The three-year-old "war", as Brazil dubs the devaluationist policies of developed nations seeking relief from home-grown credit crunches, may well just come full circle and burn itself out as a result. But the reverse course of emerging currency depreciation carries its own significant risks, from skewing investment decisions to aggravating trade diplomacy.

What's more, it's Japan's success this year in finally weakening its supercharged yen, by fresh rounds of money-printing from its central bank, which may prove pivotal by disturbing the delicate balance in Asia. Some economists warn the yen's more than 10 percent retreat since January is already forcing China's hand on its own controversial policy of yuan capping in a way that could cause consternation in Washington in an election year.

Far from seeing a sharply rising yuan emerge from China's policy of greater exchange rate flexibility - core US and multilateral demands - the yuan has actually weakened this year as China's economy and inflation rates slow, its trade account worsens and fears of a "hard landing" there persist. Even though the tightly-controlled yuan has gained more than 10 percent against world currencies over the past five years, it's one of the few major emerging market currencies to remain lower against the US dollar so far in 2012. Bouncing back smartly from a dire 2011, Russia's rouble, India's rupee, Mexico's peso and South Africa's rand are all up 5-10 percent.

Pope Shenouda III died on Saturday at the age of 88. Hundreds of clerics, deacons and lay people gathered around the casket at Saint Mark's Cathedral in Cairo, while thousands more followed the mass in the street. Shenouda’s body has been taken to the St Bishoy monastery, Shenouda's favorite church, to be buried in the desert northwest of Cairo. While leading Egypt's Coptic Christian minority for over 40 years, Pope Shenouda managed to maintain a balance between protecting Christians’ interests in Egypt and avoiding pressing them too hard in order to prevent Muslims’ anger.

An interim leader of the Coptic Church is expected to be picked within a week, but the process of choosing Shenouda's successor could take up to three months. At this point it is hard to imagine who could replace a man who had been protecting Christians’ rights for such a long time. Shenouda gave Mubarak's government the strong support of Egypt’s Christians, but in recent years many liberal Christians accused Shenouda of doing too little to stop discrimination against the Christian minority. At the same time, conservative Muslims often accused Christians of seeking to take over the country, converting Muslim women and stirring sectarian violence.

Tension between Muslims and minority Coptic Christians has simmered for years, but has worsened since the revolution last February. The uprising empowered Salafis and other conservative Islamist groups, which had been repressed under the former president. Over the last year, several churches have been attacked by mobs, and dozens of Christians were killed in violent clashes on the streets. The government generally blamed the violence on the enemies of the revolution, denying any religious basis.

Ms Hedegaard’s secret, she said, was not to buckle. “I know that some other countries tried to go around saying, ‘Europe will always give in at the last moment; you don’t have to listen to them, they become soft,’” she recalled. “That was a real lesson”. Now Ms Hedegaard, a Danish politician known for her blunt style, is taking the same approach as she deals with the global backlash provoked by the European Union’s climate policies.

The biggest source of controversy has been the EU’s insistence that other nations’ airlines pay for their carbon emissions on flights that take off or land in Europe – a policy that Washington, Beijing and Moscow have decried as an infringement on their sovereignty. To the alarm of Airbus, the European aerospace company, the Chinese have suggested that it would be sensible for their fast-growing airlines to shop elsewhere for new aircraft if Europe does not reconsider the policy. Ms Hedegaard has also taken a hard line against oil derived from tar sands – a stance that has attracted far less attention than the airline row, but which has threatened a pending EU-Canada free trade agreement.

Asked if there might be some compromise to the aviation controversy, Ms Hedegaard said she would not even consider it. Instead, she said she was devoting her energy to forging a global agreement to curb airline emissions, which would make the EU policy unnecessary. “I understand very well that if you are a CEO of a European company, you get concerned,” Ms Hedegaard said. “We are taking things seriously, but we have to make clear that you can’t threaten a trade war just because you don’t like European legislation.”

