Silenced in Israel, Spy Tale Unfolds in Australia

JERUSALEM — The story had all the trappings of a spy thriller: an anonymous prisoner linked to Israel’s secret service, Mossad, isolated in a top-security wing originally built for the assassin of a prime minister. A suicide — or was it a murder? — never officially reported. A gag order that barred journalists from even acknowledging the gag order. And a code name to rival 007: Prisoner X.

The first reports about the death of Prisoner X leaked out in 2010, both in Israel and the United States, where a blogger identified the mystery man as a former Iranian general. Government censors immediately forced an Israeli news site to remove two items related to Prisoner X — and journalists were interrogated about it by the police.

On Tuesday, after an extensive Australian television report identifying Prisoner X as an Australian father of two who became an Israeli spy, the prime minister’s office summoned Israeli editors to a rare meeting to remind them of the court order blocking publication of anything connected to the matter.

It remains unclear what Prisoner X might have done to warrant such extreme treatment — and such extreme secrecy, which human rights groups have denounced as violating international law. What is clear is that the modern media landscape makes the Israeli censorship system established in the 1950s hopelessly porous: the Australian report quickly made the rounds on social media, prompting outraged inquiries from opposition lawmakers on the floor of Parliament.

“The Israeli public will know sooner or later what happened,” declared Nahman Shai, a Parliament member from the Labor Party.

Aluf Benn, the editor of the Israeli daily Haaretz, said the government forced him and another news organization to delete items about the Australian reports from their Web sites on Tuesday. Later, Haaretz posted an article on the unusual editors meeting and the parliamentary discussion.

“They live in a previous century, unfortunately,” Mr. Benn said of the Israeli administration. “Today, whatever is blocked in news sites is up in the air on Facebook walls and Twitter feeds. You can’t just make a story disappear. I hope that they’re more updated in whatever they do professionally.”

The prime minister’s office and prison service declined on Tuesday to comment. “I can’t tell you anything; I’m not dealing with this,” said the prison spokeswoman, Sivan Weizman. “I can’t answer any question about it. Sorry.”

On Wednesday morning, Israel Radio reported that the government had partially lifted the gag order, allowing local media to publish articles quoting foreign reports but not ones based on original material.

The Australian report, a half-hour segment based on a 10-month investigation that was broadcast Tuesday on the ABC News magazine program “Foreign Correspondent,” identified Prisoner X as Ben Zygier and said he had used the name Ben Alon in Israel. Mr. Zygier immigrated to Israel about a decade before his death at age 34, married an Israeli woman and had two small children, according to the report.

“ABC understands he was recruited by spy agency Mossad,” read a post on the Australian network’s Web site. “His incarceration was so secret that it is claimed not even guards knew his identity.” Mr. Zygier “was found hanged in a cell with state-of-the-art surveillance systems that are installed to prevent suicide,” it said, adding that guards tried unsuccessfully to revive him and that he was buried a week later in a Jewish cemetery in a suburb of Melbourne.

A spokeswoman for the Australian government said in an e-mail that its embassy was unaware of the prisoner’s detention until his family asked for help repatriating the remains, and that she could not “comment on intelligence matters (alleged or actual).”

The Australian report builds on news items from 2010 that described the death of Prisoner X in solitary-confinement cell 15 in a part of Israel’s Ayalon Prison said to have been created especially for Yigal Amir, who killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Prisoner X was not allowed visitors or a lawyer, according to those reports.

Richard Silverstein, an American blogger, claimed in 2010 that Prisoner X was Ali-Reza Asgari, a former general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and a government minister, who had previously been reported to have defected to Israel and cooperated with Western intelligence agencies. On Tuesday, Mr. Silverstein acknowledged his error, saying his source apparently was part of “a ruse designed to throw the media off the scent of the real story.”

Bill van Esveld, a Jerusalem-based analyst with Human Rights Watch, said the reports suggested a serious violation of international law. “That’s the most basic obligation you can think of, not disappearing people,” he said. “You can’t take somebody into detention, deny any knowledge of them, and not allow their families to be in communication with them, not allow them to see a lawyer or have any due process. That’s what needs to be looked into.”

Dov Hanin, a member of Parliament from the left-wing Hadash Party, on Tuesday questioned Israel’s justice minister, Yaakov Ne’eman, about Prisoner X, asking: “Are there people whose arrest is kept a secret? What are the legal monitoring mechanisms in charge of such a situation? What are the parliamentary monitoring systems in charge of such a situation? And how can public criticism exist in cases of such a situation?”

