Score ham, and stud with the whole cloves. Place ham in foil lined pan.
In the top half of a double boiler, heat the corn syrup, honey and butter. Keep glaze warm while baking ham.
Brush glaze over ham, and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Baste ham every 10 to 15 minutes with the honey glaze. During the last 4 to 5 minutes of baking, turn on broiler to caramelize the glaze. Remove from oven, and let sit a few minutes before serving.
Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing one month ago.
For 30 days, search and rescue teams have patrolled areas of the southern Indian ocean, thousands of miles apart.
Planes, ships and submarines have all been deployed.
China, Australia, Malaysia, the US, the UK New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have all contributed to the search.
The question is: How much is it costing, and who pays?
Malaysia has refused to be drawn. Acting Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein told reporters that the cost of mounting the search was “immaterial” when set against the need to bring solace to the families of the missing.
Mounting a search operation on this scale, and for this length of time, does not come cheap.
For 30 days, search and rescue teams have patrolled areas of the southern Indian ocean, thousands of miles apart
The bill so far probably runs to $33-42 million, estimates Peter Roberts, senior research fellow in sea power and maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
This includes the cost of fuel, spare parts, and transporting supplies, as well as the relocation of staff – even costs such as cancelled leave can push up the final bill.
Most of the financial burden will be borne by the countries who have contributed their forces.
For example, Australia deployed a navy replenishment vessel, HMAS Success, two weeks ago. It costs AU$550,000 a day to operate, says the Department of Defense, so that comes to AU$7.7 million ($7.2 million) already.
And that is just a single ship. HMAS Toowoomba, which has also been involved, costs AU$380,000.
The US Department of Defense set aside $4 million to help the search: between March 8 and 24, it spent $3.2 million, a spokesman told reporters in Washington.
In the end, the cost of sending HMS Echo to the waters off Australia will be met from Treasury contingency funds, says Peter Roberts. Governments will take the costs within their budget “and accept they have to do it”.
The ship will stay there as long as it has a role to play, he says: “Mariners have got a very strong sense of brotherhood: saving life at sea is the right thing to do.”
Once the search is completed, attention is likely to turn to improving the tracking technology.
“It is hard for anyone to imagine that we can’t continuously track aircraft anywhere in the world,” says Peter Roberts.
There, the most expensive part of the process will not be the development or fitting of any technology, but the cost of getting it accepted and standardized by aviation regulators around the world.
The most expensive salvage operation in aviation history came after an Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris crashed in the Atlantic in 2009.
After multiple searches over three years, the final bill came to 32 million euros ($44 million).
Peaches Geldof post-mortem examination will take place on Wednesday, Kent County Council have confirmed.
Peaches Geldof , 25, was found dead at her Kent home, on Monday.
In a statement, the council said: “A decision on whether there needs to be an inquest depends upon the final results of the post mortem.”
The council added that it “could take some weeks” for those results.
Peaches Geldof was the second daughter of musician and campaigner Bob Geldof and Paula Yates.
Kent Police said earlier that her death was being treated as “non-suspicious but unexplained and sudden”.
Peaches Geldof was found dead at her Kent home at the age of 25 (photo Getty Images)
Fifi Trixibelle Geldof paid tribute to her sister Peaches earlier on Tuesday and posted on Instagram: “My beautiful baby sister…. Gone but never forgotten. I love you Peaches x.”
Irish President Michael D. Higgins also paid tribute to the writer, TV presenter and model.
Susan Sarandon, Boy George, politician Martin McGuinness and TV presenter Davina McCall have also offered condolences.
Peaches Geldof’s father Bob said his family are “beyond pain” following the news.
President Michael D. Higgins, who was due to meet Bob Geldof this week during a state visit to Britain, said his thoughts were with the family.
Peaches Geldof had two young sons with her second husband, musician Tom Cohen. She was 11 when her own mother died.
In a family statement issued on Monday night, Bob Geldof said: “She was the wildest, funniest, cleverest, wittiest and the most bonkers of all of us.
“Writing <<was>> destroys me afresh. What a beautiful child. How is this possible that we will not see her again? How is that bearable?
“We loved her and will cherish her forever. How sad that sentence is. Tom and her sons Astala and Phaedra will always belong in our family, fractured so often, but never broken.”
The statement was signed Bob, Jeanne, Fifi, Pixie and Tiger Geldof.
Tom Cohen said: “My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons Astala and Phaedra and I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her forever.”
Bob Geldof was knighted in 1986 for his work in organizing Live Aid and other concerts that raised millions for the starving people of Africa. He first gained prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band the Boomtown Rats in the 1970s.
Paula Yates, who was famous for presenting Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast and music show The Tube, died of a heroin overdose in September 2000.
The number of deaths from the Ebola virus in Guinea has passed 100, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) says.
It was “one of the most challenging Ebola outbreaks we have ever dealt with” and could take another four months to contain, the WHO said.
The Ebola virus had now killed 101 people in Guinea and 10 in Liberia, it said.
Ebola is spread by close contact and kills between 25% and 90% of its victims.
Many West African states have porous borders, and people travel frequently between countries.
Southern Guinea is at the epicenter of the outbreak, with the first case reported last month.
