Negotiations began in July 2013 and the 9th round starts on April 20 in New York. Karel De Gucht, a former EU commissioner for trade, said there is “a window of opportunity” to tie up the deal in 2015, or early 2016. Talk of a trade deal between the EU and US has been around for decades but the catalyst for action was the economic crisis in 2008.

The powers-that-be decided that, because the EU-US trade relationship was already the biggest in the world, it could be a relatively cheap way of boosting both economies. The idea is that, by removing trade barriers, it will make it easier and simpler to buy and sell goods and services.

Where are the main differences of opinion?

One key area where the US and EU differ is genetically modified foods.

The EU has some of the strictest GM regulations in the world and has authorised just 52 GM foods to date. The US, on the other hand, is the largest commercial grower of GM crops in the world. There is also concern that US producers will be able to sell their meat in European markets, even though it is produced to different standards. For example, chickens in the US are disinfected with chlorine, a practice banned in Europe.

The European Commission is negotiating the deal on behalf of the EU and its member states. But there are concerns around transparency, despite the recent efforts made by the Commission. The EC says the deal requires confidentiality, arguing that greater transparency would be like showing your hand to a rival card player.

Opposition to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is particularly high in Germany, in part due to rising anti-American sentiment linked to revelations of US spying and fears of digital domination by firms like Google. A recent YouGov poll showed that 43 percent of Germans believe TTIP would be bad for the country, compared to 26 percent who see it as positive.

The level of resistance has taken Chancellor Angela Merkel's government and German industry by surprise, and they are now scrambling to reverse the tide and save a deal which proponents say could add $100 billion in annual economic output on both sides of the Atlantic.

In Berlin, a crowd estimated by police at 1,500 formed a human chain winding from the Potsdamer Platz square, past the US embassy and through the Brandenburg Gate to offices of the European Commission. "I think this deal will open the door to genetically-modified foods here," said Jennifer Ruffatto, 28, who works with handicapped people and was pushing her baby in a stroller. "Companies will gain from this at the expense of people."

Helmut Edelhauesser, a 52-year-old from Brandenburg, said he would prefer a free trade deal with Russia. "The US push for world domination is unacceptable," he told Reuters. "Obama sends out drones to kill people and wins the Nobel peace prize. This has to stop." Marchers held up posters reading "People have a right to food not profits" and "Beware the TTIP trap - companies win, people lose!"

The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions.

The FBI errors alone do not mean there was not other evidence of a convict’s guilt. Defendants and federal and state prosecutors in 46 states and the District of Columbia are being notified to determine whether there are grounds for appeals. Four defendants were previously exonerated.

The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the US courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said.

Some commentators railing against the event referred to an online slide show allegedly created by USASOC, which outlined a special operations exercise slated to take place across multiple states, outside the confines of US military bases. In the slide show, a map of the southwest region of the United States labels Texas and other territory as “hostile” or “insurgent pocket.” The document also refers to coordination with law enforcement agencies.

Officials at USASOCM were not able to immediately verify the authenticity of the slide show because their computer firewalls prevented them from accessing the websites where the document appeared. Army Lieutenant Colonel Mark Lastoria, a USASOC spokesman, confirmed that there is an upcoming exercise called Jade Helm 15 which is scheduled to take place this summer at locations in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, California and Nevada.

But he denied the event is preparation for some sort of military takeover. He said his office has been receiving a lot of calls from people who heard about the exercise and are concerned about “the nature of the training objectives.”

Major General Gary Cheek, Army assistant deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and policy, told reporters on April 14 that 24 AH-64 Apache helicopters from Germany will join a company, or 12, unmanned Gray Eagles in Alaska by 2017.

Only one combat aviation brigade (CAB) is permanently stationed in Europe, the 12th CAB, headquartered in Katterbach. An Army spokesman would not confirm it as the source of the Apaches — a sensitive issue as the Army has yet to formally announce two of the three combat aviation brigades it plans to render inactive. With budget-driven efforts to draw down its presence in Europe on the one hand and a need to deter Russian aggression on the other, the US is walking a fine line. Analysts said moving Apaches now would be out of balance.

