Police may be targeting "marginal" terror suspects in a bid to "clear the decks" ahead of the Olympics, the terrorism watchdog said on Sunday.

David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, said this summer's Games are a "major target" and police may be intervening in cases earlier than they would normally.

His comments follow a series of arrests by counter-terrorism officers in recent weeks.

Last month two Muslim converts were arrested on suspicion of plotting an attack against the Olympic canoeing venue. They were later released without charge.

And last week 14 people were arrested in two separate counter-terrorism operations against suspected Islamist plots.

Whitehall and security sources have previously suggested the threshold for assessing the potential risk of suspects is likely to be lower in the run up to the Olympics.

News that that a swarm of termites deep inside the British banking system have been fiddling the interbank interest rates (LIBOR) for years in order to systematically vacuum a few billion pence off the exchange floors for themselves is the latest blow to the credibility of the global money system - and probably a fine overture to a looming climactic implosion of the gigantic, creaking, smoldering, reeking, duck-taped edifice of broken promises, booby-trapped hedge obligations, counterparty follies, central bank euchres, sovereign flim-flams, and countless chicanes too various, dark, and deep to smoke out.

Next, we'll probably hear that Lloyd Blankfein over at Goldman Sachs has been tinkering with the rotation of the earth in order to gain a few micro-milliseconds of advantage in his firm's high frequency trading rackets. After all, back in 2008 Lloyd himself claimed to be "doing God's work."

In short, world banking is now hopelessly pranged, and I am not at all sure the project of civilization (modern edition) can continue by other means. The impairments of capital formation are now so profound that no one and nothing can be trusted. Not only are all bets off, but nobody will want to make any new bets - and by that I mean venture to invest accumulated wealth (capital) in some useful project designed to sustain human well-being. What remains is just the desperate hoarding of whatever remains in assets uncontaminated by the pledges of others to pony up.

All this points to a dangerous new period of political history, a deadly Hobbesian scramble to evade the falling timber in a burning house as the rudiments of a worldwide social contract go up in flames. Such is the importance of legitimacy: the basic condition for governance, especially among supposedly free people. You can meddle in a lot of distributory issues - who gets what - but when you mess with the most basic operations of money to the extent that no one is sure what it's really worth, or what it represents, then you are deeply undermining society. This is now the condition that is set to blow up republics.

Reality dislikes fraud and accounting tricks. Reality is serious about settling scores. Reality eventually intervenes and puts an end to monkey business. What will it be this time?

One year after the euphoria of independence, South Sudan faces economic disaster that could reverse recent development gains after it shut down oil production in a dispute over pipeline fees with Sudan.

Preying on people's minds in Juba is the thought that the government is about to run out of money - shutting down vital services in an already impoverished country. A few months ago, some thought the government would run out of cash to pay teachers and health workers as early as August; now the prediction is September or the end of the year.

Khartoum is feeling the economic and political heat as well. Taking a leaf out of South Sudan's book, Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, is cutting the number of cabinet posts from 31 to 26. However, other austerity measures - a rise in transport costs and a doubling of fuel and food prices following cuts in subsidies - have provoked demonstrations and calls for Bashir to step down.

Analysts say the calamitous economic situation in both countries could force Juba and Khartoum - with prodding from outside, particularly the US and China - to cut a deal to start the oil flowing again.

More facts are continually emerging demonstrating the links between the German domestic intelligence service (Office for the Protection of the Constitution - VS) and neo-Nazi terrorists. Yet under conditions where broad layers of the population fear the emergence of a new version of the Gestapo, the German Left Party is explicitly defending the secret service and calling for structural changes aimed at optimizing its activities.

Late last year media reports revealed that a neo-fascist organization called the National Socialist Underground (NSU) had been operating in Germany since 2000 and was responsible for at least nine racially motivated murders as well as the killing of a policewoman.

The investigation showed that the VS had been informed about the activities of the NSU from the start and indicated that the intelligence service was deliberately protecting NSU members from prosecution. The VS had installed undercover agents in the periphery of the organization, yet it ignored evidence linking NSU members to bomb-making operations and helped at least one NSU terrorist obtain a new passport.

Did spies posing as Microsofties write malware in Redmond? How do you spell 'phooey' in C#?

A leading security researcher has suggested Microsoft's core Windows and application development programming teams have been infiltrated by covert programmer/operatives from U.S. intelligence agencies.

If it were true it would be another exciting twist to the stories of international espionage, sabotage and murder that surround Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, the most successful cyberwar weapons deployed so far, with the possible exception of Windows itself.

