While mainstream media focuses on what the minutes revealed about when the Fed might begin to reduce its monthly $85 billion in bond purchases, receiving scant attention is a brazen power grab boldly stated on page two of the eleven pages of minutes.

Back on October 31, wire services reported that the temporary dollar and foreign currency swap lines that had been put in place between central banks on a temporary basis during the financial crisis had been turned into standing arrangements. The Associated Press explained the action as follows: “Six of the world’s leading central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, say they will provide each other with ready supplies of their currencies on a standing basis, extending arrangements set up to steady the global financial system during post-2007 turbulence.”

In other words, without public deliberations, an action that was adopted as a temporary, emergency operation, now had become a permanent part of world finance – on the basis of minutes and details yet to be seen by Congress or the general public. Just how long will it take Congress — that body in Washington with a 9 percent approval rating from the American people — to figure out that “just trust us” has been a killer policy when it comes to Wall Street and other people’s money.

GCHQ is at the heart of Britain’s “special relationship” with the United States when it comes to spying, according to Snowden’s blizzard of leaks. The Government Communications Headquarters — a giant, ring-shaped building nicknamed “the doughnut” — is situated in the spa town of Cheltenham in southwest England.

Computer specialist Snowden, 30, worked for the US National Security Agency in 2012 when he downloaded a vast cache of NSA documents, including 50,000 about GCHQ. The documents claim the NSA was secretly funding GCHQ to the tune of £100 million ($160 million) over the last three years.

David Ormand, GCHQ’s director from 1996 to 1997, did not confirm that figure but admitted that the US and Britain were mutually beneficial partners. “We have the brains; they have the money,” Ormand told BBC radio. “It’s a collaboration that’s worked very well.”

"It's like the United States government subsidizing the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani network, those groups that are trying to shoot and kill our soldiers," said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat for New Hampshire, a member of the Senate's Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News with Diane Sawyer".

A list of 43 companies in Afghanistan was compiled by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) using data from both classified Pentagon investigative reports and Commerce Department lists of terror-connected companies.

Among them is a road construction company the US says is partly owned by a leader of the brutal Haqqani network, which was blamed for an attack on the US Embassy in Kabul that claimed 16 lives in 2011. The cover letter of a classified investigation by the US Army said there was evidence of a direct role of both the company and its owners "in the facilitation and operation of the Haqqani Network" and that "approximately $1-2 million per month flow[s] to Haqqani Network to finance its activities."

"There hasn't been a wholesale movement away from stocks," he goes on, busting myths asunder, adding that "investors want to see market-driven conditions, not Fed manipulated ones." So perhaps - just perhaps - Schwab is right, if the Fed stepped away and let markets be markets once again, maybe real capital would flow once again?

Schwab goes on to discuss how the Fed's policy has hurt the older generation - "it has been a terrible thing". Schwab calmly dismisses one of the biggest market myths and raises a few red flags - "we see the market go up or down depending on which Fed member is speaking..."

“They must not have nuclear weapons. And I promise you that they will not have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu declared. “The Iranians deny our past and repeat their commitment to wipe the State of Israel off the map. This reminds us of the dark regimes of the past that plotted against us first and then against all of humanity,” he said.

Netanyahu said that Iran is trying to change its image, and warned the world not to be fooled. “They are also using propaganda: They are now creating a propaganda film in which one hears a piano being played, and sees the Foreign Minister going through a building, talking about the need for peace in the future. This is not the real Iran,” he said.

“The real Iran is what the leader of Iran, Khameini, said yesterday,” Netanyahu continued, “He called Jews 'rabid dogs' and said that they were not human. The public responded to him with calls of 'Death to America! Death to Israel!' Doesn't this sound familiar to you? This is the real Iran!”

According to recent reports, Israeli leaders are not relying on diplomacy alone, and are also working alongside Arab leaders on a plan to attack Iran if its deal with the West fails to yield serious change. Several Israeli leaders have stated that Israel could act alone on Iran.

“Meatless Monday’s” has already been introduced at one of Norway’s main military bases and will soon be rolled out to others, including overseas bases. It is estimated that the new vegetarian diet will cut meat consumption by 150 tons per year. “It’s a step to protect our climate,” military spokesman Eystein Kvarving told AFP. “The idea is to serve food that’s respectful of the environment.”

