The report claimed that the possibility of contagion in Europe was a real threat to global stability. The news comes as markets plummeted, in the UK, the FTSE 100 Index was down 1.5 per cent while the German Dax fell 1.6 per cent to 6,758. The Cac 40 in France was also 1.5 per cent lower. Tensions rose in Spain and the Netherlands as the Spanish Government risked fines over 'serious' and 'grave' deficit slippages.

While the Dutch leader pushed for a euro exit amid the worsening crisis and questioned whether the German and French path for the eurozone was the right one. Greek private creditors have until Thursday night to say whether they will participate in a bond swap that is part of a bailout deal to help it manage its finances and meet a debt repayment on March 20.

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Reuters yesterday it was the best deal they would get and those who did not sign up would still be forced to take losses. "There are some very important and damaging ramifications that would result from a disorderly default on Greek government debt," the IIF document read. "It is difficult to add all these contingent liabilities up with any degree of precision, although it is hard to see how they would not exceed 1 trillion euros."

If Greece misses the March 20 payment without a deal in place, this would be seen as a disorderly default and could be taken as a sign that politicians have lost control of the euro. Investors might then target other weak euro zone countries. Spain and Italy could require 350 billion euros in outside support to contain the fallout, the IIF said, while the cost of helping Ireland and Portugal could total 380 billion euros over five years.

Despite the increasing problem of childhood obesity, over-protective parents are preventing children experiencing the adventures and exercise they benefited from. Games such as hide and seek, hill-rolling and climbing trees are banned by many parents. Ten per cent of under-10s are never allowed to play outside.

While a quarter of parents enjoyed after-school activities such as riding a bike, nearly a third of today’s children spend their free time watching TV or playing computer games. Only 14 per cent play sports and just one in 10 cycles regularly, the survey for Persil found. Favourite characters for role-playing have also evolved. Almost a third of parents enjoyed being cowboys and Indians.

Now a third of children prefer to pretend to be characters like Spiderman, Ben 10 and Dora the Explorer. Parents’ over-protective attitude could have consequences for their children’s development, experts warned yesterday. Dr Lisa Ackerley, a mother of three and environmental health and safety consultant, said children’s social skills could suffer and they could grow up with fewer friends. She said: “Given the fears that parents have today, there is a real risk that they will pass these fears on to their children, resulting in a generation of fragile, nervous needy adults who may be less equipped to face the pressure of daily life.”

TV explorer Bear Grylls has joined Persil to propose a programme of outdoor activity. Father-of-three Bear said: “Soggy wellies, grassy knees and muddy hands should be part of growing up. Whether it is using their imagination to play games outside or learning a new skill, I want more children to experience a bit of adventure.”

That’s right, if a psychiatrist determines that a child under the age of 18 years is ‘sufficiently mature’, they will be sterilized without any say from the parents. Again, there is no age minimum, as long as they are ‘mature‘ enough.

The legislation, known as the ‘Draft Mental Health Bill 2011’, also allows for 12-year-olds to consent to psychosurgery and electroshock. You can view the bill for yourself on the Australian Mental Health government website. Written by the Western Australia Mental Health Commission (MHC) and overseen by Mental Health Commissioner and clinical psychologist Mr Eddie Bartnik, objections can still be submitted to Australian parliamentary members in each state until March 9th.

Some main points of the bill read:

• CHILDREN OF ANY AGE TO CONSENT TO STERILISATION: If a psychiatrist decides that a child (under 18 years) has sufficient maturity, he or she will be able to consent to sterilisation. Parental consent will not be needed. Only after the sterilisation procedure has been performed does it have to be reported and then only to the Chief Psychiatrist. [Pages: 135 & 136 of the Draft Mental Health Bill 2011]

