In their study, published in Environmental Health on August 25, the scientists particularly focused on the influence of Monsanto’s Roundup on gene expression in the kidneys and liver. In the new two-year study, which extended the findings from one conducted in 2012, the team added tiny amounts of Roundup to water that was given to rats in doses much smaller than allowed in US drinking water. Scientists say that some of the rats experienced “25 percent body weight loss, presence of tumors over 25 percent bodyweight, hemorrhagic bleeding, or prostration.”

The study’s conclusions indicate that there is an association between wide-scale alterations in liver and kidney gene expression and the consumption of small quantities of Roundup, even at admissible glyphosate-equivalent concentrations. As the dose used is “environmentally relevant in terms of human, domesticated animals and wildlife levels of exposure,” the results potentially have significant health implications for animal and human populations, the study warned.

“There were more than 4,000 genes in the liver and kidneys [of the rats that were fed Roundup] whose levels of expression had changed,” the study’s leading scientist, Michael Antoniou, head of the Gene Expression and Therapy Group at King’s College London, said, as quoted by the Environmental Health News.

A vital water source for numerous lakes and streams, the Amazonian drought has been revealed with photos showing miles of dry, cracked riverbeds from where the water used to flow. Boats have been left stranded in the Puaquequarauna lake, due the low levels of the Rio Negro, near the Amazonian city of Manaus. There, houses sit isolated in the middle of the large deserted landscape, with only small pools of water remaining for locals to live off.

The crisis has left the Rio Negro, a crucial tributary of the Amazon River, in ruin. Now, whole communities face a battle to rebuild their lives. The shocking drought comes just a few months after the same region suffered bad flooding after a deluge of rain left several cities in states of emergency.

The European Commission president said: "Economically, we see the end of Europe's glorious years compared with what others are doing." Mr Juncker also blasted national leaders for threatening the "love affair" of integration because they "do not love" each other enough. He said: "The European Union is not going very well. And so we must ensure that we keep alive the ambitions, hopes and dreams of Europe."

The EU will soon represent just 15 per cent of worldwide gross domestic product as other countries enjoy economic growth, according to recent projections. And David Cameron recently urged Britain to grab opportunities to trade with Asian markets instead of relying on fellow EU member states. He said: "For too long, Britain has seen the weather-vane pointing to these far-flung lands, but continued to rely on our European neighbours for trade and investment."

But Mr Juncker claimed the problems faced by Brussels underline the need for member states to "stay together". Speaking in Madrid, Juncker said: "The time has not arrived for us to redivide the national leagues and classes."

"It's always difficult to play a double game: declaring a fight against terrorists while simultaneously trying to use some of them to arrange the pieces on the Middle East chess board in one's own interests," Putin said at a meeting of political scientists known as the Valdai Club.

"It is impossible to prevail over terrorism if some of the terrorists are being used as a battering ram to overthrow undesirable regimes," Putin said. Russia has insisted the air strikes it has conducted since September 30 in the war-torn country are hitting IS and other "terrorist" groups. But the US and its allies, who are conducting a separate bombing campaign, say Moscow's strikes are aimed at Western-backed moderate rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"There is no need to play on words, to classify terrorists are moderate and non-moderate," Putin said. "What is the difference?" Putin said, suggesting that "in the opinion of some experts… So-called moderate bandits behead people moderately or gently."

Law and Justice is most popular among working class, rural, and church-going voters in eastern Poland. It has promised to lower the retirement age, boost child support, increase the minimum wage, and lower income tax, while levying extra taxes on banks and supermarket chains.

It has attacked Civic Platform for agreeing to take in Syrian refugees under an EU scheme. It has also, over the past eight years of Civic Platform rule, depicted it as a German and Russian “lapdog”. A survey by CBOS on Friday put Law and Justice on 40.5 percent, ahead of the incumbent centre-right Civic Platform on 28.4 percent.

He said: "We believe that the Russian interference in Syria is very dangerous because it exacerbates the conflict." He also claimed the country's war can only be ended if President Bashar al-Assad – a long-time ally of Vladimir Putin – is overthrown. Jubeir described Assad as the magnet that "attracted foreign fighters from all over the world" to fight for ISIS against his regime.

Washington also believes the terror group – which controls vast swathes of Syria and Iraq – cannot be tackled unless Assad is removed from power. When asked whether Assad could play a role in any Syrian interim government Jubeir said: "His role would be to leave Syria. The best case scenario is that we wake up in the morning and Bashar al-Assad is not there."

