theSun | MONDAY MARCH 30 2009
news without borders
Snow storms fuel North Dakota flood fears
FARGO (North Dakota): Snow storms clos-
ing in on North Dakota yesterday threatened
more misery for residents sheltered behind
miles of dikes, as teams shored up strained
levees holding back record flood waters.
One floodwall protecting a Fargo school
cracked early yesterday, flooding the cam-
pus, and sending teams of police and fire-
fighters to the scene to repair the breach.
But officials warned blizzards and strong
winds forecast for later yesterday could whip
up waves as high as two feet which may
wash over the city’s defences, holding back
walls of water from the swollen Red River.
Authorities fear as many as 30,000 people
could be left homeless in the northern plains
if the river breaks through levees protecting
North Dakota’s largest city, Fargo, as well
as Moorhead lying on the opposite bank in
Minnesota.
The weary region had been granted a
few hours relief on Saturday as the water
levels sank due to the extreme cold halting
the snow melt, and the level was holding
steady yesterday at 12.21m. But city officials
Canadians find vast computer spy network
WASHINGTON: Canadian researchers have
uncovered a vast electronic spying operation
that infiltrated computers and stole documents
from government and private offices around
the world, including those of the Dalai Lama,
The New York Times reported on Saturday.
In a report provided to the newspaper, a
team from the Munk Centre for International
Studies in Toronto said at least 1,295 comput-
ers in 103 countries had been breached in less
than two years by the spy system, which it
dubbed GhostNet.
Embassies, foreign ministries, government
warned the raging river was not done with
them yet.
“With water this high we absolutely are
in the watch and respond and plug mode,”
Fargo mayor Dennis Walaker said.
The Red River is putting enormous
amounts of pressure on the city’s 77km
of protective dikes and levees and crews
are struggling to reinforce weak spots and
contain minor leaks, he told reporters.
Warnings posted on the state’s emer-
gency website said a blizzard watch had
been issued until tonight for southwest and
central Dakota, bringing strong winds of
40kph to 72kph.
“Easterly winds associated with this
storm may cause waves of up to two feet
on top of the crest which will impact the
western dikes along the Red River. There is
still a possibility the river could rise again,”
the website said.
That pressure is likely to continue for
days, if not weeks, as the floods make their
way slowly northward to Canada and are
replenished with inflows from tributaries
offices and the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile
centres in India, Brussels, London and New
York were among those infiltrated, said the
researchers, who have detected computer
espionage in the past.
They found no evidence US government
offices were breached. The researchers
concluded that computers based almost
exclusively in China were responsible for the
intrusions, although they stopped short of
saying the Chinese government was involved
in the system, which they described as still
active.
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and overland flooding.
Teams of volunteers were patrolling the Houses
levees and the temporary sandbag dikes surrounded by
overnight. flood water along
“We simply need to have people patrolling the Red River
the streets, watching the dikes and calling us south of Fargo,
when they see something,” Walaker said. North Dakota
Thousands of people have already fled yesterday.
their homes as this flat prairie state re-
mained blanketed with snow and flooded
waterways which were closing in on iso-
lated farms and smaller towns.
Water levels in some homes had reached
the second floor while small dikes kept
others dry in the middle of a deep, muddy
lake.
Bitterly cold temperatures may have
saved the city from a deluge by freezing
some of the floodwater and preventing
further melting, officials said.
Downtown Fargo was largely empty
after the mayor asked non-essential busi-
nesses to close their doors and residents to
stay off the roads to make room for rapid
response teams. – AFP
“We’re a bit more careful about it, knowing
the nuance of what happens in the subterra-
nean realms,” said Ronald Deibert, a member
of the Munk research group, based at the
University of Toronto.
“This could well be the CIA or the Russians.
It’s a murky realm that we’re lifting the lid
on.”
A spokesman for the Chinese Consulate
in New York dismissed the idea China was
involved. “These are old stories and they are
REUTERSPIX
nonsense,” the spokesman, Wenqi Gao, told
the Times. – Reuters