Russia’s FSB mulls ban on ‘Tor’ online anonymity network

Screenshot from torproject.org

The head of the Federal Security Service (FSB) has personally ordered preparations for laws that would block the Tor anonymity network from the entire Russian sector of the Internet, a Russian newspaper reported.

FSB director Aleksandr Bortnikov announced the initiative at a recent session of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, saying that his agency would develop the legislative drafts together with other Russian law enforcement and security bodies, the widely circulated daily Izvestia reported.

The news was disclosed after the Russian civil movement ‘Head Hunters’ wrote a letter to the FSB with a request to block Tor, as it is one of the favorite software tools for distributors and users of child pornography. The FSB replied that the request was directed to the wrong body, as crimes against public health and morals fall under the Interior Ministry’s jurisdiction. The agency, however, informed the activists about possible future changes to the legal code.

The FSB official said that the agency initiated the move as internet anonymizers were used by weapon traffickers, drug dealers and credit card fraudsters, giving the FSB an obvious interest in limiting the use of such software.

At the same time, an unnamed source told the newspaper that not all Russian security specialists welcomed the idea, as various criminals often overestimated the protection provided by the Undernet, acted recklessly and allowed themselves to get caught. The blocking would require the development of some new methods of search and control in new anonymity networks that would appear soon after the Russian audience loses access to existing ones, the source noted.

The head of the Head Hunters group, Sergey Zhuk, also said that in his opinion, total blocking was not a very good idea and that he personally would prefer the networks’ owners be compelled to cooperate. At the same time, the activist said that the fact that Tor contains the largest child porn archives on the planet was a sufficient condition for demanding it be blocked. He added that if Tor is eventually outlawed in Russia this would not be the fault of the country’s legislators, politicians or activists, but solely the fault of stubborn owners of Tor.

The director of the Safe Internet League – a voluntary censorship group that unites several Russian ISPs – told reporters that his organization supported the idea to outlaw Tor, but added that this should be done after all pedophiles, perverts, drug dealers “and other creeps” are disclosed, caught and jailed.

Lower House MP Ilya Kostunov noted that the problem was important but doubted that it was technically executable. “As far as I know, it is impossible to block Tor,” Kostunov said. “The network re-tunes quickly, switches to different hubs and starts working again.” 

The Tor Project administration also said that the blocking of the system was extremely difficult, adding that even Tor’s own specialists could not control the information flowing through their servers or identify users.

Russian law enforcers are not the only specialists concerned by Tor’s popularity and the seedy segment of its users. 

Earlier this month security experts worldwide accused the FBI and NSA of exploiting a flaw in the Firefox browser to identify and potentially monitor Tor subscribers. The move led to the arrest of the alleged founder of the company Freedom Hosting, Eric Eoin Marques, over charges of facilitating child porn. The arrest apparently led to the shutdown of thousands of Undernet sites that comprised a large part of Tor’s total content.

Russia’s ‘Black August’: 15 years on, ruble risks much reduced

Fifteen years ago, the ruble suffered its worst-ever devaluation in what became known as “Black Monday.” But now, while ordinary Russians still fear devaluation, experts say the country’s finances are much better able to weather global economic shocks.

On August 17, 1998, the ruble plummeted against the dollar in the blink of an eye, after Russia’s government said it couldn’t meet its key debt obligations and would end massive currency interventions. In about six months, the Russian currency nosedived from six to 21 to the dollar. In the aftermath inflation skyrocketed and many enterprises and banks across the country collapsed, leaving Russians without their livelihood.

Some warn that today, the alarm bells are ringing in a similar way. Russia’s currency has recently been losing steam, as economic growth is disappointing and the government still needs to eradicate a budget deficit. The euro is close to 44 rubles, while the dollar is fluctuating around the 33-ruble mark. Russia’s Central Bank is again steadily announcing record high currency interventions to keep the ruble stable. In the meantime, the results of social research show that a majority of Russians fear that a new currency default could be on the cards sometime soon.

