Researchers reporting in Plos One have sampled the rock at the supervolcano site of Long Valley in California. Their findings suggest that the magma pool beneath it erupted within as little as hundreds of years of forming. That eruption is estimated to have happened about 760,000 years ago, and would have covered half of North America in its ash. Such super-eruptions can release thousands of cubic kilometres of debris - hundreds of times larger than any eruption seen in the history of humanity.

Eruptions on this scale could release enough ash to influence the global weather for years, and one theory holds that the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia about 70,000 years ago had long-term effects that nearly wiped out humans altogether.

“If eurozone integration proceeds without Britain, and so deeply that the single market starts to fragment into inner and outer cores, the strongest argument for British membership will be undermined.” He writes that Open Europe enjoys a “central role” the shaping the debate about the UK’s role in Europe and “cannot be ignored.”

The waves of energy from the quake and tsunami that were so destructive on the ground reached into the ionosphere, a part of the upper atmosphere that stretches from about 50 to 500 miles above Earth's surface. The ionosphere is the last, thinnest part of the atmosphere, where solar ultraviolet radiation breaks up molecules and leaves a haze of electrons and ions.

In images released on Friday, NASA showed how the earthly disturbances from the March 11, 2011, quake and tsunami were echoed in the movement of electrons far aloft. This movement was monitored by tracking the GPS signals between satellites and ground receivers. Scientists have seen this phenomenon before, for tsunamis in Samoa in 2009 and Chile in 2010. The Japanese event, however, occurred in a region more closely monitored by a dense network of GPS receivers, NASA said in a statement.

Nervy top officials are reluctant to speak on the record for fear of slipping up. Policymakers contradict one another. Plans keep changing. Financial markets reel amid the uncertainty. The gloom in ministry corridors is palpable. The latest gaffe: after weeks of insisting that one of the country's biggest banks, Bankia, did not need fresh funds, ministers dropped the bombshell last Friday that there was a €23 billion hole in the accounts. They have yet to explain clearly how they will find the money when they are already struggling to finance a spiraling national debt.

The effect of the Bankia news on fragile financial markets was devastating. Spanish shares dived to 9-year lows, the euro sank and investors fled Spanish government debt, pushing the yield towards the 7 per cent level at which fellow eurozone members Ireland and Portugal were forced to seek national bailouts from Brussels.

To hear the government tell it, outsiders have got it all wrong: Spain has lived beyond its means for too long and is now going through a painful but necessary period of adjustment to shrink its state sector, cut spending and boost competitiveness. All the right things are being done. Rajoy's government is serious, committed and enjoys a comfortable parliamentary majority. Now, ministers say, Madrid just needs time and some help and support from its European partners to get through the most acute phase of the crisis and give the reforms time to work. Unfortunately, time is running out.

He also said that a Greek exit “could be used as an excuse not to implement structural reforms.” Thanasis Gavos, the London Correspondent of SkAI TV and Radio, said that, in the short term, eurozone countries may breathe “a sigh of relief” following Greece’s euro exit, but warned of the consequences in the longer term, noting that if Greece were to leave, “the irreversibility of euro membership would be declared void.”

He also said that he expected the result of the 17 June elections to be “inconclusive”, potentially leaving Greece with either a weak government or no government at all, and forcing the country to hold a referendum on its euro membership.

In the Irish Examiner, Colette Browne argues that “What we have tomorrow is the illusion of democracy” noting that Ireland is losing control over its “economic destiny”. A leader in the Irish Times urges voters to vote Yes “Not just out of an incurable and uncritical Europhilia, but also a pragmatic assessment of Ireland’s vital interests at the time.” Ireland’s Newstalk radio reports that latest polls indicate 47% in favour of a ‘Yes’ vote compared with 35% in favour of a ‘No’ vote, while 18% still remain undecided.

Specifically, they have pointed the finger at the highly secretive National Security Agency. UN computer security chief Marco Obiso moved to highlight the gravity of the situation after it emerged the bug had been used to hack into computers in Iran. The sophisticated spyware – said to be about 100 times the size of most malicious software – also hacked other machines in the Middle East, including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt.