• 12 YEAR OLDS WILL BE ABLE TO CONSENT TO PSYCHOSURGERY: Banned in New South Wales and the Northern Territory, psychosurgery irreversibly damages the brain by surgery, burning or inserting electrodes. This draft bill proposes to allow a 12 year old child, if considered to be sufficiently mature by a psychiatrist, to be able to consent to psychosurgery. Once the child has consented it goes before the Mental Health Tribunal (MHT) for approval. Parental consent is also not needed for the MHT to approve the psychosurgery. [Pages: 108, 109, 110, 197,198, 199, 213]

• 12 YEAR OLDS WILL BE ABLE TO CONSENT TO ELECTROSHOCK (ECT): Electroshock is hundreds of volts of electricity to the head. Any child aged 12 and over, whom a child and adolescent psychiatrist decides is “mature” enough, will be able to consent to electroshock. Also, once consent is given, there is no requirement for parents or anyone, including the MHT, to approve the electroshock. Electroshock should be banned. Its use on the elderly, pregnant women and children is especially destructive.

A war in the Middle East, a financial collapse in Europe, a major derivatives crisis or a horrific natural disaster could all change our economic situation very rapidly. Most of the time I write about the long-term economic trends that are slowly but surely ripping the US economy to pieces, but the truth is that just A SINGLE REALLY BAD “BLACK SWAN EVENT” OVER THE NEXT 12 MONTHS could accelerate our economic problems dramatically. If oil was cut off from the Middle East or a really bad natural disaster suddenly destroyed a major US city, the US economy would be thrown into a state of chaos. Considering how bad the US economy is currently performing, it would be easy to see how a major “shock to the system” could push us into the “next Great Depression” very easily.

Let us hope that none of these things actually happen over the next 12 months, but let us also understand that WE LIVE IN A WORLD THAT HAS BECOME EXTREMELY CHAOTIC AND EXTREMELY UNSTABLE.

In the list below, you will find some “sudden change” events that are somewhat likely and some that are quite unlikely. I have tried to include a broad range of potential “black swan events”, but there are certainly dozens more massive threats that could potentially be listed.

The following are 15 potentially massive threats to the US economy over the next 12 months:

#1 War With Syria

#2 War With Iran

#3 A Disorderly Greek Debt Default

#4 An Economic Collapse In Spain

#5 The Price Of Gasoline

#6 The Student Loan Debt Bubble

#7 State And Local Government Debt Crisis

#8 The Collapse Of A Major US Bank

#9 A Derivatives Crisis

#10 The Fall Of The Japanese Economy

#11 A “Solar Megastorm”

#12 A Major West Coast Earthquake Or Volcanic Eruption

#13 Tornado Damage To Major US Cities

#14 Severe Drought In The United States

#15 An Asteroid Strike In 2013

Of course there are so many other “sudden change” events that could potentially happen – a terror event in a major US city, a deadly pandemic, an EMP attack, cyberterrorism or a major political scandal could all possibly cause a stock market crash and an economic collapse in the United States. In the world that we are living in today, you just never know what is going to happen. So what are all of you concerned about over the next 12 months? Do you see the potential for some “black swan events” to happen?

The Left Party's parliamentary group had forced the government to come clean about Germany's past by submitting a parliamentary inquiry. Bundestag document 17/8134 officially announced, for the first time, something which had been treated as a taboo in the halls of government for decades: A total of 25 CABINET MINISTERS, ONE PRESIDENT AND ONE CHANCELLOR of the Federal Republic of Germany - as postwar Germany is officially known - had been members of Nazi organizations.

The document revealed that CHANCELLOR KURT GEORG KIESINGER, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who governed Germany from 1966 to 1969, had been a member of the Nazi Party ever since Adolf Hitler seized power. According to the Interior Ministry list, GERMAN PRESIDENT WALTER SCHEEL, a member of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) who was in office from 1974 to 1979, had been a Nazi Party member "from 1941 or 1942."

