Bob Diamond, the chief executive of Barclays - the first bank to be exposed in the scandal - has been summoned to appear before the Treasury Select Committee next Wednesday. He said: "There’s no need to make a snap judgement, but I think it’s very important above all that the government takes all of the actions necessary – holding bankers accountable, making sure they pay their taxes, making sure there’s proper transparency, making sure the criminal law can go wherever it needs to to uncover wrongdoing, all of those things need to happen."

"On the issue of inquiries... let’s think this through, let’s get this right, that’s what I’m determined to do and that’s what we will do." The inquiry announcement comes as Ed Miliband called for a full-scale public inquiry into banking culture and practices as the City was rocked by two major scandals in the space of a week.

The Labour leader said the industry was plagued by "institutional corruption" that could only be eradicated by introducing a tough new code of conduct and jail sentences for immoral bankers who abuse the system. His comments were echoed by Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King who demanded a "real change in culture" as Britain's lenders were left reeling following a week blighted by controversy.

In an interview with The Times, Mr Miliband said: "There hasn't been a proper reckoning for what happened in the banking crisis. The bankers told us - it's all fine, we've cleaned everything up. But I'm afraid that doesn't hold water anymore."

Calling for a systemic look at the customs and practices of the industry, he added: "We've got to have an open, independent inquiry with hearings to find out what is going on in the dark corners of the banks. Some of it clearly was illegal, but it goes well beyond that. There is a problem with how people operate. This isn't just about regulation, it's also about culture and ethics."

(The London Interbank Offered Rate (or LIBOR) is the average interest rate charged by leading banks in London when lending to other banks. It is a benchmark, along with the Euribor, for interest rates all around the world.)

Neither Democrats nor Republicans claim this is their preferred option, as it could rattle global financial markets badly and anger their constituents. But as they circle each other in an ever-more partisan atmosphere they see little prospect for a settlement acceptable to both parties in the lame duck session of Congress after the November 6 election. That is when they confront the wave of fiscal cliff decisions including how to handle expiration of temporary tax cuts that originated during the presidency of George W Bush, $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts and the need to raise the debt ceiling again.

Some members and partisan strategists are concluding that they might be better off doing nothing. They would come back in January with a new Congress relatively flush with cash - at least on paper - from the impact of the tax hikes; hit reset and start over to structure a new series of tax cuts. Call them the "Obama tax cuts" or "Romney tax cuts," depending on the victor in the November election.

One wild card is the need to raise the limit on the Treasury Department's borrowing authority, known as the "debt ceiling." Republicans caused a stir last year when a group of Tea Party - allied conservatives advocated blocking any increase in Washington's borrowing authority without accompanying adequate budget cuts - even if that meant a historic US default and government shutdown.

In what has been described as a landmark decision, a court in the city of Cologne said circumcision violated a child's "fundamental right to bodily integrity" and that this right outweighed the rights of the parents. "The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised," the court added. "The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision. This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs."

The Cologne ruling is not binding but legal experts said it appeared to clarify a grey area in the law and will guide doctors in the future. "The court has, unlike many politicians, not been deterred by the fear of being criticised as anti-Semitic or antireligious," Holm Putzke, an expert in criminal law from Passau University, told the Financial Times of Germany.

"The ruling is very important because for the first time physicians have legal certainty."

But Jewish and Muslim groups were quick to go on the offensive against the court's decision. "This ruling is an outrageous and insensitive measure," said Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Committee of Jews. "Circumcision of newborn boys is a fixed part of the Jewish religion and has been practised worldwide for centuries. This religious right is respected in every country in the world." He added that it was "an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination." The committee also called on the German parliament to protect the "freedom of religion".

The official investigation into the National Socialist Underground (NSU), the neo-Nazi cell which is believed to have killed at least 10 people over a period of years, has been marked by a series of embarrassing failures and slip-ups by the authorities. But new revelations about the case threaten to trigger a major scandal with possible political consequences.

Politicians from all of Germany's main parties have reacted with anger and incomprehension to revelations that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, destroyed files relating to the case in November 2011 after the NSU activities became public.

Members of the German parliament's investigative committee into the NSU told the media earlier this week that the intelligence agency had destroyed files on an operation to recruit far-right informants on November 12, 2011. On the previous day, it had been revealed that the NSU were apparently responsible for the murder of nine small businessmen of Turkish and Greek origin. The murder series, which took place between 2000 and 2006, had been one of Germany's biggest unsolved crimes.

