Widely used by farms and home gardeners, little is known about its presence in the US food supply as the federal government does not regularly test for it. Sold since the 1970s, glyphosate has increased in usage ten times in the last 20 years, thanks in large part to the rise in genetically modified (GMO) crops, especially soy and corn. Such plants were engineered to resist Roundup, meaning glyphosate will kill unwanted plants (weeds) but not the GMO food crops. Last year, for every acre of active farmland in the United States, three-quarters of a pound of Roundup was applied.

Chuck Benbrook says yes, the likely carcinogen is indeed getting into humans via the food supply. He’s a professor at Washington State University’s Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources. “When a single pesticide is used that widely,” he said, “people can’t help but be exposed to it.”

Friday’s announcement came from The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization. It said that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Consumer Reports wrote that because Roundup is used so widely – and also that its health effects are not well understood – it should at least be monitored by the government.

“The Urban Death Project is a compost-based renewal system. At the heart of the project is a three-storey core, within which bodies and high-carbon materials are placed. Over the span of a few months, with the help of aerobic decomposition and microbial activity, the bodies decompose fully, leaving a rich compost. The Urban Death Project is not simply a system for turning our bodies into soil-building material. It is also a space for the contemplation of our place in the natural world, and a ritual to help us say goodbye to our loved ones by connecting us with the cycles of nature.”

The Urban Death Project website describes the project as a 501(c) non-profit, and a fundraising effort is due to launch March 30th on Kickstarter. The donate page explains, "Your gift supports the creation of a meaningful, equitable, and ecological alternative for the care and processing of our deceased."

Another, more disgusting, discovery I have made recently is what they do to “wraps”. I realise Telegraph readers may not necessarily eat wraps (and won’t want to after reading this) but you might be intrigued to know that the first thing the sandwich smearers on the production line do to wraps is slather them in a revolting-looking starchy jelly. It glues the wrap together. More worrying are the deceptions that go hand-in-hand with industrial food production. The packaging on your Beef in Black Bean Sauce might claim that it’s “wok-fried”, but according to Blythman the food makers do precious little cooking of raw food – it comes in frozen or dried from all over the world.

Or consider the benign-sounding "vegetable oil" that our crisps or fish fingers or restaurant chips are fried in. This is in fact a highly refined substance that is subjected to intensive heating, repeatedly, over mutliple days. That punishing treatment produces nasty by-products. In the case of polyunsaturated oil (supposed to be a healthy replacement for saturated fats), the repeated heating builds up gunk called polymers, which form a varnish-like deposit on everything they touch including surfaces and even hair - and polymers are inhaled whenever we breathe in the distinctive-smelling air in fast-food restaurants. (These are what Auberon Waugh with characteristic prescience described as "hamburger gases" 20 years ago.)

An even nastier by-product of heated oil in crisps is acrylamide. This is a nerve poison and crisps and chips are the biggest source of it in our diet. It causes cancer in animals and the US Environmental Protection Agency identifies it as a "probable carcinogen" in humans. Acrylamide passes from crisp-eating mother to baby, with the result that British babies contain five times the acrylamide of their Danish counterparts.

Nearly everything in our consumer society works on this basis of voluntary self-deception. The shampoo I used this morning boasted that it was enriched with “horse chestnut extract”, as if the juice had been hand-squeezed by a maiden in the woods – rather than what it is: sodium laureth sulphate, a hefty industrial detergent. This is the bargain we make in industrialised society. Sell us your dreams, we say to the marketers, and we’ll be happy to buy them. Ours is a world of simulacra. If manufacturers told us what was really in their products and how they were made, we’d be so nauseated we’d never buy them.

When there's money to be made you can bet private companies are working with DHS to turn a quick profit! New alcohol sensing (spying) bracelets like 'Vive' are being marketed as safety devices and also to prevent sexual abuse.

If you also guessed Microsoft is behind this, give yourself another gold star! "Vive is a smart wearable concept with integrated sensors that monitor the wearer’s biometrics related to alcohol consumption and keeps them synced up to their designated party group, so friends know if something’s wrong. It is designed to be desirable to young people, while keeping them safe and connected as they party. Vive amplifies existing social networks, making sure individuals don’t get separated from their group. When things get out of control, Vive makes sure a user is not alone."

