Quick Overview

• (FT) European central banks have become net buyers of gold for the first time in more than two decades.

• The bungling execs at UBS, announced that loss from unauthorized trading amounted to $2.3 billion, more than initially reported.

• (Guardian) At the same time, Webster insists, the threat from H5N1 has not gone away. On the contrary, if the latest the scientific data are to be believed, a new "mutant" strain of the virus, codenamed 2.3.2., has already moved from China and Vietnam to central Asia and eastern Europe, spread by migratory waterfowl.

• Without fresh aid, Greece will run out of money by mid-October, the WSJ said.

• Magistrates investigating an alleged prostitution ring in Italy have published wiretaps in which Silvio Berlusconi boasts of spending the night with eight women.

• [AP] - Let the audits begin. As the U.K. tightens its belt during economic uncertainty, a senior government official said Sunday he was hiring more than 2,000 extra tax inspectors to make sure that Britain's wealthiest feel the squeeze.

• A new analysis from shipbrokers Gibson showed this week that just 223 single hull tankers of over 25,000 dwt remain in the fleet, representing about 5% of the total tanker population.

• Ships waiting to load sugar at Brazil’s main ports were less than half those lined up a year earlier as the nation harvests the smallest crop in four years, Cosan SA Industria & Comercio SA’s logistics arm said.