Back in April, a Brazilian court ruled that Monsanto absolutely was responsible for paying back the exorbitant amounts of cash to the farmers, ordering the company to issue back all of the taxes collected since 2004 — a minimum of $2 billion. Afterwards, Monsanto appealed the decision and the case is now suspended until a further hearing is initiated by the Justice Tribune of the local court stationed in Rio Grande do Sul.

Recently, however, the Brazilian Supreme Court declared that any decision reached in a local court case should apply nationally. The result? Monsanto now faces even larger charges, due to the larger legal application on a national level. Now, the charges total or exceed $7.5 billion. “The values involved could total 15 billion reais ($7.5 billion),” said the Superior Tribunal of Justice on its website.

Lawsuits and criminal charges continue to hit Monsanto, scratching away at the financial foundation of the agricultural behemoth. Monsanto has been found guilty of chemical poisoning in France after their weedkiller product led to neurological problems, and the company has even dished out $93 million to victims of toxic dioxin. As Monsanto continues to be slammed with lawsuits, many of which are from multitudes of affected farmers and individuals, awareness spreads among the general public regarding the corporation’s true acts.

Now speculation that Greece's new leaders could want to renegotiate the country's €130 bilion bailout package with Germany have come to the fore. Greek parties sealed a deal to form a conservative-led coalition but said they would start immediately to form a team to re-negotiate the tough austerity conditions in the international bailout propping up the near-bankrupt economy.

"The Democratic Left insists on policies to gradually disengage from the terms of the bailout that has bled society," one politician said.

The state news agency announced that the President Election Commission was still reviewing appeals in last weekend’s count so would delay Thursday's announcement. “We cannot announce when exactly the timing of the announcement of the Egypt election results will be because now we are at the stage of listening to the representatives,” its secretary-general, Hatem Bagato, told the Reuters news agency. “The committee will meet afterwards to decide on whether to accept the appeals or not.”

The Muslim Brotherhood and most newspapers and independent panels claim that Mohammed Morsi, the leader of the Brotherhood’s political front the Freedom and Justice Party, won the count by a slim margin of just short of 52 per cent to 48 per cent. An attempt to prevent him taking up office, following the army’s earlier announcement it was dissolving the Brotherhood-led parliament and taking over its powers, could trigger a potentially disastrous confrontation.

The student told Israeli media, "I have experienced anti-Semitism in England, but I never thought that in Judaism's holiest site I would be subjugated to such discrimination.” Other members of the group were instructed that if they wanted to continue to visit the area, they would have to cover their bare knees by purchasing Arab style keffieyeh scarves.

Group participants said they had already entered the site and were checked by Israeli guards and Muslim monitors without receiving any official briefings on dress-code.

The British visitor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he chose to leave the scene rather than take off his kippah. “I think this time the Waqf thought they could single me out because we looked like a group of foreign tourists and I was the only one wearing a kippah,” he stated.

Rabbi Chaim Richman, international director of The Temple Institute and the host of Israel National Radio's Temple Talk podcast, called the incident an act of discrimination.

“Today's event demonstrates the opening of a new front at the hands of the Islamic Waqf who are committed to eradicating all Jewish connection to the site. The Temple Institute encourages all Jewish people to proudly visit the Temple Mount in accordance with Jewish law,” he said.

It is said that a surfeit of praise should make one wary. If that is the case, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel should be particularly on her guard following the G-20 summit which came to an end on Tuesday in Los Cabos, Mexico. A succession of world leaders lined up to offer her praise.

During his final press conference, French President François Hollande offered that he has the highest respect for the German chancellor. British Prime Minister David Cameron too said that he held Merkel in high esteem. A senior US official said that Berlin "is playing a very constructive role" in the euro crisis, with US President Barack Obama adding that he was confident Europe would be able to "break the fever."

Even International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde departed from her harsh tone of late to offer praise, if not to Merkel, then to European leaders in general. "In Los Cabos," she said, "the seeds of a pan-European recovery plan were planted." She added that leaders had committed "to take all measures necessary to safeguard the integrity and stability of the euro area."

The upbeat tone came after a two-day conference among leaders of the 20 largest industrial and developing countries, a meeting that was almost entirely dominated by the euro crisis. And the German chancellor was at the center of attention. Many see her refusal to consider euro bonds, direct aid to European banks and other measures proposed to soften the crisis as a major hindrance to solving the problems facing the common European currency.

