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“With this partnership, Raytheon and Narus will provide the best possible solution to ensure our government’s sensitive networks remain protected, while also providing capabilities to identify attackers,” said Steve Hawkins, vice president of Raytheon Information Security Solutions. “This is the most comprehensive and robust dynamic defense solution available for government networks.”

Narus is the leader in real-time traffic intelligence for the protection and management of large IP networks. Raytheon selected NarusInsight after a comprehensive review of competing solutions. The company’s real-time traffic intelligence technology allows for total visibility into IP traffic, from the network layer through services. Used by the world’s service providers and governments, Narus has developed and patented state-of-the-art algorithms to detect network anomalies and zero-day attacks, and manage unwanted IP traffic. Additionally, Narus has the unique ability to precision target and fully reconstruct all types of IP traffic, including VoIP, e-mail, Web mail and instant messages.

“We are proud to be selected by Raytheon as part of Narus’ broader strategy to work with the best companies to meet government requirements around the world,” said Greg Oslan, Narus president and CEO. “As the foundation for the industry’s most advanced real-time cyber protection, intercept and traffic management solutions, NarusInsight is critical to help meet today’s national security challenges.”

The agricultural state of Chattisgarh was hit by falling water levels.

“The water level has gone down below 250 feet here. It used to be at 40 feet a few years ago,” Shatrughan Sahu, a villager in one of the districts, told Down To Earth magazine

“Most of the farmers here are indebted and only God can save the ones who do not have a bore well.”

Mr Sahu lives in a district that recorded 206 farmer suicides last year. Police records for the district add that many deaths occur due to debt and economic distress.

In another village nearby, Beturam Sahu, who owned two acres of land was among those who committed suicide. His crop is yet to be harvested, but his son Lakhnu left to take up a job as a manual labourer.

His family must repay a debt of £400 and the crop this year is poor.

“The crop is so bad this year that we will not even be able to save any seeds,” said Lakhnu’s friend Santosh. “There were no rains at all.”

“That’s why Lakhnu left even before harvesting the crop. There is nothing left to harvest in his land this time. He is worried how he will repay these loans.”

Bharatendu Prakash, from the Organic Farming Association of India, told the Press Association: “Farmers’ suicides are increasing due to a vicious circle created by money lenders. They lure farmers to take money but when the crops fail, they are left with no option other than death.”

Mr Prakash added that the government ought to take up the cause of the poor farmers just as they fight for a strong economy.

“Development should be for all. The government blames us for being against development. Forest area is depleting and dams are constructed without proper planning.

Mr Obama banned the use of methods such as sleep deprivation and simulated drowning in his first week in office.

He has now released four memos detailing techniques the CIA was able to use under the Bush administration.

Rights groups have criticised his decision to protect CIA agents involved in the interrogation procedures.

Amnesty International said the Department of Justice appeared to be offering a “get-out-of-jail-free card” to individuals who were involved in acts of torture.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights, which has championed the legal rights of the “war on terror” detainees, also expressed its disappointment.

“It is one of the deepest disappointments of this administration that it appears unwilling to uphold the law where crimes have been committed by former officials,” it said in a statement.

Harsh techniques

On Thursday, the Obama administration published four secret memos detailing legal justification for the Bush-era CIA interrogation programme, whose methods critics say amounted to torture.

Announcing the publication of the memos, Mr Obama gave an assurance that “those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice… will not be subject to prosecution”.

One of the documents contained legal authorisation for a list of specific harsh interrogation techniques, including pushing detainees against a wall, facial slaps, cramped confinement, stress positions and sleep deprivation.

The memo also authorises the use of “waterboarding”, or simulated drowning, and the placing of a detainee into a confined space with an insect.

Critics of the Bush administration’s interrogation programme say the memos provide evidence that many of the methods amount to torture under US and international law.

During his first week in office, President Obama issued an executive order officially outlawing the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA, and forcing the agency to adhere to standards laid out in the US Army Field Manual.

The White House asked Georgetown to cover a monogram symbolizing Jesus’ name in Gaston Hall, which Obama used for his speech, according to CNSNews.com.

Sea gangs from lawless Somalia have been increasingly striking the Indian Ocean shipping lanes and strategic Gulf of Aden, capturing dozens of vessels and hundreds of hostages in attacks that have driven up insurance rates.

Patrols by Western navies have done little to deter the attacks.

Kenyan Information and Communications Minister Samuel Poghisio said the 5,000 km (3,107 miles) fibre optic cable was on course for completion in June.

Last month, a government official said the route for the East African Marine Cable (TEAMS) had been shifted an extra 200 km from the coastline for fear of pirates.

“These are concerns we have but they are being addressed. We know it will be secure and will land in Mombasa on time,” Poghisio said in a statement on Thursday.

“The process (of laying the cable) has begun and will probably take two months. It is likely that by the middle of June the ship should be anchoring in Mombasa, or rather delivering the cable to Mombasa,” he added.

The $130 million cable will link Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates.

Kenya has been putting down a terrestrial cable connecting different parts of the country to prepare for the arrival of the marine cable, which could be east Africa’s first speedy but cheap telecoms link with the rest of the world.

Another undersea project known as SEACOM is also expected to be operational in the second half of 2009 and two others are due to land in 2010 — the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the France Telecom/Orange Sat3-wasc-Safe cable.

According to a newspaper report the laptops contained U.S. military secrets linked to plans for a sophisticated airborne radar system to be used by the Turkish air force.

Four Boeing employees were among the nine people who died when the plane crashed near Schiphol airport near Amsterdam on Feb. 25 after a problem with its altimeter.

The prosecutor’s office in Haarlem, west of Amsterdam, “gave instructions that four Boeing laptops should be removed from the plane,” a spokeswoman for the office told AFP.

“We then handed them over to the U.S. embassy in The Hague and 48 hours after the accident they were returned to Boeing.”

The four Boeing employees were returning from Turkey after a mission for the U.S. Department of Defense.

“According to Boeing they had with them four laptops containing confidential and sensitive information,” the spokeswoman said.

“The United States asked us to hand them over.”

“We’re going to need cash-flow borrowing the likes of which California has never seen, at a time when market and economic forces are stacked against us,” said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for state Treasurer Bill Lockyer. “That’s a recipe for calamity.”

While the state routinely borrows money at the start of fiscal years on July 1 by issuing interest-bearing Revenue Anticipation Notes, or RANs, a combination of factors have conspired to form a mountainous hurdle this time around.