The City of London is an area of London, a major busi-
ness and financial centre, ranking as the leading centre
of global finance. (Wikipedia)

Swiss bank UBS (UBSN.VX) is expected to pay about $1 billion to settle charges of rigging the Libor interest rate benchmark, according to a person familiar with the situation, making it the second major bank to be officially ensnared by the global scandal.

The announcement could come as early as Monday, this person said. Such a penalty, more than double the $450 million fine levied on British bank Barclays (BARC.L) in June for related conduct, indicates the scope of the misconduct by UBS could dwarf that exposed by Barclays' settlement. Barclays in June admitted it improperly took trading positions into account when reporting interest rates used to calculate the Libor benchmark, touching off a firestorm that forced its chairman and chief executive to quit. The settlement also prompted a political and public backlash against standards in banking across Europe and the United States. The Libor benchmarks are used for trillions of dollars worth of loans around the world. Tiny shifts in the rate, compiled from daily polls of bankers, could benefit dealers in complex products.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Libor Scandal In Full Perspective

A German man who was mistaken for a terrorist and abducted nine years ago has won a measure of redress when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his rights had been violated and confirmed his account that he was seized by Macedonia, handed over to the CIA, brutalised and detained for months in Afghanistan. In a unanimous ruling, the 17-judge panel in Strasbourg, France, found on Thursday that Macedonia had violated the prohibition on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment in the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered the country to pay the man about $US78,000 in damages. It was the first time a court had ruled in favour of the man, Khaled al-Masri, 49, in a case that focused attention on the CIA's clandestine rendition program, in which terrorism suspects were transported to third countries for interrogation.

AWIP: CIA 'black jail' interrogations were torture, European court rules

In a performance that would assuredly not win him an Oscar, Obama pretended to wipe away tears during a news conference following the school massacre in Connecticut that left nearly 30 people dead.

His staged homage to the young victims rings especially hollow considering the fact the Obama administration shipped weapons to murderous drug cartels in Mexico under the Justice Department’s Fast & Furious operation and he has authorized the CIA to uses its killer drones to slaughter countless innocents in Pakistan. The cartel war bankrolled by transnational banks has so far resulted in 60,000 deaths with more than 10,000 people missing. In 2011, it was reported that nearly 170 children were killed in Obama’s illegal drone war in Pakistan. From June 2004 to mid-September 2012, drone strikes killed between 2,562 and 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 to 881 were civilians, including 176 children, according to figures from the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism. (infowars.com)

Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan [Video]