Another one bites the dust. The Royal Bank of Scotland is about to be fined $233 million (£150 million pounds) for its role in the Libor-rigging scandal. It joins Barclays as the first banks to walk the plank in what should be, but so far is not, the most sensational financial corruption story since the crash of 2008.

Many of the banks implicated in the Libor mess have also been targeted in the various municipal bond bid-rigging investigations, and RBS is no different – its subsidiary Natwest is also a defendant in the major civil lawsuit in the bid-rigging case. The cases aren't related, except in the sense that they both involve manipulation and anticompetitive cooperation. It's going to be harder and harder to make the case that the major banks do not routinely cooperate at the expense of the public when it serves their purposes to do so.

Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir says her lawyers have seen documents confirming that a grand jury investigation into WikiLeaks' whistleblowing is underway in the US. - Icelandic MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir: Evidence of a US judicial vendetta against WikiLeaks activists mounts: Iceland's govt warns me not to visit the US, which tried to hack my Twitter account; Julian Assange has legitimate fears. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) tried to hack by legal means into my social media accounts without my knowledge. But they were exposed by Twitter's legal team who manged to unseal the DoJ's secret document and give me a chance to defend in court my personal information from being used in a dragnet for the first serious attacks on WikiLeaks' supporters and volunteers. I still am not sure why they chose to take the risk of going after a member of Iceland's parliament, because it has caused distress among fellow parliamentarians from around the world. As a result of the speaker of the Icelandic parliament raising the issue at the International Parliamentarian Union (IPU), I was asked to appear for the human rights committee at the IPU to explain the details of my case. A resolution on my case was put forward and adopted unanimously by the IPU's governing council, in October 2011.

A key NATO maritime group has begun flexing its muscles in the Mediterranean as it sets off from Istanbul with a mission to combat terrorism in the sea. - The task of the Standing NATO Maritime Group 2 is “to give a clear message to terrorists in the region that NATO is on duty,” German Rear Adm. Thorsten Kahler told the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday. Germany recently took over the leadership of the mission from Turkey. The group will conduct its mission in the eastern Mediterranean at a time of increased tensions in the area following the recent downing of a Turkish jet by Syrian forces and continued energy exploration off Greek Cyprus’ southern coast that has upset Turkey and Turkish Cyprus. This anti-terrorism mission is “the only Article 5 mission of NATO so far, coming from Sept. 11 of course, and [it has been] making the Mediterranean a safer place and preventing terrorism,” Kahler said. Under Article 5 of the NATO convention, an armed attack against one of the alliance’s members is considered an attack against them all, effectively necessitating a combined response.

Another Afghan soldier has shot and wounded five US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, in the latest sign that the training mission in Afghanistan is an utter failure.

The attack took place at a NATI base in Wardak province, east of Kabul. The NATO officials called these “green-on-blue” attacks, where Afghans in the police or army attack their supposedly allied international forces. More than 20 foreign personnel have been killed in such shootings in Afghanistan this year. One of the central aspects of the US mission in Afghanistan is to build up a government and corresponding security forces in order to fight off a return to the Taliban after US forces are drawn down after more than eleven years of war. But Afghan forces are either openly hostile to NATO forces, or they’re too incompetent to operation alone.

Arabs Today: Afghan soldier fires at US troops, injures 5 - The shooting took place on Tuesday evening when the ANA soldier entered a military base of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the Hasankhel area of Syedabad district. The attacker, Wali Mohammad, from northern Kunduz province, managed to flee from the area after injuring the five American soldiers, officials said.

Iran’s state TV charged Wednesday that the BBC hacked its website to change the results of a poll about Iran’s nuclear program. The BBC denied the allegation. - The West suspects Iran may be aiming to produce nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes like energy production. The British broadcaster’s Farsi language service reported that the poll showed 63 percent of those who took part favored halting uranium enrichment in exchange for an end to Western economic sanctions. The TV report Wednesday said the actual figure was 24 percent, and the rest favored retaliation against the West with measures like closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key to exporting oil from the Gulf. In a statement, the BBC said the claims were “both ludicrous and completely false, and the BBC Persian Service stands by its reporting.”

Wikileaks has released what it says is a collection of more than two million emails from Syrian political figures. The cache includes files from, "Syrian political figures, ministries and associated companies." Wikileaks claim the files range from, "intimate correspondence of the most senior Baath party figures to records of financial transfers from Syrian ministries to other nations." Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is quoted on the website as saying:

"The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria’s opponents. It helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it."

The Independent (Ireland): Wikileaks begins release of 2.4 million emails from Syrian government
Associated Press: WikiLeaks has data from 2.4 million Syrian emails
Herald Sun: WikiLeaks announces Syrian leak

The government of China has announced that it has no plan to take part in the so-called “Friends of Syria” conference which is scheduled to be held in the French capital, Paris, on Friday. - China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Weimin, said on Thursday that his country has been invited to the event, but "(China) at present does not consider attending the meeting.” "We believe that it's a key phase now for resolving the Syrian issues politically," he added. The Paris meeting follows one in Tunisian capital, Tunis, in February and another in April in the Turkish port city of Istanbul. China was not present in any of those meetings. Russia, another veto-holding power at the UN Security Council, had already announced that it would not attend the conference, either. Moscow accuses the West of trying to distort a previous deal reached by world powers on Syria in the Geneva meeting.

Finds confirms theories on universe's formation

This is shaping up to be one hell of a week for scientists trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe. Hot on the heels of the apparent Higgs boson discovery, an international team of astrophysicists has revealed that it has spotted a filament of dark matter connecting two clusters of galaxies, reports the Los Angeles Times. The mysterious matter is believed to make up most of the matter in the universe, and to give the cosmic web of stars and galaxies its shape, but until now, it had only been detected in clumps, not strands.

The strand—which stretches for 58 million light years between the galaxy clusters Abell 222 and Abell 223—was detected through an analysis of background light from 40,000 galaxies, which found that space and time were being warped by an unseen mass. Other scientists hailed the team for turning the strands from theory to fact. "It's a resounding confirmation of the standard theory of structure formation of the universe," an astronomer at the University Observatory Munich says. "And it's a confirmation people didn't think was possible at this point."

Paraguay's new government ordered home its ambassador in Venezuela on Wednesday after accusing President Hugo Chavez's government of meddling in an attempt avert the impeachment of the leftist Paraguayan president's last month. - The swift impeachment of Paraguay's former President Fernando Lugo drew strong criticism from left-leaning governments in South America. Chavez ordered Venezuela's ambassador to leave Paraguay and halted oil shipments in protest. Paraguay's new defense minister, Maria Liz Garcia, has accused Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro of participating in a meeting with senior Paraguayan military officials during the two-day process that ousted Lugo. Garcia, who was appointed by new center-right President Federico Franco, said several days ago she had information that Maduro had urged the military officials to intervene to stop Lugo from being removed from office by Congress. Maduro dismissed the accusations last week. Garcia made her statement on Wednesday before a prosecutor who has opened an investigation. Citing "the grave evidence of intervention by Venezuelan officials in the internal affairs of Paraguay," the Foreign Ministry ordered its ambassador to leave Caracas.

Following reports that point to possible polonium poisoning, the Palestinian Authority is prepared to exhume Yasser Arafat's body for an autopsy. Arafat's widow, Suha, sought the exhumation after samples of his clothing, which she provided to al-Jazeera, revealed significant traces of the same poison that killed Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko . "I want the world to know the truth about the assassination of Yasser Arafat," Suha said, citing Israeli and US conflicts with the leader.