However, Moscow financial experts who experienced the 1998 crash are sure that this year the ruble won’t repeat the “Black Monday” crash it suffered then.

Natalya Orlova, Alfa Bank’s chief economist since 2001, joined the bank as a financial analyst six months before the August 1998 devaluation.

“The domestic state of Russia’s economy is incomparable with 1998,” Orlova told RT Business. “The level of state and private debts is much lower, and economic growth, though recently slowing, remains in place.”

Another seasoned Russian analyst, Irishman Chris Weafer (currently senior partner at consultancy Macro Advisory) came to Moscow to work as Troika Dialog’s chief strategist in the summer of 1998, just before the crash.

Though further devaluation is possible now, Weafer told RT Business that this time around it would be much smoother and on “a controlled steady basis rather than a sharp fall.”

“Currently the ruble is weakening because traders expect the Central Bank to start lowering interest ratesfrom September and, in addition, they expect to see the government add more stimulus measures to try and boost flagging economic growth,” Weafer wrote in an e-mail. "Such actions always lead to a weaker currency. This is exactly what happened to the US dollar in 2009 when the US Federal Reserve Bank started to cut rates and add stimulus.”

Oil, a backbone of Russia’s economy, is much higher today that it was 15 years ago, Orlova pointed out. In 1997, the oil price stood at $25 to $28 a barrel, and on August 18, 1998 it plummeted to $7.80. Today, benchmark Brent crude is trading at above $110.

However, oil remains the “wild card,” Weafer said. “If the price of oil trades up towards $115 or $120 per barrel, then this will provide better support for the ruble and prevent much further weakness. But without high oil, we can expect the rate cuts and deteriorating economy to start pulling the ruble lower in the autumn.”

Increasing pressure on the currencies of emerging economies is a huge drag on the ruble, said Yaroslav Lissovolik, chief economist at Deutsche Bank.  “Investors seem to be shifting their bets to the developed world,” he told RT. “The recent success stories in China and the US, as well as a turnaround in the Eurozone, have inspired investors that developed economies might be back on track.”

Orlova said investors are now hastening to buy enough dollars before the US caps its monetary stimulus. “They are buying up greenbacks now, giving emerging economies their domestic currencies back,” she said.

Experts predict that the ruble could end 2013 somewhere between 32 and 35 to the dollar.

Pirate Bay decade: Fighting censorship, copyright monopolies bit by bit

Ten years on, The Pirate Bay has made it clear that no laws in the world can shut down a service wanted by hundreds of millions of people. It will keep decentralizing to protect itself from legal assaults, says Swedish Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge.

The phenomenon of sharing culture and knowledge seems to swing in cycles between centralized and decentralized. The Pirate Bay appeared with little fanfare in the fall of 2003. At the time, BitTorrent was not the preferred sharing technology at all, and a Swedish think-tank named The Pirate Bureau wanted to try out the technology, as it showed promise by being decentralized.

While we would think that sharing activity would need to be decentralized by its nature, it turns out that this is rarely the case. When we were sharing culture and knowledge in our teens and before, that happened on cassette tapes. The cassette players of the day would even come with slots for two cassettes and a "copy A to B" button, having dedicated features to make it easy to share culture and knowledge between people.

As computers arrived, they too used the cassette tape early on to store culture, knowledge, and programs, so sharing carried over into this new world very easily.

Around the 1990s, phone-line modems became popular, and a proto-Internet of proto-websites - BBSes, bulletin board systems - flared up. Instead of connecting to the net and then being online with everybody at the same time, you would connect your computer to one BBS at a time over the phone line, and these BBSes would share files between them and make them available to their users.

Still, this was more convenient than going over to a friend's and copying a cassette tape, so sharing culture and knowledge over BBSes quickly caught on. There would be centralized repositories from where you could download whatever was hot that day - mostly text files, games, and the occasional blocky, low-resolution pornography. (A BBS with half a gigabyte of hard drive space was enormous at the time.)

