By Jane Wardell and Jeremy Wagstaff SYDNEY/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Australian Craig Steven Wright is the latest in a line of men alleged to be the mysterious creator of bitcoin, a digital currency that has attracted the interest of banks, speculators, criminals and regulators.
Read moreBy Allison Lampert MONTREAL (Reuters) – Imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been on a hunger strike since Tuesday after being transferred to a “new isolated” prison, his wife, Ensaf Haidar, said on Thursday. Haidar, who lives in Canada where she and their three children were granted political asylum, confirmed the news by phone after tweeting it. Colette Lelievre, a Montreal-based campaign organizer with Amnesty International, said Thursday the group had been told Badawi was transferred to a different prison for “administrative reasons.” Amnesty had not yet independently confirmed he started a hunger strike.
Read moreBy Matt Siegel SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian Internet provider iiNet Ltd has urged more than 30,000 customers to change their passwords after claims emerged online that hackers had been attempting to sell personal information stolen from one of the firm’s databases. News of the potential data breach at Australia’s third-largest web provider first emerged on Twitter, where it was alleged an unnamed hacker was offering to sell a database that included client passwords, home addresses and telephone numbers. As a precaution, however, iiNet CIO Matthew Toohey said the company had contacted almost 31,000 customers and asked for the password change to prevent unauthorized access to accounts.
Read moreBy Nita Bhalla NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sparked outrage after he praised his Bangladeshi counterpart for her courage to fight terrorism “despite being a woman”, triggering an avalanche of criticism on social media site Twitter. #DespiteBeingAWoman was one of the top trends on the micro blogging site on Monday, with users expressing anger at what they said was a bigoted and sexist remark and posting pictures of famous female scientists, politicians and athletes. Modi, who was on a two-day official visit to neighboring Bangladesh, on Sunday told an audience at Dhaka University that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina showed that she was committed to ending terrorism which has plagued both South Asian nations
Read moreSYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian counter-terrorism police said on Wednesday they arrested two men in Sydney, eight days after a 16-hour siege in a central city cafe ended with the deaths of two hostages and a gunman with radical Islamist sympathies. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Tuesday that security officials had intercepted a heightened level of “terrorist chatter” in the aftermath of the Sydney cafe siege, but there were no specific threats of attacks. …
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