It notes that the cost of insuring the government debt of Italy and Greece has doubled in the past month. For Ireland, the cost of insuring against debt default has risen eightfold since the start of the year. The article notes that another indicator of rising investor concern is the gap between the yields on the bonds issued by Germany and countries with lower credit ratings, such as Italy and Greece. Those have widened to levels not seen in about a decade, before the launch of the euro.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes in the Telegraph that "The interest spread between Italian 10-year bonds and German Bunds has reached 108 basis points, the highest since the launch of the euro. TRADERS SAY IT IS NEARING LEVELS THAT RISK SETTING OFF AN UNSTABLE CHAIN REACTION."

Specialists say the theft technology is the most advanced they have seen, and a person close to British law enforcement said it has affected big retailers including a British unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tesco Ltd. The account data have been used to make repeated bank withdrawals and Internet purchases, such as airline tickets, in several countries including the U.S. Investigators haven't pinpointed the culprits. Early estimates of the losses range of $50 million to $100 million, but the figure could grow, said the person close to British law enforcement. THE SCHEME USES UNTRACEABLE DEVICES INSERTED INTO CREDIT-CARD READERS THAT WERE MADE IN CHINA.

The devices selectively send account data by a wireless connection to computer servers in Lahore, Pakisan, and constantly change the pattern of theft so it is hard to detect, officials say. "Pretty small but intelligent criminal organizations are pulling off transnational, multicontinent heists that only a foreign intelligence service would have been able to do a few years ago," said Joel F. Brenner, the U.S. government's top counterintelligence officer. EXAMINING THE STORE'S CREDIT-CARD READERS, INVESTIGATORS DISCOVERED A HIGH-TECH BUG TUCKED BEHIND THE MOTHERBOARD. It was small card containing wireless communication technology.

The bug would read an individual's card number and the corresponding personal identification number, then package and store the data. The device would once a day call a number in Lahore to upload the data to servers there and obtain instructions on what to steal next.

This past Saturday night, southern Iran experienced what was reported as a significant earthquake - a seismic event measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was just north of the strategic Straits of Hormuz, which separates Iran from Abu Dhabi and Oman and which is the gateway to the Persian Gulf.

The report quotes an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project, and who said that the "quake" was actually an undergound nuclear bomb test. Israel Insider adds that the test/quake was actually the second in a series. Nine days ago, a 4.8 Richter scale event occurred, with its epicenter only five kilometers away from the weekend tremor.

The Israel Insider source reports that two nuclear rockets are currently ready - and are intended for use against Israel in the coming months. If the report is correct, it would belie previous speculation that Iran would not begin nuclear testing until it had more nuclear-bomb production capability. Reuters reports Thursday morning that Iran has begun building a line of naval bases along its southern coast and up to the Straits of Hormuz.

The big media openly worship Barack Obama. MSNBC's Chris Matthews, upon listening to Obama speak, says almost mystically, "I felt this thrill going up my leg." Rolling Stone magazine rhapsodizes, "There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him…"

For its October cover, The Atlantic magazine hires a photographer who intentionally photographs John McCain to look ugly and threatening. "I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad," she later admits, adding, "maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for [the Atlantic] to hire me."

The New York Times publishes Barack Obama's op-ed on Iraq policy, but refuses to run McCain's op-ed. At the same time, all three network's news anchors tag along with Obama like groupies on his overseas stump tour, while McCain receives scant media coverage.

The pregnancy of Sarah Palin's teen daughter is national news, as is the presence in the Alaska governor's mansion of a tanning bed (which Palin paid for herself). But Obama being mentored and nurtured for years by terrorists (William Ayers), communists (Frank Marshall Davis) and America-hating racists (Rev. Jeremiah Wright), which helped shape him into the most left-wing, America-blaming, radically pro-abortion and tyrant-appeasing presidential candidate in U.S. history, is not news.

Yes, the media have long been biased to the left. But this year it's different. THIS YEAR, THE MASK HAS COME OFF AND THE REAL FACE OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA – or MSM as they're popularly called – has been revealed for all to see.

The president also met with the [Pope's] secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for relations with states. During the "cordial discussions," the Vatican press office reported, the Holy See's interest in Lebanon and the nation's "continuing determination to safeguard its particular identity" was reaffirmed.

