It is understood six schools, including Park View Academy, have been placed in special measures after inspectors found worrying evidence of religious interference in the classroom. According to The Sunday Times, Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, will claim next week that children in Birmingham are being denied a “rounded education” to prepare them for life as British citizens.

The Ofsted boss is expected to warn the education secretary Michael Gove that his inspectors have found evidence of some governing bodies being dominated by individuals intent on changing the character of schools. At Park View Academy, inspectors are understood to have found evidence of segregation of pupils and the omission of parts of GCSE syllabuses that were considered "un-Islamic".

Susan E Rice, the president’s national security adviser, spoke a day after years of fitful negotiations had finally yielded the release in Afghanistan of the prisoner, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The deal, brokered with Qatari help, also freed five high-level Taliban members from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The release of the Taliban officials was sharply assailed by Republicans, including Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the intelligence committee, as a dangerous transgression of longstanding policy against negotiating with terror groups. “If you negotiate here, you’ve sent a message to every Al Qaeda group in the world — by the way, some who are holding US hostages today — that there is some value now in that hostage in a way that they didn’t have before,” Mr Rogers said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” He added, “That is dangerous.”

But Ms Rice said: “Sergeant Bergdahl wasn’t simply a hostage; he was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield. We have a sacred obligation that we have upheld since the founding of our republic to do our utmost to bring back our men and women who are taken in battle, and we did that in this instance.” She was speaking on the ABC program “This Week.”

That didn't sit well with them. Hours after the trade I received a tap on the shoulder from a senior member of my bank, asking me to rewrite the trade and give half of my profit back to the hedge fund. My bank was doing the fund a favor. The hedge fund was an important and connected client, and the trade was, well, embarrassing to them.

That embarrassment might jeopardize other business with the bank, threatening millions in fees. Over my objections, my bank renegotiated the terms of the trade to give the hedge fund a better price. It was a perfectly legal, but unusual concession. It was also a lesson: hedge funds can even bully the biggest banks in the country.

However, the PEN database also includes 96 nanotechnology-infused items currently stocked on grocery store shelves, and none of these items listed their nanotechnology among their ingredients. Included on the list are Dannon Greek Plain Yogurt, Hershey’s Bliss Dark Chocolate, Kraft’s American Cheese Singles, and Rice Dream Rice Drink, all of which contain nanoparticles of titanium dioxide.

Titanium dioxide — often referred to as “the perfect white” or “the whitest white” — is used as a pigment because its refractive index is extremely high. It has long been present in paints, plastics, paper, toothpaste, and pearlescent cosmetics, but researchers recently discovered the benefits of adding it to skim milk. According to David Barbano, a professor at Cornell University’s Department of Food Science, “suspension of titanium dioxide in skim milk made the milk whiter, which resulted in improved sensory scores for appearance, creamy aroma, and texture… There is clearly a need to develop a whitener for fat-free milk other than titanium dioxide to provide processors with an ingredient option that would improve sensory properties and provide a nutritional benefit.”

At issue, though, is not whether nano-additives like titanium dioxide provide “nutritional benefit,” but whether they pose a potential threat to consumers. The FDA acknowledges that nanoparticles behave differently than their non-microscopic counterparts: “so-called nano-engineered food substances can have significantly altered bioavailability and may, therefore, raise new safety issues that have not been seen in their traditionally manufactured counterparts.”

From May 29 through today, June 1, esteemed academicians, hand picked journalists, intelligence officials, world banking oligarchs and the CEOs and bosses of Royal Dutch Shell, Google and Microsoft, to name just a few, slinked behind closed doors at the Marriott hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, to do [who] knows what.

But watching the major news networks and monitoring the domestic news wires, you’d never guess this meeting happened. With the conference now into its fourth and final day, one would expect at least a trickle of articles from the mainstream press regarding Bilderberg 2014, if at the least to perform the routine mock, shame and ridicule of “tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists” claiming participants are working towards a “new world order.”

Indeed, the degree to which all four networks uniformly ignored the matter is a curious coincidence, leaving the door open for skeptics to argue they’ve been handed specific orders to disregard the assembly, colluding to perform what’s termed a “media blackout.” “The reason they want secrecy is because they’re doing evil,” explained late veteran Bilderberg investigative journalist Jim Tucker. For decades, Tucker did tireless work attempting to expose the group, following them to multiple meeting locations around the globe and reporting on leaks concerning their un-official agendas. “Evil is done under the cover of darkness, good works are done in the sunshine.”

Mr Juncker's European People's Party won the largest number of seats in the European parliament in the May polls. The centre-right party, which also includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, won 213 out of 751 seats in the Parliament and chose Mr Juncker as its candidate for the presidency, succeeding Portugal's Jose Manuel Barroso.