The geographical spread of the outbreak is continuing to make it particularly challenging to contain – past outbreaks have involved much smaller areas.
The number of deaths from the Ebola virus in Guinea has passed 100 (photo Getty Images)
“We fully expect to be engaged in this outbreak for the next two to three to four months before we are comfortable that we are through it,” Keija Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director-general, said at a news briefing in Geneva, Reuters news agency reports.
The WHO said 157 suspected cases had been recorded in Guinea, including 20 in the capital, Conakry.
Sixty-seven of the cases have been confirmed as Ebola, it added.
In neighboring Liberia, 21 cases had been reported, with five confirmed as Ebola, the WHO said.
Mali had reported 9 suspected cases, but medical tests done so far showed that two of them did not have Ebola, it said.
Last week, Mali said it was on high alert because of fears of an outbreak of the tropical virus and it would tighten border controls.
Saudi Arabia has suspended visas for Muslim pilgrims from Guinea and Liberia, in a sign of the growing unease about the outbreak.
This is the first known outbreak in Guinea – most recent cases have been thousands of miles away in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
There is no known cure or vaccine for Ebola.
Ebola leads to haemorrhagic fever, causing muscle pain, weakness, vomiting, diarrhoea and, in severe cases, organ failure and unstoppable bleeding.
Duck Dynasty and NASCAR fans, who flocked to Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday hoping to watch the Duck Commander 500 race alongside the Robertson family, were disappointed by delays due to inclement weather.
After waiting for hours, the race was eventually postponed to Monday morning because the track was too wet to race safely after the rain stopped.
The Sprint Cup race begins at noon ET on Monday. The Texas Motor Speedway went all out for the Duck Commander 500 race.
Concession stands were stocked with Uncle Si’s iced tea and Duck Commander BBQ and trimmings, and the stars of Duck Dynasty had various roles to play in the highly anticipated race.
Uncle Si Robertson sported a red jumpsuit and was planning to serve as the grand marshal, and Phil Robertson was set to waive the green flag to start the race.
Uncle Si Robertson sported a red jumpsuit and was planning to serve as the grand marshal at Duck Commander 500
Jase Robertson was going to introduce the drivers, and his brother Willie had planned to present the winner’s trophy at Victory Lane.
Phil and Alan Robertson were also scheduled to speak at the Sunday morning “Racing with Faith” service.
The Robertsons, who have often traveled to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and were excited to sponsor their first NASCAR event at the Texas Motor Speedway, still managed to have a good time at the event.
While many family members were unable to fulfill their duties at the race, 16-year-old Sadie Robertson prayed over the crowd as they waited for the race to begin, and Missy Robertson sang the national anthem.
Hopefully fans will be able to catch the Robertson family next year. World News Group reports that Duck Commander, the Robertson family’s duck call and hunting gear business, has a three-year sponsorship at Texas Motor Speedway.
Willie Robertson says he believes that the Duck Commander brand is “more than just duck hunting”
“It says family and being positive and a lot of things that we see in NASCAR – it’s a family sport. We’re tickled to have our brand associated with it.”
NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer, who made an appearance on Season 2 of Duck Dynasty, has proved to be the Robertson favorite for the Duck Commander 500 race.
Clint Bowyer’s car sports the Duck Commander and Buck Commander logos, along with Willie’s Duck Diner and Duck & Dressing emblems.
Heartbleed bug in software used by millions of web servers could have exposed anyone visiting sites they hosted to spying and eavesdropping, say researchers.
The bug is in a software library used in servers, operating systems and email and instant messaging systems.
Called OpenSSL, the software is supposed to protect sensitive data as it travels back and forth.
It is not clear how widespread exploitation of the bug has been because attacks leave no trace.
Heartbleed bug is in OpenSSL software library used in servers, operating systems and email and instant messaging systems
“If you need strong anonymity or privacy on the internet, you might want to stay away from the internet entirely for the next few days while things settle,” said a blog entry about the bug published by the Tor Project which produces software that helps people avoid scrutiny of their browsing habits.
A huge swathe of the web could be vulnerable because OpenSSL is used in the widely used Apache and Nginx server software. Statistics from net monitoring firm Netcraft suggest that about 500,000 of the web’s secure servers are running versions of the vulnerable software.
The bug in OpenSSL was discovered by researchers working for Google and security firm Codenomicon.
In a blog entry about their findings the researchers said the “serious vulnerability” allowed anyone to read chunks of memory in servers supposedly protected with the flawed version of OpenSSL. Via this route, attackers could get at the secret keys used to scramble data as it passes between a server and its users.
“This allows attackers to eavesdrop [on] communications, steal data directly from the services and users and to impersonate services and users,” wrote the team that discovered the vulnerability. They called it the “heartbleed” bug because it occurs in the heartbeat extension for OpenSSL.
The bug has been present in versions of OpenSSL that have been available for over two years. The latest version of OpenSSL released on April 7 is no longer vulnerable to the bug.
“Considering the long exposure, ease of exploitation and attacks leaving no trace this exposure should be taken seriously,” wrote the researchers.
Installing an updated version of OpenSSL did not necessarily mean people were safe from attack, said the team. If attackers have already exploited it they could have stolen encryption keys, passwords or other credentials required to access a server, they said.