Mr. Ne’eman replied that the matter did not fall under his jurisdiction, but said, “There is no doubt that if true, the matter must be looked into.”

Israel has long employed a military censor and refused to acknowledge certain operations, most recently its airstrike last month in Syria. Most politicians here offer only winks and nods about Israel’s well-known nuclear program, and Israeli journalists are left to quote foreign news media reports about such things. Two weeks ago, Reporters Without Borders ranked Israel 112th out of 179 countries on its annual press freedom index.

But even within that context, experts said the Prisoner X situation was extraordinary. They likened it to the case of Marcus Klingberg, a Soviet spy who was held in Israel for years under a false name.

“There are some episodes in the history of Israel that are still kept under the strongest secrecy thick veil possible,” said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli journalist and contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine who is writing a book about the Mossad. “Some of them are 40 years old, 50 years old, and are still under thick, thick secrecy, and anyone violating this secrecy would be thrown into jail himself.”

Mr. Bergman said he had information about Prisoner X but could not share it because “so far the gag order is in motion and I’m an Israeli citizen.” Three former directors of the Mossad also refused on Tuesday to comment on the case.

“This is the topic you want to talk to me about? No way,” said Danny Yatom, who headed the spy agency in the late 1990s and later served as a Labor member of Parliament. “I don’t know if it is true or not. Even if I would have known if it were true, I wouldn’t have talked about it.”

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Westminster Names Affenpinscher Banana Joe Best in Show

People Pets

By Kiran Hefa & Alison Schwartz

02/12/2013 at 11:55 PM EST

Westminster has its top dog!

After two days of meticulous primping, prizes and the less-pretty realities of any spirited championship, the 137th Annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show came to its finale Tuesday night, declaring Affenpinscher Banana Joe the best in show.

The competition proved fur-rocious as the pint-sized, black-haired furball bested six other finalists (and 2,721 entries total) for the honor, including Old English Sheepdog Swagger, who was named the reserve best in show. It’s the first time the breed has ever taken home the top prize in Westminster history.

Earning top marks at Westminster is the latest accolade in Banana Joe's storied run. The paw-dorable pooch, who is 5 years old, has been named best in show 86 times in his career, and his Westminster win will go down as his last.

"It's all so indescribable. It's just a wonderful thing as a tribute for a small breed with such a big heart," handler Ernesto Lara said post-victory. "The plans for him now is for him to retire back home where he was born, and that's in the Netherlands."

Describing his little buddy, Lara praised the breed for its commendable qualities as a canine companion.

"An Affenpinscher is a very human-like dog," he said. "It's definitely a breed you don’t want to tame or train, in the proper sense."

"You want to befriend it," Lara continued. "Once you gain the friendship, they're loyal just like a human friend."

As for Banana Joe's big victory, "Nobody told him he's small," said Lara, "and I don't think he'll believe that."

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Wildlife officials play surprise role in tracking down Dorner

While law enforcement officials scoured the hillsides above Big Bear on Tuesday for murder suspect Christopher Dorner, wardens from California's Department of Fish and Wildlife were called in to patrol the rugged terrain of Highway 38.

It was on that highway that the officers first encountered Dorner, engaging the former cop in a white-knuckle chase involving two commandeered vehicles. The pursuit culminated in what officials described as a wild shootout between Dorner and a state game warden.

The actions by alert wildlife officers may have set in motion Dorner's last stand — in a snowbound cabin, surrounded by police. The cabin burned to the ground and there were conflicting reports over whether a body had been found inside.

Details of the chase over icy rural roads emerged late Tuesday as authorities pieced together what appeared to be the fugitive's last, desperate movements.

The encounter began about 12:45 p.m. as Dorner was driving a purple Nissan on Highway 38 when he passed a Fish and Wildlife vehicle.

Dorner's car was tucked behind buses when officers saw him and swung their cars around in pursuit. The murder suspect, authorities said, attempted to evade them by turning off onto Glass Road. At some point, they said, Dorner crashed and abandoned the small car.

With officers still in pursuit, Dorner then stopped a truck driven by local resident Rick Heltebrake, ordering him out. Heltebrake, a ranger at a nearby Boy Scout camp, didn't want to leave his dog behind.

