The plaintiffs accuse the companies of deliberately submitting false and misleading information about Brent prices to Platts, the energy and oil market news outlet, which is used by traders worldwide in daily transactions, Bloomberg reports.

“By providing false or inaccurate information and engaging in false or sham trading, defendants undermined the entire pricing structure for the Brent Crude Oil physical and futures markets,” the plaintiffs allege. By fixing the North Sea oil benchmark, the oil companies and traders, not only manipulated the oil market, but petroleum, food, and other products that look to Brent as a guide for buying and selling across world exchanges.

Four traders - John Devivo, Robert Michiels, Anthony Insinga and Kevin McDonnell - filed the class act in a Manhattan court in New York on October 4.

The October 8 draft of the forthcoming report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission also reveals that China has developed a new armed drone nearly identical to the US military’s Reaper. The Chinese missile-firing drone likely was developed through Chinese cyber espionage against US defense contractors.

The report highlights a rapidly modernizing Chinese military that includes large numbers of new weapons and new warfighting techniques, including attack capabilities in space and cyberspace.

“PLA modernization is on track to alter the security balance in Asia over the next five to 10 years, challenging decades of US military pre-eminence,” the report concludes.

“If he really believes the last claim, then he apparently does not understand the true risks to which he exposed the Treasury as the Fed made the commitments,” writes Wray, a professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, New York.

“Think about it this way. A half dozen drunken sailors are at the bar, and the bartender refills their shot glasses with whiskey each time a drink is taken,” he writes. “At any instant, the bar-keeper has committed only six ounces of booze. That is a useful measure of whiskey outstanding. But it is not useful for telling us how much the drunks drank.”

That means that Bernanke’s view of the total underestimates dramatically the effect of all that cash into the system, Wray argues.

The report found shortages of consultants at more than half of maternity units, and a shortfall of around 2,300 midwives across the country. More than one quarter of units were forced to close their doors to women in labour because they had no room, or a shortage of midwives, between April and September this year, the NAO found. During the period, one in ten units was closed for the equivalent of at least a fortnight.

The rising cost of litigation means that in 2012/13 almost £500 millon was spent on malpractice claims because of blunders during labour, causing brain damage to infants, and other complications. Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee urged ministers to “buck up” and take responsibility for failings in services.

She said: “I find it absolutely scandalous that one fifth of all funding for maternity services, equivalent to around £700 per birth, is spent on clinical negligence cover. The current system is not working as it should.”

At roughly the same time, Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned that signing an interim deal with Iran would be a mistake of “historic proportions,” but that appears to be precisely the deal being hammered out. Abbas Araqchi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, said the so-called P5+1 powers had “accepted the framework of Iran's proposal. The aim of both sides is to sign the agreement,” he told Iranian journalists after the first session of talks, adding that further progress was expected at a scheduled meeting on Thursday evening.

“We hope we can all reach an agreement on a single text and that an agreement would be signed between two sides. We are currently working on this issue but it is too early to say if we will have a written agreement or it will be deferred to the next meeting or the next ones,” Araqchi said. “It's too early to say whether a written agreement could be made in the next 48 hours.”

The British Guardian called his account of progress at the talks “the most upbeat from a Iranian official in many years.” It is believed the Iranian framework involves signing an interim partial deal that would slow down or stop key elements of the progress of Iran's nuclear activity in return for limited sanctions relief. That would “buy time” for a more comprehensive deal, to be negotiated over the course of a year, which would set long-term limits for the Iranian program.

Vietnam, Indonesia and China have increased their total gold imports to 60% of the world supply up from 35% in 2004. Also in India, gold smuggling is expected to rise by 600% as a result of the government's increase in gold duty from 10% to 15%.

Surprisingly gold continues to trade sideways this week, despite the Feds recent failure to taper and US senate raising the debt ceiling for the 76th time. Combined with such persistent physical demand from Asia and continued outflow of ETF gold from London, the question has to be asked, just how long can gold remain at these levels?

"A major redistribution of power" is currently taking place in Europe, with France and Great Britain falling clearly behind Germany, according to a recent declaration of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). In Southern Europe, there are already massive protests against the German government's dictates.

