Information Security & US & Life & Love & Fashion & Hacking & Passion

First Lady Laura Bush said that although she “wasn’t amused” when an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at her husband, she sees the incident as a sign that “Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves.”

Earlier this month, an Iraqi journalist threw shoes at President Bush during a news conference in Baghdad. Bush ducked, and the shoes, flung one at a time, sailed past his head.

“It was an assault. And that's what it is,” the first lady said in an interview that aired Sunday on “Fox News.”

“And the president laughed it off. He wasn't hurt. He's very quick. As you know, he's a natural athlete. And that's it. But on the other hand, it is an assault, and I think it should be treated that way,” she said.

During the incident, the shoe-thrower — identified as Muntadhar al-Zaidi – could be heard yelling in Arabic: "This is a farewell … you dog!" Al-Zaidi is an Iraqi journalist with Egypt-based al-Baghdadia television network.

Hurling shoes at someone, or sitting so that the bottom of a shoe faces another person, is considered an insult among Muslims.

Asked if she thinks someone who attacks another person should be released, Bush said, “that’s going to be up to the Iraqis.”

“And they'll do whatever. But I know that if Saddam Hussein had been there, the man wouldn't have been released. And he probably wouldn't — you know, would have been executed.

“So it is — as bad as the incident is, in my view, it is a sign that Iraqis feel a lot freer to express themselves,” she said.

Muntadhar al-Zaidi goes on trial Wednesday (Dec. 31) on charges of assaulting a foreign leader. Conviction could mean a prison sentence of up to two years.

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Israeli jets pounded Hamas targets in Gaza and Hamas militants launched more rockets into Israel, as Palestinian security sources said Sunday that at least 277 people had been killed and hundreds wounded.

Israel will call up 7,000 reserve soldiers, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said during the weekly Cabinet meeting. He told ministers he planned to present the measure to two Knesset committees, which must approve the action.

Meanwhile, Israeli ground troops and tanks were deployed around Gaza. There is no indication of a ground operation inside Gaza, but a senior military official said the air raids would continue and that troops around Gaza will "be activated if needed."

The U.N. called for a halt to hostilities, but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said at the Cabinet meeting that the operation "is liable to continue for some time, perhaps more than can be foreseen at the present time."

Hamas, too, showed no signs of backing down.

For a second day, black plumes of smoke rose above Gaza City as makeshift ambulances screamed down rubble-strewn streets, taking wounded Palestinians to hospitals already crowded with hundreds of patients injured this weekend. Watch parts of Gaza reduced to shambles »

Terrified people huddled in their basements for safety, with few venturing outside, said Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, a psychiatrist who runs Gaza's mental health program.

"The children are terrified," El-Sarraj said. "Adults are unable to provide them with security or warmth. Hospitals are stretched out of the limits. We need blood and medicine and surgical equipment."

He further warned that Gaza is heading for "a major humanitarian disaster" unless the fighting ends.

srael has said the airstrikes are a necessary self-defense measure after repeated rocket attacks from Gaza into southern Israel by Hamas militants. Watch an ambassador say Israel is only defending itself »

The U.N. Security Council ended a four-hour emergency meeting Sunday with a call for an immediate halt to hostilities and a re-opening of border crossings to allow humanitarian supplies to reach Gaza.

The Palestinians' U.N. envoy said if Israel does not halt attacks within 48 hours, Arab delegations will demand stronger action from the Security Council.

Israel gave in to requests from the Red Cross and others to allow 16 trucks loaded with fuel, food and medical supplies into Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing Sunday morning. Egypt sent 20 ambulances to its border with Gaza, an Egyptian official said.

The Red Cross and World Food Program trucks, which carried rice, wheat and medical supplies, were the first deliveries allowed by Israel since 80 trucks moved through Friday after Israel opened three border crossings.

More than 110 Hamas rockets have been launched into Israel by Hamas militants since Saturday morning, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said. An Israeli man died when a rocket slammed into a home Saturday, IDF said.