Dorner allowed Heltebrake and his Dalmatian, Suni, to get out and then took off, according to an account from a friend of Heltebrake.

Behind the wheel of the stolen truck, Dorner was once again careening down Glass Road and passed another Fish and Wildlife vehicle coming from the opposite direction, officials said. Again an officer recognized Dorner.

That officer radioed his colleagues traveling behind him that Dorner was heading their way in a silver pickup truck.

When Dorner saw a third Fish and Wildlife truck approaching, he rolled down his window and allegedly took aim. Dorner opened fire as the vehicle passed, strafing the truck with a handgun, officials said.

The badly damaged state truck skidded to a halt. A game warden exited the vehicle and fired a high-powered rifle several times as Dorner sped away, according to authorities.

Dorner subsequently crashed that truck, authorities said, and ran into the cabin.

For days, multiple law enforcement agencies from across Southern California had been searching for Dorner. But Fish and Wildlife, whose wardens are involved in about one shooting a year, encountered him first.

Tuesday's gun battle was the second incident in seven weeks involving game wardens being fired upon.

And while the five wardens were "certainly rattled," said Lt. Patrick Foy, Fish and Wildlife spokesman, they were all highly trained and had just received the rifles.

As for their part in the day's drama, given the casualties suffered by law enforcement, "nobody's really celebrating," Foy said.

julie.cart@latimes.com

matt.stevens@latimes.com

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IHT Rendezvous: In China, Shock and Acceptance Over Pope's Resignation

BEIJING — In China, where official relations with the Vatican are a “never-ending crisis,” as the Vatican Insider put it recently, the news of the resignation of Pope Benedict has been slow to spread. The Chinese state doesn’t recognize the Pope as the leader of China’s Catholics and has had its own “patriotic” church since the Communist Revolution in 1949.

But by noon Tuesday the news that rocked the world was arriving here, too. One priest’s reaction was accepting – even approving.

“I’m open-minded. You can retire as Pope,” said Father Yan, in a telephone interview from a Chinese province. (He can only be identified by his last name since speaking out about Roman Catholicism is politically sensitive in China.)

“When God makes us old, he doesn’t want us to work,” Father Yan said.

“People haven’t really talked about it here. It’s a sensitive issue because of relations, but it won’t impact on relations. The state church will accept it. You change a Pope and things go on for the state church,” he said. “But I think it’s very good to retire. It’s OK. He’s old.”

Another priest I called for reaction was stunned – he was hearing the news for the first time.

“I’m shocked. I don’t think I quite believe it,” said Father Dang in a telephone interview. (He too could only be identified by one name.)

“I think the reaction here won’t be too big,” was his immediate response. “But then again maybe it will be. I’m totally shocked.”

Many of China’s Catholics, who number about 12 million, “look two ways,” acknowledging the Pope’s spiritual leadership but the government’s de facto authority and, by extension the authority of the state church. In this slideshow, my colleague Sim Chi Yin presents beautiful images of a baptism at an official church, part of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. Many Chinese people also worship in unofficial “underground” churches.

I explored this ongoing, modern-day “schism” in a column, finding that “many ordinary Catholics dislike the strife between Beijing and Rome and seem comfortable with a pragmatic blend of the two.”

Another reason the news of the Pope’s resignation, announced by him in Latin during what was supposed to be a routine meeting in Rome on Monday, has been slow to seep into China was because of the slowing effect of the weeklong Chinese New Year holiday, which began last Saturday. For days, Chinese, including Catholics, have been paying more attention to homegrown customs and family members than to world news.

“I haven’t actually checked the news in two days,” Father Dang said.

Chinacath.org, a Chinese language Web site for Catholics that is within the Great Firewall that blocks unwanted overseas Internet content, indicating it is officially approved, carried the news of the Pope Benedict’s pending departure on its homepage, with the text of his speech announcing his resignation, in English.

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It's a Girl for John Cho

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

02/11/2013 at 06:30 PM ET

Paul Drinkwater/NBC

Surprise: Actor John Cho is a dad again!

The Go On star and his wife welcomed a daughter recently, Cho’s rep confirms to PEOPLE exclusively.

Baby girl is the second child for the couple, who are also parents to a son. No further details are available.

Cho currently stars alongside Jason Bateman in Identity Thief and will reprise his role as Hikaru Sulu in Star Trek Into Darkness in May.

