The Thursday political cartoon in the Financial Times Deutschland couldn't be easier to decipher. It depicts the Grim Reaper standing over an aged, bed-ridden Angela Merkel saying: "It is time." Merkel responds: "For euro bonds, I know."

The drawing refers to the chancellor's comments made Tuesday afternoon during a meeting with parliamentarians belonging to her junior coalition partner, the Free Democrats. Euro bonds, she said according to meeting participants, would not be introduced in the euro zone "as long as I live." The statement was widely interpreted as Merkel finally losing patience with demands from southern European countries that euro-zone debt be communitized. Instead of bending to the political breeze, Merkel had finally turned into "Iron Angie."

But is that really what she meant? There are several indications that the answer could be no. First and foremost, the Chancellery has been at pains since Tuesday evening to elaborate on the context within which the "as long as I live" sentence was uttered. In reality, several papers, citing Chancellery sources, are reporting on Thursday that she was outlining the complexity of the reforms necessary before such shared debt could be introduced. As such, euro bonds aren't likely "in her lifetime." In other words, the Chancellery is insisting, Merkel remains the voice of calm and reason rather than one of hysteria and division.

Furthermore, in her speech before German parliament on Wednesday, her line on euro bonds was the same as it has always been - shared debt might make an appearance eventually, BUT ONLY AT THE END OF A LONG POLITICAL AND FISCAL REFORM PROCESS.

A showdown is brewing between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti at the European Union summit in Brussels. Shortly before the start of the key euro crisis meeting on Thursday afternoon, Berlin further stoked its ongoing conflict with Rome. High-level officials within Merkel's government dismissed complaints from Monti and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy over high interest rates for government bonds in their countries as "fearmongering."

"I would warn against projecting interest rates from specific situations as though they were the average," a German government source said. "Interest rates fluctuate." There is no reason to "fall into alarm," the official added. In recent days, Monti and Rajoy have resorted to increasingly shrill rhetoric to indicate that their countries are in desperate need of assistance. They want the euro rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), to buy up Italian and Spanish bonds to push down market interest rates from levels approaching 7 percent, which is considered to be unsustainable for borrowing in the longer term.

If the EU summit in Brussels fails to make this happen, then a "catastrophe" awaits, Monti has warned, adding that the euro would then "go to hell". On Thursday, Italy had to offer yields of 6.19 percent in order to float government bonds valuing a total of €5.4 billion ($6.7 billion). But Berlin has so far been unfazed by Monti's warnings. The view of Merkel's government is that purchasing government bonds is not on the agenda.

"The Big Bang could've occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there," said astrophysicist Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley. "With the laws of physics, you can get universes."

However, Filippenko, a speaker on the "Did the Big Bang Require a Divine Spark?" panel, stopped short of saying there is no god - he's merely pointing out that the birth of the Universe didn't require an intervening omnipotent being to get the whole thing started. The laws of physics, pure and simple, sparked universal creation.

He then meandered into a classic chicken-and-egg argument: "The question, then, is, 'Why are there laws of physics?' And you could say, 'Well, that required a divine creator, who created these laws of physics and the spark that led from the laws of physics to these universes, maybe more than one.'

"The 'divine spark' was whatever produced the laws of physics. And I don't know what produced that divine spark. So let's just leave it at the laws of physics."

British astrophysicist and author Stephen Hawking, on the other hand, cares little for society's belief in supernatural beings (or subtlety for that matter). In his 2010 book, "The Grand Design," Hawking said, "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

The address was in response to an independent report on foreign debt and other related international financial obligations. The Holy See supported the "Report’s assertion that human rights as well as the rules of justice and ethics apply to all economic and social relations, including foreign debt obligations."

"Human rights criteria for evaluating foreign debt can be an important tool for moving development from the narrow economic or material understanding to one based on integral human development, one that promotes the development of each man and of the whole man," he said. Archbishop Tomasi also acknowledged the role corruption has and continues to play in less developed countries.

The Italian archbishop stressed the importance of a "people-centered ethics" that is based on the dignity of the human person as crucial to the handling of foreign debt. If not, he warned, "wealth and debt become instruments of exploitation, especially of the poor and marginalized."

Archbishop Tomasi concluded his address by stressing that the problem of sovereign debt cannot be viewed as solely economic. "It affects future generations as well as the social conditions that allow the enjoyment of human rights of vast numbers of people entitled to the solidarity of the whole human family."

The Russian war games began the same day President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a frosty summit meeting in Mexico June 18. US officials said the arctic exercises over the Russian Far East and Pacific appeared to be a further sign of Russia’s hardening posture toward the United States. The Obama administration made no protest of the bomber intrusions, according to the officials, in line with its conciliatory “reset” policy of seeking warmer ties with Moscow.

