Archive for the 'Covert Operations' Category
Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Lifeline Most as Bernanke Kept Borrowers Secret
April 1st, 2011Via: Bloomberg: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya. Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as […]
More Flash Crashes
March 31st, 2011Via: Reuters: Ten new exchange-traded funds suffered their own mini “flash crashes” shortly after the U.S. stock market opened on Thursday, suggesting recent measures put in place to protect against extreme market moves may not be enough. Nasdaq OMX Group Inc said it canceled trades in 10 new ETFs sponsored by Scottrade affiliate FocusShares, some […]
Libyan Rebel Leader Spent Much of Past 20 Years in Suburban Virginia
March 31st, 2011Easily the best line in a couple of weeks. *chortle*: Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Badr said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself… Via: McClatchy: The new leader of Libya’s opposition military spent the past two decades in […]
‘CIA Operating in Libya’
March 31st, 2011This story is a month old: “We’ve been reaching out to many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the east and, as the revolution moves westward, there as well,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said en route to Geneva for talks on Libya. The U.S. will provide “any kind of assistance” to those […]
NSA Investigating Cyber Attack on NASDAQ
March 30th, 2011Via: Bloomberg: The National Security Agency, the top U.S. electronic intelligence service, has joined a probe of the October cyber attack on Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ) amid evidence the intrusion by hackers was more severe than first disclosed, according to people familiar with the investigation. The involvement of the NSA, which uses some of […]
Secret X-37B Space Plane Spotted Again by Amateur Skywatchers
March 29th, 2011Via: Space: After an intense search, a crew of amateur satellite sleuths has spotted the U.S. Air Force’s second X-37B space plane – a robotic spacecraft that launched into orbit March 5. The mission of the unmanned X-37B space plane, which is known officially as the Orbital Test Vehicle 2 (OTV-2), is shrouded in secrecy. […]
U.S. Says Libyan Rebels May Sell Oil
March 29th, 2011Via: Reuters: The United States on Monday gave a green light to sales of Libyan crude oil from rebel-held territory, giving a potential boost to forces battling Muammar Gaddafi. A U.S. Treasury Department official said Libyan rebels would not be subject to U.S. sanctions if they avoid entities linked to Gaddafi’s regime, which would allow […]
Daniel Nocera’s ‘Artificial Leaf’ and Synthetic Photosynthesis for Energy Conversion
March 29th, 2011Via: Press Release – American Chemical Society: Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy — development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the […]
Libyan Rebels Form Central Bank
March 29th, 2011Mmm hmm. Via: Bloomberg: Libyan rebels in Benghazi said they have created a new national oil company to replace the corporation controlled by leader Muammar Qaddafi whose assets were frozen by the United Nations Security Council. The Transitional National Council released a statement announcing the decision made at a March 19 meeting to establish the […]
‘It’s Tracking Your Every Move’
March 28th, 2011Via: New York Times: A favorite pastime of Internet users is to share their location: services like Google Latitude can inform friends when you are nearby; another, Foursquare, has turned reporting these updates into a game. But as a German Green party politician, Malte Spitz, recently learned, we are already continually being tracked whether we […]
