The world's 85 richest individuals possess as much wealth as the 3.5 billion souls who compose the poorer half of the world's population, or so it was announced in a report by Oxfam International. The assertion sounds implausible to me. I think the 85 richest individuals, who together are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars, must have far more wealth than the poorest half of our global population.

How could these two cohorts, the 85 richest and 3.5 billion poorest, have the same amount of wealth? The great majority of the 3.5 billion have no net wealth at all. Hundreds of millions of them have jobs that hardly pay enough to feed their families. Millions of them rely on supplements from private charity and public assistance when they can. Hundreds of millions are undernourished, suffer food insecurity, or go hungry each month, including many among the very poorest in the United States.

Most of the 3.5 billion earn an average of $2.50 a day. The poorest 40 percent of the world population accounts for just 5 percent of all global income. About 80 percent of all humanity live on less than $10 a day. And the poorest 50 percent maintain only 7.2 percent of the world's private consumption. How exactly could they have accumulated an amount of surplus wealth comparable to the 85 filthy richest?

Hundreds of millions live in debt even in "affluent" countries like the United States. They face health care debts, credit card debts, college tuition debts, and so on. Many, probably most who own homes - and don't live in shacks or under bridges or in old vans - are still straddled with mortgages. This means their net family wealth is negative, minus-zero. They have no propertied wealth; they live in debt.

What are we to make of this sudden rash of banker suicides? Does this trail of dead bankers lead somewhere? Or could it be just a coincidence that so many bankers have died in such close proximity? I will be perfectly honest and admit that I do not know what is going on. But there are some common themes that seem to link at least some of these deaths together.

First of all, most of these men were in good health and in their prime working years. Secondly, most of these "suicides" seem to have come out of nowhere and were a total surprise to their families. Thirdly, three of the dead bankers worked for JP Morgan. Fourthly, several of these individuals were either involved in foreign exchange trading or the trading of derivatives in some way. So when "a foreign exchange trader" jumped to his death from the top of JP Morgan's Hong Kong headquarters this morning, that definitely raised my eyebrows. These dead bankers are starting to pile up, and something definitely stinks about this whole thing.

What would cause a young man that is making really good money to jump off of a 30 story building? The following is how the South China Morning Post described the dramatic suicide of 33-year-old Li Jie...

Russian authorities are preparing to crack down on Bitcoin and have warned that those who use "cryptocurrencies" are breaking the law, as regulatory scrutiny of the virtual payment system intensifies around the world.

The promise of new measures to curb the virtual currency was made after Russia leapfrogged China to become the second-fastest growing territory for Bitcoin software downloads, behind the US.

Russia's intervention comes at another turbulent time for Bitcoin, the price of which dropped sharply over the weekend because Mt Gox, one of the largest exchanges, stopped letting customers withdraw their money. It cited technical issues and promised an update on Monday.

Law enforcement organs in Russia and the country's central bank are working on joint steps to prevent "illegal acts in the sphere of money circulation in Russia and prevent the violation of property rights of citizens and legal persons associated with the use of 'cryptocurrencies'," the general prosecutor's office said in a statement posted on its website over the weekend.

It added: "Anonymous payment systems and cryptocurrencies that have gained considerable circulation, including the most famous of them, Bitcoin, are money substitutes and cannot be used by individuals and legal persons."

Report of deaths comes as demonstrators are told to end their efforts to occupy government buildings

The foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia issued what appeared to be co-ordinated statements blaming Europe for fomenting the unrest.

It appeared that the Kremlin had a hand in the political machinations behind Tuesday's eruption and the crackdown. As well as blaming Europe for the rioting, it offered $2bn (£1.2m) to Yanukovych and sought to influence the appointment of the new prime minister.

Women and children were being evacuated from the crucible of the protest, Independence Square, amid reports that riot police were firing smoke and stun grenades. Opposition sources also said police snipers were firing on demonstrators from rooftops.

Opposition organisers said seven civilians had been killed and around 150 injured, many seriously. The authorities said 37 police officers were injured.

Bitcoin faces a fresh obstacle in China as Alibaba,the country's largest e-commerce group, will ban bitcoin transactions starting January 14.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's Taobao, China's largest online marketplace, will not allow any transactions of virtual currencies or related products, the Financial Times reports.

Alibaba Group, an internet group of e-commerce businesses that handled over $170 billion in sales in 2012, expects to hold an initial public offering later this year, and banning bitcoin and steering clear of the sale of counterfeit goods is seen as an extra precaution.

Banning the anonymous virtual currency will "promote the healthy development of the Taobao Marketplace and to more effectively protect the interests of Taobao members," Alibaba said in a statement posted on its website on Tuesday.

Users will not only be barred from buying and selling bitcoins, but all related activities, including "mining" the currency, which is the creation of new bitcoins through solving complex logarithmic equations.

The move is part of a larger government crackdown on the cryptocurrency, which has fast gained traction in China, the world's second-largest economy and home to the largest bitcoin trading platforms.

