NORTH KOREA - North Korea has allegedly been placed under martial law and its ruler Kim Jong-un has ordered the army to “prepare for war”, a South Korean daily claims. The North Korean leader issued a series of orders to his top defense and security officials on Saturday to conclude preparations for a new nuclear test, the Seoul based Korea JoongAng Daily alleges citing an unnamed source. The source reportedly said that Kim Jong-un issued a secret order to “complete preparations for a nuclear weapons test and carry it out soon”. According to the source, Kim Jong-un also said, “The country will be under martial law starting from midnight January 29th and all the frontline and central units should be ready for war.”

RUSSIA - A unique show is taking place on Kamchatka these days: Four separate but nearby volcanoes are erupting simultaneously on the Russian peninsula. A Moscow film crew has produced an awe-inspiring 360-degree video of the natural fireworks. Volcanic eruptions are hardly a rarity.

GERMANY - Deutsche Bank plunged to a 2.6-billion-euro ($3.5 billion) quarterly loss after it took charges aimed at drawing a line under a series of scandals and cleaning up its balance sheet without asking shareholders for cash. Germany's biggest lender said on Thursday the pretax loss was partly due to a 1-billion-euro hit to cover legal risks, including its potential exposure to an industry-wide scandal involving the fixing of benchmark interest rates. Espirito Santo analyst Andrew Lim, who has a "sell" recommendation on Deutsche Bank shares believes the bank needs between 15 billion and 20 billion euros of additional capital.

UK - British banks face another round of compensation claims that could total billions of pounds after the regulator found they had widely mis-sold complex interest-rate hedging products to small businesses.

USA - Stock markets have been surging, but for how much longer can they defy gravity, given evident constraints on growth and the run of disappointing economic data? As if to reinforce the question, along comes news of an unexpected contraction in the US economy. Stock prices are forward-looking indicators, so what’s now past may seem only mildly relevant. US output was in any case distorted by the pull out from Iraq. Even so, the apparent divorce between share prices and underlying economic reality has rarely looked quite as wide as it is now, with flatlining output but soaring equities. A number of points seem worth making beyond the obvious – that at some stage in the next three to four months, there will be a correction.

USA - It appears that while Bill Gates was content to play the role of Microsoft innovator and billionaire philanthropist early on, he has decided that the second half of his life deserves a more open and slightly more honest twist.

ITALY - Italian magistrates investigating losses at Banca Monte dei Paschi say the mushrooming scandal has taken a dramatic turn, with political fallout that threatens to rock the country’s elections next month and upset eurozone plans for a banking union.

USA - A jihadist website posted a new threat by al Qaeda this week that promises to conduct “shocking” attacks on the United States and the West. The posting appeared on the Ansar al Mujahidin network Sunday and carried the headline, “Map of al Qaeda and its future strikes.” The message, in Arabic, asks: “Where will the next strike by al Qaeda be?”

USA - All personal information stored by British internet users on major “cloud” computing services including Google Drive can be spied upon routinely without their knowledge by US authorities under newly-approved legislation, it can be disclosed. Cloud computing has exploded in recent years as a flexible, cheap way for individuals, companies and government bodies to remotely store documents and data. According to some estimates, 35 per cent of UK firms use some sort of cloud system. But it has now emerged that all documents uploaded on to cloud systems based in the US or falling under Washington’s jurisdiction can be accessed and analysed without a warrant by American security agencies.

TURKEY - Up until only the last two years, the question of whether Turkey was “drifting east” seemed to dominate any discussion regarding the country and its future trajectory. But an improved Turkish relationship with the United States, a deteriorating one with Iran and a deepening involvement with NATO have all contributed towards pushing that question into the background.

USA - The six largest US banks had their trading positions compared to a “global market shock” as part of the latest round of government-mandated stress tests. The tests included a doubling of German sovereign debt spreads and a 56 per cent drop in the price of benchmark oil. The US Federal Reserve’s annual exam calls for banks to test their balance sheets to ensure they would be adequately capitalised to withstand a “severely adverse” economic scenario. For Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the stress tests included a one-off instantaneous shock to their trading positions and counterparty exposures that mimic market movements last seen during the height of the financial crisis in the second half of 2008.

NAPLES, Italy - Bus services in the southern Italian city of Naples have ground to a halt after the city transport company ran out of money for fuel. Valeria Peti, of the ANM transport company, says only 30 of the usual 300 buses left the depot Wednesday morning, and they all had to return before their tanks ran dry. The company had announced overnight that service for the morning rush hour couldn't be guaranteed. Naples' municipal services have been in the news before, most notably when mountains of garbage have piled up. Peti says in this case, the company that provides gas for city buses refused to replenish them without payment guarantees. Limited service is expected later Wednesday.

USA - The US economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations for slow growth and possibly providing incentive for more Federal Reserve stimulus. The economy shrank from October through December for the first time since the recession ended, hurt by the biggest cut in defense spending in 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter. That's a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent growth rate in the July-September quarter.

SPAIN - The downturn in the Spanish economy worsened in the final three months of 2012, as output fell 1.8% from a year earlier, official data has indicated. Output shrank 0.7% from the previous quarter - the worst performance in Spain since the 2009 global recession. Spain suffers from uncompetitiveness inside the eurozone, a troubled banking sector, excessive household and company debts, and harsh government austerity. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy responded by announcing a new stimulus package. “The crisis of the real economy is far from being over.”

ZIMBABWE - Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti has said that the country only had $217 (£138) left in its public account last week after paying civil servants. However, he said that the following day some $30 million of revenue had been paid in. Mr Biti told the BBC he made the revelation in order to emphasise that the government was unable to finance elections, not that it was insolvent. Mr Biti has previously complained that diamond mining companies have not been paying revenues to the government. The power-sharing government set up in 2009 ended years of hyperinflation by using the US dollar, but the economy remains fragile.