Things did not look this bad back in the summer of 2011 and things certainly did not look this bad back in the summer of 2010. It is almost as if a "perfect storm" is brewing. Today, the global financial system is a finely balanced pyramid of risk, debt and leverage. Such a system requires a high degree of confidence and stability. But when confidence disappears and fear and panic take over, the house of cards can literally start collapsing at any time.

Right now we are watching a slow-motion train wreck unfold and nobody seems to know how to stop it. Unless some kind of a miracle happens, things are going to look much different when we reach the start of 2013 than they do today. When was the last time that we saw so much bad economic news come out all at once? 2008 perhaps? We truly live in unprecedented times. It will be exciting to watch what happens, but it is also important to keep in mind that the coming economic crisis will cause extreme pain for millions upon millions of people.

Recently we have seen brutal beheadings in the Middle East, in Mexico, in Africa, in India and even in the United States. So what is next? Will guillotines make a comeback? This was a really difficult article to write. If you have a weak stomach you might not want to read it. I thought about not writing it, but I think it is important to expose what is really going on out there. Sometimes it is really easy to sit in our comfortable homes surrounded by people that we love and ignore the terrible evil that is happening out in our world today.

Our planet is not a very nice place and tyranny is gaining more ground with each passing day. You might think that this is something that happens "on the other side of the world" and that you do not need to worry about it, but as tyranny spreads so will this kind of brutality. What would you do someday if you had a choice of either bowing down to tyranny or losing your head?

What would you do someday if you were threatened with beheading if you did not renounce what you believe? You might want to think about how you would handle that type of situation. Our world is becoming a very evil place, and in the years ahead the pressure to submit to tyranny is only going to increase.

If you were faced with either renouncing what you believe or losing your head, what would you choose? Is what you believe worth dying for? You won't hear about it much in the mainstream media, but the truth is that every single day large numbers of people are being brutally killed for what they believe all over the world. Someday you may be forced to make a similar choice.

Immediately following the overthrow of the Assad regime, this "Working Group" is planning to launch urgent economic measures, including the coordination of aid projects and the implementation of economic reforms. Together with the United Arab Emirates, the German government is establishing a "secretariat," under the leadership of a German with Afghanistan experience. In cooperation with the Assad regime, Berlin had already promoted the Syrian economy's privatization. However, the nascent liberalization drove sectors of the population into bankruptcy, thereby contributing to insurgence against the regime.

Berlin has already received first drafts for Syria's new economic order. They were written by an activist of the Syrian National Council (SNC), which is under strong criticism by a large part of the opposition because of the pre-eminence of the Muslim Brotherhood. Washington-based Syrian exile politicians hold leading positions in the SNC. They are demanding a Kosovo-style western intervention and consider Kosovo's KLA to be a model for the Syrian opposition.

Late last week, a multinational "Working Group," co-chaired by Germany, met for the first time in Abu Dhabi, with the aim of launching urgent economic measures for immediately following the overthrow of the Assad regime. The "Working Group on Economic Recovery and Development of the Friends of the Syrian People" was established April 1 in Istanbul by the "Group of Friends of the Syrian People," an alliance of western and pro-western countries, which support the Syrian opposition in the civil war and are cooperating mainly with the exiled Syrian National Council (SNC).

It estimated how much they expected to write off as bad debt in the future but had yet to offset against profits. Its findings suggested that part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland was in the worst position – with £18 billion of undeclared losses. And its if loans went bad, it could one day be forced to seek a new bailout from taxpayers who have already taken an 82 per cent stake. PIRC also claimed Lloyds Banking Group had undeclared losses of £2.6 billion, HSBC £10 billion, Barclays £6.7 billion and Standard Chartered £3.6 billion.

However, the banks deny the claims. Industry sources said its estimates of future bad loans were misleading if potential future profits were not factored in. They added that more than 12 months ahead was too long a time frame to predict losses. An RBS spokesman said: “We don’t recognise PIRC’s numbers. Our capital, liquidity and funding positions are strong and our reporting complies fully with International Financial Reporting Standards.”

