GERMANY - Are Central Banks Overstating their Gold Holdings? Romania has demanded for many years that Russia return its gold. Last year, Venezuela demanded the return of 90 tons of gold from the Bank of England. The German high court recently ruled that Germany must audit its gold reserves held in foreign countries such as the US, England and France. And German inspectors will actually travel to the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s gold depository and the Bank of England to inspect their gold. Germany will also repatriate 150 tons of gold in order to test it for purity.

ISRAEL - Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he will not allow Iran to continue its progress towards nuclear armament if he is re-elected in January. "I am of course ready to press the button if necessary," he told Israel's Channel 2 in an investigation aired on Monday evening. "As long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have the atomic bomb. If there's no other way, Israel is ready to act."

USA - The United States is frittering away its role as a model for the rest of the world. The political system is plagued by an absurd level of hatred, the economy is stagnating and the infrastructure is falling into a miserable state of disrepair. On this election eve, many Americans are losing faith in their country's future.

NEW YORK, USA - More than 400 possible cases of price gouging of gasoline and other essentials, including a $10 box of matches and $7 loaf of bread, have been reported in New York before and after Sandy. Reports are being investigated in New York City, the Hudson Valley and on Long Island by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

USA - If Americans under the age of 18 were required as a group to pay off the entirety of the federal government’s debt in equal shares, each would now need to pay about $218,676. During the time Barack Obama has been president, the US government debt has increased from approximately $143,255 per American under 18 to approximately $218,676 per American under 18 - a climb of $75,421 or about 53 percent.

NEW YORK, USA - 'Rockaways always get left over,' said Meyer. 'It's treated like a marginalized land in the city.' Most of the grocery stores in the area have not reopened since the storm, and the neighborhood has been left cut off from the rest of the city, with no trains or even shuttle buses servicing the residents.

NEW YORK, USA- Ever since Sandy strafed the Queens peninsula and tore up the boardwalk, it’s become an often lawless place where cops are even scarcer than electrical power and food. Locals say they are arming themselves with guns, baseball bats, booby traps to defend against looters. Thugs have been masquerading as Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) workers, knocking on doors in the dead of night. But locals say the real workers have been nowhere in sight, causing at least one elected official — who fears a descent into anarchy if help doesn’t arrive soon — to call for the city to investigate the utility.

USA - The birth rate in the United States hit an all-time low in 2011, according to a report released this month by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The 2011 preliminary number of US births was 3,953,593, 1 percent less (or 45,793 fewer) births than in 2010; the general fertility rate (63.3 per 1,000 women age 15-44 years) declined to the lowest rate ever reported for the United States,” said the report. More than 40 percent of all babies born in the country last year, the report said, were born to unmarried women.

UK - The Catholic Church has accused Stonewall, the campaign for gay rights, of being intolerant of dissenting views after a Cardinal was branded 'bigot of the year' at an awards ceremony. Cardinal Keith O'Brien was named in the controversial category at Stonewall's annual award ceremony in London.

NEW YORK, USA - This year's New York City marathon has been cancelled in the aftermath of the super storm Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced. In a statement, he said: "We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it." Plans to press ahead with Sunday's event had prompted widespread anger in cyclone-ravaged parts of the city. It had been due to start in Staten Island, the hardest-hit part of the city, where 19 people died as a result of Sandy. But before the race was cancelled, US Representative Michael Grimm, whose district covers the island, told CNN: "We're still pulling bodies out of the water and the mayor is worried about marathon runners and returning to life as normal."

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - One of the holiest sites in the Christian world, believed to be the place of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, is now under threat of being closed over unpaid water bills. Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, also known as the Church of the Resurrection, was founded during the rule of Emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century and withstood invasions, fires and earthquakes. But now, more than 1,600 years later, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which maintains most of the complex, may close the temple’s doors as the city’s water company Hagihon demands payment of a US$2.3 million bill dating back 15 years, including interest.

USA - The East Coast is still reeling from the devastation brought on by Superstorm Sandy. But as the mass clear-up begins, forecasters are already warning of a powerful new nor’easter storm front coming in from the Atlantic, bringing 45mph gusts of wind mixed with snow and rain. The beleaguered coast line is expected to face the storm from Tuesday to Thursday - potentially casting a shadow over Election Day. New York and New Jersey can expect frigid winds and rain as hundreds of thousands remain without power and homeless.

NEW YORK, USA - Drivers complain they are wasting fuel crawling in lines for gas stations. Many fuel tankers have been diverted to the Port of Virginia. [President]Obama has sent 250,000 gallons of gas and 500,000 gallons of diesel fuel via the Department of Defense.

NEW YORK, USA - Four days after superstorm Sandy smashed into the US Northeast, rescuers on Friday were still discovering the extent of the death and devastation in New York and the New Jersey shore, and anger mounted over gasoline shortages, power outages and waits for relief supplies.

NEW YORK, USA - Fresh off his "climate disruption"-driven endorsement of President Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has chosen to divert critical food supplies and power generators from desperate residents of Staten Island to Sunday's New York City Marathon. Gothamist reports: Those urging the city to halt the run believe that the thousands of Marathon volunteers could direct their efforts towards post-Sandy relief and cleanup, "and they also argue that the event will divert thousands of police from important hurricane-related duties." But despite petitions circulating, work started up again yesterday on the Marathon route.