Target says 40 million accounts breached

TARGET says that about 40 million credit and debit card accounts may have been affected by a data breach that occurred just as the holiday shopping season shifted into high gear.

The chain said that customers who made purchases using their cards at its US stores between November 27 and December 15 may have been exposed.

The Minneapolis company said it immediately told authorities and financial institutions once it became aware of the breach and that it's teaming with a third-party forensics firm to investigate the matter.

It said it is putting all "appropriate resources" toward the issue.

Target Corp advised customers who suspect there has been unauthorised activity on their cards to call them.

"Target's first priority is preserving the trust of our guests and we have moved swiftly to address this issue, so guests can shop with confidence. We regret any inconvenience this may cause," Chairman, President and CEO Gregg Steinhafel said in a statement on Thursday.

Target is the latest retailer to be hit with a data breach problem.

TJX Cos, which runs stores such as T.J. Maxx and Marshall's, had a breach that began in July 2005 that exposed at least 45.7 million credit and debit cards to possible fraud.

The breach wasn't detected until December 2006.

In June 2009, TJX agreed to pay $US9.75 million in a settlement with multiple states related to the massive data theft, but stressed at the time that it firmly believed it did not violate any consumer protection or data security laws.

Target has 1797 US stores and 124 in Canada.

08.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Serco to repay $A127m for overcharging UK

THE British government says security firm Serco has agreed to repay STG68.5 million ($A127.56 million) after it was accused of overcharging on contracts to monitor offenders using electronic tags.

The Ministry of Justice says Serco will reimburse money owed on the contract and pay costs incurred by the investigation.

In July, Britain's attorney general said two firms, Serco and G4S, had charged the government millions for people they were not actually monitoring.

In a few cases, offenders they were supposedly monitoring were dead.

The revelations prompted the government to review all contracts held by Serco and G4S.

The justice ministry said on Thursday that G4S was facing further investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over problems with contracts for facilities management in courts.

08.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

Honda tops US insurance sector safety list

HONDA has topped the US insurance industry's annual list of the safest new vehicles.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety on Thursday gave 39 vehicles top safety ratings for 2014. That is dramatically fewer than the 130 on the list last year because vehicles now must meet tougher standards.

For the first time, the vehicles need top crash test scores and a good front crash prevention system - such as warning systems or automatic braking - to get its highest designation.

Vehicles are now ranked as either a "Top Safety Pick" or "Top Safety Pick +" if they meet the front crash protection criteria as well.

Honda, which also owns the Acura brand, had the most winners of any car maker with eight of its vehicles making the list. The Honda Civic hybrid, Honda Accord, Acura RLX and Acura MDX all got the highest ranking. Its Honda Civic two-door and Acura TL were also ranked as top safety picks.

The list is often used by safety-minded car shoppers and by car makers in advertising.

There are eight newcomers to the list, including Infinity's Q50, the Mazda 3, Toyota Highlander and the Chevrolet Spark mini-car. The Honda Civic Hybrid and several Volvo models won the top designation on the basis of standard equipment in their vehicles.

The IIHS's rankings have been a catalyst in recent years for car makers to make their cars safer. Car makers are scrambling to bolster the front-end protection of their cars and trucks to meet the institute's offset test, which measures how well a car protects people in a crash covering only part of the front end.

For example, Toyota redesigned the midsize Camry sedan, America's top-selling car, so it could pass the test, the institute announced on Thursday. The changes helped the Camry's crash-test rating move from "poor" to "acceptable" for all models built after November 1, the institute said.

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Samsung, LG to unveil 105-inch curved TVs

SAMSUNG Electronics and LG Electronics say their curved TVs will get bigger and sport sharpness four times that of regular HD television sets.

The world's two largest TV makers will display ultra-HD TVs with curved screens that measure 105 inches diagonally in Las Vegas next month, they said in separate statements on Thursday.

The South Korean TV makers began selling curved TV sets earlier this year, made with advanced displays called OLED, measuring 55 inches (139cm).

The upcoming premium TVs will be made of LCD panels packing more than 11 million pixels, 5120 pixels wide and 2160 pixels high. But not much video content is available for the ultra-HD TV sets.

TV makers hope the launch of the new hardware technology will fuel the growth of content. Japan's Sony Corp, among the industry players betting that the ultra-HD images will become the new standard, is working on both gadgets and movies in ultra-HD, also known in the industry as 4K.

Asian TV makers are trying to excite shoppers with new display technology but limited video content in ultra-HD resolution and price tags will likely limit their appeal. Samsung and LG kept mum on prices.

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US existing-home sales drop for 3rd month

THE number of people who bought existing US homes in November declined for the third straight month.

Higher mortgage rates have made home-buying more expensive, while the lingering impact of the October government shutdown may have deterred some sales.

The National Association of Realtors said home sales fell 4.3 per cent to an annual rate of 4.90 million.