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, the co-founder of Pirate bay, is pictured in Stockholm.(Reuters / Scanpix Sweden)

Centralized vs. decentralized

Fast forward to the deployment of the Internet in general, and Napster in particular. Where BBSes had held the entire catalog of stuff on their hard drives, the genius of Napster was to connect users' hard drives to each other, rather than attempting to gather everything centrally.

The bet of Napster was that the record industry would see the profit opportunities, and make Napster part of the industry. The alternative would be to force sharing underground, fostering decentralization. 

As Cory Doctorow says: "copying always becomes easier - at no time in the future will it be harder to share than it is right now".

Napster was also a marvel in ease of use. Type the name of a song, listen to it almost instantly. You couldn't beat that. For all the talk of peer-to-peer and technical architecture explaining Napster's success, it was the simplicity of use that was its killer feature, not its underlying technical theory.

Now, as we know, the record industry chose madness over reason (and continues to do so), killing Napster.

In its wake, a somewhat decentralized protocol named DirectConnect appeared, one that made it possible for everybody to run their own Napster-like service. But the transfers were still quite inefficient - you had to find one specific person who had what you wanted, and then manufacture your own copy of the shared culture or knowledge from blueprints provided by that one person.

Pirate Bay era: Fighting censorship

The BitTorrent technology, largely made popular by The Pirate Bay, improved on this in two aspects.

First, everybody would transfer to everybody. If you were looking for blueprints to manufacture your own copy of Game of Thrones, and 10,000 people were sharing those blueprints, you would get them from not one person, but get different pieces from thousands at once. It was vastly more efficient.

The second improvement was notable as it was not technical but legal. Where people had been indicted in the Napster and DirectConnect era for sharing thousands of blueprints to culture and knowledge, allowing others to manufacture their own copies using their own property, it was not possible to see what other blueprints somebody was sharing just because you were receiving parts of one specific item. This added a significant protection against prosecution for breaking the copyright monopoly.

But the real breakthrough of The Pirate Bay lay not in its technology, but in its defense of civil rights. When they were bullied by the copyright industry's lawyers, the operators of The Pirate Bay actually talked back - and people loved them for it. They didn't waste time being polite, either. "Fuck off" would be a very nice reply to a legal empty threat. Once they posted all the threats and their replies online, they were instant heroes in a generation of sharing.

A supporter of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay, waves a Jolly Roger flag during a demonstration in Stockholm.(Reuters / Fredrik Persson)

What's puzzling is that these copyright industry lawyers keep insisting that the exclusive rights - the monopolies - are "property", when it's clearly not so in law. You'd think the lawyers wouldn't lie about what the law actually says. Yet, they insist on doing so, for mere PR purposes - trying to portray the monopoly as property, when in reality, it's a monopoly that limits property rights.

The copyright industry wasted no time in pushing for censorship of The Pirate Bay, using every justification from child pornography (yes, they have consistently tried to associate the free sharing of culture and knowledge with raping children...) to global-level trade embargos.

In some countries, the copyright industry succeeded on paper in introducing such censorship, but censorship circumvention tools would appear almost instantly. Thus, The Pirate Bay bills itself as the world's most resilient BitTorrent site – a hard-earned reputation it has every right to. It has fought censorship pretty much worldwide, doing the world a favor in teaching the general population how to evade governmental censorship.

It is clear and notable that The Pirate Bay does not evolve much. Technically, it pretty much remains the same site it was around 2006, which must be said to be unique among the world's top-100 sites.

That fact also says a lot about the ongoing demand for the services provided. The conviction of the first operators of The Pirate Bay in 2009 predictably didn't change a thing with regards to the site itself. While the trial as such was a mail-order US-ordered mockery of justice that the future will look down very harshly on, it didn't make a dent in sharing.