He is also well known for his roles in American Pie and the Harold and Kumar films.

– Anya Leon with reporting by Julie Jordan

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Pope shows lifetime jobs aren't always for life

The world seems surprised that an 85-year-old globe-trotting pope who just started tweeting wants to resign, but should it be? Maybe what should be surprising is that more leaders his age do not, considering the toll aging takes on bodies and minds amid a culture of constant communication and change.

There may be more behind the story of why Pope Benedict XVI decided to leave a job normally held for life. But the pontiff made it about age. He said the job called for "both strength of mind and body" and said his was deteriorating. He spoke of "today's world, subject to so many rapid changes," implying a difficulty keeping up despite his recent debut on Twitter.

"This seemed to me a very brave, courageous decision," especially because older people often don't recognize their own decline, said Dr. Seth Landefeld, an expert on aging and chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Age has driven many leaders from jobs that used to be for life — Supreme Court justices, monarchs and other heads of state. As lifetimes expand, the woes of old age are catching up with more in seats of power. Some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines and disabilities as the pope's last predecessor did.

Since 1955, only one U.S. Supreme Court justice — Chief Justice William Rehnquist — has died in office. Twenty-one others chose to retire, the most recent being John Paul Stevens, who stepped down in 2010 at age 90.

When Thurgood Marshall stepped down in 1991 at the age of 82, citing health reasons, the Supreme Court justice's answer was blunt: "What's wrong with me? I'm old. I'm getting old and falling apart."

One in 5 U.S. senators is 70 or older, and some have retired rather than seek new terms, such as Hawaii's Daniel Akaka, who left office in January at age 88.

The Netherlands' Queen Beatrix, who just turned 75, recently said she will pass the crown to a son and put the country "in the hands of a new generation."

In Germany, where the pope was born, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is 58, said the pope's decision that he was no longer fit for the job "earns my very highest respect."

"In our time of ever-lengthening life, many people will be able to understand how the pope as well has to deal with the burdens of aging," she told reporters in Berlin.

Experts on aging agreed.

"People's mental capacities in their 80s and 90s aren't what they were in their 40s and 50s. Their short-term memory is often not as good, their ability to think quickly on their feet, to execute decisions is often not as good," Landefeld said. Change is tougher to handle with age, and leaders like popes and presidents face "extraordinary demands that would tax anybody's physical and mental stamina."

Dr. Barbara Messinger-Rapport, geriatrics chief at the Cleveland Clinic, noted that half of people 85 and older in developed countries have some dementia, usually Alzheimer's. Even without such a disease, "it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things," she said.

But that's far from universal, said Dr. Thomas Perls, an expert on aging at Boston University and director of the New England Centenarians Study.

"Usually a man who is entirely healthy in his early 80s has demonstrated his survival prowess" and can live much longer, he said. People of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives.

"Even in the 1500s and 1600s there were popes in their 80s. It's remarkable. That would be today's centenarians," Perls said.

Arizona Sen. John McCain turned 71 while running for president in 2007. Had he won, he would have been the oldest person elected to a first term as president. Ronald Reagan was days away from turning 70 when he started his first term as president in 1981; he won re-election in 1984. Vice President Joe Biden just turned 70.

In the U.S. Senate, where seniority is rewarded and revered, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond didn't retire until age 100 in 2002. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia was the longest-serving senator when he died in office at 92 in 2010.

Now the oldest U.S. senator is 89-year-old Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey. The oldest congressman is Ralph Hall of Texas who turns 90 in May.

The legendary Alan Greenspan was about to turn 80 when he retired as chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2006; he still works as a consultant.

Elsewhere around the world, Cuba's Fidel Castro — one of the world's longest serving heads of state — stepped down in 2006 at age 79 due to an intestinal illness that nearly killed him, handing power to his younger brother Raul. But the island is an example of aged leaders pushing on well into their dotage. Raul Castro now is 81 and his two top lieutenants are also octogenarians. Later this month, he is expected to be named to a new, five-year term as president.

Other leaders who are still working:

—England's Queen Elizabeth, 86.

—Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud, king of Saudi Arabia, 88.

—Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait, 83.

—Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court associate justice, 79.