Under 2005 accounting rules, firms are prevented from making provision for potential future losses. PIRC said this masks the true position by including “fictional assets and fictional profits”. It meant dividends were paid out on over-rosy profit figures when they should be reserved to boost the banks’ capital reserves.

Some areas of the planet may already be so overpopulated as to be beyond hope - and once the planet is more than 50% under tarmac and agriculture, the results could be global disaster. When smaller areas hit levels above 50%, the results are disastrous. If the entire planet hits this 'tipping point', the effects would be impossible for scientists to predict.

The committee calls for 'global leadership' to prevent such a disaster - but warns some areas of the planet may already be so overpopulated as to be beyond hope.

Professor Anthony Barnosky, the lead author from the University of California, Berkeley, warns: ‘It really will be a new world, biologically, at that point. The data suggests that there will be a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest products and clean water. This could happen within just a few generations.’

David Cameron must seize the “perfect opportunity” of the eurozone crisis to negotiate a “radically different” British relationship with the European Union, Conservative MPs declare today. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Andrea Leadsom, the group’s chair, says that Mr Cameron will never have a better opportunity to win back powers from Brussels.

“Out of the eurozone misery will come the perfect opportunity for the 'fresh start' we crave in the EU - the UK has never had a better chance to negotiate a new and improved deal for our country,” she writes. “Reform shouldn't be purely about economic matters – everything should be on the table.” Mr Cameron will today meet Mrs Merkel in a fresh attempt to persuade the German Chancellor to use Germany’s economic strength to support southern members of the eurozone like Greece and Spain.

Mrs Merkel has suggested that Germany will only compromise if other eurozone MEMBERS AGREE TO MOVE TOWARDS A FULL-BLOWN POLITICAL UNION. Moves towards that union will be debated at an EU summit in Brussels later this month, and are likely to mean changes in the EU’s treaties. In the negotiations on a new treaty, Mr Cameron will be under intense pressure to fight for a new deal for Britain.

Doomsday scenarios are a common occurrence in 2012, but coming from a steely-eyed realist like Eugene Kaspersky, his calls for a global effort to halt emerging cyber threats should raise alarm bells. A global Internet blackout and crippling attacks against key infrastructure are among two possible cyber-pandemics he outlined.

"It's not cyber war, it's cyber terrorism, and I'm afraid the game is just beginning. Very soon, many countries around the world will know it beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Kaspersky told reporters at a Tel Aviv University cyber security conference. “I'm afraid it will be the end of the world as we know it," he warned. "I'm scared, believe me." His stark warning came soon after researchers at Kaspersky Lab unearthed Flame, possibly the most complex cyber threat ever. While the espionage toolkit infected systems across the Middle East, Iran appears to have been its primary target.

Flame seems to be a continuation of Stuxnet, the revolutionary infrastructure-sabotaging computer worm that made mincemeat of Iran’s uranium enrichment facility at Natanz in 2009-2010. As Flame is capable of recording audio via a microphone, taking screen shots, turning Bluetooth-enabled computers into beacons to download names and phone numbers from other Bluetooth enabled devices, Kaspersky is certain that a nation-station is behind the cyber espionage virus.

A team has been able to predict the whole genetic code of a foetus by taking a blood sample from a woman who was 18 weeks pregnant, and a swab of saliva from the father. They believe that, in time, the test will become widely available, enabling doctors to screen unborn babies for some 3,500 genetic disorders. At the moment the only genetic disorder routinely tested for on the NHS is Down’s syndrome.

This is a large-scale genetic defect caused by having an extra copy of a bundle of DNA, called a chromosome. Other such faults are sometimes tested for, but usually only when there is a risk of inheriting them from a parent. By contrast, the scientists say their new test would identify far more conditions, caused by genetic errors. However, they warned it raised “many ethical questions” because the results could be used as a basis for abortion.