Fredrik Neij (C) and Peter Sunde (2nd L), the two co-founders of the file-sharing website, The Pirate Bay, arrive at the Swedish Appeal Court in Stockholm.(Reuters / Anders Wiklund)

No law can shut it down

As of 2013, there are maps of where people share culture and knowledge the most in violation of the copyright monopoly. The United States is consistently below average on these charts, but that's nothing to brag about at all: when you compare the sharing chart to a household-bandwidth chart, you find that they are very strongly correlated.

Thus, the fact that people in the United States share less than their peers in Europe or Asia has at all nothing to do with respect for the market-distorting copyright monopolies: the real cause of less sharing is the severely underdeveloped and lagging Internet infrastructure in the United States.

This article started with an observation of the centralized versus the decentralized. It could just as well have been an observation between the lawyer community and the technical entrepreneur community. Where the lawyers attack technology, the latter responds by decentralizing and therefore becoming resilient to legal attacks.

A decade with The Pirate Bay has made four things crystal clear when predicting the future.

One, The Pirate Bay has shown that no laws in the world can shut down a service that is wanted by hundreds of millions of people; two, governmental censorship is as universally hated as it is easily circumvented; three, services keep decentralizing to protect themselves from legal assault; and four, the sharing of culture and knowledge in violation of the copyright monopoly keeps growing by the day from an already-sky-high level.

I think there are very important lessons to learn from these four observations. If only politicians were willing to learn half of them, we'd all be much better off. 

Four killed, 46 injured in Siberia riverboats collision

Four killed, 46 injured in Siberia riverboats collision

Four people have died and 46 have been injured in a collision between a passenger ship and a barge on southwestern Siberia’s Irtysh River. Earlier reports stated that 35 passengers had suffered injuries. "According to police, four people have died as a result of the collision, 46 have been injured, and 14 of them are in critical condition, including two children,” the region’s Interior Ministry said in a statement, adding that other passengers were sent home after medical examination. The ship was carrying 52 passengers and four crewmembers.

Six missing in Siberia riverboats collision

Six missing in Siberia riverboats collision

Six people are still missing in the collision of a passenger hydrofoil and a barge on River Irtysh, Siberia, which killed at least 4 people and injured 40, the local Interior Ministry said. Authorities are investigating whether a barge captain will be charged over failing to observe right of way. A criminal case on violation of water traffic safety rules leading to the death of passengers has been opened, the ministry said. Divers are still searching the river for the missing people, the Investigative Committee said. The estimate for the number of people on board the hydrofoil at the time has been raised to 62 passengers and 4 crewmembers.

Ex-Romanian princess Irina on Oregon cockfighting charges

A former Romanian princess has appeared in court in the US accused of running a cockfighting business.

Prosecutors say Irina Walker, 60, and her husband ran 10 cockfighting events in Oregon in 2012 and 2013.

Blades were attached to the birds' legs, according to the federal indictment, and paying spectators were were sold refreshments.

Mrs Walker is the third daughter of King Michael I, Romania's last king who was forced to abdicate in 1947.

She and her husband John Wesley Walker, a former sheriff's deputy, are charged with operating an illegal gambling business and conspiracy to violate the federal Animal Welfare Act.

Irina Walker is the third daughter of Romania's last king, whose family has been living in exile
'Unfortunate event'

The couple are among 18 people charged over the alleged cockfighting business.

King Michael, now 91, was forced to abdicate by the communists in December 1947 and sent into exile.

The royal family, who are distant descendants of Queen Victoria, lived in both Switzerland and the UK, running a chicken farm and a carpentry workshop.

Irina Walker, centre left, attended the opening of an exhibition in Bucharest with her husband, left, and sister in October 2011

A statement on the family's website said the former king noted the charges against his daughter "with deep sorrow".

"His Majesty and the royal family hopes the American justice system and Oregon state courts will settle the case in the fairest and fastest way possible," it said.

"His Majesty also hopes that the presumption of innocence will function... from the beginning to the end of this unfortunate event."

