Hagel Nomination Stirs Bipartisan Opposition

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Two weeks before his inauguration, and with more "fiscal cliffs" on the horizon, President Obama is embracing a showdown with Congress over his pick to lead the Pentagon in his second term.


Obama will nominate former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the next Secretary of Defense at a formal White House announcement later today, administration officials said.


The president will name counterterrorism advisor John Brennan as the new CIA director to replace David Petraeus, rounding out an overhaul of his national security team.


Obama tapped Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts last month to become the next Secretary of State.


Hagel is in many ways an ideal pick for Obama, giving nod to bipartisanship while appointing someone with a demonstrated commitment to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and to retooling and economizing the Pentagon bureaucracy for the future.


But the nomination of Hagel to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is also politically charged, expected to trigger a brutal confirmation fight in the Senate, where a bipartisan group of critics has already lined up against the pick.


"This is an in your face nomination by the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNN on Sunday. "I don't know what his management experience is regarding the Pentagon -- little, if any, so I think it's an incredibly controversial choice."








Obama's Defense Nominee Chuck Hagel Stirs Washington Lawmakers Watch Video









The criticism stems from Hagel's controversial past statements on foreign policy, including a 2008 reference to Israel's U.S. supporters as "the Jewish lobby" and public encouragement of negotiations between the United States, Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian group the State Department classifies as terrorists.


"Hagel has consistently been against economic sanctions to try to change the behavior of the Islamist regime, the radical regime in Tehran, which is the only way to do it, short of war," Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said last month.


The Nebraska Republican has also drawn fire for his outspoken opposition to the 2003 U.S.-led war in Iraq and the subsequent troop "surge" ordered by then-President George W. Bush in 2007, which has been credited with helping bring the war to a close.


On the left, gay rights groups have protested Hagel for comments he made in 1998 disparaging then-President Bill Clinton's nominee for U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg James Hormel as "openly, aggressively gay." Hagel has since apologized for the remark as "insensitive."


Top Senate Democrats tell ABC News there is no guarantee Hagel will win confirmation and that, as of right now, there are enough Democratic Senators with serious concerns about Hagel to put him below 50 votes.


But that could change, with many top lawmakers publicly vowing to withhold final judgment until Hagel has an opportunity to answer his critics during confirmation hearings. No senator has yet publicly vowed to filibuster the Hagel nomination.


Hagel is a decorated Vietnam veteran and businessman who served in the senate from 1997 to 2009. After having sat on that chamber's Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, he has in recent years gathered praise from current and former diplomats for his work on Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board as well as the policy board of current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.


"Chuck Hagel is a tremendous patriot and statesman, served incredibly in Vietnam, served this country as a United States senator. He hasn't had a chance to speak for himself. And so why all the prejudging?" said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., on "This Week."


"In America, you give everybody a chance to speak for themselves and then we'll decide," she said.


The top Senate Republican echoed that sentiment. "I'm going to wait and see how the hearings go and see whether Chuck's views square with the job he would be nominated to do," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.






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Silent Skype calls can hide secret messages

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Got a secret message to send? Say it with silence. A new technique can embed secret data during a phone call on Skype. "There are concerns that Skype calls can be intercepted and analysed," says Wojciech Mazurczyk at the Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, Poland. So his team's SkypeHide system lets users hide extra, non-chat messages during a call.












Mazurczyk and his colleagues Maciej Karaś and Krysztof Szczypiorski analysed Skype data traffic during calls and discovered an opportunity in the way Skype "transmits" silence. Rather than send no data between spoken words, Skype sends 70-bit-long data packets instead of the 130-bit ones that carry speech.












The team hijacks these silence packets, injecting encrypted message data into some of them. The Skype receiver simply ignores the secret-message data, but it can nevertheless be decoded at the other end, the team has found. "The secret data is indistinguishable from silence-period traffic, so detection of SkypeHide is very difficult," says Mazurczyk. They found they could transmit secret text, audio or video during Skype calls at a rate of almost 1 kilobit per second alongside phone calls.












