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BOSTON - Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren took the offensive against Republican Senator Scott Brown on Saturday, attempting to put questions about her ethnic heritage in the rear-view mirror with a fiery speech at a state convention.

 Warren's attack came as two opinion polls showed the rivals locked in a tight race for Brown's Senate seat for Massachusetts, one of the most closely watched Congressional contests in the November election, in which the Democrats are seeking to protect a slim Senate majority.

 "Scott Brown is a Wall Street Republican. A big oil Republican. A Mitt Romney Republican," Warren said at the Democrat's state convention in Springfield, Massachusetts.

 "We have seen where the Republicans want to drive this country, and it is ugly."

 As expected Warren -- who has a high national profile and has raised millions of dollars for her bid, much of it from out of state -- on Saturday officially became her party's nominee to face Brown. She won 96 percent of the vote in the nominating contest, avoiding a primary run-off.

 The former official in President Barack Obama's administration, who is a professor at Harvard Law School, has faced weeks of controversy over suggestions she used distant Native American ancestry to help gain employment at top universities.

 Brown's campaign has taken up the issue to question Warren's truthfulness and integrity.

 "His answer is to talk about my family and to tell me how I grew up," Warren said. "Well, I say this, if that's all you've got, Scott Brown, I'm ready. And let me be clear: I am not backing down. I didn't get in this race to fold up the first time I got punched."

 A poll published by the Boston Globe newspaper on Saturday showed Brown leading Warren 39 percent to 37 percent in a survey of 651 likely voters, within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

 The survey was taken in late May, when the issue of Warren's Native American heritage was highlighted in local media.

 In another poll released on Saturday, Western New England University, in a survey of 504 likely voters taken for the Springfield Republican newspaper, showed Warren with 45 percent to Brown's 43 percent.

 An earlier poll by the university done in late February put Brown ahead by 8 percentage points. The margin of error for the new survey was plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

 The Globe poll showed that Brown, an affable politician whose voting record puts him among the most centrist Republican Senators, remains popular more than two years after his January 2010 upset win in a special election after the death of liberal icon Edward Kennedy. Brown's favorability rating was 55 percent. Warren's was 48 percent.

 Speaking to the Democratic Party faithful, Warren invoked the memory of Kennedy, who held the Senate seat for more than four decades.

 "It's a long way from Ted Kennedy to Scott Brown," she said, before cataloging a number of Brown's votes likely to enrage convention-goers. "We know where Scott Brown stands - and it is not with the people of Massachusetts."

 Democrats see the Massachusetts seat as a prime target to pick up in the November 6 polls.

 Democrats have a 51-47 advantage over Republicans in the 100-seat Senate, with two independents, but are defending more than 20 seats against Republican challengers in November, while Republicans are defending only about half that many.

The United States and Iran are locked in a long-running cyber war that appears to be escalating amid a stalemate over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.

The Flame virus that surfaced recently may be part of the face-off, but Washington probably has more sophisticated tools at its disposal, security specialists say.

"Large nations with large spy agencies have been using these kinds of techniques for more than a decade," said James Lewis, a senior fellow who monitors technology at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Lewis said cyber espionage is "not a weapon" but can be "very effective" as an intelligence tool and can avoid some of the problems with traditional surveillance such as spy planes.

"If you have to choose between this and a pilot being paraded through the streets of Tehran, this is much preferable," he said.

But Lewis noted that the Flame virus is more primitive than one would expect from US intelligence services.

"I hope it wasn't the US that developed it because it isn't very sophisticated," he told AFP.

He said Israel has quite advanced capabilities as well, and that this probably means Flame was developed in a "second-tier country."

Some analysts, however, consider Flame to be highly sophisticated. The International Telecommunications Union said the virus is "a lot more complex than any other cyber-threat ever seen before."

Johannes Ullrich, a computer security specialist with the SANS Technology Institute, said Flame is a rather "clumsy" tool compared to other types of malware, but that it may be a rough version or prototype which can be wrapped into a "more polished" version.

"The technical part isn't that great, and I think it has been a bit hyped in some of the reports," Ullrich said.

Exactly where the malware came from is impossible to know from the code, Ullrich said.

"It doesn't look like one single individual," he said. "Whether it is a government or some criminal group, it's hard to tell."

Marcus Sachs, former director of the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center, said Flame "could be written by virtually anybody but it looks similar to targeted espionage from a country."

Sachs said Flame is not a sabotage tool like the Stuxnet virus that targeted control systems in Iran, but instead resembles spyware seeking "to gain intellectual property, but it could be surveillance by a foreign government."

Neither the US nor the Israeli government has openly acknowledged authoring Flame, though a top Israeli minister said use of the software to counter Iran's nuclear plans would be "reasonable."

The US military has acknowledged working on both defensive and offensive cyber war systems.

