USA - Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey and China? If you are like most Americans, you have not been. Most Americans don’t seem to really care too much about what is happening in the rest of the world, but they should. In major cities all over the globe right now, there is looting, violence, shortages of basic supplies, and runs on the banks. We are not at a “global crisis” stage yet, but things are getting worse with each passing day.

SWITZERLAND - Many speakers compare 2014 to 1914 when WWI broke out & no one expected it. A black swan in the form of a war between China & Japan? Both Abe [Japanese Prime Minister] and an influential Chinese analyst don’t rule out a military confrontation between China and Japan. Memories of 1914? We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation...

UK - Following the quiet update that HSBC had decided to withhold large cash withdrawals from some of its clients - demanding to know the purpose of the withdrawal before handing over the customers' money - it appears the anger among the over 60 thousand readers who found out about HSBC's implied capital shortfall just on this website, has forced HSBC's hands.

SWITZERLAND - Anybody who thinks China's dispute with Japan is subject to rational calculation should have heard the astonishing outburst a few minutes ago by China's foreign minister, Wang Yi. "We will never allow past aggressors to overturn the verdict of history," he began. It went downhill from there...

ARGENTINA - Thirteen years after [economic] collapse, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is running out of time to avert another crisis. Inflation soared to 28 percent last year, according to opposition lawmaker Patricia Bullrich. The selloff is the worst since the devaluation that followed the default. Currencies from only two countries in the world have fallen more: war-torn Syria and Iran.

UK - The prospect of genetically modified purple tomatoes reaching the shelves has come a step closer. Their dark pigment is intended to give tomatoes the same potential health benefits as fruit such as blueberries. The purple pigment is the result of the transfer of a gene from a snapdragon plant - the modification triggers a process within the tomato plant allowing the anthocyanin to develop.

USA - The United States’ habit of arresting criminals has not only resulted in the world’s largest prison population, but also this: more than 40% of all men in the country are arrested by their early twenties. This eye-opening statistic includes not just blacks and Hispanics, two groups that have endured well-documented high arrest rates, but whites as well.

UK - London’s leaderboard was all about partying like it was 1999 at the start of the week, with the index testing records set back in those heady days. But the celebrations ended on Friday as the blue-chip index swung to its lowest point in a month. The City woke up with a hangover after Argentina’s central bank abandoned its fiscal support of the peso, causing the currency to suffer its sharpest-one day fall since 2002.

USA - Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that the federal government is too big and powerful and are dissatisfied with how the government is working. In addition, 65% of Americans "are dissatisfied with the nation's system of government and how well it works, the highest percentage in Gallup's trend since 2001."

USA - When up to 7,500 gallons of toxic 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) spilled into the Elk River in West Virginia, leaving 300,000 people without tap water for around a week, former miner Joe Stanley was well prepared. He hadn’t been drinking the water for years. "This MCHM was just one of the chemicals we were told was highly toxic but that we dumped into old mine shafts and slurry ponds, and it's been seeping into the groundwater for years."

USA - The biggest theft in world history is occurring right here, right now — literally, right under our feet. It’s a theft of wealth that measures in the 15-digits — wealth that’s being taken away from its rightful owners, the American people, and being sacrificed, in effect, to the Green Gods of Austerity and Sacrifice. Seems more than a little ridiculous, doesn’t it? That is, for the US to be scraping along, fiscally and economically, while leaving fallow such gargantuan natural resources?

USA - President Obama last week announced a range of new measures to keep US government data-sweeps under tighter control and thereby (he hopes) rebuild trust in America’s electronic intelligence-gathering efforts. Scarcely had he finished speaking than the likes of Julian Assange were hooting that his proposals were a sham.

CANADA - We should stop deceiving our separated brethren from the Church of England: they must return to unity abandoning their schism and heresies. The recent introduction of women as "priestesses" and "bishopesses" renders any future return impossible without the Church of England abandoning its false view of sacramental power.

GERMANY - Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) has called for enhanced international engagement of the Bundeswehr. "We can not look to the side when murder and rape are on the agenda, if only for humanitarian reasons," said the CDU politician to SPIEGEL, overlooking the planned increase of the Bundeswehr mission in Africa. (Google translation from German)

UK - Tony Blair has reignited debate about the west's response to terrorism with a call on governments to recognise that religious extremism has become the biggest source of conflict around the world.