Witnesses in the capital, Mexico City, said the tremor sent office workers rushing out onto the streets. Some 500 houses were damaged in Guerrero state, according to the state's governor, local TV reported. Angel Aguirre told Milenio television that so far there were no casualties in Guerrero state or neaby Oaxaca state, adding that authorities were checking schools and public buildings near Ometepec.

The director of the country's seismological service, Carlos Valdes Gonzalez, said that there had already been some six aftershocks and further ones could be expected in the next 24 hours. He said one of the aftershocks had already registered a magnitude of 5.3. The BBC's Will Grant, in Mexico City, says buildings swayed for at least a minute in the capital.

Researchers have long suspected that the infections are caused by a person's own E. coli bacteria. However, a new Canadian study found the germ strain most likely came from poultry. A team from McGill University in Montreal compared the genetic fingerprints of E.coli from urinary infections to 320 samples of E.coli from chicken, pork and beef. They found chicken was a surprisingly close match.

'Chicken may be a reservoir for the E. coli that cause infections like urinary tract infections,' said study author Amee Manges. The data suggested the infections came directly from the birds rather than from human contamination during food processing. What is more, the scientists suggested that modern farming methods could be making the situation worse.

'We are concerned about the selection and amplification of drug-resistant E. coli on the farms because of improper or overuse of antimicrobials during food animal production,' Mr Manges said. 'During the past decade, the emergence of drug-resistant E. coli has dramatically increased.'

Proper kitchen handling and cooking of chicken helps kill the germs and so reduces the chances of catching an E. coli infection.

The NRC Handelsblad newspaper identified Henk Heithuis who was castrated in 1956, while a minor, after reporting priests to the police for abusing him in a Catholic boarding home. Joep Dohmen, the investigative journalist who uncovered the Heithuis case, also found evidence of at least nine other castrations. "These cases are anonymous and can no longer be traced," he said. "There will be many more. But the question is whether those boys, now old men, will want to tell their story."

Mr Heithuis died in a car crash in 1958, two years after being castrated at the age of 20, while under the age of majority, which was then 21. In 1956 he had accused Catholic clergy of sexually abusing him in his Church run care home. Two clergymen were convicted of abuse but Mr Heithuis, a victim, was nonetheless transferred by police to a Catholic psychiatric hospital before being admitted to the St Joseph Hospital in Veghel later that year.

There, court papers confirm, he was castrated "at his own request", despite no submission of his written consent. Sources told Mr Dohmen that the surgical removal of testicles was regarded as a treatment for homosexuality and ALSO AS A PUNISHMENT FOR THOSE WHO ACCUSED CLERGY OF SEXUAL ABUSE.

Evidence emerged on Monday that government inspectors were aware that minors were being castrated while in Catholic-run psychiatric institutions. Minutes of meetings held in the 1950s show that inspectors were present when castrations were discussed. The documents also reveal that the Catholic staff did not think parents needed to be involved.

The British frigate Montrose was set to dock in Lima's port of Callao on Thursday for a friendly visit. Mr Roncagliolo said the visit was cancelled as part of an agreement with the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) supporting Argentina. Foreign ministers from the 12 UNASUR nations on Saturday urged Britain to discuss the sovereignty of the islands with Argentina, "in line with United Nations resolutions."

The British embassy in Lima said it "lamented" that Peru had cancelled the invitation, noting that the Peruvian government had the chance to raise the issue with Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne, who was in Lima on Friday.

The results of the war game were particularly troubling to General James N Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.

The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.

In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.

“I was told I could not touch him or come near him during the process," reports the farther, who says his son was “trembling with fear” and wanted him “to hold his hand and give him a hug”. The family “had to pretend everything was “ok” so the boy wouldn’t panic”.

It all started when a family of six fell under suspicion at Chicago’s O'Hare Airport (ORD). They were then forced into a sequestered area for inspection, where a TSA officer said he wanted to check the small child out. The officer even proposed going to a private screening area to frisk the child if the father refused to lift up the boy’s shirt. The officer's search for explosives led him to swab the boy’s back, palms, and feet, as well as the wheelchair’s armrests.

