By Gillian Law and Paul Roberts, IDG News Service APRIL 30, 2003 Content Type: Story Source: IDG News Service

Members of the U.K. Computer Crime Unit arrested a suspected member of the notorious hacker group Fluffi Bunni yesterday.

Lynn Htun, 24, was arrested by U.K. Metropolitan Police when they recognized him on a stand at the InfoSec computer security show in London yesterday. Htun was arrested on charges of nonappearance in Guildford Crown Court in Guildford, England, on forgery charges, Metropolitan Police spokesman Nick Jordan said today.

He was due to appear in Guildford Crown Court today, Jordan said.

Fluffi Bunni is believed to be responsible for a series of attacks against the Web sites of U.S. computer security organizations. After compromising sites, the group left a picture of a stuffed pink rabbit as its calling card.

Fluffi Bunni carried out 23 attacks between June 2000 and January 2002, according to digital security company Mi2g Ltd. in London. Those included attacks on www.mcdonalds.co.uk in February 2001, www.sans.org and www.attrition.org in July 2001, and www.securityfocus.com in November 2001, Mi2g spokesman Jan Andresen said Wednesday.

The Metropolitan Police stressed that yesterday's arrest was purely on nonappearance charges and didn't say how its computer-crime-unit officers recognized Htun.

Htun, who used the online name "Danny-Boy," was known within hacking circles as a member of Fluffi Bunni, according to Rafael Nunez, a senior research scientist at Scientech de Venezuela in Caracas who is known online as "RaFa."

However, the group had a "fluid" membership and included other prominent hackers outside the U.K., he said.

Htun may have initially come to the attention of U.K. authorities monitoring Internet Relay Chat channels frequented by hackers. He had a reputation as a "packet monkey," someone responsible for conducting denial-of-service attacks against Web sites, Nunez said.

"We're really happy," said Alan Paller, director of research at SANS Institute Inc., which had its Web page defaced by Fluffi Bunni in July 2001.

Htun's identity was known to authorities soon after the SANS attack, Paller said, but for some reason, movement toward an arrest was slow. "We're ecstatic that he didn't get out of the U.K. before he was arrested," he said.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 By: Gustavo Coronel

VHeadline.com commentarist Gustavo Coronel writes: When I started to read Miss Kira Marquez-Perez's editorial "Damaging our Venezuela with his fanatical rhetoric", the headline gave me the impression that she was referring to President Chavez ... but I soon found out that the person she saw as doing all that damage to Venezuela was ... ME!

This led me to read the piece more carefully, as I now realized that many of her comments were connected with me.

The first comment she makes is that "Money seems to be the key word for many opponents to the government of President Hugo Chavez..." This is not a fortunate opening, since millions of Venezuelans who reject Chavez do so at the expense of their tranquility and financial stability. I'm sure she knows that.

The implication that we who oppose Chavez for his ineptness, his vulgar and aggressive language, his tolerance of corruption, his lack of real concern for the poor and his authoritarian style of leadership, do it for money is counterproductive to her position.

The world, Miss Marquez, is not only made of criminals and corrupt people, but also of decent and idealistic persons. I assume that you are one of them. I would love to be considered decent too ... unless you have some evidence to the contrary ... in which case you are welcome to come up with it.

Your editorial abounds in adjectives: "greedy, treacherous, opportunistic...."  I would rather read about facts as arguments against my comments. I wrote about facts: explosions taking place, oil spills that are well documented, disarray and anarchy within PDVSA, the guerrilla history of Ali Rodriguez ... who specialized in explosives. I did not invent these things.

Why, then, should my "rhethoric" be fanatical?

A fanatic is someone who asserts something for which he has no shred of proof or one who insists on something against the weight of evidence. Am I in this category?

I know that you are particularly disturbed about what you consider to be my "destabilizing comments about the Venezuelan economy." You feel that I am purposely creating a bad image of Venezuela abroad, out of hatred for Chavez. This is a very important issue and I would like to comment on it. You see, the image of our country is highly damaged ... not by those who oppose Chavez, but by Chavez himself and by his actions.

Let me briefly list some of them: Acceptance of the Colombian narco-guerrillas as friends of Venezuela. The romance with Fidel Castro, one of the last specimens of the Latin American 19th century type dictator. The ideological affinities with the outlaw governments of Hussein and Khadaffi. The authoritarian style of his government. The abysmal mediocrity of his collaborators. The way he has intervened in PDVSA. The manner in which he has divided the country into two tribes: Chavistas and Oligarchs. The flamboyant manner in which he travels around the world in a $65 million airplane, trying to tell others how to run their business when he can not run his own business at home. The aggressive speech and the inconsiderate breach of protocol he systematically commits in international meetings.

