The comedic drones at Bloomberg, and officials of the London Metal Exchange itself would have us believe this is due to “warehouse queues.” While precious metals bulls undoubtedly appreciate the imagery implied of a 100-day line-up of armored cars waiting to load their bullion – in the middle of this “bear market” – the implication is fallacious.

In an era of just-in-time inventories; the notion that there can be a 100-day backlog to load bullion into armored cars with the metal already sitting in the warehouse is ludicrous. Clearly what the LME is really reporting here is a greater-than-three-month delay to refine the gold (or silver) being purchased here – and then ship it to their warehouse.

In other words, the “bullion” which traders believe they are purchasing today is in fact merely ore which hasn’t even been dug out of the ground yet. While gold and silver miners have nearly eliminated the suicidal “hedging” which the banking cabal used to suppress the sector even further in previous years; the banksters are now effectively “forward-selling” the gold and silver of these mining companies – by selling “gold” and “silver” which doesn’t even exist yet.

The massive, unprecedented bullion demand (in the face of falling prices) is unequivocal, empirical proof of the criminality of the banksters in these markets. The failure of our regulators to intervene in this prima facie crime is unequivocal, empirical proof of their own complicity in this crime. (Official) bullion default or (unofficial) market decoupling is now an absolute near-term certainty, unless prices are allowed to reverse radically higher in the very near future. Indeed, the speed with which these markets are being driven to inventory default must lead one to suspect that such a default is the intent of the banking cabal.

Her view was shared by many of those who lived in the various council estates where I grew up. Single parenthood was the normal method of rearing children. While my own father left our home when I was young, my mother, who has lived in Britain since emigrating from Jamaica with my grandparents, has been devoted to her children. Although my father was a good dad and maintained contact, lots of my friends were not so fortunate. Few had any involvement with their fathers.

In many of these homes, the State was almost invariably the main breadwinner, with the families in receipt of welfare cheques. With the State providing unceasing financial support, there was little thought given to the costs and responsibilities of having children. For example, a 15-year-old girl at my school happily told me that her ambition was to have a baby before she reached the age of 18 — a goal she easily achieved.

Another said that she was trying for a baby with her boyfriend who she didn’t expect to hang around after the birth. In both cases, they knew that social security would look after them. Such attitudes were common among my school contemporaries and were compounded by the fact that the school itself had depressingly low expectations of pupils. Indeed, at times it felt more like a youth centre, somewhere to hang out and pass the time, than a place of education.

Children who grow up in these places rarely come across a male role model. Today, around half of British births take place outside wedlock, while over a quarter of all families are headed by lone parents.

The non-binding resolution, which was passed by 483-98 with 65 abstentions on Thursday, said the US should provide full disclosure about its email and communications data. If Washington fails to agree, two EU-US transatlantic information-sharing deals could be revoked.

Both data-sharing deals – the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) and Passenger Name Records (PNR) were agreed shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, despite apprehension surrounding whether or not they would give the US too much access to European data.

The TFTP provides the US Treasury with European stored data on international financial transfers, while the PNR covers data provided by passengers when booking tickets and checking in on flights. It then passes this information to the Department of Homeland Security.

Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission, said that US providers of ‘cloud services,’ a technology that permits clients to store data on remote servers, could suffer steep losses if users fear the security of their material is at risk of being compromised.

"If businesses or governments think they might be spied on, they will have less reason to trust the cloud, and it will be cloud providers who ultimately miss out,” Kroes said. “Why would you pay someone else to hold your commercial or other secrets if you suspect or know they are being shared against your wishes?" The EC vice president then pointed to the “multi-billion euro consequences” facing US internet companies in the wake of the scandal.

Meanwhile, in an effort to contain the damage from the revelations, ambassadors to the European Union agreed on Thursday to proceed with EU-US negotiations on a new transatlantic free trade pact, scheduled to open in Washington on Monday. During the EU-US trade negotiations it will certainly not go unnoticed that crucial European positions in the trade talks may already be compromised due to the wide-scale surveillance. EU officials do not want the issue of America’s covert spy program to be the elephant in the room which nobody talks about.