These concerns were last night amplified by pro-life campaigners, who said widespread use of such a test would “inevitably lead to more abortions”. The American scientists were able to map the baby’s genetic code principally from tiny traces of free-floating DNA, which makes its way into the mother’s blood. Blood sample DNA from the mother was also studied as well as DNA extracted from the father's saliva. Fitting pieces of the genetic jigsaw together, scientists in the US were able to reconstruct the entire genetic code of an unborn baby boy.

Josephine Quintavalle, founder of the Pro-Life Alliance, said, “One always hopes, vainly, that in utero testing will be for the benefit of the unborn child. But, whilst this new test may not itself be invasive, given our past track record, it is difficult to imagine that this new test will not lead to more abortions.”

The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’, Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles with ridiculous royalty charges. The farmers state that Monsanto has been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest.

The practice of using renewal seeds dates back to ancient times, but Monsanto seeks to collect massive royalties and put an end to the practice. Why? Because Monsanto owns the very patent to the genetically modified seed, and is charging the farmers not only for the original crops, but the later harvests as well. Eventually, the royalties compound and many farmers begin to struggle with even keeping their farm afloat. It is for this reason that India slammed Monsanto with groundbreaking ‘biopiracy’ charges in an effort to stop Monsanto from ‘patenting life’.

Jane Berwanger, a lawyer for the farmers who went on record regarding the case, told the Associated Press:“Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production.”

The findings echo what thousands of farmers have experienced in particularly poor nations, where many of the farmers are unable to stand up to Monsanto. Back in 2008, the Daily Mail covered what is known as the ‘GM Genocide’, which is responsible for taking the lives of over 17,683 Indian farmers in 2009 alone. After finding that their harvests were failing and they began to enter economic turmoil, the farmers began ending their own lives — oftentimes drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto provided them with.

As the information continues to surface on Monsanto’s crimes, further lawsuits will begin to take effect. After it was ousted in January that Monsanto was running illegal ‘slave-like’ working rings, more individuals became aware of just how seriously Monsanto seems to disregard their workers — so why would they care for the health of their consumers? In April, another group of farmers sued Monsanto for ‘knowingly poisoning’ workers and causing ‘devastating birth defects’.

Will endless lawsuits from millions of seriously affected individuals be the end of Monsanto?

Turns out, it looks like this has now been done. And not by just any malware, but by Flame. The full mechanism isn't yet completely analyzed, but Flame has a module which appears to attempt to do a man-in-the-middle attack on the Microsoft Update or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) system. If successful, the attack drops a file called WUSETUPV.EXE to the target computer. This file is signed by Microsoft with a certificate that is chained up to Microsoft root.

Except it isn't signed really by Microsoft. The full details on how this functionality works is still under analysis. In any case, it has not been used in large-scale attacks. Most likely this function was used to spread further inside an organization or to drop the initial infection on a specific system. Microsoft has announced an urgent security fix to revoke three certificates used in the attack.

The fix is available via — you guessed it — Microsoft Update. Having a Microsoft code signing certificate is the Holy Grail of malware writers. This has now happened. I guess the good news is that this wasn't done by cyber criminals interested in financial benefit. They could have infected millions of computers. Instead, this technique has been used in targeted attacks, most likely launched by a Western intelligence agency.

Full article; http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002377.html

The revolution in Libya played a major role in allowing the pests to breed, it said. “The fall of Gaddafi was an enormous factor, to be honest,” said Keith Cressman, FAO senior locust forecasting officer. “It depleted the Libyans’ capacity to monitor and respond as they normally would.” Insecurity along the Libya-Algeria border – a fallout from the uprising – meant that teams are still unable to properly spray the affected areas.

Desert locusts have the capacity to destroy vast areas of croplands. During a plague, a swarm can stretch for several hundred square kilometres comprising billions of locusts, each capable of eating its own weight in food a day. A 2003-05 plague affected farmers in two dozen countries, mainly in Africa, and cost more than $500 million to bring under control. The current infestation is nowhere near that level, but the FAO fears that the insecurity in Mali will hamper the response efforts there.

