Analysis: Gingrich, Romney ready for Iowa sprint (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The final Republican presidential debate before the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus crystalized the strengths and weaknesses of the chief contenders as perhaps no other event thus far.

It reinforced the notion that this is a battle between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich unless one of the other five can make a dramatic late run.

Given his likely strength in the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary, Romney may be able to survive a so-so finish in Iowa. It appears more important for Gingrich to win Iowa, or come close, and Thursday's two-hour televised debate in Sioux City probably helped his cause.

It wasn't so much that the former House speaker had a solid second hour after a somewhat shaky start. It's more that Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-leaning Texan, expressed his anti-war, anti-interventionist views so vehemently that he may have turned off mainstream Republicans who otherwise might have helped him to a surprising first-place finish.

"To declare war on 1.2 billion Muslims and say all Muslims are the same, this is dangerous talk," Paul said of the idea of taking pre-emptive action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. "Yeah, there are some radicals. But they don't come here to kill us because we're free and prosperous ... They want to do us harm because we're bombing them."

Rep. Michele Bachmann said, "I have never heard a more dangerous answer for American security."

If Paul hurt himself among rank-and-file GOP voters, then Bachmann, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Sen. Rick Santorum may have helped themselves with solid performances. Bachmann, who faded after winning a mid-August straw poll in Iowa, was especially forceful in accusing Gingrich of being soft on abortion and hypocritical for taking big consulting fees from mortgage giant Freddie Mac while criticizing its work.

Perry, whose campaign faltered after several weak debate performances, showed humor and a command of several topics. The big question is whether any of these second-tier candidates ? and conceivably, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman ? can gain the needed traction that has eluded them for months.

As for Romney and Gingrich, the feisty debate on Fox News laid bare their biggest strengths and vulnerabilities.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, once again managed to stay above most quarrels. He seemed well prepared for a challenge to his job-creation record. Romney acknowledged that some jobs were eliminated in corporate restructurings he oversaw at Bain Capital, but the overall effort "added tens of thousands of jobs."

However, Fox News' Chris Wallace, with help from Santorum, bore in on Romney's biggest liability: his changed positions on gun control, gay rights and particularly abortion.

Romney gave his standard response about having a change of heart regarding his former support for abortion rights.

He then got drawn into a complicated back-on-forth about what he meant when he vowed in 1994 to be a better defender of gay rights than Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., whom he was trying to unseat.

Later, when he was governor, Romney said, the state's highest court "determined that under our constitution, same-sex marriage was required." It wasn't up to him, he said, "to make a choice as to whether we had it or not."

Romney said he fought "to overturn the court's decision" and make marriage "between a man and a woman."

A similarly testy exchange underscored Gingrich's greatest vulnerability: his long, contentious record in Washington, which included some prominent deal-making with Democrats during his 20 years in Congress.

Gingrich rejected the notion that he's an unreliable conservative. He said he pursued conservative but attainable goals, working when necessary with Democrats such as President Bill Clinton and Speaker Tip O'Neill.

"The term `government-sponsored enterprise' has a very wide range of things that do a great deal of good," Gingrich said, defending his $1.6 million consulting fee for Freddie Mac. "There are a lot of very good institutions that are government-sponsored."

Such comments wouldn't raise eyebrows among independent or Democratic voters. But they may open Gingrich to questions from the staunch conservatives who dominate GOP caucuses and primaries.

Republican consultant Alex Castellanos said via Twitter there will be "zillions of negative ads still dropping on Newt's head in Iowa after this debate."

Gingrich also displayed several flashes of the bravado that strikes some people as brilliance, others as arrogance. A former college professor who used deferments to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, Gingrich said he spent "23 years teaching one- and two-star generals and admirals the art of war."

Condemning what he sees as liberal activism by federal judges, Gingrich said, "I testified in front of sitting Supreme Court justices at Georgetown Law School, and I warned them: `You keep attacking the core base of American exceptionalism, and you are going to find an uprising against you which will rebalance the judiciary.'"

"Just like Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and FDR," he said, "I would be prepared to take on the judiciary, if in fact it did not restrict itself in what it was doing."

Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have surprised the nation before. At this stage four years ago, many saw Rudy Giuliani as the likeliest GOP nominee.

Perhaps Perry, Bachmann or Santorum will make an 11th hour surge. Maybe Paul drew more fans than he turned off with his isolationist talk Thursday.

But with little more than two weeks left before the Iowa caucus, most are watching to see if Romney and Gingrich can make the most of their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.

___

EDITOR'S NOTE ? Charles Babington covers politics for The Associated Press.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politicsopinion/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_an/us_republicans_debate_analysis

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PFT: Harrison loses appeal on suspension

Getty Images

Blaine Gabbert is playing so badly right now that the Jaguars may consider something practically unheard of in the NFL: Taking Top 10 quarterbacks in back-to-back drafts.

Gabbert?s horrible game in Thursday night?s loss to the Falcons has continued a horrible rookie season for the quarterback the Jaguars chose with the 10th overall pick in this year?s NFL draft. Gabbert is last in the league with a passer rating of 65.6, and he looks lost out there. It?s tough to see why the Jaguars? next coach, whoever he is, would want Gabbert as his starting quarterback.

So would the Jaguars, who will likely draft somewhere between the fourth and 10th overall picks, take a quarterback? It?s impossible to say right now, as we have no idea who the new coach will be or what kind of offense he?ll run. We also don?t know where new owner Shahid Khan stands on the matter, and whether he?ll take a hands-on or hands-off approach to the draft. But if Baylor?s Robert Griffin III or USC?s Matt Barkley is available to the Jaguars, they?d have to think long and hard about drafting one of them in the Top 10.

That almost never happens. The Cowboys used their first-round picks in 1989 and 1990 on quarterbacks Troy Aikman and Steve Walsh, but the 1990 pick was used in the supplemental draft. (The Cowboys traded Walsh to the Saints in 1990.) The last time a team used consecutive first-round picks in the regular draft on quarterbacks was in 1982-83, when the Baltimore Colts drafted Art Schlichter and John Elway. But that was a highly unusual circumstance in which neither one of those quarterbacks played for the team in 1983: Schlichter was suspended for the entire 1983 season, and the Colts traded Elway to the Broncos before he ever played a down for Baltimore.

Before the Colts, you have to go all the way back to the early 1960s Los Angeles Rams to find a team that used first-round draft picks on quarterbacks in back-to-back years. The Rams actually drafted quarterbacks in the first round three years in a row: Roman Gabriel in 1962, Terry Baker in 1963 and Bill Munson in 1964. But Baker was a college quarterback who played halfback in the NFL, so that?s not quite the same thing, either. Prior to those Rams, the last team to draft quarterbacks in back-to-back first rounds was the 49ers, who took Earl Morrall in 1956 and John Brodie in 1957. The 49ers traded Morrall to the Steelers before the 1957 season.

What does this history lesson tell us? NFL teams only take quarterbacks in back-to-back first rounds under the most extraordinary of circumstances. If Jaguars G.M. Gene Smith takes a quarterback in the first round a year after he took Gabbert 10th overall, he?ll be doing something NFL general managers just don?t do. But Gabbert might be bad enough to make the Jaguars do it.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/16/james-harrisons-suspension-stands/related/

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Many surgeons don't discuss end-of-life care

Many U.S. surgeons fail to discuss their patients' wishes in case a risky operation goes awry, and even more would not operate if patients limited what could be done to keep them alive, a survey found.

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Such medical wishes and plans for end-of-life care, called "advance directives," outline what can and cannot be done if patients are unable to decide for themselves. The most famous examples are so-called living wills.

But the restrictions are debated among doctors, said the survey, published in the Annals of Surgery.

"(Surgeons) feel the advance directive basically ties their hands behind their back, and they're not given the tools to get them through the surgery," said Margaret Schwarze, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who was one of the survey's authors.

She and her colleagues asked 912 surgeons who regularly perform risky operations 14 questions on how they discuss a patient's advance directives and whether the directives influence their decision to operate.

More than four out of every five surgeons discussed which forms of life support the patients would like to limit. But only about half asked specifically about the patient's advance directive, which can include restricting the use of feeding tubes and ventilators to keep a person alive.

