Holding on has proved hugely profitable - in January 2010 gold was trading at about $1,100 an ounce, whereas the lowest price during the first three months of 2011 was more than $1,300. The highest was about $1,450. It is not known exactly when Mr Soros sold his gold, which was held via the Soros Fund Management investment vehicle. Filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American regulator, showed that he had sold 99 per cent of his holding in SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by gold bullion, by the end of March.

The New York-based fund sold its entire holding in iShares Gold Trust, a similar investment. But Mr Soros bought shares in two mining companies, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold and Goldcorp. This may have been a smart move. "As the precious metals rally ends, you'll get transition toward related equities," James Dailey of Pennsylvania-based Team Financial Asset Management, told Bloomberg. "You don't see any speculative appetite for gold stocks yet."

Not all investors share his view. Paulson & Co, the US hedge fund run by John Paulson, left its holding in the SPDR Gold Trust unchanged, filings to the SEC showed. And Hal Lehr, a commodity trader at Deutsche Bank, was quoted by Bloomberg as saying: "I'm bullish on gold despite its current levels. It could reach $2,000 an ounce in the next eight months."

The European Commission has just approved in principle France's request for an advance on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments its farmers are due to receive in December, bringing them forward to 16 October. With parts of Europe seeing less than 40% of their long-term average rainfall between February and April, fellow EU states may follow suit.

A bad year for wheat - second only to wine as the EU's largest agricultural product - would hurt not only the farmer, but could well hit the consumer, driving up the cost of Europeans' pasta and pretzels. "You see the root, how it's dry, how short it is?" asked rapeseed grower Pascal Seingier this week, speaking to a Reuters TV crew that came to see him on his farm near Lumigny in northern France.

"There is nothing. And the whole top of the field is like that. Fortunately that's not the case lower down. But where the earth is very shallow, where there are no water reserves, well - there you go." Cracked earth and browned leaves are visible across the Ile-de-France region, according to Reuters. France's soft wheat output is forecast to fall by 11.5% this year compared with last, as a direct consequence of the lack of rain over the past three months, while in Germany the wheat harvest is now expected to be down 7.2% on last year. "As time goes by the impact on crops grows stronger," a European grain trader told Reuters. "We need water, period."

Presbyterian minister Ben Daniel thinks Camping's followers have misinterpreted the bible's meaning: "The history of the Christian church is filled with stories of great disappointments that occur when communities get hoodwinked into believing the rapture is at hand. True scholars of the Bible know that biblical passages about the End of Days are poetry, not meant to be taken as actual predictions."

Dr R Albert Mohler, Junior, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, criticizes the idea of an established judgment day. "Christ specifically admonished his disciples not to claim such knowledge... It is an act of incredible presumptuousness to claim that a human knows such a date, or has determined God's timing by any means."

Kevin Barney, a Mormon scholar, says Armageddon-anticipators would do well to look at past precedent: "My impression is that previous failures have pretty much cured Mormons from wanting to play this game... Mormons believe in the second coming, but not in the Rapture as such. The official position of the Church has always been grounded in Matthew 24:36: "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

Daniel McKibben, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor, refutes the May 21 theory but says the end may still be near. "There are many beekeepers around the world who are losing 95% of their bees. A very famous scientist has said if we lose honey bees, humans have four years left."

According to the Orlando Sentinel, Camping cites two Bible passages to determine the date. The Book of Peter implies that the end of the world will occur 7,000 years from the date of the great flood. And the Book of Genesis says the flood occurred on the "17th day of the second month." Taking a look at the Jewish calendar, the de facto guide in that era, May 21, 2011, is the corresponding date. Family Radio predicts that great earthquakes will shake the earth at 6 pm on the 21st, continuing for five months.

If the world doesn't end on Saturday, however, Camping will have an excuse to diffuse the doubters. In fact, it's not the first time that he has forecast the end of days. He once predicted that the apocalypse would occur in September 1994, but when we were still alive in October, he reversed his claim, saying that "important subsequent biblical information was not yet known."

