Marcelo Castro said that nearly 220,000 members of Brazil’s armed forces would go door-to-door to help in mosquito eradication efforts, according to Rio de Janeiro’s O Globo newspaper. It also quoted Castro as saying the government would distribute mosquito repellent to some 400,000 pregnant women who receive cash-transfer benefits.

But all major Brazilian dailies quoted Castro as saying the country is “badly losing the battle” against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. “The mosquito has been here in Brazil for three decades, and we are badly losing the battle against the mosquito,” the Folha de S Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying as a crisis group on Zika was meeting in the capital, Brasília.

Alarm over the virus, linked to a rising number of mental birth defects among children of mothers infected by it, comes two weeks before the nationwide Carnival celebrations, a highlight of Brazil’s tourism calendar. It also comes 200 days before Rio de Janeiro hosts the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics, the first ever to be held in South America.

Following a warning by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week that pregnant women should not travel to 14 countries and territories in the Caribbean and Latin America where the virus has spread, Brazil’s health ministry said pregnant women should seek medical advice before visiting.

Municipal authorities in São Paulo, the country’s biggest city, said they had distributed faster testing materials to help public hospitals identify patients infected with dengue, another mosquito-borne virus whose outbreaks have worsened in recent years.

Despite the spreading alarm, local officials in the run-up to the Olympics and Carnival say current measures to prevent the spread of Zika and other mosquito-borne viruses should be enough to ensure that tourists and locals minimise the chance of infection.

After a few days, she recovered and for the next five months everything appeared to be fine. But in the final weeks before the birth of her son, Lorenzo, the scans began to show that his brain was not developing properly. Now aged one and half months, Lorenzo was born with microcephaly, a neurological disorder that stunts the growth of the baby’s cranium, limiting it to a circumference of less than 33cm.

Typically, life expectancy for babies born with the condition is reduced. In 90% of cases, brain function is also reduced. Lorenzo is one of four babies born with the condition recently in the city of Campinas, amid a nationwide rise in incidences of the condition. So far this year, 1,248 cases have been reported in 14 states across Brazil, compared with just 59 in 2014.

The north-east has been hit hardest, with 646 cases reported in the state of Pernambuco, where the local authorities declared a state of emergency on 1 December. Though it is not official policy, Cláudio Maierovitch, the director of the communicable disease surveillance department at the ministry of health, has advised women in high-risk areas to avoid attempting to conceive. “Don’t get pregnant at the moment,” he said. “That’s the wisest course of action.”

The incident took place in the center of the small town of Sonderborg in southern Denmark at about 10 pm local time Wednesday. She told police that an English-speaking man knocked her to the ground, tried to unbutton her pants and undress her. However, she was apparently able to protect herself as she pulled out pepper spray and used it against the man, who escaped the scene and hasn’t been charged.

Police say that the girl may face a fine. “It is illegal to possess and use pepper spray, so she will likely be charged for that,” local police spokesman Knud Kirsten said, as cited by TV Syd. According to The Local, the girl’s fine could be about 500 kroner ($72) and that has sparked outrage on social media.

The Swedish chemist and mineralogist, Georg Brandt discovered it in the year 1735. Cobalt is widely used in batteries and in electroplating. It is estimated that more than 50% of the world’s cobalt is mined from the DRC. In the past, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund estimated that more than 40,000 children were working in cobalt mines in the DRC.

In this latest report, Amnesty International said it has documented evidence of children as young as seven-years-old working in cobalt mines. The children are reportedly mining the cobalt that is being used in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries. Apple and Microsoft are said to be purchasing these batteries without doing any proper background checks.

The American technology companies purchasing these exploited minerals are responsible for fueling the conflict in the DRC, according to a 2001 report by the United Nations. The country’s economy has declined drastically since the mid-1980s. Its citizens are among the poorest people on earth. The Congolese people are consistently assigned the lowest, or near lowest, nominal GDP (gross domestic product) per capita in the world.

“I have serious concerns about this,” he continued. “I expect more responsible decisions from you, as a physicist.” Merkel shrugged off the interruption, claiming, “I will meet my responsibility and do everything to ensure Germany has a good future.”

The man was quickly escorted out of the room and now faces legal action from Merseburg University, which vowed to review his position and take legal action against him for “damaging the faculty’s reputation.” The professor was undoubtedly referring to Germany’s open border policy and the migrant rape epidemic that culminated in the mass sexual molestation of women in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve.

On January 14, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, upheld the agency’s order and the fines, a decision the Alliance Defending Freedom - which represented Robert and Cynthia Gifford - said amounted to confirming, “that the government can punish the Giffords for declining to coordinate a ceremony that conflicts with their conscience.” The couple lives in a barn they built on their farm and have occasionally hosted weddings on the first floor and the surrounding backyard area, according to ADF.