Each of the charges against the couple carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 (187,000 euros, £160,000) fine.

They might also have to forfeit their ranch near the city of Irrigon in the east of Oregon state, according to local media.

Amanda Marshall, United States attorney for the District of Oregon, said: "Besides being a barbaric practice, cockfighting jeopardises public health and safety and facilitates the commission of other criminal acts."

Area 51 'declassified' in U-2 spy plane history

The CIA has officially acknowledged the secret US test site known as Area 51, in a newly unclassified internal history of the U-2 spy plane programme.

The document obtained by a US university describes the 1955 acquisition of the Nevada site for testing of the secret spy plane.

It also explains the site's lingering association with UFOs and aliens.

The remote patch of desert surrounding Groom Lake was chosen because it was adjacent to a nuclear testing facility.

"The U-2 was absolutely top secret," Chris Pocock, a British defence journalist and author of histories of the programme, told the BBC.

"They had to hide everything about it."

The U-2 plane, developed to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is still flown by the US Air Force.

Area 51, so-named for its designation on a 1950s-era map, surrounds a dry lake bed, Groom Lake
Reports of UFOs

The document, a secret 1992 internal CIA history of the U-2 programme, was originally declassified in 1998 with heavy redactions.

Many of the blacked-out details were revealed this month after a public records request by the National Security Archive at the George Washington University in Washington DC.

The site was selected for the U-2 programme in 1955 after an aerial survey by CIA and Air Force staff.

According to the history, President Dwight Eisenhower personally signed off on the acquisition.

Officials from the CIA, Air Force and Lockheed, the contractor building the U-2, began moving into the facility in July 1955.

While a lengthy account of the development of the U-2 spy plane programme, the history also attempts to shed light on the public's fascination with the Area 51 site and its lingering associations with extra-terrestrials and UFOs.

It notes that testing of the U-2 plane in the 1950s - at altitudes much higher than commercial aeroplanes then flew - provoked "a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs)".

"At this time, no one believed manned flight was possible above 60,000 feet, so no one expected to see an object so high in the sky," note authors Gregory Pedlow and Donald Welzenbach.

'Inclination towards secrecy'

The original request for the redacted portions of the history was made in 2005. It was released to the National Security Archive several weeks ago.

Jeff Richelson, a senior fellow at the National Security Archive, said the long period of secrecy was notable because of the extent people across the world were already aware of Area 51's existence.

Mr Richelson speculates the CIA must have recently made a conscious, deliberate decision to reveal Area 51's existence and origins.

"There is a general inclination towards secrecy," he said, and the many US agencies and non-US governments involved in the U-2 programme would have had a say in the declassification process.

"As far as I can tell, this is the first time something must have gone to a high-enough level to discuss whether or not to formally acknowledge Area 51's existence," he said

DR Congo unrest: Children freed from militia, says UN

The UN mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo says that 82 children - some as young as eight - have been rescued from an armed group.

Monusco says the children, including 13 girls, had been forcibly recruited in the past six months by the Mai Mai Bakata Katanga militia.

The group is active in Katanga province in the south-east of the country.

Monusco is tasked with protecting civilians in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Forty of the rescued children have been reunited with their families and the others are said to be receiving care.

Correspondents say the region remains very restive, with local militia demanding a fairer distribution of wealth between the poorer north of Katanga and the southern zone where foreign mining firms operate.

Monusco - the UN's stabilisation mission in DR Congo - said in a statement that the children had been identified and separated from the militia through the concerted efforts of child protection agencies.

"We are extremely concerned by continued reports of active recruitment by Mai Mai Bakata Katanga and other armed groups in eastern DRC," said Monusco head Martin Kobler.

"Children face unacceptable risks when they are recruited for military purposes. The recruitment of children, particularly those under 15 years of age, could constitute a war crime and those responsible must be held to account."

Monusco said that since the beginning of the year, 163 children, including 22 girls, have been removed from the militia.