I could go on and on, but these examples will suffice to explain the discredit of the Chavez government in international circles.

To criticize this government ... to say that Chavez has led to an economic collapse of the country ... to argue against his exchange and price controls ... the horrendous poverty ... the 120% devaluation, the highest inflation in Latin America ... is not trying to discredit the country but trying to place the blame where the blame has to be placed: in the failure of this government to conduct a reasonable economic program, a political program of democratic coexistence and a sensible social policy.

• We have to make a clear distinction between the love for our nation and being the pimps of this historical freak called Chavez.

When I criticize multinational companies helping Rodriguez' PDVSA, I am not attempting to damage PDVSA or Venezuela. Quite the contrary ... I am saying that the best help PDVSA and Venezuela can obtain is the rapid return of PDVSA to a professional, non-political management. Any help received from multinational companies by the improvised staff running the operations today, will tend to retard the return to the PDVSA that our country needs.

The word "opportunistic" that you mention in your editorial can very properly be applied to the multinational companies which are using the chaos within PDVSA to position themselves.

What I remind them is that such positioning might not be permanent or stable ... unless it is based on sound ethical principles and on the empathy that must exist between the company and the host country, rather than the host government.

In summary, I love Venezuela, therefore I reject Chavez.

Chavez does not speak for my country or for me ... by speaking against his government, I have the conviction that I am not damaging my country but helping it.

It is clear that you feel differently.

I respect your position and I think that your intentions are perfectly honest...

And so are mine...

your friend, Gustavo Coronel

Gustavo Coronel is the founder and president of Agrupacion Pro Calidad de Vida (The Pro-Quality of Life Alliance), a Caracas-based organization devoted to fighting corruption and the promotion of civic education in Latin America, primarily Venezuela. A member of the first board of directors (1975-1979) of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), following nationalization of Venezuela's oil industry, Coronel has worked in the oil industry for 28 years in the United States, Holland, Indonesia, Algiers and in Venezuela. He is a Distinguished alumnus of the University of Tulsa (USA) where he was a Trustee from 1987 to 1999. Coronel led the Hydrocarbons Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Washington DC for 5 years. The author of three books and many articles on Venezuela ("Curbing Corruption in Venezuela." Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 3, July, 1996, pp. 157-163), he is a fellow of Harvard University and a member of the Harvard faculty from 1981 to 1983.  In 1998, he was presidential election campaign manager for Henrique Salas Romer and now lives in retirement on the Caribbean island of Margarita where he runs a leading Hotel-Resort.  You may contact Gustavo Coronel at email gustavo@vheadline.com

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Health and safety officers in Delta Amacuro, Sucre and Monagas States have held an joint emergency meeting to assess a sudden and drastic increase in malaria. 

• 113 persons have been registered with the disease in the short space of one week, meriting the issuing of a health alert and efforts to stem further rises. 

The authorities suggest that people traveling during the Easter vacation could have been in some way responsible for the outbreak for failing to attend outpatients for an anti-malaria shot and medicine. 

In a break down of the advance of the disease there have been recorded 157 cases in Delta Amacuro since the Easter vacation with 44 in the last week. Sucre has registered 67 persons infected in one week and Monagas 2 last week,  despite having accumulated 100 cases ... the last 2 victims were visitors from Sucre.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic news Posted: Monday, April 28, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Breaking down the situation of the Catholic Church in Venezuela, Monsignor Baltazar Porras counters arguments that most of the clergy are foreigners and that there are few native Venezuelan priests. 

The prelate admits that the Independence War saw the demise of the Church, which was also hard hit by President Guzman Blanco's expulsion of bishops and closure of seminaries at the end of the 19th century. 

During the twentieth century the situation was saved by an influx of foreign born clergy and religious giving the impression that the Church had a foreign image, which Porras claims is untrue because many of foreign-born clergy made a sucessful effort to fit in with local mentality. 'The situation has changed ... over the past forty years the Church has consolidated it position in Venezuelan society and has its own native face." 

• In 1964 there were 19 Church dioceses and departments  ... now there are 38
• In 1973, there were 100 major seminarians distributed in 3 seminaries: 2 in Caracas and 1 in San Cristobal
• Today there are 1,096 seminarians: 714 for the diocesan clergy in 17 seminaries and 382 candidates for religious orders in 20 houses of development
• In 2002, there were 83 new priests and the same number is scheduled for this year.

