“Its drum has seized,” he said, sadly. Foolishly, I thought a seized drum sounded as if there was still hope. Seizing, surely, suggests a temporary condition. Couldn’t the drum be released? It appeared not. “If you do that you’ll have to change the bearings,” he said. “And it won’t be worth your while.”

I grasped the nettle. I’m not the sort of person who just throws ailing white goods on the scrapheap without a few questions, after all. How much would it actually cost, I asked, to liberate the frozen drum? “Four or five hundred pounds,” he said. I began to see his point. Well, how much time could I expect from a new machine, I asked. At the lower price range, three or four years, he estimated; at the middle to high end, eight or nine.

I thought of my parents’ ancient, clanking workhorse of a washing machine, still going strong after 30 years’ hard labour. Their repairman told them they don’t make them like that any more; it seems he was right.

I've been taking another look at the new 7 per cent unemployment target, and I'm ever more convinced that this really doesn't change anything, and is certainly no guarantee of near zero interest rates for the next three years.

Currency and bond markets have already made up their minds. Though the movements are quite marginal, they've actually brought forward the point at which they think bank rates will begin to rise, rather than pushed it back. This is because most City pundits believe the 7 per cent unemployment target will be reached before three years are up, though this doesn't chime with either Bank or Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts.

The team of researchers looked at 451 voluntary notices manufacturers sent the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1997 and 2012 that vouch for the safety of a specific additive, such as caffeine or a sweetener. A GRAS determination means that there is “a reasonable certainty in the minds of competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under the intended conditions of use."

In none of those cases was the safety assessment made by an outside panel, the researchers report; rather, "financial conflicts of interest were ubiquitous in determinations that an additive to food was GRAS." The researchers write that 22.4% of the safety assessments were made by an employee of an additive manufacturer, 13.3% by an employee of a consulting firm selected by the manufacturer, and 64.3% by an expert panel selected by either a consulting firm or the manufacturer.

It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone that [Russia,]in the aftermath of yesterday's dilettante mistake by Obama which alienated Putin from the western world (and its subservient states such as Saudi Arabia of course), has just said no. It will certainly come as no surprise because as we explained previously, the biggest loser from Russia abandoning Syria (something we predicted would never happen) would be none other than Russia's most important company - Gazprom - which would lose its energy grip over Europe as Qatar replaced it as a natgas vendor.

What is shocking in all of this is that Saudi Arabia was so stupid and/or naive to believe that Putin would voluntarily cede geopolitical control over the insolvent Eurozone, where he has more influence according to some than even the ECB, or Bernanke. Especially in the winter.

Brin's lab meat isn't the only high-profile food innovation Silicon Valley is serving up at the moment, though it's probably the most expensive. Convention-thwarting food products and ideas have won headlines in recent months, from that stem cell hamburger to meat-hacking conferences to Soylent, the internet-famous food replacement serum. Part of the reason that these products are garnering so much media attention is surely because they're being "hacked" by Silicon Valley's bigwigs and aspirants alike.

Last March, Bill Gates wrote that "the time was ripe for food innovation" in a piece published on Mashable. Mr Brin evidently shares the sentiment. "It's really just proof of concept right now, we're trying to create the first cultured beef hamburger," the Google co-founder explained in a short film made for his lab burger's debut. "From there I'm optimistic that we can really scale by leaps and bounds." That language should sound familiar.

"The food industry is prime for technological disruption," Diane Gould, the founder of Food+Tech Connect said last June. Gould had organized the Hack/Meat Silicon Valley conference held at Stanford that month, and convened food-enthusiast tech entrepreneurs from around the nation.

“The heinous crime committed by Germany against the Jews, the betrayal of all civilized values that was the Shoah, will always be present and we can shape the future of the resulting special relationship between Germany and Israel in awareness of that,” Merkel said in an interview published in the most recent issue of Jewish Voice from Germany.

“That means that we’ll never be neutral and that Israel can be sure of our support when it comes to ensuring its security,” she said. “That’s why I also said that Germany’s support for Israel’s security is part of our national ethos, our raison d’être.”

In the interview Merkel, who is believed likely to win her third term as chancellor next month, repeated her past criticisms of Israel’s settlement policies, but also blasted anti-Zionism. Germany has for years been Israel’s lead advocate in the European Union, which is Israel’s largest trade partner.

His comments sparked fury on the social network where he was accused of disguising his ‘bigotry’ as atheism. But last night the 72-year-old best-selling author of ‘The God Delusion’ refused to apologise for his remarks. The row broke out after he commented: ‘All the world’s Muslims have fewer Nobel Prizes than Trinity College, Cambridge.’ He responded to the barrage of ensuing criticism by telling his 782,000 followers: ‘A statement of simple fact is not bigotry. And science by Muslims was great in the distant past.’

In response to one Twitter user who pointed out that Muslims had been responsible for algebra and ‘alchemy’, Professor Dawkins replied: ‘Indeed, where would we be without alchemy? Dark Age achievements undoubted. But since then?’ Writer Owen Jones told the professor: ‘How dare you dress your bigotry up as atheism. You are now beyond an embarrassment.’

