VI-NATIONS TOURNAMENT: England-France: expert opinion

Didier Camberabéro *: "France is never as strong as when we least expect it"

"What worries me is that the Blues currently play like a team average. A great team, it was built and impose his game But the XV of France can not put up his rugby and brand especially when the opponent loses the ball, which is not in the habit of the English ...

The defense also tend to suffer much. Although veneers are virtually all successful, the opponent moves a few meters on each balloon carried. Players of the France team are aware they can do better. I think it does not much for the game to implement, because the players are all quality players.And France is not as strong as when you least expect it. It was already the case in my day! But this year, the English are clearly favorites ... "

* Opener scorer and XV of France from 1982 to 1991 (36 selections)

* Provost Jerome: "Chabal and Harinordoquy are complementary"

"The strength of this team is that France does not have many weaknesses. Opposite this year, the British are very good, very quickly and are difficult to maneuver. But the coach Marc Lievremont has done well APPOINTMENT Sebastien Chabal at number 8 [third line center, note]. Besides the fact that he is a superstar, he is a player of great quality.It is this defense, and his opponents feared physical impact. It is also highly complementary with Imanol Haridornoquy which is also excellent in number 7 [flanker]. "

* Journalist in Midi Olympique, "biweekly Reference rugby.

FORMULA 1: Bahrain Grand Prix canceled

The Kingdom of Bahrain withdrew to organize the March 13 Grand Prix Sahki, which was to open the Formula 1 season, because of unrest in the country, according to an official statement issued Monday.

"Right now, the attention of the entire nation is focused on the establishment of a new national dialogue," the statement said, adding that it was "important for the country to focus on issues of interest National and leaving the home of the Grand Prix of Bahrain at a later date. "

No date was specified for a possible postponement.

Sunday, Bernie Ecclestone, the boss of Formula 1, had ruled that the GP opening to take place in another country on March 13, explaining that the deadlines were too short for another organization to fit into the calendar.

The GP2 Series races (F1 row), which were to take place last week on the same Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, were canceled because of anti-government protests.

Monday of the repression of popular protest movement, launched Feb. 14, was seven dead.

In this small Gulf kingdom with a Shiite majority, the protesters have radicalized their demands Monday calling for the end of the dynasty of Sunni Al-Khalifa.

EGYPT: A "victory march", a week after the departure of Mubarak

Reuters - The organizers of the protest Egyptian hoped that a million people will attend the "March to Victory" this Friday, one week to the day after the resignation of Hosni Mubarak.

The initiative aims to remind the "street power" to the generals of the Supreme Council of the armed forces now in control of the most populous Arab country.

They said on Thursday they would not present a candidate for the presidential election should crown the transition."There will be no candidate from the army in the next presidential election," said a senior military official.

"The armed forces have no future ambitions and want to return power to civilians when parties will be strong and not risk of collapse", stressed Wednesday night Etmaan Gen. Ismail, spokesman of the Army .

The Egyptian judiciary has also Thursday ordered the detention of three former ministers suspected of embezzling public funds, including Habib el Adli, the former interior minister reviled by the Egyptians.

Hosni Mubarak was stripped away in the early days of the challenge but was unable to appease the anger of the street.

The two other former ministers are Zouhair Garana, which was Minister of Tourism Ahmed el-Maghrabi and who was responsible for Housing.

This measure of detention for a period of fifteen days is also Ahmed Ezz. This steel magnate, close to Gamal Mubarak, the youngest son of the deposed president, was charged with the same charges.

All four deny the allegations against them.

TELEVISION: Watson, the computer that defies the human brain in Jeopardy

Elementary, my dear IBM. On Thursday, the software giant will know if he was right to call his new super computer "Watson". From this Monday evening in fact, the machine will try to beat in three sets, two champions of Jeopardy, the famous American game of questions and answers.

Watson will afffronter Ken Jennings, who has won 74 successive victories - a record - and Brad Rutter, who pocketed $ 3.2 million, the largest jackpot ever won by a player since the start of the game, 1964.

