The cluster started with the deadly quakes that hit Kumamoto Prefecture last Thursday and Saturday. Temblors subsequently rocked the Mount Aso region and neighboring Oita Prefecture. There is a known concentration of faults in the area. Still, experts say it is highly unusual to have a string of quakes measuring around magnitude 6 and stretching over such a vast area. The epicenter of the Oita jolt was about 100km away from the first Kumamoto quake.

"I don't quite understand what is happening with the recent earthquakes, because it's an unfamiliar phenomenon," said Yoshihisa Iio, a professor at Kyoto University's Research Center for Earthquake Prediction. The Japan Meteorological Agency said it is unprecedented to have a group of large quakes in these three parts of Kyushu. Experts are divided over how far the shaking will spread and whether it could prompt more quakes centered elsewhere.

Part of the Futagawa fault zone, about 27km in length, slid by around 3.5 meters, according to the GSI. The government committee met on Sunday and agreed that the Futagawa zone was the culprit in the main quake. This zone, it turns out, is longer than previously thought and stretches close to Mount Aso's caldera. The committee warned local residents to brace for more aftershocks.

By contrast, the gains from Brexit would be felt disproportionately by consumers, in the form of lower prices, including for food, and perhaps also lower taxes. They, of course, have no representation in business groups. And the corporate gainers would tend to be those who suffer from excessive EU regulation but don’t export much to the EU. These businesses tend to be small and not heavily represented in the CBI.

Moreover, there is a category of gain that will not appear directly in the calculations of any business leaders, namely the benefit of the end of the EU regulatory juggernaut in the public and non-profit sectors. Britain’s most prolific cancer researcher, Professor Angus Dalgleish, told the journalist Dominic Lawson that the EU’s Clinical Trials Directive had increased the cost of experiments more than ten-fold.

The upshot is that although it is important for the voice of business leaders to be heard, we should beware of thinking that they have some special insight into the balance of economic advantages – still less into the all-important political and constitutional issues.

The exit of the UK, if it happens, could not occur at a worse time for the EU. It could prompt developments that would lead to the end of the Union. First, there would be the simple matter of the UK’s budget contributions, amounting to about £10 billion net. In normal times, sharing out this burden among the other EU members might not be too difficult. But these are not normal times.

Which country would line up to take its share of the burden? Germany – again? France? The result would be an unseemly row between members. Meanwhile, a clamour for a new deal, or a referendum on membership, in several other countries would be likely.

I have argued that whatever the EU achieved for Europe in earlier decades, it is now beyond its useful life. Indeed, with its elitism, self-aggrandizement, waste and focus on regulation and harmonization, it has become the major factor holding Europe back. Accordingly, if Brexit were to lead to the end of the EU, then Britain would have done the people of Europe a great service.

For example, two officials of the International Monetary Fund said last month that they needed the threat of an imminent financial catastrophe to force other players into accepting its measures such as cutting Greek pensions and working conditions, and – as the Greek government put it (via Bloomberg) – the IMF was “considering a plan to cause a credit event in Greece and destabilize Europe.”

High-level officials also admitted to intentionally destroying their own nations’ economies in order to “justify” structural economic reforms.

For example, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Japanese central bank officials admitted that they kept Japan’s economy in a deflationary crisis to promote “structural reform” which would allow the Japanese economy to be looted by foreign interests. Japanese central bank officials admitted the same thing.

Indeed, the former head of the Bank of England said last month that the depression in the EU was more or less a “deliberate” policy choice. And an economist at insurance giant AIG – and former head of the European Commission’s unit responsible for the European Monetary System and monetary policies – said in 2008 that what European leaders wanted was to create a crisis to force introduction of “European economic government.”

"Mario Draghi's policies have greatly undermined the credibility of the ECB," said the deputy chief of the CSU's parliamentary faction, Hans-Peter Friedrich. His successor must "be a German, who feels an allegiance to the Bundesbank's tradition of currency stability," Friedrich said.

The Bundesbank is the German central bank on which the ECB was largely modelled when it took over the reins of monetary policy for all eurozone member countries. Another CSU politician and parliamentarian, Hans-Peter Uhl, slammed the ECB's zero interest rate policies.

"We cannot afford to have another Draghi," Uhl told Bild. "In future, we need a German financial specialist at the helm of the ECB." The central bank's statutes stipulate that ECB presidents operate free from any political influence.