Unlike his farther, who had to pretend nothing out of the ordinary was going on, the boy freely expressed his vivid disgust with the search.The arbitrary actions of the Transportation Security Administration of the US have increasingly taken the spotlight in recent years. Apart from a wave of complaints from passengers who have fallen victim to its over the top security measures, the TSA is known for being notoriously ineffective.

In an annual report, an agency with an $8 billion budget admits they made a few arguably-alright finds in 2011.

Irrespective of what Mr Holder may or may not respond to these two Senators, and irrespective of the growing concern amongst lucid people inside and outside of the US, the facts are that, as we learn from an article in USA Today published on 5th March – “Holder: Constitution doesn’t cover terrorists” – the Obama Administration is ready to use lethal force against anybody, anywhere and at any time, including US citizens whom they consider might be linked to “terrorism”.

At least, that’s what the Attorney General Holder explained in a speech delivered on 5th March at the Northwestern University Law School in Chicago, when he said that the Government has the right to kill citizens who they believe are “senior leaders in al-Qaeda or affiliate groups” or who may pose an "imminent threat" of attack against the United States and its interests, and whose capture may not be immediately "feasible."

Holder went on to say that, "given the nature of how terrorists act and where they tend to hide, it may not always be feasible to capture a US citizen terrorist who presents an imminent threat of violent attack… In that case, our government has the clear authority to defend the United State using lethal force."

The Attorney General's remarks come as civil rights advocates have condemned such killings, including the fatal military drone strike in September against Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born leader of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen.

Now, this is official US policy regarding its own citizens, so we can all imagine what official US policy regarding non-US citizens is like!

Yet it was also a relief, she says, finally to know what had been making her ill for so long. But when Watterson's infection refused to yield to the three-pronged antibiotic attack doctors prescribed to fight it, her relief turned to dread. After six weeks of taking pills that had no effect, Watterson was told she had multi-drug resistant TB, or MDR-TB, and faced months in an isolation ward on a regimen of injected drugs that left her nauseous, bruised and unable to go out in the sun. "My friends were really shocked," Watterson said. "Most of them had only heard of TB from reading Victorian novels."

Tuberculosis is often seen in the wealthy West as a disease of bygone eras - evoking impoverished 18th or 19th century women and children dying slowly of a disease then commonly known as "consumption" or the "white plague". But rapidly rising rates of drug-resistant TB in some of the wealthiest cities in the world, as well as across Africa and Asia, are again making history. London has been dubbed the "tuberculosis capital of Europe", and a startling recent study documenting new cases of so-called "totally drug resistant" TB in India suggests the modern-day tale of this disease could get a lot worse.

"We can't afford this genie to get out of the bag. Because once it has, I don't know how we'll control TB," said Ruth McNerney, an expert on tuberculosis at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. TB is a bacterial infection that destroys patients' lung tissue, making them cough and sneeze, and spread germs through the air. Anyone with active TB can easily infect another 10 to 15 people a year. The worldwide TB death rate currently runs at between two and three people a minute.

Birthed out of an apparent curiosity as to whether or not heart medications that target areas of the brain responsible for dealing with emotions and fear could also address racism, Dr Sylvia Terbeck and her colleagues decided to conduct a study. Using 36 "white" people as test subjects, Dr Terbeck and her team administered propranolol, a blood pressure and heart medication, to half the group, and a placebo to the other half. From there, the team asked the two groups to fill out a questionnaire about which racial groups they liked and disliked, and also had both groups take an "Implicit Association Test."

This particular test involved evaluating the participants' thought processes, both conscious and subconscious, as they concerned various images, words, and concepts related to racial groups. The results, which were published in the journal Psychopharmacology, revealed that participants' answers to the written test questions were virtually the same in both the propranolol and placebo groups. But for IAT, the propranolol group exhibited far less or even no "fear" compared to the placebo group, which Dr Terbeck believes could imply anti-racist benefits from taking the drug.

