As skyscrapers collapse, thousands die and chaos ensues, most of those in the audience will be wondering how long before it happens for real. The southern section of the San Andreas fault that runs near the city has not had a "mega-quake" of more than magnitude-7.5 since 1680 and it is, according to seismologists, more than a century overdue.

A flurry of lesser earthquakes in recent months has refocused attention on whether America's second city can withstand a major hit. In the first five months of this year there were five of more than magnitude 4.0, the first time that has happened since 1994. "A big earthquake is inevitable," Los Angeles' recently appointed "quake tsar" Dr Lucy Jones, told The Telegraph. "Each earthquake that happens increases the probability. We know a lot about earthquakes, we know it will happen. We know everything but the time."

Palestinian health officials said 23 Palestinians had been killed since Israel launched its ground offensive against the densely-populated strip of 1.8 million Palestinians on Thursday. Israel said one of its soldiers had been killed in fighting. A video clip released by the military showed six tanks rolling in through the sand dunes of Gaza, after a soldier opened a border fence, and two long rows of foot soldiers.

"We are using a very high level of fire power and artillery," Israeli military spokesman Brigadier General Motti Almoz said. "A great number of soldiers are in action in the Gaza Strip, soldiers are overtaking their targets, tunnels, Hamas targets," Almoz said, and several "points of friction" with gunmen.

Israel signaled the invasion would be limited in scope - targeting tunnels dug by gunmen - and said it was not intended to topple Hamas, the Gaza Strip's dominant Islamist group. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri responded with defiance, saying, "we warn (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu of the dreadful consequences of such a foolish act".

Israel last mounted a large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip during a three-week war in late 2008 and early 2009 that claimed 1,400 Palestinian and 13 Israeli lives.

There were no survivors from Thursday's crash, which left wreckage and bodies scattered across miles of rebel-held territory near Ukraine's border with Russia. The scale of the disaster could prove a turning point for international pressure to resolve the crisis in Ukraine, which has killed hundreds since protests toppled the Moscow-backed president in Kiev in February and Russia annexed the Crimea a month later.

While the West has imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine, the United States has been more aggressive than the European Union in this respect. Analysts believe the response of Germany and other European powers to the incident could be crucial in deciding the next phase of the stand-off with Moscow.

Prince Rupert’s container imports for June were 22 per cent up on the same month last year. Canadian National Railway (CN) took the action amid concerns that talks between US port employers and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union over a new contract might end in a strike or lockout. The port workers’ existing contract expired on July 1.

The expiry of a previous six-year contract in 2002 led to a 10-day lockout and serious traffic disruption that ended only when the federal government intervened. The two sides later reached agreement in 2008 with only minor disruption. Truck drivers at Los Angeles and Long Beach ports – which handle around a third of US container imports – went on strike last week in a separate dispute.

As Putin explains, this is part of "a system of measures that would help prevent the harassment of countries that do not agree with some foreign policy decisions made by the United States and their allies." Initial capital for the BRICS Bank will be $50 billion - paid in equal share among the 5 members (with a contingent reserve up to $100 billion) and will see India as the first President. The BRICS Bank will be based in Shanghai and chaired by Russia. Simply put, as Sovereign Man's Simon Black warns, "when you see this happen, you’ll know it’s game over for the dollar.... I give it 2-3 years."

Those crimes are no less heinous and, indeed, no less treasonous, now that a so-called “Democrat” is hiding them, than they were when his self-acknowledged Republican predecessors, and now in some cases even the fake “Democrat” Obama himself, were and have been and still are perpetrating them. They still need to be prosecuted, in order for the US to possess any honor going forward, and any realistic hope of a better future for our nation. Without accountability, there is nothing but dictatorship.

That’s the reality of our situation. The people who possess power without accountability are our dictators: they stand above the law; we stand below the law, as their subjects, no longer as authentically American citizens, for they have stolen our democracy from us, and made it into their own kingdom, instead.

This is not America; and for us to accept it as if it were, would be for us to defile our great Founders, who waged their Revolution in order to defeat such tyrants — tyrants who now have come back from the dead, only with different faces and names.

Dr Shuja Shafi, the secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Ramesh Pattni, leader of the Hindu Forum of Britain; and Lord Singh, director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, as well as Buddhist, Jain and Zoroastrian leaders, have all signed the joint letter to peers. All the major Christian denominations including Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and free churches, have also added their voices to the warning.

Far from bringing comfort to the dying, a change in the law would heap further distress and pressure on people at the most vulnerable time of their lives, they argue. Enabling people to be actively involved in the deaths of others would leave them “colluding” in the idea that the person is of “no further value”, they say. For frail and vulnerable individuals, the consequences, they say, would be “the most disastrous”.

The "raw materials partnership" is one of the measures Berlin is implementing within the framework of its "raw materials strategy" adopted in 2010, to be able to stand its ground in the global competition for access to the most important natural resources - particularly in relationship to China. Peru is an important source of metallic raw materials for Germany. The guarantee of raw materials is more important to Berlin than Misereor's misgivings.

Peru's importance to the Federal Republic of Germany, as a supplier of natural resources is hardly acknowledged in public discourse, which is usually focused on energy resources, such as oil and natural gas. Peru has the world's largest silver reserves, is third in copper and zinc deposits, is fourth in lead and is fifth in the world's tin reserves. For Germany, which is desperately in need of all these resources to nourish its prosperity-bringing industry, Peru is its most important source of silver and copper, accounting respectively for 60 and 24 percent of Germany's imports. Its considerable supply and its enormous reserves for the future, makes Peru very important in the eyes of German industry.

While German industry is praising the new "raw materials partnership," the catholic relief organization Misereor is voicing sharp criticism. "In Peru, human rights violations and social conflicts have skyrocketed" in recent years "with the large open pit mines", reports Misereor: "The harsh police crack down on peaceful protests against the mining projects" repeatedly leads to "deaths and injuries." The mining also seriously damages the ecology. The "raw materials partnership" has been signed right at the time, when the "Peruvian government was initiating a law package to water down the already deficient regulations on the resource sectors." This is sharply criticized by Misereor's Peruvian partner organizations, because it is further lowering the "already inadequate environmental standards in the mining sector."

America's unemployment rate has fallen from 7.5 percent to 6.1 percent in 12 months. The country has been adding 230,000 jobs a month in the first half of this year. Since Fed chief Janet Yellen targets jobs above all else, this was bound to force capitulation by the Fed before long. It happened this week in her testimony to Congress. "If the labour market continues to improve more quickly than anticipated, then increases in the federal funds rate likely would occur sooner and be more rapid than currently envisioned," she said.

This is a policy shift. Mrs Yellen has admitted that the Fed misjudged the pace of jobs recovery. The staff did not expect unemployment to fall this low until late next year. The inflexion point has come 15 months early. Yet if America is strong enough to withstand rate rises, it is far from clear what this will do to the rest of the world. A vast wash of dollars flooded the global financial system when the Fed cut rates near zero and then bought $3.5 trillion of bonds. This may now go into reverse.