The quake struck 26 miles north-northeast of Valparaiso, and 69 miles northwest of the capital Santiago, but there were no reports of injuries. State emergency office ONEMI said a stretch of coastline was being evacuated as a precaution, but there was no tsunami alert. Rodrigo Ubilla, an Interior Ministry undersecretary, said there had been no reports of damage to public or private infrastructure, although state television said several thousand homes were without power outside Santiago.

Apartment buildings in Santiago shook heavily, and residents opened doors as a precaution to clear potential escape routes. Local television broadcast images of lamps swinging in homes in the capital.

Chile is prone to earthquakes, and was hammered by a massive 8.8 magnitude tremor in early 2010 which ravaged the south-center of the country, devastating industries and triggering tsunamis, in a disaster that killed about 500 people. The 2010 quake caused roughly $8 billion in insured losses and economic losses of at least twice that. In the past two years, earthquakes have been a scourge of the insurance industry. In addition to Chile, quakes in Japan and New Zealand in 2011 caused record-breaking losses in the tens of billions of dollars. Mexico has also been rattled by a series of strong quakes in recent weeks.

The report, screened on the main evening news of Channel 10, was remarkable both in terms of the access granted to the reporter, who said he had spent weeks with the pilots and other personnel he interviewed, and in the fact that his assessments on a strike were cleared by the military censor.

No order to strike is likely to be given before the P5+1 talks with Iran resume in May, the reporter, Alon Ben-David, said. “But the coming summer will not only be hot but tense.” In the event that negotiations fail and the order is given for Israel to carry out an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, “dozens if not more planes” will take part in the mission: attack and escort jets, tankers for mid-air refueling, electronic warfare planes and rescue helicopters, the report said.

Ben-David said that if negotiations break down, and Iran moves key parts of its nuclear program underground to its Qom facility, the IAF “is likely to get the order and to set out on the long journey to Iran. Years of preparations are likely to come to realization,” he said, adding that “the moment of truth is near.” According to the report, it’s the older versions of the F-15 that can fly further than any other plane in Israel’s arsenal, and this puts them on the front line of any potential attack. One pilot said in the report that the F-15 “is a plane with a very wide range of operation — a combination of relatively energy-efficient engines, and significant flightworthiness regarding weapons and fuel.”

The IAF has a full-sized unmanned plane, the “Eitan,” that is said to be able to fly to Iran, the report indicated. “This plane can do all that is required of it when the order is given,” a pilot said, without elaboration. The attack, the report said, would presumably trigger a war in northern Israel, with missile attacks (presumably from the Iranian-proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon). “There will be no tranquility and peace anywhere in Israel,” Ben-David said. This could be the first full-scale war the IAF has fought in nearly 30 years, the report stated.

The threat to the freedom of the internet comes, he claims, from a combination of governments increasingly trying to control access and communication by their citizens, the entertainment industry's attempts to crack down on piracy, and the rise of "restrictive" walled gardens such as Facebook and Apple, which tightly control what software can be released on their platforms.

The 38-year-old billionaire, whose family fled anti-semitism in the Soviet Union, was widely regarded as having been the driving force behind Google's partial pullout from China in 2010 over concerns about censorship and cyber-attacks. He said five years ago he did not believe China or any country could effectively restrict the internet for long, but now says he has been proven wrong. "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said.

He said he was most concerned by the efforts of countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran to censor and restrict use of the internet, but warned that the rise of Facebook and Apple, which have their own proprietary platforms and control access to their users, risked stifling innovation and balkanising the web.

Yesterday in a panel on the "Future of Europe" at a conference organized by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Soros said: "The Euro has really broken down. It has sprung defects, some of which could have been anticipated and some were anticipated. But some actually couldn't. Effectively, heavily indebted countries in Europe have ended up in the position of a third world country that is heavily indebted in a foreign currency. And that is only one of the unanticipated results of how things worked out with the Euro."

Soros went on to say that Europe is simultaneously suffering from a Euro Crisis, a sovereign debt crisis, a balance of payments crisis, a banking crisis, a competitiveness crisis and suffering from other serious structural defects.

The list of the disqualified hopefuls include Omar Sulaiman, who became vice-president in Mubarak's last days; Khairat Al Shater, the deputy leader of the influential Muslim Brotherhood; and Salah Abu Esmail, a populist ultra-conservative Salafist. The commission was forced to close its offices over the weekend when an angry mob of Esmail's followers, anticipating his disqualification, began protesting outside its offices.

"The commission members saw there was a danger to the lives of all those working inside the office and decided to evacuate it from the staff because there was not enough protection," said Hatem Bagatu, the secretary-general of the panel. He added that documents related to the election process and candidacies are kept inside the office.

Earlier this month, the commission said it was officially notified by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry that Abu Esmail's late mother was a US citizen. Under the Egyptian constitution, presidential candidates, their parents and spouses must be only Egyptian citizens. However, a Cairo court said earlier this week there was no evidence that Abu Esmail's mother had a dual citizenship. His supporters have vowed to continue their strike outside the commission's office until it validates his presidential bid.