An Israeli police spokesman said that one rocket landed north of Ashkelon, which sits about 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of the Gaza border. The city has been a frequent target of missiles launched from Gaza.

Gaza City's main police station and jail were hit by Israeli missiles Sunday morning, according to a Gaza-based journalist.

At least two people were killed when a missile struck the Seraya compound, which houses various Hamas military organizations in central Gaza City. Another two people were killed when an airstrike hit a vehicle.

Missiles also hit near the Beit Hanoun City Hall, according to a reporter there, and Palestinian sources said Israeli bombs fell on the Palestinian side of the Rafah tunnels on the Egyptian border with southern Gaza.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the airstrike. He said it targeted 40 tunnels on the border, which he said Hamas uses to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

Two tunnels were hit by missiles, eyewitnesses said, and others collapsed. Two people were killed.

Palestinians began trying to cross over into Egypt through a hole in the wall after the bombing, the witnesses said, but Egyptian police and Hamas gunmen began firing in an attempt to stop them.

More than 40 airstrikes were carried out Sunday, the Israeli army said. An IDF spokesman said Israel had struck 210 Hamas targets since Saturday morning.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the U.N., said the casualty toll in the past day forced U.N. Security Council members to confront Israel to end the attacks. Watch Mansour condemn attacks »

The Security Council issued a brief press statement, which fell short of the resolution that the Palestinians requested.

The statement expressed "serious concern at the escalation of the situation in Gaza," but it did not single out Israel or Hamas when it called for "an immediate halt for all violence."

Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Gabriela Shalev, responded that her country was only defending itself from Hamas rocket attacks.

"The last days were so bad that we had to say, and did say, 'Enough is enough,' " Shalev said. "The only party to blame is the Hamas."

Hamas, however, vowed to retaliate, saying Israel had violated an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire intended to stem violence in the region.

"We will stand up, we will defend our own people, we will defend our land and we will not give up," senior spokesman Osama Hamdan said. Read reactions to Israel's strike on Gaza »

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, supported Israel's contention that it was up to Hamas to stop the violence.

"Israel has the right to self-defense and nothing in this press statement should be read as anything but that," Khalilzad said.

The United States has cautioned Israel, however, to avoid civilian casualties. Israeli leaders maintain they are attempting to do so.

Anti-Israeli demonstrations erupted in the West Bank. One person was killed and three others injured in a demonstration in Niilin, a Palestinian official said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said hundreds of Palestinians threw rocks and then fired shots at Israeli forces that were attempting to disperse them.

The power base for Abbas' Fatah party is in the West Bank. The party is locked in a power struggle with Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in January 2006 and wrested Gaza from Fatah in violent clashes last year. Abbas, a U.S. ally, wields little influence in Gaza.

TOKYO, Japan (CNN) -- Beset by economic worries and loneliness, elderly Japanese are turning to petty crime in increasing numbers, the nation's Justice Ministry reports.

In 2007, 48,605 persons age 65 and older were arrested in crimes other than traffic violations, more than double the number five years earlier, according to a ministry report.

Thefts such as shoplifting and pick-pocketing were the main offenses, the ministry report said.

"The main reasons they shoplift are poverty and loneliness," said Kazuo Kawakami, a former federal prosecutor. "The traditional Japanese family is gone, and now our elderly live alone."

Morio Mochizuki, who heads SPUJ, one of Japan's largest security firms, said the stories of shoplifting suspects at the thousands of stores his company oversees across Japan bear that out.

And the problem becomes more acute during New Year holidays, traditionally a time for family gatherings in Japan, Mochizuki said.

Economics also plays a role. Japan's economy went into recession this year, the government says. And the country's national pension system has been bogged down with mismanagement and corruption, leaving many pensioners with fears their lifetime savings will be lost.

"I feel sorry for them. When I talk to them, they don't have enough money for food," Takayuki Fujisawa, an employee of SPUJ, said of the elderly he's caught shoplifting.

