Month: August 2006

Hugo Chavez Withdraws Venezuelan Envoy To Israel

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Thursday he has recalled his country’s ambassador to Israel to show his “indignation” over the military offensive in Lebanon.

“We have ordered the withdrawal of our ambassador in Israel,” Chavez said in a televised speech, calling Israeli attacks in Lebanon “genocide.”

“It really causes indignation to see how the state of Israel continues bombing, killing … with all of the power they have, with the support of the United States.”

So what do you think of that? Venezuela, which is basically continents and oceans away from Lebanon, have severed ties with Israel over what it’s doing, yet the Arab and Muslim countries next door who have ties with Israel have done nothing.
What a big big shame!

[Via: Beirut Lemons]

Subzero Blue Hacked

So as some of you might have noticed, Subzero Blue was hacked today, both versions too, English and Arabic.

Eman’s blog AquaCool which is hosted as a subdomain of Subzero Blue was also hacked.

Fortunately the damage wasn’t that bad, the English version of the blog was basically restored as soon as I noticed. As for the Arabic blog, it was offline for hours until I got home and restored some files from my backups.
Eman’s blog was restored pretty quickly too but without it’s design, which I had to get from my backups too when I got home.
Anyway, now everything is back to normal, without any loss of data.

The group of hackers who took the blogs down go by the name of TNT-Cagri, who seem to do it for fun, which explains why they didn’t do more damage, even though they could have.
A list of the sites they hacked can be found here.
And the actual page that records that they hacked this blog is over here.

A special thanks to Soly Z for informing me about being hacked before I realized it myself.

I hope it never happens again.

Now let’s go back to regular coverage, I guess…

Fidel Castro Turns Over Power Temporarily

The Cuban president, Fidel Castro, facing surgery, turns over power temporarily to his brother Raul.

Cuban President Fidel Castro handed power to his brother Raul late Monday ahead of undergoing surgery, the first time he had relinquished control since the victory of the leftist revolution he led nearly 48 years ago.

In a letter read on state television by his personal secretary, Carlos Valenciaga, Castro said he had suffered intestinal bleeding brought on by the stress of recent travel. He visited Argentina last week for a regional summit and traveled to Cuba’s southern coast for the July 26 holiday that celebrates the birth of his revolution.

Castro, who will turn 80 on Aug. 13, is reported to suffer from Parkinson’s disease, although it has never been confirmed, and has looked frail in recent years during his rare forays abroad. The government released no immediate report on the results of the operation and said only that Castro was expected to be hospitalized and recovering for several weeks.

The announcement that Raul Castro, 75, would assume the leadership during the president’s surgery and recovery underscored recent signals that Cuban officials have been contemplating how the country will be ruled after the charismatic strongman dies.

Castro’s letter said his brother would assume his duties as president, commander in chief of the armed forces and head of the Communist Party. It also suggested that celebrations planned for his 80th birthday, including concerts and toasts by leading leftists from around the world, should be postponed until Dec. 2, the 50th anniversary of the Cuban armed forces.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]