July 11, 2003

Japan's current account surplus expandss 28.5 percent in May from year earlier, to $1.35 trillion yen ($11.2 billion) (S)

More than thousand unsuspecting Internet users around world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who computer security experts say are using them for pornographic Web sites; hijacked computers are secretly loaded with software that makes them send explicit Web pages advertising pornographic sites and offer to sign visitors up as customers; activity is likely to go unnoticed unless owner of hijacked computer is technologically sophisticated; independent computer researcher Richard M Smith says ring can be traced to Russian senders of spam, or unwanted commercial e-mail; diagram; photo (M)

New York City firefighter's union charges that police officer nearly killed scuba-diving firefighter during rescue in latest chapter of ongoing jurisdictional dispute between police and fire departments; Mayor Michael Bloomberg warns that such episodes are unacceptable and Police Comr Raymond Kelly vows to investigate; feud goes back decades and arises mostly at rescue operations when no clear protocols exist for determining who should be in charge in given situation (M)

European drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and Swiss rival Novartis settle part of legal dispute over Glaxo's antibiotic Augmentin; Glaxo will receive royalties of less than 10 percent on US sales of generic versions of Augmentin sold by Novartis through June 2006 (S)

Baltimore Technologies, unprofitable British maker of computer security programs, says it will not pursue bids it has received for sale of company; will continue talks to sell some assets (S)