The list names ministers of all political stripes and from a wide range of social backgrounds. Some, like leftist Social Democratic Party (SPD) mastermind ERHARD EPPLER (Minister of Economic Cooperation), did not become Nazi Party members until the end (at 17, in Eppler's case). Others, like conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) agitator RICHARD JAEGER (Minister of Justice), had been part of Hitler's paramilitary organization, the SA (since 1933, in Jaeger's case). Even FDP luminary HANS-DIETRICH GENSCHER (first interior minister and later foreign minister), who denies to this day that he knowingly joined the Nazi Party, is listed as a Nazi Party member.

According to the government list, former SPD Finance Minister KARL SCHILLER was in the SA, while his fellow cabinet minister HORST EHMKE was a Nazi Party member, as were ("presumably," the list notes) former SPD Labor Minister HERBERT EHRENBERG and HANS LEUSSINK, a former education minister with no party affiliation. On the conservative side, the report names several former Nazi Party members, including former CDU Foreign Minister GERHARD SCHRÖDER and former CDU Minister for Displaced Persons THEODOR OBERLÄNDER, as well as former CSU Post and Communication Minister RICHARD STÜCKLEN and former CSU Interior Minister FRIEDRICH ZIMMERMANN.

Historians are now studying old files at the Finance Ministry, in the judiciary and the Economics Ministry and, in particular, in the police and intelligence services. How many Nazis took part in the rebuilding of the government after World War II? How much influence did the surviving supporters of the Nazi dictatorship have on the establishment and operation of Germany's first functioning democracy?

"'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security." Holder said. "The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process." Who decides when an American citizen has had enough due process and the Hellfire missile fairy pays them a visit? Presumably the group of top national security officials — that, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, decides who is targetable and forwards its findings to the president, who gives final approval.

There won't be any drone strikes in Denver anytime soon. But you might want to be careful when traveling abroad, because Holder made it clear that there are no geographical limits in the fight against Al Qaeda. "Neither Congress nor our federal courts has limited the geographic scope of our ability to use force to the current conflict in Afghanistan," Holder said. "We are at war with a stateless enemy, prone to shifting operations from country to country."

Holder's speech did outline some concrete limits to when the US government is allowed to target its own citizens. The target has to pose an "imminent threat of violent attack" to the US and be beyond the ability of American authorities to capture, and the strike can't violate international standards governing the use of force by killing too many civilians or noncombatants.

But don't assume that when Holder says "imminent threat of violent attack," he means that you're actually part of a specific plot threatening American lives. "The Constitution does not require the president to delay action until some theoretical end stage of planning when the precise time, place, and manner of an attack become clear," Holder said. That would introduce an "unacceptably high risk of failure." When he refers to "failure," Holder presumably means failing to kill the target before the attack or plan for an attack materializes, not the possibility that the government might accidentally kill an innocent person.

If the standards for when the government can send a deadly flying robot to vaporize you sound a bit subjective, that's because they are. Holder made clear that decisions about which citizens the government can kill are the exclusive province of the executive branch, because only the executive branch possess the "expertise and immediate access to information" to make these life-and-death judgments.

The Bundesbank, as the author David Marsh entitled his book, was The Bank That Rules Europe. Then, or so it was widely assumed, the creation of the euro and the European Central Bank (ECB) meant the end of Bundesbank influence. But did it? Today's Bundesbank, under a steely young new president, is re-asserting itself.

Jens Weidmann, formerly Chancellor Angela Merkel's adviser, questions much of what eurozone leaders and the ECB are doing. And he does not pull his punches. In a speech to a G20 conference late last month, he said of the latest bailout deal for Greece: "Ultimately, Greece cannot be forced to comply with the programme. But it should be clear," he said, "that no further disbursements will be warranted if Greece fails to keep its side of the bargain." He questioned too how far the latest eurozone and international measures had solved the crisis, saying: "A crucial requirement now is to prepare for the eventuality of a further escalation of the crisis by initiating appropriate ring-fencing measures."

