by individuals, a hardware failure, or even that it was done by North Korea itself, experts said.

Matthew Prince, CEO of U.S.-based CloudFlare which protects websites from web-based attacks, said the fact that North Korea’s Internet was back up “is pretty good evidence that the outage wasn’t caused by a state-sponsored attack, otherwise it’d likely still be down for the count”.

Almost all of North Korea’s Internet links and traffic pass through China and it dismissed any suggestion that it was involved as “irresponsible”.

Meanwhile, South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North, said it could not rule out the involvement of its isolated neighbor in a cyberattack on its nuclear power plant operator. It said only non-critical data was stolen and operations were not at risk, but had asked for U.S. help in investigating.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said on Tuesday the leak of data from the nuclear operator was a “grave situation” that was unacceptable as a matter of national security, but she did not mention any involvement of North Korea.

North Korea is one of the least-connected nations in the world, and the effects of the Internet outage would have been minimal.

Very few of its 24 million people have access to the Internet. However, major websites, including those of the KCNA state news agency, the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper and the main external public relations company went down for hours.

“North Korea has significantly less Internet to lose, compared to other countries with similar populations: Yemen (47 networks), Afghanistan (370 networks), or Taiwan (5,030 networks),” Dyn Research said in a report.

“And unlike these countries, North Korea maintains dependence on a single international provider, China Unicom.”

NO PROOF, CHINA SAYS

The United States requested China’s help last Thursday, asking it to shut down servers and routers used by North Korea that run through Chinese networks, senior administration officials told Reuters.

The United States also asked China to identify any North Korean hackers operating in China and, if found, send them back to North Korea. It wants China to send a strong message to Pyongyang that such acts will not be tolerated, the officials said.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday it opposed all forms of cyberattacks but there was no proof that North Korea was responsible for the Sony hacking.

North Korea has denied it was behind the cyberattack on Sony and has vowed to hit back against any U.S. retaliation, threatening the White House and the Pentagon..

The hackers said they were incensed by a Sony comedy about a fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which the movie studio has now pulled from general release.

China is North Korea’s only major ally and would be central to any U.S. efforts to crack down on the isolated state. But the United States has also accused China of cyber spying in the past and a U.S. official has said the attack on Sony could have used Chinese servers to mask its origin.

Source: Reuters

North Korea’s internet is down, all thanks to US

The saga between Sony, North Korea and the US government stiffens with more controversies, here is  a brief summary by LIB
Sony Pictures released a movie called The Interview, a comedy about a fictional assassination of North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.. North Korean didn’t find it funny and hacked into Sony’s computers, rendering thousands of computers inoperable and forced Sony to take its entire computer network offline. That wasn’t enough, they then threatened terror attack on US citizens if Sony doesn’t cancel showing the movie, forcing Sony to pull the interview from theaters and losing almost $200m. Then the US govt got involved and told Sony to go ahead and release the movie, that they don’t take lightly to threats and promised to retaliate for the attack on Sony. It looks like they’ve kept their to promise. North Korea is currently offline. funny isn’t it ?

“Internet connectivity between North Korea and the outside world is currently suffering one of its worst outages in recent memory, suggesting that the country may be enduring a mass cyber attack a few days after President Obama warned the US would launch a “proportional response” to North Korea’s hack against Sony

North Korea, which has four official networks connecting the country to the Internet — all of which route through China — began experiencing intermittent problems yesterday and today went completely black, according to Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research in Hanover, New Hampshire.” Bloomberg reports.

No one messes with the US and goes free, haha

Omg ! Boy injured with a bucket he is playing with (graphic photos)

Warning this pic is a graphic photo, viewers are advised to view with their discretion

Omg ! i can’t but cry for the boy as i post this pics, i wish the doctors will do something pretty fast. Parents please always watch over your kids

BREAKING: Nigerian Military Sentences 54 Soldiers To Death For Mutiny

A military court in Nigeria has sentenced 54 soldiers to death after they were found guilty of mutiny.

The soldiers were convicted Wednesday in Abuja on a two-count charge of criminal conspiracy to commit mutiny. Represented by Femi Falana (SAN), the brunt of the defense’s case boldly argued that the soldiers were not guilty of mutiny as accused.

“My Lords, contrary to the general belief in military circles, protest by soldiers does not constitute mutiny,” Falana argued in his defense, obtained by SaharaReporters. Imploring the court to uphold precedent as established in the case Cpl Segun Oladele & 22 Ors. v Nigerian Army supra, Falana said “Can we safely conclude that the prosecution has proved all the ingredients in this charge of mutiny against the accused soldiers?”

“The answer is in the negative,” he said.

“In the instant case, the Prosecution did not prove that the order given to carry out a military act followed the standard or proper procedure of giving such an order; that the accused soldiers deliberately and by collusion disobeyed the order; that the disobedience and the acts strike at the foundation of discipline in the Army; that the accused persons used violence or threat of violence; and that the acts of the convicts ‘were deliberately designed to put the Nigerian Army in imminent danger’.”

Despite a thorough 48-page defense, the 54 soldiers were sentenced to death today.