"At a time when the US is rightly pressing our European allies to do more, reducing real capability in Europe sends the wrong message — to our allies and to the Russians," said former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "This is a time when budget decisions need to be reviewed in terms of geopolitical reality — which now includes a growing Russian threat to security in Europe."

To the south in Yemen, Shiite Muslim militias that had seized control of the capital, Sana, last year began advancing on the southern commercial hub of Aden, where the Saudi-backed president had set up a parallel government. To the Saudis, the implications were clear: Iran, which Riyadh says is supporting the Yemeni rebels known as Houthis, was making a play to extend its reach into their backyard. The response was swift: The king assembled a coalition of fellow Sunni states and launched punishing airstrikes in Yemen aimed at reinstating the now-exiled President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi.

The operation, now in its fourth week, is a dramatic departure for Saudi Arabia, which has preferred to use diplomacy, cash and religion to defend its interests and influence over the Persian Gulf region. Analysts say the air war signals a shift to a more muscular foreign policy that no longer relies on the United States to take an active role in protecting the oil-rich nation and defending vital shipping lanes for its tankers.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal accused Iran of meddling in Yemen, saying the kingdom is "not at war with Iran." Hadi had asked the Saudis to intervene to "protect the legitimacy of the state" and prevent the Houthis from occupying all of Yemen, Faisal told reporters in the Saudi capital.

A quote from Thomas Jefferson flashes across the screen in blood-red colours: "We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." We learn that public debt in the rich economies fell from 124 percent of GDP at the end of Second World War to 29 percent in 1973, a dream era that we have left behind.

The debt burden has since climbed at a compound rate of 2 percent a year, accelerating into an upward spiral to 105 percent of GDP after the Lehman crash. It is as if we had fought another world war. Christine Lagarde, the Fund's managing-director, calls it the "New Mediocre". The painful ritual of her IMF tenure has been to admit at each meeting that the previous forecasts were too hopeful. First it was Europe's debt crisis. Now it is because China, Brazil, Russia, and a host of mini-BRICS have hit the limits of easy catch-up growth.

This year the curse was finally broken. There will be no downgrade. The IMF is crossing its fingers that world growth will still be 3.5 percent for 2015. Yet the Fund's underlying message is that sky-high debt ratios and old-age populations are a dangerous mix, leaving the world prone to the "Japanese" diseases of deflation and atrophy. The monetary and fiscal buffers are largely exhausted. Authorities have little left in their policy arsenal to fight the next downturn, whenever it comes.

Six people have already died from anaphylactic shock after being stung by the insects which originally come from China but have spread across the world. Next month the Department of Environment’s National Bee Unit is to meet in Suffolk for a seminar on how to tackle the predators, which can devour up to 50 honey bees a day.

UK beekeepers have been sent email alerts by Defra asking them to be on the look-out for the menaces. Members of the public are being urged not to approach nests, which are usually found high in trees or on the sides of buildings. Most people die after disturbing a nest and being stung multiple times, which can cause those with allergies to suffer a fatal reaction.

The offer of Russian largesse comes as no surprise. During Alexis Tsipras's trip to Moscow earlier this month, Vladimir Putin hailed the gas project - dubbed "Turkish Stream" - as providing "hundreds of millions of euros of transit taxes a year, just like that,” to the stricken economy. Syriza's firebrand Leftist energy minister has also promised to threaten Europe's "deep economic and geo-strategic interests" in a bid to finally gain some leeway in the country's acrimonious bail-out negotiations. "We still do not know our own strength," said Panagiotis Lafanzis, head of Syriza's Left Platform, who attacked Greece's creditors as "neo-colonial powers".

"Several of the so-called partners and certainly some in the International Monetary Fund want to denigrate and humiliate our government, blackmailing us to implement measures against the working classes," said the uncompromising minister. A potential €5 billion advance would certainly help alleviate the immediate financial pressures on the Leftist government. Every month, Syriza faces a €1.7 billion social security bill, on top of its commitments to payback its lenders. The latest is an €80 million interest bill to the European Central Bank due on Monday. Yet, should Russian money reach Athens' coffers as early as next week, it could help Athens stay afloat until mid-June.