The team aims to present SkypeHide at a steganography conference in Montpellier, France, in June.


















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































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SJI International attains stellar grades in IB programme

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SINGAPORE: St Joseph's Institution (SJI) International has reported its best results for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme.

The school said 99 per cent from the class of 2012 passed the exam, attaining an average score of 36.2 points out of the maximum 45.

It added one in four students achieved 40 points.

The top student is Monica Layarda, who had a perfect score.

The first batch of of 58 IB students at SJI International completed the diploma in 2009.

In 2012, it had 137 students.

Principal Bradley Roberts said the students' outstanding results are due to the dedication of staff and the hard work of students.

"This particular batch of students included those who joined the school when it first opened its doors in January 2007. During this time, our average PSLE entry score has remained around 225. With this in mind, our results are truly extraordinary," Mr Roberts said.

- CNA/xq



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Dropped call: Mobile biggies conspicuous by absence at CES

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Escalator up to the South Hall entrance of the Las Vegas Convention Center at CES 2012.



(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)


LAS VEGAS -- Mobile is supposed to be a hot category in tech, right? You'd never know it looking at the announcements that are slated to start pouring in this week.


Many of the major companies in the mobile industry have opted to skip or limit their presence at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, which kicks off tomorrow for the media before officially opening on Tuesday. The announcements that do come out will emerge from lower-tier companies hoping to make more of a name for themselves and their products.


The dearth of wireless-related news at a time when the tech world is going increasingly mobile underscores the dilemmas that a show like
CES faces: too many competing conferences, more companies opting to hold their own events, and unfortunate timing after a large wave of product announcements ahead of the holidays. As a result, don't expect to have your mind blown with the mobile announcements coming out this week.



"There aren't really high expectations for lots of big news coming out from CES," said Daniel Hays, a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. "CES is an increasingly crowded forum to get your message out. That probably causes some vendors to hold back in making major announcements."


Apple and Google, authors of the two largest mobile operating systems in the world, have long had minimal to zero presence at CES. Microsoft, which made its big push for Windows Phone 8 in October, held its last keynote address here a year ago. Research In Motion, the other significant mobile operating system, will formally unveil its next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system at its own event later this month.


Samsung has long had one of the largest presences at CES, but it won't have much in terms of smartphone or
tablet announcements, having already heavily invested in a campaign for its Galaxy Note 2 and the continued run of its Galaxy S III late last year. The company also pulled out of the
CTIA Wireless show last year, opting instead to launch its flagship phone at its own event, much like Apple.


Other traditional mobile heavy hitters, including Google's Motorola Mobility, Nokia, and HTC, won't have much to say as well.


The carriers, which in recent years have stepped up their presence at CES, are expected to remain quiet this year. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam has a keynote address scheduled for tomorrow, but the company isn't expected to make any major wireless announcements, a far cry from the splashy launch of its 4G LTE network two years ago. AT&T, which holds its own developer summit separately from CES but usually offers some mobile news, is likewise expected to remain mum.


T-Mobile USA will hold a press conference and likely talk about its network plans and pending deal with MetroPCS, although actual phone announcements could be slim. Sprint Nextel, still working through its own pending merger with SoftBank, doesn't have any formal event scheduled.

Mobile World Congress around the corner


Mobile World Congress, based in Barcelona, has always been a major force. And with everything going more mobile, the show has grown even more in prominence and influence over the years. The U.S. carriers, which traditionally opted to skip MWC, are increasingly taking part in that show.


Likewise, a lot of major smartphone and tablet announcements are getting made there, rather than at CES. Asus, for instance, cancelled its press conference at CES, opting to debut its mobile products at MWC in February instead.


While Google isn't so high on CES, it has had a large presence at MWC over the past few years, including large booths complete with a slide, an array of demonstration booths, and toy claw machine giving away stuffed Android dolls.