SPUJ recently allowed CNN to follow its security team at one Tokyo grocery store. In just moments, they nabbed a 69-year-old woman, allegedly trying to steal food worth about $10.

Getting into a shouting match with the HR rep is not exactly the best way to land a job. But according to the Orlando Sentinel, that's just what happened last week between NASA administrator Mike Griffin and Lori Garver, a member of Barack Obama's transition team who will help decide if Griffin keeps his post once the President-elect takes office. If the contretemps did occur, it could help doom not only the NASA chief's chances, but the space agency's ambitious plans to get Americans back to the moon.

The mere fact that the story is making the rounds reflects the very real friction between NASA and the transition team — which has sparked a groundswell of support among space agency employees to keep the boss. Within NASA, there is a real concern that while the Obama campaign rode the call for change to a thumping victory in November, change is precisely what the space agency does not need. (See photos of different countries' space programs here.)

The stagnant NASA of the past 20 years has been poised to become a very new NASA — thanks, in many respects, to the outgoing Bush Administration. In 2004, the President announced a new push to return astronauts to the moon and eventually get them to Mars. Many skeptics saw the hand of political whiz Karl Rove in that, suspecting that the whole idea was just a bag of election year goodies for space-happy states like Florida and Texas, as well as for voters nostalgic for the glory days of Apollo. But Bush, NASA and Congress did mean business, and eventually came up with a plan under which the space station would be completed and the shuttle would be retired by 2010. That would free up about $4 billion per year, which would be used to pay for a new generation of expendable boosters as well as a 21st century version of the Apollo orbiter and lunar lander for those rockets to carry. (Read about the space moon race here.)

"At the time, the shuttle had flown 290 people, and out of those 14 were dead — nearly one in 20," says Scott Horowitz, a four-time shuttle veteran who designed the Ares 1, one of the new boosters. "We needed something that was an order of magnitude safer."

NASA has moved with uncharacteristic nimbleness in the last five years and is already cutting metal on the new machines in the hope of having crews in Earth orbit by 2015 and on the moon by 2020. Schedules have slipped some — the original plan was to launch the orbital missions in 2014 — and costs have swollen, though so far not dramatically. (See the Top 50 space moments since Sputnik.)

"We've been moving in the right direction since the Columbia accident [in 2003]," says Chris Shank, NASA's chief of strategic communications. "The concern is that we'll lose that." Lately, that concern appears well-placed.

The Obama team picked Garver to run the NASA transition, in part because of her deep pedigree and long history at the space agency, which saw her climb to the rank of associate administrator. But Garver started as a PAO — NASA-speak for a public affairs officer — and never got involved in the nuts and bolts of building rockets. She is best known by most people as the person who in 2002 competed with boy-band singer Lance Bass for the chance to fly to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket. Neither of them ever left the ground.

Garver's lack of engineering cred is especially surprising in light of the eggheads with whom Obama has been surrounding himself — most recently, Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Chu, who has reportedly been tapped to be Secretary of Energy. Garver is also not thought to be much of a fan of Griffin — who is an engineer — nor to be sold on the plans for the new moon program. What she and others are said to be considering is to scrap the plans for the Ares 1 — which is designed exclusively to carry humans — and replace it with Atlas V and Delta IV boosters, which are currently used to launch satellites but could be redesigned, or "requalified," for humans. Griffin hates that idea, and firmly believes the Atlas and Delta are unsafe for people. One well-placed NASA source who asked not to be named reports that as much as Griffin wants to keep his job, he'll walk away from it if he's made to put his astronauts on top of those rockets.

NASA is right to be uneasy about just what Obama has planned for the agency since his position on space travel shifted — a lot — during the campaign. A year before the election he touted an $18 billion education program and explicitly targeted the new moon program as one he'd cut to pay for it. In January of 2008, he lined up much closer to the Bush moon plan — perhaps because Republicans were already on board and earning swing-state support as a result. Three months before the election, Obama fully endorsed the 2020 target for putting people on the moon. But that was a candidate talking and now he's president-elect, and his choice of Garver as his transition adviser may say more than his past campaign rhetoric.