Full protection might require updating to the safer version of OpenSSL as well as getting new security certificates and generating new encryption keys. To help people check their systems some security researchers have produced tools that help people work out if they are running vulnerable versions of OpenSSL.
Oscar Pistorius has described the moment he fired the shots which killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his home in Pretoria.
The 27-year-old double amputee told his trial in Pretoria he had heard noises from the toilet and thought an intruder was coming out.
“Before I knew it, I had fired four shots at the door,” Oscar Pistorius said.
The trial of the athlete, who could face life imprisonment if convicted of murder, was adjourned until Wednesday after he broke down crying.
The Paralympic athlete denies deliberately shooting Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year.
On his first day on the stand, on Monday, Oscar Pistorius made a tearful apology to Reeva Steenkamp’s family.
The prosecution alleges that Oscar Pistorius killed his girlfriend after an argument with her.
In the early hours of February 14, 2013, Oscar Pistorius said he had got up from bed to bring in some fans he had left outside, in order to cool his bedroom.
Oscar Pistorius has described the moment he fired the shots which killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in his home in Pretoria
When he heard a window opening in the bathroom, he said, he thought there was a burglar trying to get in.
Wanting to protect Reeva Steenkamp, who was not sleeping, he had gone to get his gun in the dark.
“I whispered to Reeva to get down and phone the police,” he said.
He said he then went into the passage without his prosthetic legs and, overcome with fear, started screaming, and shouted for Reeva Steenkamp to get to the floor.
The toilet door slammed, reconfirming his belief there was a person or people in the bathroom, the athlete said.
“I heard a noise from inside the toilet, what I perceived to be someone coming out of the toilet,” he said tearfully. At that point, he shot at the door.
After the shooting, Oscar Pistorius said he had smashed in a door panel to get into the toilet, where he discovered what he had done.
“Whilst I leant over the partition to get in, I saw the key, so I took it and I unlocked the door, and I flung the door open, and I threw it open,” he said, sobbing.
“And I sat over Reeva and I cried… and um, I don’t know how long… I don’t know how long I was there for… She wasn’t breathing.”
As the athlete broke down, the judge adjourned the trial.
Earlier, Oscar Pistorius described how the couple had spent a quiet evening together on February 13, Reeva Steenkamp doing some yoga as he spoke to his cousin on the phone.
He had then watched TV in bed with his head resting on her stomach and she would occasionally show him photos of cars she was looking at on her phone, he said.
Oscar Pistorius said that they had bought Valentine’s Day gifts for each other. He had bought her a bracelet and they had been due to go the jewellers’ to collect it the next day, he said.
Reeva Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model, reality TV celebrity and law graduate, was hit by at least three bullets while in the toilet cubicle of Oscar Pistorius’s home in Pretoria.
Known as the Blade Runner, Oscar Pistorius holds six Paralympic medals and competed in the 2012 Olympic Games.
There are no juries at trials in South Africa, and his fate will ultimately be decided by the judge, assisted by two assessors.
Even if he is acquitted, South African law stipulates that the court must consider the separate, lesser charge of culpable homicide, or manslaughter.
If convicted on this charge, Oscar Pistorius could face between 6 and 15 years in prison.
Oscar Pistorius also faces charges of illegally firing a gun in public and of illegally possessing ammunition, which he denies.
Philippine top court has approved a birth control law, in a defeat for the Catholic Church.
The law requires government health centers to distribute free contraceptive products.
The Supreme Court had deferred implementation after the law’s passage in December 2012 after church groups questioned its constitutionality.
Supporters of the law cheered as the court found that most of the provisions were constitutional.
The government of President Benigno Aquino defied years of church pressure by passing the bill.
Philippine top court has approved a birth control law, in a defeat for the Catholic Church
It says the law will help the poor, who often cannot afford birth control, and combat the country’s high rates of maternal mortality.
The provisions will make virtually all forms of contraception freely available at public health clinics.
Health education will also be compulsory in schools and public health workers will be required to receive family planning training.
There will also be medical care for women who have had illegal abortions.
The Philippines is about 80% Catholic, and with a population approaching 100 million, has one of the highest birth rates in Asia.
The church fought fiercely against the bill, denouncing it as evil and a threat to life. It denounced politicians who supported it, including President Benigno Aquino.
Campaigners have warned of potential civil obedience following the court ruling.
The Catholic Church has played a significant role in Philippine political life and continues to wield much influence over the population.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has declared “invalid” the EU law requiring telecoms firms to store citizens’ communications data for up to two years.
The EU Data Retention Directive was adopted in 2006.
The EU’s top court says the directive violates two basic rights – respect for private life and protection of personal data.
The EU-wide ruling was prompted by Austrian and Irish complaints.
The 28-nation EU is currently drafting a new data protection law.
The European Court of Justice has declared invalid the EU Data Retention Directive (photo AP)
The ECJ ruling says the 2006 directive allows storage of data on a person’s identity, the time of that person’s communication, the place from which the communication took place and the frequency of that person’s communications.
“By requiring the retention of those data and by allowing the competent national authorities to access those data, the directive interferes in a particularly serious manner with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data,” the court in Luxembourg ruled.