The following article by Kevin Roose was published late last night by New York Magazine, and it recounts what the journalist saw when he crashed Wall Street fraternity Kappa Beta Phi's private party back in 2012.

Some elements of his experience were already published a couple years back in a New York Times piece, but his latest article adds an additional perspective and recounts many outrageous aspects of the event I had never read before. This article is particularly important considering the recent trend of billionaires running around on financial television claiming they are being prosecuted for no reason.

Basically, it will confirm what everyone already thought. That a great many of these oligarch financiers are complete and total sociopaths and a menace to society.

From New York Magazine:

Recently, our nation's financial chieftains have been feeling a little unloved. Venture capitalists are comparing the persecution of the rich to the plight of Jews at Kristallnacht, Wall Street titans are saying that they're sick of being beaten up, and this week, a billionaire investor, Wilbur Ross, proclaimed that "the 1 percent is being picked on for political reasons."

Ross's statement seemed particularly odd, because two years ago, I met Ross at an event that might single-handedly explain why the rest of the country still hates financial tycoons - the annual black-tie induction ceremony of a secret Wall Street fraternity called Kappa Beta Phi.

It was January 2012, and Ross, wearing a tuxedo and purple velvet moccasins embroidered with the fraternity's Greek letters, was standing at the dais of the St. Regis Hotel ballroom, welcoming a crowd of two hundred wealthy and famous Wall Street figures to the Kappa Beta Phi dinner. Ross, the leader (or "Grand Swipe") of the fraternity, was preparing to invite 21 new members - "neophytes," as the group called them - to join its exclusive ranks.

Yeah Ross, what's not to love about a guy like you.

NHS bosses allowed a lobbying company working for some of the world's biggest drugs and medical equipment firms to write a draft report which could help shape future health policy. NHS England commissioned a group called the Specialised Healthcare Alliance (SHCA) to consult with patients' groups, charities and health organisations and produce a report feeding into its future five-year strategy for commissioning £12bn of services.

But the SHCA has confirmed to The Independent that it is entirely funded by commercial "members". Its director, John Murray, is also a lobbyist whose company lists some of the world's biggest drug and medical device firms as clients.

Mr Murray put his name on a foreword to the NHS England document along with James Palmer, the clinical director of specialised services at NHS England, with whom he admits he has had "many meetings [on] a wide range of organisations and interests".

The findings raise significant questions about links between the lobbying industry and NHS England - a quango set up to run the NHS under the Government's health reforms.

Unlike other government departments NHS England does not register its meetings with lobbyists. It also does not routinely publicly disclose all potential conflicts of interest of those who do work for it. While the report itself makes no specific spending recommendations, it does suggest that NHS England should set out a "clear commitment" to "disinvest in interventions that have lower impact for patients" in favour of "new services or innovations".

For some modern soldiers, caffeine is just not enough to stay vigilant, especially for the growing ranks of digital warriors who must spend hours monitoring spy drone footage and other streams of surveillance data.

So the Pentagon is exploring a novel way to extend troops' attention spans and sharpen their reaction times: stimulate the brain with low levels of electricity.

It sounds like science fiction, but commanders in search of more effective tools than the ubiquitous cups of coffee and energy drinks are testing medical treatments designed to treat such brain disorders as depression to determine whether they can also improve the attentiveness of sleepdeprived but otherwise healthy troops.

Early experiments using "noninvasive" brain stimulation have been performed on several dozen volunteers at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. The results show the technique improves both alertness and acuity, researchers say.

Having failed to advance regime-change in Syria through two rounds of talks in Geneva, the Obama administration is stepping up its funding and arming of Islamist and mercenary militias fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. And once again, Washington is turning toward direct military intervention.

In what marks a sharp escalation of the US-backed war for regime-change, the Saudi monarchy is shipping more sophisticated weaponry, including shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, to the so-called "rebels," while the US itself is paying salaries to an entire "rebel" front in southern Syria near the Jordanian border.

The offer of the new weapons came at a January 30 meeting in Amman, Jordan between "rebels" and agents of both US and Saudi intelligence, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing unnamed diplomats and "opposition figures."

"At the meeting, US and Gulf officials said they were disappointed with the Syrian government's refusal to discuss Mr. Assad's ouster at the talks and suggested a military push was needed to force a political solution to the three-year war," the Journal reported.

The aim is apparently to arm and organize an offensive to seize control of the southern suburbs of Damascus in order to subject the capital to military attack and force the ouster of Assad.

Uganda's government on Tuesday defended its decision to push through tough anti-homosexuality laws, saying it was determined to protect the country's "morals" even if that meant losing international aid.

Veteran President Yoweri Museveni has announced he would sign into law a controversial bill that will see homosexuals jailed for life, despite warnings from key allies including the United States.

Officials also said Museveni had last week signed into law anti-pornography and dress code legislation which outlaws "provocative" clothing, bans scantily-clad performers from Ugandan television and closely monitors what individuals watch on the Internet.

"We shall not care losing the financial support from our partners if only we are left alone," Minister for Ethics and Integrity Simon Lokodo told reporters, saying Ugandans would rather "die poor than live in an immoral nation".