UK - Barclays has set aside an extra £800 million for currency rigging fines, suggesting the British bank will pay one of the heaviest penalties for the foreign exchange scandal. The new provisions taken on Wednesday means that Barclays has now set aside more than £2 billion in total for penalties from UK and US regulators for currency manipulation, several times more than what the Libor scandal cost the bank.

USA - The Department of Defense started, then discarded, four massive missile defense projects, wasting $10 billion on technology that wasn’t capable of protecting the United States from foreign attack. “You can spend an awful lot of money and end up with nothing,” Mike Corbett, a retired Air Force colonel who oversaw the agency’s contracting for weapons systems from 2006 to 2009, told the Times. “MDA spent billions and billions on these programs that didn’t lead anywhere.” Another retired officer, Air Force General Eugene E Habiger, former head of the US Strategic Command and a member of a National Academy panel that reviewed MDA’s missteps, said the agency failed to analyze alternatives or seek independent cost estimates. Or, as he put it: “They are totally off in la-la land.”

USA - Two game-changing trade agreements — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and its sister pact, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) — are perilously close to completion. Their basic aims are three-fold: to elevate the rights of “investors,” that is of corporations, above the rights of citizens; to transfer sovereignty from the seats of national government to the corporate HQs of the world’s largest multinationals; and to cement Western domination of the global economy for the foreseeable future.

GREECE - Fears of an economic meltdown in Greece have escalated after pensioners started to clear out their savings accounts. The cash-strapped country has reportedly struggled to pay monthly benefits to its pensioners. And delays have sparked a wave of panic. Athens said that the problems lay with technical glitches, after payments were made eight hours late. However, a government insider told The Financial Times that funds were missing several hundred million euros on Tuesday morning. “Normally I only withdraw half the money at the end of the month, but today I’m taking it all,” one 75-year-old former civil servant told the paper. Last month the Greek deputy finance minister warned that the government is struggling to find the money needed to pay wages and pensions. The rising tensions come as Greece runs out of time to avoid bankruptcy.

USA - The Federal Reserve bank and its owners, the largest banks on Wall Street, want badly to be able to charge you interest for the privilege of depositing your funds. The problem is getting you to stand for it.

CHINA/RUSSIA - Sabre-rattling much? For the first time in history, Chinese and Russian navies will begin a significant joint naval exercise in The Mediterranean Sea in mid-May. As RT reports, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng, "The aim is to deepen both countries' friendly and practical cooperation, and increase our navies' ability to jointly deal with maritime security threats," but diplomatically added "these exercises are not aimed at any third party and have nothing to do with the regional situation."

USA - How do you deal with psychotic religious warriors that believe that they are offering a service to God by killing Christians? Ever since 9/11, we were endlessly told about what a great threat “al-Qaeda” was, but I don’t remember a single time when al-Qaeda ever marched a group of Christians out and beheaded them on camera.

UK - A record £1 billion was pulled out of funds that invest in the UK stock market in March amid fears over the result of next week’s general election. Investors moved their money into European equity funds, which saw inflows hit their highest level in 18 months at £663 million, data released on Thursday showed. The move comes after the European Central Bank announced plans earlier this year to launch €60-billion-a-month of quantitative easing in a bid to kickstart the eurozone economy. Experts believe investors are taking money out of UK markets such as the FTSE 100 amid uncertainty over the political landscape after the election next Thursday.

USA - Business as usual - but with a National Guard presence as seen looking west down Pratt Street at the Inner Harbor this morning after an evening of rioting in the city. An official State of Emergency is now in effect in Maryland and the state's National Guard has been dispatched to the city of Baltimore following a wave of violence that kicked off between police officers and individuals in the streets on Monday and continued overnight. As several large fires burned in the city, Republican Governor Larry Hogan, at a press conference just before 9 pm on Monday, said he signed the executive order declaring the emergency just thirty seconds after it was requested by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. The purpose of the order, Hogan said, is "to address the growing violence and unrest in Baltimore City." Adjutant General Linda Singh, the commanding officer of Maryland's National Guard, told reporters that up to 5,000 reservist soldiers could be deployed to Baltimore.

USA - First Bill Binney – the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, the 32-year NSA veteran who was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees – told us that America has already become a police state. Then Thomas Drake – one of the top NSA executives, and Senior Change Leader within the NSA – told us the same thing. Now Kirk Wiebe – a 32-year NSA veteran who received the Director CIA’s Meritorious Unit Award and the NSA’s Meritorious Civilian Service Award – agrees: Wiebe: “we are no longer afraid of the police state happening. It's here. In small ways and big ways”. It’s not just NSA officials … Two former US Supreme Court Justices have warned that America is sliding into tyranny. A former US President, and many other high-level American officials agree.

GREECE - The Greek government reaffirmed its commitment to carry out key Leftist electoral promises in a stance which threatens to scupper any hope that it can avert the "unprecedented" consequences of an exit from the eurozone. With talks over the country's cash-for-reforms programme continuing in Brussels on Thursday, Athens' radical Left government said it was still not willing to blink over spending plans to help the poorest in society. A Syriza source said the government did "not have a public mandate to bring a deal outside the red lines, and for this reason it will not do so." The source added Greece would not submit to any agreement which would prolong the "crimes" of austerity against the country.

NEPAL - Towns and villages near the epicentre of Saturday's earthquake in central Nepal have suffered "almost total devastation", the Red Cross says. Assessment teams say they have found survivors in a "desperate situation". Nepal says 6,204 people are known to have died in the 7.8-magnitude quake and 13,932 were injured. But the fate of thousands more in many remote areas remains unknown and the government has warned that the death toll could rise to more than 10,000. The UN has also warned of the challenges facing Nepal's farming community, which comprises up to two-thirds of the country's 27 million people. It says that the quake destroyed seed stocks for the mid-May rice sowing season, as well as grains kept dry in stone storage huts that have now been razed to the ground. If farmers miss this month's planting season, they will be unable to harvest rice - Nepal's staple food - until late 2016, the UN says.

FRANCE - Recently, France decided to crack down on those people who make cash payments and withdrawals and who hold small bank accounts. The reason given was, not surprisingly, to “fight terrorism,” the handy catchall justification for any new restriction governments wish to impose on their citizens. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin stated at the time, “Terrorism feeds on fraud, money laundering, and petty trafficking.” And so, in future, people in France will not be allowed to make cash payments exceeding €1,000 (down from €3,000). Additionally, cash deposits and withdrawals totaling more than €10,000 per month will be reported to Tracfin — an anti-fraud and money laundering agency.

GREECE - Hopes that a revamped Greek bail-out team would finally break deadlock with creditors took a fresh blow on Wednesday, after a senior government minister pledged "no surrender" to international lenders. Highlighting a deep schism within the ruling party, energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis said there could be "no compromise" with creditor powers, who were seeking "subordination" from the Greek people.

ISRAEL - Eight months after conflict, Islamic group again digging terror tunnels, developing Iran-funded advanced missiles and drones. Assessing that Hamas will continue to rule the Gaza Strip for the foreseeable future, the IDF is training for the possible reconquering of the entire coastal Palestinian territory in a future confrontation with the Islamic organization, the Times of Israel has learned. Despite the harsh blow Hamas and Islamic Jihad sustained in Operation Protective Edge last July and August, Israel’s military command is convinced that another round of fighting between Israel and Gaza is only a matter of time.