During a trip to D.C., I talked with a group of people in the field of energy research. I heard some of the “inside baseball” information on one major DOD program that will convert large amounts of U.S. coal into synthetic liquid fuel. This will be a government-industry partnership, with the U.S. Air Force as the lead agency.

The chief executive officer of HSBC Holdings PLC (ADR: HBC), Europe’s biggest lender, today (Tuesday) called on the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks to make fighting inflation a priority.

Oppenheimer & Co. (OPY) analyst Meredith Whitney’s reputation has soared like a skyrocket since she made her bearish - but highly prescient - call on the banking sector, including Citigroup Inc. (C), as Money Morning reported last fall.

You can’t blame Fannie Mae for trying. Last year saw British property buyers snap up around 20,000 homes in the United States.

Japan’s largest bank, Mitsubishi UFJ, has announced that its annual profits have plunged 28%, largely due to its exposure to the subprime market.

The bank said its annual subprime-related losses were more than 120 billion yen ($1.15 billion) and that it could lose another $480 million this year because of subprime exposure.

According to a report by Thomson Reuters, the bank’s president, Nobuo Kuroyanagi, said: “Subprime had a very broad effect on us.

Falling house prices, tighter credit and rising prices are going to hurt consumers.

The U.S. Federal Reserve reduced the benchmark U.S. lending rate by a quarter point - from 2.25% to 2% - yesterday (Wednesday), and then hinted that it will take a break from one of its most-aggressive rate-cutting campaigns in decades.

Merrill Lynch & Co. (MER) ripped the Band-Aid off its investors today (Thursday), when it posted its third consecutive quarterly loss and announced 3,000 job-cuts in its first-quarter earnings statement.