Computer networks at the Reserve Bank of Australia have been hacked, officials said Monday, with some reportedly infected by Chinese-developed malware searching for sensitive information.

The central bank revealed the attacks after investigations by The Australian Financial Review found multiple computers had been compromised by malicious software seeking intelligence.

A private collector has paid a world record Aus$495,000 (U.S.$508,000) for one of Australia's first coins, known as the "Holey Dollar", auctioneers said Wednesday.

Only 300 of the coins survive and Belinda Downie, managing director of Melbourne dealer Coinworks, said the one that sold this week was the finest example.

Australia on Wednesday admitted for the first time that a man found hanged in a Tel Aviv jail worked for the Israeli government, but stopped short of confirming he was a Mossad spy.

Dual Australian-Israeli citizen Ben Zygier, known as "Prisoner X", died in 2010 in an allegedly suicide-proof cell with Israel going to extreme lengths to cover it up, sparking claims by Australian media that he worked for Mossad.

Australia's central bank kept interest rates steady at 3.00 percent Tuesday, saying downside risks in the global economy appeared to have eased while there were signs previous cuts were working.

At its monthly meeting in Sydney, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decided to keep its cash rate where it has been since December, an historic low last reached in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Australian soldiers in southern Afghanistan shot dead two children tending cattle, local officials said on Saturday as the international coalition launched an inquiry into the incident.

Civilian casualties caused by NATO-led troops have been one of the most contentious issues in the campaign against Taliban insurgents, fueling public anger and often triggering criticism from President Hamid Karzai.

A UAE appeals court on Monday upheld life imprisonments handed in May last year to 10 pirates convicted of hijacking a ship east of Oman in the Arabian Sea in 2011, state news agency WAM reported.

The sentences, which equates to 25 years in jail, will be followed by deportation, WAM said.

A group of Australian teenagers have sparked a Gangnam Style-like viral dance craze called the "Harlem Shake", with their pelvis-thrusting moves inspiring tens of thousands of Internet copycat clips.

The fivesome, from Australia's Sunshine Coast, have shot to fame with their 31-second clip "The Harlem Shake v1 (TSCS original)", which has been viewed more than 12 million times since being uploaded to YouTube on February 2.

Israel's parliament is to conduct what it called an "intensive" inquiry into the arrest and death of a jailed Australian-Israeli with Mossad links, a parliamentary spokesman said on Sunday.

"The intelligence subcommittee of the (Knesset) foreign affairs and defense committee decided to hold an intensive inquiry into all aspects of the affair of the prisoner found dead in his cell," the committee spokesman Asaf Doron said.

Exposure of intelligence activities can "badly damage" state security, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday in his first remarks on the arrest and death of a jailed Australian-Israeli with Mossad links.

In remarks to his outgoing cabinet, the Israeli prime minister insisted that the security forces be allowed to "quietly" get on with their jobs, in his first remarks on the mysterious spy saga which has dominated headlines in Israel and Australia.

Australian intelligence had detailed knowledge of the case of a Melbourne man thought to have been an Israeli spy well before he died in a Tel Aviv jail in 2010, a report said Saturday.

"Every day that goes by you see how deeply involved they were," a senior Israeli official told The Australian newspaper. "It is clear they were in the know long before he died."