These have not yet had major consequences, but timely preventive measures should be taken to pre-empt the establishment of a "countervailing power." The SWP's suggestions support various initiatives from within Berlin's establishment aimed at consolidating German domination over the EU and pushing the next German government toward a more offensive global policy.

The German president, for example, called in this year's National Holiday speech for a more offensive German approach to global politics, and the SWP pleads for Berlin to assume a more decisive "leadership." Whereas German predomination over the EU is today taken for granted, a shift is perceived in relations to the most important global rival - the United States.

As was reiterated in a recent declaration by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) "a major redistribution of power is currently taking place in the EU," in which Germany is becoming stronger: "Germany's relative clout is growing."

Meteors about the size of the one that streaked through the sky at 42,000 mph and burst over Chelyabinsk in February — and ones even larger and more dangerous — are probably four to five times more likely to hit the planet than scientists believed before the fireball, according to three studies published Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science.

Until Chelyabinsk, NASA had looked only for space rocks about 100 feet wide and bigger, figuring there was little danger below that. This meteor was only 62 feet across but burst with the force of about 40 Hiroshima-type atom bombs, scientists say. It released a shock wave that shattered thousands of windows and injured more than 1,600 people, and its flash was bright enough to temporarily blind 70 people and cause dozens of skin-peeling sunburns just after dawn in icy Russia.

Up until then, scientists had figured a meteor causing an airburst like the one in Russia was a once-in-150-years event, based on how many space rocks have been identified in orbit. But one of the studies now says it is likely to happen once every 30 years or so, based on how often these things are actually hitting.

Scientists said the unusually shallow entry of the space rock spread out its powerful explosion, limiting its worst damage but making a wider area feel the effects. When it burst it released 500 kilotons of energy, scientists calculated.

For example, what would you say if I told you that a seven-year-old company that has a long history of not being profitable and that actually lost 64 million dollars last quarter is worth more than 13 billion dollars? You would probably say that I was insane, but the company that I have just described is Twitter and Wall Street is going crazy for it right now.

Please don't get me wrong - I actually love Twitter. On my Twitter account I have sent out thousands of "tweets". Twitter is a lot of fun, and it has had a huge impact on the entire planet. But is it worth 13 billion dollars? Of course not.

In just a few days, the Twitter IPO is expected to raise close to 2 billion dollars even though Twitter actually lost 64.6 million dollars last quarter and has a long history of not being profitable. It is being projected that after the IPO Twitter could have a market valuation of more than 13 billion dollars. Twitter is not expected to make a profit until 2015 at the earliest. The head of engineering at Twitter, Chris Fry, got a 10.3 million dollar pay package when he joined Twitter last year.

So how long will it be until the current tech bubble implodes?

The pages, including a column by former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, are introduced with a drawing of a heart, one half painted with the German flag, one with the US flag, snapping in two. The headline beneath it is ‘Goodbye Freunde’ or ‘Goodbye Friends’. Die Zeit is considered an elitist and extremely important format for German political discussion.

Die Zeit’s take on the matter begins by noting: “We were too naïve. German-American relations have to be put on a realistic footing now.” The pages were a reaction to the story in Germany today, the apparent widespread spying of US intelligence service on Germans, up to and including the cell phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the pieces, German Foreign intelligence denies the oft stated notion in US political circles that spying on world leaders is standard practice.

“There is no telecommunications surveillance from the German embassy in Washington,” they quote Gerhard Schindler, president of German foreign intelligence, saying. Heinrich Wefing, a political editor at Die Zeit, writes a piece headlined ‘Der Bruch’ (or ‘The Split’) and notes that the problems between the two nations go far beyond current tensions.

He writes that the old adage “whatever happens in America will reach Europe 10 years later” has changed its meaning. His piece is a brutal critique of modern America: “In the past, it sounded like a promise. Today it sounds like a threat. What are the things we would like to take over from the Americans, apart from a few brilliant TV series, their friendly casualness in dealing with each other and Silicon Valley?”