Another company profiting from wearable alcohol wrist bracelets calls it a 'WriSTAS.' Pronounced Wrist Ass? Because you'd have to be an ASS to let big brother monitor your alcohol intake and location.

"There was money moving that included taxpayer US dollars, through non-profit organizations. And there were various liberal groups in the United States that were raising millions to fund a campaign called V15 against Prime Minister Netanyahu," McLaughlin said. He noted an effort to oust Netanyahu was guided by former Obama political operative Jeremy Bird and that V15, or Victory 15, ads hurt Netanyahu in the polls. McLaughlin said the Israeli leader rebounded after delivering a speech to Congress early this month, prompting more critical ads.

V15 was viewed as part of a broader campaign to oust Netanyahu. The group was linked to Washington-based nonprofit OneVoice Movement, which reportedly received $350,000 in State Department grants. Money to OneVoice stopped flowing in November, officials said, before the Israeli elections. "There were people in the United States that were organizing them to vote in one party so they would help the left-of-center candidate, Herzog, that the Obama administration favored," he added.

Already tense relations between Obama and Netanyahu escalated this week after Netanyahu's pre-election promise to not allow a Palestinian state. He later backed down after White House criticism, though Obama suggested in an interview released Saturday he wouldn't brush off the comments. "They were running an ACORN, Obama Organizing for America-type campaign over there with the digital ads, the billboards, the phones. They were targeting Israeli voters," Representative Lee Zeldin (Republican for New York) said Saturday on Fox News' "Justice with Judge Jeanine."

"I think the president, Tuesday night, felt like he lost," said Zeldin, who along with Senator Ted Cruz (Republican for Texas) has questioned the Obama administration over OneVoice's funding and nonprofit status.

Barack Obama’s promise to transform America was too modest. He is transforming the whole world before our eyes. Do you see it yet? Against the backdrop of the tsunami of trouble he has unleashed, Obama’s pledge to “reassess” America’s relationship with Israel cannot be taken lightly. Already paving the way for an Iranian nuke, he is hinting he’ll also let the other anti-Semites at Turtle Bay have their way. That could mean American support for punitive Security Council resolutions or for Palestinian statehood initiatives. It could mean both, or something worse.

Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim to teach Bibi Netanyahu never again to upstage him. And to teach Israeli voters never again to elect somebody Obama doesn’t like. Apologists and wishful thinkers, including some Jews, insist Obama real­izes that the special relationship between Israel and the United States must prevail and that allowing too much daylight between friends will encourage enemies. Those people are slow learners, or, more dangerously, deny-ists.

If Obama’s six years in office teach us anything, it is that he is impervious to appeals to good sense. Quite the contrary. Even respectful suggestions from supporters that he behave in the traditions of American presidents fill him with angry determination to do it his way. For Israel, the consequences will be intended. Those who make excuses for Obama’s policy failures — naive, bad advice, bad luck — have not come to grips with his dark impulses and deep-seated rage.

His visceral dislike for Netanyahu is genuine, but also serves as a convenient fig leaf for his visceral dislike of Israel. The fact that it’s personal with Netanyahu doesn’t explain six years of trying to bully Israelis into signing a suicide pact with Muslims bent on destroying them. Netanyahu’s only sin is that he puts his nation’s security first and refuses to knuckle under to Obama’s endless demands for unilateral concessions.

That refusal is now the excuse to act against Israel. Consider that, for all the upheaval around the world, the president rarely has a cross word for, let alone an open dispute with, any other foreign leader. Most troubling is Obama’s bended-knee deference to Iran’s Supreme Leader, which has been repaid with “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” demonstrations in Tehran and expanded Iranian military action in other countries.

Netanyahu said last week that if he were to be re-elected, a Palestinian state would not be established on his watch. Plain and simple, loud and clear. This simple, pure truth was the case for all his predecessors as well – all the prime ministers, peace lovers and justice seekers from the center and the left, who gave false promises. But who thought to admit it before him? Who had the courage to reveal the truth? The latest of these deceivers was Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog: His daring plan included five years of negotiations. The public rewarded him for that.