The prime minister told Ms Fernandez she should "respect the views" of islanders who are taking part in a referendum on the issue of control. The islands are marking 30 years since the end of the war with Argentina. Both leaders are at the G20 summit taking place in Los Cabos, Mexico, though there are no formal talks between the two countries on the agenda.

Downing Street confirmed the two leaders met "in the margins" before the opening session got under way. Mr Cameron approached Ms Fernandez, and told her: "I am not proposing a full discussion now on the Falklands but I hope you have noted that they are holding a referendum and you should respect their views. We should believe in self determination and act as democrats here in the G20."

Aides said Mr Cameron gave a "clear and calm message" which he repeated three times as his words were interpreted into Spanish. Ms Kirchner is said to have responded with "ramblings". Ahead of Tuesday's session, Mr Cameron said in a pre-recorded TV interview: "The Falkland Islanders have decided to have a referendum. They are going to ask a very simple question of whether they want to continue with the status quo or whether they want to change."

"The message to Argentina is very clear - listen to what the people of the Falkland Islands want. We should all believe in this day and age in self-determination, not colonialism."

European leaders are poised to announce a €750 billion deal to bailout beleaguered Spain and Italy by buying the countries’ debts. Angela Merkel and other European leaders have come under intense pressure at this week’s G20 summit to take radical action to stem the growing euro crisis which has pushed up the cost of Spanish bonds to unsustainable levels.

Francois Hollande, the French President, said: “It will be more on mechanisms that allow us to fight speculation”. The French president said rates paid by Spain and Italy to borrow on debt markets were “unacceptable”. “We must show a much faster capacity for action,” Mr Hollande said.

Under the proposed deal, two European rescue funds – the €500 billion European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the €250 billion European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) – will be able to buy bonds issued by beleaguered European countries.

In a statement released by G20 officials, the eurozone leaders singled out China and Saudi Arabia for their commitments to the global economic wellbeing. Eurozone leaders lauded a Saudi pledge to keep oil prices from going too high by ramping up production from its massive reserves.

While they praised China for their promise that the country would move away from policies that keep its currency artificially low, giving Chinese exports a price advantage on world markets. British Prime Minister David Cameron attended the summit with Chancellor George Osborne.

The statement read: "We welcome Saudi Arabia's readiness to mobilize, as necessary, existing spare capacity to ensure adequate supply. We also welcome the commitment by China to allow market forces to play a larger role in determining movements."

Confronted with rising financial strains in Europe, a year-end fiscal showdown in Washington and a sharp slowdown in hiring by US employers, many economists expect the Fed to extend a program aimed at pushing down longer-term interest rates to shield the still-fragile economy.

"The prevailing bias at the Fed is very much tilted toward providing more accommodation," said Eric Green, global head of rates research and strategy at TD Securities in New York. An extension of "Operation Twist," in which the central bank sells bonds with maturities of three years or less and buys securities with maturities of six years and longer, is seen as a less extreme step than outright purchases of new securities. This week is the Fed's last scheduled policy meeting before Operation Twist expires at the end of this month.

Another option for the US central bank, which wraps up a two-day meeting on Wednesday, would be to push back its estimate for when it will finally raise overnight interest rates, which have been held near zero since December 2008. After its meeting in April, it said it expected to keep them "exceptionally low" through at least late 2014.

'Barack Obama: The Story' by David Maraniss catalogues dozens of instances in which [Mr] Obama deviated significantly from the truth in his book 'Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance'. The 641-page book punctures the carefully-crafted narrative of [Mr] Obama’s life.

One of the enduring myths of [Mr] Obama’s ancestry is that his paternal grandfather Hussein Onyango Obama, who served as a cook in the British Army, was imprisoned in 1949 by the British for helping the anti-colonial Mau Mau rebels and held for several months.

John Ndalo Aguk, who worked with Onyango before the alleged imprisonment and was in touch with him weekly afterwards said he 'knew nothing' about any detention and would have noticed if he had gone missing for several months.

Zablon Okatch, who worked with Onyango as a servant to American diplomats after the supposed incarceration, said: ‘Hussein was never jailed. I know that for a fact. It would have been difficult for him to get a job with a white family, let alone a diplomat, if he once served in jail.’ Charles Oluoch, whose father was adopted by Onyango, said that ‘he did not have any trouble with the government in any way'.

It urges the Government to be more constructive and positive in its attitude to the EU, and warns that David Cameron's "veto" last December cost the UK credibility. Leaving the EU would be a "travesty", they claim. Quite a lot of Britons now disagree and think that leaving would be rather a good idea. But the Archbishops explain that they are speaking out because the CofE is “by virtue of its history a European Church”.