While to some it may sound like a good idea in theory, the notion of altering individuals' internal emotional states through chemical inputs is nothing short of mind control, particularly in the way Dr Terbeck and her colleagues suggest it. If such a notion is eventually determined to be in the interests of public health, for instance, it is not far-fetched to assume that "anti-racism" drugs could one day be added to public water supplies in the same way that fluoride is.

In addition to anti-racism drugs, some scientists are actually now envisioning the development of drugs that induce vegetarianism in humans, as well as drugs that create artificial "warm" feelings in response to government tyranny. Once you start toying around with the idea of chemically-altering human minds and emotions for the "public good," after all, there really is no telling where the horrors of such a dehumanizing fantasy will eventually lead.

Senior Roman Catholic and Anglican bishops have already warned that the move will undermine social structures dating back thousands of years. Mr Cameron is facing a backlash from his own supporters, with senior Tory MPs, including several ministers, expected to vote against the reforms. However, he argues that the Conservatives should support gay marriage on the grounds that stability and commitment in relationships of any kind should be encouraged.

Last week, ministers published a consultation on how the changes to civil marriage laws will be introduced. The plans explicitly rule out alterations to religious marriage. However, the Muslim Council of Britain said the case for the government’s proposals was “strikingly weak”. Farooq Murad, Secretary General of the MCB, said: “Whilst we remain opposed to all forms of discrimination, including homophobia, redefining the meaning of marriage is in our opinion unnecessary and unhelpful.

“With the advent of civil partnerships, both homosexual and heterosexual couples now have equal rights in the eyes of the law. Therefore, in our view the case to change the definition of marriage, as accepted throughout time and across cultures, is strikingly weak. In common with other Abrahamic faiths, marriage in Islam is defined as ‘a union between a man and a woman’,” he said. “So while the state has accommodated for gay couples, such unions will not be blessed as marriage by the Islamic institutions.”

The contours of such a society are starting to take shape in this high-tech nation, frustrating those who prefer coins and bills over digital money. In most Swedish cities, public buses don't accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether.

"There are towns where it isn't at all possible anymore to enter a bank and use cash," complains Curt Persson, chairman of Sweden's National Pensioners' Organization. He says that's a problem for elderly people in rural areas who don't have credit cards or don't know how to use them to withdraw cash. The decline of cash is noticeable even in houses of worship, like the Carl Gustaf Church in Karlshamn, southern Sweden, where Vicar Johan Tyrberg recently installed a card reader to make it easier for worshippers to make offerings. "People came up to me several times and said they didn't have cash but would still like to donate money," Tyrberg says.

The prevalence of electronic transactions — and the digital trail they generate — also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or Greece, says economics professor Friedrich Schneider of the Johannes Kepler University in Austria. "If people use more cards, they are less involved in shadow economy activities," says Schneider, an expert on underground economies. In Italy — where cash has been a common means of avoiding value-added tax and hiding profits from the taxman — Prime Minister Mario Monti in December put forward measures to limit cash transactions to payments under 1,000 euros ($1,300), down from 2,500 euros before.

Russia, one of President Bashar al-Assad's strongest allies despite international condemnation of the government's violent crackdown on the country's uprising, has repeatedly blocked the United Nations Security Council's attempts to halt the violence, accusing the US and its allies of trying to start another war.

Now the Russian Black Sea fleet's Iman tanker has arrived in the Syrian port of Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea with an anti-terror squad from the Russian Marines aboard according to the Interfax news agency. The Assad government has insisted it is fighting a terrorist insurgency. The Russian news reports did not elaborate on the Russian troops' mission in Syria or if they are expected to leave the port. The presence of Russian troops in Syria could be a "pretty obvious" show of support to the regime, according to Russian security expert Mark Galeotti.

"No one thinks of the Russians as anything but Assad's last friends," said Galeotti, professor of global affairs at New York University. Moscow has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Assad regime, to which it sells billions of dollars of weapons. In return Russia has maintained a Navy base at Tartus, which gives it access to the Mediterranean. Last week Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia had no plans to send troops to Syria.