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Microsoft closes UK chatrooms to curb online paedophile
The Software giant Microsoft has declared war on internet paedophiles by announcing the closure of its thousands of UK-based chatrooms used by millions of people, the Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Microsoft will also restrict access to chatroom systems around the world, allowing only identifiable adults living in the same country to use them.
The move by MSN, which has a total of 350 million visitors worldwide to its online service every month, was welcomed by charities. The NSPCC, a children's protection charity, called on other internet chat providers, which still operate online chatrooms open to anyone, to follow suit, the paper said.
Chatrooms allow people to converse through text online in real time. Because there is no rigorous way of confirming identity online, they have become notorious for paedophiles posing as teenagers, using them to pick up children and "groom" them for sexual abuse.
In May, a Cambridge man, Michael Wheeler, 36, was jailed for three years after using an MSN chatroom to befriend a 12-year-old girl and have sex with her. Dozens of similar cases have been reported, leading Britain's Home Office to set up a task force with charities and internet providers, including MSN, to consider how to tackle it.
The British government is so concerned about the dangers of chatrooms that it is drafting legislation, which is expected to be introduced shortly and will criminalize "internet grooming" by creating a new offense for any adult to arrange to meet a child under 16 with intent to abuse them sexually. It would carry a sentence of up to five years in jail.
Hurricane Marty leaves 6 dead in northern Mexico
Hurricane Marty, which swept across northern Mexico, killed at least six people and left 6,000 others homeless before it was downgraded to a tropical storm Tuesday.
A spokesman for the northwestern state of Baja California Sur said four people were killed when their cars were swept away by an overflowed river, while the fifth died after a house roof collapsed.
Marty has damaged numerous wooden shacks, uprooted hundreds of trees, and brought down electricity pylons, said the spokesman. A total of 6,000 were evacuated to public shelters.
In the state of Sinaloa, another person was killed when a tree fell upon his truck.
Meanwhile, six people were reported missing and hundreds of families affected when Marty hit the city of Guaymas in the Sonora state Monday night.
Although Marty's maximum winds had dropped to 75 kilometers perhour from the peak 160 kilometers per hour, it continued to produce strong rains and tidal waves along the northern coastal states of Sonora and Sinaloa, according to the National Meteorological Service.
A state of "red alert" was declared in 19 Sonora cities where civil protection authorities and military kept vigilant. Enditem
US will get international help in Iraq, says Rice
US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that it is possible that the United States would get some contributions from the international community to its military efforts in Iraq.
"I think there's a good possibility that we may get some additional help," Rice told ABC television. "I don't know the size of that help."
She said she believes France and Germany, two countries that vehemently opposed the war, will contribute.
"I believe you will see financial contributions from other members of the international community. I think France and Germanywill contribute," she said.
Rice was asked about Pentagon estimates that nearly 10,000 moreUS reservists might have to be called up for Iraq duty unless other countries supply 15,000 to 20,000 troops in the next six weeks.
"We're making preparations to be certain that the force levels are appropriate because, as the president said, the most
important thing is to get this job done," Rice said.
About 140,000 US troops are in Iraq, and more than 20,000 forces are from other countries, principally Britain.
The United States has sought a third division, envisioning troops from India, Pakistan, South Korea and Turkey. But if it cannot get one, Washington will have to decide next month whether to fill the need with American reservists.
US remains world No. 1 arms seller: report
The United States maintained its dominance in the international arms market last year, accounting for 45.5 percent of global conventional weapons deals, according to a new Congressional report.
The total amount of the US arms sales in 2002 reached 13.3 billion dollars, up from 12.1 billion in 2001. Of that, 8.6 billion dollars were sold to developing nations, or about 48.6 percent of conventional arms deals concluded with developing countries last year, according to the report.
Russia was second in sales to the developing world, with 5 billion dollars, followed by France with 1 billion dollars.
The new report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995-2002," was sent to the House and Senate this week by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress. It was reported by the New York Times Thursday.
From 1999 to 2002, there were no deliveries of surface-to-surface missiles to the Middle East from arms makers in the United States, Russia, Europe or China, the report said.
But the study says 60 surface-to-surface missiles were delivered to the Middle East by nations in the category "All Others," which includes such suppliers as Israel, South Africa and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Total global arms transfer agreements reached nearly 29.2 billion dollars in 2002, a decrease from 2001 and the second year in a row that total arms sales dropped, according to the study.
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