The CMA ended a five-month consultation by launching a full investigation into current accounts for consumers and small businesses. The regulator has identified the large branch networks run by UK’s biggest banks, as well as the prevalence of free current accounts, as potential barriers to entry.

Unlike in other markets such as mobile phone networks, consumers and businesses are highly unlikely to switch banks, the CMA said. It pointed out that the market shares of the four biggest high street banks – which equates to more than three quarters of the UK’s accounts – had barely moved in recent years.

At the end of its investigation, which is likely to take around 18 months, the CMA may force banks to alter their charges, or send customers text messages when they enter overdrafts.

The counter-attack is in full swing. The Frankfurter Allgemeine talks of a "palace coup", the German boulevard press of a "Putsch". I write before knowing the outcome of the ECB's pre-meeting dinner on Wednesday night, but a blizzard of leaks points to an ugly showdown between Mr Draghi and Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann.

They are at daggers drawn. Mr Draghi is accused of withholding key documents from the ECB's two German members, lest they use them in their guerrilla campaign to head off quantitative easing. This includes Sabine Lautenschlager, Germany's enforcer on the six-man executive board, and an open foe of QE.

We now learn from a Reuters report that Mr Draghi defied an explicit order from the governing council when he seemingly promised to boost the ECB's balance sheet by €1 trillion. He also jumped the gun with a speech in Jackson Hole, giving the very strong impression that the ECB was alarmed by the collapse of the so-called five-year/five-year swap rate and would therefore respond with overpowering force. He had no clearance for this.

There is another job waiting for him in Rome as Italian president, should he wish to take it. The offer must be tempting, if only for sweet revenge. His departure would shatter market confidence in the euro overnight. He could then lead his country to recovery, with a correctly-valued lira, and inflict a massive trade shock on his tormentors in the North for good measure.

At the heart of the discussion was the growing power of the Yuan and China's influence in the global economy, and how the first or second (dependent upon which metric one uses) largest economy in the world can and is shaping monetary policy after decades of US and dollar hegemony over trade, energy, and economic expansion.

Interestingly, China, along with Russia and other BRICS nations, are already forging ahead with a new global financial system that both parallels and competes with the current system of finance controlled by the West through the dollar and SWIFT systems. In just this year alone, China has opened a new global bank that will accomplish all the functions that the World Bank and IMF do, and Russia has broken through the once impregnable petro-dollar system by allowing oil and natural gas to be bought and sold using either Roubles or Yuan.

With over $1.4 quadrillion in derivatives suffocating the global financial system, and nations being forced to devalue their currencies just to survive a regional and global trade war, financiers are recognizing that the current global financial system is broken and is creating a scenario of two choices. Either major reforms are needed to halt the potential of a worldwide collapse, or the entire system must be reset, with several major economic powers losing rights and authorities they once held control over, and allow the new emerging markets in the East to be equal or dominant players in a new system.

The hacked software is used to control complex industrial operations like oil and gas pipelines, power transmission grids, water distribution and filtration systems, wind turbines and even some nuclear plants. Shutting down or damaging any of these vital public utilities could severely impact hundreds of thousands of Americans.

DHS sources told ABC News they think this is no random attack and they fear that the Russians have torn a page from the old, Cold War playbook, and have placed the malware in key US systems as a threat, and/or as a deterrent to a US cyber-attack on Russian systems – mutually assured destruction.

The hack became known to insiders last week when a DHS alert bulletin was issued by the agency’s Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team to its industry members. The bulletin said the “BlackEnergy” penetration recently had been detected by several companies.

In Paul’s time, the Pope said, the two groups of Christians “were in church together, went to Mass on Sunday, praised the Lord, and were called Christians.” So what was the difference? He asked. The second were “enemies of the cross of Christ.” The Pope went on to say that “even today there are many! We must be careful not to slip into the way of pagan Christians.” These are the ones, he said, who are “pagans painted over with two brush strokes of Christianity, so they look like Christians, but are really pagans.”

