Games giant Sega sends email to users to say email addresses, dates of birth and passwords have been accessed Sega has become the latest computer games giant to fall prey to hackers after warning users of its Sega Pass system that some of their personal information may have been stolen. The company sent an email on Friday to say that email addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords had been accessed by hackers, but that no financial information was at risk. The Sega Pass system was taken offline on Thursday and all users’ passwords have been reset. Customers have been advised to be on the alert for suspicious emails asking for further personal information. The hacking group Lulz Security appeared to deny involvement, despite leading a wave of recent cyber-attacks such as that on Sony. A tweet using the account @LulzSec said: “@Sega – contact us. We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you.” In April, Sony had data stolen from the 77 million users of the PlayStation network , one of the worst security breaches of its kind. There was then a second attack when another 24.6 million computer game users might have had their personal details stolen. Personal information and passwords were taken in another hack on Codemasters earlier this month, but not financial details. The email from Sega to customers said: “We have identified that unauthorised entry was gained to our Sega Pass database. “We immediately took the appropriate action to protect our consumers’ data and isolate the location of the breach. We have launched an investigation into the extent of the breach of our public systems. “We have identified that a subset of Sega Pass members emails addresses, dates of birth and encrypted passwords were obtained. To stress, none of the passwords obtained were stored in plain text. “Please note that no personal payment information was stored by Sega as we use external payment providers, meaning your payment details were not at risk from this intrusion.” Hacking Games Data and computer security Internet Computing guardian.co.uk
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The prime minister, George Papandreou, reshuffles cabinet but vows to push on with deeply unpopular austerity measures Thousands of Greeks have marched on parliament in a show of renewed public anger after the prime minister, George Papandreou, reshuffled his cabinet and vowed to push on with deeply unpopular austerity measures. In a move aimed at stifling dissent in his Socialist party, Papandreou on Friday dismissed his finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, who masterminded the five-year austerity programme that has sparked weeks of protests. The reshuffle coincided with a pledge by France and Germany to continue funding Athens, a move that may have bought Greece and its fellow euro zone members time to prevent a messy default, even if doubts over its longer-term solvency persist. The European Union and International Monetary Fund have made the reforms a condition for a new bailout package worth an estimated €120bn ($170bn) that Greece, shut out of capital markets, will need to fund itself through 2014. Around 5,000 protesters from the Communist group Pame marched into Athens’ central Syntagma square, where demonstrations turned violent earlier this week, chanting “the measures are killing us!”. French activists also performed with a 3m puppet depicting a bloodied figure of Lady Justice to rhythmic drumming in a gesture of solidarity with Greek protesters who have camped in the square for three weeks. “What has changed with the reshuffle? Nothing,” said Costas, a 22-year-old student who has been camping on the square since the beginning of the month. “We are not planning to leave unless they take back the measures.” Papandreou appeared to curb a revolt in his party by including some of the austerity package’s harshest critics in the new administration, but that might also weaken the reforms. He named political heavyweight Evangelos Venizelos, his biggest party rival, as finance minister. Shortly after his nomination, Venizelos said he would travel to Brussels on Sunday to ask lenders to allow some “improvements … for social justice” in the reform package. On the same day, euro zone finance ministers are expected to agree to release a 12 billion euro tranche of an existing, year-old bailout loan that Greece needs to pay back debt maturing in July and August and avoid default. “They’ve bought themselves time until September,” said Howard Wheeldon, strategist at BCG Capital Partners in London. “Germany and France are the main countries involved here, and neither of them are going to let the euro fail, and they’re not going to let Greece fail.” Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the euro zone finance ministers’ Eurogroup, criticised German pressure to involve bondholders, telling a German newspaper this has pushed up the cost of the bailout. Successful negotiations over a new aid package for Greece are vital to the economic health of the euro zone, Juncker said. “We are playing with fire,” he said, adding that in the worst case, ratings agencies could declare a default leading to dire consequences for the currency union. Papandreou’s new cabinet is expected to survive a parliamentary confidence vote on Tuesday night, and then approve a package which envisages €28bn in tax hikes and spending cuts by 2015. But Greek media were less certain about implementation, an issue that dogged Venizelos’s predecessor when he struggled to meet deficit targets agreed with Greece’s bailout lenders. “Greece needs a strong government. But does it need a strong government to finally implement what has been agreed with the EU or to break these deals?,” columnist Yiorgos Karipidis wrote in main Greek financial daily Imerisia. Greece Europe Euro European Union Economics European debt crisis European banks guardian.co.uk