The prince also claims that a clear majority of the country’s powerful Islamic clerics, known as the Ulama, would back a palace coup to oust the current King and install Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, a former Interior Minister, in his place. “The Ulama and religious people prefer Prince Ahmed – not all of them, but 75 per cent,” said the prince, himself a grandson of King Ibn Saud, who founded the ruling dynasty in 1932.

Support from the clerics would be vital for any change of monarch, since in the Saudi system only they have the power to confer religious and therefore political legitimacy on the leadership.

The revelation suggests there is increasing pressure within the normally secretive Saudi royal family to bring to a head the internal power struggle that has erupted since King Salman inherited the throne at the beginning of this year. The prince, who cannot be named for security reasons, is the author of two recently published letters calling for the royal family to replace the current Saudi leadership.

Lavrov said: We’ve made Americans the proposal announced by President Vladimir Putin yesterday. We suggested that they send a [US] military delegation to Moscow to coordinate a number of joint steps, and after that we could have sent to Washington a top-level delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, [but] … It is sad that our American colleagues in this case in fact do not side with those who fight against terrorism.

Then, on Tuesday October 20th, as CBS News online reported the following day, “The US has told Iraq’s leaders they must choose between ongoing American support in the battle against militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and asking the Russians to intervene instead. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Tuesday that the Iraqis had promised they would not request any Russian airstrikes or support for the fight against ISIS.”

However, Iraq already had done precisely that — and had even said that Russia seemed more committed to defeating ISIS than America is. The US has made clear, to the Iraqis, that America will do anything to defeat Russia — even abandon the fight against ISIS in Iraq, if need be — and that the US will absolutely not ally with Russia against ISIS, under any circumstances. This makes abundantly clear, to the whole world, that the current American government considers its main enemy to be not jihadists, but Russians.

In the US, on the other hand, we are being led by a weak, ineffective con man in the White House that has just a 45.3 percent approval rating. Under Obama, the federal government seems to be inept at just about everything, and this is especially true when it comes to foreign policy.

It has gotten to the point where it is really embarrassing to be an American. The Russians know this and aren’t afraid to gloat about it. In fact, one Russian commentator even suggested that Barack Obama isn’t “a real man”, and it is hard to argue with that.

And of course what is playing out in Syria right now is the latest example of this. Russia’s bombing campaign has accomplished in just a few weeks what the Obama administration was either unwilling or unable to do in over a year. The success of this campaign has propelled Putin to unprecedented heights of popularity.

Tensions between our two nations are rising, and the Russians are united behind a very strong leader that gets things done and that doesn’t mess around. What have we got? Perhaps we shouldn’t be so arrogant. We don’t exactly have a winning hand.

The FBI, state and local law enforcement and emergency officials, and the energy companies that own the tanks formed a group called the Safety Alliance of Cushing. Soon, guards took up posts along the perimeter of storage facilities and newly installed cameras kept constant surveillance. References to the giant tanks and pipelines were removed from the Cushing Chamber of Commerce website. In 2004, the Safety Alliance simulated a series of emergencies: an explosion, a fire, a hostage situation.

After the shale boom added millions of additional barrels to Cushing, its tanks swelled to a peak hoard of more than 60 million barrels this spring. That's about as much petroleum as the US uses in three days, and it's more than six times the quantity that triggered security concerns after September 11. The Safety Alliance has remained vigilant, even staging tornado simulations after a few close calls.

Now the massive oil stockpile faces an emerging threat: earthquakes. In the past month, a flurry of quakes have hit within a few miles of Cushing, rattling the town and its massive tanks. According to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, more than a dozen quakes have registered 3.0 or higher on the Richter scale within a few miles of Cushing since mid-September. The biggest, registering at 4.5, hit about three miles away on October 10.

This is all part of the disturbing rise in earthquakes in Oklahoma, which has corresponded to increased fracking activity and oil production in the state. Since 2008, Oklahoma has gone from averaging fewer than two earthquakes per year that measure at least 3.0 in magnitude to surpassing California as the most seismically active state in the continental US. This year, Oklahoma is on pace to endure close to 1,000 earthquakes. Seismologists believe the quakes are the result of wastewater injection wells used by the fracking industry. For now the threat of quakes has the city on higher alert than the threat of a terror strike.

According to Sechin it’s the United States not OPEC that controls the global oil market. "OPEC is no longer the regulator, its meeting on October 21 [with non-OPEC members] did not bring any decisions," according to Sechin.

Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak said shale oil is losing its influence on the world market, and there has been a steady decline in its production in the recent months. According to the minister, dropping prices cause investment outflow. Subsequently, the number of drilling rigs in the United States is also reducing: a year before there were 1600 rigs with about 600 now.