George Osborne now believes the EU needs to improve competitiveness in order to curb the relentless decline of Europe. He might as well be telling a firestorm to stop burning a forest. The reality is the EU has been engineering its own decline from its very outset and there is no appetite for the sort of reforms Mr Osborne demands. Indeed the trend is going in the opposite direction: federalism.

There’s no shortage of evidence for this claim. EU Commissioner and Vice President Viviane Reding recently stated that the EU will put federalism on the agenda in the lead up to the European elections in May. Her confession that the EU needs to become a ‘United States of Europe’ exposes the growing chasm between British interests and the utopian fantasies of the cabal in Brussels.

The Spinelli Group, an EU initiative founded by the leader of the Euro-liberals and former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, has already published its Federal Treaty for the EU. This is a detailed proposal to replace the existing treaties with ‘a fundamental law for the European Union’, with negotiations starting after the European elections.

An EU-funded group, European Alternatives Ltd, has also drafted a manifesto for a federal Europe, which calls for a universal basic income, a ban on fracking, and an increase in VAT to fund welfare spending. This is precisely why the idea of EU reform is little more than a futile hope, employed by David Cameron’s circle of advisers to delay the date of the inevitable referendum. The EU is strongly committed to an ever-closer union and an eventual superstate.

As we previously noted, instead of crushing credit creation, the PBOC's [People's Bank of China] liquidity rationing has forced distressed companies into high-interest-cost products in the shadow-banking world. Investors on the other side of "troubled shadow banking products" had assumed that 'someone' would bail them out but this evening Reuters reports that ICBC [Industrial and Commercial Bank of China] has confirmed that it will not rescue holders of the "Credit Equals Gold #1 Collective Trust Product", due to mature January 31st with $492 million outstanding.

The anxiety from contagion concerns of the first shadow-banking default has pushed the Shanghai Composite back near 2,000 for the first time since July - and to its narrowest spread to the S&P 500 in almost 8 years.

As Michael Pettis, Jim Chanos, Zero Hedge (numerous times), and now George Soros have explained. Simply put - "There is an unresolved self-contradiction in China’s current policies: restarting the furnaces also reignites exponential debt growth, which cannot be sustained for much longer than a couple of years."

The "eerie resemblances" - as Soros previously noted - to the US in 2008 have profound consequences for China and the world - nowhere is that more dangerously exposed (just as in the US) than in the Chinese shadow banking sector as explained above.

It seems BofAML [Bank of America Merrill Lynch] is now beginning to get concerned, noting that over 60% of market participants expect repo rates to rise if a trust product defaults and based on the analysis below, they think there is a high probability for CEQ1 to default on 31 January, ie no full redemption of principal and back-coupon on the day.

Crucially, with the stratospheric leverage ratios now engaged in such products, BofAML warns trust companies must answer some serious questions: will they stand back behind every trust investment or will they have to default on some or potentially many of them? BofAML believes the question needs an answer because investors and Trusts can’t have their cake and eat it too.

The potential first default, even if it’s not CEQ1 on 1/31, would be important based on the experience of what happened to the US and Europe; the market has tended to underestimate the initial event.

As Bloomberg's Niraj Shah notes, it's not just the PIIGS [Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain] we have to worry about (or not), Denmark, Finland, Norway and Poland have been added to the IMF’s [International Monetary Fund] list of countries with the potential to destabilize the global economy.

The inclusion of three Nordic nations for mandatory assessment is the result of a new methodology by the IMF that gives more weight to financial interconnectedness. The UK is the most financially linked nation in the world, followed by Germany. Seven of the top 10 most interconnected financial nations are in the euro-area.

So as the world congratulates itself (most notably Ben Bernanke today), the IMF seems concerned that this could all get worse again very quickly. Think they are all too small to worry about? Remember Lehman?

And the top one per cent of earners are worth £67.3 trillion - almost half (46 per cent) of the world's wealth, according to a report by Oxfam.The 85 richest people in the world now have as much money as the 3.5 billion poorest put together. The combined wealth of people including Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and the Koch Brothers has increased to £1 trillion. And the top one per cent of earners are worth £67.3 trillion - almost half (46 per cent) of the world's wealth, according to a report by Oxfam.