MWC's legacy in mobile gives it an advantage over CES, which has traditionally been about televisions, PCs, and other random gadgets. The transition has been bumpy.


"It's all about your audience. CES has historically drawn an audience primarily focused on retailers. Increasingly, that audience are not just at CES; they're at other influential shows like MWC," Hays said.


CES is making the shift. Mobile chipset companies, for instance, make up some of the early announcements for the show. Tonight, Nvidia will kick things off with its own press event, unveiling its newest Tegra processor.


Meanwhile, Paul Jacobs, CEO of mobile chipmaker Qualcomm, takes over tomorrow's end-of-day keynote slot long occupied by Microsoft and its CEO, Steve Ballmer, another illustration of the shift from PC to mobile.

Opportunities for the second-tier companies


With a Samsung or Motorola out of the picture, that gives companies eager for some attention a chance to shine.


Sony is one of the few companies expected to announce a smartphone or two, and details have already begun leaking out.


Huawei and ZTE, two Chinese vendors eager to stake a larger claim of the U.S. market, are also expected to unveil smartphones at CES. Both are known primarily for low- and mid-tier smartphones and tablets, but the companies want to change that.


ZTE is expected to unveil a high-end flagship smartphone, the Grand S, at CES. It's still unclear whether it will actually sell in the U.S. though.


ZTE could be making a big splash at CES this year.



(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)


Huawei, meanwhile, is expected to go big with the Ascend Mate, a large phone with a 6.1-inch display that falls into a category many call "phablet," most notably led by the Galaxy Note franchise by Samsung.


Whether these products ever end up in the consumers' hands is still up in the air. But with some of better-known companies opting to save their ammunition for later, the companies presenting now will at least get heard.


"CES is still an extremely powerful platform for announcing new products and positioning yourself as a leader in the mobile space," Hays said.

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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

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Defiant Assad Vows to Hold Firm in Syria

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President Bashar Assad called on Syrians to defend their country against religious extremists seeking to destroy the nation, dismissing any prospect of dialogue with the "murderous criminals" he says are behind the uprising even as he outlined his vision for a peaceful settlement to the civil war.



In a one-hour speech to the nation in which he appeared confident and relaxed, Assad struck a defiant tone, ignoring international demands for him to step down and saying he is ready to hold a dialogue but only with those "who have not betrayed Syria."



He offered a national reconciliation conference, elections and a new constitution but demanded regional and Western countries stop funding and arming rebels trying to overthrow him first.



Syria's opposition swiftly rejected the proposal. Those fighting to topple the regime, including rebels on the ground, have repeatedly said they will accept nothing less than the president's departure, dismissing any kind of settlement that leaves him in the picture.



"It is an excellent initiative that is only missing one crucial thing: His resignation," said Kamal Labwani, a veteran secular dissident and member of the opposition's Syrian National Coalition umbrella group.



"All what he is proposing will happen automatically, but only after he steps down," Lawani told The Associated Press by telephone from Sweden.






Remy de la Mauviniere/AP Photo








On top of that, Assad's new initiative is reminiscent of symbolic changes and concessions that his government made earlier in the uprising, which were rejected at the time as too little too late.



Speaking at the Opera House in central Damascus, Assad told the hall packed with supporters — who frequently broke out in cheers and applause — that "we are in a state of war."



"We are fighting an external aggression that is more dangerous than any others, because they use us to kill each other," he said. "It is a war between the nation and its enemies, between the people and the murderous criminals."



Assad has rarely spoken since the uprising against his rule began in March 2011, and Sunday's speech was his first since June. His last public comments came in an interview in November to Russian TV in which he vowed to die in Syria.



On Sunday, he seemed equally confident in his troops' ability to crush the rebels fighting his rule, even as they edge in closer than ever to his seat of power, Damascus.



British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Assad's speech was "beyond hypocritical." In a message posted on his official Twitter feed, Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one."



EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton's office said in a statement that the bloc will "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition."