The dust-up between Griffin and Garver is said to have occurred last week at a book launch party in Washington when, according to the Sentinel, a red-faced Griffin told Garver she was "not qualified" to make engineering decisions. Horowitz, who was not at the party but knows the NASA boss well, says he doubts that Griffin raised his voice.

"I think that's bulls---," he says. "I believe that anything he was asked he was very honest in answering because he's a systems engineer. And Lori Garver is not equipped to make technical judgments on the architecture of a space exploration system." The unnamed NASA source concedes that Griffin can be brutally honest and occasionally tactless, but insists that his shouting is simply improbable. The Obama transition office did not return an e-mail seeking comment from Garver.

For now, says the NASA source, both present and former astronauts as well as some NASA contractors are quietly — and sometimes not so quietly — lobbying for Griffin to stay. But the incoming administration is not saying anything so far. It was President John F. Kennedy who famously committed Americans to reaching the moon. Now it is Obama — who so often invokes the themes and style of JFK — who may decide if we go back.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 11 -- Pakistan on Thursday closed 11 offices of a controversial Islamic charity that has been linked to last month's deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai and placed the group's leader under house arrest. In India, top government officials announced a massive revamping of the country's security infrastructure, including creation of an FBI-style national agency to investigate terror attacks.

Hafiz Sayeed, the leader of the organization Jamaat-ud-Dawa, was put under house arrest in Lahore, according to a Pakistani foreign ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The arrest was confirmed by a top Jamaat-ud-Dawa official.

Sayeed was one of four individuals singled out by the United Nations Security Council late Wednesday when it placed Jamaat-ud-Dawa on a list of designated terrorist organizations and imposed sanctions on the group, including a freeze on assets, a travel ban and an arms embargo. The U.N. also said the charity was directly linked to Lashkar-i-Taiba, the outlawed Pakistani militant group that Indian authorities blame for the three-day siege in Mumbai that killed at least 171 people, including six Americans.

"Pakistan has taken note of the designation of certain individuals and entities by the U.N.," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani said in a statement hours before the house arrest, noting that the country would "fulfill its international obligations."

Also included in the sanctions were Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged operational commander and architect of the Mumbai attacks, and alleged Lashkar financiers Haji Muhammad Ashraf and Mahmoud Ahmed Bahaziq. Pakistani security forces arrested Lakhvi Sunday.

Before arresting Sayeed late Thursday, Pakistan shuttered nine Karachi offices of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the group's main offices in Lahore and Muridke. Jamaat official Amir Hamza said Thursday night that 70 to 80 members of the organization were rounded up in raids that took place across the country. Hamza said Pakistani authorities had placed him and eight others on a wanted list and were preparing to arrest them.

"We are expecting to be picked up any minute," Hamza said. "We will fight our battles in court. We will not resort just to street protests. This is a great injustice."

Indian officials hailed Wednesday night's U.N. action as a long overdue step in the right direction, and called on Pakistan not to repeat a past pattern of arresting suspected extremists -- including Sayeed -- and then letting them go without standing trial..

"This only underscores what India has maintained throughout. That the forces of violence and terror, the organized groups which have attacked India on many occasions . . . pose a threat to civil world," Indian Deputy Foreign Minister Anand Sharma said.

Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the country's parliament that Pakistan needed to follow up on its promises of action against militant groups. "They are banning organizations. Lashkar-i-Taiba was banned. But simply they are changing names, they are changing signboards," Mukherjee said. "Faces are the same, ideology are the same. How does it help us?"

Sayeed reacted to the imposition of sanctions with a news conference at his Lahore headquarters, hours before he was placed under house arrest. He denied reports that he had met with a Mumbai attacker and said his group split from Lashkar after Pakistan banned Lashkar following a 2001 attack on India's parliament. Sayeed said Jamaat-ud-Dawa would lodge a strong protest with the U.N. and the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

"Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a thorn in the eye of India because Jamaat-ud-Dawa does not support anything which India does to Pakistan or Kashmir," Sayeed said.