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has revealed few details about its "Plan X," which it calls a "foundational cyber warfare program" that draws on expertise in academia, industry and the gaming community.

But a DARPA statement said the program is "about building the platform needed for an effective cyber offensive capability. It is not developing cyber offensive effects."

Sachs said the US has been open about developing its cyber capabilities and that DARPA, which created the Internet, is looking at longer-term projects that may involve technologies not yet deployed.

On the surface, it might be harder for the US to maintain superiority in cyberspace as it does in the skies, for example, because the costs for computer programming is far less than for fighter planes.

But experts say the US is investing in cyberspace through DARPA and other projects.

Still, Sachs said measuring the capabilities of another country are not as easy as counting missile silos. "There's no way to measure what a country has," he said.

The New York Times reported that President Barack Obama secretly ordered cyber warfare against Iran to be ramped up in 2010 after details leaked out about Stuxnet, which some say came from the US, Israel or both.

Ilan Berman, an analyst at of the American Foreign Policy Council who follows Iran, said that with cyber war simmering, Tehran is boosting its defensive and offensive capabilities.

"They feel like there is a campaign against them and they are mobilizing in response," he said.

And the US should therefore be prepared for cyber retaliation from Iran.

"I think a cyber attack by Iran may not be as robust (as one from China or Russia) but politically it's more likely," he said.

Lewis said the US and Iran have been engaged in struggles for the past decade, due to the nuclear issue and suspected Iran involvement with certain forces in Iraq while US forces were deployed there.

But he said Flame and other cyber weapons are "not really warfare, it's primarily intelligence collection."

Lewis said he was not surprised that the discovery of the virus came from a Russian security firm, Kaspersky, which worked with the ITU.

"Flame is a way to drive Russia's diplomatic agenda," which includes bringing the Internet under UN control, Lewis said.

In a run-down maze of slums with electrical wires and laundry tangled across Cairo's mustard sky, Umm Mohammed, 55, put her hands to her face and fell silently to her knees when she heard the news. An Egyptian court sentenced ex-President Hosni Mubarak to life in prison for his complicity in the killing of about 850 protesters during last year's uprising. Once the equivalent of a modern-day pharaoh, the 84-year-old Mubarak is the first Arab ruler to be brought to court by his own people.

 "He's done! He's done!" Her neighbors applauded from a sparsely stocked fruit stand, hunched around a small television set. They watched as a visibly thinner Mubarak, donning sunglasses with his arms crossed defiantly, heard the verdict from a gurney in the defendants cage.

 But Umm Mohammed stood still, emotionless. Her son, Mohammed Fareed, 23, was one of many protestors who died from gunshots near Tahrir Square. "I feel like I lost both my son and my country. So Mubarak stays in a nice jail? Now what? My son is dead and the revolution has turned my country into a mess. I just want to move on. God protect us."

 And her sobriety spread as the cheers and exaltation in Cairo over the verdict were quickly dampened. Mubarak and his two sons, Gamal and Alaa, who had tears in their eyes, were acquitted on charges of corruption. Mubarak's former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly also received a life sentence for the deaths of demonstrators but the charges against other Interior Ministry officials were dismissed. (The Mubarak sons were not freed: they were kept in custody to face trial on other charges of corruption.) Judge Ahmed Refaat insisted the 10-month trial had been a fair one, and before issuing the verdict, rhapsodized about the brave uprising that ousted Mubarak. He called Mubarak's rule "30 years of intense darkness...the blackness of a chilly winter night."

 But critics have argued that the investigation had been flawed and highly politicized. It occurred under the military rule of a council of generals who took power at Mubarak's ouster. What's more, instead of a sweeping examination of the systemic abuses under his rule, the prosecutors rushed the case to trial last April in an apparent attempt to placate street protesters. "The same people who have killed and tortured Egyptians are now free to go back to their jobs," says prominent activist Dalia Ziada, who is incensed over the verdicts and let it be known over Twitter. "They're manipulating us with an illusion that we are winning, but in fact they're undermining all our efforts. Our 18-day revolution has been killed in 15 months."


Michael Hanna, an Egyptian-American analyst at the Century Foundation, says that the trial seemingly throws the Egyptian people a bone with Mubarak's conviction but it really pokes them in the eyes. Mubarak and al-Adly's convictions are based on their failure to stop the killing once it started. That leaves a logical hole in the verdict: was no one is responsible for the ordering of killing? Hanna says the trial symbolized Egypt's faltering army-led transition and was woefully compromised from the start. The verdict is almost certain to be appealed on both sides, he says, and lawyers involved have said that many questionable procedural decisions during the yearlong trial had left ample grounds to continue the legal fight. "No one is being held accountable, and so the Ministry of Interior and the whole security apparatus is left unscathed and can go back to sleep in their same beds every night," Hanna says. "It's business as usual."