"I think some surgeons just don't discuss advance directives because they think it's so irrelevant," Schwarze added.

More than half the surgeons said they would not operate if an advance directive limited what could be done to keep a patient alive after surgery.

The researchers said such instructions can also cause tension between the surgeon and the patient because it shows the patient may be unwilling to accept the therapies that come with high-risk operations.

Heart surgeons were much more likely than brain surgeons to decline an operation -- perhaps because brain surgeons may see removing life support as a reasonable decision, since their surgical complications can cause brain damage.

It's not uncommon for heart surgeons to use techniques such as CPR after an operation and restrictive instructions may get in their way, Schwarz added.

"I think it's important for patients to discuss their values and goals with surgeons before a big operation," Schwarz added in an email to Reuters Health.

"It's also incredibly important to discuss this with family members or someone who may need to make decisions."

Although the use of advance directives has increased in recent years, a study earlier this year found that U.S. laws set up too many roadblocks for many people to put them into place.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/t9SVLr

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45693584/ns/health-health_care/

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New RuFraud Trojan Uses Android Market TOS Loophole (ContributorNetwork)

Symantec has discovered a Trojan called "Android.RuFraud" and has added the Trojan to its Web-based Risks and Threats list. Here are some facts about what it is, how it infects Android devices, what it does once installed and other facts.

* ThreatExpert reported on Dec. 5 that it received a sampling of an Android.RuFraud variant known as Android.Premiumtext.

* Android.RuFraud is classified as a low-risk infection because to date it has infected only about 50 devices, according to Symantec.

* According to ArsTechnica, Google removed more than 20 applications that contained the Android.RuFraud SMS Trojan on Dec. 12.

* The Android.RuFraud Trojan masquerades as free versions of popular paid-for games such as Angry Birds and others, according to ArsTechnica.

* When the "game" is installed, it requires the user to grant it certain permissions just as any other installed smartphone application and game does, allowing the game to use specific phone functions.

* The Android.RuFraud Trojan permissions required include allowing it to create, edit, delete and otherwise modify SMS messages, and open network connections, according to Symantec.

* The forbidden uses of the Android Marketplace are included in the Android Market Developer Program Policies, but these Policies do not forbid developers from asking for SMS creation, editing or sending permissions.

* This loophole has led to SMS Trojan-laden applications and games being developed for and then added to the Android Market legally.

* Upon installation, Android.RuFraud requires permission to modify the smartphone's internal and external storage as well, meaning it can add, edit and delete MicroSD card files at will.

* This specific permission to modify storage could also extend to include a computer's hard drive if the user were to connect using a USB cable for synchronizing or other offloading needs, although it is not likely.

* Android.RuFraud reads and hides SMS messages from various country-specific numbers, according to Symantec.

* According Symantec, when installed, the "game" displays the question, "Where is My Water?" a message stating, "To continue, click below" and two buttons labeled, "Next" and "Rules."

* If the user clicks "Next," the smartphone sends an SMS message to one of the target countries with the destination based on the country in which the smartphone SIM is registered, creating a premium rate charge.

* The Trojan hides incoming messages from the same numbers so it can continue to operate undetected.

* Uninstall the application manually to prevent future SMS message sending by opening the main Android menu and finding the application in the "Manage" section of the "Applications" menu, located in "Settings." Hit the "Uninstall" option. Additionally, using any of the mobile security suites that can detect Android.RuFraud or Android.Premiumtext, users can remove Trojan remnants.

Jessica (JC) Torpey is a self-taught computer technician with more than 10 years experience in the field. JC's passion is studying the various political and business aspects of the technology industry. Combining that knowledge with her love of computers, JC uses it to influence her writing.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111214/tc_ac/10681557_new_rufraud_trojan_uses_android_market_tos_loophole

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Stocks, euro fall after Fed shuns new stimulus (Reuters)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) ? Asian shares drifted lower and the euro idled near an 11-month low on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve failed to take any new steps to stimulate growth and offset the chilling effects of Europe's still-unresolved sovereign debt crisis.

Wall Street stocks fell after the U.S. central bank's final policy meeting of the year, at which the Fed noted modest improvement in the U.S. economy but added that market turbulence in the face of Europe's woes posed a big risk.