That's the weakest pace since December 2012, and the first time since April that the pace has slipped below 5 million.

Still, the association projects that total sales this year will be 5.1 million.

That would be the strongest since 2007, when the US housing bubble burst.

The median sales price of an existing home was $US196,300 ($A222,350) in November, a slight decrease from October but 9.4 per cent higher than a year ago.

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Report questions UK rendition role

BRITAIN "may have become inappropriately" involved in some cases of rendition of suspected terrorists, a report by the aborted inquiry into British complicity in torture has found.

Sir Peter Gibson's investigation has found 27 areas that need further investigation in relation to interrogation, rendition and the way officers were trained.

The report said British intelligence agencies witnessed mistreatment of detainees, but were reluctant to raise their concerns because they feared jeopardising relations with their international counterparts.

It also questions whether the government could and should have done more to secure the earlier release of detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

The inquiry was axed earlier this year after fresh criminal investigations were launched into allegations involving Libyan victims, but its validity had already been called into question when campaigners and human rights lawyers pulled out, claiming it lacked credibility.

Sir Peter published an interim report on Thursday, which contained some redactions for "national security reasons", setting out the case for the investigation to be resumed.

"The inquiry would have wished to examine when the government came to understand the scope of the US policy and whether the government and its agencies responded adequately once they became aware of renditions, or proposed renditions, of British nationals and UK residents," it said.

"There is an issue as to whether the government and the agencies may have become inappropriately involved in some cases of rendition, and whether an adequate policy was formulated and guidance issued to personnel, addressing the extent to which it was proper for the UK to support or assist renditions carried out by other countries."

Rendition is the practice of sending a foreign criminal or terrorist suspect covertly to be interrogated in a country with less rigorous regulations for the humane treatment of prisoners.

The inquiry also found that while no formal request was put to the UK, records showed the government was aware that US officials were considering the use of Diego Garcia, an island in the British Indian Ocean Territory, for holding or transiting detainees between November 2001 and January 2002.

Documents obtained by the investigating team found evidence of a "reluctance" to raise issues about treatment for fear of damaging work with other intelligence services.

"A theme that runs through a number of the lead cases considered by the inquiry is whether treatment issues, such as sleep deprivation, hooding, and media reports of waterboarding, were raised appropriately with the relevant liaison partners responsible for the detention and treatment in question," the report states.

"Documents provided to the inquiry show that in some instances there was a reluctance to raise treatment issues for fear of damaging liaison relationships or that when these issues were raised, only limited details were provided.

"The documents show that there are some instances where UK officers continued to engage with detainees held by liaison partners in various locations after ill-treatment had either been witnessed or alleged and then reported to Head Office."

It said it wasn't clear from the documents provided to the inquiry that anything was done following a concern raised by officers.

On January 16, 2002, the then prime minister Tony Blair told the House of Commons anybody who was captured should be treated humanely in accordance with the Geneva Convention and proper international norms.

By January 18 Mr Blair appeared to have begun to have doubts about the treatment of the detainees and annotated a note calling for it to be made clear to the US that torture would be "unacceptable".

08.16 | 0 komentar | Read More

UK man wins ruling in royal will case

A MAN who believes he may be the illegitimate son of the late Princess Margaret has won an important High Court ruling which could aid his quest to see the contents of the will of the Queen's sister and that of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Jersey accountant Robert Brown, 58, is seeking to prove he is Princess Margaret's secret child and that she hid a pregnancy in 1955.

The royal wills were drawn up around the time of Margaret's death in 2002 and were "sealed" to keep their contents secret.

On Thursday, Brown was granted permission to seek judicial review of a refusal to allow him access under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) to documents he says show there was a "secret judicial process" for sealing Royal wills.

Giving him leave, Mr Justice Phillips said at London's High Court there were "compelling" constitutional reasons to allow Brown's legal challenge to go ahead and that was not altered by a past Court of Appeal observation that his claim to be Princess Margaret's son was "scandalous and irrational".

The judge said the case gave rise "to important points of principle and practice" regarding open justice and the public interest.

They related to how the courts dealt with statutory provisions and rules "in relation to a particular class of litigant".

"I am absolutely delighted," Brown said.

"It is an important day for the fundamental principles of open justice and the rule of law.

"Historically, it has been very clear that the monarchy should not have secret communications with the court.

"I am delighted that I have got this far and constitutional issues have been reopened and the points I have raised have been recognised as arguable."

Of his claim to royal parentage, he said: "Hopefully I am not a nutcase. I am either right or I am wrong."

Brown has said he will never give up the battle to prove his royal heritage.

He believes he was born to Princess Margaret in 1955 and his father was possibly Robin Douglas Home.

He claims that the later stages of her pregnancy were covered up with the use of body doubles and that he was sent to Kenya to be brought up as the child of Cynthia and Douglas Brown in Nairobi.

He believes the documents he wants disclosed will reveal that Buckingham Palace, the attorney general and a senior judge acted together to maintain secrecy around the Queen's sister's last testament, which, he hopes, contain details of his birth.