And in a letter leaked last week to the prominent conservative German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Mr Weidmann warned that the ECB risked "loss of reputation" in its increasing provision of liquidity to weaker European banks. Where ECB and eurozone leaders acclaim a welcome easing of euro troubles, Mr Weidmann appears to see alarming potential liabilities. He does not think the conditions attached to new ECB loans are strict enough. And he points out that the Bundesbank, through its participation in ECB action, may be liable for substantial losses in the event of future banking defaults. This, as author David Marsh explains, "opens up the German public to possibly quite big losses."

Mr Weidmann seems to be reviving the idea of the Bundesbank as defender of German citizens' money against political irresponsibility. The Bundesbank's creed is sound money and hatred of inflation - atoning for the sins of its German monetary predecessors. In 1923, at the peak of notorious hyper-inflation, the Reichsbank oversaw German consumer prices increasing two-billion-fold in a single year. But the arrival of the Deutsche Mark in 1948 changed things dramatically, and in the 1950s the Bundesbank was created to defend the people's cash from politicians armed with printing presses. German school children visit the bank's Geld Museum (Money Museum) to be taught that "only stable money is good money".

So today's European politicians, just like their predecessors, may have to spend more time wondering what the Bundesbank will do, and where its latest crusade in defence of "sound money" will ultimately lead. Should Germany be the model for the UK's future economy?

"Iran's ability to strike back directly against Israel is limited," says Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "Its antiquated air force is totally outclassed by the Israelis and it has only a limited number of ballistic missiles that could reach Israel." Mr Fitzpatrick says Iran's missile arsenal includes "a modified version of the Shahab-3, the Ghadr-1, which has a range of 1,600km (995 miles), but Iran only has about six transporter-erector launchers for the missile".

"Iran's new solid-fuelled missile, the Sajjil-2, can also reach Israel, but it is not yet fully operational," he adds. But, Mr Fitzpatrick argues that "both of these missiles are too inaccurate to have any effect against military targets when armed with conventional weapons". "Nor are they a very effective way to deliver chemical or biological weapons, and Iran does not have nuclear weapons." In summary, he believes that "an Iranian missile strike would be only a symbolic gesture".

Mr Fitzpatrick believes Iran is more likely to respond against Israel "asymmetrically, and through proxies". Its ally, the Shia Islamist group Hezbollah, has more than 10,000 rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, many of them supplied by Iran. He says that the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, could also attack Israel with shorter-range rockets. The great danger here is of a more extensive conflict breaking out either between Israel and Hezbollah, or Israel and Hamas.

With so much instability in the Middle East - not least because of the Syria crisis - there is a very real risk of an Israeli strike sparking a much broader regional conflagration. The Iranian Navy, and especially the naval arm of its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), are well-equipped with small, fast craft capable of laying mines or swarming attacks against larger vessels. Iran also deploys capable land-based anti-shipping missiles. These could all be used to close off the vital oil artery - the Strait of Hormuz. The US Navy is confident that it could re-open the Strait. But this risks an extended naval conflict between the US and Iran, and in the short term, there could be a significant impact upon oil prices.

"We've waited for diplomacy to work. We've waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. As Prime Minister of Israel, I will never let my people live under the shadow of annihilation," he said in a speech given just hours after meeting Mr Obama for critical talks in the White House. In his speech to a gathering of Aipac, America's most influential pro-Israel lobby group, Mr Netanyahu reasserted once more Israel's willingness to use force – if necessary on its own – to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

In the most emotive section of a speech given to an audience that included half of the US Congress as well as members of Mr Obama's cabinet and some 13,000 delegates, Mr Netanyahu drew comparisons with America's unwillingness to bomb the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Brandishing a copy of a 1944 letter from the US Department of War, he recounted how the Allies had refrained from attacking the camp out of fear it might provoke "even more vindictive action" from the Germans. "My friends, 2012 is not 1944... Never again," he cried, repeating one of the founding slogans of Israel to a roaring standing ovation from the audience.