The Pontiff expressed his appreciation for "the effort that the country and its leaders are making to redirect institutional life within the normal channels of political dialectic, in which every part of the Lebanese people can offer their contributions to the common good and see their own concerns and expectations duly taken into account."

"If these people want to live together, dress as grooms and get married, they might have the right to do so or not, depending on the laws of their countries. But they shouldn't call it marriage, because it isn't," Queen Sofia was quoted as saying. "There are many possible names: social contract, contract of union," she said in extracts from "La Reina Muy de Cerca" (The Queen Up Close) previewed Thursday in the daily El Pais.

In the book, the Queen, who married King Juan Carlos in 1962, also criticized abortion and gay pride parades. "I can understand, accept and respect there are people of another sexual orientation, but that they feel proud to be gay? That they should get on a float?"

Gay pride, begun in the United States in the 1970s, has become a popular celebration in Spanish cities, with Madrid hosting Euro Pride in 2007, which organizers said attracted around 2.5 million people. The chief spokesman for the opposition conservative Popular Party was unhappy with the Queen's comments, saying the royal family should not wade into politics.

New controls may bring many benefits in clamping down some risks and possible abuses of the securities, but behind the fiery rhetoric lie many misunderstandings. CDSs have been made the fall guy for the collapse of institutions including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and bailout of American International Group. They've been called the epicenter of the crisis because they played a role in spreading the risks of bad mortgages and other assets globally, threatening systemic consequences from a large counterparty collapse.

Credit default swaps are used to protect against or speculate on the risk of a company, government or other borrower not paying back their debt. When a borrower fails, the protection buyer is paid the full amount insured. The contracts have enabled banks and investors to pass on asset risks to other investors, which in some cases may have reduced losses from toxic assets.

Swaps have also encouraged banks and insurers to take on more risk than they could handle, sometimes causing their collapse. But the tool itself is not to blame for lax risk management.

Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, predicted rising demand for scarce supplies of food and fuel, strategic competition over new technologies, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. "WHAT I'M SUGGESTING - THERE'S AN INCREASED POTENTIAL FOR CONFLICT," McConnell said in a speech Thursday to intelligence professionals in Nashville, Tennessee.

"During the period of this assessment, out to 2025, the probability for conflict between nations and within nation-state entities will be greater," he said. Conditions for "large casualty terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, or less likely, nuclear materials" also will increase during that period, he said.

McConnell described a multi-polar world in 2025 shaped by the rise of China, India and Brazil, whose economies will by then match those of the western industrial states. "In terms of size, speed, and directional flow, the transfer of global wealth and economic power, now underway, as noted from West to East is without precedent in modern history," McConnell said. Territorial expansion and military rivalries are not likely but cannot be ruled out, he said.

Organizers of a campaign to raise funds for the ads said Wednesday they received more than £113,000 in donations, almost seven times their target, in the hours since they launched the project on a charity Web site. Supporters include Oxford University biologist Richard Dawkins, who donated £9,000. The money will be used to place posters on 30 buses carrying the slogan "THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD. NOW STOP WORRYING AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE." The plan was to run the ads for four weeks starting in January, but so much money has been raised that the project may be expanded.

The British Humanist Association, which is administering the fundraising drive, said it had been so successful the campaign might spread to other cities including Manchester and Edinburgh. Most Britons identify themselves as Christians, but few attend church regularly, and public figures rarely talk about their beliefs. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair was rare among politicians in speaking openly about his Christian faith.

Dawkins, author of the best-selling atheist manifesto "The God Delusion," said that religion nonetheless held a privileged position in society. "Religious organizations have an automatic tax-free charitable status," he said. "Bishops sit in the House of Lords automatically. Religious leaders get preferential treatment on all sorts of commissions. THIS CAMPAIGN TO PUT ALTERNATIVE SLOGANS ON LONDON BUSES WILL MAKE PEOPLE THINK — AND THINKING IS ANATHEMA TO RELIGION."

We've seen handlers of banana pesticide sterilized, a young couple who worked with pesticides give birth to a limbless child, and a pesticide singled out as a cause of Colony Collapse Disorder.

The latest research found among a group of farmers that long term application coincided with a 50% higher chance of clinical depression. And these men were "80% more likely [to have depression] if they had applied a class of insecticide called organophosphates."

