The U.S. investigation is related to the arrest of 19 people in London on Tuesday in a probe into an international cybercrime group that allegedly stole at least £6 million, or $9.5 million, from U.K. banks, a person familiar with the investigation said Thursday. The U.K. banks included HSBC Holdings PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC.

According to court documents in the U.S., computer hackers in Eastern Europe used a malicious computer code, known as Zeus Trojan, to access bank accounts of small and midsize businesses and municipal entities in the U.S.

The code is often attached to a seemingly legitimate email message and has the virus attached, prosecutors said. The virus then secretly monitors a person’s computer activity and steals usernames and passwords, prosecutors said.

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Together, the three companies are investing $750 million in 16 low-earth orbit satellites that collectively will provide Internet back-haul capacity to areas that lack it. This additional capacity will make it substantially easier and less expensive for others to deliver high-speed Web access to underserved locations. Indeed, according to Larry Alder, product manager in Google’s (GOOG) alternative access group, the project could drop the cost of bandwidth in those regions by 95 percent. Said Alder, “This really fits into Google’s mission to extend Internet use around the developing world.”

Fits nicely into Google’s mission to extend Google use around the world as well. “Google has an interest in boosting the Internet all over the world to reach new masses,” said Bank Degroof Group fund manager Wim Zwanenburg. “The growth market for Internet and mobile phones is in emerging countries.”

Together, the three companies are investing $750 million in 16 low-earth orbit satellites that collectively will provide Internet back-haul capacity to areas that lack it. This additional capacity will make it substantially easier and less expensive for others to deliver high-speed Web access to underserved locations. Indeed, according to Larry Alder, product manager in Google’s (GOOG) alternative access group, the project could drop the cost of bandwidth in those regions by 95 percent. Said Alder, “This really fits into Google’s mission to extend Internet use around the developing world.”

Fits nicely into Google’s mission to extend Google use around the world as well. “Google has an interest in boosting the Internet all over the world to reach new masses,” said Bank Degroof Group fund manager Wim Zwanenburg. “The growth market for Internet and mobile phones is in emerging countries.”

“Like any service-orientated business, we are not too big to listen to the needs of our customers,” HSBC said in a statement. “Following the feedback from our graduate account holders, we have taken the decision to freeze interest-charging on 2007 graduates’ overdrafts up to £1,500 and refund any interest charged in August.”

An impressive achievement for armchair organizing, eh? And a hell of a lot easier than attending a student march.

“There can be no doubt that using Facebook made the world of difference to our campaign,” said National Union of Students Vice President Wes Streeting. “By setting up a group on a site that is incredibly popular with students, it enabled us to contact our members during the summer vacation far more easily than would otherwise have been possible. It also meant that we could involve our former members–the graduates who were going to be most affected by this policy.”

“Like any service-orientated business, we are not too big to listen to the needs of our customers,” HSBC said in a statement. “Following the feedback from our graduate account holders, we have taken the decision to freeze interest-charging on 2007 graduates’ overdrafts up to £1,500 and refund any interest charged in August.”

An impressive achievement for armchair organizing, eh? And a hell of a lot easier than attending a student march.

“There can be no doubt that using Facebook made the world of difference to our campaign,” said National Union of Students Vice President Wes Streeting. “By setting up a group on a site that is incredibly popular with students, it enabled us to contact our members during the summer vacation far more easily than would otherwise have been possible. It also meant that we could involve our former members–the graduates who were going to be most affected by this policy.”