According to Francis, we all run the risk of becoming “Christians in appearance.” We are tempted, he said, to mediocrity, and when Christians become mediocre, “it is their ruin, because the heart cools and they become lukewarm.” Francis reminded his hearers that Jesus used strong language to describe this sort of Christians: “Because you are lukewarm, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” These, the Pope said, “are enemies of the cross of Christ. They take the name of Christian, but do not follow the requirements of the Christian life.”

The Pope suggested that there are questions we can ask ourselves to know what sort of Christians we are. He said that all of us — the Pope included — need to ask ourselves: “How much worldliness is in me? How much paganism?”

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles told local media this week that authorities must "prepare for the worst" and he expects demonstrations across the area. Many protesters were furious because they feel Brown's killing was an example of excessive use of force. They and heavily armed law enforcement clashed in the streets for days after Brown's death.

Authorities, who drove armored vehicles and wore military gear, were roundly criticized by members of the media, other law enforcement officials and demonstrators for escalating the violence, rather than tempering it. Law enforcement also was accused of blocking and, in some cases, attacking journalists who were trying to report on the situation.

The masked demonstrators - some as young as 14 - also kicked and dragged over security railings while chanting 'one solution, revolution', as others daubed graffiti on riot vans. The crowd surged through central London, pushing over bins, shouting at bemused shoppers and commuters and hitting cars and people with yellow flexible tubes.

The protest, known as the Million Mask March, was one of hundreds organised at the same time in cities around the world. Demonstrators wearing sinister Guy Fawkes masks - made famous in the film V for Vendetta - descended on Trafalgar Square, waving banners and placards, before marching towards Parliament Square at 6.30pm. The group said in its manifesto that it fights against mass surveillance, austerity and infringement of human rights.

Rather than communicate directly with local authorities, Anonymous sent a message to the government, and to global world leaders: 'To oppressive governments, we say this: we do not expect our campaign to be completed in a short time frame. However, you will not prevail against the angry masses of the body politic.'

We are ruled by out-of-touch careerists who hold the opinions of the people who pay their salaries in utter contempt. The BBC, which is supposed to serve the nation as a whole, delights in giving a megaphone to extremists, Left-wing bigots and pseudo revolutionaries.

Increasingly, it seems we live in two Britains. One, which contains the quiet majority, is solid, self-sufficient, intent on maintaining decent standards and doing the right thing. The other, which is small but more voluble, is selfish, intolerant, attention-seeking and determined to rip up the old order.

For two hours, the demonstrators had peacefully marched down the main thoroughfares of central Brussels to protest government policies that will raise the pension age, contain wages and cut into public services. But violence broke out at the end of the demonstration as police fired tear gas and water cannon in an effort to clear the streets.

'Metal barriers were thrown at the police, together with stones, and then the situation rapidly got worse,' said demonstrator Gilles Broussard.

'Hundreds of riot police were involved in trying to bring the situation under control - it all got very nasty.' A new government was elected in Belgium last month and immediately pledged to raise the retirement age, cancel wage rises and cut social security benefits. This was all in line with strict guidelines from Europe, which views austerity as the key to the trading bloc's future.

The ACV-CSC Christian trade union coalition boss Marc Leemans told Reuters: 'The signal is clear. People are angry, livid. This government's policies are totally unbalanced.' ACV estimated that some 120,000 people had taken to the streets, with the police looking at a figure of more like 100,000.

By late afternoon cars and other vehicles could be seen burning in the centre of Brussels. There were also reports of buildings being set on fire, and other property being damaged. 'There are disturbances in the centre of the centre,' said a Brussels police spokesman. The unexpectedly massive march opens a month-long campaign by the trade unions against the business-friendly governing coalition and is to be capped with a nationwide general strike on December 15.

In making the forecast, the economist cites the case of 90-year-old World War 2 veteran Arnold Abbott, who is being targeted by authorities in Fort Lauderdale for defying a newly passed city ordinance that criminalizes feeding the homeless, an example says Armstrong of how “laws in the USA have simply gone nuts.”

Armstrong, who correctly predicted the 1987 Black Monday crash as well as the 1998 Russian financial collapse, asserts that the downfall of the system will be its inability to gauge the anger that Americans currently feel towards their government.