Austrian and Irish courts had asked the ECJ to decide whether the directive complied with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The judges acknowledged that data retention was justified in the fight against serious crime and to safeguard public security. But they argued that the directive was disproportionate.
They also said use of the data without an individual’s knowledge “is likely to generate in the persons concerned a feeling that their private lives are the subject of constant surveillance”.
The directive does not provide sufficient safeguards against possible abuse of personal data, the judges said.
And there was insufficient clarity concerning the basis for holding data for a minimum of six months or the maximum of two years, they argued.
The European Commission says it too is assessing the ruling. It said there had to be a proper balance between security and fundamental rights.
A professor’s strict no phone-policy set one student up to pull the ultimate April Fools’ prank in class, which was caught on video and is now going viral.
Aquinas College students play a prank on their hilarious Macroeconomics Professor Stephen Barrows.
Aquinas College students play a prank on their hilarious Macroeconomics Professor Stephen Barrows
Stephen Barrows, an economics professor at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has a strict policy when it comes to phones in class – if it rings, you have to answer the call on speaker phone.
Student Taylor Nefcy made sure the phone call “confirming” her pregnancy from an out-of-the picture father would be played loud and clear for the class.
The prank went off without a hitch and a YouTube video of it has spurred an international reaction, drawing almost 14 million views by April 8.
The video has already been translated into French.
Montana Gulf War veteran Daniel Rachell, who was investigated three years ago for threatening President Barack Obama, was back in federal custody Monday on new charges of threatening the president and his family.
Daniel Rachell, 43, of Darby, about 50 miles south of Missoula, was arrested Thursday and appointed a public defender at his initial hearing in US District Court in Missoula, according to records made public Monday.
Montana Gulf War veteran Daniel Rachell made racist slurs about Barack Obama and his family (photo Getty Images)
He was charged with threatening the life of the president and with threatening the lives of former presidents and other persons – the former president or presidents weren’t identified, but in a 12-page affidavit, the Secret Service said Daniel Rachell had drawn up detailed plans to blow up the presidential motorcade, killing the first family and any Secret Service and other security agents protecting them.
In the affidavit, which was filed March 28, a Secret Service investigator said the agency began looking into Daniel Rachell late last month when a veteran who patronizes the Valley Veterans Service Center in Hamilton reported that Rachell had made racist slurs about Barack Obama and had said someone needed to “kill Michelle and the kids to save the taxpayers money because they fly around on Air Force One all the time”.
The veteran told the Secret Service that Daniel Rachell boasted of having trained his current wife to be a “spotter” to assist him in an assassination attempt and that he had enough ammunition to kill everyone in Hamilton, population 4,300.
It’s not the first time the Secret Service has investigated Daniel Rachell. In April 2011, Rachell’s ex-wife filed a complaint alleging that he’d stockpiled weapons and was on his way to Illinois kill her and to St. Louis to kill another ex-wife — details outlined in the new affidavit.
As part of that complaint, the ex-wife told police that Daniel Rachell suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and had made anti-government statements and specific threats against Barack Obama.
When Daniel Rachell was located in Schertz, Texas, northeast of San Antonio, he was involuntarily admitted for psychiatric evaluation, which concluded that he did show symptoms of depression and PTSD.
The new affidavit says Daniel Rachell denied making any threats, and it couldn’t immediately be determined Monday how the 2011 investigation ended.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s grandmother on her father’s side, Dorothy Paltrow, passed away in Palm Beach, Florida.
The Palm Beach Post reported the news on April 4.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s grandmother on her father’s side, Dorothy Paltrow, passed away in Palm Beach (photo Getty Images)
Gwyneth Paltrow’s father Bruce, an American television and film director and producer, passed away in October 2002 from oral cancer.
Dorothy Paltrow is survived by her children Robert and Fran, and she has five grandchildren.
Following the announcement of her separation from the Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, Gwyneth Paltrow enjoyed a Bahamas getaway with her ex and her two children Moses, 7, and Apple, 9.
The foursome spent two weeks in the Exuma Islands, trying to keep out of the public eye.
Oscar Pistorius has said he was “besotted” with his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, as he gave evidence at his murder trial.
The athlete said he and Reeva Steenkamp had been talking about “future plans” together.
He also read out messages they had sent each other, including one where she said he scared her sometimes.
Oscar Pistorius denies deliberately shooting dead Reeva Steenkamp in his home on Valentine’s Day last year, arguing he mistook her for an intruder.
On his first day on the stand, the athlete made a tearful apology to Reeva Steenkamp’s family.
The trial was adjourned on Monday after he was overcome with emotion.
Responding to his questioning by his lawyer Barry Roux, Oscar Pistorius said that in January 2013: “I was very keen on Reeva. If anything I was more keen than she was.”
He said they had a shared interest in cars and had spent Christmas together after meeting on November 4, 2012.
Oscar Pistorius has said he was “besotted” with his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, as he gave evidence at his murder trial
“I let her just take her space – it wasn’t always easy I was besotted with her… the relationship built up to a point in December, January that we really needed, we started caring about each other, we start talking about future plans.”
