USA - The world must prepare for an “Armageddon”-style cyber attack, one of America’s most influential regulators has warned. Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, said it was a “matter of time” before there is a major cyber attack on the global financial system, and that the public needs to invest heavily in preventing disaster now, or pay an even higher price later on. "They [cyber attackers] are breaking into everything. It is only a matter of time before something happens that is more systematic and problematic,” he said. “I worry that we are going to have some sort of major cyber-event in the financial system that’s going to cause us all to shudder”. Mr Lawsky drew comparisons with the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Centre, which killed thousands of people and crippled financial confidence around the world.

OKLAHOMA CITY, USA - The purported use of a consecrated Host at a planned satanic black mass at an Oklahoma City civic center would be a “terrible sacrilege” that requires a prayerful response, the local archbishop emphasized. Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City in an August 4 message lamented that the city-run Civic Center Music Hall was selling tickets for the event as if it were merely some sort of dark entertainment. Rather, he said, the ritual was “deadly serious” and “a blasphemous and obscene inversion of the Catholic Mass.” “Using a consecrated Host obtained illicitly from a Catholic church and desecrating it in the vilest ways imaginable, the practitioners offer it in sacrifice to Satan. This terrible sacrilege is a deliberate attack on the Catholic Mass as well as the foundational beliefs of all Christians,” the archbishop continued.

GERMANY - Who is the world’s number 3 arms exporter, after the United States and Russia? Surprise. It is Germany, a country bound by law to supply only allies and peaceable folks like (neutral) Switzerland or Sweden. Off limits are “areas of tension” — bad neighbourhoods that actually need the stuff.

GERMANY - It was a clear illustration of the dysfunction of the French-German partnership, the axis that for decades kept Europe on a united and dynamic track. In Berlin this month, Chancellor Angela Merkel, riding high after nine years in power, delivered a strident defense in Parliament of austerity, which she has been pushing on Europe ever since a debt crisis broke out in 2009.

USA - Working with families who overuse or are addicted to technology, has been an eye opener into a world of child deprivation, isolation, and neglect. Mom’s obsessed with Facebook, and Pinterest, and Dad’s immersed in video games and porn, are leaving children on their own to fend for themselves. Seemingly safe and happy hiding behind screens, today’s tech families are actually sliding down a slippery slope toward addictions without a care in the world. Thinking they are preparing their young child for the future by handing them a device, today’s parents appear oblivious to the damage their deprivation and neglect wreaks on their children. Gone are family outings, regular meal times, naps, and anything that even resembles meaningful conversation. Children are getting lost in the fray of tablets, phones, and endless devices which separate them from the love and attention that determines their very existence.

UK - Schools have come under fire for offering children tests for sexually transmitted diseases during lessons. Parents criticised teachers in East Sussex for not alerting them to plans to give swabs to 15 and 16-year-olds, who were left “humiliated” after being asked to test themselves in school toilets. A spokesman for Brighton and Hove Council, which is running the scheme in nine schools, said the work was “entirely consistent with Government guidelines” which aim to reduce rates of chlamydia, the most common sexually transmitted infection (STI). NHS guidance published in 2012 states that under-16s should only be offered such tests without parental knowledge if children cannot be persuaded to tell their parents.

USA - New intelligence has emerged warning Washington that its upcoming confrontation with the Islamic State may leave it blind to a more sinister and direct threat from a much lesser known terrorist group that has arisen from the ashes of the Syrian war. Very little information is being released at the moment by anyone within American intelligence circles, but the group calling itself Khorasan is said by officials to have concrete plans for striking targets in the United States and Europe as a chosen modus operandi – more so than the Islamic State (IS), formerly known as ISIS.

QATAR - The fabulously wealthy Gulf state, which owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East, is a prime sponsor of violent Islamists . Few outsiders have noticed, but radical Islamists now control Libya's capital. These militias stormed Tripoli last month, forcing the official government to flee and hastening the country's collapse into a failed state. Moreover, the new overlords of Tripoli are allies of Ansar al-Sharia, a brutal jihadist movement suspected of killing America's then ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and of trying to murder his British counterpart, Sir Dominic Asquith.

BELGIUM - Belgium has been put on edge over potential Islamist terrorist attacks for the second time in four months amid reports that a man and woman who had returned from the war in Syria via Turkey were plotting an assault on the European Union's main offices in Brussels. According to the Dutch public broadcaster, NOS, the couple were detained in Belgium where investigators were said to have proof of a planned attack on the Berlaymont building, the offices housing the European commission. According to the Dutch broadcaster, citing Belgian investigators, the couple may be charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation, of breaking laws on possession of weapons, and of funding terrorism.

UK - David Cameron will today seek to head off a back-bench rebellion over new powers for Scotland, amid concerns that his ambitious timetable for English votes for English laws may be derailed. The Prime Minister will meet more than 20 Tory backbenchers at Chequers, where he will try to allay concerns over devolution and set out his vision to block Scottish MPs from having a say on English legislation. On Friday, Mr Cameron sought to quell anger among his backbenchers after agreeing in advance of the referendum to hand more power to Scotland and to maintain high levels of public funding for Scots.

SCOTLAND - The First Minister goes back on his promise to accept the referendum result and raises the prospect of Scotland unilaterally declaring independence. Alex Salmond has raised the prospect of Scotland unilaterally declaring independence without another referendum as he abandoned his promise to accept the result and claimed that No voters were “tricked”. The First Minister appeared to blame elderly Scots, who were most hostile to leaving the UK, for holding back younger generations and argued that independence is inevitable after they die off. In a startling intervention, he also claimed that another referendum may not be required to break up Britain as the Scottish Parliament could unilaterally declare independence after gaining increasing numbers of powers.

ALBANIA - Pope Francis called Sunday for Muslims and all religious leaders to condemn Islamic extremists who "pervert" religion to justify violence, as he visited Albania and held up the Balkan nation as a model for interfaith harmony for the rest of the world. "To kill in the name of God is a grave sacrilege. To discriminate in the name of God is inhuman," Francis told representatives of Albania's Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic communities during a half-day visit to Tirana in which he recalled the brutal persecution people of all faiths suffered under communism.

ALBANIA - In his first trip to a Muslim-majority country, Pope Francis held up Albania as a model of religious harmony compared to the sectarian savagery sweeping across the Middle East. Large crowds lined the broad avenues of Tirana, the capital, on Sunday as the Pope was driven into the centre of the city after a short flight from Rome. The Pope said that "authentic religious spirit is being perverted" in many parts of the world and that "religious differences are being distorted and manipulated." That had led to "conflict and violence", said the Pope, who recently gave his conditional approval to US air strikes against ISIL extremists persecuting Christians and other minorities in Iraq.

IRAQ - A video uploaded onto the internet and translated by MEMRI shows Islamic State (IS) fighters parading a haul of millions of dollars and several gold ingots seized from the home of a prominent Iraqi official in Nineveh Province. The treasure trove was found in the home of Osama al-Nujayfi, the former speaker of Iraq's parliament; in the video an IS fighter estimated its value in "the billions". Whatever the precise amount, it's certainly a coup for the jihadi group which has swept through Iraq and northern Syria and is believed to be largely self-sufficient financially.

VATICAN - Security in the Vatican has been increased after intelligence agencies reportedly intercepted an unspecified threat against Pope Francis, on the eve of his visit to Muslim-majority Albania. The number of uniformed and plain clothes police patrolling St Peter's Square during the Pope's weekly audiences on Sunday and Wednesday has been increased, sniffer dogs are being used and extra metal detector machines have been installed, the Italian media reported on Saturday.