After all, one had to deceive the Americans, bluff the Europeans and cheat the Palestinians, fudge things for the Mideast Quartet and lie to some Israelis. One also had to play for time, to build settlements and get rid of every possible Palestinian partner – Yasser Arafat, who was too strong; President Mahmoud Abbas, who is too weak; and Hamas, which is too extreme. One has to play for time, so the Palestinians become more extreme and everyone understands that there’s no one to talk to.

Now comes the man who is considered a bluffer, and only he tells the fateful, historic truth: there will be no Palestinian state. Not during his term, which now seems eternal. And not after it, because by then it will be too late. The end of negotiations, the end of games. No more shuttle diplomacy, Quartets, emissaries, processes, outlines, mediators and plans. That’s it; it will not happen. It had no chance from the very beginning. In Israel, there was not one single prime minister – including the two Nobel Peace Prize laureates – who intended for one second to let a Palestinian state be established. But the bluff of the century was convenient for everyone. Now Netanyahu has put an end to it.

If Israel had played its cards openly from the outset, as Netanyahu has done now, perhaps we would be in a different place, a better place. Now Benjamin Netanyahu has come and put an end to all this. We must be grateful to him for this. History will remember that he was the first Israeli prime minister to speak the truth.

He is not alone. Investors across corporate bond markets are finding it harder to buy and sell company debt. And some investors are beginning to fear that the lack of liquidity will be the spark that ignites the next crisis in financial markets.

Liquidity is generally taken to mean the ease with which an investor can quickly buy or sell a security without moving its price. As regulation of banks tightens, the liquidity, particularly of European and US credit markets, has evaporated, prompting a host of regulators and central banks to sound warnings about the difficult trading environment.

A rate hike by the US Federal Reserve, which would be the first since 2006, could trigger turmoil. Given the bond market is much larger than the equity market, and investors have piled into fixed income in recent years, fears are growing that when credit investors attempt to sell bonds en masse, the illiquidity in the market has the potential to cause a crisis of a similar magnitude to the credit crunch.

Perhaps the most arresting warning came last November, when the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) surveyed investors, analysts and traders of European corporate bonds and concluded that the common fear was that a “meltdown” of global credit markets had become unavoidable.

The geopolitical importance was immediately evident from the US's negative reaction to the UK's announcement this week that it would join the AIIB. And very shortly afterwards France, Germany and Italy also defied the US and announced they might join. In the Pacific region, one of America's closest allies, Australia, says she is considering joining too along with New Zealand. The list of US allies seeking to join is growing. From a geopolitical point of view China and Russia have completely outmanoeuvred the US, splitting both NATO and America's Pacific alliances right down the middle.

This is much more important than political commentators generally realise. We must appreciate that anything China does is planned well in advance. The more one thinks about it, the creation of the AIIB is a masterstroke of tactical genius. The outstanding issue now is China and Russia will need to come up with a credible plan to make their currencies a slam-dunk replacement for the dollar. We know that gold may be involved because the SCO members have been accumulating bullion; but before we get there China must manage a deliberate deflation of her credit bubble, which will be a delicate and dangerous task.

Unlike the welfare-driven economies in the west, China has sufficient political authority and internal control to survive a rapid deflation of bank credit. When this inevitably happens the economic consequences for the west will be very serious. Japan and the Eurozone are already facing economic dislocation, and despite over-optimistic employment numbers, the US economy is faltering as well. The last thing America and the dollar needs is a deflationary shock from China.

The silver lining for us all is a peace dividend: it is becoming less likely that America will persist with a call to arms, because support from her allies is melting away leaving her on her own.

The US sees the AIIB as a rival to the World Bank, and as a lever for Beijing to extend its influence in the region. The White House has also said it hopes the UK will use "its voice to push for adoption of high standards". Countries have until 31 March to decide whether to seek membership of the AIIB. As well as the UK, other nations backing the venture include New Zealand, Germany, Italy and France.

Mrs Lagarde, speaking at the opening of the China Development Forum in Beijing, also said she believed that the World Bank would co-operate with the AIIB, China established the Asian lending institution in 2014 and has put up most of its initial $50 billion (£33.5 billion) in capital.

The teller disappears for a few minutes, leaving you waiting. When she returns she tells you that you can collect your money in a few days as they don’t have it on hand at the moment. Slightly irritated because of the inconvenience, you head home. But as you pull into your driveway later there’s an unexpected surprise waiting for you: two police officers would like to have a word with you about your intended withdrawal earlier.

