Lars Seier Christensen, chief executive of Saxo Bank, said it was clear that the eurozone would eventually break up as Brussels claimed even more power and used it “ever more poorly”. The break-up of the 17-nation bloc could take shape in several forms, Mr Christensen said, including the weaker countries leaving, which he believes could be done for cheaper than the current and future bailouts.

Another option could be the evolution of a multi euro-currency zone, where countries with similar economic conditions grouped together, he suggested. Perhaps the less likely, but still possible, would be that Germany leaves the single currency. The bank boss argued that as the bills begin to pile up for the eurozone's largest economy, this option would seem an attractive solution to the country’s citizens. However, he said all of these options would “require rationality returning” to Brussels, which “does not seem to be on the cards”. “There are a lot of things to worry and think about if you are a citizen or investor in the eurozone.”

Mr Bolton is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His comments came as Congress is readying to hear testimony from several witnesses about the September 11, 2012, attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four, including Ambassador J Christopher Stevens. Witness Greg Hicks already has stated publicly that the administration was aware that the attack was terrorist in nature, and not related to protests of a YouTube film about Muslims, as originally stated.

Mr Bolton said these witnesses’ testimonies could prove explosive. “The three witnesses who have been identified are not bystanders,” he said in the Newsmax report. “These are not people who are going to report on hearsay of what somebody in Tripoli told somebody that they heard from. These are people who are directly involved in different capacities before, during and after the attack.”

Committee staffers have hinted that the witnesses’ statements are going to prove “devastating,” especially for then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And “you’ve already seen some Democratic members of Congress… beginning to run from this,” Mr Bolton said in the Newsmax report.

So what happens when their physical gold is gone but they still have lots and lots of people with legal claims to gold? When that moment arrives, it will represent the end of the paper gold scam. Many believe that the recent takedown of the price of paper gold was a desperate attempt by the bankers to put off that day of reckoning, but it appears to have greatly backfired on them. Instead of cooling off demand for precious metals, it has unleashed a massive "gold rush" all over the globe.

Meanwhile, word has been spreading among wealthy families in both North America and Europe that they had better grab their physical gold out of the banks while they still can. This is creating havoc in the financial community, and at least one major international bank has already declared that it will only be settling those accounts in cash from now on.

The paper gold scam is starting to unravel, and by the time this is all over it is going to be a complete and total nightmare for global financial markets.

The European Commission has proposed a tough 47 percent “anti-dumping” tariff to penalise the imports, it emerged on Wednesday. The move would benefit European manufacturers, who allege their Chinese rivals - whose panels are as much as 45 percent cheaper - are unfairly subsidised by Beijing.

Chinese solar panel production quadrupled between 2009 and 2011, exceeding global demand, and EU manufacturers say China has now captured 80 percent of the European market. However, action against the Chinese imports is fiercely opposed by European solar panel installation companies which have thrived on the cheap supply and claim that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be at risk. On Wednesday night Britain said it was “working hard to ensure the Commission’s response, and any measures imposed, are proportionate and take account of wider effects on the industry”.

But it's not just Algeria. Lawmakers in Venezuela were bloodied in a punch up following an election to replace Hugo Chavez. Sanctions on Iran, meanwhile, have forced many of its oil and natural gas customers away because of the economic risks of doing business. In Nigeria, the United Nations said it was deeply concerned about the bloodshed that followed a military attack on Boko Haram, a militant group with ties to al-Qaida.

Rights groups, meanwhile, pressured British Prime Minister David Cameron to address the human rights situation in the United Arab Emirates, where some observers saw the recent arrest of al-Qaida sympathizers as a cover-up for repression. French concerns extended beyond Mali and Total's, meanwhile, when a car bomb ripped through part of its embassy in Tripoli and April was the deadliest month in Iraq in roughly five years. Including Algeria, that's seven of the 12 members of OPEC embroiled in some degree of turmoil.

"This is about the economic and monetary union but for the EU as a whole," he said. "The commission will, therefore, set out its views and explicit ideas for treaty change in order for them to be debated before the European elections."

"We want to put all the elements on the table, in a clear and consistent way, even if some of them may sound like political science fiction today. They will be reality in a few years' time." Mr Barroso's announcement that he will set out plans for a European federation next spring, before elections to the European Parliament in May 2014, will further deepen Conservative divisions over the EU.

The intervention will add weight to the argument made by Lord Lawson, and other anti-EU Tories, that it is pointless to try and improve Britain's membership terms when the dynamic, set by the eurozone, is towards a fully-fledged federal Europe.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.” In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.” Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion: Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain — the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the US occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.

The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg. Now, as the US supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away.

We noted in 2008: Political insider and veteran reporter Kevin Phillips has documented that every major empire over the past several hundred years has undergone a predictable cycle of collapse, usually within 10 to 20 years of its peak power.

The indications are always the same:

- The financialization of the economy, moving from manufacturing to speculation;

- Very high levels of debt;

- Extreme economic inequality;

– And costly military overreaching.

We wrote in 2009: In 2000, America was described as the sole remaining superpower – or even the world’s “hyperpower”. Now we’re in real trouble. How did it happen so fast?

It is ironic that our military is what made us a superpower, but our huge military is bankrupting us … thus destroying our status as an empire. Empires which fight “one too many wars” always collapse.

If historical patterns hold up, the economy is heading for a very rocky stretch. For example, the price of copper is called "Dr Copper" by many economists because it so accurately forecasts the future direction of the US economy. And so far this year the price of copper is way down. But that is not the only indicator that is worrying economists. Home renovation spending has fallen dramatically, retail spending is crashing in a way not seen since the last recession, manufacturing activity and consumer confidence are both declining, and troubling economic data continues to come pouring out of Asia and Europe.

So why do US stocks continue to skyrocket? Will US financial markets be able to continue to be divorced from reality? Unfortunately, as we have seen so many times in the past, when stocks do catch up with reality they tend to do so very rapidly. So you better put on your seatbelts because a crash is coming at some point.

Michael Snyder: “We inherited the greatest economic machine the world has ever seen and we have wrecked it, and now a very painful day of reckoning is approaching”!

If one seeks to "roll back" the influence of the People's Republic of China, Myanmar is "a very interesting partner," affirmed a specialist on Southeast Asia at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. The German government is expanding cooperation with that country accordingly, and in addition to broadening cooperation on political projects, seeks particularly to enhance its economic influence.

The EU recently lifted the economic sanctions imposed on Myanmar due also to German pressure. The German Ministry of the Economy is supporting new business deals.

An invitation sent by organizers to Likud members read, “46 years after the liberation of Jerusalem, 46 years since the historic shofar blast that made thousands of hearts tremble, and the emotional cry, ‘The Temple Mount is in our hands!’ the Likud-Beytenu movement has decided to end the shameful neglect of Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount, the holiest place on earth to the Jewish people!”

Islamic groups have called on supporters to spend all day Tuesday on the Temple Mount in order to prevent the Likud group for touring the area.

In light of recent tension as Muslims try to prevent Jews from visiting the holy site, Temple Mount groups are throwing their weight behind a proposal to avoid tension by splitting visiting hours at the site. The proposal would see certain times and places set aside for Jewish prayer, while other times are set aside exclusively for Muslim prayer.