“After the agency ruled that the Giffords were guilty of ‘sexual orientation discrimination,’ it fined them $10,000, plus $3,000 in damages and ordered them to implement re-education training classes designed to contradict the couple’s religious beliefs about marriage,” a press release issued following the court decision stated. In order to comply with the order, the couple will have to attend those “re-training” classes or have a “trainer” come to them, according to ADF.

“All Americans should be free to live and work according to their beliefs, especially in our own backyards,” ADF legal counsel Caleb Dalton, who argued before the court on behalf of the couple in Gifford vs Erwin, said in a statement. “The government went after both this couple’s freedom and their ability to make a living simply for adhering to their faith on their own property.”

The Vatican in a statement said the conversation delved into the nuclear accord recently taking effect and "the important role that Iran was called to play" to combat terrorism along with other countries in the region. Iran was also urged to help fight arms trafficking, the Vatican said.

The Vatican described the talks as "cordial" and said "common spiritual values were highlighted," as well as good Iranian-Vatican relations. After the meeting, Iran's president asked Pope Francis to pray for him. The Vatican meeting was a key part of an Iranian effort to take a more prominent place on the world stage after a nuclear deal with Western powers.

Rouhani's visit to the Holy See saw the first meeting between a pope and an Iranian president since 1999. Iran is eager to carve out a bigger role in mediating Middle East conflicts. Francis' papacy has emphasized mediation and conflict resolution, including his role in helping Cuba and the United States to normalize their relations.

Tehran is keen on re-establishing energy and other economic ties with Europe, long a dependable trading partner. Iran also wants to end decades of diplomatic distance with the West in the wake of the landmark deal with six nations, including the United States, to curb Tehran's nuclear activities and end economic sanctions. Before going to the Vatican, Rouhani told a forum of business leaders in Rome that "Iran is the safest and most stable country of the entire region."

Italy also sees Iran as a potential peacemaker in Syria's civil war, as the Italian government fears the warfare will further destabilize Libya, just across the Mediterranean from southern Italy, fuel terrorism and jeopardize energy security. "Italy has always backed the role of Iran as a regional player in resolving tensions in the area, starting with the Syrian crisis," Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said after meeting his Iranian counterpart, according to his office.

Renzi said he will visit the island of Ventotene next Saturday in a sign of this renewed desire for a different, more cohesive and socially inclusive EU. The small island off the coast of Lazio housed a Fascist prison during World War II, and two of the founding fathers of the European Union were held there by the Mussolini dictatorship.

This was where Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi came up with the Ventotene Manifesto of 1941, which was circulated within the Italian Resistance and soon became the programme of the European Federalist Movement. The Manifesto encouraged a federation of European states in a bid to prevent future wars. "During their Fascist incarceration Spinelli, Rossi and their comrades had the lucidity and the vision to build the future," Renzi wrote.

"They were in prison, World War II was raging outside, and yet they were imagining the United States of Europe". Former Communist Spinelli was a member of the European Commission for six years and an MEP for 10 years, right up until his death in 1986. The main building of the European Parliament in Brussels is named after him.

Chinese stocks had earlier dived to their lowest level since 2014, as traders hit the panic button and sold off in a worried frenzy. The shares have lost an incredible 22 per cent in value this year alone, as investors worry about the country's slowing economy and weakness in its currency.

Policymakers are desperately trying to stop money leaving the country. It comes as oil prices fell back below $30 a barrel and looked set to fall lower than 12-year depths hit last week, as supply continues to far outweigh demand.

Experts fear lower oil prices could start bankrupting the many companies dependent upon its profits. Yesterday the head of the Opec, which includes Saudi Arabia, called for all oil-producing nations to work together to cut production and stabilise prices. This would mean working with Russia and the US to cut supply, which would be a difficult alliance to manage.

Indeed, these figures categorically debunk the notion the criminal justice system in the United States maintains any semblance of its formation’s original intent: to ensure the guilty suffer punishment befitting their crimes, while the innocent avoid false conviction.

As the fundamental basis for the justice system in the United States, the Sixth Amendment states: “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.”

Justice, as an untold — though no doubt, appalling — number can attest, has been utterly abandoned for the interests of the careless expedience, apathetic convenience, and unabashed profiteering of the US prison-industrial machine.

“The reality is that almost no one who is imprisoned in America has gotten a trial,” explains award-winning journalist, Chris Hedges, in a recent Truthdig column. “There is rarely an impartial investigation. A staggering 97 percent of all federal cases and 95 percent of all state felony cases are resolved through plea bargaining.”