The spammers are particularly aiming the virus - known as ransomware - at small and medium size businesses. It is disguised as an email alert about suspicious payments or invoices. Once opened the virus 'freezes' the computer and the local network and demands two Bitcoins of internet currency - approximately £536 - to unlock the machine. "The emails carry an attachment that appears to be correspondence linked to the email message, for example, a voicemail, fax, details of a suspicious transaction or invoices for payment.

"This file is in fact a malware that can install Cryptolocker - which is a piece of ransomware. Cryptolocker works by encrypting the user's files on the infected machine and the local network it is attached to. "Once encrypted, the computer will display a splash screen with a count down timer and a demand for the payment of 2 Bitcoins in ransom for the decryption key." Anyone who receives a suspicious looking email should not open it or click on any attachments and anti-virus software should always be upgraded.

But Ocean Grove’s crown jewel, an ornate and beautiful 6,250-seat auditorium, built in 1894, survived. It only had a third of its roof torn off. The auditorium’s foundation was intact and, most important, its 11,561-pipe organ was unscathed by the wind and rain. So despite everything, the residents of Ocean Grove counted themselves lucky. That is, until they had to deal with the federal government. Ocean Grove has been denied rebuilding funds from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In one sense, this denial is part of the Obama administration’s quiet campaign against religion in the public square. Yet the story of FEMA’s conflict with Ocean Grove is about more than just Barack Obama. It’s the story of modern America’s rebellion against its religious foundations, rendered in miniature.

In the late 1860s, a Methodist preacher named William Osborn assembled a small group of pastors from around Philadelphia to purchase a patch of land at the shore in central New Jersey. On July 31, 1869, they christened their one square mile of paradise “Ocean Grove.”

“This is a disappointment not just for the EU but, we believe, for the people of Ukraine,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement, claiming that “the most ambitious” pact ever offered to a partner by the EU would have helped the country’s economy.

The decree signed by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov's government on Thursday orders the “halt of the process of preparing the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union.” The decision was taken to “ensure the national security of Ukraine” and “restore lost trade volumes with the Russian Federation” after considering the effects on trade relations with Moscow, legislators said.

Russia welcomed Ukraine's decision to actively develop ties with Moscow, while President Putin said he wasn't completely against Ukraine's association with EU. But trilateral trade talks should take place before Ukraine signs an agreement with the EU.

Western diplomats played down the prospect of a pending breakthrough in the talks that began on Wednesday after a November 7-9 round in which the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany came close to winning concessions they count on to reduce the risk of an Iranian nuclear weapon. They said some progress had been made during the first two days and the number of disagreements reduced. But Iran's insistence that the six powers explicitly acknowledge its right to enrich uranium - a process which can yield both electricity and nuclear bombs - was proving a major political obstacle.

Under discussion is an Iranian suspension of some sensitive nuclear activities, above all medium-level uranium enrichment, in exchange for modest sanctions relief. That would involve releasing some Iranian funds frozen in foreign bank accounts and allowing trade in precious metals and petrochemicals. The United States may also agree to relax pressure on other countries not to buy Iranian oil. Tehran has made clear it is most interested in resuming oil exports and getting respite from international sanctions on Iranian banking and financial transactions that have shackled the oil-dependent economy.

The US delegation at the talks has said no country has an inherent right to enrich uranium, but also indicated that some kind of compromise on the issue could be devised. But the US ability to be flexible is limited, especially in light of skepticism in US Congress about cutting a deal with Tehran.

Speaking at an event hosted by the New York City Bar Association on Tuesday, US District Judge Jed Rakoff of Manhattan said the DoJ’s “unconvincing” excuses for not prosecuting individuals were “technically and morally suspect.” “Not a single high level executive has been successfully prosecuted in connection with the recent financial crisis, and given the fact that most of the relevant criminal provisions are governed by a five-year statute of limitations, it appears very likely that none will be,” Rakoff said.

While the DoJ has not said that all the top executives are innocent in the lead-up to the financial crisis, it “has offered one or another excuse for not criminally prosecuting them — excuses that, on inspection, appear unconvincing,” the Financial Times reports Judge Rakoff as saying. Ultimately, “the failure of the government to bring to justice those responsible for such a massive fraud speaks greatly to weaknesses in our prosecutorial system that need to be addressed,” he said.