Since computers are, if nothing else, starkly logical, for as long as they have been around, there have been people who have hoped that the machines might serve as an example to their human overlords, helping to make certain human affairs--politics, say--a little more logical too.

One of them is Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at M.I.T. with an idea for a program designed to help people appreciate that the logical path they have just traveled in a political or other discussion might not have been entirely straight and narrow.

Despite being just 27 years old and in only the second year of his professorship, Aaronson is widely known in his field, quantum computing.

Quantum computers work in ways utterly different from conventional ones, and can do some tasks--breaking encryption, say--unimaginably quickly. So far, only small-scale, prototype quantum computers have been built, and it's not yet clear whether one big enough to be useful will ever be technically possible.

Aaronson's work involves quantum software, meaning, as members of his field like to say, that he spends his time thinking about programs for machines that might never get built.

One of his side projects, though, is a work-in-progress political program called the Worldview Manager. It has nothing to do with quantum machines or, indeed, of advanced computing of any sort. In fact, it's so simple and straightforward an idea that you could write it with macros in Excel.

The goal of Worldview Manager, explains Aaronson, is to help people appreciate the inconsistencies and contradictions that might crop up in their social and political beliefs.

The Indian government plans to spend an additional $4 billion to boost the nation's slowing economy, the Prime Minister's Office said Sunday.

The government also announced targeted measures to help exporters, small businesses and textile manufacturers, a plan to expand mortgage lending and a cut in a valued-added tax.

It also said a state-run financing firm will be allowed to issue $2 billion worth of tax-free bonds to finance infrastructure projects.

"The government is keeping a close watch on the evolving economic situation and will not hesitate to take any additional steps that may be needed to counter recessionary trends and maintain the pace of economic activity," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

Growth skidded to 7.6 percent last quarter - off from 9.3 percent in the third quarter of 2007_ and exports shrank in October for the first time in seven years.

India's ballooning fiscal deficit means it can do far less than a country like China - which last month announced a $586 billion stimulus package - to spend its way out of an economic slump.

Citibank said in a report Thursday that it expects India's deficit in this fiscal year will swell from 6 percent to 8.6 percent of its gross domestic product - far higher than the government's target.

Rioters rampaged through Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki Sunday, hurling Molotov cocktails, burning stores and blocking city streets with flaming barricades after protests against the fatal police shooting of a teenager erupted into chaos.

Youths wearing hoods smashed storefronts and cars in Athens. Riot police responded with tear gas while the fire department rushed to extinguish blazes. Several bank branches, stores and at least one building were on fire on a major street leading to the capital's police headquarters. Clashes also broke out near Parliament.

Streets quickly emptied as word of the violence spread. Local media reported several people sought treatment for breathing problems.

Violence often breaks out during demonstrations in Greece between riot police and anarchists, who attack banks, high-end shops, diplomatic vehicles and foreign car dealerships in late-night fire-bombings that rarely cause injuries.

Some believe the anarchist movement has its roots in the resistance to the military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967-74. The anarchists often take refuge inside university buildings or campuses, where police are barred under Greek law.

The shooting of the 16-year-old boy that set off the first riots took place Saturday night in Exarchia, a downtown Athens district of bars, music clubs and restaurants that is seen as the anarchists' home base.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting were initially unclear. Police said the two officers involved claimed they were attacked by a group of youths, and that three gunshots and a stun grenade were fired in response.

Features

Art That Beats The S&P

By Jianping Mei and Michael Moses

Which artist brings the best return?

Why African-American Art Is So Hot

By Susan Adams

Works by these artists are controversial and sizzling. Robert Johnson explains why.

• In Pictures: Where To See African-American Art

Inside The Search For Dorothy's Slippers

By Monte Burke

After the prized shoes were stolen, Michael Shaw began a three-year mission to rescue them. Plus: Behind The Scenes With An Obsessive Collector: One man's search for the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West

World's Oddest Collections

By David Sutton

Depending on your fancy, there's serious money in amassing what you love.