Critics claim the surge in inequality has been driven by 'power grabbing' wealthy elites who harbour close relationships with leading politicians. Winnie Byanyima, chief executive of Oxfam, said: 'It is staggering that in the 21st century, half of the world’s population - that’s three and a half billion people - own no more than a tiny elite whose numbers could all fit comfortably on a double-decker bus.

The findings come as David Cameron and other world leaders fly to Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economics Forum, attended by some of the most influential businesses. Oxfam said the focus of the exclusive gathering – which includes more than 2,500 business leaders, heads of state and other powerful figures – must be the ‘extreme economic inequality’ which is ‘undermining social stability and threatening global security’.

Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients – including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits – once a single English database of medical data has been created.

Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in one place.

Advocates say that sharing data will make medical advances easier and ultimately save lives because it will allow researchers to investigate drug side effects or the performance of hospital surgical units by tracking the impact on patients. But privacy experts warn there will be no way for the public to work out who has their medical records or to what use their data will be put. The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender.

Unfortunately, NHS England – the commissioning body that now runs the NHS in England – has decided not to include an opt out form with the leaflet and the information in it says you should “speak to your GP practice” if you want to stop your or your family’s confidential medical information being uploaded and passed on.

This is misleading. You do not have to speak with your doctor or book an appointment. The choice to keep your medical records private is completely down to you; all you need do is inform your GP of your choice, which you can do simply by writing a letter or dropping a form into your surgery.

After a series of five moderate earthquakes shook the country in October, experts installed a seismic monitoring system at the Tower of David, one of Jerusalem’s most important — and most visible — historical sites.

The project is Israel’s first attempt to use such technology to determine structural weaknesses in the countless ancient edifices that dot the Holy Land. The efforts, however, have been slowed by authorities’ reticence to publicly declare sites as vulnerable, as well as the explosive geopolitics surrounding ancient Jewish, Christian and Muslim sites at the heart of the Mideast conflict.

“We have to remember that this is the Holy Land,” said Avi Shapira, head of a national steering committee for earthquake preparedness. “We have some responsibility not only to preserve the historical monuments of our personal heritage … but also for the rest of the world.” Most of Israel’s historical sites “have not been checked,” said Shapira. “We have them on the map, but an engineer still hasn’t visited them.”

Israel has been bracing for another major earthquake for years. But those efforts have focused on retrofitting existing schools and hospitals and apartment buildings, and improving standards in new construction.The country is just getting around to surveying its historical sites, and the assessment process has turned out to be sensitive.

He claimed in an interview with Malaga-based newspaper Diario Sur: "Homosexuality is a deficient way of manifesting sexuality, because sexuality has a structure and an objective which is procreation. Homosexuality, which cannot achieve this objective, is failing. This is not an insult for anyone. In our body we have many deficiencies." He added: "Saying homosexuals suffer a deficiency is not an offence, it's a help because many cases of homosexuality can be recovered and normalised with the appropriate treatment."

The 84-year Archbishop emeritus of Pamplona, one of 19 new cardinals named by Pope Francis last week, went on to reveal he had high blood pressure which he sees as "a deficiency I have to correct as I can." His claims, which follow Pope Francis' assertion last year gay people should not be marginalised but integrated into society, were immediately attacked by local politicians.

Elmar Mäder, who was commandant of the Guard from 2002 until 2008, said his time at the heart of the Vatican had given him an insight into certain aspects of life there. "I cannot refute the claim that there is a network of homosexuals. My experiences would indicate the existence of such a thing," he told the Swiss newspaper Schweiz am Sonntag.

Famed for their striking uniforms of blue, red and orange, recruits to the Guard swear to protect the pope and his successors with their lives. Mäder, 50, from the canton of St Gallen, refused to comment on speculation that he had warned guardsmen about the behaviour of certain priests.

Earlier this month, the same newspaper reported the claims of a former, unnamed member of the Guard that he had been the target of more than 20 "unambiguous sexual requests" from clergy while serving in the force. Recounting a dinner in a Rome restaurant, the man was quoted as saying: "As the spinach and steak were served, the priest said to me: 'And you are the dessert'."