Voting will start next week and the result will be known by mid-June. It has been timed to coincide with industrial action by other workers, including teachers, who are set to walk out on June 30. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka told the conference that 750,000 workers could be involved in strikes next month, a figure that could rise to millions later in the year.

He said: "National action with other unions is key to our strategy, which is designed to escalate and put pressure on the Government before it is too late." Mr Serwotka urged members to "fight like never before" to reverse the "brutal" cuts which he claimed would see 110,000 civil servants' jobs cut, offices closed, pay frozen and pensions reduced. He said: "The Government is attacking everything we have fought for for generations."

"Things we have taken for granted, and which our parents fought for, are now in danger of disappearing. Kids will be worse off than their parents because of this Government." The Association of Teachers and Lecturers, the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers have already agreed to ballot members over national strike action.

According to the "Fundamental Law of Revolution," regimes fall when those at the bottom are fed up with the status quo and those at the top are no longer capable of remaining in power. That was the experience of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. But difficulties arise when there is one thing those at the top are still quite capable of doing, namely deploying tanks to deal with their opponents - as is the case in Syria and Libya.

Last week, the Syrian regime sent heavy artillery into the rebel city of Dara'a, while its forces attacked protesting students with clubs in the previously calm city of Aleppo, in Banias on the Mediterranean coast and in the northwestern Syrian town of Homs. According to Amnesty International, by last Tuesday 580 Syrians had died in the unrest. The United Nations human rights office puts the number of deaths at up to 850. In Libya, Colonel Moammar Gadhafi is attacking the rebels with snipers and mortars.

The Arab revolution has come to a standstill, and all signs point to a restoration of the status quo. The new Arab world has reached a point at which many revolutionaries are worn out and those who are still in power refuse to give up control. Influenced by the images of celebration from Tunis, Benghazi and Cairo, many apparently forgot that revolutions could also fail.

There is a great deal of nervousness in the Arab world. Another clever comment on revolutionary progressions doesn't come from Lenin but from the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. In 1856, he wrote: "The most dangerous moment for a bad government usually comes when it begins to reform itself."

"If there is no injection from outside... the Yemen economy will collapse, definitely," said Mohamed al-Maytami, economics professor at Sanaa University. "The rial will collapse, inflation will rise to a level Yemen had never witnessed, the most needed food will not be available for majority of people who are poor," he said.

Yemen has allies with a strong interest in saving the country. Allies in Washington and Riyadh fear a protracted standoff could prompt clashes between rival military units in the capital, and worry the ensuing chaos could benefit an active al Qaeda branch in the country that also targets Saudi Arabia. Worried by protests that have drawn tens of thousands to the streets in cities across Yemen, the cash-strapped cabinet has vowed to raise wages, create jobs and distribute handouts worth an estimated 3.5 percent of economic output, or $1.1 billion (681.1 million pounds).

But as hard currency reserves dry out, the government has little room to manoeuvre. Yemen will need at least $2 billion in the next six to 12 months from donors to keep basic public services running, Maytami estimates. Yemen's economy was struggling even before thousands of students, activists and tribesmen took to the streets, battered by fights against northern rebels, southern secessionists and al Qaeda in a country awash with weapons.

Economic hardship was part of the impetus that drove many to protest - some 40 percent of Yemen's 23 million people live on less than $2 a day and a third face chronic hunger. "The severity of poverty is getting worse. Many stocks are now draining out and if there is no import it may happen that within few weeks these stocks are depleted," Maytami said.

If the yuan appreciates between an annual 5-7 percent against the dollar over the next five years, as some analysts and traders expect, then the dollar is likely to slide anywhere between 20 to 30 percent on trade weighted and other indexes based on baskets of currencies. And that isn't just the direct impact of the yuan on those indexes but because a strengthening of the Chinese currency would have a knock-on impact on trade competitors and partners in Asia and other big emerging markets, who would be more comfortable with allowing their own currencies to rise.