That the human brain synapses or circuits of the 20 servers that run Watson will win?

The three game sessions have already been recorded, but all participants have made vows of silence.The winner will walk away with $ 1 million, a tidy sum that IBM promised to donate to a charity if they win.

The voice of HAL

To achieve this historic show, Jeopardy has relocated the headquarters of IBM. Not easy to install on a TV set to a computer the size of 10 refrigerators ... Watson is shown on a screen with a trademark logo and answered questions with a voice based on that of HAL, the diabolic computer from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey.""We did it on purpose so well remember that this is a machine and not a human being," said an IBM engineer in American cultural magazine The New Yorker. "

If participation of a system of artificial intelligence Jeopardy is a first in the history of the game experience is, it, not without precedent. In 1997, IBM - already - had challenged the world champion chess while considered by some as the best player of all time, Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue, the computer developed by the software giant to challenge the human brain on the subject, came to the end of the Russian champion after six innings.To explain its superiority, while some had argued that chess was a game based heavily on the computing power of the players and their ability to anticipate the moves of their opponent. A godsend for a supercomputer, so to speak.

Grasshoppers eat kosher?

Hence the importance of the challenge that IBM wanted to meet this time. To defeat the man in Jeopardy, the machine will in effect be limited to knowledge of the "Encyclopedia Universalis" at the end of electrical circuits. Watson will also be able to understand the subtleties of language, some questions based on puns or implied meaning.

An obstacle that Watson seems able to overcome ...During a training session in mid-January, the machine only gave good answers. Although it may sometimes also known some hiccups ... sometimes difficult to understand. Example: "To the question: 'What eats grasshoppers?" Watson replied that we were eating kosher ...", remembers a bit taken aback Ferruci Dave, one of the project at IBM Watson .

If the computer beats his opponents, no doubt that the old fear of domination of man by machines resurface. Far from the novels of Isaac Asimov and others, however, IBM said that a possible victory of her baby could open the way to genuine scientific progress.As the ability for machines to make the connection between a list of symptoms, the question of a doctor and an unmatched library of medical cases worldwide.

INTERNET: A vast network of cyber espionage in the energy industry uncovered

Since November 2009, several oil and petrochemical companies have been targets of cyber attacks designed to steal technological secrets and sensitive information "on oil and gas fields." Revealed Thursday by the American Society of McAfee Security, "Operation Dragon Night" was unearthed last week.

"At first we thought it was isolated attacks.It took us a while to understand that this was a major operation coordinated, "says FRANCE 24 Greg Day, security expert at McAfee networks, which refuses to reveal the identity of victims.

These cyber attacks have been carried out by the same procedure. Cyber criminals managed to penetrate the computer systems of enterprises and small leave a malware that allowed them to return incognito thereafter (as a "Trojan horse") to take control of some of servers, where they went fishing for information.McAfee claims that trade secrets were actually stolen, but the major oil companies concerned do not wish to comment on these revelations.

Ambitious operation

Each time, criminals have used the same software to commit their crimes. "The attacks were not particularly complex. Attackers used small pieces of software that can easily be found on the black market on the Internet," said Greg Day.A lack of sophistication which first suggest that amateur hackers - or almost - were behind the attacks.

In retrospect, however, McAfee discovered that the operation was far more ambitious, comparable to the January 2010 attacks against Google in China and the Iranian nuclear contamination by the worm Stuxnet last summer.

This is not the first time, McAfee said, that oil companies are victims of computer attacks. "With financial markets is one of the most targeted by hackers," admits Greg Day. But generally, they seek information on oil production in order to anticipate the course of energy markets.This time, however, the reasons seem different and it seems to be espionage.

A Chinese man identified

To conduct the investigation, the FBI did not start from zero. In his report, McAfee alluded to a possible Chinese origin of the attack. The software has been used by hackers are indeed very popular on Chinese websites that specialize in computer security, one of the passwords used to activate one of them contained the word "China" and theft data were made during business hours, Beijing.