The authors of the research project blamed German education authorities for teaching just the facts of World War II and its aftermath while brushing over a breakdown in democracy in the country during the 1930s.

The Late Victory of the Dictatorships survey that challenged 7,400 pupils from around the country also found that only half of those questioned knew that West Germany was a democratic state while just a third were certain that the East German Government that was overthrown in 1989 was totalitarian.

Klaus Schroeder who headed the study said: “This is shocking. These are students that have almost no policital knowledge at all,” while Germany’s Minister of State for Culture and the Media added: “All responsible people in Germany have to wake up.”

The last round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany) ended in Moscow last week without any agreement on Iran’s illicit nuclear program. General Hossein Salami, in a televised interview, boasted that, “Iran has complete control of all the enemy’s interests around the world and is on a path to reach equivalency with world powers.” The commander emphasized that Iran’s nuclear program is irreversible, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Salami said war is inevitable, and the Iranian forces are ready. “The current sanctions will only help Iran with its progress, and the Iranian ballistic missiles can target the enemy’s moving carriers with 100 percent accuracy,” he warned the West. “The Guards’ operational plan includes a radius of deterrence in the region in which all interests of the enemy have been identified, and in case of war, those interests will be attacked.” Guards’ commanders have stated previously that all US bases in the region are targeted with missiles and will be attacked should America strike Iran.

Salami said Iranian ballistic missiles can travel at several times the speed of sound and cannot easily be tracked and destroyed. “Our defense inventory is so great that at times our brothers in the Guards face limitations with space.” The Revolutionary Guards have more than 1,000 ballistic missiles capable of reaching all US bases in the region, all of Israel and some capitals in Europe. In collaboration with China and North Korea, they are also working on intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Debby brought widespread rainfall totals of 5 inches or more to much of central and northern Florida, particularly from the 24th through the 26th. Some locations in the northern part of the Sunshine State logged over 20 inches of rain. Despite the moderate (level 1) to extreme (level 3) drought conditions that preceded Debby's arrival, the torrential rainfall still led to severe flooding. As expected, this week's Drought Monitor report removed all drought and dryness categories from those areas.

The percentage of Florida in any drought category fell from over 53% last week to just 0.04% this week, with just a tiny sliver of the southwest coast officially remaining in drought. This is the smallest area of drought for Florida since July 27, 2010, when the state was drought-free. It is also the largest one-week drop in Florida's drought area in the history of the report.

Drought conditions intensified across most other areas of the country over the past week. Outside of Florida, substantial seven-day rainfall totals mostly fell on areas that were already drought-free, while areas in drought received little or no rainfall. As a result, many areas of the country saw the drought either expand or intensify, and in many cases, both.

For the Lower 48, the percentage area in "abnormally dry" (level 0 or worse) conditions reached 72%, an all-time high in the Drought Monitor era. The percentage area in drought (levels 1-4) reached 51%, the eighth-highest weekly level in 652 weeks of data. The expansion of the drought nationally is particularly remarkable considering that most of Florida's drought and dryness was wiped out!

Widespread power outages were reported from Indiana to New Jersey, with the bulk of the service interruptions concentrated on Washington, DC, and the surrounding areas. Now, three states - Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia - have declared states of emergency, as temperatures again rise to dangerous levels. In addition to the heat, officials say cell phone coverage is spotty.

Many residents were asked to conserve water because sewage stations had been without power for a time. And authorities cautioned people to drive carefully because tree limbs littered roads and hundreds of traffic signals were out.

No power also meant no way to charge cellphones and laptops, and no Internet access in many areas. Earlier Friday, the nation's capital reached 104 degrees - topping a record of 101 set in 1934. Temperatures also soared to 118 degrees in Norton Dam, Kansas, an all-time high. The storms in Washington DC also knocked out Amazon’s Cloud service in Northern Virginia, leaving those in the area without services like Netflix, Instagram, and Pinterest.

The German finance minister rudely rejected Italy's demands to receive the badly needed help, without having to concede its sovereignty. Germany recently turned down similar Spanish efforts. The measures are part of a comprehensive program to consolidate German hegemony over the continent, under the motto of converting the "European integration" into a state-like Euro zone structure, based on the right of interference in national budgets of the economically weaker countries. Around the globe, the protest against Berlin's austerity dictate is growing, because the German government's power ploys are driving not only European crisis countries into impoverishment but are also threatening to critically damage the global economy. A failure of the German va-banque game could provoke even a serious setback for the German economy.