Add to that a correlation that has built up between the yuan and the euro - which have sometimes moved in tandem in recent years - and the positive impact of China's economic growth on the Canadian and Australian dollars and it is difficult to see an argument for a strong dollar. "People have been talking about dollar weakness, but we haven't seen anything yet," said Douglas Borthwick, managing director of Faros Trading in Stamford, Connecticut. "We're going to see dollar weakness across the board. For one, we expect the euro to move to $1.50 soon and go even higher when the yuan is revalued."

Further substantial weakness in the dollar over the long run would have major implications for the US and global economies. It would make the costs of manufacturing in the US much more competitive but raise the costs of imports, potentially squeezing retailers and consumers. It would make it cheaper for foreigners to visit the US and buy American real estate while adding to costs for Americans going abroad. This should all help improve the US trade and current account deficits, though the government's budget deficit and debt problems would be more problematic.

A 40 percent drop over the next five years may seem extreme to many Americans but it isn't by global currency market standards. To put it in perspective, the Australian dollar has surged 81 percent in three years since 2008 and many are still buying.

Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, who is locked in a power struggle with rivals in Iran's conservative establishment, has put himself in temporary charge of the oil ministry at a time when Iran holds the rotating presidency of Opec. As such, he could become the first head of state to chair a gathering of the world's biggest oil producers if he goes to Vienna for the June 8 meeting.

"Iran's oil ministry holds the Opec presidency currently and if any meeting takes place, the president or a government representative would attend," Mohammad Reza Mir-Tajeddini, the vice-president, told the official news agency. Opec's first conclave since December will take place during exceptional volatility on the market, with the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the benchmark, rising to $125 on April 28, before experiencing one of the biggest falls on record and trading at $112 on Wednesday.

Experts fear that rivalries within Opec, particularly between its two biggest producers - Saudi Arabia and Iran - could prevent any big decisions from being reached in Vienna. The kingdom has increased its own output to make up for the shortfall left by Libya's crisis. But Saudi Arabia dislikes acting unilaterally and it could ask Opec members to raise their production quotas at the Vienna meeting, said Leonidas Drollas, chief economist of the Centre for Global Energy Studies. "But with Ahmadi-Nejad there and Libya in disarray, it's hard to see how anything could be done," he added.

The situation has been worsened by confusion over the representation of Libya. Shokri Ghanem, the oil minister, has left for Tunisia, leading to claims that he has defected. "The market has become more volatile and Opec is just sitting there, with ministers defecting, a president taking on the mantle of a minister, playing politics while the world is facing many problems on the economic front," said Mr Drollas.

The terrorist resume of al-Adel, one of al-Qaida's founders, includes helping orchestrate the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa. But he had sharp disagreements with bin Laden's leadership and opposed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He accurately predicted that inciting the wrath of the US would hurt al-Qaida's worldwide efforts.

Iran and al-Qaida have a relationship of convenience, not an alliance. The Shiite regime in Tehran is generally hostile to the Sunni terrorist organization, but they have a shared enemy in the United States. If al-Adel or any of the other senior figures were released, Iran would be in violation of a United Nations resolution and the US has made it clear that's unacceptable. But if al-Adel has returned to al-Qaida's active leadership, it means two of the organization's most senior commanders have Iranian ties.

The other is Atiyah Abdul-Rahman, whom the US considers the Number 3 figure in al-Qaida. He was the organization's emissary based in Iran and, over the years, he's been allowed to travel in and out of the country. Richard Barrett, a United Nations official who monitors al-Qaida, said Wednesday that Rahman has been operating out of Pakistan's tribal regions for some time.

"Al-Adel is a killer. He will use violence for the sake of violence," said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore. "He is the most ruthless leader in al-Qaida. When he was head of security intelligence, he rounded up so many of the spies and executed them."