If this sounds far-fetched, think again. Because it could very well become a reality in the 'Land of the Free' if the Justice Department gets its way. Earlier this week, a senior official from the Justice Department spoke to a group of bankers about the need for them to rat out their customers to the police. What a lot of people don’t realize is that banks are already unpaid government spies. Federal regulations in the Land of the Free REQUIRE banks to file ‘suspicious activity reports’ or SARs on their customers. And it’s not optional.

Banks have minimum quotas of SARs they need to fill out and submit to the federal government. If they don’t file enough SARs, they can be fined. They can lose their banking charter. And yes, bank executives and directors can even be imprisoned for noncompliance. This is the nature of the financial system in the Land of the Free.

The US government took over Fannie and Freddie in 2008, eventually injecting $187.5 billion in bailout money into the two. But Fannie and Freddie last month reported weak earnings for the fourth quarter. Fannie recorded net income of $1.3 billion, compared with $6.5 billion in the same quarter a year earlier. Freddie posted a profit of $227 million, down from $8.6 billion. The disappointing results were mainly due to the accounting treatment of the companies’ derivatives as well as fewer one-time items to bolster income.

For non-residents (mainly tourists) the limit will drop from 15,000 to 10,000 euros. Also, starting next year, banks will have to notify authorities of any income or withdrawals of more than 10,000 euros per month.

Restrictions apply to suitcases with money or goods of value like gold.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow... Yesterday the French cash limit was 3,000 euros. Today the cash limit is 1,000 euros. Tomorrow (not in the literal sense as timing is uncertain), cash transactions will be restricted to 100 euros, then banned altogether.

The same applies everywhere, including the US. Want to buy a candy bar? The government will want to know where the purchase was made, how much you paid, and where you got the money to buy the candy bar. Digital currencies will soon be mandatory.

The whiff of blackmail has incensed Europe’s politicians. Mr Tsipras has a chance to calm things down in two meetings with Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor — the first this week on the fringes of a European summit in Brussels, and the second in Berlin on March 23rd for what should be some hard talking between the European Union’s most powerful leader and its biggest troublemaker. Instead of stirring up resentment, Mr Tsipras should focus on the urgent task at hand: forging a deal.

Just now the Greek government seems to prefer lobbing incendiary political gibes instead. The defence minister has threatened to flood Europe with migrants, including jihadists. The justice minister has demanded that Germany pay €160 billion ($170 billion) in war reparations and warned Greece might seize the buildings of the Goethe Institute and even German holiday homes if the money is not handed over.

And Mr Tsipras has brought forward to early April a trip to Moscow to see Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. His hoped-for message is as clear as it is crude: Mr Putin might be only too happy to help a fellow Orthodox country that dislikes sanctions on Russia. Clearly, Greece believes that it can use threats like Russia to his advantage. History provides a precedent: it was to fend off Soviet encroachment that America, under President Truman, provided aid to Greece in the aftermath of the second world war. Today, too, for Greece to fall under Russia’s spell is the last thing that NATO and the EU wants.

Mr Tsipras is playing a dangerous game. By feeding Greeks’ well-developed sense of victimhood (and the historical claims against Germany have some legitimacy), he is fanning flames that could soon burn out of control. Although opinion polls consistently show that a majority of Greeks want to remain in the euro, there is no better way to change their minds than to tell them that their EU partners treat them with injustice and contempt.

Mario Monti – who was dubbed “Super Mario” for saving the country from collapse at the height of the eurozone debt crisis – said France’s “unease” with the single currency had already created tensions between Europe’s two largest economies. “In the last few years we have seen France receding in terms of actual economic performance, in terms of complying with all the European rules, and above all in terms of its domestic public opinion – which is turning more and more against Europe,” he told The Telegraph.

France's strained relationship with Brussels has been borne out through its persistent defiance of EU budget targets and the rise of Marine Le Pen’s far-right Front National party, “France is the big problem of the European Union because the whole construct has been leveraged on the foundation of a solid Franco-German entente. If it isn’t there then there is a poor destiny for Europe,” said Mr Monti. “We’ve seen that the strong axis is no longer so strong.”