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Helen Cowie tells radio show she helped her son Robert take his own life in Switzerland Police are considering the circumstances surrounding the death of a man whose mother took him to the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas to help him take his own life. Helen Cowie told a radio chat show how she helped her son Robert, 33, kill himself after he was left paralysed from the neck down. Cowie, of Cardonald in Glasgow, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Call Kaye programme how her son went to Dignitas in October and “had a very peaceful ending”. A Strathclyde police spokeswoman stressed that there was no investigation at present, but said the matter was “being given consideration in an effort to establish the circumstances”. Cowie said her son was once a “big fit healthy boy” who went training four times a week. He was reportedly paralysed in a swimming accident three years ago. She said: “His life was terrible. He suffered every single day. He couldn’t do anything for himself but sit there. He was just a head and just didn’t want to be like that any more.” She described Monday’s BBC documentary Choosing to Die, presented by author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s, as “brilliant” and empathised with the mother who helped her disabled son to die in the television soap Emmerdale. She described the Dignitas experience as “wonderful, relaxed, peaceful and happy”, and said her son died to strains of the Oasis song Listen Up. The song includes the line: “One fine day I’m gonna leave you all behind. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had more time.” She said: “We were in Zurich for four days with my three sons and his friend, and one of my sons said it was the happiest he had seen his brother in three years. “I would rather have been able to do it in this country. That really upsets me that I had to take my son to Switzerland, and I had to leave his body there and wait for the ashes to come back. “It should be allowed here, but not willy-nilly to everybody. It should be investigated hard because you have to be in a sane mind to have it done.” Cowie added: “We are a very close family. We asked him not to do it but it was his decision. “As a mum, your first reaction is that you don’t want them to do it. “There’s a scene going on in Emmerdale right now, and I would have loved to have done what that woman had done but I couldn’t because my son didn’t want me to get into trouble so the only option was to go to Switzerland with him. “That’s what he wanted and nobody could change his mind. We tried everything to change his mind, because he wasn’t a burden, and I am a carer. He just wanted to end his life. He was really unhappy.” Cowie said after his death “the first thing that came to my mind was peace”. She added: “He was at peace, because he was tormented in the body that he was in.” Assisted suicide Scotland guardian.co.uk
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Italian child killer tells American student’s appeal hearing that fellow convict Rudy Guede gave him information in prison A convicted child murderer has told an Italian court that he has information clearing Amanda Knox of the killing of British student Meredith Kercher. Giving evidence at the American student’s appeal hearing in Perugia, Mario Alessi recounted a confession made to him in prison by Rudy Guede, who was also convicted of killing the 21-year-old. The Ivory Coast national confided in him that Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were innocent, Alessi said. Knox, 23, from Seattle, is appealing against her conviction and 26-year prison sentence for the murder of her University of Leeds student housemate in November 2007. Sollecito, 26, who was sentenced to 25 years for the murder, is also trying to clear his name, and Alessi was called by his defence. Alessi told the court that Guede made his claim about the pair’s innocence in November 2009 during recreation time at the Viterbo prison. Guede, who was convicted in separate proceedings from Knox and Sollecito, denies the claim. Kercher, from Coulsdon in Surrey, was studying in Perugia when she was found with her throat slit in her bedroom at the house she shared with Knox and others. Prosecutors said the murder followed a sex game that went too far. Amanda Knox Italy guardian.co.uk
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Human rights council narrowly votes to protect rights of gay people, despite opposition from Islamic and African members The United Nations issued its first condemnation of discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender people on Friday, in a cautiously-worded declaration hailed by supporters including the US as a historic moment. Members of the UN human rights council narrowly voted in favour of the resolution put forward by South Africa, against strong opposition from African and Islamic countries. “You just witnessed a historic moment at the human rights council and within the UN system with a landmark resolution protecting human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people,” the US representative to the UNHCR, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, told reporters after the vote. Couched in delicate diplomatic language, the resolution commissions a study of discrimination against gay men and lesbians around the world, the findings of which will be discussed by the Geneva-based council at a later meeting. The proposal went too far for many of the council’s 47-member states, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Speaking on behalf of the powerful Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva said the resolution had “nothing to do with fundamental human rights”. “We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation,” Zamir Akram said. Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans. A diplomat from the north-west African state of Mauritania said it was “an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right”. The resolution passed with 23 votes in favour and 19 against, with three abstentions, including that of China. Backers included the US, the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. “If you look at the history of human rights and the ever-expanding circle of who counts as human, every time that circle has expanded there have been those that have dissented and in every case they have been proven wrong over time,” Daniel Baer, a US deputy assistant secretary, said after the vote. Baer told reporters the administration of Barack Obama had chosen what he described as a “course of progress” on gay rights, both domestically and internationally. In March, the US issued a non-binding declaration in favour of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the UN. This has coincided with domestic efforts to end the ban on gay people openly serving in the US military and discrimination against them in federal housing. Asked what good the resolution would do for gay and lesbian people in countries that opposed the resolution, Baer said it was a signal “that there are many people in the international community who stand with them, and who support then, and that change will come”. “It’s a historic method of tyranny to make you feel that you are alone,” he said. “One of the things that this resolution does for people everywhere, particularly LGBT people everywhere, is remind them that they are not alone.” Gay rights United Nations guardian.co.uk
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As troops gather near Turkish border, the Foreign Office warns it may not be able to help if the violence gets worse British nationals have been urged to leave Syria immediately due to the ongoing civil unrest as troops backed by tanks mass at a town near the Turkish border. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said Britons should use commercial flights to leave while they are still available as it would be “highly unlikely” that its embassy in Damascus would be able to help if the situation were to deteriorate further. Evacuation options would also “be limited”, it added. Violence between protesters opposed to Syria’s leadership and the security forces has flared across the country, particularly near the border with Turkey, where thousands of refugees have fled. In the latest assault, Syrian troops backed by tanks and firing heavy machine guns swept into the village of Bdama, about 12 miles from the border, as the army intensified operations in the north-west of the country, which has seen the fiercest clashes. The Local Coordination Committees (LCC), a group that documents anti-government protests, said troops backed by six tanks and several armoured personnel carriers entered Bdama in the morning. On Friday, Syrian forces swept into Maaret al-Numan, a town on the highway linking Damascus, the capital, with Syria’s largest city, Aleppo. Saturday’s assault on Bdama was about 25 miles (40km) to the west. The LCC raised the death toll in Friday’s anti-government protests to 19. The three-month uprising has proved extremely resilient despite a relentless crackdown by the military, pervasive security forces and pro-regime gunmen. Human rights activists say more than 1,400 Syrians have been killed and 10,000 detained as President Bashar Assad tries to maintain his grip on power. Bdama is next to Jisr al-Shughour, a town that was spinning out of government control before the military recaptured it last Sunday. Activists had reported fighting in Jisr al-Shughour between loyalist troops and defectors who refused to take part in a continuing crackdown on protesters seeking Assad’s ouster. The fighting in the area, which started nearly two weeks ago, displaced thousands of people including some 9,600 who are sheltered in Turkish refugee camps. On Friday, UN envoy Angelina Jolie travelled to Turkey’s border with Syria to meet some of the thousands of Syrian refugees. The uprising has proven to be the boldest challenge to the Assad family’s 40-year dynasty in Syria. Assad, now 45, inherited power in 2000, raising hopes that the lanky, soft-spoken young leader might transform his late father’s stagnant and brutal dictatorship into a modern state. But over the past 11 years, hopes that Assad was a reformist dimmed as it became apparent that he was a hardliner determined to keep power at all costs. On Friday, 12 people were killed in the central city of Homs, two in the eastern town of Deir el-Zour and two in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, one in the northern city of Aleppo. Two protesters, one a boy believed to be 16 years old, died in the southern village of Dael, the LCC said. Syria Arab and Middle East unrest Bashar Al-Assad Middle East Angelina Jolie guardian.co.uk
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A year after she ousted previous Labor leader Kevin Rudd, only one in four Australians say they would vote for her One year after Australian prime minister Julia Gillard ousted Kevin Rudd to become the country’s first female leader, she’s in serious trouble herself. The enthusiasm that greeted Gillard on a crisp June day last year has all but evaporated, with barely one in four (27%) Australians now prepared to vote for her, according to a new poll – the worst for any major federal political party in almost four decades. With a majority of just one in the hung parliament and Gillard having to rely on the support of three independents and a Greens MP to govern, a single by-election could spell disaster for her. With her personal approval rating collapsing (nearly 60% of those polled disapprove of her), Kevin Rudd is now the preferred Labor leader by a margin