European stocks were expected to follow Asian shares lower, with a looming Italian bond auction keeping investors on edge, but U.S. index futures rose slightly suggesting small gains when Wall Street resumes trading later.

"Investors continue to avoid risk as they look to possible sovereign debt downgrades in Europe," said Hiroichi Nishi, equity general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities in Tokyo.

Japan's Nikkei share average (.N225) and MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) both eased 0.4 percent. (.T)

Asian stocks have underperformed in the second half of the year, partly because European institutions and money managers are repatriating funds from Asia Pacific markets.

MSCI's Asia Pacific ex-Japan index is down 18 percent for the year, against a loss of around 11 percent for its All-Country World index (.MIWD00000PUS).

Financial bookmakers predicted London's FTSE 100 (.FTSE), Paris's CAC-40 (.FCHI) and Frankfurt's DAX (.GDAXI) would open 0.5-0.6 percent lower, while S&P 500 futures were trading up 0.3 percent. (.EU) (.L) (.N)

DOWNGRADE FEARS

Fears of mass downgrades by credit rating agencies for European sovereigns have pressured equity markets and the euro this week, pushing up the dollar -- perceived as a safer haven by investors -- and driving up borrowing costs for indebted nations such as Italy and Spain.

"Nobody quite knows how bad it will get early next year, so in such uncertainty, investors are understandably looking for safety," said Linus Yip, an equity strategist with First Shanghai Securities in Hong Kong.

A key test will be an Italian bond auction later on Wednesday at which Rome is expected to pay a euro-era record cost, with an auction of Spanish debt to follow on Thursday.

The euro fell as far as $1.30090, its lowest since mid-January and nearly 20 cents below its 2011 high in May, before steadying at around $1.3030.

European leaders agreed to impose stricter budget discipline on euro zone members at a summit last week, but markets have since hardened to the view that the measures agreed to don't go far enough to resolve the two-year-old debt crisis.

That view was further cemented on Tuesday, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected talk of raising the funding limit of a planned permanent bailout fund to backstop the currency bloc to above 500 billion euros.

"European institutions continue to hammer the point of what they are not willing to do," said Kit Juckes, head of foreign exchange research at Societe Generale. "The market is driving down the point of how little they are willing to risk in a deleveraged financial system, and this ahead of the holidays."

COMMODITIES WEAKNESS

The dollar consolidated recent gains, rising around 0.1 percent against a basket of major currencies (.DXY).

The strength of the U.S. currency has played a part in weakness for commodities in recent days, because most are priced in dollars and therefore become more expensive for holders of other currencies when the greenback appreciates.

Copper fell for a third day, shedding 0.9 percent on the London Metal Exchange to around $7,530 a metric ton. Industrial metals have also been hit by worries that renewed recession in Europe slowing economic growth elsewhere will crimp demand.

"Participants are now focusing back on the European crisis, and that is prompting a broad fall across commodities," said Tetsu Emori, a fund manager with Astramax Co. in Tokyo.

U.S. crude eased a little to fall back below $100 a barrel, after rallying 2 percent in the previous session, and Brent crude was also lower, slipping 0.3 percent to just above $109 a barrel.

Oil prices are currently being pulled and pushed between fears of slackening economic growth that would tend to weaken prices and tensions between Iran and the West that have raised concerns about supply disruptions. Such disruptions would drive energy costs higher.

Gold rose 0.5 percent to about $1,640 an ounce after falling 2.5 percent on Tuesday.

Having raced to a record above $1,920 in September, partly on fears that the Federal Reserve's monetary easing steps would stoke inflation against which it has traditionally been seen as a hedge, gold has fallen back with other commodities. The precious metal remains up about 15 percent for the year.

