David Bradshaw, an American beekeeper, has spent all his life caring for bees. But in February one year, Bradshaw opened his boxes to find half of his hundred million bees had simply disappeared.

Bradshaw’s experience, reported in the New York Times, sounds like a low rent horror movie. But the mysterious phenomenon dubbed ‘colony collapse disorder’ (CCD) is occurring all over the United States.

And if it continues, CCD may mean the extinction of the crops and food sources we rely on, and eventually, widespread human starvation.

The American political scene has never been short of colourful characters, from allegations of cross-dressing and marital affairs, to George Bush and Sarah Palin.

Carrying on this tradition is a new force brewing in America, fronted by Sarah Palin, known as the Tea Party movement.

Linked to the Republican right-wing but even more conservative in nature, the Tea Party has attracted a huge amount of media attention and has become a vocal source of opposition.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward is already unpopular with the American people thanks to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill – the country’s largest ever environmental disaster.

Now a US Senate committee looking into the release of the Lockerbie bomber has invited Hayward – who is expected to announce his resignation this week – to testify as to BP’s involvement.

In 2008, fear gripped the financial world in the wake of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis. Since then, governments have spent up large to revive their faltering economies.

That revival has largely gone well, with many beginning the year thinking the worst was over. However, since April, fear has returned to financial markets and to governments.

This week’s events include:

• China battles intense flooding and oil spill
• BP succeeds with oil cap but condemned over Lockerbie bombing
• Goldman Sachs gets record fine while its profits slump
• President Obama signs US financial reform into law

China battles intense flooding and oil spill

Natural resources like oil and gold are instantly associated with wealth, but there are plenty of other, less glamorous commodities that generate a lot of money – or conflict – for the countries who have them.

Commodities have no real difference in product quality from one unit to the next. They are the raw materials used to make things we buy, from food to electronics to petrol.