of two to one. Gillard has urged her colleagues to hold their nerve, suggesting that, unlike Mr Rudd a year ago, she has a strategy to get things back on track. “We’ve got a plan which we are working through to deliver, which we did not have at the start of my prime ministership,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. Gillard used a newspaper interview to publicly attack the leader she overthrew a year ago, Kevin Rudd, in a move some analysts say is proof she is feeling her job is under threat. Gillard told News Corp newspapers her center-left party “lost a sense of purpose and plan for the future” under Rudd. “We didn’t have a clear plan as to how we were going to deal with a set of difficult questions or a clear plan generally about where the government was driving toward,” she said. “What I’ve done as prime minister is inject that sense of clarity of purpose.” Nick Economou, a Monash University political scientist, said Gillard’s comments were evidence that her colleagues are considering replacing her. “They’re gone unless something absolutely spectacular happens,” Economou said of the government’s prospects at the 2013 elections. “Whether bringing back Rudd is that spectacular thing, I don’t think it would be,” he said. “But there’s still two years to go until the next election and anything is possible and they have to do something because if they don’t, they’ll be absolutely wiped out.” Gillard’s woes began in February when she announced plans for a carbon tax, having expressly ruled one out just days before last year’s election. “I was determined to get the hard, big things done early so people had the benefits of seeing those reforms in action – not just contemplation,” Gillard told the Herald. But the conservative opposition branded her a liar and her backflip on the tax rang alarm bells amongst the electorate. Support for her carbon tax has dropped from 46 to 38 per cent. The hung parliament has meant negotiations on the reform have been protracted. Powerful vested interests in Australia’s mineral and resources export industries, the bedrock of the economy, have also rallied against the tax. Kevin Rudd, now foreign minister, has meanwhile told a major newspaper that his unceremonious dumping last year had led him to a “genuinely soul-searching experience”. He said: “At the start, you’re a bit too bruised to reflect intelligently – that’s being human. For me, it’s been good to open up discussion of what went right and what went wrong.” His continued presence on the front bench – and the fact that Gillard’s approval ratings are now lower than his when he was ousted – is likely to continue to fuel speculation, however unlikely, about a Rudd comeback. Julia Gillard Australia Alison Rourke guardian.co.uk
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Japanese nuclear plant halts operation to clean contaminated water because of a rapid rise in radiation Officials at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant suspended an operation to clean contaminated water hours after it had begun because of a rapid rise in radiation. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco), which operates the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, is investigating the cause and could not say when the clean-up will resume, company spokesman Junichi Matsumoto said. Fresh water is being pumped in to cool damaged reactor cores, and is becoming contaminated in the process. Around 105,000 tonnes of highly radioactive water have pooled across the plant, and could overflow within a couple of weeks if action is not taken. In earlier tests, the water treatment system reduced caesium levels in the water to about one ten-thousandth of their original levels. The system began full operations on Friday after a series of problems involving leaks and valve flaws. The system was suspended in early Saturday when workers detected a sharp radiation increase in the system’s caesium-absorbing component, Matsumoto said. Radioactivity in one of 24 cartridges, which was expected to last for a few weeks, had already reached its limit within five hours, he said. Japan’s 11 March earthquake and tsunami knocked out power to the nuclear plant, incapacitating its crucial cooling systems and causing three reactor cores to melt. Tepco aims to bring the reactors to a stable cold shutdown state by January next year. The water treatment system is to be eventually connected to a cooling system so the treated water can be reused. But treating the water will create an additional headache – tons of highly radioactive sludge will require a separate long-term storage space. The Fukushima crisis shattered Japan’s confidence in the safety of nuclear energy and prompted anti-nuclear sentiment. But there are also concerns that Japan will face a serious summertime power crunch unless more of its reactors get back on line. Of Japan’s 54 nuclear reactors, more than 30 – including six at Fukushima Daiichi and several others that stopped due to the quake – are out of operation. The economy and industry minister, Banri Kaieda, said on Saturday that the rest of the nuclear plants in Japan are safe and their reactors should resume operations as soon as their ongoing regular checks are completed. He said nationwide inspections this week have found that Japanese nuclear power plants are now prepared for accidents as severe as the one that crippled Fukushima Daiichi. Resumption of about a dozen reactors undergoing regular checkups is up in the air amid growing local residents’ fear of nuclear accidents. Many of the plants’ hometown officials have said restarting any pending reactors would be impossible amid the ongoing crisis. Kaieda, however, said Japan needs the power. “Stable electric supply is indispensable for Japan’s reconstruction from the disaster and its economic recovery,” he said in a statement. The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency instructed Japanese nuclear operators to improve their preparedness for severe accidents earlier this month and then conducted nationwide on-site inspections. The inspections focused on measures to reduce the risk of hydrogen explosions inside containment buildings as one of the lessons learned from the Fukushima crisis, the world’s worst atomic accident since Chernobyl. Japanese nuclear plant operators have already taken other steps to improve accident management since the disaster to maintain core cooling capacity during blackouts. Japan disaster Japan Nuclear power Energy guardian.co.uk