Porras ends his bird's eye view of the Church saying it is a "sign of grace that despite attacks on the Church and disqualifications, young people are ready to become God's servants and help their fellow men." 

Posted on Mon, Apr. 21, 2003 MITCH STACY Associated Press Wire

TAMPA, Fla. -In the back room of a storefront office, steel shelves are crammed floor to ceiling with pacemakers and other medical equipment needed to help sick hearts keep beating around the world.

The aptly named charity Heartbeat International works with Rotary Clubs worldwide to match donated pacemakers with poor people who need them and surgeons who can implant them. Those who get the lifesaving devices couldn't even begin to pay for them otherwise.

But like many charities in these uncertain economic times, Heartbeat International finds itself struggling to make ends meet.

Quietly responsible for providing about 6,000 pacemakers since its beginnings in 1984, the charity has grown too big for its own good. Now maintaining 46 "pacemaker banks" in 28 countries, Heartbeat International is having trouble covering administration costs for all the devices that need to be shipped and implanted.

"The financial situation is such that we're in serious jeopardy of reaching our 20th birthday in October 2004," said executive director Wil Mick.

Administration costs are relatively modest because pacemakers and the services of hospitals and surgeons are donated, Mick said. Heartbeat International pays about $250 for each set of lead wires that connect the pacemaker to the heart, and the cost of getting the devices where they need to be.

But the demand for them is so great now that the charity has been forced to reinvigorate fund-raising efforts, trying to raise $2 million over the next two years.

It reorganized its board this spring with a sharper focus on raising money and is rallying its international Rotary partners to be more aggressive about seeking donations in their communities.

Officials are concerned but not panicky.

"This is the greatest challenge we face after 18 years," said Ramon P. Camugun, a Rotarian in the Philippines and a new board member who oversees Heartbeat International's operations in Asia, Africa and Europe.

"In the past," he said, "there was much concern with improving the knowledge of doctors in the program, but there was not much time given to raising funds for the program. We knew we had to get reorganized."

The mission was begun by an idealistic Guatemalan cardiologist, Dr. Ferderico Alfaro, who was haunted by the death of a 17-year-old patient who needed a pacemaker and couldn't afford one. Vowing never to let it happen again, he teamed with his Rotary Club in Guatemala to establish the first pacemaker bank. He started with more than 50 donated pacemakers, many of them harvested from patients who had died.

When Dr. Henry McIntosh, chairman of Baylor College of Medicine, visited his former student in Guatemala in 1983, he saw the potential for extending the effort into developing countries worldwide.

"I was impressed with his sincerity," said McIntosh, now retired and living in Lakeland, Fla., Heartbeat International was founded.

Because of potential problems with used pacemakers, Heartbeat International persuaded manufacturers to begin donating new devices whose "use-by" dates were nearing. Pacemakers carry 10-year batteries, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires they be sold by a specified date or be destroyed.

Medtronics and St. Jude Medical, the two largest manufacturers, now donate 300 to 400 pacemakers and related equipment every year worth as much as $2 million. The half-dollar-sized devices are implanted just under the skin on the chest, with two leads snaking into chambers of the heart.

Having a pacemaker implanted usually costs between $22,000 to $46,000.

After going to the hospital with chest pains, 19-year-old Rama Kumari of Baldi, India, got a pacemaker from Heartbeat International in 1999. The family was so poor they could barely afford to eat. Today she is healthy.

Giovanni Schwalm of Quilpuc, Chile, was born in 1996 with heart problems that put her in intensive care when she was just 3 months old. The charity provided a pacemaker around Christmas that year, and she was home recovering on New Year's Day. She's now a healthy, active little girl.

Doctors said 4-year-old Alexandra Repeto of Puerto Cavello, Venezuala, wouldn't live two weeks without a pacemaker after she was diagnosed with heart problems in 1999. On the 10th day, someone contacted the charity, which immediately provided one and arranged to have it implanted. Alexandra recovered.

The availability of the donated devices and demand for them led Heartbeat International to establish 11 new pacemaker banks in the past five years, expanding during that time into Russia, Brazil, Suriname, Turkey and Venezuela.

Those involved with Heartbeat International say its benefits go far beyond saving lives. And they're hoping the new moneymaking efforts will keep the charity's heart pumping well past the two-decade mark next year.

"We call our pacemakers peacemakers," McIntosh said. "We think we are establishing international goodwill and lasting peace through this program."

ON THE NET

Heartbeat International: www.heartbeatintl.org