Wearing a suit and tie, Assad spoke before a collage of pictures of what appeared to be Syrians who have been killed since March 2011. At the end of his speech and as he was leaving the hall, he was mobbed by a group of loyalists shouting: "With our blood and souls we redeem you, Bashar!"



The president waved and blew kisses to the crowd on his way out.



Assad acknowledged the enormous impact of the conflict, which the United Nations recently estimated had killed more than 60,000 people.





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Silent Skype calls can hide secret messages

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Got a secret message to send? Say it with silence. A new technique can embed secret data during a phone call on Skype. "There are concerns that Skype calls can be intercepted and analysed," says Wojciech Mazurczyk at the Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw, Poland. So his team's SkypeHide system lets users hide extra, non-chat messages during a call.












Mazurczyk and his colleagues Maciej Karaś and Krysztof Szczypiorski analysed Skype data traffic during calls and discovered an opportunity in the way Skype "transmits" silence. Rather than send no data between spoken words, Skype sends 70-bit-long data packets instead of the 130-bit ones that carry speech.












The team hijacks these silence packets, injecting encrypted message data into some of them. The Skype receiver simply ignores the secret-message data, but it can nevertheless be decoded at the other end, the team has found. "The secret data is indistinguishable from silence-period traffic, so detection of SkypeHide is very difficult," says Mazurczyk. They found they could transmit secret text, audio or video during Skype calls at a rate of almost 1 kilobit per second alongside phone calls.












The team aims to present SkypeHide at a steganography conference in Montpellier, France, in June.


















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































All comments should respect the New Scientist House Rules. If you think a particular comment breaks these rules then please use the "Report" link in that comment to report it to us.


If you are having a technical problem posting a comment, please contact technical support.








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A*STAR develops instant speech-to-speech translator

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SINGAPORE: Singaporeans can now speak to its neighbours in Asia without having to worry about language barriers, thanks to a new instant translator, developed by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

The software detects users' speech on a handphone and translates it to the desired language.

The new speech-to-speech translator project is a collaboration of eight countries in Asia.

Singapore's A*STAR came on board some four years ago.

Currently in its final stages of development, it plans to translate 10 languages, including Japanese, Mandarin, Malay, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia, Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese and English.

Dr Li Haizhou, head of human language technology at A*STAR said: "Due to globalization, people travel a lot but language remains a barrier between people. And with technology, we think that we can help people to communicate in a better way."

- CNA/xq




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What does the International Space Station sound like?

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Can you hear me, Major Tom? Hadfield rocks out in the ISS cupola.



(Credit:
Canadian Space Agency)



If you're heading to the International Space Station, try to bunk in the Japanese section. It's as quiet as a Zen temple.


Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recently went aboard the ISS and has been recording what it sounds like. It's not quite the elegant "2001: A Space Odyssey" experience you might expect. It's more like a noisy tin can.


After recording last week the ambient sounds of the U.S. lab, with its noisy air pumps and fans, Hadfield managed to get samples of what the ISS toilet sounds like, as well as the relative serenity of the Japanese Experiment Module (aka Kibo).




Check them out below, or listen to a larger selection here.




Hadfield has been very busy taking some amazing photos of Earth, updating his Facebook status, and performing the odd astro-duty like running experiments.


A couple of days ago, he received a message on Twitter from William Shatner, who asked whether he was tweeting from space.


"Yes, Standard Orbit, Captain," Hadfield replied. "And we're detecting signs of life on the surface."


That gave Trekkies, including yours truly, tribble-like quivers of delight.


Inspired by the view from the ISS cupola, the mustachioed commander of Expedition 35 grabbed a guitar and recorded an original tune, a first for the station. He titled it "Jewel in the Night" and uploaded it to YouTube. Give it a listen below.


It doesn't have the makings of a space classic like "Rocket Man" (the Shat version, of course), but it's heartfelt and quite a bit better than Spock's "Maiden Wine."


And likely a welcome relief for crewmates from all that high-tech racket.

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Best Pictures: 2012 Nat Geo Photo Contest Winners

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