Barry Roux has also asked him to comment on “tensions” in their relationship and on WhatsApp messages Reeva Steenkamp sent him in which she expresses disquiet about his attitude towards her, accusing him of “double standards”.
Tears streamed down the athlete’s face as he read out the messages sent to him by Reeva Steenkamp during his testimony, which is not being filmed.
On Monday, Oscar Pistorius told Reeva Steenkamp’s relatives that there “hasn’t been a moment since this tragedy happened that I haven’t thought about your family”.
He said: “I can’t imagine the pain and the sorrow and the emptiness that I’ve caused you and your family.”
“I was simply trying to protect Reeva. I can promise that when she went to bed that night she felt loved.”
Reeva Steenkamp’s mother, June, sat stony-faced while Oscar Pistorius spoke.
The athlete admitted to taking anti-depressants and sleeping pills, saying he was “scared to sleep” and suffered from “terrible nightmares”.
He also told the court that he had regularly been confronted with violence, including break-ins and assaults, while he was growing up.
Oscar Pistorius became emotional when he detailed how important religion had been to him and Reeva Steenkamp. His counsel eventually asked for an adjournment.
Prior to Oscar Pistorius’ appearance, the trial had already heard 15 days of prosecution-led testimony, which relied on accounts from neighbors and specialist ballistics experts, as well forensic and mobile phone evidence.
Teams searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane will wait for further contact with signals picked up over the weekend before using a submersible down to search for debris.
Australian Ocean Shield vessel has heard signals that officials said could be consistent with “black box” flight recorders.
It has not been able to reacquire them since Sunday, however.
Australian officials said it was key to re-find the signals before using a submersible in a search for wreckage.
Flight MH370 went missing on March 8 with 239 people on board. The Beijing-bound plane lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly after taking off from Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysian officials say that – based on satellite data – they believe the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean, west of the Australian city of Perth, thousands of miles from its intended flight path.
Teams searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane will wait for further contact with signals picked up over the weekend before using a submersible down to search for debris
In Beijing, relatives of missing passengers held a vigil to mark one month since the plane disappeared.
Speaking at Pearce Airbase in Perth, Australian Defense Minister David Johnston said that several days of “intense action” were ahead as search teams tackled “this difficult, complex task” while black box pingers were still believed to be active.
Australian vessel Ocean Shield has been using a towed pinger locator to listen for transmissions from the plane’s flight recorders. Over the weekend, it heard signals on two separate occasions, the first time for more than two hours.
On the second occasion two distinct pinger returns were audible, something said to be consistent with transmissions from both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder.
Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, who heads the agency overseeing the search for the plane, said that Ocean Shield had had no further contact with any transmissions since then.
He said that work involving the towed pinger locator would continue for several days, adding that the Bluefin 21 underwater drone would not be deployed unless more transmissions were received.
“If we can get more transmissions we can get a better fix on the ocean floor, which will enable a much more narrowly focused visual search for wreckage,” he said.
Support for Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system ends today, April 8.
It means that there will be no more official security updates and bug fixes for the operating system.
Some governments have negotiated extended support contracts for the OS in a bid to keep users protected.
Security firms said anyone else using the 13-year-old software would be at increased risk of infection and compromise by cyber-thieves.
Statistics suggest 20-25% of all users have stuck with XP despite the fact that there have been three major releases of Windows since its debut in 2001.
Some of those existing XP users have struck deals to get security fixes from Microsoft while they complete their migration away from the ageing code.
Anyone currently running Windows XP already faced a disproportionate risk of falling victim to malware, said Dave Emm, a senior research analyst at security firm Kaspersky.
“Our data indicates that less than one fifth of our customers run Windows XP but more than a quarter of infections are Windows XP-based,” he said.
Support for Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system ends today, April 8
That exposure ratio was only going to get worse after April 8, he said, once the last security patch for Windows XP had been released.
That final patch will fix a series of bugs, one of which is rated as critical and is already being actively exploited despite only being discovered in late March.
“Effectively, every vulnerability discovered after April 8 will become a zero-day vulnerability – that is, one for which there is not and never will be, a patch,” said Dave Emm.
Windows XP users topped the list of victims cyber-thieves targeted, said Maik Morgenstern and Andreas Marx from the German AV-Test group, which rates and ranks security software.
“Malware writers go for the low hanging fruits because it’s a lot easier to infect systems running on an old Windows XP operating system compared to brand-new Windows 8.1, with all its built-in security features,” they said.
“We think we will see a lot of attacks for Windows XP within the next few months, but attackers will also always add exploits for other Windows systems just to catch those systems as well.”
Orla Cox, a senior manager at cyber-defense firm Symantec’s security response unit, said criminals groups were likely to hoard the XP vulnerabilities they knew about rather than use them to bolster malware being spammed out to millions of people.
“The types of groups sitting on zero-days will tend to use them against high-end targets and for corporate espionage,” she said.
“Some organizations will have particular concerns because they find it so hard to move away from XP.”
However, she added, any zero-day that did get used against a corporate target was likely to be re-used later on.
“Once it’s out there it gets into the malware kits and then gets circulated and there will be no defense,” she said.
Mark O’Neill, a spokesman for data management firm Axway, said organizations were getting better at coping with software that had hit its end-of-life.