Good grief. If the Church of England doesn't even understand the circumstances of its birth, then how can it expect anyone else to care about what it says? The Church of England separated from Rome in the 1530s at the instigation of the sex-mad Henry VIII. After subsequent backsliding by her sister Mary, the glorious Elizabeth I then introduced another Act of Supremacy, which stipulated that England, and then Britain, did not genuflect to any foreign authority. Later developments (including various civil wars, the execution of a monarch who in the modern parlance "didn't geddit" and a revolution) made Parliament sovereign, with the king or queen of the day "sovereign in Parliament". Parliament in effect has primacy, or did have until the EU came along.

It is not a coincidence that after the separation of the 16th century there began a long period in which England and then Britain were very successful. Not completely obsessed with the continent we looked outwards, to trade and build an empire. Until the 1970s, with entry to the EEC, the idea that British sovereignty was worth defending was accepted equally on the left and right. Despite the claims made at the time, it is now obvious that joining the EU signalled the end of the British notion of sovereignty as we had understood it for 400 years.

So what is the Church of England doing getting involved in the debate about the EU, particularly now, when the European project is imploding, and when there is so much else wrong with our society which needs attention?

According to the article, the four countries are preparing 90,000 troops, 400 aircraft and 1,000 tanks for the massive joint maneuvers, which are to take place along the Syrian coast within a month. The report states that Russian “atomic submarines and warships, aircraft carriers and mine-clearing destroyers as well as Iranian battleships and submarines will also arrive in Syria” and that Egypt has agreed to let 12 Chinese warships cross the Suez Canal for the exercises.

According to Israel Radio, Bouthaina Shaabana, a Syrian official and President Bashar Assad’s special adviser, said the reports about such a drill are “baseless” and false. The IDF spokesman’s office called the report a “political matter” and declined to comment. Iran is currently holding talks with six Western powers over the fate of its nuclear program. The talks, said to be held in a tense atmosphere in Moscow, seek to alleviate world concerns that the Islamic Republic is developing nuclear weapons.

Syria meanwhile faces international pressure to end a 15-month crackdown on local rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. China and Russia have come to the aid of both countries in recent months at the UN Security Council, vetoing military intervention in Syria and expanded sanctions on Iran.

The Palestinians said a copy of an alleged draft agreement prepared for the talks, which could not be independently verified, reportedly includes an implicit recognition by the Vatican of Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem. Asked Monday about the meeting, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi would only say that the talks would take place on Tuesday following a previous meeting in Jerusalem in January and gave no further details.

The Vatican is reportedly preparing to accept the application of Israeli law on Catholic Church properties in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians say would be a violation of international law. Nabil Shaath, a Fateh negotiator for relations with the Holy See, said the Vatican should "reaffirm its historic position in favour of the Palestinian people's inalienable rights in line with international law".

"We trust that the Holy See will clarify the situation and affirm that it will uphold its legal and moral responsibility," he said. The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip also voiced its "serious concern" at the reported draft agreement. "Holy Islamic and Christian sites will remain Palestinian and Arab and that their control or their administrations will not fall into the hands of the occupier," Hamas said.

Israel and the Vatican have been holding talks on the legal status of Catholic Church property in the Holy Land since 1999.

The study by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined the US relationship with the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — against a fast-moving backdrop. In just the last two days, Saudi Arabia's ruler named Defence Minister Prince Salman Ben Abdul Aziz as the country's new crown prince after last week's death of Prince Nayef, and Kuwait's government suspended parliament for a month over an internal political feud.

The latest developments inject even more uncertainty as the Middle East deals with the demands of the Arab Spring, the end to US combat operations in Iraq at the end of 2011, fears of Iran's nuclear programme and the counterterrorism campaign. "Home to more than half of the world's oil reserves and over a third of its natural gas, the stability of the Persian Gulf is critical to the global economy," the report said. "However, the region faces a myriad of political and security challenges, from the Iranian nuclear programme to the threat of terrorism to the political crisis in Bahrain."

The report obtained by the Associated Press in advance of Tuesday's release provided precise numbers on US forces in Kuwait, a presence that Pentagon officials have only acknowledged on condition of anonymity. Currently, there are about 15,000 US forces in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring, giving the United States staging hubs, training ranges and locations to provide logistical support.

185 domestic flights have already been cancelled due to heavy rain. People have been warned there are risks of mudslides and flash-flooding and advised not to leave their homes unless it is really necessary. Guchol is moving fast and is expected to pass across the country in as little as 12 to 18 hours.