Agency accused of protecting Taliban leaders. Thousands of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters fleeing last year`s American-led military onslaught reportedly have escaped through Pakistan, and many are suspected of setting up shop here with the implicit knowledge, if not support, of Pakistan`s intelligence agencies. Full Story

Philippine troops attacked the home of a rebel leader in the country`s south, starting a gunbattle that killed at least eight Muslim separatists and four soldiers, a rebel spokesman said Saturday. Full Story

The first Sri Lankan leader to visit Washington in nearly two decades said yesterday that the American-led campaign against terrorism had helped his government`s chances of ending a long civil war — even though Sri Lanka has never figured in the search for Al Qaeda. Full Story

A human rights group in Sri Lanka says the ceasefire between the government and Tamil Tiger separatists is allowing the rebels to forcibly recruit more child soldiers. Full Story

Turkey`s embattled prime minister on Sunday warned the United States risked becoming bogged down in a long war if it moves ahead with plans to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Full Story

Calling for justice, some 5,000 people lit candles and held a moment of silence to mark the eighth anniversary of a bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish community center. It was the deadliest terror attack in Argentina`s history. Full Story

The Iranian government organized and carried out the bombing of a Jewish community center here eight years ago that killed 85 people and then paid Argentina`s president at the time, Carlos Saúl Menem, $10 million to cover it up, a witness in the case has said in sealed testimony. Full Story

The Bush administration has “no clear evidence” to link Iran with the bombing of a Jewish community center in Argentina`s capital in 1994 that killed 85 people. American terror experts are suspicious of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed guerrilla group that has fought a guerrilla war against Israel for years, said one official, speaking on condition of…

Colombia`s brutal right-wing paramilitary organization has splintered after an internal dispute over individual units` involvement in drug trafficking, the group`s founder said. Full Story

At least 500 people are reported to have died of hunger and disease since April in demobilisation camps set up for former rebels and their families. Full Story

Heavily-armed Liberian troops have stepped up patrols of this provincial town – 60 kilometres (38 miles) north-west of Monrovia – after driving away rebel forces who had controlled Tubmanburg for nearly three months. Full Story

Government forces have committed scores of war crimes in northwestern Liberia in recent months, an international human rights organization charged Friday. Recent victims described how members of the army and pro-government militias shot and beat to death men for resisting conscription, the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement. Full Story

The foreign ministers of Morocco and Spain have finalised a US-brokered resolution to their dispute over the Mediterranean island of Perejil. After a meeting in the Moroccan capital Rabat, they endorsed the deal agreed on Saturday to leave the island unoccupied. Full Story

Unarmed women occupying at least four ChevronTexaco flowstations in southeastern Nigeria took two oil workers hostage Friday in a bid to force company officials to come to them for negotiations. Full Story

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have reached a peace agreement which could put an end to four years of fighting. DR Congo has agreed to make their common border safe by flushing out Rwandan rebels sheltering in the east of the country, according to the French news agency, AFP. Full Story

South Africa sent dlrs 400,000 in aid, mostly medical supplies and food collected by private charities, on Sunday to Palestinian victims of the ongoing Mideast conflict. Full Story

Analysts, politicians and aid officials expressed cautious optimism that one of the continent`s oldest and most intractable conflicts may have taken an important step towards resolution. Full Story

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe rejected Friday an appeal by white farmers for a meeting ahead of a government deadline for hundreds of them to leave their land next month. Full Story

A few days ago, President George Bush unveiled to the world a broad new strategy for confronting terrorism within United States borders. The 100-page homeland security strategy, which is the first of its kind in US history, anticipates all forms of terrorist attacks – including cyber-attacks. Thus, one of its key recommendations is the upgrading…

Keeping your home computer`s antivirus software updated is not just sensible — it could be a way to demonstrate your patriotism. Richard Clarke, the president`s computer security adviser, said Wednesday that an upcoming national plan to protect cyberspace will include expectations for home users, as well as large companies and the government. Full Story

A RIVAL bank has been hacking into the website on which UBS Warburg stores information on derivatives trading for its staff and using this unauthorised information to assess their own market positions. It seems someone exited the Swiss-owned bank while still in possession of the relevant passwords. I know which bank is implicated, but I…

These days, it doesn`t take a computer expert to become a hacker. There are over 30,000 hacking-oriented sites on the Internet, offering easy to use click-and-hack programs and scripts for anyone to download. These easily accessible hacking tools have opened the door for a multitude of new exploits. Full Story