“Beyond high-profile programs like XP there are a lot of products that have gone out of support because the company behind them has gone out of business or was acquired,” he said.
In addition many other products were written in old programming languages that made them expensive to maintain and update.
As a result, many IT departments have put such ageing programs in the virtual equivalent of a “black box” and subsequently update the external code if security patches need to be applied.
“You can create a layer above the older application and that gives you a place to patch,” Mark O’Neill said.
“Companies are not defenseless even with the things they cannot patch.”
The US is concerned about heightened tension in eastern Ukraine after pro-Russia demonstrators seized government buildings in three eastern cities, Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv.
Secretary of State John Kerry told Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in a phone call that any Russian efforts at destabilization “would incur costs”.
They discussed the possibility of direct talks within the next 10 days.
Ukraine is sending security officials to Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv, after buildings there were stormed.
Rebels occupying Donetsk’s regional government building declared a “people’s republic” on Monday and called for a referendum on secession from Ukraine to be held by May 11.
Russia recently annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, where the majority of people are Russian speakers, following a referendum that Kiev and the West say was illegal.
Moscow now has thousands of troops massed along its border with eastern Ukraine. Although it insists it has no intention of invading Ukraine, it says it reserves the right to defend ethnic Russians in the country.
The US has warned Russia against stirring separatist sentiment in eastern Ukraine
Russia is refusing to recognize the new authorities in Kiev who took power after pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in February.
US state department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said that in the telephone call, John Kerry “called on Russia to publicly disavow the activities of separatists, saboteurs and provocateurs” in Ukraine.
She said John Kerry noted that the actions in eastern Ukraine “do not appear to be a spontaneous set of events”.
“He made clear that any further Russian efforts to destabilize Ukraine will incur further costs for Russia,” Jennifer Psaki said.
The US and the EU have already imposed targeted sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian individuals over the annexation of Crimea.
Sergei Lavrov, in an article on the website of the UK’s Guardian newspaper, denied Russia was destabilizing Ukraine and accused the West of “groundless whipping-up of tension”.
He also warned authorities in Kiev against any use of force against pro-Russian demonstrators.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it was “closely watching” events in eastern Ukraine, “particularly in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions”.
It reiterated Moscow’s demands for the creation of a federal Ukraine with broader powers for provinces.
“Stop pointing to Russia, blaming it for all of the troubles of today’s Ukraine,” the statement said.
Pro-Russian protesters seized official buildings in Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk on Sunday night. Police said they cleared protesters from the building in Kharkiv but in Luhansk demonstrators had seized weapons.
Ukraine’s interim President Oleksandr Turchynov called the unrest an attempt by Russia to “dismember” Ukraine.
Speaking on national TV, he said it was “the second wave” of a Russian operation to destabilize Ukraine, overthrow the government and disrupt planned elections.
Also on Monday, NATO said it was limiting Russian diplomats’ access to its headquarters in Brussels.
A medical team at the University of Louisville and the University of California has reported that four paralyzed men have been able to move their legs for the first time in years after electrical stimulation of their spinal cords.
The men were able to flex their toes, ankles and knees – but could not walk independently.
A report, in the journal Brain, suggests the electricity makes the spinal cord more receptive to the few messages still arriving from the brain.
Experts said it could become a treatment for spinal injury.
The spinal cord acts like a high-speed rail line carrying electrical messages from the brain to the rest of the body. But if there is any damage to the track, then the message will not get through.
The men have been able to move their legs for the first time in years after electrical stimulation of their spinal cords
People with spinal cord injuries can lose all movement and sensation below the injury.
The team has been pioneering electrical stimulation of the spinal cord below the injury.
Three years ago they reported that Rob Summers – a keen baseball player who was paralyzed from the chest down in a hit-and-run car accident – was able to move his legs while supported on a treadmill.
Now three more patients, who had been paralyzed for at least two years, have gone through the procedure and regained some movement.
They were able to control their legs at a precise pace and all but one of them was able to control the force of the movement.
It confirms that function can be restored after paralysis and that Rob Summers’ case was not a one-off.
It is not certain how the stimulation helps, however the researchers believe that some signals are still crossing the injury, but are not normally strong enough to trigger movement.
The electrical stimulation made the lower spinal cord more excitable so it was able to respond when the messages did arrive from the brain.
Dr. Roderic Pettigrew, director of the US National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, said: “Now that spinal stimulation has been successful in four out of four patients, there is evidence to suggest that a large cohort of individuals, previously with little realistic hope of any meaningful recovery from spinal cord injury, may benefit from this.”
Line a cookie sheet with foil and grease with spray-on cooking oil.
Pour noodles into a large bowl. Melt the butter and marshmallows over medium heat, stirring until smooth. Pour marshmallow mixture over noodles, stirring until well coated.
Rub some butter on hands and form noodle mixture into six round balls. Place balls on prepared cookie sheet. With the back of a teaspoon, press the center of each ball to make a hollow indentation.
Let nests set until they are firm. Fill each with small jelly beans. (Other small candies of your choice may be substituted, such as M & M’s, small gumdrops, chocolate covered raisins, chocolate covered peanuts, etc.)
In 2014, Easter in the US will fall on Sunday, April 20.
