The vastly worse Libor “scandal” that I am referring to is the fact that the Libor has stayed at record low levels for the past half-decade, which is helping to fuel a massive economic bubble around the entire world that will end in a devastating financial crisis that will be even worse than the Global Financial Crisis. Instead of causing a few tens of billions of dollars worth of losses like the Libor rate-fixing scandal, the “Libor Bubble” will gut the global economy by trillions of dollars.

While the US, UK, Japan, and peripheral European nations have suffered with balance sheet recessions and now weak credit growth and recoveries, most other nations escaped from the financial crisis largely unscathed and have been growing at a steady rate. In a normal world, borrowing costs in these faster-growing economies would be in the 4 to 7 percent range, but instead borrowers in these countries are taking advantage of the record-low sub-1 percent Libor rates that are geared for truly sick economies. Today’s Libor rates are simply too low for non-crisis economies, so this cheap credit bonanza is helping to fuel borrowing binges and asset bubbles almost everywhere that is not the US, UK, Japan, and peripheral Europe.

As the world’s most important benchmark interest rate, approximately $10 trillion worth of loans and $350 trillion worth of derivatives use the Libor as a reference rate. Libor-based corporate loans are very prevalent in emerging economies, which is helping to inflate the emerging markets bubble that I am warning about. In Asia, for example, Libor is used as the reference rate for nearly two-thirds of all large-scale corporate borrowings. Considering this fact, it is no surprise that credit and asset bubbles are ballooning throughout Asia.

The Libor and similar benchmark interest rates simply cannot stay this low for such a long time without causing serious consequences. These low rates are driving what mainstream economists call the global economic “recovery”, but there is no such thing as a free lunch because this recovery is actually another credit and asset bubble. The global bubble will pop when the current low interest rate environment ends, no matter how long it takes for interest rates to eventually rise again.

Downing Street insisted that the Prime Minister and Mrs Merkel had “friendly” talks when they met at the G7 summit in Brussels. However, the pair are thought to have had a frosty encounter during which Mr Cameron again pressed the German Chancellor not to support the appointment of Mr Juncker.

Mr Juncker, the former prime minister of Luxembourg who has accused Mr Cameron of “blackmail”, on Wednesday said that he is “more confident than ever that I will be the next European Commission President”. Mrs Merkel on Wednesday said: “I consider it grossly irresponsible, and actually unacceptable, how nonchalantly some say that it doesn't matter whether Britain agrees or not, or even whether Britain remains an EU member or not.”

Mrs Merkel said she was "anything but indifferent" about the UK’s membership of the EU. “Yes, Britain is not a compliant partner," she said. “[But] despite all the differences, Germany and Britain share values and interests. We pursue shared goals, above all the goal of a strong, competitive European Union."

Following widespread speculation that the move was imminent, German Federal Prosecutor Harald Range on Wednesday announced he is launching a formal investigation into allegations that the NSA spied on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile telephone communications. Spiegel had reported on Monday that the federal prosecutor was close to opening formal proceedings. On Wednesday, Range informed the Legal Committee of the Bundestag, Germany's federal parliament, of the pending investigation.

The move marks the next significant chapter in the spying scandal surrounding America's signals intelligence authority, the National Security Agency. It is also the first formal act taken by a German government agency in response to the revelations made public by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The probe could further exacerbate trans-Atlantic relations that have been deeply burdened by the scandal.

What the FT found:

“When the UK’s financial regulator slapped a £26 million fine on Barclays for lax controls related to the gold fix, the UK financial regulator offered more ammunition to critics of the near-century-old benchmark. But it also gave precious metal traders in the City of London plenty to think about. While the Financial Conduct Authority says the case appears to be a one off – the work of a single trader – some market professionals have a different view. They claim the practice of nudging a tradeable benchmark in order to protect a “digital” derivatives contract – as a Barclays employee did – was routine in the industry."

The most recent headlines involve GSK’s former head in China, Mark Reilly of the UK, who is accused of ordering staff to carry out the widespread campaign of bribery and subsequent cover-up. The Wall Street Journal’s May 14, 2014 report, “Glaxo’s Ex-China Chief Accused of Ordering Staff to Commit Bribery,” would claim, “Gao Feng, a ministry official spearheading the probe of the UK pharmaceutical company, said revenue that came from alleged bribery amounted to several billion yuan since Mr Reilly joined Glaxo’s China operation in 2009.

Glaxo pushed up the prices of drugs in China — in some instances as much as seven times the price compared with other countries — to fund its own bribery, Mr Gao alleged.”

It is clear that despite what big-pharma and its champions across the media claim, they are not operating in the public’s best interests. They are operating purely for profit and are determined to obtain that profit not through producing superior pharmaceuticals, but through bribery and corruption that ensures no matter how useless or dangerous their drugs are, an army of doctors and healthcare officials will be on hand to promote and prescribe them.

The digs, he said, were likely to topple the Mosque. Abbas also demanded that Arab nations do something to protect the Temple Mount from ongoing “invasions” by Jews, who were too often being permitted to ascend the Temple Mount in his opinion. The speech was a preview of what can be expected at the annual Islamic conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, about “threats” to the Mosque.

“Terrorism does not begin with an attack on a bus or a café. That is how terrorism ends. Terrorism begins when its perpetrators are indoctrinated with words and thoughts of hate,” said Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, in the letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

“It’s going to be impossible for them to flow prisoners out of Gitmo now without a huge backlash,” Graham said. “There will be people on our side calling for his impeachment if he did that.” Graham served as a House prosecutor during former President Clinton’s 1998 impeachment trial.

Congress tried to build in a safeguard against Obama making unilateral decisions on releasing terrorist detainees by including language in the National Defense Authorization Act requiring the administration to alert Congress of such moves at least 30 days in advance. Obama did not follow that law when he swapped five senior Taliban commanders for Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

This fine Thursday morning, Isru Chag Shavuot, apparently Jews are being let up, while the Muslims aren’t. The police have apparently implemented this solution as Jewish visitors have been repeatedly harassed and attacked by Muslim rioters on the Temple Mount during their visits.

It was recently uncovered that Hamas, a partner in the Palestinian Unity Government (PUG), has been paying Arabs on the Temple Mount to scream, curse and attack Jews who visit the Temple Mount in order to discourage and ruin their visits to the Jewish holy site. Now, all the police have to do is let Jews pray while up there.

If true, then Bergdahl not only stands accused of desertion: there is a case that, by joining a sworn enemy of the US, he would have committed an act of high treason. Any lingering hope the 28-year-old may have entertained of returning home to a hero’s welcome has evaporated amid the bitter and acrimonious exchanges his release has provoked in the US – to the extent that Hailey, his Idaho home town, has been forced to cancel its plans for a homecoming celebration later this month, which was to include a guest appearance by the singer Carole King.

The controversy surrounding the circumstances of Sergeant Bergdahl’s disappearance – and the suggestion that six American soldiers subsequently lost their lives in a failed rescue mission – has certainly taken the gloss off an event the Obama administration believed would be a rare good news story for the White House. Talk about misjudging the public mood. For, far from being hailed from all quarters for striking a good deal, Mr Obama now finds himself under attack, not only for securing the release of a soldier who is widely condemned as a deserter, but for the way he set about doing the deal in the first place.

The President’s eagerness to secure Sergeant Bergdahl’s freedom led him to overlook a key, bipartisan principle of American foreign policy which dates back to the Reagan era: namely, that Washington does not negotiate with terrorists