 Steven Cook, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the trial was just a show -- a function of political pressure from Egyptians who wanted revenge for Hosni Mubarak's crimes. "Justice was never possible under Egypt's present circumstances. Now people need to live with the consequences," he says. "A truth and reconciliation commission would have been a better way to go."

 The verdict comes at a crucial time, smack-dab between two rounds of Egypt's first truly contested presidential elections. In the runoff vote for the presidency on June 16-17, Egyptians must choose between two of the most historically powerful and divisive forces in Egyptian society: Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister under Mubarak, and Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that struggled for decades against a state that unabashedly repressed it.

 Mubarak's protégé Shafik, who is running on a tough security platform, has found support among many who are distressed by 15 months of a security vacuum and economic turmoil, and are nostalgic for the old order and even the man who led it. If interpreted as a bold sign that justice has been served, the verdict could bolster support for Shafik, an undeniable symbol of the Mubarak era, who proudly lauds the former president as one of his role models. Or it could hurt his credibility, with Mubarak's repressive security apparatus being seen as let off the hook.

 Ahmed Riab, a worker at a café in an upscale neighborhood in Cairo, says he's refusing "silly calls" by protesters to take to the streets because of the verdict. He's voting for Shafik on the hopes that he can restore order and stability. "It's the end, Mubarak's behind bars, what more do these people want?" he huffs. "Mubarak behind bars is a warning to Shafik that he could be next if he continues the same system."

 Shadi Hamid, director of research at the Brookings Doha Center, reasons that, if anything, the verdict hurts Shafik, turning the past into a more salient campaign issue. "In the next two weeks before runoffs, all the Muslim Brotherhood needs to do is simply remind the people that this is a man whose boss and friend was just put behind bars," he says. "It'll now be harder to elect an ally of a man who is now serving a life sentence."


The Muslim Brotherhood has already called for nationwide protests in response to the verdict, with Yasser Aly, a spokesman for Morsi's campaign, calling the verdict "legally absurd" and calling for a retrial. At the same time, more than 150 trials involving policemen accused of killing protesters during the revolution have reportedly ended mostly in acquittals.

 Well-known lawyer and human rights activist Ragia Omran says today is a "devastation for the revolution." She listened to the verdict in her car, en route to what she calls another "judicial disaster" that's even more indicative of an old regime that still presides over a deeply divided country. Renowned Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah and his sister Mona Seif have been summoned for interrogation and accused of involvement in an arson attack earlier in the week that damaged presidential candidate Shafik's campaign headquarters.

 "It's extremely ironic that Mubarak's cronies and sons get off, yet on the same day, activists who spent time in corrupt military jails are now being interrogated on ridiculous claims," she says. "The regime is relying on the naiveté of the Egyptian public, who they think will be appeased by the figureheads being sentenced. But this was never a revolution against two men. It's against the system."

 Hanna says the simultaneous interrogations of activists like Abdel-Fattah is just one more black eye on the perception that Egypt's judicial system is independent and not deeply politicized. "At this point," he says, "this is all turning into an over-the-top caricature that's bordering on parody."

 Omran isn't amused as she heads into the prosecutor's office, lending her support to Abdel-Fattah. "My blood is boiling. The same system prevails. It's just one more reminder, like we needed one, that the revolution is not complete." She stays on her cell phone for the rest of the day, fielding calls about the police outside the Mubarak trial harassing and arresting Egyptians furious at the verdicts (fights broke out in and out of court soon after the verdicts were announced). "It just never stops."

 After reportedly putting up a fuss, Mubarak was put in a helicopter and flown to Tora Prison to start serving his sentence. There is only resignation back in Umm Mohammed's neighborhood. On the street, she stood feebly, holding a cracked plastic-framed portrait of her deceased son. "I wish these protests never happened. I wish we could go back to the ways things were," she cries. "What good has come of any of this?" She walked back to her one-room flat and put the portrait of her son back on her wall before arranging a sparse lunch of bread and cheese. "It's just another day," she says. "No change. Just another day."

New Delhi, June 1 Baba Ramdev Friday announced nationwide protests Sunday against black money stashed away by Indians abroad and corruption in the government.

"The protest will take place simultaneously in the capital at Jantar Mantar, in all state capitals and in 650 districts across the country," he told a news conference here.

Ramdev, who will stage a day-long hunger strike, will be joined by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare who will also fast with his colleagues Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Kiran Bedi.

The yoga guru said the protest in Delhi will start at 6 a.m.

The protest marks a year of police crackdown on Ramdev and his supporters here while they were protesting against black money. The police action led to the death of a woman and injuries to many.

Thousands are expected to join the protest, said Ramdev, who will reach Jantar Mantar in the heart of the capital after paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

He said the government should bring black money stashed in foreign banks.

"Our protest is against black money, corruption in government, and for a strong Lokpal.

"June 3 will mark the beginning of our protest which will continue in four phases. We will also decide our future course that day," Ramdev said.