This year, Catholic Easter coincides with the Eastern Orthodox Churches that include Russian, and Greek Orthodox denominations that dominate across Europe.
In the West, Christians follow the Gregorian calendar which includes Roman Catholic, Anglican Communion, Protestant Churches and other denominations.
This year, Catholic Easter coincides with the Eastern Orthodox Churches that include Russian, and Greek Orthodox denominations
Eastern Orthodox Christians follow the Julian calendar.
In the West, Easter is celebrated on the Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon.
According to the Merriam Webster encyclopedia, the Paschal Full Moon was introduced in 1892. It falls on the 14th day of a lunar month occurring on or next after March 21 calculated by a fixed set of ecclesiastical calendar rules, without regard to the real moon.
The calculation for the Orthodox Easter is the same, except it’s based on the much older Julian calendar which has its own conventions of calculating equinoxes, the two dates in the year when day and night are of equal length.
In 2015, Western Christianity will celebrate Easter on Sunday, April 5.
In the Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Easter Sunday will fall on Sunday April 12.
Chinese economy’s growth forecast has been slightly cut by the World Bank, citing a “bumpy start to the year”.
The World Bank now expects the Chinese economy to grow by 7.6% in 2014, down from its earlier projection of 7.7%.
A slew of disappointing figures has triggered concerns of a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.
However, the World Bank said recent reforms unveiled by China were likely to help it achieve “more sustainable and inclusive” growth in the long term.
The Chinese government set out an ambitious and comprehensive reform agenda in November last year, aimed at overhauling its economy over the next decade.
The World Bank now expects the Chinese economy to grow by 7.6 percent in 2014, down from its earlier projection of 7.7 percent
These include reforming the financial and services sectors as well as the big state-owned enterprises.
“If implemented, the reforms will have a profound impact on China’s land, labor, and capital markets, and enhance the long-term sustainability of its economic growth,” the World Bank said in its latest report.
“Some reforms, including efforts to reduce regulatory and administrative burdens, reform taxation, and make more land available for commercial activities, are also likely to support growth in the short term.”
The World Bank also cut its growth outlook for Thailand.
It predicts that the Thai economy will expand by 3% this year, down from its earlier projection of 4.5% growth.
It said that “implementation delays and political uncertainties have been the major contributor” to the slowdown.
A series of anti-government protests in recent months have stoked fears of political uncertainty in the country and its impact on the Thai economy.
The bank added: “The expiry of the car tax rebate scheme, rising levels of household debt, falling commodity incomes, arrears in government subsidy payments to rice farmers, and crumbling consumer sentiment in the face of political instability all crimped consumption.”
The World Bank said it expected the developing East Asia Pacific region to grow by 7.1% in 2014, slightly lower than its earlier projection of 7.2%.
British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) will investigate allegations about its conduct in Iraq, nine months after an inquiry into the company began in China.
“We are investigating allegations of improper conduct in our Iraq business,” a GSK spokesman said.
“We have zero tolerance for unethical or illegal behavior.”
GSK will investigate allegations about its conduct in Iraq, nine months after an inquiry into the company began in China (photo Reuters)
GSK will investigate claims that it hired 16 state-employed doctors and pharmacists as paid sales representatives at a time they continued working for the government.
The allegations, which date back to 2012, were sent to the company late last year, the Wall Street Journal reported.
They allege that GSK paid for the doctors’ expenses to attend international conferences, and that it pays other doctors high fees to give lectures in exchange for promoting its drugs.
The emails were from someone familiar with the company’s Middle East business, said the report.
“In total, we employ fewer than 60 people in Iraq in our pharmaceuticals operation and these allegations relate to a small number of individuals in the country,” GSK said.
Last summer, GSK said senior executives in its China office appeared to have broken the law amid a bribery scandal.
The acknowledgement came as GlaxoSmithKline said it was co-operating with a Chinese investigation into alleged bribing of doctors to prescribe the company’s drugs.
Peaches Geldof, second daughter of musician Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, has died aged 25.
Police say they were called to an address near Wrotham, Kent, following a report of concern for the welfare of a woman on Monday afternoon.
Peaches Geldog was later pronounced dead by South East Coast Ambulance Service.
“At this stage, the death is being treated as unexplained and sudden,” said a statement from Kent Police.
Born in 1989, Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof embarked on a media career at the age of 15, when she began writing a column for Elle magazine.
Peaches Geldof was the second daughter of musician Bob Geldof and Paula Yates
She left home at 16 and went on to contribute to the Telegraph and the Guardian, as well as TV shows including ITV2’s OMG! with Peaches Geldof.
Peaches Geldof also worked as a model and, just last week, attended a launch for Tesco’s F&F clothing range in London.
The writer and presenter was married to musician Thomas Cohen, with whom she had two sons, Astala, one, and Phaedra, who will turn one on April 24.
Peaches Geldof lost her own mother when she was just 11 years old. Paula Yates died of a drug overdose in September 2000.
Speaking to Elle magazine in 2012, Peaches Geldof said she had not come to terms with Paula
Peaches Geldof said she had experimented with drugs as a teenager, but was “never that wild”.
She was previously married to rock musician Max Drummey but the pair separated in 2009 after a six-month marriage.