__

Associated Press writers Paul Haven in Havana, Cuba; David Rising in Berlin; Seth Borenstein, Mark Sherman and Matt Yancey in Washington, and researcher Judy Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Dorner may have fled to Mexico, court records say

A fugitive former Los Angeles police officer wanted in connection with a deadly shooting rampage may have fled to Mexico as a massive manhunt was gearing up to capture him, according to federal court records obtained Monday by The Times.

The records state how authorities developed "probable cause" that Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, was possibly trying to escape to Mexico and provide new details on his actions since he allegedly killed three people, including a police officer, in a shooting rampage that police say began Feb. 3 in Irvine.

Dorner may have been helped by an associate identified only as "JY" in the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles late last week after the former police officer was suspected of fleeing from authorities.

As the manhunt continued Monday, the Riverside County district attorney's office filed murder and attempted murder charges against Dorner, who is accused of killing one police officer and wounding two others in that county before his burning pickup was found near Big Bear.

Dorner allegedly attempted to steal a boat in San Diego and, after subduing the captain, said he was taking the vessel to Mexico, according to an affidavit filed with the federal complaint. Dorner is accused of telling the captain that he could recover his boat in Mexico.

"The attempt failed when the bow line of the boat became caught in the boat's propeller, and the suspect fled," according to the affidavit by Inspector U.S. Marshal Craig McClusky.

After authorities interviewed the boat captain early Thursday, they found Dorner's wallet and identification cards "at the San Ysidro Point of Entry" near the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the court records. That same day, a guard at the Point Loma Naval Base told authorities he had spotted a man matching Dorner's description trying to sneak onto the base, according to the filing.

Federal authorities told The Times on Monday night that the court papers, filed late last week, reflected their thinking at the time, but they stressed that Dorner could be anywhere.

The possibility that Dorner received help from the associate was raised in McClusky's affidavit. The Marine Corps and San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department investigators were conducting a surveillance operation of an Arrowbear Lake property owned by a family member of the associate Thursday and discovered a burning vehicle nearby that matched the gray Nissan pickup used by Dorner. 

The charges filed Monday in Riverside County on Monday accuse Dorner of opening fire, unprovoked, on Riverside police Officer Michael Crain, 34, a married father of two who served two tours in Kuwait as a rifleman in the U.S. Marines.

Dorner faces three additional counts of attempted murder of a peace officer for allegedly shooting and critically injuring Crain's partner and firing upon two Los Angeles police officers stationed in Corona to protect an LAPD official named in an online manifesto authorities attribute to Dorner. One of the LAPD officers was grazed on the head by a bullet.

Riverside County Dist. Atty. Paul Zellerbach said the murder charge includes two special circumstance allegations that make Dorner eligible for the death penalty — killing a peace officer and discharging a firearm from a vehicle.

Filing criminal charges will ensure that if Dorner is caught, either out of the state or out of the country, the outstanding arrest warrant would clear the way for a rapid extradition.

"I want to cover all my bases. I want to make sure when he is located and arrested, he can be extradited back to California as soon as possible," Zellerbach said after holding a noon news briefing.

The district attorney believes that Dorner, if he is still alive, is not done with his quest for revenge and thirst for the public's attention.

"Even though he may have gone underground now, given the nature of his conduct and his words and his actions, he's going to reappear," Zellerbach said. "I don't think he's done.... He's trying to send a message, and it would be my belief that his message is not completed yet.''

Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz has called Dorner's attack on his two officers early Thursday a "cowardly ambush." Dorner allegedly opened fire as the officers sat in a patrol car, stopped at a red light.

The surviving officer, 27, who was being trained by Crain, continues to recover from surgery. He has been with the department less than a year.

"He's in a lot of pain. He's going to be facing a lot of surgeries in the coming weeks and months," Diaz said. "We don't know if he'll be able to return to active duty. We certainly hope so."

Dorner's alleged rampage began with the Feb. 3 shooting deaths of Monica Quan, a Cal State Fullerton assistant basketball coach, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, a USC public safety officer.

Quan was the daughter of a retired LAPD captain whom Dorner apparently accused online of not representing him fairly at a hearing that led to his firing. In what police said was his posting on a Facebook page, Dorner allegedly threatened the retired captain and others he blamed for his firing.

More than 50 LAPD families remained under police guard Monday.