The prime minister, himself a former commando, used the speech to lay out the justifications for a possible Israeli attack that would undoubtedly draw fury from Islamic nations around the world. "There's been plenty of talk recently about the costs of stopping Iran. I think it's time to talk about the costs of not stopping Iran," he said, claiming that a nuclear Iran would trigger an arms race in the Middle East and allow the regime to choke off the world's supply. "The worst nightmare of all," he said, was the prospect of nuclear terrorism in which an Iranian bomb could be smuggled into an American or Israeli city.

Linking the US's fate with that of his own country, he said: "For the sake of our prosperity, for the sake of our security, for the sake of our children, Iran must not be allowed to get nuclear weapons."

Twelve hours is an agonizingly long time for endurance athletes as they punish their bodies, pushing themselves to the ultimate limit in events like triathlons or mountain bike races. Twelve hours is also an agonizingly long time for politicians, acting under the pressure of an ultimatum, to prevent a war that would mean the inevitable deaths of large numbers of people.

In 1914, the German Reich gave the Russians 12 hours to stop mobilizing their troops. In 1956, the French and the British gave then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser the same amount of time to withdraw his troops from the Suez Canal, which he had just nationalized, and allow Israel to use the waterway again. A war ensued in both cases, partly because those who had threatened to use military force knew that it would hardly be possible to comply with their demands so quickly. In other words, they wanted the situation to escalate.

An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would apparently also involve a 12-hour lead time. According to intelligence sources in Tel Aviv, Israeli politicians told Martin Dempsey, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Israeli leadership intends to give the White House only half a day's notice once it has decided to proceed with a military strike. In other words, Israel wants to be sure of two things: on the one hand, that US President Barack Obama is not taken completely by surprise by a possible attack, and on the other that he is not in a position to seriously question his ally's decision and undermine it with diplomatic efforts. Is this how a country should treat its most important ally? Is this the way it should pressure the very power on whose goodwill it depends?

There is still no absolute proof - the famous "smoking gun" - that Tehran is actually developing a bomb. Even the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), hasn't been able to furnish such evidence. There are indications on which the IAEA bases its assumptions, including a large number of observations by IAEA inspectors, as well as reports provided to the agency by individual intelligence agencies. Based on this information, the IAEA concludes that it cannot rule out that the Iranian nuclear program has a "military dimension."

The crucial clue came from the same man whose signature once adorned the deutsche mark: Helmut Schlesinger, former president of Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. He was the one who pointed Hans-Werner Sinn, an economist in Munich, in the direction of a strange entry in the Bundesbank's statistics: In late 2010, records showed claims on other euro-zone central banks totaling over €300 billion ($400 billion). Curious, Sinn began to dig deeper. What he found exceeded his worst expectations.

"In the beginning, all I had was this number, and I didn't really know what it meant," says Sinn, who is president of the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research. "The Bundesbank told me those were irrelevant balances. But that didn't reassure me." Sinn spoke with specialists at various central banks and with colleagues in his field. "Each person knew a little bit," Sinn explains, "and I had to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. It was real detective work." After weeks of work, Sinn had assembled enough pieces to create a picture that would make any one shudder: Since the 2007 financial crisis, immense imbalances have formed within the otherwise harmless payment system that exists between the central banks of the 17 euro-zone member states.

While Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece, all hit hard by the debt crisis, show deficits totaling over €600 billion, the claims owed the Bundesbank have climbed to €498 billion. As long as the monetary union continues to exist, this isn't a catastrophe. The money is virtual, created by central banks, and its existence doesn't mean that an equivalent amount is lacking elsewhere. But as soon as a country leaves the euro zone, or the currency union collapses entirely, things get critical. "We're caught in a trap," Sinn says. "If the euro breaks apart, we're left with an outstanding balance of nearly €500 billion, owed by a system that no longer exists." That figure, €500 billion, is more than one and a half times Germany's annual federal budget.