Philippines ferry Thomas Aquinas sinks, many missing

The MV Thomas Aquinas was carrying more than 800, when it collided with a cargo vessel

At least 26 people have died and more than 200 are missing after a ferry collided with a cargo ship and sank off the Philippines.

The MV Thomas Aquinas was in collision with the cargo vessel on Friday evening near the central city of Cebu, officials said.

The ship was carrying 752 passengers and 118 crew, according to latest coast guard figures.

The incident took place around 2km (1.2 miles) from the shore.

The ferry was sailing into the port at Cebu - the country's second biggest city - when it collided with the cargo ship travelling the other way at about 21:00 local time (13:00 GMT).

"The impact was very strong," Rachel Capuno, a spokesperson for the owners of the ferry, told local radio.

Survivors said hundreds of passengers jumped into the ocean as the ferry began taking on water and listing. The crew distributed life jackets.

The damage to the cargo ship was clearly visible

Many of the passengers were asleep and others struggled to find their way in the dark, reports said.

One survivor, Jerwin Agudong, said he and other passengers jumped overboard in front of the cargo vessel.

"It seems some people were not able to get out," Mr Agudong told radio station DZBB. "I pity the children. We saw dead bodies on the side, and some being rescued."

The ferry sank within 30 minutes of the collision, the AFP news agency reports.

Rear Admiral Luis Tuason of the coast guard said navy divers recovered at least four more bodies from the wreck early on Saturday.

"There could be more bodies there but there were ropes inside that our divers could get entangled in," he said.

The coast guard is to send more divers with deep-water equipment to help recover bodies, he added.

Another coast guard official told reporters that the cargo ship, Sulpicio Express 7, had 36 crew members on board, but it did not sink.

Continue reading the main story

PHILIPPINE FERRY DISASTERS

• 1987: Dona Paz ferry sinks after colliding with a fuel tanker, 4,341 people die.
• 2008: The ferry MV Princess of the Stars capsizes during a typhoon, killing nearly 800.

Passengers on the ferry had embarked at Nasipit in the southern province of Agusan del Sur.

The coastguard and some commercial vessels were able to pick up more than 600 survivors.

The 11,000 tonne ferry was 40 years old, and operated by a Chinese-owned company called 2Go, reports the BBC's South East Asia Correspondent Jonathan Head.

The company became the largest ferry operator in the Philippines three years ago, following a merger of several smaller firms, our correspondent adds.

Joy Villages, an official at the coastguard's public affairs office headquarters in Manila, told AFP it was too early to determine the cause of Friday's collision.

She said the Thomas Aquinas was a "roll-on, roll-off" ferry that allows vehicles to be driven aboard and is commonly used in the Philippines.

Maritime accidents are common in the Philippine archipelago because of tropical weather, badly maintained passenger boats and weak enforcement of safety regulations.

The world's worst maritime disaster in peacetime occurred in the Philippines in December 1987. More than 4,000 people died when the Dona Paz ferry collided with a tanker.

Hundreds of people have been rescued, officials say

Business trip: Istanbul

Long a bustling commercial hub thanks to its position between East and West, the port city that bridges Asia and Europe is taking its place on the international business stage. Read more. (Christopher Herwig/Getty)

A little liquid courage in Cali, Colombia

In the self-proclaimed salsa capital of the world, a drink that tastes like embalming fluid mixed with a spot of rum makes it easy to move to the beats of Pacific Colombia. Read more.(Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty)

The African Israelites

In Dimona, black Hebrews have slowly built upon their utopian vision, which involves everything from the community’s spiritual growth to lying on a bed of nails. See more.(AFP/Getty)

The art of slowing down in southern Italy

In Puglia, a region of graciously warm residents and low lying hills, days are spent restoring ancient frescoes, hand-rolling pasta and shepherding sheep – all on Italia time. Read more.(Laura Kiniry)