Four other soldiers were acquitted.

Source : Sahara reporters

Boko Haram still on rampage 185 women and children reportedly abducted in Borno state

Breaking news ! Reports from CNN  185 women and children were kidnapped by Boko Haram men during a raid on Gumsuri village 20km from Chibok in Borno state on Sunday December 14th. Men were shot, homes were burnt and women taken away. This is the largest rounding up of women and children since the abduction of Chibok girls in April 2014.

32 people including the Chief Imam of the village were killed. Leaders of the opposition vigilante were also killed. Word of the attack was slow to emerge due to the destruction of telecoms towers in the community. Nigerian military are yet to react to this latest attack. But my question is how do these terrorists take 185 people away? Do they come with so much vehicle to convey these people

Man Mauled By 3 Lions After Jumping Into Their Cage

A man escaped death by the whiskers after he was mauled by a pack of lions after jumping into their enclosure at Barcelona Zoo
Justo Jose, 45, remains in intensive care with serious injuries after he climbed into the lions’ den, where he was attacked by three of the animals for about half-an-hour before he could be rescued.

Yesterday afternoon, Jose appeared by the lion enclosure at the zoo, dressed in military uniform, climbed over railings and began scaling one of the walls in the enclosure before being picked up by one of the animals and thrown into a pit.

The 45-year-old was rescued around 30 minutes later, covered in scratches and bite marks. He was taken to the city’s Hospital de la Vall D’Hebron where he remains in a serious but not life-threatening condition.

According to Spanish reports, Jose climbed over fencing to enter the enclosure as horrified tourists watched on.
Footage of the bizarre incident shows him scaling one of the enclosure’s walls before being tossed by the leg into a pit by a lioness.

He emerged some 30 minutes later after fire fighters used hoses to fight the animals off of him.

Hong Kong police arrest protesters in main camp

News reaching our news desk says Police in Hong Kong have begun arresting protesters who have refused to leave the main site of a pro-democracy protest, in a final push by authorities to retake streets occupied by activists for two and a half months.

Reuters reported that

” Four officers carried away the first person by her arms and legs.

Many protesters have left the protest zone in Hong Kong’s city center but dozens of students, pro-democracy lawmakers and others remain behind. The students at the front are lying down and locking arms.

Workers carrying out a court order earlier removed barricades on the edge of the protest site before officers moved in and tore down tents. They had warned protesters that they faced arrest if they did not leave”

Instagram officially overtakes Twitter with 300 million users

Wow ! it was just like yesterday when Instagram was born, and now instagram is 4 years and doing very strong.  Few years later it was bought by Facebook in 2012 now has over 300 million users, officially overtaking Twitter which has 284million users as at 6 weeks ago.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom revealed today that more 70 million photos and videos are shared by its members every day.

“We’re proud to announce that there are now more than 300 million Instagrammers. Over the past four years, what began as two friends with a dream has grown into a global community that shares more than 70 million photos and videos each day.

‘Instagram is home to creativity in all of its forms, a place where you can find everything from images of the Nile River to the newest look from Herschel Supply or a peek inside the mind of Taylor Swift.’ He said

Football fan passes note to man after spotting his girlfriend sending romantic texts to another man during a match

This should be a wake up call for people who cheats on their partners out there. An American football fan who went to watch a game passed a note to a man sitting in front of him (note pictured right) after spotting the man’s pregnant girlfriend sending romantic text messages to some other guy named ‘Jason’ through out the match.

The man named Lye said he was there to watch a game when he saw the woman sending messages like ‘I wish I was with you all day’ and ‘I will see you as soon as I am done with him’, and couldn’t help himself but tell the woman’s partner at the end of the game what she’d been up to.
     

He then later posted his experience on Facebook, explaining to his followers what happened and even shared a photo of the note he sent to the man and a picture of the couple at the game.

The images have since gone viral with many questioning if he was right to wade into a complete stranger’s relationship.

Lye claimed in his post that the woman kept the phone screen tilted out of eyesight of the man seated next to her, and would even shut it off and put it away when he engaged her in conversation.

Feeling sympathetic for the man seated in front of him, who he believes was being cheated on, Lye got up near the end of the game to find a pen and piece of paper to write the stranger a note.

When the man got up to leave, Lye handed the piece of paper to him and said to read it when he got home.

Lye later took to Facebook to post an image of the note and the woman who was was seated in front of him, showing the back of her head with her phone out, writing a text.

The pictures have since gone viral online and many have called Lye out for interjecting himself into the stranger’s relationship.

Lye has since defended his actions to  saying he usually likes to stay out of other people’s business, but overheard a few rude comments the woman made Mad World News,to the man she was with that made him pity her partner.

He says at one point in the game, another spectator commented on the size of a portion of fries saying: ‘Wow! For the price they charge for fries here, that’s pretty small. They barely give you anything.’

The woman in question allegedly quipped back: ‘It’s okay, I’m [used] to small things’.

Others criticized Lye for possibly putting the pregnant woman in harms way, pointing out that her boyfriend could have been abusive.

Source: UK Daily Mail