Most importantly, the security company was able to climb a trail to a specific individual.This is a Chinese song named Zhivue, praising the relay computers used to conduct attacks. "But it is only an intermediary in this story," said Greg Day.

The head of "Night Dragon" remains yet to be identified. This is also what led McAfee to make the story public. "It is also quite possible that the operation has affected businesses that are unaware and continues to do damage," says Greg Day.

EGYPT: The always busy Tahrir Square, while the new firm must meet

Reuters - The new government formed by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will meet in full this Monday for the first time since the start of the challenge to the regime, which continues in downtown Cairo despite the opening of negotiations with the opposition.

In power for nearly 30 years, Hosni Mubarak announced he would not seek re-election in presidential elections scheduled for September.However, he does not quit the presidency by then and he demands a return to calm during this transition period.

The opponents have been protesting on January 25 Tahrir Square, however, camped on their position: they demand the immediate departure of Hosni Mubarak and provide for new rallies Tuesday and Friday.

To facilitate traffic around Tahrir Square, one of the main intersections in the Egyptian capital, the army tried early Monday to reduce the space occupied by the protesters.These are strongly out of their tents to surround the soldiers and prevent them from achieving their goals.

To prevent any action of the army, dozens of protesters decided to sleep at the wheel of armor.

"The army is getting impatient and demonstrators as well.The army wants to cram into a small circle in the middle of the square in order to restore circulation, "said Mohamed Chalabi, a protester of 27 years, interviewed by telephone by
Reuters.

Skepticism

The activity resumed in much of the country on Sunday and the banks have reopened, long queues forming to withdraw cash.

A form of weariness seems evident in the population after nearly two weeks of deadlock.

Hosni Mubarak reshuffled his government in late January to try to appease the anger of hundreds of thousands of demonstrators protested several times against a
regime since 1981, against poverty, corruption and lack of freedoms.The government also discussed the release of political prisoners, freedom of the press and the lifting of emergency rule.

The opposition has reacted with caution and skepticism in the absence of reforms. Abdel Monem Abul Fotouh, Muslim Brotherhood, held that the Government's statement reflected "good intentions but without including strong changes.

President Barack Obama said Sunday that Egypt was committed to an irreversible process and that the time had come for change.

EGYPT: Mubarak SMS pro-sent "under duress" by Vodafone

"The armed forces are asking honest and loyal citizens to oppose the traitors and criminals," or "All fathers / mothers / son / daughters preserve our country because the nation is eternal." Both SMS, like many others of the same kind, were sent Thursday by the telephone operator Vodafone Egypt to their subscribers. Pictures of these messages that resemble calls to support the regime of Hosni Mubarak did not take long to find on the Internet.

Before the speed at which these images have spread compromising on the Web, the British operator has decided to react."We had no choice," is in essence his line of defense.

In a press release published on its website, Vodafone says that "The Egyptian authorities may require operators to send voice messages to the Egyptians." Vodafone has no other choice then but to relay the text submitted by the government. The British group finds this situation "unacceptable" and said he "protested to the authorities."

Other operators

Contacted by FRANCE 24, a representative of Vodafone ensures that "the Egyptian authorities have asked to send messages since the protests began.The operator confirms he did not have a choice because this obligation is recorded "in the license agreement to be signed by the operators to deploy in Egypt", according to that spokesperson. "We need to think about the safety of our employees there," says Vodafone as a justification for having complied with this obligation.

But the British operator does not intend to be the only one who pointed the finger. "Mobinil and Etisalat are also subject to the same obligation," and can be read in the press release. Orange, which owns Mobinil, has little taste of being dragged into this mess."We are currently checking this story and we do not understand how Vodafone could claim that," surprised the French operator contacted by FRANCE 24. But Vodafone, meanwhile, did not budge: "This has been confirmed by our colleagues on the spot".

Remains to be seen what will happen if the Egyptian authorities reiterate their request to send SMS to Vodafone.

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