A 24-hour general strike in Greece on Thursday (3/11) is expected to seriously disrupt all forms of transportation including rail, sea and air.

The work stoppage, which begins at midnight Wednesday, will also shutdown most government offices and schools, and force hospitals to operate with emergency staffing only.

The UK Cards Association on Wednesday (3/10) released its figures on card and banking fraud in 2009. And there is some good news and some bad news for Britons.

The summary results are:

• Fraud on debit and credit cards fell by more than a quarter in 2009 to about $658 million.
• Counterfeit card fraud (skimming and cloning) fell by over a half.
• Online banking fraud losses rose by 14% to $89 million.
• Check fraud fell 29% from $62.6 million to $44.5 million.

The UK Cards Association says that the debit and credit card fraud fell as a result of improved card security technology, more sophisticated fraud detection by banks and retailers, and the work of DCPU-the banking-sponsored special police unit.

And the increase in online banking fraud losses is being blamed largely on criminals attacking online banking customers' computer systems with more sophisticated techniques and malware, rather than targeting banks' networks.

The tech blogosphere has latched onto former Sun Microsystems chief executive Jonathan Schwartz's latest blog post titled "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal", in which Schwartz informs his readers that both Apple and Microsoft threatened to sue Sun over perceived intellectual property (IP) infringement. And it is a good read.

Scam artists recently created a website that mimicked the one for the agency handling claims from people who invested with Bernie Madoff.

The legitimate, Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), "which maintains a special reserve fund mandated by Congress to protect the customers of insolvent brokerage firms" put out this warning yesterday about the scheme involving the faux "International Securities Investor Protection Corporation".

The New York Post reports the scam domain is registered to a Nigerian man.

The body of missing energy executive Douglas Schantz was pulled from the Mississippi River in New Orleans on Tuesday,

Schantz, president of Sequent Energy Management, had been missing since early last Friday (3/6) morning after he left a Bourbon Street bar by himself.

Police initially suspected foul play, but it may turn out that Schantz was drunk and fell into the river.

University police have released more information about the early morning shooting at Ohio State University.

The shooter has been identified as Nathaniel Brown, 51, an OSU custodial worker. He shot two co-workers, killing one of them, before turning the gun on himself. Brown was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Mohammad Ali Ramin, Iran's deputy culture and Islamic guidance minister, has warned 17 publications that they have violated the country's media regulations.

The linked AFP story about this warning does not indicate what if any penalties or sanctions have been levied against the publications.