A scaled-down search for Dorner continued Monday in woods west of Big Bear Lake, where his burning truck was found on a forest road Thursday. About 30 officers are searching vacation homes and cabins in "an even more remote area," and the search will resume Tuesday with the same number of law enforcement personnel, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

On Sunday, Los Angeles officials announced a $1-million reward for information leading to the capture and arrest of Dorner. The reward — raised from local governments, police departments, civic organizations, businesses and individuals — is thought to be the largest ever offered locally.

kate.mather@latimes.com

phil.willon@latimes.com

Times staff writer Robert J. Lopez contributed to this report.

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IHT Rendezvous: Builder of China's 'Great Firewall' Finds His Holiday Greetings Spurned

BEIJING — Fang Binxing is known here as the “Father of the Wall,” that is, the Great Firewall — the sprawling system of technological controls in China that has created a parallel online world, or “Chinternet,” where global favorites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are blocked.

In fact, it’s fair to say that Mr. Fang is unpopular among quite a few of China’s hundreds of millions of netizens, though he does have his admirers, including among those who support the government’s large-scale efforts to “weiwen,” or maintain stability.

Just how unpopular he is was demonstrated again over the weekend when his New Year’s microblog greeting was promptly bombarded with messages telling him to “go to hell,” according to netizens (it wasn’t possible to read each message, but Mr. Fang’s post had been forwarded over 23,000 times at the time of writing).

Pithily, in one word repeated again and again, the critics said: “gun,” or “滚.” (The word literally means “roll,” or, in an officially accepted slang variation, “beat it.”)

“Fang Binxing sends everyone New Year’s greetings! May all be joyful and successful in the Year of the Snake!” he posted on his Sina Weibo, or microblog, account, on Saturday, continuing with salutations to his university (he is the president of the University of Posts and Telecommunications in Beijing) and a poem.

“Yesterday, a university president wished everyone Happy New Year on his microblog account and the result was he got over 10,000 forwards saying ‘go to hell,’ ” He Bing, deputy director of the School of Law at the China University of Political Science and Law, posted to his nearly 395,000 followers on Sina Weibo.

“As long as people like this continue to be the presidents of universities there’s no hope for China,” Mr. He’s post continued. By Tuesday afternoon it had been forwarded about 3,700 times.

Mr. Fang acknowledged in an interview in 2011 that he had designed major parts of the Great Firewall. He is a lightning rod for protest among the Internet-savvy who want broader freedom of speech.

He’s had eggs and a shoe thrown at him, and in 2011 had to close his newly opened microblog after thousands of users left comments within hours — almost all of them critical, the populist newspaper Global Times noted.

“I regard the dirty abuse as a sacrifice for my country,” the newspaper quoted Mr. Fang as saying.

Attention is growing around the world on how the Chinese state uses the Internet, with The Washington Post reporting today on a new intelligence assessment in the United States. The newspaper writes that according to a National Intelligence Estimate, the United States is the target of “a massive, sustained cyber-espionage campaign” and that China is “the country most aggressively seeking to penetrate the computer systems of American businesses and institutions to gain access to data that could be used for economic gain.”

The Post is one of a number of U.S. news organizations, including The New York Times, that recently reported having been subjected to cyberattacks believed to have Chinese origins. (The Times has been blocked in China since running a story last year about wealth accumulated by the family of the outgoing prime minister, Wen Jiabao.)

Back in Beijing, Mr. Fang hasn’t posted anything since his New Year greeting, so it isn’t clear how he feels about the reaction to it. Meanwhile, word continues to circulate that more “upgrades,” or tightening, of the Great Firewall lie ahead.

In December, several overseas-based companies that provide VPNs to both non-Chinese and Chinese users in the country (a VPN, or virtual private network, enables users to get around the Chinternet, or “cross the Wall” as it’s known here, by logging on via overseas servers) said their services had been interrupted.

In what some read as a warning, Mr. Fang appeared to tell Global Times that overseas-based companies offering VPNs to people in China must register with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

“I haven’t heard that any foreign companies have registered,” he said. Unregistered VPN service providers are not protected by Chinese law and any company running a VPN business should realize it has a responsibility to register, he said, according to Global Times.

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How'd They Make Carrie Underwood's Glowing Gown?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

02/11/2013 at 12:25 AM ET

Kevork Djansezian/Getty; John Shearer/Invision/AP (2)

We can’t say we were surprised to see that Carrie Underwood had ditched her form-fitting Roberto Cavalli number for a princess-y silver gown to perform her song “Blown Away” at the Grammys Sunday night. When glowing paisley details began to unscroll across her full skirt, however? We definitely didn’t see that coming.