But David Cameron and several other European leaders have voiced opposition to his appointment, which has received the backing of Chancellor Merkel. Correspondents say Mr Cameron had made his views clear, at an informal EU summit earlier this week, that he wanted a reformer to take charge of the EU executive. Der Spiegel says the British prime minister issued the warning to Angela Merkel during the meeting in Brussels.

Quoting "sources close to the participants" of the summit, the influential magazine said Mr Cameron told Chancellor Merkel that selecting Mr Juncker could destabilise his government to such an extent that an in-out referendum on Britain's EU membership would have to be brought forward. The magazine quotes Mr Cameron as telling the German chancellor that "a face from the 1980s cannot solve the problems of the next five years".

Using unusually strong language, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel took aim at Beijing's handling of territorial disputes with its Asian neighbors. "In recent months, China has undertaken destabilizing, unilateral actions asserting its claims in the South China Sea," Hagel said.

He warned Beijing that the United States was committed to its geopolitical rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region and "will not look the other way when fundamental principles of the international order are being challenged". Hagel said the United States took no position on the merits of rival territorial claims in the region, but added: "We firmly oppose any nation's use of intimidation, coercion, or the threat of force to assert these claims."

As one of the key events in support of his forecast, Rickards points to the words uttered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 18th International Economic Forum in St Petersburg that took place earlier this month. “Putin said he envisions a Eurasian economic zone involving Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russia. The Russian ruble is nowhere near ready to be a global reserve currency, but it could be a regional reserve currency,” he said, as quoted by ETF Daily News.

Rickards’ book about the demise of the dollar was released in April under quite an apocalyptic name – 'The Death of Money.' However, the author is surprised that the events are unfolding much faster than he predicted. “If anything, the tempo of events is faster than expected. Therefore, some of these catastrophic outcomes may come sooner than I wrote about.”

Last Wednesday, China and Russia signed a historic US$400 billion gas deal which will provide the world's fastest growing economy with the natural gas it needs to keep pace for the next 30 years. Experts say this could be the catalyst that dethrones the greenback as the world's reserve currency.

Abbas stressed that the PA was taking “Israeli threats” seriously and would be prepared to respond if Israel followed through and cut ties with the PA. "We will take things step by step and we will not be the ones who initiate. We will respond against any action. When Israel decides to prevent us from (accessing) the money that it collects on our behalf - as opposed to the three percent that it takes (currently) that is not their right - we will have a response," he threatened.

He also stressed that Israel had no reason to boycott the national unity government, as it would merely continue the existing policies of the PA. "The policy of the (unity) government is our policy… The government will adopt (the policies) that we have adopted. The government recognizes the state of Israel. The government recognizes international law," claimed Abbas. "Where is the mistake that Israel is opposing this government for?"

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he would announce the new unity government on Monday and warned Israel against imposing sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. But the Hamas spokesman said that the two sides have failed to reach agreement on two main issues: the identity of the new foreign minister and the Palestinian Authority leadership's plan to cancel the PA Ministry for Prisoners' Affairs.

Abu Zuhri said that Hamas remains opposed to keeping current Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki in his position. Hamas is also opposed to the intention to cancel the Ministry for Prisoners Affairs, he added.

Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday and spoke to the Afghan president, but did not meet with him. Karzai previously rejected an invitation extended through the US Embassy to meet Obama at Bagram. “President Karzai said he would warmly welcome him [Mr Obama] if he comes to the palace, but in no way would he go [to] Bagram to meet him,” Abdul Karim Khurram, Karzai’s chief of staff, told Reuters. A US official said the White House was not surprised that the proposed visit did not work on short notice.

The commander also said, according to the report, that Iran continued to gain military and economic power, warning the country’s enemies that their plots against it would fail. “Any enemy formula will entail an unexpected ending for him and this is due to the Iranian nation’s reliance on religious and Islamic beliefs,” added Salami.

His remarks came after US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that there is an opportunity to resolve disputes over Iran’s nuclear energy program but reiterated that Washington reserves “all options” against Iran, alluding to military action. Jazayeri described Obama’s remarks as “childish dreams which may not come true”.

“Had the US and its allies the capability to attack Iran they would not hesitate a moment to carry out their barbaric act; and, of course, it is surprising that Obama is not embarrassed to rehash his empty words,” he said. The Iranian commander said that the era of global hegemony has ended, adding that the “empire of money and weapons” will soon collapse.

Over the years, Iran has threatened Israel and the United States on more than one occasion. In March, a senior commander in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said that Iran is keeping its finger on the trigger and is ready to destroy Israel.