The two men will face each other in a second-round run-off on 6 May. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen came third with 20% of the vote ahead of seven other candidates. The poll was dominated by economic concerns.

Afterwards, Mr Hollande said he was "best placed to become the next president of the republic" and that Mr Sarkozy had been punished by voters. It is the first time a French president running for re-election has failed to win the first round since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

Mark Rutte, who is a key ally of Germany and the eurozone’s “hardliners” on financial discipline, has called an emergency cabinet meeting after budget talks collapsed at the weekend. He is expected to resign today and announce snap elections, pushing yet another “core” eurozone country into political and economic uncertainty.

In France, early polls pointed to a victory of Francois Hollande in the first round of the presidential elections setting the stage for a run-off between the socialist challenger and incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy on May 6th. Mr Hollande has pledged to renegotiate the European fiscal pact that binds countries to a 3 per cent deficit limit by next year.

The “non-negotiable” fiscal pact, which was vetoed by David Cameron, triggered the collapse of the coalition government in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders, the far-right leader, said he could not support the €16 billion (£13 billion) of cuts needed to meet the 3 per cent target. He wouldn’t allow Dutch citizens to “pay out of their pockets for the senseless demands of Brussels” he said.

According to IMF officials, a number of other countries have attached similar conditions to their contributions, potentially limiting the new bail-out fund’s firepower. Although the weekend’s agreement to double the IMF’s war chest to around $800 billion has been widely welcomed, the small print could partially undermine rescue efforts and confidence in the deal.

Several countries including the UK need the Seoul deal on quotas ratified by the US – the IMF’s largest member – to release funding headroom under a technical arrangement known as a “NAB rollback”. Without the rollback, politicians would have to secure parliamentary approval for any increase in IMF resources – a process which itself could take more than a year. No such conditions are attached to the eurozone’s $200 billion of fresh commitments, however.

The IMF also still has to finalise contribution terms. Brazil is demanding a bigger share of the IMF vote in return for a bi-lateral loan, while China has been lobbying for the fund to soften its rhetoric on China’s exchange rate policy. China is also not expected to quantify its support for the IMF until after a new leader is named.

They demanded the ‘opt-in’ measure last week after it emerged that children were becoming addicted to sexual content on the web even before reaching their teens. But, despite previous pledges to get tough on the issue, ministers are instead leaning towards a less stringent option under which internet providers would merely give users the opportunity to filter out pornography more easily.

Under these proposals, subscribers would be asked a ‘yes or no’ question about whether they wish to continue being able to access adult material, enabling parents to block access for their children. The question will be asked on only one occasion. But MPs and charities say this will not adequately safeguard children because it will rely on their parents being responsible and proactive enough to ask for access to be blocked.

In addition, it could be children who see the question first and answer it, not the parents – defeating the object. They say that only by ensuring children have as little chance as possible of seeing online porn – by blocking access as standard – can they be adequately protected.

It has tumbled against sterling, which is good news for those taking trips abroad, but is indicative of the fragility of Europe’s currency union. The reason for its weakness is that the economic conditions some countries must meet under the pact are politically and socially impossible. The leaders of the International Monetary Fund, meeting this week in Washington, know this, which is why the IMF has said — for the first time — that it can envisage the euro collapsing.

Europe’s leaders are desperate to avoid the break-up of the euro, because more than a currency is at stake. The whole credibility of the European project — and of its political leaders — depends on the euro’s survival. It seems the rest of Europe will do almost anything to preserve the currency union. There have already been bail-outs for Portugal, Ireland and, most notably, Greece, primarily underwritten by the Germans. Italy is in trouble, again. But the biggest problem is Spain

It elected a new, conservative, prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, last November. Quite fairly, he blamed the country’s dire economic state (exemplified by an almost 25 per cent rate of unemployment) on his socialist predecessor. However, to meet the demands of the European Central Bank, its German paymasters and the European Commission, Mr Rajoy must make even deeper cuts than his electorate expected. The truth is nobody thinks Spain can sustain such an austerity programme.

Nobody, that is, apart from the head-in-the-sand lunatics in Brussels, Frankfurt and Berlin who wish the political project of a federal Europe with a single currency to be driven ahead, whatever the price. The only realistic solution to Spain’s problems is to allow it to default on its debts in an orderly fashion, and re-establish a devalued peseta, which would eventually allow it to export its way out of trouble. For the moment, that is not allowed.

The timing of all this is frightening, for the tectonic plates of Europe’s politics are also about to move. Tomorrow, France holds the first of two rounds of its presidential election. Opinion polls show the incumbent, Nicolas Sarkozy, is trailing his socialist rival, Francois Hollande. Mr Hollande has threatened to tear up last year’s EU fiscal pact, and with good reason. He knows that, after the election, France will find it politically impossible to keep to the EU’s stringent fiscal rules.