The biggest tax dodger is technology giant Apple, with $181 billion held offshore. General Electric had the second-largest stash, at $119 billion, enough to repay four times over the $28 billion GE received in federal guarantees during the 2008 Wall Street crash. Microsoft had $108 billion in overseas accounts, with companies like Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, IBM, Cisco Systems, Google, Merck, and Johnson & Johnson rounding out the top ten.

Overseas tax havens have been the focus of recent revelations about tax scams by wealthy individuals, based on the leak of the “Panama Papers,” documents from a single Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, involving 214,000 offshore shell companies. The firm’s clients included 29 billionaires and 140 top politicians worldwide, among them a dozen heads of government.

But the sums involved in corporate tax scams dwarf those hidden away by individuals. According to the Oxfam report, the offshore manipulations by the 50 largest US corporations cost the US taxpayer $111 billion each year, while robbing another $100 billion annually from countries overseas, many of them desperately poor.

A Japanese chemist created a liquid version of what was to become the German Wehrmacht's miracle pill. The Berlin-based drug firm Temmler refined the drug and took out a patent in 1937. A year later, Pervitin was sold over the counter. It left people alert, fearless, and without need of food or drink. Pervitin is still on the market - illegally - and under a different name: Crystal Meth.

German chemists' inventive talents go back even further than the Nazi era, however. "No cough thanks to heroin," was the ad slogan for a cough medicine produced by the German drug company Bayer in the late 19th century. Heroin was prescribed to patients - adults and children - suffering from epilepsy, asthma, schizophrenia and heart disease. Any side effects? Bayer listed constipation.

McCrory is under continued assault from a highly organized and very rich coterie of homosexual organizations and their friends in business and the entertainment world for his defense of women and girls who do not want biological men urinating and showering with them. PayPal canceled an expansion into Charlotte. Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert, as did Ringo Starr. The NBA is threatening to pull the All-Star Game. And dozens of other major corporations have complained about the law.

Transsexual advocates cast the issue as one of discrimination, that biological men have a right to urinate and shower with biological women and girls. The Detroit Free Press this week editorialized that it is a violation of their Constitutional rights not to be allowed in girls’ bathrooms and showers.

Leading the fight to intimidate McCrory and state law-makers is the $50 million-a-year anti-Christian Human Rights Campaign. Fresh off their victory in forcing gay marriage on the country, some gay pressure groups actually closed their doors, others have been concerned with how to keep their coffers full, their doors open, and the LGBT issue on the boil after seemingly having won everything they wanted. Standing up for “men in dresses” has certainly kept the LGBT issue on the boil and, presumably, the cash flowing.

Quoted by the Süddeutsche Zeitung on Tuesday, the draft dispenses with the central limitations imposed on German imperialism following its defeat in two world wars and amounts to a blueprint for the establishment of a new German police and military state. The draft contains three central points. These include the deployment of the armed forces domestically, and extension of foreign military missions, independently of post-war allies, together with a strengthening of the Federal Security Council.

On the domestic use of the army it states: “The character and dynamic of present and future security policy threats make a further development necessary in order that the Bundeswehr can make an effective contribution to countering threats on the internal and external borders on a clear basis.”

In plain English: The prohibition of deploying the Bundeswehr at home, as well as the separation of the police and army, which is constitutionally enshrined due to the experiences under the Kaiser, during the Weimar Republic and under the Nazi dictatorship, are to be thrown overboard. Although these principles have been continually eroded ever since the 1968 Emergency Laws, a deployment of the army inside Germany has so far been prohibited.

Trump blasted Republican leadership in Colorado after Cruz grabbed 34 delegates in the state’s convention on Saturday. “It’s a totally corrupt, rigged system,” he said. And just yesterday, BizPac Review reported how the delegate system in Colorado changed in March in an effort to strip Trump of delegates, despite Republican National Committee (RNC) spokespersons claiming otherwise.

What occurred in Colorado, though, is just a fraction of what is yet to come in the next month. In a meeting behind closed doors yesterday, GOP party leaders met in Indiana to select 21 delegates that are expected to be anti-Trump, even though voters don’t get to vote for another three weeks in the state, according to Bloomberg News.