(Additional reporting by Mari Saito in Tokyo, Ian Chua in Sydney, Clement Tan in Hong Kong and Manash Goswami in Singapore; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111214/bs_nm/us_markets_global

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University Hospitals is world winner for digital radiological imaging storage, recovery solutions

Public release date: 5-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: George Stamatis
george.stamatis@uhhospitals.org
216-844-3667
University Hospitals Case Medical Center

Receives HP/Intel Mission-Critical Innovation Award for online storage and disaster recovery in imaging

CLEVELAND -- In a world-wide competition, University Hospitals (UH) received the Mission-Critical Innovation Award - Humanitarian/Environmental Impact category presented by the multinational information technology companies Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Intel. The award recognizes UH's leadership in information technology for groundbreaking work in developing solutions for mission-critical computing.

The award was presented Nov. 28 in Vienna, Austria. Accepting it for UH were Jeffrey Sunshine, M.D., Ph.D., Vice Chairman, Department of Radiology, and Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer; Himanshu Pandya, Vice President, Radiology Services, and Karen Erhard, UH Radiology PACS manager.

The Humanitarian/Environmental Impact Award looks at organizations using advanced Itanium-based systems to make a positive impact on society or the environment. (Itanium refers to Intel microprocessors used in enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems.)

UH won this category for its disaster-tolerant PACS (picture archiving and communication system) solution for processing and archiving of digital radiology images. The UH Department of Radiology, which provides more than 700,000 radiology exams annually across 25 locations in the UH system, led an integrated information technology team in designing, configuring and installing HP Itanium servers and other equipment for archiving and online storage. The plans included a disaster recovery site of redundant systems to eliminate downtime which would affect patient care. The recovery site provides, for example, continuous millisecond transfer of all information to a second complete copy of the PACS system in a separate facility. The new system allows for improved workflow, shared patient information and images with a common PACS for all locations, reduced turnaround time, support for future growth within the health system, improved radiologist access to diagnostic studies, improved patient's continuum of care and business continuity with data replication.

"This recognition represents strong global affirmation of University Hospitals' commitment to provide extraordinary technology in providing excellent patient care at all times, under normal operations or even during disaster conditions," said Dr. Sunshine.

UH went up against two other finalists in the category: Enagas, Spain's gas management company, for its Green Datacenter project, and Purvis Systems for migrating the Fire Department of New York City's computer assisted emergency dispatch to a newer Itanium-based server infrastructure and OpenVMS.

###

About University Hospitals University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians. At the core of our health system is University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics and spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 5-Dec-2011
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: George Stamatis
george.stamatis@uhhospitals.org
216-844-3667
University Hospitals Case Medical Center

Receives HP/Intel Mission-Critical Innovation Award for online storage and disaster recovery in imaging

CLEVELAND -- In a world-wide competition, University Hospitals (UH) received the Mission-Critical Innovation Award - Humanitarian/Environmental Impact category presented by the multinational information technology companies Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Intel. The award recognizes UH's leadership in information technology for groundbreaking work in developing solutions for mission-critical computing.

The award was presented Nov. 28 in Vienna, Austria. Accepting it for UH were Jeffrey Sunshine, M.D., Ph.D., Vice Chairman, Department of Radiology, and Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer; Himanshu Pandya, Vice President, Radiology Services, and Karen Erhard, UH Radiology PACS manager.

The Humanitarian/Environmental Impact Award looks at organizations using advanced Itanium-based systems to make a positive impact on society or the environment. (Itanium refers to Intel microprocessors used in enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems.)

UH won this category for its disaster-tolerant PACS (picture archiving and communication system) solution for processing and archiving of digital radiology images. The UH Department of Radiology, which provides more than 700,000 radiology exams annually across 25 locations in the UH system, led an integrated information technology team in designing, configuring and installing HP Itanium servers and other equipment for archiving and online storage. The plans included a disaster recovery site of redundant systems to eliminate downtime which would affect patient care. The recovery site provides, for example, continuous millisecond transfer of all information to a second complete copy of the PACS system in a separate facility. The new system allows for improved workflow, shared patient information and images with a common PACS for all locations, reduced turnaround time, support for future growth within the health system, improved radiologist access to diagnostic studies, improved patient's continuum of care and business continuity with data replication.

"This recognition represents strong global affirmation of University Hospitals' commitment to provide extraordinary technology in providing excellent patient care at all times, under normal operations or even during disaster conditions," said Dr. Sunshine.