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• Email simon.burnton@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts • Follow it on the sly with our pop-up report • Watch video highlights of the Test here • Barney Ronay on cricket and booze 10.53am: It’s raining! 10.45am: A very random thing that’s amazed me this week: Amon Tobin’s set design . The bad news: you can’t see it – his one UK show was in London last night. The good news: it’s just as well – he well might have given you a bit of a headache. Incredibly impressive bit of design, though. You can see more here (with the volume down, if necessary). And it’s not his only great contribution to musical achievement: this might be the best song ever written about muffins . I’m assuming it’s about muffins. Obviously none of this has any place in an OBO, but I had to tell someone. Morning world! The good news? The weather forecast for the Rose Bowl is great – 24C and sunny. The bad news? That’s the Rose Bowl, Pasadena. But there’s better news from Southampton, as well – it’s rained already this morning, the clouds have cleared and it looks pretty bright. Play should start on schedule, though there will be interruptions this afternoon . If you got here early, you might just have time to check out Mike Selvey’s report on yesterday’s play: Given the apocalyptic predictions for today’s weather, it was a bonus to get any cricket at all. Mizzle held things up in the morning and torrential stuff finished things off before the tea interval. In between times 23 overs were managed as Sri Lanka advanced from 81 for four to 177 for nine, sufficient overs for Chris Tremlett to reinforce the mighty impression he has created, with career best figures of six for 42. They were sufficient also for Stuart Broad to continue his struggle to make any sort of impact other than occasionally on the body of opposing batsmen; and for Sri Lanka’s lower order to be let off the hook by some indifferent captaincy and another brave performance from the wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene, who made 43. England have been presented with a pitch in Southampton that is the antidote to all those bland, consistent surfaces around the world that appear to have the half life of uranium in their rate of deterioration. Raising the mower blades a smidgen offers the bowler something with which to work and provides a challenge to the techniques and fortitude of batsmen. For the full report, click here . Sri Lanka in England 2011 England cricket team Sri Lanka cricket team Cricket Over by over reports Simon Burnton Rob Smyth guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …• Email simon.burnton@guardian.co.uk with your thoughts • Follow it on the sly with our pop-up report • Watch video highlights of the Test here • Barney Ronay on cricket and booze 10.53am: It’s raining! 10.45am: A very random thing that’s amazed me this week: Amon Tobin’s set design . The bad news: you can’t see it – his one UK show was in London last night. The good news: it’s just as well – he well might have given you a bit of a headache. Incredibly impressive bit of design, though. You can see more here (with the volume down, if necessary). And it’s not his only great contribution to musical achievement: this might be the best song ever written about muffins . I’m assuming it’s about muffins. Obviously none of this has any place in an OBO, but I had to tell someone. Morning world! The good news? The weather forecast for the Rose Bowl is great – 24C and sunny. The bad news? That’s the Rose Bowl, Pasadena. But there’s better news from Southampton, as well – it’s rained already this morning, the clouds have cleared and it looks pretty bright. Play should start on schedule, though there will be interruptions this afternoon . If you got here early, you might just have time to check out Mike Selvey’s report on yesterday’s play: Given the apocalyptic predictions for today’s weather, it was a bonus to get any cricket at all. Mizzle held things up in the morning and torrential stuff finished things off before the tea interval. In between times 23 overs were managed as Sri Lanka advanced from 81 for four to 177 for nine, sufficient overs for Chris Tremlett to reinforce the mighty impression he has created, with career best figures of six for 42. They were sufficient also for Stuart Broad to continue his struggle to make any sort of impact other than occasionally on the body of opposing batsmen; and for Sri Lanka’s lower order to be let off the hook by some indifferent captaincy and another brave performance from the wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene, who made 43. England have been presented with a pitch in Southampton that is the antidote to all those bland, consistent surfaces around the world that appear to have the half life of uranium in their rate of deterioration. Raising the mower blades a smidgen offers the bowler something with which to work and provides a challenge to the techniques and fortitude of batsmen. For the full report, click here . Sri Lanka in England 2011 England cricket team Sri Lanka cricket team Cricket Over by over reports Simon Burnton Rob Smyth guardian.co.uk
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