IHT - Published: August 12, 2008

By John Markoff Published: August 12, 2008

Besides the bloody shooting war going on between Georgia and Russia, there is another, quieter battle going on in cyberspace.

The Georgian government has accused Russia of disabling Georgian Web sites, including the site for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Because of the disruption, the Georgian government began posting the press dispatches of its Foreign Ministry on a public blog-hosting site owned by Google, georgiamfa.blogspot.com, and on the Web site of the president of Poland, Lech Kaczynski.

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CNNMoney - August 11, 2008: 1:14 PM EDT

Effective Wednesday, naked short selling is fair game once again in the banking sector. This time, however, the financials may be spared.

By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Should the financial sector endure yet another harrowing period of wild market swings and rumors later this week, expect regulators to round up the usual suspects - namely, the short sellers.

Effective Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission lifts its moratorium on the practice of “naked” short selling some 17 domestic and international securities firms, along with the twin mortgage buyers Freddie Mac (FRE, Fortune 500) and Fannie Mae (FNM, Fortune 500).

Last month, regulators announced the plan as part of an effort to soothe some of the panic surrounding the financial services sector that had reached a fever pitch.

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BUSINESSWEEK - Investing August 12, 2008, 12:01AM EST

by David Bogoslaw

The slumping U.S. dollar has resulted in the best of times for foreign tourists in the U.S.—and for U.S. outfits that export their goods. Keeping up the Dickensian conceit, it’s also meant the worst of times for U.S. consumers’ purchasing power.

The dollar’s sustained deterioration over the past six years, and its plunge in the last year, have been all that and more. And that’s made the greenback’s recent comeback vs. other major currencies all the more remarkable. Some view the dollar’s big bounce over the past week as a sign of growing confidence in U.S. growth prospects, but it may turn out to be nothing more than a tale of two (or more) diverging monetary policies.

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Dan Frommer | August 11, 2008 2:59 PM

We already know Apple’s iPhone 3G is a big hit. But is it possible that they’ve already sold 3 million of them, as former T-Mobile exec-turned-consultant Michael Cote tells Fortune? Sure, why not?

Apple sold 1 million 3G iPhones in its first three days of sales, July 11-13. That means they would need to have sold another 2 million in the last 28 days, or approximately 71,400 phones a day.

Last Christmas, the company sold 2.3 million iPhones in the December quarter, or about 25,000 a day. But that was at $399, and mostly in the U.S. — European sales in the U.K., France, and Germany started later in the quarter, and were relatively mild.

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The Associated Press  August 11, 2008, 10:26PM ET

NEW YORK.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. revealed Monday that it has incurred more substantial losses in its mortgage investments so far in the third quarter than it did in the previous three months.

In a regulatory filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank said turbulence in the credit markets has caused it to lose about $1.5 billion, after hedges, in its mortgage-backed securities and loans to date in the July-to-September quarter.

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Sillicon Alley Insider - Peter Kafka | August 11, 2008 4:37 PM

Kara Swisher, last seen immersed in the great Yahoo hanging chad scandal, is back with news that will be more pertinent to Yahoo employees and shareholders: The company, she says, is considering yet another round of cuts.

Kara surmises that cuts will be the outgrowth of two “navel-gazing strategy overview efforts” codenamed Aikido and Judo. But really, they’re a product of the fact that Yahoo is struggling with its top line, and is going to have take out costs in order to meet operating cash flow projections. Read the rest of this entry »