Hackers get data on world leaders

Computer hackers are reported to have obtained confidential information in Switzerland - including private phone numbers and credit card details - on 27,000 of the world's political and business leaders, including Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat.

The information about people who have attended the World Economic Forum, staged each year in Davos, were on a CD-ROM shown to a Zurich newspaper, SonntagsZeitung.

It seems to have been obtained by unnamed campaigners against globalisation, who hacked into the foundation which puts on the annual meeting. SonntagsZeitung said that credit card firms began freezing the affected accounts at the weekend.

More damaging, the material is said to include travel information for some of the participants, who are surrounded by high security. Some of it was published on the internet as the forum met last week.

The newspaper said the people on the 80,000 pages of material included President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, the French finance minister, Laurent Fabius, and Gianni Agnelli of Fiat.

The data included telephone numbers, email addresses, payment details, hotels, room numbers, and arrival and departure times. About 1,400 names had credit card details - even those of spouses.

The paper ran some items past the stunned deputy head of a pharmaceutical multinational, who confirmed their accuracy.

"We are taking this incident very seriously and are bringing in outside experts to clear up what happened," Charles McClean, a forum spokesman in Geneva, was quoted as saying.