And “to federal judges who take an oath to apply the law equally to the rich and the poor, this excuse, sometimes labeled the ‘too big to jail excuse,’ is mindboggling in what it says about the department’s disregard of fundamental legal principles,” he continued. Rakoff’s statements echo the calls of many banking reform advocates who have charged that real accountability will only come when executives are prosecuted and sent to jail for illegal activity.

The revelation came Tuesday during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the possible security risks surrounding healthcare.gov. “The committee’s been reviewing materials that indicate that some parts of healthcare.gov were not completed before the launch, as we’ve discussed here,” Representative Cory Gardner (Republican for Colorado) said. “What portion of the website remained to be created when you launched on October 1st?”

“I don’t have an exact percentage,” said Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “I look at it in terms of overall marketplace systems. I think it was a set of priority functions that needed to be in place,” Chao added.

“Well, how much do we have to build today?” Gardner pressed.

“Just an approximation, we’re probably sitting somewhere between 60 and 70 percent,” Chao said.

“Sixty to 70 percent that needs to be built still?” Gardner said.

“We still have to build the payment systems to make payments to issuers in January,” the Obamacare official said before adding, “the online application, verification, determination, plan compare, getting enrolled, generating enrollment transaction – that’s 100 percent there.”

“But the entire system is 60 to 70 percent away from being complete,” Gardner said.

Also, evidence of broader behavioral issues across the intercontinental ballistic missile force, including sexual assaults and domestic violence. The study, provided to the AP in draft form, says that court-martial rates in the nuclear missile force in 2011 and 2012 were more than twice as high as in the overall Air Force. Administrative punishments, such as written reprimands for rules violations and other misbehavior, also were higher in those years.

These indicators add a new dimension to an emerging picture of malaise and worse inside the ICBM force, an arm of the Air Force with a proud heritage but an uncertain future. Concerned about heightened levels of misconduct, the Air Force directed RAND Corp, the federally funded research house, to conduct a three-month study of work conditions and attitudes among the men and women inside the ICBM force. It found a toxic mix of frustration and aggravation, heightened by a sense of being unappreciated, overworked, micromanaged and at constant risk of failure.

Remote and rarely seen, the ICBM force gets little public attention. The AP, however, this year has documented a string of missteps that call into question the management of a force that demands strict obedience to procedures.

Traders in London were left scratching their heads on Wednesday morning when a rapid-fire 10-second spell of selling sent gold prices quoted on a Bloomberg monitor down suddenly by about $10 (£6) to trade near $1,260 an ounce. IG Markets commented that the fall came suddenly following a 2,000-contracts sell order hitting the market, but the incident shows how markets don't always comply to the logic of traders reacting to big news events that are publicly disclosed and that we all know about.

It also illustrates the challenges facing the FCA in investigating alleged rigging of heavily traded commodities or asset classes such as gold and currency, where prices can often shift on the slightest rumour or sniff of bearish sentiment. Traders I spoke to in London this morning were themselves lost for an explanation over the gold price other than to say the drop was triggered by electronic trading, which kicks in when a price crosses a key support level as it did today.

Evidence of collusion and coordinated strategies to fix prices by traders is clearly wrong and should be sanctioned but is it really such a surprise, or indeed a cardinal sin, that traders exchange often unsubstantiated market banter via electronic messenger services to make a buck? The alternative is a market entirely run by computers, which clinically execute trades based on meta-data or programmed triggers. We could then blame the computer, not the human, when mutual funds fail to return the expected 10 percent annual return on your investments.

Hundreds of supporters of the ruling Socialist Party cheered outside the National Assembly as the so-called Enabling Law was passed, while a recording of Maduro's late predecessor, Hugo Chavez, singing Venezuela's anthem rang out inside the hall.

The power to pass laws without congressional approval gives Maduro a political victory in the run-up to December 8 municipal elections, although he still faces a severely distorted economy with embarrassing product shortages and inflation surging to nearly 55 percent.

"I want to thank the majority of patriotic and socialist lawmakers for approving this law that will let us advance, over the next 12 months, in defeating the economic war being waged against our people," Maduro said.