Yields on Germany's benchmark 10-year Bund, viewed as the euro zone's safest debt, hit a record low of 1.628 percent. The previous record was established in November 2011, at the height of the debt crisis before the ECB injected around €1 trillion of cheap three-year funds into the banking system.

"We're back in full crisis mode," Rabobank rate strategist Lyn Graham-Taylor said. "It is looking more and more likely that Spain is going to have some form of a bailout. Assuming there is not an (ECB) intervention you would not see a cap on Spanish yields, they would just keep increasing." The latest blow to Spanish markets followed data on Friday that showed record borrowing by its banks from the ECB. Investors' main fear is that banks parked most of the funds in domestic government debt, making them more vulnerable to sovereign stress.

Spain faces a test of investor confidence this week with an auction of two- and 10-year bonds on Thursday. Contagion fears pushed Italian 10-year yields about 12 base points higher on the day at 5.66 percent.

Speaking to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square on Sunday, he noted Thursday's anniversary and asked for prayers "so that the Lord may give me the strength to carry out the mission he has entrusted to me". Benedict is already older than John Paul was when he died in 2005 and is now the oldest reigning pope since Leo XIII, who died aged 93 in 1903 after reigning for 25 years. "His health at 85 is better than John Paul's was at 75," said one high-ranking Vatican official who reports to the pope regularly. "He is a very methodical man. He looks after himself and feels that he still has much to do," the official said.

The Vatican has announced that he will visit Lebanon in September and he may go to Brazil in 2013. "I'm old but I can still carry out my duties," the pope told Fidel Castro during his trip to Cuba last month. Still, Benedict is increasingly showing signs of frailty and fatigue, signs that are being watched carefully for their possible effect on the future of the 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic Church. When he left for Mexico and Cuba, he used a cane at the airport for the first time in public, though sources say he has been using it in private for some time.

Last year, to conserve his strength, he began using a mobile platform instead of walking up the aisle of St Peter's Basilica. The Vatican says it is to spare him fatigue and there is no concern about his overall health. His brother has said Benedict suffered two mild strokes before his election in 2005 and he reportedly suffers from high blood pressure and arthritis.

Where Benedict differs from his predecessors is that he is the only pope in living memory to discuss publicly the possibility of resignation, though others have done so privately. In a book in 2010, Benedict said he would not hesitate to become the first pontiff to resign willingly in more than 700 years if he felt no longer able, "physically, psychologically and spiritually" to run the Catholic Church.

"He has been an unmitigated disaster to the country," Cheney said of President Barack Obama. "I can't think of a time when I felt it was more important for us to defeat an incumbent president today with respect to Barack Obama. I think he has been an unmitigated disaster to the country," Cheney said at the Wyoming Republican Party state convention in Cheyenne on Saturday.

"I think to be in a position where he gets four more years in the White House to continue the policies he has, both with respect to the economy, and tax policy, and defense and some other areas would be a huge, huge disappointment," the former Vice President said.

Shapiro, the group's senior director of farm animal protection, said some in the audience clapped. Shapiro's bit of stagecraft was part of a fight under way in the American heartland that reaches into corporate boardrooms. US farmers and agribusiness are on one side and food safety groups and animal-rights organizations are on the other. It is fueled, in part, by politicians eager to court influential backers during an election year. Farm groups, too, want to be heard as Congress picks up its review of the federal farm bill.

And although food-safety activists and animal-rights organizations have different agendas, they both agree on one thing: Much of the public is unaware of what happens to their food before it arrives on their plate. The recent furor over so-called "pink slime" beef filler underscores how social media have given activists and consumers a powerful weapon to influence that process. Using tools such as Twitter and the threat of spending boycotts, consumers and activists pressured retailers to abandon Beef Products Inc's ammonia-treated lean, finely textured beef.

BPI idled three plants, affecting 650 workers. AFA Foods, one of the largest ground beef processors in the United States, filed for bankruptcy in early April, citing the uproar over pink slime. Agribusiness giant Cargill cut production of the meat scraps and warned the public's resistance to the filler could lead to higher hamburger prices this barbecue season. Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Kroger Co, among other grocery sellers, dropped it. "What do you have to hide?" is the new battle cry for food activists, said Amanda Hitt, a director at the Government Accountability Project, a group that protects whistleblowers.

China's yuan weakened after the central bank doubled the size of the currency's trading band over the weekend, a crucial reform in the process of liberalizing the country's nascent financial markets. A firmer dollar on the back of the euro zone's woes, and worries about slowing demand from China, also weighed on a broad range of commodities from precious metals and copper to oil.

Japan's Nikkei average .N225 shed as much as 1.6 percent. "Europe will be the focal point for the market this week, especially the results of Spanish bond auctions that may provide clues on how deep this latest crisis is running," said Choi Chang-ho, an analyst at Shinhan Investment & Securities. Investors will also keep an eye on a weekend meeting of the International Monetary Fund, where a plan to raise new resources for the global lender to contain the euro zone debt crisis tops the agenda.