The video posted on a Chechen extremist site considered a credible platform for militant statements featured two unidentified men before the black flag of jihad and cradling AKMS rifles. The duo - dressed in street clothes and without the usual trappings of jihadis - casually explained that Russians and those attending the Winter Games next month will not be safe as long as forces sent by President Vladimir Putin occupy the North Caucasus region near Sochi, Russia.

"We'll have a surprise package for you," one of the men said in the militants' video. "And those tourists that will come to you, for them, too, we have a surprise. If it happens [the Olympics], we'll have a surprise for you. This is for all the Muslim blood that is shed every day around the world, be it in Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, all around the world. This will be our revenge."

The new video posted online overnight showed news and security camera footage of two suicide bomb blasts late last month at a busy train station and a commuter trolley in the city of Volgograd, which is a major transit hub in Russia. US officials said they are studying the video. The video comes one day before the Olympic torch relay is scheduled to go through Volgograd Monday.

"We don't have a ban on non-traditional sexual relations," he said. "We have a ban on promoting homosexuality and paedophilia among minors." He was speaking in Sochi to volunteers due to help at next month's games.

Mr Putin told BBC News Russia would ensure security for the games without it impacting unduly on the event. Speaking to BBC One's Andrew Marr Show nearly three weeks after the deadly suicide bombings in Volgograd, he said the international community should unite against terrorism.

Denying that the Winter Olympics was aimed at increasing his personal prestige, it said it was a chance to boost Russian morale after the difficult years which followed the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

"We want an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital that includes all the lands that were occupied in 1967 and that lives side by side with Israel in security and stability," Abbas said in a joint press conference with Harper in Ramallah.

"Anything else said or interpreted on our behalf matters only to those who interpret it," he added, according to Ma’an, dismissing rumors that he had agreed to concessions in ongoing negotiations with Israel. He added that he briefed Harper on peace negotiations and reiterated the PA’s position on a future state. Abbas’s comments are a continuation of his ongoing policy of announcing that unless all his demands are met, there will never be peace with Israel.

This was also not the first time that he has declared that the future Palestinian state will have no Israeli presence whatsoever.

The Fed’s policy of monetizing one trillion dollars of bonds annually put pressure on the US dollar, the value of which declined in terms of gold. When gold hit $1,900 per ounce in 2011, the Federal Reserve realized that $2,000 per ounce could have a psychological impact that would spread into the dollar’s exchange rate with other currencies, resulting in a run on the dollar as both foreign and domestic holders sold dollars to avoid the fall in value.

Once this realization hit, the manipulation of the gold price moved beyond central bank leasing of gold to bullion dealers in order to create an artificial market supply to absorb demand that otherwise would have pushed gold prices higher. The manipulation consists of the Fed using bullion banks as its agents to sell naked gold shorts in the New York Comex futures market.

Short selling drives down the gold price, triggers stop-loss orders and margin calls, and scares participants out of the gold trusts. The bullion banks purchase the deserted shares and present them to the trusts for redemption in bullion. The bullion can then be sold in the London physical gold market, where the sales both ratify the lower price that short-selling achieved on the Comex floor and provide a supply of bullion to meet Asian demands for physical gold as opposed to paper claims on gold.

The evidence of gold price manipulation is clear. We conclude that ability to manipulate the gold price is disappearing as physical gold moves from New York and London to Asia, leaving the West with paper claims to gold that greatly exceed the available supply.

A KPMG report warned last year that the next systemic shock to UK banking could come from an as yet unforeseen event, such as a massive payment outage or a cyber attack. Since the IT systems in most banks are complex and some essential parts of these systems are very old, a system outage is almost inevitable. The IT systems that hold up our every financial move are a disaster waiting to happen.

In the summer of 2012, a routine software update in India caused an IT meltdown at the Royal Bank of Scotland. As a result, 17 million customers were locked out of their accounts for days. This was followed by a hardware failure in March 2013 that prevented millions of customers from accessing online services and ATMs for hours. While the bank is still under investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority over these incidents, it suffered a third embarrassing system outage on the busiest online shopping day before Christmas last year, followed by yet another IT failure a few days later.

Catastrophic IT failures such as these can lead to financial chaos, create financial hardship for both businesses and families and, if not quickly addressed, may even lead to social breakdowns. If employers are unable to pay employees and people are unable to pay their rents, buy their groceries and medicine or pay for their transport, utilities and credit card bills, social unrest may ensue.