This is the same process which occurred in Colorado, where delegates are chosen for candidates ahead of an actual primary election by GOP voters, essentially nullifying votes. A similar situation is expected to follow in Wyoming, where 14 delegates are chosen at the state primary’s convention, the majority of which are reportedly anti-Trump.

Six adults and six children – apparently chosen at random – passed in hours from being inmates of a “closed” facility in Greece to new arrivals in continental Europe, where they will receive all the help the Holy See can provide.

The Pope’s dramatic gesture during an intensely emotional visit to Lesbos was intended as a pointed signal to Europe. But aid workers noted that he had left behind another 53,000 migrants in Greece – and 3,000 in the overcrowded camp from which chance had allowed the fortunate 12 to be liberated.

The Pope also rued the fate of those who drowned while making the perilous journey across the Aegean from Turkey. En route to Lesbos, he described how the sea had become the “cemetery” for the “worst humanitarian disaster since the Second World War”.

When he arrived in Lesbos, Pope Francis was driven to Moria camp. Journalists are usually barred from entering this disused army barracks, where careful preparations had been made for the visit.

Once inside Moria, the visitor and his entourage of bearded Greek Orthodox priests – a rare show of unity between rival Churches - received a tumultuous welcome. Tearful mothers and bewildered children gathered to shake or kiss his hand.

Time, now, is very much of the essence. A few minutes are allowed for the relatives’ final farewells before he is pronounced dead and a team of surgeons swings into action, removing his liver, kidneys and pancreas. As each organ is extracted, it is immediately transferred to separate operating theatres where medics are on hand to transplant it into a patient who lies waiting.

Slick, fast-paced and brutally efficient — while it may sound like some sci-fi scene set in the future, in fact, this chain of events unfolded in a hospital in Holland earlier this year. What, of course, makes it so extraordinary is that the man, who has not been identified, died at the hands of a doctor.

Having suffered a stroke he had decided that his quality of life was so poor that he wanted to end his life. In the Netherlands, he was able to do this because euthanasia has been legal since 2002. In that time, the numbers who have died in this way have steadily risen — this year, the figure is expected to pass 6,000, from 3,136 in 2010. Today, of all deaths in the Netherlands, 3.5 per cent are the result of euthanasia.

And then there was the case last year of physiotherapist Arnold Mulder. Having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the 56-year-old from Nijmegen in the Netherlands decided he wanted to end his life before becoming completely bed-ridden.

“Everyone should be able to step into a hospital and say ‘I want to donate’,” said Mr Mulder days before his death. “Hospitals should, in turn, receive all types of organ donors with open arms.” Many will respect his decision. Many more, though, may fear that modern medicine is taking us down a dark and potentially worrying path.

If his projections are accurate, our planet could be on the precipice of a wave of natural disasters unlike anything that any of us have ever experienced before. A single magnitude 8.0 earthquake in a populated area would be a disaster of historic proportions. If we were to see four of them like Roger Bilham is projecting, that would be a complete and utter nightmare.

In addition, let us not forget about all of the volcanic eruptions that have been in the news in recent weeks. According to Volcano Discovery, 38 volcanoes around the globe are erupting right now. This is definitely an unusually high number. If seismologist Roger Bilham is right and we do begin to see a series of absolutely massive earthquakes, that could dramatically change the course of world events literally overnight.

Even a single magnitude 8.0 earthquake in a major city in Japan, China or the United States would cause global markets to crash and would mean billions of dollars in economic damage. So let us hope that the crust of our planet begins to stabilize, but let us also not ignore the warnings of the scientists.

The quake shook the entire Andean country of 16 million people, causing panic as far away as the highland capital Quito and collapsing buildings and roads in several western towns hundreds of miles from the epicentre.

Vice President Jorge Glas said the death toll will likely rise further in what he called the 'worst seismic movement we have faced in decades'. He added: 'There are people trapped in various places, and we are starting rescue operations.' Ecuador's President Rafael Correa, rushing home from a trip to Italy, wrote on Twitter today: 'The immediate priority is to rescue people in the rubble… Everything can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be recovered, and that's what hurts the most.'

Coastal areas nearest the quake were worst affected, especially Pedernales, a rustic tourist spot with beaches and palm trees, where massive apartment blocks and buildings were completely flattened. There were reports of at least 163 aftershocks, mainly in the badly affected Pedernales area, and a state of emergency was declared in six provinces.