How To Spot A Fake

By Stephane Fitch

New technologies may help you identify a forged work of art--even those good enough to fool the experts.

Distressed Goods

By Alan Farnham

Why buy art that's punctured, burned or drenched? It's cheap. In the eyes of some

NEW YORK (CNN) -- After spending nearly 28 years in an irreversible coma, heiress and socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bulow died Saturday in a New York nursing home, according to a family statement. She was 76.

Von Bulow was subject of one of the nation's most sensational criminal cases during the 1980s.

Her husband, Claus, was accused of trying to kill her with an overdose of insulin, which prosecutors alleged sent her into the coma.

He was convicted of making two attempts on her life, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. He was acquitted in a second trial.

His retrial in 1985 received national attention.

"We were blessed to have an extraordinarily loving and caring mother," said the statement from Von Bulow's three children -- Annie Laurie "Ala" Isham, Alexander von Auersperg and Cosima Pavoncelli -- released by a spokeswoman. "She was especially devoted to her many friends and family members."

Martha von Bulow was born Martha Sharp Crawford into a wealthy family. She inherited a fortune conservatively estimated at $75 million, according to an article on the von Bulow case posted on truTV.com's Crime Library Web site.

In her early years, she drew comparisons to actress Grace Kelly.

She became known as Princess von Auersperg with her first marriage, to Prince Alfred von Auersperg of Austria. That marriage produced two children: Alexander and Annie Laurie.

The von Bulows married in 1966 and had a daughter, Cosima.

On the morning of December 22, 1980, family members found Martha von Bulow unconscious in the bathroom of the family's posh Newport, Rhode Island, home. She never regained consciousness.

She had been hospitalized a year earlier after lapsing into a coma but recovered, according to the Crime Library site. Doctors had diagnosed her with hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar.

Prosecutors accused Claus von Bulow of twice attempting to kill his wife by injecting her with insulin.

The case also led to a major motion picture, "Reversal of Fortune." Actor Jeremy Irons won an Oscar for his portrayal of Claus von Bulow.

Famed defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, who won Claus von Bulow a new trial on appeal after his conviction, said in a statement Saturday that Martha von Bulow's death is "a sad ending to a sad tragedy that some members of her family tried to turn into a crime. We proved overwhelming[ly] that there was no crime and that the coma was self-induced. We saved his life, but could not save hers."

Claus von Bulow's defense team maintained that Martha von Bulow's alcohol use, among other factors, caused her coma.

Dershowitz said he had spoken with Claus von Bulow, who now lives in London, England. Claus von Bulow was saddened by his former wife's passing, Dershowitz said.

The family statement said Martha von Bulow is survived by her children, their spouses and nine grandchildren.

Alexander von Auersperg and Ala von Auersperg Isham, who had sided with prosecutors against Claus von Bulow, filed a civil suit against their stepfather after his acquittal. The case was settled out of court in 1987, according to a 2007 article in the Providence Journal newspaper in Rhode Island.

Claus von Bulow had agreed to waive his claim to his wife's money and to a divorce in exchange for the suit being dropped.

The von Bulows' daughter, Cosima, sided with her father.

Vanity Fair writer Dominick Dunne, who covered the von Bulow case, told the New York Daily News in 2007 that Sunny von Bulow was moved from Columbia Presbyterian hospital to a private nursing home in 1998.

Ala von Auersperg Isham served for a time as president of the Sunny von Bulow Coma and Head Trauma Research Foundation, according to the Providence Journal. An offshoot of that organization, the Brain Trauma Foundation, still operates in New York, the newspaper said.

The family statement notes that Martha von Bulow actively supported the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera and the J.P. Morgan Library in New York and the Preservation Society of Newport, Rhode Island.

A private memorial service will be held for family and friends in New York in the coming days, the family statement said Saturday, along with a private burial.