The financial sector's instability is another risk factor. Germany's continued refusal to support the stimulation of economic activity with credit financing, is threatening an irreversible exacerbation of the Euro crisis, in which a collapse of the financial system could plunge the entire global economy into a deep depression. The consequences could even surpass the dislocation of the socio-economic established order following the global economic crisis of the 1930s.

If it surpasses the breaking point of the already battered global finance system, such a cascade of crises would take on enormous speed and, at a certain point, render any effective counter measures impossible. Even minor incidents, such as a breakdown in negotiations at the upcoming EU summit meeting, could trigger an irreversible shock. Berlin is playing an "all or nothing" power game. For the European crisis countries, nothing less than their national sovereignty is in jeopardy. For Germany, the stakes are on the consolidated hegemony over Europe. BERLIN IS EVEN PREPARED TO RISK A GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS OF UNFATHOMABLE DIMENSIONS AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE.

The federal government can now force us to buy what we don't want. Washington politicians and bureaucrats will become the final arbiter of our most personal medical decisions, rationing care for many and denying care to some who are not deemed worthy of receiving it, especially if the care is expensive. The "Affordable Care Act" (nicknamed "Obamacare") nationalizes 1/7th of our economy, imposes one of the largest tax increases in American history on an economy already struggling, massively increases government spending, and will increase the national debt by $1.15 trillion, according to a recent study.

This, despite the fact that we already have a crushing federal debt of more than $15 trillion, and another $65 trillion in unfunded liabilities related to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid coming at us with breakneck speed. Our ship of state is hurtling towards massive debt icebergs, yet rather than slow down or change direction, we are accelerating our deficit spending.

Bottom line: the implosion of the American economy has just become more likely.

The key to getting your way in tough negotiations, of course, is to find your opponents Achilles' heel. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy did that on Thursday night and early Friday morning in Brussels. And the result is a euro-zone agreement to allow the common currency bailout funds to give direct help to ailing banks and to become active on sovereign bond markets to provide relief on the financial markets - free of conditions for the countries in need of such aid.

"We are opening the possibilities for countries that are well-behaving to make use of financial stability instruments, the EFSF and ESM, in order to reassure markets and get again some stability around some of the sovereign bonds of our member states," said European Council President Herman Van Rompuy at a 4:30 am press conference, referring to the temporary bailout fund European Financial Stability Facility and the permanent fund European Stability Mechanism.

Monti and Rajoy were able to secure the immediate assistance they had been demanding by threatening to torpedo the €120 billion ($150 billion) European Union growth pact leaders had hoped to rubber stamp early on Thursday evening. Even if experts doubt whether the growth pact will have much of an effect, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had promised the successful passage of the pact to the opposition back home in exchange for their support in ratifying the ESM and the EU fiscal pact in parliamentary votes on Friday. Merkel is seeking a two-thirds majority for both measures to take the wind out of the sails of potential legal challenges at Germany's Constitutional Court.

A detailed proposal on how a banking union might look is to be presented in the autumn by the so-called Gang of Four, made up of Van Rompuy and the heads of the European Commission, European Central Bank and Euro Group. "THE AIM IS, OF COURSE, TO MAKE THE EURO AN IRREVERSIBLE PROJECT," Van Rompuy said.

Spain and Italy put pressure on Germany to allow the bailout fund to buy government debt in the markets - a measure to contain borrowing costs. Eurozone leaders agreed to begin implementing the decisions by 9 July. HOWEVER, IT COULD TAKE UNTIL THE END OF THE YEAR BEFORE THE NEW MONEY BECOMES AVAILABLE.

Announcing the deal, EU Council President Herman van Rompuy said it would break the "vicious circle" between banks and national governments. The euro surged against the dollar in Asian trade after the news from Brussels. Stocks in Germany and London also rose sharply. The deal also tried to sort out a problem with a previous agreement to lend money to Spain's banks. There had been confusion over where that money would come from, and which lenders would have priority in the event of a default.