Mr Obiso said the warning will underline the danger the virus represents to the critical infrastructure of member nations. The conclusion by Moscow-based internet security firm Kaspersky Lab ZAO that it was crafted at the behest of a national government fuelled claims that Flame was part of an Israeli-backed campaign of electronic sabotage aimed at archrival Iran.

While Israel has done little to dispute the claims, some believe they do not have the capacity to launch such an attack. Earlier this week, Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team posted a security alert saying it believed Flame was responsible for 'recent incidents of mass data loss.' It also claimed an antidote had been found. The discovery of the Flame virus came just days after talks between Iran and six world powers in Baghdad failed to persuade Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment.

That these monitoring features are available on cell phones was a known fact, as FBI surveillance networks already have the ability to turn on any cell phone microphone or camera remotely without tipping off the user. It’s believed that this surveillance technique can work even when the cell phone user has shut down their phone, with the only surefire way to prevent such surveillance being removal of the unit’s battery.

Computers, however, were believed to be secure from these kinds of backdoors, and the majority of computer users believe their PC’s are protected from such intrusive technologies once they install virus and malware protection software. However, a new virus identified by leading digital security firm Kaspersky Lab, is reportedly capable of not only embedding itself onto computer systems without being identified by traditional anti-virus applications, but able to execute total surveillance and monitoring that includes turning on your camera and microphone, copying your data, and recording emails and chat conversations.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.

Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats. “The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now,” Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.

Article - http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/big-brother-cyber-weapon-can-take-screen-shots-turn-on-microphones-copy-data-record-communications_05292012

Paris joined other Western nations in expelling Syrian envoys in response to last week's killing of 108 people in the town of Houla, many of whom were women and children. Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States acted in concert to step up the pressure on Damascus. Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Switzerland also dismissed Syrian diplomatic missions.

"It is not possible to allow Bashar al-Assad's regime to massacre its own people," Reuters quoted Hollande as saying.

RIA Novosti points out that in his speech, Francois Hollande also referred to French intellectual, philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy, who, in March 2011, persuaded the then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy to recognize the leaders of the emerging Libyan opposition and to initiate a military campaign against the Gaddafi regime. Now, he is openly pushing for the same scenario in Syria.

"I want what happened in Libya to be perceived as proof that foreign intervention is possible in Syria. Homs today is Benghazi yesterday," he said. The weekend massacre in Houla seems to have become a turning point for Russia’s rhetoric on the Syrian crisis.

International media note that Moscow has taken an unusually hard line against President Assad's government.

“The government bears the main responsibility for what is going on,'' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Moscow on Monday, following a meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. “Any government in any country bears responsibility for the security of its citizens.” Some suggest that Russian government is sending a warning message to Assad – that he needs to change course, otherwise he will lose Moscow’s support. Russia has grown increasingly critical of Damascus in recent months, but Lavrov's latest comments were unusually strong. Losing Russia’s support is not something Assad could afford right now.

It was supposed to be a gesture of solidarity, a major public event: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Joachim Gauck, his German counterpart, working on a puzzle together in Moscow's Red Square, right outside the Kremlin's gates. Along with carefully selected guests, the two heads of state were to assemble the 1,023 individual pieces of the puzzle, an oversized copy of the self-portrait of German artist Albrecht Dürer, an iconic painting in European art. But Putin lost interest in putting together puzzles. At first, the Kremlin called off a meeting planned for May that was supposed to kick-off the "German-Russian Year." And now Putin's office has informed Gauck that he doesn't have time for a meeting in June, either.

Putin, the former KGB agent, doesn't want to offer Gauck, an ex-champion of freedom in communist East Germany, a spot in the limelight. The cancellation of the puzzle event aptly reflects the current state of German-Russian relations. On Friday, Putin is expected in Berlin on an official visit. It will be his first trip to a Western country since being inaugurated as president for the third time on May 7 - the message was intended as a positive one. But in fact, relations between Berlin and Moscow are worse than they have been in years.