It was the kind of criticism that one isn't used to hearing from Angela Merkel. Normally sober and analytical to a fault, the German chancellor on Tuesday evening blasted a handful of heavily indebted southern European countries, saying they needed to raise retirement ages and reduce vacation days.

Keeping debt under control, Merkel said in a speech at an event held by her party, the conservative Christian Democratic Union, in the western German town of Meschede, isn't the only priority. "It is also important that people in countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal are not able to retire earlier than in Germany - that everyone exerts themselves more or less equally. That is important." She added: "We can't have a common currency where some get lots of vacation time and others very little. That won't work in the long term."

Such concerns, it would seem, were not far from Merkel's mind as she spoke on Tuesday evening. "Of course we want the euro and of course we don't want to see that a country goes broke, so to speak, and that we all then follow," she said. "But we can't just show solidarity and then say that these countries can continue as before. Yes, Germany will help. But Germany only helps when the others exert themselves as well. And that exertion must be demonstrated."

In his Monday op-ed in The New York Times, Abbas wrote, "It is important to note that the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took centre stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued."

Abbas' skillfully written op-ed implicitly rejected the existence of Israel by stating that the General Assembly partitioned "our homeland," a phrase that previously has referred to a Jewish state in declarations by the League of Nations and in the Balfour Declaration, among others. His description of the chain of events in 1947 and 1948 parallels several Muslim and Arab alterations of history and the Bible. His op-ed stated that Zionist forces expelled "Palestinian Arabs" after the United Nations recognition of Israel. However, Britain still was in control of the country at the time under the Mandate, and Israel, where the Jewish people already were under siege by Arabs, did not establish itself as an independent nation until the following May. Also, the term "Palestinian Arabs" was not invented until years later. The entire country was referred to as Palestine under the British Mandate.

Abbas also tried to establish as a fact that Arab armies "intervened" to stop the alleged efforts to expel Arabs and create a Jewish majority. Virtually every history book outside the Arab world notes that Arab terrorists attacked Jews for decades, most notably the 1929 pogrom in Hevron, where Arabs slaughtered 67 Jews. The "intervention" was a declaration of war against the existence of a Jewish state, which Arab forces vowed to annihilate.

Abbas wrote that "war and further expulsions" ensued but omitted reminding readers that every war against Israel was launched by Arabs. He did not mention the war drums that seven Arab nations beat until the beginning of the Six Day War in 1967. Six years later, Egypt, followed by Syria, launched an unprovoked war with a large-scale invasion on Yom Kippur, the holiest Jewish holiday.

Muslim clerics and the Palestinian Authority also have tried to change the Bible, referring to binding of Isaac (Yitzchak) as the "binding of Ishmael." They also have rejected any Jewish ties to the Temple Mount, which has been subject to an Arab campaign claiming that it was not built by Jews and that the Western Wall is a Muslim holy site.

Similar claims have been made that Rachel's Tomb, south of Jerusalem and on the road to Efrat, actually was a Muslim holy place, even though Islam was not founded until nearly 2,500 years after the death of Rachel, wife of Jacob.

The report, entitled, "Every Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights and the Agrarian Crisis in India," explains that Indian policy has stripped many farmers of their livelihoods by greatly decreasing the value of their crops. Combined with the introduction of GM crops that trap farmers into an endless cycle of debt without providing any substantial benefits, and you end up with a society marked by despair, hopelessness, and an increase in suicides.

What was once an agricultural system based on the diverse cultivation of natural, beneficial food and use crops has morphed into a system of unsustainable cash-crop agriculture. Countless millions of farmers began to adopt crops like Monsanto's Bt cotton, which recent studies have shown provide no benefits, but that lock farmers into a perpetual system of dependence that ends up bankrupting them

Just like what has happened in the US, many Indian farmers have been hoodwinked by multinational biotechnology giants into adopting GM varieties of cash crops - and they have done so based on deceitful claims that GM crops will improve yields and essentially save the world. Such claims are absolutely baseless, of course, and no legitimate studies have ever proven them to be true.