Internal predictions now state that the worst case scenario is that £5.7 billion has to be written off, though it is now scrambling to avoid that happening. The deals were made by a team led by French-born trader Bruno Iksil, nicknamed Voldemort after Harry Potter’s evil nemesis because he was such a ‘scary and powerful’ force in the City. JP Morgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon had previously admitted that he thought the loss could rise to £1.8 billion, but the latest figure is far higher.

The bank is due to give an update on July 13 but according to the New York Times it has already extricated itself from half the botched deals and may be completely out by the end of the year. The disclosure comes at a time when the banking industry is under intense scrutiny over the Barclays scandal.

Barclays has been fined £290 million by the Financial Services Authority and US regulators for trying to manipulate a key interest rate to make money and make itself look more stable than it actually was. Critics have claimed both episodes are further evidence that the banking industry needs tighter regulation.

The Avenger class vessels out of San Diego will join eight US and British navy mine hunters deployed in the region. Their main mission will be to keep open the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the only way in and out of the gulf, if the Iranians carry through on a threat to close the vital energy artery through which one-fifth of the world's oil supplies pass every day.

Iran is reported to have in excess of 2,000 sea mines, including advanced Russian weapons, that could be used to block the narrow, 112-mile strait.

These could be used in conjunction with Chinese-designed anti-ship missiles and swarm attacks by fleets of armed speedboats manned by naval forces of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Navy has two aircraft carrier battle groups, headed by the USS Enterprise and the USS Abraham Lincoln, deployed in the gulf and the Arabian Sea. These can put up a powerful force of more than 100 F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet strike jets, backed by early warning radar and surveillance aircraft.

The French navy's carrier Charles de Gaulle, carrying multi-role Dassault Rafale jets, is also in the region. Meantime, the USS Ponce, an amphibious transport ship now configured to operate as a mother ship for US Special Forces using helicopters and small patrol boats, was reported transiting the Suez Canal en route to Manama. It's expected to arrive in Bahrain early in July, which could be a critical period in the long-simmering confrontation between the United States, and its gulf allies led by Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Navy warships and submarines have fired more than 2,000 Tomahawks in combat, from the 1990-91 Gulf War through the Libyan war in 2011.

The current variant, the 1.2-ton RGM-109E Block 4 land attack missile deployed in the gulf, has a range of around 1,000 miles. It can fly at an altitude of 50-100 feet, making it difficult to detect, and has been upgraded to hit moving targets, particularly other ships.

In recent weeks, the US Air Force has deployed an unspecified number of state-of-the-art Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor fighters, the most advanced operational fighter in the world. These are believed to be deployed at Al-Dhafra airbase near Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, a longtime Arab ally.

And this is precisely what is happening – but in ways that have startled the researchers themselves. The discovery is a wakeup call to geneticists because it has highlighted the importance of having to closely monitor and counter pest resistance to biotech crops. The development also raises the question of the potential futility of having to change the genetic structure of crops in perpetuity; given that insects are constantly evolving, to what degree will geneticists have to go to ensure crop immunity to pests? And what does that say to the ongoing safety of such crops as far as human consumption is concerned?

Case in point are cotton bollworms. To deal with these pests, genetic scientists have developed an insect-killing cotton plant that produces toxins derived from the Bt bacterium (geneticists say that these toxins are harmless to most other creatures, including humans). But the bollworms are developing a resistance. Scientists have observed that a rare genetic mutation in bollworms makes them immune to Bt – and that the mutation isn't so rare any more.

One scientist who predicted that these insects would adapt is Bruce Tabashnik, head of the department of entomology at the University of Arizona College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and co-author of the study making note of these findings. To stay ahead of the game, Tabashnik studied bollworms in the lab just to see how they would adapt to the toxin. Then, expecting to see the same sorts of adaptations in the real world, he took a look at bollworms in China.

What he found there was a bit disturbing. Yes, he discovered bollworms that exhibited the exact same mutations as the ones in his lab – but the Chinese insects also showed some adaptations that were completely unexpected. Speaking through a University of Arizona release, Tabashnik noted that, "We also found lots of other mutations, most of them in the same gene and one in a completely different gene."

A particularly big surprise was that the real world mutations will be more challenging to deal with from a genetic perspective. This indicates that geneticists are in the midst of an arms race with insects. Each measure they enact will likely be countered by the ever-adapting insects. It's difficult to know at this point just how modified the crops will have to be to withstand these pests, or how these new crops could impact on human health and the very constitution of the insects themselves.