Desert locust swarms formed in Libya and Algeria in mid-May, after good rains and the resultant growth of vegetation on which they feed. The first swarms have already been sighted in northern Niger, which is currently experiencing a food crisis.

Putin referred to recent Sino-Russian joint navy exercises in the Yellow Sea as an example of military cooperation which, he said, would go on. "We will continue cooperation also between our military," he told Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where he is attending a security summit and meeting his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao.

"Recently joint navy exercises were held in the Yellow Sea, and they were the first of such exercises. We have agreed with Chairman Hu that we will continue such cooperation," Putin said. Chinese and Russian naval forces held six days of exercises in the Yellow Sea off China's east coast in April, with drills including anti-submarine operations and the rescue of hijacked vessels.

China deployed 16 ships and two submarines, while Russia sent four warships from its Pacific fleet, according to Chinese state media. "We assign an important role to the joint initiative on strengthening security in the Asia-Pacific region and in this context we will maintain the relationship between our militaries," Putin said in an earlier statement.

"We favor the formation of an open and equal-minded security and cooperation architecture in the region, based on the principles of international law," he said. China and Russia have forged close economic and diplomatic ties following years of hostility and suspicion during a large part of the Cold War, and both have looked askance at U.S. military involvement in what they view as their backyards.

The prime ministers of the two neighboring countries held a meeting in Russia’s Northern capital St Petersburg on Tuesday. Describing the current state of bilateral relations between Russia and China, Putin pointed out that they “do not depend on external conjuncture and develop dynamically in all areas, including politics, economy, science, education and culture”.

The Russian head of the government also expressed confidence that “today’s talks and joint work will give another powerful impetus to the development of interstate relations," cited Itar-Tass. The Chinese premier arrived in St Petersburg on the eve of the ceremony closing the Year of China in Russia and the Year of Russia in China.

Wen Jiabao noted that over the past year, significant progress has been reached in relations between the two countries. Thanks to regularly held summits, he noted, Moscow and Beijing can coordinate their policies. "China and Russia support each other in different issues, including those that concern sovereignty, and thus they ensure security in the region and in the world," he added. The Chinese premier also urged the necessity to increase efforts in strengthening stability in the border regions.

"China and Russia are both committed to restructuring their economy and addressing the risks and adverse influence in the global economy," Hu said during his talks with the visiting Russian president. The Chinese leader suggested that China and Russia expand their cooperation in investment, high technology, energy, large-scale projects and trans-border infrastructure as well as sub-national cooperation.

The two countries are also expected to sign a host of agreements and look to firm up their energy cooperation. Last year Russia supplied 15 million metric tons of crude oil through exclusive pipelines, and the two countries are in talks to reach a similar agreement to supply Russian natural gas to energy-hungry China. The Russian delegation included the heads of Russia’s energy giants Gazprom, Rosneft and Transneft, and other major Russian business people.

While energy is high on the agenda, a long-anticipated gas deal that could see Russia supply 70 billion cubic meters of gas a year directly to China, was not signed due to pricing disagreements, Gazprom said on Monday. Beijing is also looking to clinch agreements on high-end military technology which Moscow which have withheld so far, according to analysts. Russia and China have also signed a cooperation agreement between the Skolkovo Foundation and the Beijing-based Z-Park. The agreement marks a transition to full-scale collaboration in high technologies between the two countries.

"Recently joint navy exercises were held in the Yellow Sea, and they were the first of such exercises. We have agreed with Chairman Hu that we will continue such cooperation," Putin said following a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Beijing. The Russian leader said that security in the Asia-Pacific region was a top priority for both countries and they will work together to further develop ties.

"We favor the formation of an open and equal-minded security and cooperation architecture in the region, based on the principles of international law," Putin said. Russian and Chinese naval forces recently held six days of military drills in the Yellow Sea. The first drills of their kind, they included anti-submarine exercises and hijacked vessel rescue operations. Russia deployed four warships from its Pacific fleet for the drills with 16 Chinese ships and two submarines.

The strengthening of Sino-Russian relations also serves to counterbalance US influence in Asia.