Fierce clashes in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria left 12 dead and 200 injured, while in Cairo, five people were killed as pro- and anti-Mursi protesters ran amok in central areas and armored personnel carriers rumbled among them to restore calm.

Five police officers were gunned down in separate incidents in the North Sinai town of El Arish, and while it was not clear whether the attacks were linked to Mursi's ouster, hardline Islamists there have warned they would fight back. Tens of thousands of people marched across the country in what Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood movement called a "Friday of Rage" to demonstrate against his overthrow and the army-backed interim government being set up to prepare for new elections.

Violent protests yesterday in Cairo and elsewhere over the military’s ouster of President Mohamed Mursi raised doubts about prospects for an eventual accommodation that would allow the Brotherhood that supports him to compete in new elections.

While President Barack Obama’s administration has stopped short of condemning the July 3 military takeover, it has called on Egyptian leaders to pursue “a transparent political process that is inclusive of all parties and groups,” including “avoiding any arbitrary arrests of Mursi and his supporters,” Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said July 4 in a statement.

The administration has urged the Egyptian military to stop using heavy-handed tactics, according to two US officials who asked not to be identified commenting on private communications. They said the administration is concerned that some in the military may want to provoke the Islamists to violence and provide a rationale for crushing the movement once and for all.

Steve Ballmer is no Steve Jobs. The CEO of Microsoft is not considered to be much of a philosopher. And yet, for the company's recent developer conference he perceptively wrapped the motto of our time into a pertinent slogan: "Faster! Faster! Faster! Faster!"

Ballmer may have been referring to the development of new products or the creation of ever faster operating systems, but acceleration has also become a universal goal in the modern world. It's more than just a technological phenomenon, argues German sociologist Hartmut Rosa, a professor at the University of Jena. His recently published essay "Beschleunigung und Entfremdung," or "Acceleration and Alienation," posits that acceleration is the core element of modernization and consequently the key concept of our age.

Rosa differentiates between mechanical acceleration, the acceleration of social change and the accelerating pace of daily life. The process of mechanical acceleration began in the 19th century in conjunction with industrialization. In terms of the time it takes to travel across the world, for example, it has effectively shrunk the size of the world to one-sixtieth of its actual size.

Today, mechanical acceleration affects the digital sector in particular. But paradoxically, it also goes hand in hand with an acceleration of the pace of life. Even though mechanical acceleration, by shortening the time it takes to complete tasks, was intended to create more available time for the individual, late modern society does not enjoy the luxury of more leisure time, Rosa writes. On the contrary, individuals suffer from a constant time shortage.

Spectators waving US flags and wearing red, white and blue headed for public gatherings in Boston, New York, Washington, Atlanta and other cities under the close watch of police armed with hand-held chemical detectors, radiation scanners and camera surveillance, precautions sparked by the deadly April 15 bombings.

A US national security official said on Wednesday that US intelligence agencies were unaware of any attack threat by militants timed to occur on July 4. Under steamy summer skies, tourists in New York flocked to ferries headed for the Statue of Liberty, which re-opened with an Independence Day ceremony after closing in October as Superstorm Sandy approached. The storm swamped about 75 percent of Liberty Island, the statue's home off the southern tip of Manhattan.

"He should be welcomed, and offered asylum," Stone continued, "but he has no place to hide because every country is intimidated by the United States. This should not be. This is what's wrong with the world today, and it's very important that the world recognizes and gives asylum to Snowden. Everyone in the world is impacted by the United States' Big Brother attitude toward the world."

But he didn't stop there. In front of a room of mostly European journalists, Stone said, "We need countries to say no to the United States. The United States is the dominant power in the universe, with its eavesdropping abilities, cyber abilities," he continued. "And the world is in danger with our tyranny."