Cyber-sabotage is regarded as one of the business world`s dirty little secrets. And it`s one that is increasingly coming to light in the wake of scandals like Enron, Global Crossing and WorldCom. Full Story

Preparations are underway in the US for what has dubbed the largest simulated exercise in US military history. Millennium Challenge 2002 has been designed to model how wars will be fought by 2007. It will combine live field exercises and state-of-the-art computer systems. Full Story

The Federal Aviation Administration awarded Boeing Co. (nyse: BA – news – people) a $23 million contract on Wednesday to explore a new system for integrating air traffic and communication technologies to improve security. Full Story

House and Senate negotiators broke a logjam July 18 to approve a $28.9 billion counterterrorism bill that is filled with money for information technology projects. Full Story

The version of a bill to establish a Homeland Security Department generated Thursday by the House committee overseeing the legislation`s development includes several key provisions sought by the House Science Committee. Full Story

In an attempt to find order in chaos, network defenders across the globe took on the Honeynet Project`s Reverse Challenge — to analyse and decipher binary code captured in the wild — and an Australian programmer is reaping the rewards of sweet success. Unwitting hackers and crackers running amok on computer networks sometimes break into…

DoS attacks remain the most common threat. But, according to security experts, DoS attacks do not necessarily present the same kind of threat to national infrastructure that they once did. Full Story

When a group of Web vandals hacked into the Web site of USA Today on July 11 and inserted fraudulent news stories, the Internet security community got a taste of just how serious Web page defacements can be. Full Story

The first computer virus was seen in the wild about 15 years ago and, boy, have things changed. Newer, more virulent code will require firms to develop a layered antivirus model and hunt down virus breeding grounds lurking in the infrastructure. Full Story

This time last year the computer virus called Code Red was supposed to bring the internet to a screeching halt. With the benefit of hindsight we now know that the net was never in danger of being crippled by the virus, but at the time the danger seemed very real. Full Story

Anti-virus firm Symantec is warning users of the popular KaZaA file-sharing network to beware of a new worm which attempts to spread by posing as tempting files. Called Supova, the worm attempts to delete main Windows system files. It also tries to spread itself via MSN messenger, but fails to work. Full Story

Yahoo Inc. has cleaned up filters used to protect users of its Web-based e-mail service from malicious scripts embedded in HTML-format messages, and in so doing has put an end to one of the strangest of Internet neologisms. Full Story

Only 12 percent of Chilean websites have privacy policies, reports Business News Americas. This compares to an average of 50 percent of sites in Spain, the UK, Brazil, Argentina and the US which include privacy policies, according to a report by the Santiago Chamber of Commerce. Full Story

nmap is the most powerful, most flexible network exploration tool and security scanner. It`s the tool of choice for auditing your network for vulnerabilities. Search for the same weaknesses intruders are looking for. nmap`s slogan is “audit your network before the bad guys do.” Full Story

Located in the northwest corner of Spain, the Basque people have lived under centuries of semi-autonomous rule. During Franco`s reign, however, this autonomy was drastically restricted. As a result, Basque nationalists, in conjunction with the newly-formed (1959) Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) began to carry out acts of violence against a variety of targets. As the…

Cybershock: Surviving Hackers, Phreakers, Identity Thieves, Internet Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Disruption by Winn Schwartau is an enlightening look at the dangers of the Internet from a consumer/ general user perspective. If I had one book to give friends and family that demonstrates the types of threats they need to be aware of in…

August 12-13, 2002 — Boston, MAParticipants will examine: * Terrorist Attack Profiles * Terrorist Training * Terrorist Tactics * Terrorist Targeting * Emerging Technologies * Threat of Cyberterrorism * Newest Aviation Security Threat Information This class led by nationally recognized terrorism experts. Participants will learn first hand about the current threats from both domestic and…

07/19/1979Nicaragua – Sandinista Regime Established. The post-Sandinista government of Violeta Chamorro has retained this date as a national holiday marking the fall of the Somozas. 07/19/1982Lebanon, United States – David Dodge, president of the American University of Beirut, was kidnapped. He subsequently was released on July 19, 1983. 07/20/1974Cyprus – Turkey Intervenes In Civil War…

A drunken passenger pulled a knife on a flight from Colombia on Friday, forcing the plane with more than 140 passengers on board to be diverted to a military base near Madrid, officials said. The Avianca plane was bound for Madrid`s Barajas airport and was diverted to Torrejon air base, escorted by an F-18 military…