“Their cars? Their health system? Their dysfunctional political system? Their schools? Their debt? The deep social and ideological rift?” And he goes on to note: “Probably for the first time since 1945 Germany looks at the United States with a feeling of political, economic and moral superiority: We can do this better and we are better.”

As Jay Taylor notes, we must first admit we’ve been conned. Then we absolutely must take steps to protect ourselves from the geo-political disaster to come. Of course the masses of people don’t get it, they don’t believe it. They’re content to take at face value what they’re told by the mainstream media. What people really have to understand is that the manipulation is systemic. Just by being in the system and holding dollars you are being taken advantage of. You need to get as much as possible outside of the system.

And one way to reduce the systemic risk is to trade those fiat dollars… which are really worthless… they have nothing of intrinsic value… they are really just a con game… They need to exchange those dollars for gold and silver, real estate, diamonds… I would say other things that have tangible value, that no matter what the currency does, you still have possession and ownership of those assets.

The fact of the matter is that when this goes down – and it will – tens of millions of Americans are going to be hit with a financial sledgehammer unlike they have ever felt before. There is no hope for the majority of these people. They don’t believe it can happen, you won’t convince them, and they are doing nothing to prepare and insulate themselves for when it does. It will happen quickly; very quickly!

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former bishop of Rochester, said proposals to make Britain the first non-Muslim country to sell a bond that complies with sharia could trigger a series of “unforeseen consequences”.

He also voiced broader fears that Christianity was being increasingly excluded from the administration of law, after one of Britain’s most senior judges said members of the judiciary were “secular” figures serving a “multicultural community”.

Last week the Prime Minister set out plans for Britain to issue a sukuk, a form of debt that is in line with Islamic law, because it avoids the prohibited use of “riba”, or interest. The bonds, which will be worth around £200 million, would pay a fixed return based on the profit generated by an underlying asset, such as government buildings.

"France, Italy, and Spain should together pound their fists on the table, but they are not doing so because they delude themselves that they can go it alone," he told Quotidiano Nazionale. Should Germany persist in imposing its contractionary ruin on Europe – "should the euro break apart, with one exchange rate in the North and one in the South", as he puts it – Germany itself will reap as it has sown.

"Their exchange rate will double and they will not sell a single Mercedes in Europe. German industrialists know this but all they manage to secure are slight changes, not enough to end the crisis." Professor Prodi is the prime minister who prepared Italy for EMU in the 1990s, and then presided over the launch of the euro as European Commission chief.

He rightly warns that nothing of substance will change as a result of the Bundestag elections. "German public opinion is by now convinced that any economic stimulus for the European economy is an unjustified help for the 'feckless' South, to which I have the honour of belonging. They are obsessed with inflation, just like teenagers obsessed with sex. They don't understand that the real problem today is deflation, as I have been saying for a year," he said.

Shares in Givot Olam, an Israeli oil exploration company, rallied on reports that it had located much larger oil reserves at its Meged 5 site than previously estimated. The company, which says it has already sold $40 million worth of oil since the Meged field went operational in 2011, now believes that the well is sitting on exploitable reserves of as much as 3.53 billion barrels - about a seventh of Qatar's proven oil reserves.

Only one cloud looms on the horizon. It is unclear how much of this new-found oil wealth actually belongs to Israel. The well sits on the so-called Green Line, the armistice line of 1948 that formally separates Israel from the occupied Palestinian territories.

He told business leaders at the CBI conference in London that one of the problems with the EU is that Britons voted in the 1970s to join a Common market. Yet since then the EU had expanded into a quasi state – and the British public had never been asked if it agreed to remain a member. He said: “It is my judgment that our current consent of remaining inside the EU is wafer-thin – we have not made the argument enough about why Europe matters.”

He added: “Be in no doubt that in the end you cannot stay in these organisations, give up quite a bit of your national sovereignty, unless you take the British people with you. The British people were told about a Common market, about an economic area, so much has changed about this organisation and so little consent has been granted.”

“It is time to make those arguments, seek that consent and as Prime Minister of this country that is exactly what I am going to do.” But he said there were “lots of things in the European Union that badly needs reform. It is too costly, it is not flexible enough, and it does not help our competitiveness enough, it needs to change.”