Tallinn’s story, written in the sky

Spiked with spires, Tallinn’s skyline provides fascinating tales and haunting legends detailing the Estonian capital’s history. Read more. (Paul Sullivan)

Walking through Australia’s pure desert heart

With 223km of mountain trails, dusty tracks and narrow canyons, the Larapinta Trail offers deep desert absorption on one of Australia’s best long-distance walks. Read more. (Andrew Bain/Getty)

Mexico’s mezcal revolution

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Once considered “cheap fire water”, the agave-based alcohol is now one of the country’s most popular liquors. See more. (Greg Elms/Getty)

Step back in time in Guatemala

A strong Maya tradition pervades this Central American country, where women weave traditional textiles and men make offerings to mystical wooden idols. See more. (Pete McBride/National Geographic Stock)

Chelsea will win title under Jose Mourinho - Alan Shearer

Jose Mourinho will be the reason Chelsea win back the Premier League title this season, according to Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer.

The former England striker believes Mourinho's experience of the top flight will give Chelsea the edge over their rivals this season.

"Mourinho is box office," Shearer said.

"He knows what the Premier League is all about, he knows how to win it, he knows what it takes and that is why I would go for Chelsea right now."

Play media

'Salt and pepper' motivates Mourinho

Mourinho led Chelsea to back-to-back titles in his first spell at Stamford Bridge and Shearer believes it is his ability to get the best out of his players that sets him apart.

"I like the way he operates, he is great for the media and his record speaks for itself, albeit last season at Madrid wasn't his best," Shearer, who scored 30 goals for England, told BBC Sport.

"But when you have got a record like his you can forgive him an off season. When you talk to players who have been managed by him he has got a wow factor about him.

"He gets the best out of them. Players don't seem to have a problem with being rotated, he seems to have a knack of looking after his players, he puts himself in the firing line and protects his players. They like that, respect that and respond to that."

Shearer believes the final few weeks of the transfer window, which closes on 2 September, could have a bearing on the title race, with prospective moves for Tottenham's Gareth Bale and Manchester United's Wayne Rooney likely to have an impact on the destiny of the Premier League trophy.

"I would say there are four or five big transfers waiting to happen," said Shearer. "I genuinely believe that once one happens, three or four will happen. While I can go for Chelsea now, we would yet see one big marquee signing that could change things."

Mourinho at Chelsea

• Premier League titles: (2) 2004-05 and 2005-06
• FA Cups: (1) 2006-07
• League Cups: (2) 2004-05 and 2006-07
• Community Shields: (1) 2005

Shearer says Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini's lack of trophies, and the weight of expectation on new Manchester United manager David Moyes' shoulders - following Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement in May - will play into Chelsea's hands.

"Going into a Premier League season without Sir Alex is strange in itself," Shearer added. "But Moyes is going in there for the first time and that brings its own pressures.

"You look at Manchester City and Pellegrini hasn't won any trophies.

"When you look at Arsenal, can you say they are anywhere near winning trophies? I don't think so.

"And Chelsea? Mourinho has been there and done it and, at this stage, that could be the difference."

Shearer believes defending champions United will push Chelsea all the way and hopes that, even if he cannot deliver the title this season, Moyes will be given time to mould the club in his own image.

Play media

Football Focus: Alan Shearer's ode to the new season

"Whoever took over from Sir Alex was going to be asked the same questions, was going to be under the same pressure under the same scrutiny," Shearer added.

"I am delighted David has got the job. When I have been with him and worked with him and, having watched him work the way he has at Everton on the budget he had, he deserved a chance at a big club.

"He has got the biggest club and they have to give him a chance to be his own man and implement the ways he wants to work.

"I can't see them being anything other than up there challenging. I didn't think it was a great league last season; it was a bit dull. But [United] won at a canter without really being at their best.

"I do see them being up there again and challenging, as Manchester United always are. I hope they are patient with him; he is a good manager and a good man."