About 30 strategic nuclear bombers and support aircraft took part in the war games that continued through June 25. The aircraft included Tu-95MS Bear H and Tu-160 Blackjack nuclear-capable bombers, along with Il-76 refueling tankers, A-50 airborne warning and control aircraft, and Su-27 and MiG-31 jet fighters. Some 200 troops also took part in the Russian Strategic Aviation forces exercise.

So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three 'parents'. Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.

The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt to enable them to conceive. Genetic fingerprint tests on two one-year-old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from three adults - two women and one man. The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their 'germline' means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring.

Altering the human germline - in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species - is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world's scientists. Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence. Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say that this 'is the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal healthy children'.

On Tuesday evening, the Times of Israel reported:

Large numbers of Turkish troops — including at least 15 long-range artillery pieces and tanks – moved to the Syrian frontier from the eastern city of Diyarbakir. A video published by the Turkish Cihan News Agency showed Turkish tanks being transported by carrier trucks toward the frontier.

Following the shoot-down of a Turkish warplane over Syrian territory, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his military will respond to any future incident. “As awe-inspiring as Turkey’s friendship is, Turkey’s wrath is equally awe-inspiring,” Erdogan said in a speech delivered before parliament.

A criminal investigation has been launched against Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, founder of the Temple Institute. Ariel was informed of the ban last week after attempting to visit the site. Although an official reason was not given at the time, the Rabbi was told by police officers that he was banned indefinitely.

A spokesman for the Jerusalem Police told the Jewish Press that the rabbi conducted himself in a manner which is not in compliance with the law and a criminal investigation has been launched against him. Rabbi Chaim Richman, International Director of the Temple Institute, wrote an email in response to a Jewish Press inquiry, saying: "The Israel Police’s recent shift of policy towards Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount is a throwback to the dark ages of totalitarian rule."

"The draconian, illegal suppression of Jewish presence, prayer and identification is a stain on this great country’s record of democracy. While on the one hand, the State of Israel champions human rights and pluralism, the treatment of Jews on the Temple Mount bespeaks utter contempt, insensitivity to religious feelings, and a brutal quashing of the most basic human rights."

Rabbi Chaim Richman added that "it is inconceivable that Jews are treated as criminals for expressing a desire to pray at their holiest site. It is equally unconscionable that Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who served with the paratroopers that liberated the Temple Mount in the 1967 Six Day War, risking his life and burying his comrades for the sake of the Jewish sovereignty of the Temple Mount, should be served with an order distancing him from the Temple Mount indefinitely.

In response to the ban, Likud MK Tzippy Hotovely released a statement today calling for the convening of an urgent Interior Committee meeting in the Knesset to discuss freedom of Jewish prayer on Temple Mount. "This is a fatal blow to freedom of worship, and has no place in the state of Israel," MK Hotovely said.

In 2007, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu - who practices Kabbalah - called for mass slaughter of Palestinians in order to deter rocket fire from Gaza, while defending a ruling by his late father, Mordechai Eliyahu, the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, who advocated that Israel was permitted to indiscriminately kill civilians.

“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand,” Eliyahu advised, adding, “And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”

Eliyahu has also called for a "religious" Prime Minister of Israel, and has stated that earlier prime ministers had been "without faith... without credibility... [and] without values."

Two days before a crucial European Union summit, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy released a seven-page report on closer fiscal and banking union envisaging a euro zone treasury that would issue common debt in the medium term.

Merkel immediately stamped on the idea of mutualising debt - favored by France, Italy and Spain - at a meeting of lawmakers from her Free Democratic coalition partners in Berlin, according to people who attended the closed-door session."I don't see total debt liability as long as I live," she was quoted as saying, a day after branding the idea of euro bonds "economically wrong and counterproductive".

Neither Merkel nor Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who insisted on that treaty clause to make private bondholders take first losses in any future debt restructuring by bailed-out states, spoke out in favor of such a move, the sources said. The provision has scared investors off buying Spanish debt since Madrid was promised a bailout of up to €100 billion ($125 billion) for its debt-stricken banks, since they fear a possible "haircut", driving bond yields up to alarm levels.

He suggested it could be held sooner than anyone expected – despite the fact that Germany largely outlawed referendums after Hitler’s misuse of them to manipulate public opinion in the 1930s. Mr Schaeuble’s outburst in a German newspaper, ahead of this week’s crucial summit of EU leaders in Brussels, has led to widespread surprise in Germany.

