R.M.Parikh, Venkataraman have nothing to do with Indian School Board

The Board of Directors of Indian Schools in Oman made a public statement saying that R.M.Parakh of Saudi Bahwan Group, Toyota Division and Venktaraman of Oman Arab Bank are no longer associated with the Board of Directors of Indian Schools. "Any individual or organization dealing with them in the earlier capacities would do so on their own risk," said a public notice issued by Ramesh Mathur, Secretary for the Board of Indian Schools in Oman.

Iraqis To Become “Guinea Pigs” For The “Finest Military In The World”

SYDNEY, January 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – An Australian newspaper reported Saturday that should the war start in Iraq, the Iraqi people will be ‘instant guinea pigs’ for a new generation of U.S. weapons, used for the first time as Bush brags about the U.S.’s “finest military”. Despite the fact that most of these weapons will be remote operated, there will still be a risk facing the “tens of thousand of U.S. and allied troops who will be on the ground,” reported the Sydney Morning Herald.

The paper added that the U.S. did infact use the “robo-assassin” hardware in Yemen, early November, when six allegedly Al Qaeda members were killed in their vehicle traveling on the road.

However, ever since the Gulf War, said the Herald, the U.S.’s “smart bombs were not as precise or as plenty as the world had been led to believe.” This poses a responsibility on the U.S.’s weapons to be smarter. “If Washington wants world acceptance of its role in Iraq during and after a war, it cannot afford to trash the country and its civilian infrastructure as it did last time,” reported the Herald.

Because of that, the U.S. is planning to use “high-powered microwave devices, "directed energy" weapons that the U.S. hopes can be used to render a fleet of army vehicles useless by destroying their ignition or fuel systems.” They will also cause disorientating pain - but apparently no lasting damage - by playing with nerve-ends in the enemy's skin, reported the paper.

The paper reported that in the 1991 war “only 7 per cent of the munitions used were "smart". That proportion jumped to 30 per cent in Kosovo in 1999 and to 60 per cent in Afghanistan. The Pentagon is punting on 100 per cent smartness in the coming conflict.” In addition, to improve it’s accuracy, the U.S. is planning to use a new device, which costs $27,000, called a Joint Direct Munition (JDAM), which is an additional part to be fitted to “dumb bombs so that they always know where they are and where they are going - either by data relayed from the aircraft that will drop them or being sent by satellite once they have been launched.”

“The JDAM engineers promised the Pentagon that 50 per cent of the weapons fired would hit within 13 meters of their targets,” said the Herald. “Such are the precision and flexibility of US firepower that there are confident predictions from within the Pentagon that less than half of the 500,000 troops who were deployed to the Gulf in 1991 will be needed in 2003 - but that still leaves up to 250,000 allied troops on the ground in what could be a bloody and brutal war zone,” reported the paper. Meanwhile on Friday, U.S. President George Bush declared that the U.S. military was the “finest in the world” and warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that "America will act deliberately ... decisively and ... will prevail" if Iraq fails to disarm.

As the United States pressed its military buildup in the Gulf, Bush also cautioned soldiers that troops headed for the Gulf faced "crucial hours" and "dangers" ahead. "If force becomes necessary to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and enforce the will of the United Nations ... America will act ..We are ready. We're prepared," he said, as he spoke to soldiers at the Fort Hood base in Texas. Some troops from base here are already in Kuwait on the border with Iraq, and Bush said another 1,600 were preparing to deploy abroad adding that "in the months ahead, more soldiers from Fort Hood may be given other essential missions.”

But Bush left the door ajar to a peaceful resolution to the quandary of Iraqi disarmament, saying, "military force is this nation's last option. "I know that every order I give can bring a cost. I also know, without a doubt, that every order I give will be carried out with skill and unselfish courage ... Some crucial hours may lie ahead. We know the challenges and the dangers we face." "Should Saddam Hussein seal his fate by refusing to disarm, by ignoring the opinion of the world, you'll be fighting not to conquer anybody, but to liberate people," he told the troops. "No matter what their oppressors may say, the people of Iraq have no love for tyranny." -Islam Online

Emirates Bank International adopts BEA's WebLogic Platform to integrate its multiple IT systems

New system to provide robust platform to enhance the bank's web services

January 5 2003

Dubai --Emirates Bank International, one of the leading financial institutions in the region, and the flagship organization of the Emirates Bank Group, recently adopted BEA's WebLogic Platform 7.0 in order to ensure the seamless integration of the multiple IT systems currently operational at the bank.

BEA's WebLogic Platform 7.0 comprising of BEA's WebLogic Server 7.0 and Weblogic Integration 7.0 has enabled EBI to upgrade its banking system to provide a common platform for multiple applications.

"At EBI, we strive to provide our customers with the most reliable and advanced banking services. After an extensive study of various systems, we found that BEA's WebLogic Platform was best suited for our numerous requirements," said Naushad Kermalli, Group Systems Development Manager, Emirates Bank International. "The banking industry in the UAE is extremely competitive and it is necessary to keep up to the industry's technological standards. This system, which makes adequate use of the technology gives us a strategic advantage over our competitors. The platform provides us with higher availability, and is a state of the art system which is Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) compliant," he added.

Designed to provide customers with a single architecture for the development, integration and customization of enterprise software, BEA WebLogic Platform 7.0 is the industry's first software infrastructure product to unify, simplify and extend all aspects of enterprise application development and integration, and to provide a common platform to easily build and deploy Web services.

Unlike other platforms, the WebLogic Platform 7.0 is an application developer that does not need to have expertise in J2EE. This application allows for smooth integration as it provides portability across various platforms and interoperability between J2EE compliant applications. BEA WebLogic Server 7.0 supports J2EE 1.3, the latest specification from JavaSoft that provides BEA customers with the services necessary to build scalable and dependable J2EE applications and Web services.

BEA WebLogic Server 7.0 offers enhanced web services utilities for integrating applications. It supports conversational Web services, which is the vital aspect of application-to-application communication. The server provides full interoperability with other key Web services vendors ensuring that the applications can fully integrate in a Web services based environment.

"BEA's WebLogic Platform 7.0 provides a unified, simplified, and extensible application infrastructure for business transformation while also answering the call for mission-critical reliability and scalability in financial services," said Diyaa Zebian, Business Development Manager, eSolutions BEA. "EBI will be able to integrate both their services and data in addition to leveraging their existing investments by integrating their systems. Having proven itself in demanding environments, BEA's WebLogic server provides new revamped core integration services extended by BEA's WebLogic Integration 7.0. This will provide EBI with full application integration capabilities" he added.

"We have seen a major leap with Internet banking, which has caught on rapidly and become an ongoing trend since we launched the me-bank," said Nadeem Busheri, IT Operations Manager, Emirates Bank International. "We want to be able to keep up with our customer demands and be able to provide efficiency in the banking system. We are in the process of launching two products in the first quarter of 2003 based on the BEA WebLogic Platform 7.0 to enhance our web services," he said. "Our customers will be able to benefit from high availability and better response in terms of transactions."

Photo Caption: From Left to Right - Diyaa Zebian, Business Development Manager, eSolutions BEA, Farid Farouq, Project Manager-IT, Emirates Bank International and Naushad Kermalli, Group Systems Development Manager, Emirates Bank International.
--keralamonitor.com