Egypt crisis: Tense stand-off at Cairo mosque

The BBC's Bethany Bell said pictures show people inside the mosque building a make-shift barricade with chairs

Egyptian security forces have entered a mosque in the capital, Cairo, to try to persuade Muslim Brotherhood supporters barricaded inside to leave.

Dozens remain, refusing to believe the authorities' pledge of a safe exit.

The tense stand-off follows a day of bloody clashes on Friday in which more than 80 people died and 1,000 Brotherhood supporters were arrested.

The group has called for daily protests after a crackdown on their camps in Cairo on Wednesday left hundreds dead.

The Brotherhood is demanding the reinstatement of Mohammed Morsi - Egypt's first democratically elected president - who was removed by the army last month and replaced with an interim government.

Fear for lives

On Saturday, police surrounded the al-Fath mosque in Cairo's Ramses Square, where Morsi supporters were holed up.

Security forces then entered the building to try to persuade them to leave.

Live television pictures showed security forces in riot gear on the steps outside, but with no sign of violence.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Bullets and pellets pinging into buildings above heads of BBC team and demonstrators, so pulled back”

Jeremy BowenBBC Middle East editor

• On the ground in Cairo
• How euphoria turned to tragedy

Many Morsi supporters have left the mosque, but correspondents say dozens remain in the main hall, refusing to leave.

BBC Arabic spoke to two of the protesters inside who said that they feared for their lives.

They told the BBC that they did not trust the authorities' promises of a safe exit.

They said there were two bodies inside - one of them of a woman who died after tear gas was fired by police into the mosque overnight and another of a man taken into the building after sustaining bullet wounds.

They said the protesters had drinking water but there was only one toilet.

Some 1,000 people were trapped in the mosque after violence in Ramses Square on Friday.

Security officials quoted by the official Mena news agency said "armed elements" had opened fire from inside the mosque.

The building quickly filled with dead and injured - as well as those fleeing the violence.

Egypt's interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday that 1,004 "Muslim Brotherhood elements" had been arrested on Friday, 558 of them in Cairo.

'Day of anger'

The Muslim Brotherhood has been on the streets since the army deposed Mr Morsi on 3 July.

Continue reading the main story

Crisis timeline

• 3 Jul: President Mohammed Morsi deposed by military after mass protests
• 4 Jul: Pro-Morsi protesters gather at the Rabaa al-Adawiya and Nahda sites in Cairo
• 27 Jul: More than 70 people killed in clashes with security forces at Rabaa al-Adawiya
• 14 Aug: Security forces break up both camps, leaving at least 638 people dead

On Wednesday at least 638 people died when the Brotherhood's two protest camps in Cairo were cleared, a move that sparked international condemnation.

Friday's protests - dubbed a "day of anger" - were called in response to Wednesday's bloodshed. Most of the latest deaths were in Cairo but about 40 elsewhere.

Egypt's interim leaders have imposed a state of emergency, with dusk-to-dawn curfews in the capital and other areas. The interior ministry says police have been authorised to use live ammunition "within a legal framework".

Correspondents say the atmosphere in Cairo is tense, with many armoured personnel carriers deployed on the streets.

The army has blocked off all entrances to Tahrir Square - the focus of demonstrations that led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Meanwhile, groups that support the army-backed interim government - the National Salvation Front and Tamarod - are calling for counter-demonstrations in response to the Muslim Brotherhood protests.

Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen reports from Cairo's Ramses Square - the scene of much of Friday's violence

Friday's violence erupted shortly after midday prayers when thousands of Morsi supporters answered the Brotherhood's call for rallies across Egypt.

Witnesses said armed civilians were among those who clashed with protesters, while vigilantes set up roadblocks in some areas to stop Brotherhood supporters getting through.

Elsewhere in Egypt, at least 21 people were killed in the second city of Alexandria, six in Suez, eight in Damietta and five in Fayoum, according to medical sources.

Mr Morsi is now in custody, accused of murder over a 2011 jailbreak. His period of detention was extended by 30 days on Thursday, state media said.