It means that Britain would no longer be forced to abide by the Working Time Directive, which for eurosceptics has become a totemic symbol of Brussels’ interference in the British economy. The move will delight Conservative backbenchers, who had warned that Mr Cameron’s renegotiation strategy has been insufficiently ambitious in clawing back powers from Brussels.

Many Conservative MPs worry that the changes Mr Cameron has so far suggested, which focus on new welfare rules preventing EU migrants accessing benefits for four years, do not go far enough. They have demanded he sets out a detailed package of reforms before the autumn Tory conference.

Rather, Britain could emerge from the EU to enjoy a free-trade only relationship and become more prosperous, they argue. Thomas Aeschi, of the Swiss People’s Party and a former banker at Credit Suisse, said that the UK’s exit could see the bloc move in a more protectionist direction, harming its remaining members.

“There are certainly some countries that are on the line, waiting to see how the EU develops. If the UK were to leave, it could trigger a chain reaction,” he said, noting that Denmark and Sweden “would at least start reconsidering their relationship with the EU”. A British departure could have a domino effect across the rest of the bloc, encouraging other nations to seek their own independence, and boost economic growth.

Ms Yellen, however, remained cautious, saying she still saw slack in the jobs market, which has been a key factor in how the Fed approaches its first rate hike since 2006. "We will be watching carefully to see if there is continued improvement in labour market conditions, and we will need to be reasonably confident that inflation will move back to 2 percent in the next few years," she said.

She also stressed that the move toward a tighter monetary policy would be gradual and that Fed policy would need to remain supportive of economic growth "for quite some time".

In Bolivia last Thursday, he urged the downtrodden to change the world economic order, denouncing a "new colonialism" by agencies that impose austerity programs and calling for the poor to have the "sacred rights" of labor, lodging and land.

"Putting bread on the table, putting a roof over the heads of one's children, giving them health and an education, these are essential for human dignity," he said.

He urged politicians and business leaders "not to yield to an economic model which is idolatrous, which needs to sacrifice human lives on the altar of money and profit." He said those charged with promoting economic development must ensure it had "a human face" and he blasted "the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."

It will become increasingly common to see obese parents in some developing countries raising underweight and stunted children because high-calorie food is cheaper and more readily available than the nutritious food needed for healthy growth, said Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“We are certainly looking at a period of increased instability in the supply of food, and also the diversity and types of food that are available are going to change,” said Dr Dangour, who is to lead a major study into global food insecurity and its impact on health. “A result of this is called the ‘double burden’ of malnutrition,” he added. “Under-nutrition causes starvation and stunting in children, whereas obesity and over-weight in adults is another form of malnutrition, caused by eating the wrong type of food.”

Such “exorcisms … have helped bring awareness that there is such a thing as sin influenced by Satan,” said Monsignor John Esseff, a priest for 62 years in the Diocese of Scranton, Philadelphia, and an exorcist for more than 35 years. “The devil has much to do with [influencing people in] breaking the law of God,” he said. But an exorcism over the United States is unlikely, according to Monsignor Esseff.

According to Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, demonic activity has been increasing in the United States because people are choosing to be dissuaded away from God and opening portals such as New Age and witchcraft that are gateways to the demonic. “When faith becomes thin and Satan and agents of Satan move in, there are going to be effects,” he said. “It was Pope Benedict XVI who said that as faith diminishes, superstition increases.”

The trailer for the show, which has been widely criticized by YouTube respondents, features white people expressing angst about how they are desperate not to appear “racist” or “offend people.” According to Kimberly Ricci, the documentary forces the participants “to internalize what they’ve done in America” – in other words, this a huge exercise in white guilt tripping for public consumption. An MTV write up of the show also explains how Vargas talks to young Native Americans who feel that European settlers did not ‘save the country’. “They are the ones who invaded. They are the ones who took,” says Vargas.

In the interests of balance, when will Vargas be fronting a show called Black People that collectively blames all black people for black crime statistics, including the fact that black people in America commit over half of homicides despite making up only 13 per cent of the population?

How about the fact that despite being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than vice-versa?

How about the fact that interracial rapes are almost exclusively black on white?

How about the Barbary slave trade, under which over 1 million white Christian Europeans were enslaved in North Africa until the middle of the 18th century?

Are black people going to be shown crying on camera having been shamed into taking responsibility for all of this? No, because that would be racist. But according to MTV and Vargas, subjecting someone to trial by media purely because of their skin color is perfectly acceptable – so long as they are white.

This documentary represents the culmination of years of race-baiting and racial division which is being driven by the mass media and the Obama White House, tensions which have rapidly accelerated since the Ferguson and Baltimore riots. Many in the liberal media are celebrating the show, with Kristen Yoonsoo remarking how pleased she is about the fact that, “lots of white people tears lie ahead.” “It’s always a good time poking fun at white people,” she concludes.

The notion that Sunday's referendum would persuade Germany to spend more taxpayers' money on bailing out Greece was angrily dismissed by numerous renegade Christian Democrat (CDU) MPs in media interviews. "We must now end this experiment with the reform-reluctant Greeks," said Christian von Stetten, head of the CDU's small business association group in parliament. Earlier, he described Greek government representatives as "rip-off merchants" and "conmen".

Andreas Scheuer, general secretary of the Bavarian wing of Ms Merkel's conservatives, was more emphatic. "Greece has said No and as far as we are concerned that means no to negotiations and to a further aid package," he told Germany's 'Bild' newspaper. Other leading conservatives said they agreed with the finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who has said that the "honest and consequent approach" would be for Greece to leave the eurozone.

Ms Merkel has been at odds with her finance minister by insisting over past months that Greece should remain inside. 'Der Spiegel' magazine warned yesterday that Ms Merkel would have to "reckon with rebels" if and when the issue of further Greek aid is put before parliament, as it must be under German law.