It remains to be seen whether Merkel will suffer in the polls as a result of the NSA revelations. No public opinion surveys have been conducted since the Spiegel story hit the newsstands on Monday. But even if she doesn't lose ground immediately, the issue is almost certain to play a major role in the rest of the campaign. And the chancellor's every move will be closely watched.

Le Monde, the most famous and best respected newspaper in France, today carries a detailed report outlining the behaviour of the DGSE, the country's notoriously ruthless external intelligence agency. It says the DGSE intercepts signals from computers and telephones - including foreign ones - to work out 'who is talking to whom'. Such activity boils down to wiretapping, even though this is officially strictly forbidden following a number of scandals in the past.

'All of our communications are spied on,' says Le Monde's report, quoting unnamed intelligence sources, as well as remarks made publicly by intelligence officials. 'Emails, text messages, telephone records, access to Facebook and Twitter are then stored for years,' it says. Such activities are just like those carried out by the US National Security Agency, as described in documents leaked by former NSA worker Edward Snowden.

The revelations will be an embarrassment to France, which has vocally criticised the US after the Snowden leaks. The DGSE revelations will now leave Mr Hollande looking, at best, incredibly naive, and at worst extremely hypocritical.

Mr Morsi himself called for foreign intervention in Syria against Mr Assad, leading to a veiled rebuke from the army, which issued an apparently bland but sharp-edged statement the next day stressing that its only role was guarding Egypt’s borders.

“The armed forces were very alarmed by the Syrian conference at a time the state was going through a major political crisis,” said one officer, whose comments reflected remarks made privately by other army staff. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to talk to the media. For the army, the Syria rally had crossed “a national security red line” by encouraging Egyptians to fight abroad, risking creating a new generation of jihadists, said Yasser El-Shimy, analyst with the International Crisis Group.

At the heart of the military’s concern is the history of militant Islam in Egypt, homeland of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. The military source condemned recent remarks made by “retired terrorists” allied to Mr Morsi, who has deepened his ties with the once-armed group al-Gamaa al-Islamiya.

Obama had recently sent American troops to prop up Morsi, and the protesters were furious at the US for backing Islamic radicals.

Most of the country seems to have turned against him. One reason for that is his incompetence. He did nothing to rescue the economy from looming collapse. The Egyptian pound and foreign exchange reserves have both dwindled, inflation is rising and unemployment among those under 24 is more than 40%. The IMF has despaired of agreeing on a big loan that would have opened the way to others. In the broiling summer heat, electricity cuts have become maddeningly frequent. Queues for petrol have lengthened. Farmers are often not being paid for their wheat. Crime has soared — the murder rate has tripled since the revolution.

The Brothers’ failure to include a wide range of views in its first government was even more foolish. Egypt, at the best of times, is hard to govern because society is polarised. Secular-minded and better-educated Egyptians generally want the country to be dragged into a modern, pluralistic and outward-looking world. A more conservative and religious stratum looks to political Islam rather than socialism or capitalism as the answer to centuries of injustice, inequality and corruption. In addition, Egypt has a large and nervous minority of Christians, perhaps a tenth of the populace of 84 million, along with a much smaller minority of Shia Muslims, both of whom have been rattled by an Islamist government.

That so many Egyptians should wish to get rid of Mr Morsi is therefore entirely understandable. That they have succeeded in doing so could well turn out to be a disaster, and not just for Egypt.

The precedent that Mr Morsi’s ouster sets for other shaky democracies is a terrible one. It will encourage the disaffected to try to eject governments not by voting them out but by disrupting their rule. It will create an incentive for oppositions all over the Arab world to pursue their agendas on the streets, not in parliaments. It thus will reduce the chance of peace and prosperity across the region.

It also sends a dreadful message to Islamists everywhere. The conclusion they will draw from events in Egypt is that, if they win power in elections, their opponents will use non-democratic means to oust them. So if they are allowed to come to office, they will very likely do their damnedest to cement their power by fair means or foul. Crush your opponents could well be their motto.