The presidential contest has a second round on May 6, where the two remaining candidates go head-to-head. That same day Greece goes to the polls. Anti-austerity candidates look likely to win in Athens, leaving Greece’s future compliance with the fiscal pact — and therefore its future membership of the euro — in serious doubt. These elections bring closer the moment of truth for Europe.

As the government scrambles for every tax dollar it can get its hands on, even though they already gave every Spaniard $23,000 Euros in debt last year alone (approximately $32,500), they are now banning all large cash business transactions. Why? So they can track the transactions and make sure that people and business are paying taxes. Being able to track the transactions is also aimed to combat the growing black market in Spain.

They are not even making a pretense anymore that the West is run via market economies. As we have long predicted, the phony "sovereign debt" crisis in Europe is being used to justify all sorts of authoritarian measures. It is government politicians that gladly borrowed what European banks threw at them. And somehow the upshot earlier this week is that Spanish citizens now lose the right to conduct many transactions in cash.

Spectactularly, the reports don't even bother to hide the real point. The Spanish government wants to ensure that it can "track transactions and make sure that people and businesses are paying taxes." It is surely part of a larger meme having to do with a "cashless" society. Just recently the UK Telegraph asked "Is mobile the way we'll all be paying?" The answer, as can be expected, was a qualified yes, but issued in the predictable upbeat way.

This callous disregard for travelers' rights merely paraphrases the words of Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano, who shares, with the president, ultimate responsibility for all TSA travesties since 2009. In November 2010, with the groping policy only a few weeks old, Napolitano dismissed complaints by saying "people [who] want to travel by some other means" have that right. (In other words: if you don't like it, don't fly.)

But now TSA is invading travel by other means, too. No surprise, really: as soon as she established groping in airports, Napolitano expressed her desire to expand TSA jurisdiction over all forms of mass transit. In the past year, TSA's snakelike VIPR (Visual Intermodal Prevention and Response) teams have been slithering into more and more bus and train stations – and even running checkpoints on highways – never in response to actual threats, but apparently more in an attempt to live up to the inspirational motto displayed at the TSA's air marshal training center since the agency's inception: "Dominate. Intimidate. Control."

Anyone who rode the bus in Houston, Texas during the 2-10pm shift last Friday faced random bag checks and sweeps by both drug-sniffing dogs and bomb-sniffing dogs (the latter being only canines necessary if "preventing terrorism" were the actual intent of these raids), all courtesy of a joint effort between TSA VIPR nests and three different local and county-level police departments. The new Napolitano doctrine, then: "Show us your papers, show us everything you've got, justify yourself or you're not allowed to go about your everyday business."

The USGS said the quake was recorded offshore, 51 miles south-southeast of the town of Manokwari, at a depth of 18.5 miles. It had initially estimated the magnitude of the tremor at 6.9 and 7.0. At least one major aftershock was recorded. In Manokwari, "the quake was felt quite strongly for a couple of seconds, and residents ran away from houses and buildings," said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the spokesman for the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. There were no immediate reports of damage, although the office is still waiting for reports from the regions, Nugroho added.

The more than 50 institutions that received approvals to operate remotely piloted aircraft are more varied than many outsiders and privacy experts previously knew. They include not only agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security but also smaller ones such as the police departments in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and Ogden, Utah, as well the University of North Dakota and Nicholls State University in Louisiana.

The information, released by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, came to light as the Federal Aviation Administration gears up to advance the widespread use of the drones. By the fall of 2015, Congress wants the agency to integrate remotely piloted aircraft throughout US airspace.

Although the documents don't indicate how the aircraft will be used, the disclosures likely will fuel privacy concerns involving drones. On Thursday, Democratic Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Representative Joe Barton of Texas asked the acting administrator of the FAA to answer questions about the privacy implications of increased drone use.

"Many drones are designed to carry surveillance equipment, including video cameras, infrared thermal imagers, radar and wireless network 'sniffers,'" the representatives wrote in their letter to Michael Huerta. Now that the FAA, under pressure from lawmakers and businesses, is pushing to increase the use of drones, it has "the responsibility to ensure that the privacy of individuals is protected and that the public is fully informed about who is using drones in public airspace and why," they wrote.

The FAA declined to comment.

As it became clear that it would be 2013 before Britain handed over its controversial £10 billion share of the global fighting fund, the chancellor backed plans for closer integration of the eurozone through common euro bonds. "Boosting IMF resources will not be enough on its own to secure the recovery," Osborne told the fund's key policymaking committee. "We also need a strong and co-ordinated global policy response if we are to exit the crisis."

The IMF was bracing itself for the judgment of the financial markets on the agreement to increase the size of its firewall by at least $430 billion (£267 billion). Doubts remained about whether the leading developing countries – Brazil in particular – would deliver on their pledge to increase the resources available to tackle a fresh outbreak of global turbulence.

The so-called Bric countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – have privately agreed that they will only make a decision on how much to contribute when the G20 group of advanced and emerging economies meets in Mexico in June. Sources said the Brics wanted to see hard evidence that they would have a bigger say in the running of the IMF before making firm commitments. UK sources said that Britain's £10 billion would only become available once changes to the IMF's governance had been completed, and they did not expect this to happen until after the US presidential elections in November.

Eruptions from the Popocatepetl volcano began to grow larger a week ago as columns of ash began pouring from more than 60 openings in the 17,886 foot high cone. On Friday a low pitched roar and rolling towers of ash and steam were spewed out as some of the pressure built up inside the magma chamber escaped. Glowing rock fragments have also been sighted more than 3,000 feet down the slopes of the volcano.

Mexico's National Disaster Prevention Centre have now raised the volcano alert level to "yellow stage three" – the third highest level. Tens of thousands of people live in the farming villages on the volcano's flanks while roughly 25 million people live within a 60 mile radius. It is feared the airborne ash could cause havoc with Mexico City's busy airport and a large eruption of Popo, as it is commonly known, could see ash falling on Mexico City itself, around 50 miles away.

“We are prepared with all options on the table if we have to respond,” Panetta said, adding that “there are plans” to deal with Iran if the country does not give up its nuclear ambitions. “I don’t think there is any question that if we have to implement that plan, it will be successful,” he added. This practical approach sees two American aircraft carriers, their battle groups, several submarines and additional Marines deployed to the Gulf waters. Both the US Navy and the Pentagon say the commissions are “routine.”

With all the military build-up in the area, Washington says the first round of nuclear talks with Tehran gave them “positive” feelings. However, no alleviating of sanctions against Iran’s economy has so far been debated in the White House, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared on Monday.

The USA seems to be between a rock and the hard place regarding the issue of Iran. On the one hand, Washington says they want Iran to drop nukes, but diplomacy comes first. On the other hand, the US has to restrain Israel as its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has branded the first round of talks with Iran an international “freebie” for the country. He also makes a point of mentioning at least once a month that Tehran is “an existential threat” to Israel.

Comparing climate change skeptics to residents in Tennessee who refused to pay a $75 fee, resulting in firemen sitting back and watching their houses burn down, Zwick rants that anyone who actively questions global warming propaganda should face the same treatment. “We know who the active denialists are – not the people who buy the lies, mind you, but the people who create the lies. Let’s start keeping track of them now, and when the famines come, let’s make them pay. Let’s let their houses burn. Let’s swap their safe land for submerged islands. Let’s force them to bear the cost of rising food prices,” writes Zwick, adding, “They broke the climate. Why should the rest of us have to pay for it?”

As we have profusely documented, as polls show that fewer and fewer Americans are convinced by the pseudo-science behind man-made global warming, promulgated as it is by control freaks like Zwick who care more about money and power than they do the environment, AGW adherents are becoming increasingly authoritarian in their pronouncements. Even as the science itself disproves their theories – Arctic ice is thickening, polar bears and penguins are thriving, Himalayan glaciers are growing – climate change alarmists are only becoming more aggressive in their attacks against anyone who dares question the global warming mantra.

Earlier this month we highlighted Professor Kari Norgaard’s call for climate skeptics to be likened to racists and ‘treated’ for having a mental disorder. In a letter to Barack Obama, Norgaard also called on the President to ignore the will of the people and suspend democracy in order to enforce draconian ecological mandates.

"This machine will harvest my entire field today," says Prashant Kadam, the young owner of the compact two-acre plot. "Had it been harvested by laborers, they would have taken at least a week." A short drive away in a field where the sun is just getting hot enough to halt work, a team of 12 couples cut cane the way it's been done for centuries - with machetes. They load the cane into carts each pulled by two white bullocks with gaily painted horns and head for the local mill which dominates this sugar-growing valley some 300 kilometers south of Mumbai.

It is a way of life that is fast disappearing in the world's second-biggest producer of rice, wheat and sugar. India is finally embracing mechanization after centuries of farming with methods the United States threw out with the British.

Many are angry at the disqualification of popular presidential candidates. The first presidential poll since Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power last year is due to be held next month. When the military took power it promised only to hold power until the election results were announced in June.

Jon Leyne, BBC News, Cairo, reports: This is probably the biggest demonstration here since last November, but what is even more significant is the range of opposition forces gathered. They are united by a range of issues, but particularly the disqualification of a number of presidential candidates. They are trying to put maximum pressure on the military to ensure a free and fair election next month, and also that the handover of power to civilian rule goes ahead as planned at the end of June.

The gathering is yet another warning to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) that if there is not seen to be a proper transition to democracy then Egypt could be in for a second revolution. The well-organised demonstration is peaceful, but takes Egypt into a new, tense phase that could last for several months.