Turkey - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Show TV on Thursday night. During this conversation, when Erdoğan was asked about the increasing incidence of wiretapping in Turkey, he said that although there were laws to prevent it, wiretapping could not be prevented because it was technically possible for GSM operators to wiretap the phone conversations of their customers. "I pay attention to what I say when I talk on the phone. I am also not very comfortable on the phone," Erdoğan admitted. (more) Lebanon - As-Safir (newspaper) - Headline: The government legitimizes open wiretapping … until the elections! (more)
Australia - The Chinese-Australian woman at the centre of a top-level espionage inquiry has met both Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and former PM John Howard, it has been revealed.
Mr Rudd is believed to have attended a private dinner in Brisbane in 2004, where he met and talked at length in Mandarin with Helen Liu.
Ms Liu is at the centre of allegations that the nation's top spy organisation, the highly-secretive Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), tapped into the laptop of Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, without his knowledge.
The DSD allegedly discovered Ms Liu's bank account details in Mr Fitzgibbon's computer.
The Minister, who denies any wrongdoing, rents a Canberra flat from Ms Liu, a family friend for more than 16 years. (more)
China - ...has denied involvement in the electronic spy network which researchers say infiltrated computers in government offices around the world. The spokesman of the Chinese embassy in London said that there was no evidence to show Beijing was involved. He suggested the findings were part of a "propaganda campaign" by the Tibetan government in exile. The research was commissioned by the Dalai Lama's office alarmed by possible breaches of security. (more)
