At least 6 top Qaeda leaders in Pakistan: US lawmaker

At least half a dozen top Al Qaeda leaders are in Pakistan, a US lawmaker, who heads key a Congressional intelligence committee, said.

"Of the 20 senior leaders in al-Qaeda, at least a dozen of them, we believe to be travelling around Pakistan someplace," Congressman Mike Rogers, chairman of the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told reporters at a news conference.

Rogers said US lawmakers would be seeking answers from Pakistan that how Osama bin Laden lived so close to Islamabad. He was killed yesterday in an operation by the US special forces in garrison town of Abbottabad.

"I don't want to speculate if they did or they did not. I mean, we're going to ask those questions. I think Americans have the right to know that. I would like to know what they knew," Rogers said.

"But at the same time, we have to remember there are still equities that we have in Pakistan as it relates to our national security. We know there are some incredibly bad people there," he noted, adding, it is important for the US that it maintains a relationship Pakistan.

"Keeping a diplomat for 42 days, all of those things -- there's been some speculation in the past about release of information to bad guys through their ISI. All of those things remain a tension for the United States and Pakistan. We hope that we can work our way through it. Doesn't mean that we're not going to ask hard questions," Rogers said.

The powerful Republican Congressman said the information started on this four years ago under George Bush administration.

"I don't draw the nexus between going into Afghanistan and Iraq and not being able to get bin Laden. The reason we had such difficulty is because of his operational security, the way he conducted himself and operated," he said.

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Posted in: Business,Economic,Market,World

Untangling Dictators' Webs

Antigovernment protesters in Syria have a hard time reaching the outside world, since the government selectively blocks cell-phone coverage in protest areas, and most use a slow dial-up Internet connection. Some of them rely on a contact overseas. The Syrian, who has seen the inside of prisons before and asked that his name not be printed, receives video files from activists in Daraa. The Syrian helps format the videos and posts them to YouTube. He's exactly the kind of person the State Dept. would like to help right now: a pro-reform dissident, enabling others to get their story out through the Internet. But the Syrian is skeptical.

As the Administration struggles to keep up with the pace of change in the Arab world, the State Dept. is set to announce $28 million in grants for tools and training to help activists like the Syrian and his compatriots interact and organize online. The grants are a way to combat "repression 2.0," as Michael Posner, the Assistant Secretary of State for the agency's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, puts it. Autocrats and their intelligence operatives are increasingly turning to social media and sophisticated technologies to track and infiltrate dissident groups. Before the fall of dictator Ben Ali, for instance, Tunisian authorities uploaded phony Facebook and Gmail login pages with the aim of stealing the passwords of activists. In the past, U.S. officials thought that if dissidents could simply get to Facebook, Twitter, and other unrestricted sites on the open Web, they could organize themselves. Posner now says that training activists to avoid traps and giving them the tools to stay safe in digital environments is "perhaps the most critical part" of countering online repression.

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Posted in: Business,Economic,Market,tech

Infosys stock market price target slash, ratings unaffected

BANGALORE: Infosys Technologies store market price target is being slash as savers ponders about its future beyond the shadow of its founders and its ability to be compete in a world which has may be force it to hut the 'conservative' principles that created it.

But the faith in the company leftovers, with most ratings unchanged, as analyst chooses to study the transition before taking any use.

The Infosys productivity magic will be under the threat when the new management, to be proclaimed at the end of the month, puts the revenue growth ahead of profit margins that has been its focus.

"Infosys may be a boring stock for a ask," says Nimish Joshi at brokerage CLSA, who demoted the stock to break. "Under Shibulal's leadership, we wait for Infosys to drive a market share growth program, which will be impair margins rather and this cultural change is reflected in the 300 basis points margin refuse guidance for FY12."

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CMU shows off Honda Civic made electric

If you're sick of high fuel prices, Carnegie Mellon is running a car conversion project that takes gasoline-powered Hondas and makes them all electric.

The automaker showed off an electric Fit last year that can travel 100 miles per charge, but if you want a greener Civic, the CMU Robotics Institute's ChargeCar Electric Vehicle Conversion Project might be for you.

Researchers such as Illah Nourbakhsh of the institute's Create Lab work with local mechanics in converting Civics. At an open house near CMU on March 25, they will unveil a 2002 Civic EX four-door sedan that's been electrified.

The converted Civic's battery pack.
(Credit: CMU)

The Civic's conventional powertrain has been replaced with a 35-horsepower electric motor and 33 lithium-iron-phosphate batteries.

According to a CMU release, the car can drive more than 40 miles in mixed urban and highway driving, and has a top speed of more than 70 miles per hour (CMU would not specify an exact number).

The project has details on the conversion of a 2005 Honda Civic LX with the same stats; charging takes about 10 hours. Check out the photo gallery here.

How much does conversion cost? Jobs vary, but a CMU official said the best estimate he's seen is $17,000 or more. Ouch.

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Where are the Robots in Japan's nuclear crisis?

Six workers were exposed to excessive radiation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Saturday as a mile-long power line was connected to Reactor No. 2 in an effort to restore power to its cooling system. Crews hope to restart the system Sunday, The New York Times reported, but meanwhile observers have been speculating how many robots authorities have deployed to keep people out of harm's way.

The answer, apparently, is zero.

RoBot: Another useless prototype?
(Credit: Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute)

"I don't know that we have any such devices," said Hiro Hasegawa, a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), when asked whether robots were being used at Daiichi, which was struck by a tsunami following the 9.0-magnitude earthquake March 11.

It's surprising that Japan, long considered a technological powerhouse, has had to resort to such rudimentary methods of cooling the plant's reactors as water-bombing them with lead-lined helicopters.

Tepco apparently never imagined a situation in which the main and backup power to the coastal plant would be knocked out, despite the fact that Japan is one of the most quake-prone countries in the world, sitting atop a number of shifting tectonic plates.

Japan has invested untold millions in developing all kinds of robots, including machines that can work in hazardous places like nuclear power plants. All too often, they've proved to be expensive but useless prototypes. Tepco only has robots that can inspect reactor shrouds for cracks, according to Hasegawa.

After two workers died and dozens were injured following exposure to radiation in Japan's previous worst nuclear accident, in September 1999 at a JCO uranium reprocessing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, the government said it would develop remote-controlled robots to deal with leaks at nuclear facilities.

It drew inspiration from France's Groupe Intra, created in 1988 to maintain a fleet of robots to work in a major nuclear accident.

iRobot's PackBot 510 is heading to Fukushima.
(Credit: iRobot)

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Posted in: tech

Simple Dress Fashion Trend-2011

Simple dress.

If you have got tired of multiple details this trend is for you. Simple designs with no frills, sequins, bows and ribbons look beautiful, but if you choose to wear them opt for noticable accessories like red hat, chunky jewelry or extraordinary shoes.

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Posted in: Dress,DressUp,Fashion Dress Trends,Fashion Style,Gallery,Latest Fashion Dress News,Models

Strapless Dress Fashion Trend-2011

Strapless dress.

This type of dresses are perfect for special events and red carpets. They look sophisticated and show the beauty of woman’s neck and decolette. Wearing a strapless gown even the most ordinary girl will attract atttention.

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Posted in: Dress,DressUp,Fashion Dress Trends,Fashion Style,Gallery,Latest Fashion Dress News,Models