Ties with Russia have traditionally enjoyed a special status in German foreign policy. Given the history of suffering, German governments see themselves as an important intermediary between Russia and its Western partners. Moscow, in turn, can only exert its influence in Europe via Berlin. Yet despite being more dependent on each other than ever, Germany and Russia are steering toward a new ice age. With plans for the Nabucco pipeline in southern Europe on the verge of collapse, Germany continues to be dependent on Russian natural gas. For his part, Putin needs German investors if he wants to modernize his country's economy.

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is paid a salary of $467,940 (£298,675), automatically increased every year according to inflation. On top of that she receives an allowance of $83,760 – payable without "justification" – and additional expenses for entertainment, making her total package worth more than the amount received by US President Barack Obama according to reports last night. Unlike Mr Obama, however, she does not have to pay any tax on this substantial income because of her diplomatic status.

The news will intensify criticism of the former French Finance Minister following her controversial remarks on the increasingly bleak prospects for the Greek economy last week. Stating that she had more sympathy for poor African children with little education than for jobless people complaining about austerity measures in Greece, she said last week: "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax."

Speaking to The Guardian, she added that they could "help themselves collectively" by "all paying their tax," and agreed that it was "payback time" for ordinary Greeks.

Darren McBride, 42, software consultant, Dublin, said, “We're damned if we vote Yes and we're damned if we vote No. My personal preference would be to vote No because the euro model is not working for all of the countries using it and I would like to see it destroyed. It is clear that all countries in the zone cannot share the same interest and exchange rates and the current environment is very suited to the Germans.”

“A devalued currency would be very much in the interest of the so-called "PIGS" [the heavily-indebted Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain]. However, if we don't approve the plan there will be no more money to draw from and we will become another Greece. I will be voting Yes, but only because our government has sold our future to the German bankers.”

“I know that I am voting in another 10 to 15 years of austerity, but perhaps I will have left Europe by then. Things are tight for us financially, and I think they can only get tighter with continued austerity measures. I have two young children so I have to think about their future too. We could end up moving to Australia or the US.”

Rothschild's London-listed RIT Capital Partners (RCP.L) said on Wednesday it was buying the 37 percent stake from French group Societe Generale's (SOGN.PA) private banking arm for an undisclosed sum. The transatlantic union brings together David Rockefeller, 96, and Jacob Rothschild, 76 - two family patriarchs whose personal relationship spans five decades.

Rockefeller & Co traces its origins back to 1882 when it was founded as one of the world's first family offices by John D Rockefeller to manage his personal wealth. Since then it has developed into a wealth advisory group administering assets of $34 billion. The Rothschild banking dynasty began when Mayer Amschel Rothschild started a business in Frankfurt in the late 18th century.

The family has worked on some epochal deals during its history, such as helping finance Britain's war against Napoleon in the 19th century and raising funds for a loan allowing the British government to buy the Suez canal. SocGen, which has held the stake in the Rockefeller wealth and asset management operation since 2008, appointed a new head of private banking in March, replacing Daniel Truchi with Jean-Francois Mazaud as it moved to overhaul the business.

Banks across the world are shedding non-core assets to reduce their risks and strengthen their capital positions to meet tough regulations aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. The deal is expected to close by the end of September.

Essentially, the thinking goes that a large European bank is no longer capable of borrowing directly from the ECB because it no longer has creditworthy collateral. Instead this bank has been forced to borrow from the Emergency Liquidity Assistance Program, which allows commercial banks without collateral to access money through domestic central banks.

CNBC's John Carney notes that the amount of money the ECB is lending to banks via long-term refinancing operations decreased significantly over the time period, by about €21 billion. Bloomberg's Linda Yueh pointed out that the €34 billion weekly increase on "other claims on euro area credit institutions" probably indicates lending from the ELA. The ECB's financial statements are always a little bit murky, so it might be wise to take this with a grain of salt. That said, this does not bode well for struggling European banks.

“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the US and Japanese governments.

Previously, smaller fish and plankton were found with elevated levels of radiation in Japanese waters after a magnitude-9 earthquake in March 2011 triggered a tsunami that badly damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors. But scientists did not expect the nuclear fallout to linger in huge fish that sail the world because such fish can metabolize and shed radioactive substances.