A senior Pakistani investigator said on Friday DNA tests had confirmed that a decapitated body found in a shallow grave in Karachi in May was that of kidnapped American reporter Daniel Pearl. “The results have come, it is Daniel`s body,” the investigator told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Full Story

Indefinite delay of anti-terrorism screening of airport baggage is one of the issues confronting a House select committee as it takes up a measure creating President Bush`s Homeland Security Department. Full Story

A man carrying $12 million in phony cashier`s checks was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and is being investigated by a terrorism task force, federal authorities said. Omar Shishani, 47, was scheduled to appear Friday in U.S. District Court on charges of possessing fraudulent bank notes. A U.S. Customs inspector found nine checks, believed to…

Five settlers, four of whom are soldiers, and a reserve army officer were arrested this week and are suspected of stealing and selling thousands of rounds of ammunition, the police said. The six men have denied that they intended to help Palestinian militants. Full Story

The FBI is interrogating congressional aides, and members of Congress believe they are next, in an extraordinary inquiry into leaks of classified information from a congressional probe of intelligence failures before Sept. 11, lawmakers and other officials said Thursday. Full Story

Zaccarias Moussaoui says he wants to plead guilty, but there`s a catch that could make an already complicated case more chaotic. Analysts say it is rare for a defendant who is acting as his own lawyer to make the government such an enticing offer. By doing so, they say, Moussaoui could force prosecutors to decide…

John Magaw, head of the agency responsible for security at the nation`s airports, was forced from office Thursday in a move sources say had been in the works for weeks. He will be replaced as head of the new Transportation Security Administration by James Loy, 59, a retired U.S. Coast Guard commandant. Loy was hired…

Israeli soldiers arrested 16 relatives of two Palestinians suspected in bloody terror attacks this week, and in what would be a new policy, officials Friday were considering expelling some of the men to the Gaza Strip. Full Story

Two Roman Catholic priests in Northern Ireland escaped injury when their parochial house was attacked with petrol bombs, police said on Friday. Full Story

Police charged a suspected member of the extreme leftist November 17 terrorist organization Friday in the bomb attacks that injured 23 American servicemen and with murder for killing of five Greeks, all businessmen and politicians. Another suspected member of the elusive group was charged with two counts of armed robbery. Full Story

Greek police detained the French wife of the possible leader of the November 17 guerrilla group on Friday, widening a search for a band blamed for killing 23 people including foreign diplomats. Full Story

A year ago Ali Ahmeti was a reviled man, the shadowy leader of a few thousand ethnic Albanian guerrillas fighting in the mountainous areas of northern and western Macedonia. Calling themselves the National Liberation Army, he and his fighters seized territory and threatened to plunge this small, ethnically mixed country into yet another Balkan war.…

A man who claimed to be a former PE teacher from Manchester has been killed fighting in southern Chechnya, in an ambush by Russian special forces, according to a Chechen separatist website. Full Story

Pakistan is holding several more people suspected of being involved in the kidnapping and murder of the US journalist Daniel Pearl and has new evidence which casts doubt on the conviction of the British-born Omar Saeed Sheikh, sentenced to death on Monday. One of those held was identified by a senior official yesterday as Naeem…

Morocco won`t try to reoccupy a disputed Mediterranean island if Spain withdraws its troops, Morocco`s foreign minister was quoted Friday as saying, apparently easing a standoff that had sent relations between the nations to their lowest point in decades. Full Story

South Korean activists have declared cyber war on the US government following the involvement of US soldiers in the deaths of two teenage girls in a car crash. The activists are demanding an apology from President Bush and punishment for the two soldiers involved, and have warned that they will create denial of service attacks…

The government will announce the standards on Wednesday to show federal computer engineers how to alter Microsoft`s Windows 2000 operating system to make it more secure. Government experts hope that the benchmarks will solve an embarrassing problem that affects both federal and private computer networks, largely by plugging security holes most hackers already know about.…

These days, it doesn`t take a computer expert to become a hacker. There are over 30,000 hacking-oriented sites on the Internet, offering easy to use click-and-hack programs and scripts for anyone to download. These easily accessible hacking tools have opened the door for a multitude of new exploits. Full Story

IT managers will have a hard time guarding their networks against unscrupulous employees using hacker tools to steal sensitive data, according to a security expert. Hacker tool Camera/Shy permits the hiding and viewing of sensitive or incriminating data inside innocuous picture files. Full Story