Six In The Morning

Inside the secret world of the geeks with the power to unleash anarchy  

Jerome Taylor tracked down one of Britain’s most feared hackers to find out what motivates this new criminal underworld

Saturday, 25 June 2011

They move within a shadowy underworld using skills most of us could never acquire.

Some see themselves as crime fighters, battling injustice, corruption and oppression. Others are pranksters – the kind of people who set light to bridges just to watch them burn. Plenty more do it simply to steal and get rich.

Hacking is as old as computers, but the current wave of high-profile assaults across the globe has led to unprecedented interest in who hackers are and why they do what they do.

The Independent tracked down one prolific British hacker who is engaged in a personal cyber war against LulzSec, the collective behind a string of attacks on websites as diverse as the CIA’s homepage, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Fox TV and – most recently – the Arizona Police Department.

Gone West: How America ran out of champions

Poor pickings for the world’s richest nation in tennis, golf and boxing can be explained, says Rupert Cornwell, by the rise of college sport

Saturday, 25 June 2011

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you…” The lines popped into my mind as I was sitting in the bleachers behind the 17th green at Congressional Country Club last weekend at the US Open, watching a string of good but not great American golfers go through, before the coronation of young prince Rory.

The working tool of Joltin’ Joe was of course a baseball bat, not a sand wedge, but that’s beside the point. These days, Paul Simon’s haunting song applies to US sport virtually across the board. The great champions have disappeared; at the top international level, American sport is in a strange but pervasive decline.

Syrians defy army and take to the streets again

The Irish Times – Saturday, June 25, 2011

MICHAEL JANSEN

SYRIANS took to the streets again yesterday following Muslim communal prayers, defying the military crack-down on protests and calling for regime change.

Marches reportedly took place in half a dozen cities and towns but a heavy troop presence smothered protests in restive suburbs of the capital, Damascus, and north of the commercial hub Aleppo where pro-government demonstrations have taken place this past week.

Opposition sources said at least 15 people had been killed in the day’s demonstrations.

The Humble Kingdom of the World’s Best Woman Soccer Player

Queen Marta

By Wiebke Hollersen  

Marta is wearing a 1960s-style Brazilian national soccer team jersey, blue soccer cleats bearing her name, white socks and a blue, pleated skirt that reaches almost to her knees. She looks like a kid in an oversized carnival costume, though; her skirt is too big for her frame, and she has to use a barrette to gather up the loose jersey at her back.

The soccer player is walking across a gym near Elma, a town outside Buffalo, New York. She is surrounded by four women who have come from Brazil to photograph her for a glossy magazine. They’re the ones who did her makeup, smoothed her hair and gave her this outfit to wear.

Life in jail for woman behind Rwanda genocide



 June 25, 2011

A former Rwandan minister for women’s empowerment has become the first woman to be jailed for genocide and incitement to rape by an international tribunal.

Judges at the UN court for Rwanda sentenced Pauline Nyiramasuhuko to life in prison for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and rape.

“For these crimes, and considering all relevant circumstances, the chamber sentences you, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, to life imprisonment,” presiding judge William Hussein Sekule said.

Survey shows disappointment, anger among Fukushima evacuees



2011/06/25

 Disappointment toward Tokyo Electric Power Co. for its failure to guard the safety of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant and anger at the central government’s inept handling of the accident.

Those are the two major themes that emerge from the results of an interview survey of 407 evacuees from the Fukushima nuclear accident.

About 90,000 Fukushima residents have evacuated because of the nuclear accident, with about a third of that number moving outside of the prefecture entirely.

The interviews were conducted with evacuees now scattered around the nation.