“We wanted it to be artful and dramatic,” Underwood told reporters backstage. “I just like to stand still and sing sometimes, so this seemed like the best way I could do that and still create something visually attention-capturing.” On the technology behind it, she was a little more tight-lipped, saying “I guess I probably shouldn’t tell my secret, should I?” — but luckily, we’ve already got the inside info.

To perform the song that won her best solo country performance, the superstar donned a custom Theia gown designed specifically for the vivid light show. The line’s creative director Don O’Neill sourced fabric for the 4 feet 5 inches-wide skirt that had to be approved by both Underwood’s stylist, Trish Townsend, as well as the video team creating the special effects.

With only three days to create the gown, O’Neill’s team worked around the clock, stitching together 10 yards of Duchesse satin, 100 yards of tulle and crinoline and thousands of Swarovski crystals onto the bodice. Meanwhile, the production team created the effects that were projected onto her gown, including sparkling stars, rose petals and butterflies.

And was all that work worth it? Judging by your overwhelmingly positive reactions on Twitter, absolutely. And O’Neill was thrilled with the result too, especially because he took the line’s name from the Greek goddess of light. “There couldn’t be a more perfect opportunity to fuse light in a literal sense with one of my gowns,” he says in a statement, “and have it showcased on a national stage by Carrie Underwood, the first celebrity to wear a Theia dress four years ago when we launched.”

Tell us: What did you think of Underwood’s high-tech couture?

–Alex Apatoff

PHOTOS: SEE MORE GRAMMY RISK-TAKERS!

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What heals traumatized kids? Answers are lacking

CHICAGO (AP) — Shootings and other traumatic events involving children are not rare events, but there's a startling lack of scientific evidence on the best ways to help young survivors and witnesses heal, a government-funded analysis found.

School-based counseling treatments showed the most promise, but there's no hard proof that anxiety drugs or other medication work and far more research is needed to provide solid answers, say the authors who reviewed 25 studies. Their report was sponsored by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

According to research cited in the report, about two-thirds of U.S. children and teens younger than 18 will experience at least one traumatic event, including shootings and other violence, car crashes and weather disasters. That includes survivors and witnesses of trauma. Most will not suffer any long-term psychological problems, but about 13 percent will develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress, including anxiety, behavior difficulties and other problems related to the event.

The report's conclusions don't mean that no treatment works. It's just that no one knows which treatments are best, or if certain ones work better for some children but not others.

"Our findings serve as a call to action," the researchers wrote in their analysis, published online Monday by the journal Pediatrics.

"This is a very important topic, just in light of recent events," said lead author Valerie Forman-Hoffman, a researcher at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

She has two young children and said the results suggest that it's likely one of them will experience some kind of trauma before reaching adulthood. "As a parent I want to know what works best," the researcher said.

Besides the December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, other recent tragedies involving young survivors or witnesses include the fatal shooting last month of a 15-year-old Chicago girl gunned down in front of a group of friends; Superstorm Sandy in October; and the 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado, whose survivors include students whose high school was destroyed.

Some may do fine with no treatment; others will need some sort of counseling to help them cope.

Studying which treatments are most effective is difficult because so many things affect how a child or teen will fare emotionally after a traumatic event, said Dr. Denise Dowd, an emergency physician and research director at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, Mo., who wrote a Pediatrics editorial.

One of the most important factors is how the child's parents handle the aftermath, Dowd said.

"If the parent is freaking out" and has difficulty controlling emotions, kids will have a tougher time dealing with trauma. Traumatized kids need to feel like they're in a safe and stable environment, and if their parents have trouble coping, "it's going to be very difficult for the kid," she said.

The researchers analyzed 25 studies of treatments that included anti-anxiety and depression drugs, school-based counseling, and various types of psychotherapy. The strongest evidence favored school-based treatments involving cognitive behavior therapy, which helps patients find ways to cope with disturbing thoughts and emotions, sometimes including talking repeatedly about their trauma.

This treatment worked better than nothing, but more research is needed comparing it with alternatives, the report says.

"We really don't have a gold standard treatment right now," said William Copeland, a psychologist and researcher at Duke University Medical Center who was not involved in the report. A lot of doctors and therapists may be "patching together a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and that might not add up to the most effective treatment for any given child," he said.

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