The comments by the head of state underline growing concern about hostility towards immigrants in Germany, which last year saw the emergence of the grassroots anti-Islam group PEGIDA. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 150 attacks on refugee shelters - nearly as many as in the whole of 2014.

Gauck called on citizens to stand up and defend Germany's democratic and liberal values by welcoming refugees from countries afflicted by war and human rights abuses.

Francis and Morales have met on several occasions, most recently in October when the president, a former coca farmer, participated in a Vatican summit of grassroots groups of indigenous and advocates for the poor who have been championed by Francis. Their shared views on the need for wealthy countries to drastically change course to address climate change bump up against Morales' anti-clerical initiatives that have roiled relations with the local church.

Taking up the global warming issue in Quito on Tuesday, Francis pressed the arguments made in his headline-grabbing encyclical earlier this month that the planet must not be exploited by the wealthy few for short-term profit at the expense of the poor.

The government declared a national holiday so workers and students could attend the Mass, which featured prayers in Guarani and Aimara, two of Bolivia's indigenous languages, and an altar carved from wood by artisans of the Chiquitano people. In a blending of the native and new, the famously unpretentious pope changed into his vestments for the Mass in a nearby Burger King.

Speaking to the crowd in South America's poorest country, Francis decried the prevailing mentality of the world economy where so many people are "discarded" today — the poor, the elderly, those who are unproductive. "It is a mentality in which everything has a price, everything can be bought, everything is negotiable," he said. "This way of thinking has room only for a select few, while it discards all those who are unproductive."

Six years later, that was expanded into a common market for everything else with the European Economic Community, and that in turn was expanded to include more and more countries before it became a part of the then-new European Union in 1993. The common currency came next in 1999, which has, yes, been expanded since, with Lithuania becoming its latest member just this year.

But now, for the first time in 60 years, this process of ever closer union might be reversing itself, at least a little. Greece really might be forced out of the euro if it doesn't come to terms with Europe by Sunday — that's the new and final deadline — and from there, who knows. It's possible this could actually make it easier for the rest of the euro zone to come even closer together, or it could be the beginning of the end of the dream of a United States of Europe. But in either case, the continent's political future is at stake.

The euro, in other words, was doomed to fail as it was constructed, but that failure was part of the plan. First you create a common currency that people want, and then, when the inevitable crisis comes, you have no choice but to create a common government that people don't — right? Well, no. The only thing less popular than a bailout is a bailout that never ends, which is what a fiscal union really is. Indeed, the Germans don't want to keep giving money to the Greeks, and the Greeks don't want to keep being told what to do by the Germans. So the irony is that the euro has made a single government more important than ever at the same time that it's made the idea more hated than ever.

The majority of the $10 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, will be spent on Russia’s agricultural projects, as well as on medicine, logistics, and the country’s retail and real estate sectors, RDIF chief Kirill Dmitriev told The Wall Street Journal.

Facing a political standoff with the West, Moscow has been turning eastward, saying it would seek Asian investors to reduce reliance on Europe and the US. In early May, Russia signed economic deals with China via the RDIF worth up to $25 billion, with Chinese banks investing in Russian companies.

But what about the rest of the country? From coast to coast, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in violent crime, and the economy is not even crashing yet. So what is going to happen when the next great economic crisis hits us, unemployment skyrockets, and people really start hurting?

Milwaukee, which had one of its lowest annual homicide totals in city history last year, has recorded 84 murders so far this year, more than double the 41 it tallied at the same point last year. Baltimore, New Orleans and St Louis have also seen the number of murders jump 33% or more in 2015. Meanwhile, Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, has seen the homicide toll climb by 19% and the number of shooting incidents increase in the city by 21% during the first half of the year.

In all the cities, the increased violence is disproportionately impacting poor and predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods. In parts of Milwaukee, the sound of gunfire has become so expected that about 80% of gunfire detected by ShotSpotter sensors aren’t even called into police by residents, Flynn said.

The homicide total for Baltimore for the year has risen to at least 154, according to police news releases. That’s an increase of more than 40 percent compared with the same time last year. Shootings have increased more than 80 percent. For the first time in more than a decade, overall crime is up in Los Angeles through the first six months of the year, rising by more than 12%, according to figures released Wednesday.

I believe that we have reached a turning point. I believe that we have entered a period of time when violent crime in the United States is going to start skyrocketing – especially once the next major economic downturn arrives. Meanwhile, budget cuts are forcing police forces to cut back all over the nation. For example, the number of patrol officers in the city of Detroit has been reduced by 37 percent in the last three years alone…

Most Greeks never imagined that they would be plunged into a multi-year economic depression that would ultimately lead to “bank holidays”, long lines at ATM machines, and people diving into dumpsters in a frantic search for something to sell. And this is just the beginning of the chaos in Greece – things are going to get much, much worse for them. Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call for millions upon millions of clueless Americans out there, because we are on the exact same path that Greece has gone down.

The sad truth is that no amount of “American exceptionalism” is going to prevent us from suffering the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions. We are steamrolling toward our own version of economic collapse, and when that time arrives you don’t want to be caught totally unprepared for it. In some cities in the United States, it only takes an inch or two of snow during the winter to set off panic hoarding at local supermarkets and hardware stores.

So what is going to happen during a real crisis? But that could never happen in America, right? After all, aren’t we “the greatest nation in the world”? Sadly, what we experienced in 2008 was just a preview. We have piled up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the planet, our financial system has been transformed into a gigantic casino, and our leaders have been making some of the dumbest decisions imaginable for decades. In the end, all of our foolishness is going to catch up with us in a big way.