But some users noted that the criticism of Professor Dawkins was in marked contrast to that when he has made comments about Christianity. One wrote: ‘Dawkins spent the best part of 10 years attacking Christianity and not raising an eyebrow. He now turns that same eye on Islam and uproar.’

The 200 metre high ‘InTempo’ towers in Benidorm were billed as 'a vision of the future' and a symbol of Spain's reemergence from a crippling financial crisis. With 47 floors of living space it was intended to be the tallest residential building in Europe. But with only months until it is due for completion, contractors have hit upon a slight problem. They forgot to build a lift.

The towers were originally designed to be only 20 floors high, but ambitious developers decided to double the scale of the project midway through. A lift exists for the first 20 floors, but beyond that there is only the stairs. And reports seen by Spain's El Pais newspaper suggest there is no more space for another lift or motor equipment. It is only the latest in a series of setbacks which have beset the project.

‘InTempo’ was dreamed up in the decade-long building boom that saw new structures leap up across Spain in the late Nineties and early Noughties. ‘InTempo’ is not the only Spanish white elephant to have hit the headlines. An airport constructed in Ciudad Real, near Madrid, cost €1 billion before it was closed in 2012 due to a lack of business. It is now being sold off for just €100 million.

But taxpayers are also funding aid programmes in South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya – all of which have their own space agencies. Many are in their early stages, but include ambitious and expensive plans for satellites and even rockets. Over the five years of this Government, the four nations will receive more than £1.5 billion from British taxpayers.

Kenya will be handed the most, a total of £596 million, followed by Uganda which is getting £480 million. Ghana will receive £460 million. South Africa will be given £112 million – almost as much as it spends on its space programme. The long-standing project is estimated to cost some £110 million a year. Britain is also handing about £280 million a year in aid to India, another country with its own space programme.

The row was sparked by comments from UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom who said it was folly to give billions in aid to ‘Bongo Bongo land’. He said: ‘How we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month, when we’re in this sort of debt, to Bongo Bongo land is completely beyond me.’

But the revelations that oil-rich Nigeria, which is receiving £300 million in British aid this year alone, had ambitious plans to launch its own rockets sparked fury. Critics asked why Britain was, in effect, subsidising a space programme for a nation where 70 per cent of people live below the poverty line. Backbench Tory MP Philip Davies said it was ‘totally unjustifiable and unaffordable’ for Britain to give this money to Nigeria, given the scale of its ‘grandiose’ space programme.

Prayers for Britain to stay in the EU forming part of a Brussels-backed event to mark the 40th anniversary of the UK joining the Common Market are to be said in a service at Salisbury Cathedral. The event next month is being held in Salisbury because it was the home of the late Sir Edward Heath, the Prime Minister who took the UK into what is now the EU in 1973. Leading pro-Europeans will attend.

The programme, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, advertises as part of the event: ‘Evensong in the cathedral, during which prayers will be said for the European Union and the UK’s place therein.’ Last night, leading Eurosceptic MP Peter Bone claimed the C of E was being ‘hijacked’ in an outrageous attempt to influence the EU debate. He said: ‘It is disgraceful the Europhile lobby should be trying to embroil the Church in this debate.’

'I can’t remember the passage in the Bible where God or Jesus comes out in support of the EU. It cannot be right to pray for a European Superstate mismanaging the lives of millions.’ But embarrassingly for the organisers, Salisbury Tory MP John Glen has refused to attend. ‘I do not see the bloated bureaucracy of Europe as something to celebrate,’ he said.

The problem? The market ended up tanking in the second half of that year — dropping 36 percent from the August 25 peak to the October low, before closing out 1987 nearly exactly where it began. And Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, predicts that the very same thing will happen in the back half of 2013.

"In 1987, we had a very powerful rally, but also earnings were no longer rising substantially, and the market became very overbought," Faber said on Thursday's "Futures Now." "The final rally into August 25 occurred with a diminishing number of stocks hitting 52-week highs. In other words, the new-high list was contracting, and we have several breaks in different stocks."

Faber says that's exactly where we find ourselves this August. So what kind of a decline does Faber predict, once all is said and done? His year-end market call lives up to his "Dr Doom" moniker. Faber expects to see stocks end the year "maybe 20 percent lower, maybe more!"

The move by Harare and Tehran is expected to provoke international outrage because of the attempt to circumvent punitive Western sanctions imposed on the two regimes. Gift Chimanikire, the Zimbabwean Deputy Mining Minister, said that a memorandum of understanding had been signed to export uranium to Tehran, despite warnings from Washington of serious “ramifications” if such a deal went ahead.

“We have no capacity to handle uranium as a country, and besides we don’t even know the quantity of uranium deposits viable for mining," Bloomberg quoted Chimanikire as saying during a phone interview. He added that Zimbabwe "signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, which covers various agreements in mineral trading such as diamonds, gold and other minerals.”

Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from the area on Palue island, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Mount Rokatenda is one of about 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that's home to some 240 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines.