Oil Derivatives are but a tiny fraction of the share of the 280-trillion dollar derivative market. It is not enough to trigger a financial crisis 2.0 just yet. However, a year-end closing below $57 will set in motion a cascade effect. How? This will start to impact the Credit Default Swaps in debt. Why? The Middle East, Russia, and many other nations rely upon energy revenue. As that revenue collapses, we will see more and more problems emerge in the interest rate sector.

Keep in mind that this is by no means an exclusive US banking problem. The money-center banks in Britain, Germany and Switzerland are also exposed since they followed the lead of New York.

A letter leaked at the weekend showed that Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is considering abandoning the current panel, amid a catalogue of problems including the resignations of two chairman. A victims’ representative said the only people who wished to see the inquiry fail were the abusers themselves. He warned that victims could engage in “direct action” unless they began to see justice.

In a nutshell, researchers urge being very mindful of what's purchased at Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Kroger, Dollar Tree, CVS and Lowe's. According to experts at an environmental non-profit, The Ecology Center, two-thirds of the 69 seasonal holiday products they tested were laden with at least one hazardous chemical.

Beaded garlands, for example, were found to contain a "multitude of toxic contaminants," according to a HealthyStuff.org press release. HealthyStuff.org, which was created by The Ecology Center, houses information based on research from many environmental health organizations and others around the country in an effort to keep the public aware of such occurrences.

Sadly, these toxic chemicals and heavy metals are associated with a wide range of health problems from birth defects and learning disabilities to cancer and liver toxicity. "Scientists that study these chemicals are telling us that even smaller exposures are of concern for hormone-disrupting chemicals such as these," said Mike Schade of Safer Chemicals. "Evidence continues to pile up that shows even babies are affected by exposure to these chemicals in the womb."

Shockingly, many home decorations are legally allowed to forgo labeling that indicates the presence of such harmful chemicals. So long as a product is not labeled as being meant for use by children, then informing the public of its lead, phthalate and cadmium levels is not necessary. "The sad truth is that our chemical safety system is fundamentally broken," said Schade. Such harmful materials aren't just confined to holiday decorations, either. Many children's toys are also harboring harmful materials.

Yi Gang, the deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), said the yuan’s rise had been “very fast” over the past year as it surges in tandem with the US dollar, making it the world’s second strongest currency.

The country has quietly joined Asia’s escalating currency wars, steering the yuan down by 2 percent against the dollar since early November. This looks increasingly like a move to protect itself against Japan’s dramatic devaluation and against weakening currencies in Korea and other key Asian states.

Psychologists Anthony Jurek and Michael Caldwell testified for the defense that they interviewed the first girl several times. They said she’s clearly intelligent but has trouble making decisions when she’s bombarded with information. She doesn’t understand the nuances of the criminal justice system, such as the risk of turning down a plea bargain, they said.

Psychiatrist Robert Rawski testified for the state that he believed the first girl was highly capable. Ted Szczupakiewicz, an assistant district attorney, said judging by the two defense psychologists’ reports the girl answered their questions about the legal process correctly. Bohren said that by all accounts the girl is highly intelligent. “I’m satisfied that the issues of age and maturity do not override her competency,” he said. “She’s competent to make the decisions that have to be made.”

The judge ordered the other girl to undergo mental health treatment in August after a psychologist testified that she claimed to see and hear unicorns, Slender Man and Lord Voldemort, the villain from the “Harry Potter” series. Her attorney, Anthony Cotton, told the judge the girl suffers from schizophrenia, but he declined to challenge Casimir’s report, offering the judge no explanation.

Prosecutors have charged both girls with attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the attack in May in Waukesha, a city of 71,000 about 15 miles west of Milwaukee. They say the girls plotted for months to kill classmate Payton Leutner, luring her to a wooded park after a sleepover and stabbing her 19 times. After her attackers left, Leutner crawled through the woods to a sidewalk where a bicyclist found her and called 911.

The two girls charged in the case were found walking toward a national forest where they said they believed Slender Man lived in a mansion. All three girls were 12 at the time.

What is going on in Germany, the world's second most popular destination for immigrants? Has the open-mindedness for which Germans had long been praised now ended? Are we seeing a return of the vague fear of being overwhelmed by immigrants that Germany experienced in the 1990s, when a hostel for asylum seekers was burned down? How large is the new right-wing movement, and will it remain limited to Dresden, or is it spreading nationwide?