Nevertheless, according to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer of antivirus and security software vendor F-Secure, the scenario that would make it simplest for programmers employed by U.S. intelligence agencies to create the Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame viruses and compromise Microsoft protocols to the extent they could disguise downloads to Flame as patches through Windows Update is that Microsoft has been infiltrated by members of the U.S. intelligence community.

Users Whose Computers Infected With DNSChanger Won't Be Able To Access Web

Having trouble getting online? Some may find their smartphones working overtime because the family computer couldn't seem to connect to the Internet Monday morning. You may be one of thousands across the United States who waited too long or simply didn't believe the warnings, and your Internet may have shut down just after midnight because of malware that took over computers around the world more than a year ago.

At 12:01 a.m. EDT, the FBI turned off the Internet servers that were functioning as a temporary safety net to keep infected computers online for the past eight months. The court order the agency had gotten to keep the servers running expired, and it was not renewed. Now, if your computer is infected, your only hope is your Internet service provider's help desk.

US government officials could be working under cover at Microsoft to help the country's cyber-espionage programme, according to one leading security expert.

The warning comes in the wake of the Flame virus that targeted key computers in the Middle East, and in part used confidential Microsoft certificates in order to access machines.

According to Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security firm F-Secure, the claim is a logical conclusion to a series of recent discoveries and disclosures linking the US government to 2010's Stuxnet attack on Iran and ties between Stuxnet and the recent Flame attack.

"The announcement that links Flame to Stuxnet and the conclusive proof that Stuxnet was a US tool means that Flame is also linked to the US government," Hypponen said.

It is the horrific moment an Afghan man is blown apart by a US missile. But in a moment of twisted inspiration an American helicopter pilot decided to give it a impromptu soundtrack - by singing 'Bye, bye Miss American pie.'

He belted out the most famous line of the Don McLean classic at the moment of impact when a fireball consumed at least one man.

The video on LiveLeak.com appears to be from an on-board camera of a pilot from the 101st Airborne Division in an AH64 Apache helicopter. According to the caption the victims were 'innocent farms planting poppy seeds in the middle of the road,' although that has not been verified.

The weapon used on them was supposedly a one kilogram Hellfire missile. The caption reads: 'At the 01:39 mark you can hear the pilot singing 'Bye Bye Ms. American Pie' right before impact then BOOM....the rest is history.' Another pilot can also be heard saying, 'Nice' moments after the impact.

Greece's ruling coalition unveiled an "everything must go" sale of the country's assets over the weekend as Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras gushed that privatisation was his "top priority.

"The privatisation programme aims at attracting important international capital," Mr Stournaras told MPs on Saturday, sketching a vista of foreign corporations rushing in to snap up Greece's infrastructure and services.

The initial wave of the project would include 28 major privatisations, including state natural gas, water and betting companies, a number of key airports including that of Athens, the state railways and various marinas and other properties.

Some services would be taken over entirely by the private sector, he said, while in others the state would rent back the infrastructure from the buyers.

Mr Stournaras added that this was just the beginning, with a second bout of sell-offs, including that of the Public Power Corporation, planned for a later date.

In a second address today ahead of a confidence vote in the government he insisted that any deviation from the demands of the "troika" - the EU, European Central Bank and the IMF - would risk the country losing the next tranche of "aid" (loans) from the trio.

And he added that privatisation was only part of the package - it would also be essential to boost Greek "competitiveness," presumably by cutting wages even further.

The US Army has completed a two-week demonstration of a new ground-based sensor system for its drones. It now hopes to get the drones certified for domestic flights, but critics are concerned that their use could breach privacy rights.

The demonstrations took place at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and involved testing the Ground Based Sense and Avoid (GBSAA) system for the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The drone has been on duty in Afghanistan, but the Army now hopes to deploy it at home.

The Pentagon hopes to send the Gray Eagles to five bases throughout the country: Fort Hood (TX), Fort Riley (KS), Fort Stewart (GA), Fort Campbell (KY) and Fort Bragg (NC). However, it first needs to get the drones certified with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

In February, Congress tasked the FAA with coming up with a plan to integrate rules for drones into domestic aircraft regulations. Under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act, the aviation authority was to produce rules for the certification of the first UAVs to be used by law enforcement and emergency response agencies in May. Licenses for these drones are to be issued in August.

While UAVs are actively deployed by the US military for operations in hot spots like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, it appears that the government and private companies are now eying their potential uses in the civilian sector.