UH went up against two other finalists in the category: Enagas, Spain's gas management company, for its Green Datacenter project, and Purvis Systems for migrating the Fire Department of New York City's computer assisted emergency dispatch to a newer Itanium-based server infrastructure and OpenVMS.

###

About University Hospitals University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of hospitals, outpatient centers and primary care physicians. At the core of our health system is University Hospitals Case Medical Center. The primary affiliate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, University Hospitals Case Medical Center is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research centers of excellence in the nation and the world, including cancer, pediatrics, women's health, orthopedics and spine, radiology and radiation oncology, neurosurgery and neuroscience, cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, organ transplantation and human genetics. Its main campus includes the internationally celebrated UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children's hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. For more information, go to www.uhhospitals.org

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-12/uhcm-uhi120511.php

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Online uproar as India seeks social media screening (Reuters)

NEW DELHI (Reuters) ? India has urged social network companies including Facebook, Twitter and Google to remove offensive material, unleashing a storm of criticism from Internet users in the world's largest democracy complaining of censorship.

Telecoms and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal met executives from Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on Monday to ask them to screen content, but no agreement with the companies was reached, he said.

Sibal denied he was promoting censorship and said some of the images and statements on social media sites risked fanning tensions in India, which has a long history of deadly religious violence.

A New York Times report on Monday that said Sibal called executives about six weeks ago and showed them a Facebook page that maligned ruling Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi and told them it was "unacceptable".

The government is very sensitive to criticism of the Gandhi family. Last year there were moves to block the English translation of a Spanish novel about Sonia Gandhi's life.

"We have to take care of the sensibilities of our people, we have to protect their sensibilities. Our cultural ethos is very important to us," Sibal told reporters on Tuesday.

Sibal said his ministry was working on guidelines for action against companies who did not respond to the government's requests, but did not specify what action could be taken.

"We'll certainly evolve guidelines to ensure that such blasphemous material is not part of content on any platform."

India's largely unrestricted Internet access stands in contrast to tight controls in fellow Asian economic powerhouse China. But in line with many other government's around the world, India has become increasingly edgy about the power of social media.

India's bloggers and Twitter users scorned the minister's proposals, saying a prefiltering system would limit free expression and was impossible to implement. The phrase #IdiotKapilSibal was one of India's most tweeted on Tuesday.

"The idea of prescreening is impossible. How will they do it?...There is no technology currently that determines whether content is 'defamatory' or 'offensive'," India-based cyber security expert Vijay Mukhi told Reuters.

TAKEN ABACK

The New York Times report, which Sibal did not confirm or deny, was the focus of much of the online anger directed at the minister on Tuesday.

"I love Sonia Gandhi. She is awesome. She is God. And never wrong about anything, ever." (This msg is approved by Kapil Sibal's cyber cell)," posted twitter user Sorabh Pant.

Indian authorities were taken aback in the summer by an anti-corruption campaign that multiplied on Facebook and Twitter, drawing tens of thousands of people to street protests and forcing the government to agree to new anti-graft laws.

Last year, as part of a broader electronic security crackdown, Indian security agencies demanded access to communications sent through highly secure BlackBerry devices of Canadian smartphone maker Research In Motion.

RIM gave India access to its consumer services, including its Messenger services, but said it could not allow monitoring of its enterprise email.

Facebook said it recognized the government's wish to minimize the amount of offensive content on the web. The California-based company said it removes content that violates company rules on nudity and inciting violence and hatred.

"(We) will continue to engage the Indian authorities as they debate this important issue," Facebook said in a statement.

Yahoo India declined to comment and Google said it would comment later in the day.

India now has 100 million Internet users, less than a tenth of the country's population of 1.2 billion. It is the third-largest user base behind China and the United States. It is seen swelling to 300 million users in the next three years.

During last year's clampdown, officials also said Google and Skype would be sent notices to set up local servers to allow full monitoring of email and messenger communications.

Britain also faced criticism last month for considering curbs on social media after recent riots even as Foreign Secretary William Hague castigated countries that block the Internet to stifle protests.

(Additional reporting by Shilpa Jamkhandikar in MUMBAI and Annie Banerji in NEW DELHI; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Malini Menon and Nick Macfie)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111206/wr_nm/us_india_internet

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