What about for those of us who eat small doses of them everyday? Direct contact to the targeted life-form causes death. Direct contact with humans who administer them causes major reproductive issues, birth defects, and depression. SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU COME IN CONTACT WITH A LOWER AMOUNT OF PESTICIDES DAILY BY EATING THEM?

Political donations from overseas are also illegal in the US, where John McCain's campaign team is under investigation for allegedly accepting a benefit in kind from TWO MEGA-RICH BRITISH CITIZENS, NAMELY NAT ROTHSCHILD AND HIS FATHER, JACOB, THE FOURTH BARON ROTHSCHILD.

In April, Mr McCain passed through London and spoke at a fund-raising dinner for expatriate Americans, where seats at the cheapest tables cost £500 a head. What caught the eye of Judicial Watch, a Washington-based foundation dedicated to combating corruption, was that the event was held "by kind permission of Lord Rothschild and Hon Nathaniel Rothschild" at the family home in SPENCER HOUSE, ST JAMES'S, THE ONLY PRIVATELY OWNED 17TH-CENTURY PALACE IN CENTRAL LONDON.

The Rothschild family and politics have been intertwined for generations, ever since Nathan Rothschild, who founded the English branch of the family business, financed Britain's war against Napoleon two centuries ago. Nathan was the son of Mayer Rothschild, who founded the family business in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt during the 18th century.

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi will pay an official visit to Russia at the invitation of President Dmitry Medvedev from October 31 to November 2. The Kommersant newspaper cited a source close to the preparations for the visit as saying that the Libyan leader was planning to raise the naval base issue during talks with the Russian leadership.

"THE LIBYAN LEADER BELIEVES THAT A RUSSIAN MILITARY PRESENCE IN THE COUNTRY WOULD PREVENT POSSIBLE ATTACKS BY THE UNITED STATES, which despite numerous Libyan attempts to amend bilateral relations is not in a hurry to embrace Colonel Qaddafi," the paper said.

Russia desperately needs a naval base in the Mediterranean to establish a permanent military presence in the region. As a sign of a possible deal with Libya, Russian warships have recently paid a number of visits to the North African country. LIBYA'S SOVIET-ERA $4.6 BILLION DEBT WAS RECENTLY WRITTEN OFF IN LIEU OF A HOST OF NEW CONTRACTS, the largest being a $3 billion deal under which the Russian Railways monopoly is to build a 554-km (344-mile) railroad in Libya.

Earlier this year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez turned against the dollar as well when they asked their OPEC partners to stop using the dollar for oil settlements. They argued that the "green" currency was no longer reliable and it was high time they look for a more stable and predictable alternative.

Curiously, unlike the Ahmadinejad and Chavez appeal, Putin's proposal came as the dollar was on the rebound and even began pushing the euro. Economists even started talking in terms of a reversal of the global currency trends, rather than the temporary appreciation of the dollar.

Analysts predict that the dollar will regain its value in the next few months. They do not see anything which could hinder its steady growth. Yet, Putin proposed that Russia and China stop using it as a settlement instrument. WHAT IS IT - LACK OF CONFIDENCE IN THE DOLLAR'S PROSPECTS OR A POLITICAL MOVE?

Democratic attorney Philip Berg had filed a lawsuit alleging Obama is ineligible to be president because of possible birth in Kenya. In a statement today, Berg said he is applying to Justice David Souter for an "Immediate Injunction to Stay the Presidential Election of November 4, 2008."

"I am hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will grant the injunction pending a review of this case to avoid a constitutional crisis by insisting that Obama produce certified documentation that he is or is not a "natural born" citizen and if he cannot produce documentation that Obama be removed from the ballot for president," Berg said.

"We must legally prevent Obama, the unqualified candidate, from taking the office of the presidency of the United States," Berg said.

The low rainfall over September-October has meant Melbourne's water storages dropped by 0.3 per cent of total capacity after the dry spell over the major catchments continued in the past week. Storages are 33.9 per cent full - or 600.9 billion litres - after the four main harvesting catchments received an average of just 1mm of rain, compared to the long-term average of 20mm for the period.

Melbourne's water authorities are encouraging four-minute showers and providing a free shower head exchange program to help save more water ahead of summer as stage 3a restrictions remain in place until at least November 30. Central Australia has received little or no rain in the past two months and 2008 is on track to be the driest year on record in many places including Mt Isa and Alice Springs, the bureau said.