Netanyahu was referring to Abbas' claim in his article that "the last time the question of Palestinian statehood took center stage at the General Assembly, the question posed to the international community was whether our homeland should be partitioned into two states. In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened. War and further expulsions ensued."

Abbas conveniently omitted the rejection of the partition plan by the Arab world and the fact that MOST ARABS LIVING IN ISRAEL LEFT BECAUSE THEY WERE TOLD TO DO SO BY THEIR LEADERS, WHO PROMISED THEM THAT THEY WOULD RETURN AFTER ISRAEL WAS QUICKLY ANNIHILATED.

Netanyahu also mentioned that Abbas skipped over the Arab nations' attacks on the young Jewish state following its declaration, saying that "Arab armies aided by Palestinian forces were the ones who attacked the Jewish state in order to destroy it. Yet all of this is not even mentioned in the article."

Netanyahu added that "we can conclude from the article that the Palestinian leadership sees in the establishment of a Palestinian state a means to continue the conflict with Israel instead of ending it."

But it is perhaps no surprise that the Australian authorities remain unconvinced by this somewhat far-fetched declaration of the second coming. They have warned people to be wary of Alan John Miller, 47, and Mary Suzanne Luck, 32, who have attracted a number of followers to their church in rural Wilkesdale, near Kingaroy, Queensland.

'My name is Jesus and I'm serious,' Miller says. 'Just a little over 2000 years ago, we arrived on the Earth for the first time. Because of my personal desire and passion for God, as I grew, I recognised not only that I was the Messiah that was foretold by ancient prophets, but also that I was in a process designed by God that all humans could follow, if they so desired.' Miller, a divorced dad-of-two, claims that he was Jesus in a past life. He said his first marriage broke down when he 'began to remember details' of the supposed incarnation.

Police are said to have been called to investigate screams, only to discover members taking part in a healing exercise where they shout to help process 'past soul damage'. Australia's Cult Awareness and Information Centre and the Anglican and Catholic churches are concerned that the couple are drawing in vulnerable people searching for meaning in life.

Miller, who was born in Loxton, South Australia, and Luck do not have conventional employment and their lifestyles appear to be funded by supporter donations. Miller says in one recording: 'There's probably a million people who say they're Jesus and most of them are in asylums. But one of us has to be. How do I know I am? Because I remember everything about my life.'

This is how the state-controlled China Daily newspaper summed up the situation: "Power shortages that gripped many parts of the country in recent months could herald the worst energy crunch in years amid growing concerns that economic growth may suffer." Energy demand in China has, of course, increased dramatically over the past few decades as the country rapidly industrialized and became one of the major manufacturing centers of the world.

To help meet that demand and try to create an element of energy security, China invested massively in hydroelectric power with the controversial Three Gorges Dam, its largest development project, which flooded cities and large areas of countryside. But that dependence on hydroelectric power, which is estimated to currently supply about 20 percent of its energy needs, has become part of the problem.

Droughts are common in China, but they have lasted for extremely long periods in the north and south of the country in the past few years. The droughts have caused terrible damage to the local economy, principally agriculture. But being dependent on water flow for power as well has only exacerbated the disaster. At the moment it's the turn of central China to suffer from drought.

China prides itself on its rapid economic development. But the sight of ships stranded on dried up riverbeds downstream of the Three Gorges Dam must be a nightmare for the Chinese authorities. According to the Chinese government and media, the drought in central China has lowered the level of the Yangtze River to historically low levels. Water levels around the city of Wuhan have fallen to around 10 feet, forcing ocean-going vessels to avoid the area.

The Chinese government has now suspended all diesel exports to ensure supplies as factories switch to using fuel-powered generators. China is also trying to meet its demand for energy by securing oil supplies from abroad. According to the independent US Energy Information Administration: "The Chinese government's energy policies are dominated by the country's growing demand for oil and its reliance on oil imports." And that is where China's energy crisis is likely to affect the American consumer the most by driving up gas prices even more.