United Nations give warning of second wave of Pakistani flood deaths

Pakistan  The United Nations appealed on Wednesday for $459 million in aid for flood-hit Pakistan, warning of a second wave of death among sick, hungry survivors unless help arrived quickly.Roiling floods triggered by unusually heavy monsoon rain have scoured Pakistan’s Indus river basin, killing more than 1,600 people, forcing 2 million from their homes and disrupting the lives of about 14 million people, or 8 percent of the population.President Asif Ali Zardari, whose government has come in for harsh criticism for its perceived sluggish response to the disaster, defended a decision to travel abroad as the floods began, saying he helped focus international attention on the plight of the victims.The floods, the worst in the region in 80 years, have raised fears for the prospects of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally already battling a deadly Islamist militancy.U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday the U.S. military was tripling the number of helicopters in Pakistan to 19 from six and sending in a landing platform to be used off the coast of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.

Washington, which had already committed $55 million to Pakistani flood relief efforts, also announced it was contributing a further $16.2 million to the U.N. refugee agency and International Red Cross for emergency assistance to flood victims.Aid agencies have complained of a lackluster donor response to the crisis, while a U.N. spokesman said help was needed soon.”If we do not respond soon enough to the urgent needs of the population, if we do not provide life-saving assistance as soon as is necessary, there may be a second wave of death caused by diseases and food shortages,” said U.N. humanitarian operations the spokesman Maurizio Giuliano.Hundreds of roads and bridges have been destroyed from northern mountains to the plains of the southern province of Sindh, where the waters have not yet crested, meaning the situation could get worse.

Countless villages and farms have been inundated, crops destroyed and livestock lost. In some places, families are huddled on tiny patches of water-logged land with their animals surrounded by an inland sea.On the outskirts of the city of Sukkur, in Sindh, hundreds of people waited for food supplies at a tent camp.”I can’t find my 12-year-old son. I’ve been to my village with soldiers on a boat but there was no sign of him,” said farmer Mohammad Hassan.”I’m so worried. I don’t know what to do. Should I take care of my family here or go and look for my son?” Hassan, a father of 10, told Reuters before rushing into a throng jostling around a truck that arrived with rations of cooked rice.

ECONOMIC DAMAGE

The International Monetary Fund has warned of major economic harm and the Finance Ministry said the country would miss this year’s 4.5 percent gross domestic product growth target, although it was not clear by how much.Pakistani stocks ended 0.17 percent down at 9,875.68 as the economic costs of the disaster rattled investors. the market has lost 5.37 percent since the floods began.The United Nations says the disaster is the biggest the country has faced and it would cost billions of dollars to rehabilitate the victims and rebuild ruined infrastructure.Giuliano said he was optimistic aid would arrive and $150 million had already been pledged. The U.N. World Food Program needs $150 million to feed 6 million people for three months.Zardari defended his decision to travel to France and Britain at the end of last month.

“Some have criticized my decision, saying it represented aloofness, but I felt that I had to choose substance over symbolism,” he said in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal.The British government had pledged $24 million in aid, following his meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron, the Pakistani leader said.

Pakistan’s military, which has ruled the country for more than half of its 63-year history, has taken the lead in relief efforts, reinforcing the faith many Pakistanis have in their armed forces and highlighting the comparative ineffectiveness of civilian governments.Analysts say the armed forces would not try to take power as they have vowed to shun politics and are busy fighting militants.U.S. military helicopters have been airlifting survivors in an effort that may win Washington some supporters in Pakistan, where anti-American sentiment runs high.

“Let’s not talk about politics. We were trapped here and they came to evacuate us,” said Abdul Rehman, 37, rescued by a U.S. helicopter after being stranded with a new-born baby and wife.”They’re doing good. Let’s appreciate them.”The United States needs a stable Pakistan to help it end a nine-year war by the Taliban in Afghanistan.(Reuters)

The FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc.

Citigroup Inc.

WASHINGTON The FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc. that led to the theft of tens of millions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.Citing anonymous government officials, the Journal reported that the hackers were connected to a Russian cyber gang. Two other computer systems, at least one of connected to a U.S. government agency, were also attacked.Citigroup denied the report. “We had no breach of the system and there were no losses, no customer losses, no bank losses,” said Joe Petro, managing director of Citigroup’s Security and Investigative services. “Any allegation that the FBI is working a case at Citigroup involving tens of millions of losses is just not true.”

The Journal reported that the attack on Citigroup’s Citibank subsidiary was detected over the summer, although it may have occurred up to one year earlier. The FBI, the National Security Agency, the Homeland Security Department and Citigroup worked together to investigate the attack.

Cyber crime is of increasing concern to businesses and the federal government, with President Barack Obama calling it one of the “most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.”Obama is expected on Tuesday to announce the appointment of Howard A. Schmidt, a former eBay and Microsoft executive, as the government’s cyber security coordinator.

Facebook has followed Google's lead

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Facebook has followed Google’s lead and introduced a dual-class stock structure, the clearest sign yet that the world’s most popular social networking site is preparing for an eventual public offering.In doing so, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 25-year-old chief executive, looks to be solidifying his long-term grip on the site he founded five years ago that has become the fourth most popular destination on the web.Dual-class stock structures are controversial because they give certain shareholders much stronger voting rights than others.”Dual-class stock is an anathema to institutional investors,” said Charles Elson, professor of corporate governance at the University of Delaware. “Ultimately, shareholders lose. If something were to go wrong, there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it.”The use of separate classes of shares to protect the voting control of a narrow group of investors has traditionally been used in the US only in the media business. Public investors in companies such as the New York Times, Comcast and Hollinger have not been able to exert the control they would normally have, Mr Elson said.Google adopted the practice when it went public in 2004, granting class-B shares to co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and chief executive Eric Schmidt.Google’s class-B shares held 10 times the voting rights as its class-A shares, an arrangement mimicked by Facebook.At the time, Mr Page warned that share structure would leave control of the company substantially with him and Mr Brin, though he added that that was necessary to fulfil the company’s long-term vision.

With Tuesday’s move, Mr Zuckerberg appears to be emulating this strategy.Facebook confirmed the plan in a statement, saying that “existing shareholders wanted to maintain control over voting on certain issues to help ensure the company can continue to focus on the long-term to build a great business”.Mr Zuckerberg has said that he plans to take the company public eventually. But on Tuesday Facebook said an IPO was not imminent.Facebook will convert all current shareholders to class-B stock, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the plan.Shares that carry higher voting rights usually lose that privilege when they change hands, leaving control with an even more concentrated group of investors over the long term.