"This is dangerous," Sinn says, his eyes flashing. These outstanding balances owed by other central banks open Germany up to blackmail, he explains. "Now everyone knows we have to save the euro, at almost any cost."

The costs of this effort, started by the Bush administration and promoted faithfully by the Obama administration, have been, and continue to be, virtually incalculable. In the process, public service and the public imagination have been weaponized. The ubiquitous fantasy of “homeland security,” pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been widely embraced by the public. It has also excited intense weapons- and techno-envy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment.

All told, the federal government has appropriated about $635 billion, accounting for inflation, for homeland security-related activities and equipment since the 9/11 attacks. To conclude, though, that “the police” have become increasingly militarized casts too narrow a net. The truth is that virtually the entire apparatus of government has been mobilized and militarized right down to the university campus.

In addition to the earthquakes, Wahlstrom said major floods in Thailand and other countries caused extensive damage. "The main message is that this is an increasing — very rapidly increasing trend with increasing economic losses," Wahlstrom said. Despite the rising costs, she said, deaths from disasters are proportionally declining because countries are getting much better at instituting early warning systems and preparedness measures. "But the economics of disasters is becoming a major threat to a number of countries," Wahlstrom said.

"We say today that 50 percent of the world's population is exposed to disaster risks because they live in the highly vulnerable areas," she said. She praised Japan for its preparedness efforts but said there are lessons to be learned from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11. While buildings generally withstood the massive quake, the tsunami that followed engulfed the northeast, wiped out entire towns, and inundated the Fukushima nuclear powerplant, triggering the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Wahlstrom said the risk of disasters is increasing globally because of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, poor land use, and worsening environmental problems. For example, she said, by 2050 the world will need 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water for a growing population — and these resources are already under threat and are triggers of disaster. Wahlstrom said every plan to improve development in a country must include measures to deal with the impact of climate change and natural disasters.

If an asteroid of that size hit our planet, it would cause an explosion similar to a nuclear blast. Two astronomers from the the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain spotted 2012 DA14 in late February and its orbit has been calculated to be very similar to Earth’s. Some reports suggested that on February 15 next year an impact was a possibility, but US astronomer Phil Plait, the creator of the Bad Astronomy blog, has ruled out an impact.

He wrote: ‘Asteroid 2012 DA14 is almost certainly not going to hit Earth next February. And by “almost certainly”, I mean it. The odds of an impact are so low they are essentially zero. This does not rule out an impact at some future date, but for now we’re safe.’ The space rock will come within 17,000 miles of Earth, which is closer than some of our satellites, but Plait says this is nothing to worry about.

He adds: ‘Seventeen thousand miles is well beneath many of our own orbiting satellites. To the best of my knowledge, this is the closest pass of a decent-sized asteroid ever seen before the actual pass itself. However, let’s again be very clear - it will miss. In astronomical terms, 17,000 miles is pretty close, but in real human terms it’s a clean miss.’

Last night a space rock caused panic across the UK, with police forces inundates with calls after spotting it in the sky and mistaking it for a burning aircraft.

Eight people were reported with minor injuries after being hit by falling debris, Masbate mayor Socrates Tuason said on national radio. "There was panic, people were scared to go out," he said. "People were having breakfast and preparing to go to work and school when the quake happened." Cracks appeared in some buildings in Masbate City, and many of its 90,000 residents had been told to stay home for the day, he said.

"There was an old three-story building that collapsed, but engineers had already condemned it long before the quake," he said, adding that there was no one inside the structure when it crumbled. He said classes in all schools were suspended as city engineers fanned across the city to further assess the damage and ensure all buildings were safe. The Office of Civil Defense in Manila said six aftershocks were felt within hours of the initial quake.

The Philippines is situated in the "Ring of Fire," a belt around the Pacific region frequented by earthquakes and volcanic activity. Tuesday's temblor came exactly a month after a 6.7 quake hit the central island of Negros, twisting roads, crushing homes and causing massive landslides that killed at least 113 people.