The issue of discriminatory registration came to light thanks to alert Jewish visitors to the Mount, Attorney Naftali Wertzberger told Arutz Sheva. Visitors saw that Muslims and other non-Jews who entered were asked to show IDs and then allowed to enter, while when Jews entered, police took their ID cards and wrote something in a notebook before letting them pass. In addition, some Jews who were questioned by police were asked about previous visits to the Temple Mount at specific times, giving more proof that police were keeping track of Jewish entrance to the site.

“It’s a disgrace to have lists like that in a democratic state,” said Wertzberger. “Nowhere are entrance lists like that kept so that someday they can be used by ‘Big Brother,’ and the Temple Mount cannot be the one place it happens.” Police defended the procedure, saying it was needed to “keep the peace,” Wertzberger noted. The argument did not suffice in light of the fact that only Jewish names were recorded, he said. Violence on the Mount is typically not Jewish.

After activists warned police that they would take the matter to the High Court, “the police did some thinking, and this morning their legal adviser told us the procedure has been canceled, and from now on everybody will be identified through ID cards alone,” Wertzberger relayed. If police continue to discriminate against Jews in the identification process “we will not remain silent,” he added.

After two and a half decades of deadlock and 15 marathon rounds of bilateral talks — the most recent occurring in late March — the countries appear a long way from finding common ground. The dispute isn't the first of its kind, nor will it be the last. The waters of the Indus River and tributaries like the Jhelum — and the dams built on them by India — have long been one of the main points of contention between the rival neighbors, along with the disputed region of Kashmir itself and cross-border terrorism.

Pakistan, whose agriculture-dominated economy is heavily reliant on the Indus and its tributaries, fears upstream dams allow India to manipulate the flows of water as it sees fit. Many in Pakistan accuse New Delhi of wantonly exacerbating the country's dire water shortages, choking its agricultural production and ruining livelihoods.

India dismisses these accusations as paranoid and without scientific backing. Its dams are run-of-the-river, it says, aimed at generating hydroelectricity, or in the case of the Tulbul navigation project on the Jhelum, meeting other development needs like facilitating year-round trade. India's Indus Water Commissioner G Aranganathan says that after India fills its reservoirs in the initial stages of each project, it only uses the water it needs to run its turbines and doesn't prevent any from flowing into Pakistan. "There is absolutely no question of interrupting or reducing Pakistan's water supply," he tells TIME.

Few believe India and Pakistan will actually go to war over the disputes, but one thing is for certain: water is making it harder for the long-time rivals to put their enmity behind them.

Firms will enforce extra checks at depots up and down the country to monitor vehicles being loaded with goods for delivery to the Westfield Stratford City mall in East London. The vast £1.45 billion shopping centre is on the east side of the Olympic park – less than 500 yards from the main Olympic stadium and just yards from the multi-million-pound basketball and aquatics centre. The 1.9 million square feet site is also home to 300 shops and 50 bars and restaurants.

The close proximity to the main Olympic venues, which are expecting up to ten million visitors, has led security advisers from the London Organising Committee of the Olympic And Paralympic Games (LOCOG) to contact every business that would need to make deliveries. A source said: ‘Over the past few months all the companies have had to beef up security. The threat of someone planting a bomb on a lorry headed for the Olympic park is very real.’

In Haringey, North London, 43 per cent of new social housing tenants were foreign while in Ealing, West London, the figure was 45 per cent. Although some boroughs did not record tenants’ nationality, making it impossible to scrutinise who is at the top of the queue, on average 11 per cent of new social housing lets in London went to foreigners.

Mr Field, former Labour welfare reform minister, described the trend as a ‘scandal’ that ‘must stop’. ‘For years we have been told that British people on the waiting list for social housing are getting a fair deal,’ Mr Field said. ‘Yet, when the situation in London is examined, we find that, in reality, nobody has any idea how many new lets are going to foreign nationals and how many to British citizens. This scandal must stop. I have a bill before parliament that will ensure that those citizens who have made most contribution to society, who have paid their taxes and whose children have not caused trouble, for example, will have first choice of any housing available. This would be a major change in our welfare state whereby benefits have to be earned rather than automatically allocated on need.’

Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch said, ‘The present situation is a scandal. The records are in chaos. British people who have lived in the area for many years are given little or no priority.’ He added that only British citizens - including those who were foreign born but had taken up citizenship - should be considered for social housing. He added: ‘Foreign nationals would still get housing allowance but not social housing; there is no reason why they should be entitled to subsidised housing provided by British taxpayers while British citizens spend years in the queue.’

Parts of the country are already drier than they were in the summer of 1976, when Britain experienced its worst drought for more than 100 years. The drought of 1976 led to standpipes being installed in residential streets, water supplies to businesses being rationed and schools having to close early. The Environment Agency says similar measures are unlikely to be enforced this summer, but warns the dry conditions will damage the environment and lead to widespread water restrictions.

The chairman of Shropshire Anglers Federation, Sir John Roberts, said that over the past five years general rainfall levels had been falling. “Last year was bad but this year is worse because we haven’t had the rain through the winter,” he said. “April seems to be working as we expected, but we could do with a month’s worth of constant rain to bring things back to where they should be. We are in dire straits. When we hit high summer, the River Severn could be a trickle.”