They also sparked renewed calls at home for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. Mr Schaeuble said: “Those who want a strong Europe also have to be willing to surrender decisions to Brussels.” He admitted this could strain Germany’s constitutional law and said such a change would require the German people to decide.

Asked directly if the country could soon hold an EU referendum, he replied: “I assume that it’ll happen sooner than I would have thought a few months ago. I would have said, ‘In five years? Never!’ But now I’m not so sure.” Tory MP Douglas Carswell said last night: “If Germany can have a referendum despite tough rules limiting such votes, then why ...can’t we?”

The general rule of thumb is to have enough cash saved to cover at least six months of expenses. However, only 25 percent of Americans have saved that amount and 17 percent have three to five months' expenses saved, while 28 percent have no emergency savings and 21 percent have less than three months' expenses saved.

"Incomes are largely stagnant, so it's difficult for people to make significant headway on savings when household expenses are creeping higher but incomes are not," Greg McBride, senior financial analyst for Bankrate.com, tells CNNMoney. "Prolonged unemployment has also depleted the savings of many people who at one time had a more appropriate cushion."

"The biggest barrier to saving is not being in the habit of saving," McBride says. "By establishing that habit, even if an unplanned expense comes up and wipes out what you've accumulated, you're only one paycheck away from restarting the saving process."

But no nation on earth has ever been able to expand debt much faster than national output indefinitely. All debt bubbles eventually burst. Right now, we are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world. All of this debt has fueled a "false prosperity" which has enabled many Americans to live like kings and queens. But no nation (or household) can pile on more debt forever. At some point the weight of the debt becomes just too great. It is amazing that the United States has been able to pile up as much debt as it has.

Over the years, many authors have predicted that US government finances would collapse long before the US national debt ever got to this level. So the mountain of debt that we have accumulated is quite an "achievement" if you want to look at it that way. But the clock is ticking on this debt bubble and when it collapses we will say "bye bye" to our vastly inflated standard of living and we will discover that we have destroyed the economy for all future generations of Americans.

Most Americans still believe that we are experiencing "temporary" economic problems that will eventually go away. Most Americans still believe that even greater prosperity is still ahead. Sadly, what the mainstream media and the two major political parties are telling them is a bunch of lies. We have enjoyed the greatest prosperity that we will ever see in the United States, and when the debt bubble bursts there is going to be an immense amount of pain. That is a very painful truth, but it is better to come to grips with it now than be blindsided by it later.

Although the mosquitoes released are still GM, they aren’t exactly the same as the more well-known mosquitoes developed my Oxitec. Oxitec is a British company responsible for the creation of the genetically engineered mosquitoes containing a gene designed to kill themselves unless given an antibiotic known as tetracycline. The company created this internally manipulated insect to help control agricultural pests and reduce insect-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria.

These new mosquitoes released in Australia, however, are developed with a slightly different strategy. A bacterium named Wolbackiapipientis infects numerous insects species, and harnesses the ability to alter it’s hosts reproductive ability. When this happens, entire populations become infected within generations, and when the bacterium infects mosquitoes, the mosquitoes’ ability to pass on the dengue virus vanishes.

Needless to say, numerous scientists, researchers, and many individuals have expressed concern regarding the release of genetically engineered mosquitoes. The first mosquito release by Oxitec took place in the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean in 2009, only for a second trial to occur in 2010, where 6,000 mosquitoes were released in Malaysia for further experiments. Now, 10-20 thousand mosquitoes were released in Australia, drilling the environment with even more genetically modified creations. As mentioned, many people are not happy about this.

The truth is that we have no idea what the future holds for genetic modification and the potential impacts it has on the environment and public health. We know that the genetically engineered mosquitoes are equipped with a lethal gene designed to lower the mosquito population, but what does that really mean for humans? We simply do not know the potential outcomes that could arise from such creations.

In his most frank public comments to date on the subject, the Archbishop accepted that the Church was in a “tangle” over homosexuality. On one hand many Christians may themselves be “wrestling” with their own sexuality while others appeared to display only strong feelings of revulsion, he said. “What’s frustrating is that we still have Christian people whose feelings about it are so strong, and sometimes so embarrassed and ashamed and disgusted, that that just sends out a message of unwelcome, of lack of understanding, of lack of patience. So whatever we think about it, we need, as a Church, to be tackling what we feel about it.”

The issue of women bishops – due to come to a head at the Church of England’s General Synod in York next week – was another matter which helped give the impression that sex was “the only thing the Church is interested in”, he remarked. His comments came during a discussion day for a group of Christian teenagers at Lambeth Palace.