Her last tweet, posted on Sunday was a picture of her as a baby in her mother’s arms.
Peaches Geldof leaves her husband and sons; father Bob Geldof; sisters Fifi Trixibelle and Pixie; and younger half-sister, Tiger Lily Hutchence Geldof.
Pro-Russian protesters have declared People’s Republic of Donetsk after seizing the regional government building in the eastern Ukrainian city.
The rebels have called for a referendum on secession from Ukraine by May 11.
Ukrainian security officials are being sent to the eastern cities of Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv after pro-Russia groups occupied government buildings.
Ukraine’s Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov called the unrest an attempt by Russia to “dismember” Ukraine.
In an address on national TV, Oleksandr Turchynov said it was “the second wave” of a Russian operation to destabilize Ukraine, overthrow the government and disrupt planned elections.
Russia recently annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula after a referendum there which Ukraine did not see as valid.
As tensions mounted on Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya told Russia’s Ekho Moskvy news agency that Kiev would go to war with Russia if it sent troops into eastern Ukraine.
Moscow has thousands of troops massed along its border with Ukraine. It says it has no intention of invading but reserves the right to protect the rights of ethnic Russians.
Earlier on Monday, protesters seized state security buildings in Donetsk and Luhansk.
Protesters broke into Donetsk’s regional government building and another in Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city – on Sunday. Ukrainian authorities say protesters have now left the building in Kharkiv.
Pro-Russian protesters have declared People’s Republic of Donetsk after seizing the regional government building in the eastern Ukrainian city
Ukrainian news agency Unian says gunmen also tried to storm a Donetsk TV building on Monday but were deterred by police.
At an emergency cabinet meeting, interim PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk blamed Russia for the seizures.
“The plan is to destabilize the situation, the plan is for foreign troops to cross the border and seize the country’s territory, which we will not allow,” he said, adding that people engaged in the unrest had distinct Russian accents.
Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Russian troops remain within 19 miles of the frontier. The city of Luhansk is just 16 miles from the Russian border.
Police have blocked roads into Luhansk and armed reinforcements are being sent to the restive cities.
Officials said Ukrainian National Security Secretary Andriy Parubiy and Security Service chief Valentyn Nalyvaychenko have been sent to the city.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has already arrived in Kharkiv and First Deputy PM Vitaly Yarema is on his way to Donetsk, a spokeswoman said.
She said the three officials had “all the authority necessary to take action against separatism.”
President Oleksandr Turchynov has cancelled a visit to Lithuania to deal with the unfolding events.
Russia’s foreign ministry said it was “closely watching” events in eastern Ukraine, “particularly in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions”.
It reiterated Moscow’s demands for the creation of a federal Ukraine with broader powers for provinces.
“Stop pointing to Russia, blaming it for all of the troubles of today’s Ukraine,” the statement said.
The crisis has heightened nervousness in many other eastern European states, with Czech President Milos Zeman saying NATO should deploy troops in Ukraine if Russia invades.
“If Russia decides to extend its territorial expansion to eastern Ukraine, the fun is over,” he told Czech public radio on Sunday.
In another development on Monday, NATO said it was limiting Russian diplomats’ access to its headquarters in Brussels.
It comes days after NATO foreign ministers agreed to suspend all practical co-operation with Moscow over its annexation of Crimea.
The latest developments come as Ukraine’s defense ministry said a Russian soldier had killed a Ukrainian military officer still loyal to Kiev in eastern Crimea late on Sunday.
The circumstances are unclear. Russian news agencies said prosecutors had opened a criminal investigation into the death.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier topped the US box office taking $96 million in its opening weekend.
Captain America sequel also claimed a new US record for an April release.
The sequel to the 2011 original film about the Marvel superhero, starring Chris Evans, toppled biblical epic Noah, which stars Russell Crowe.
Its takings exceeded the record set in 2011 by the racing movie Fast Five, which collected $86.2 million in ticket sales.
The top three was rounded off by dystopian action thriller Divergent.
Divergent, starring Shailene Woodley and Kate Winslet has earned a total of $114 million since its release in the US on March 21.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier topped the US box office taking $96 million in its opening weekend
Noah‘s $17 million over the weekend, add to its current US tally of $72 million.
But internationally the film – a big budget CGI-packed take on the story of Noah and the ark – has continued to be a controversial subject, with Malaysia and Indonesia reportedly the latest countries to ban the film.
The UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are among Middle Eastern countries which have also banned Noah as it breaks Islam’s taboo of depicting a prophet.
Another film which tackles religious subject matter, the critically panned God’s Not Dead, has continued its strong form, taking $7.7 million and rising to number four in the chart from last week’s fifth spot.
Wes Anderson’s Grand Budapest Hotel, starring Ralph Fiennes, F Murray Abraham and Jude Law rounded out the top five with $6.3 million.
Originally released on March 7 to just four cinemas, Grand Budapest Hotel has now spread to 1,263 screens.
North American box office Top 5:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – $96 million
Noah – $17 million
Divergent – $13 million
God’s Not Dead – $7.7 million
The Grand Budapest Hotel – $6.3 million[youtube 7SlILk2WMTI 650]
