Google faces Streetview wi-fi snooping action

Between 2008 and 2010, Google collected data from unsecured wi-fi networks in 30 countries, the data included emails, user names, passwords, images and documents.

Google has always claimed that the collection was inadvertent, following the mistaken inclusion of code, written by an unnamed Google engineer, in its Streetview software, it later emerged that a senior manager was aware that data was being collected by Streetview cars.

Google has apologised and agree to destroy the data, in the US it has paid $7m (£4.4m) in US fines to settle a case involving 38 states, as well as agreeing to delete all the harvested data, Google was also required to launch an employee training programme about privacy and data use which it must continue for at least 10 years.

source bbc

Mali army, rebels clash for first time since peace deal

Three Malian soldiers were wounded in clashes with separatist Tuareg rebels on Wednesday, the army said, the first clashes since the two sides signed a ceasefire deal in June.

The fighting took place near the western town of Lere and comes a week after President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was sworn in, highlighting simmering tensions as he seeks to secure an end cycles of uprisings by northern rebels.

source reuters.com

Bomb damages Libyan foreign ministry building in Benghazi

A car bomb damaged a Libyan foreign ministry building in Benghazi on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the attack on the U.S. consulate in the country's second largest city, local security officials said a car packed with explosives was left beside the ministry building where it detonated at dawn, badly damaging it and several other buildings in the center of Benghazi. There were no reports of casualties.

A few hours before the Benghazi explosion, security forces defused a large bomb placed near the foreign ministry headquarters in the eastern Zawyat al Dahmani district of the capital Tripoli, the government said.

source reuters.com

Satellite image suggests North Korea has restarted Yongbyon nuclear reactor

Satellite imagery suggests that North Korea has restarted a research reactor capable of producing plutonium for weapons at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a U.S. research institute said on Wednesday.

U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said a satellite image from August 31 shows white steam rising from a building near the hall that houses the plutonium production reactor's steam turbines and electric generators.

source reuters.com

NATO supports efforts to control and eliminate Syrian chemical weapons

An official in the alliance told Itar-Tass, commenting on Russia’s proposal to Damascus to put its chemical weapons arsenal under international control, “efforts to ensure the control of and ultimate destruction of Syria's chemical weapons are positive and we support the UN in this area; however, the details of these proposals are not yet clear,” the source said. “The international community has a responsibility to make sure that the longstanding norm and practice against the use of chemical weapons is maintained, and violators are held accountable.” 

American arms experts are going to Geneva with US Secretary of State John Kerry

Where he will meet on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for talks on Syria, AFP reports, the talks are expected to last for at least two days, possibly more, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a media briefing, Reuters reports, while in Geneva, Kerry also plans to meet with UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.

Red Cross (ICRC) has urged the US and Russia to tackle the obstacles to delivering aid in Syria.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are to meet in Geneva on Thursday to discuss Russia’s plan to transfer Syrian chemical weapons to international control, both Syrian government forces and rebels are preventing medical assistance from reaching the sick and wounded, Reuters cited Red Cross president Peter Maurer as saying.