His claims were dismissed by lawyers for the royal family in a previous court hearing as that of "a fantasist seeking to feed his private obsession".

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US unemployment aid applications surge

THE number of people seeking US unemployment benefits rose 68,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the largest increase in more than a year.

The surge in first-time applications could be a troubling sign if it lasts. But it likely reflects the difficulty adjusting for delays after the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Labor Department said on Thursday that the less volatile four-week average rose 6,000 to 328,750. That is close to pre-recession levels and generally a positive sign for job gains.

Applications had tumbled in recent weeks to nearly six-year lows, partly because of a late Thanksgiving holiday that may have distorted the government's seasonal adjustments. Economists believe this week's jump in claims was a dose of payback for those declines.

"What the seasonals give in one month they have to take back the next, hence today's number," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Applications for unemployment aid are a proxy for layoffs. A steady decline over the past year suggests that fewer Americans have lost their jobs.

Economists will track the next few weeks closely to see if that trend is reversing, or if the surge is a temporary blip caused by seasonal adjustments.

The recent drop in layoffs has coincided with a pickup in hiring. The economy has added an average of 204,000 jobs a month from August through November, up from an average of 146,000 in May through July.

Employers added 203,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dropped to a five-year low of 7 per cent, the government said on Friday.

Four straight months of robust hiring have raised hopes that 2014 will be the year the economy returns to normal.

As more Americans draw a pay cheque, incomes and consumer spending generally increase. About 70 per cent of economic activity comes from consumer spending.

However, the unemployment rate remains above the historic averages of 5 per cent to 6 per cent that are associated strong job markets.

08.17 | 0 komentar | Read More

Nigella judge in Cameron rebuke

JURORS in the trial of two former personal assistants accused of defrauding Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi have been warned to ignore comments made by British Prime Minister David Cameron about the celebrity cook.

Judge Robin Johnson told jurors in the trial of Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo at Isleworth Crown Court in London that it was "of regret" when public figures commented about someone involved in a trial and urged them to only decide the case based on the evidence in court.

The Grillo sisters are accused of abusing their positions by spending STG685,000 ($A1.2 million) on credit cards belonging to the celebrity couple to buy designer goods and luxury holidays for themselves.

Elisabetta Grillo, referred to as Lisa, 41, and sister Francesca, 35, each deny a single count of committing fraud by using a company credit card for personal gain between January 1, 2008, and December 31 last year.

The judge told the jury of five women and seven men that he had been shown a number of press reports about comments made by Cameron about Lawson.

"They centre on the prime minister commenting about a prosecution witness, Ms Lawson, during an interview with a journalist.

"It is of regret when people in public office comment about a person who is involved in a trial which is in progress."

He said the defendants felt "aggrieved" by the comments, even though they did not specifically deal with matters in the trial, adding: "The fact they they may feel aggrieved is not without justification."

He told jurors: "You will realise that what public figures may feel about this case or a witness in this case can have no bearing on your own views."

He urged them to heed instructions given at the start of the trial.

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Fewer US homes entering foreclosure path

THE number of US homes entering the path to foreclosure or winding up repossessed by lenders has fallen to levels not seen in more than six years.

While foreclosures remain a concern in select states, the trend is the latest sign foreclosures are becoming less of a national factor on the housing recovery and more of a state and metropolitan-area concern.

Lenders initiated foreclosure action against 52,826 US homes in November, down 10 per cent from the previous month and a drop of 32 per cent from November last year, according to new data from foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc.

The last time the tally of monthly foreclosure starts was lower was in December 2005, the firm said.

Foreclosure starts increased last month on an annual basis in 15 states, including Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and Oregon.

While fewer homes entered the foreclosure pipeline in November, the number of homes completing the foreclosure process also declined.

All told, lenders took back 30,461 homes last month, down 19 per cent from October and a decline of 48 per cent from November last year, RealtyTrac said.

Overall, completed foreclosures sank to the lowest level since July 2007, the firm said.

The number of homes repossessed by banks increased on an annual basis in only five states: Delaware, Maryland, Connecticut, Maine and Iowa - all states where the courts must sign off on foreclosures, a factor that typically draws out the process longer than in other states.

Some of the decline in foreclosure activity last month was due to a seasonal slowdown as the end of the year draws near. That could mean a bump in homes sold at auction or repossessed by banks early next year, said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac.

"Regionally and locally, there are going to be some jumps in foreclosure numbers in 2014, but nothing we anticipate will threaten the housing recovery," Blomquist said. "It's very safe to say that the foreclosure crisis is over and behind us."

The decline in foreclosures has come about as more homeowners are keeping up with their mortgage payments. At the same time, the US housing market has emerged from a deep slump, aided by rising home prices, steady job growth and fewer troubled loans dating back to the housing-bubble days.

08.17 | 0 komentar | Read More