Violence has erupted at the protests again and again. Right-wing perpetrators are attacking accommodations for immigrants an average of twice a week in Germany. On December 11, three buildings that had been converted to house refugees but were still empty became the targets of right-wing hate, when they were painted with swastikas and set on fire. Attacks like these are "intolerable," Chancellor Angela Merkel said after the incidents.

Francis' Christmas greeting to the cardinals, bishops and priests who run the Holy See was no joyful exchange of holiday good wishes. Rather, it was a sobering catalog of 15 sins of the Curia that Francis said he hoped would be atoned for and cured in the New Year.

He had some zingers: How the "terrorism of gossip" can "kill the reputation of our colleagues and brothers in cold blood." How cliques can "enslave their members and become a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body" and eventually kill it by "friendly fire." About how those living hypocritical double lives are "typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that no academic degree can fill."

"The Curia is called on to always improve itself and grow in communion, holiness and knowledge to fulfill its mission," Francis said. "But even it, as any human body, can suffer from ailments, dysfunctions, illnesses."

Francis started off his list with the "ailment of feeling immortal, immune or even indispensable." Then one-by-one he went on:

Being vain.

Wanting to accumulate things.

Having a "hardened heart."

Wooing superiors for personal gain.

Having a "funereal face" and

being too "rigid, tough and arrogant," especially toward underlings — a possible reference to the recently relieved Swiss Guard commander said to have been too tough on his recruits for Francis' tastes.

At the end of the speech, Francis asked the prelates to pray that the "wounds of the sins that each one of us carries are healed" and that the Church and Curia itself are made healthy.

“We are committed, Tzipi Livni and I, to preserve Jerusalem as our capital, and to ensure its future and to preserve this holy place, and to ensure that we maintain Jerusalem,” Herzog declared. “We will do everything so that it is not torn and divided, we will strive for its social character and for the fact that Jerusalem is not just stones.”

Livni echoed Herzog’s vow to keep the plaza under Israeli control.“We commit that — no matter what — it will remain ours, of the Jewish people, that it will remain under the jurisdiction of the state of Israel,” she said. The fate of the Old City of Jerusalem is one of the issues at the heart of the right-left divide of Israeli politics and peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

Muslim extremists have been upping their violent campaign against Jewish visits to the Temple Mount in recent months, claiming that the presence of religious Jews is tantamount to an "invasion" which "defiles" the Al Aqsa mosque complex there. But while the sight of Jews quietly touring the Temple Mount is considered a "provocation" (Jews are forbidden to pray there, despite it being Judaism's holiest site, as authorities fear an Islamist backlash), the use of the Al Aqsa mosque for an extreme sport is apparently no problem for the Waqf Islamic trust which administers the site.

A video uploaded to YouTube Sunday shows a man giving a public "Parkour" performance on top of the mosque, clambering and leaping around the top of the structure as crowds of Muslim visitors look on. The tame response of Muslim worshipers stands in sharp contrast to the overt aggression often faced by Jewish visitors, who on occasion have been physically attacked by Islamists just for being there.

Jewish Temple Mount activists have lamented the way in which Muslim worshipers treated the site in the past, particularly the use of the Temple Mount plaza as a soccer pitch.

The event was made possible by Israel’s reinstating a policy allowing hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza to visit the Temple Mount every Friday for weekly Muslim prayer services. Following the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza, Israel stopped allowing weekly visits by Muslim worshippers. In October, the government inexplicably reversed that decision.

The Temple Mount of late has been increasingly used as a platform from which to call for the eradication of Israel and support for radical jihadist groups like ISIS.

Verbal and even physical attacks, over the past few months, are on the rise, for example, arson attacks against mosques. Muslims are being submitted to massive pressure: Parallel to the "war on terror," unleashed after 9/11, Islamophobic propaganda significantly intensified also in Germany, including government measures such as indiscriminate dragnets against Muslims.

Right-wing extremist organizations are increasingly expressing their racism with the more fashionable Islamophobia, while Islamophobic prejudices are beginning to take deep root in the German population. According to a recent survey, such positions have led to a greater "readiness for action."