In Britain BlackBerry becomes a weapon for rioters

 Rioters in Britain using BlackBerry to direct fellow looters to spread mayhem in cities across the country, Blackberry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has promised to cooperate with British authorities.

The riots erupted last week after police shot dead 29-year-old Mark Duggan who in last message to his girlfriend from his BlackBerry said: 'The Feds are following me.''

Since then, rioters have made extensive use of BlackBerry to send encrypted messages to mobs to riot, the Globe and Mail said in a report from London.

 A BlackBerry message from one looter read,'If you're down for making money, we're about to go hard in east London.'

Other rioters used the encrypted smart phone to direct looters to stores selling expensive stereo equipment, designer clothes, alcohol and bicycle.

It said masked or hooded youths could be seen typing messages on their cell phones as rioting engulfed shops, vehicles and buildings in British cities.

BlackBerry's messaging system (BBM), which comes free, is used by over 45 million people worldwide to instantly convey text messages and pictures. Since BBM messages are encrypted, police cannot trace them. .

Blackberry has rejected demand from British lawmaker David Lammy, who represents the riot-hit Tottenham area, for suspending its messaging service, saying that shutting down BBM will hit more than 45 million people who use it globally.

But the BlackBerry company, based at Waterloo near Toronto, has said that it is complying with British legislation on interception of messages and co-operating with Scotland Yard. BlackBerry's blog site in retaliation for its promise to co-operate with British police.

HSBC rules out job cuts in India

The country's oldest foreign bank HSBC ruled out job cuts in the country as part of its global recast, saying India is a strategic market and one of the key profit centres and that it is in fact finding it difficult to offset the high attrition rates.

As part of the 30,000 job cuts announced globally yesterday.HSBC, which is the largest bank in Europe, had said it would shed 30,000 jobs as it retreats from countries where it is struggling to compete.

HSBC India Chief Executive Stuart A Davis told today,"There will be a re-allocation of resources  but it's not going to be a cut heads.We are trying to do is to eliminate bureaucracies at the back-end."

HSBC India, the fully-owned subsidiary of the largest European bank, reported a 33% rise in pre-tax profit to USD 451 million from the country, making this unit the sixth most profitable regional for the British lender.

The bank had also said it had already cut 5,000 jobs following restructuring of operations in Latin America, the US, Britain, France and the Middle East and that it would cut another 25,000 between now and 2013.HSBC had said on Sunday it would sell 195 US branches to First Niagara Financial for about USD 1 billion in cash, and close another 13 of the 470 sites it had. HSBC also intends to sell its US credit card portfolio, which has over USD 30 billion in assets to free up capital. The bank now aims to shut or sell retail operations in a further 20 countries.

"I think India already has a very high attrition rate. We are hard-pressed to even catch up on the replacements. There is a war for talent out there, but as I said, there will be reallocation of resources," Davis said.

While HSBC gives some the chop, it’s also giving jobs to others. Apart from the 15,000 people the bank wants to hire in emerging markets, hiring in Hong Kong is ongoing as well. An anonymous source told us that HSBC is on the hunt for mid to senior candidates in risk, finance, operations and prime services.

US, Britain tried to prevent Pakistan from going nuclear

The US and Britain undertook a secret campaign in the late 1970s to prevent Pakistan from going nuclear and unsuccessfully tried to block its attempted covert purchasing of "gray area" technology for its atomic weapons programme, according to declassified documents.

According to the newly declassified state department cables, released by the National Security Archive, the US issued 300 demarches to Nuclear Exporters during 1978-1981 in attempt to halt Pakistani nuclear purchases.

At the same time, both Britain and the US kept India in the dark, even as Indian officials had better intelligence information about Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

the National Security Archive said, the documents, however, do not mention the name AQ Khan.

it said, But already in late 1978 London and Washington were discovering the footprints of secret Pakistani purchasing organizations that were seeking the technology needed to produce fissile material -- plutonium and highly enriched uranium -- for nuclear weapons.

In November 1978, Britain and the US sent complementary demarches to other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in efforts to "delay" the Pakistani nuclear programme by denying it access to sensitive technology and equipment.

The US demarche was the first of about 300 sent over the next three years, it said, adding that the in its first such demarche, Washington was trying to halt a secret Pakistani effort to continue a plutonium reprocessing facility at Chashma, which the French had begun but had backed out of, partly in response to US encouragement.

The recently released state department records were once closely-held telegrams in the "NODIS" category.

"NODIS" documents are of such high sensitivity that they can only be read by a limited number of individuals with a specific "need to know."

Distribution and copying are strictly controlled by the state department's executive secretary, unlike the SIPRNet system exploited by Wikileaks, which allowed officials at far lower levels to decide on their accessibility.

These new unclassified document say they learned that the Pakistanis had begun a secret effort to acquire technology to complete the plant.
The National Security Archive said, "The US role in cancelling the reprocessing plant caused resentment at high levels of the Pakistani government with military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq asserting that US-Pakistani relations were at their 'lowest ebb".

The National Security Archive said, "In response to Pakistani efforts to acquire inverters , a 'gray area' technology used to regulate the speed of centrifuges for producing highly-enriched uranium, the British sent a demarche to members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group to seek agreement on preventing sales".