But in the absence of any further bridging funds, Greece could well be scrambling to make ends meet by the end of June, when a combined €2 billion will be due to the Greek people and the IMF.

The Pope underscored that all Christians “must be firm in deploring all forms of anti-Semitism, and in showing their solidarity with the Jewish people.” He also remarked on the recent seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the concentration camp “which has come to be synonymous with the great tragedy of the Shoah.” “The memory of what took place there, in the heart of Europe, is a warning to present and future generations,” he said. “Acts of hatred and violence against Christians and the faithful of other religions must likewise be condemned everywhere,” he added.

Pope Francis also proposed that in the face of rampant secularism in Europe and other parts of the world, Jews and Christians have a co-responsibility to keep faith in God alive. Both Jews and Christians, he said, have “the blessing but also the responsibility to help preserve the religious sense of the men and women of today, and that of our society.” European society, he said, is “increasingly marked by secularism and threatened by atheism,” and “we run the risk of living as if God did not exist.”

The Pope appealed for a common Judeo-Christian witness “to the sanctity of God and human life.” God is holy, he said, “and the life He has given is holy and inviolable.” Francis noted that for almost fifty years, “the dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community has progressed in a systematic way,” which calls for gratitude to the Lord, “rejoicing in our progress and in the friendship which has grown between us,” he said.

Some experts have said that climate change bringing excessive heat can make some areas more susceptible to dust storms, but one European scientist pointed out that the number of dust storms over the decades has always been variable. The footage of the dust storm in Belarus, filmed from a high rise apartment, shows traffic moving along a busy street in the province of Salihorsk, south of the capital of Minsk on Monday afternoon.

As dark clouds move over the city, the entire area is plunged into darkness - forcing motorists to turn on their lights as they navigate the darkened roads. The storm was caused by a cold front moving in from the Ukrainian-Belorusian border, reported RT. Earlier this month Britain was shrouded in a cloud of Saharan dust, known as 'blood rain,' as the temperatures soared. And incredible pictures also taken at the beginning of April showed the moment ferocious red sandstorms devoured a city in China's north west. China's pollution hit cities are now having to cope with a fresh nuisance - the massive sandstorm that struck the north-west of the country being the fourth this year alone.

In December a small town in Queensland, Australia, experienced a dust storm that residents said was unprecedented in magnitude. Clouds of dirt engulfed the town of Bedourie, in Queensland's south-west, bringing with it a thick, dusty night for more than 90 minutes. The Middle East has also experienced several huge sandstorms this year.

This week Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran experienced severe dust storms and last week the Arabian Peninsula was hit by a sandstorm the size of the US. And in February raging sandstorms engulfed Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt causing the worst Israeli air pollution in years and whipping up huge waves in the Mediterranean Sea.

NSW Premier Mike Baird also said that 200,000 homes remain without power as of Tuesday, adding that the storm could get worse in the Hunter and Central Coast regions. The minister for police and emergency services David Elliott described the disaster as “once in a decade storm, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2007.”

“Today’s events are going to test our emergency services but they are there to be tested. We have seen, as the Premier said, 4,500 responses thus far,” he added.

When the system started to fail back in 2008, global authorities responded by pumping this debt spiral back up and getting it to spin even faster than ever. If you can believe it, the total amount of global debt has risen by $35 trillion since the last crisis. Unfortunately, any system based on debt is going to break down eventually, and there are signs that it is starting to happen once again.

For example, just a few days ago the IMF warned regulators to prepare for a global “liquidity shock“. And on Friday, Chinese authorities announced a ban on certain types of financing for margin trades on over-the-counter stocks, and we learned that preparations are being made behind the scenes in Europe for a Greek debt default and a Greek exit from the eurozone.

On top of everything else, we just witnessed the biggest spike in credit application rejections ever recorded in the United States. All of these are signs that credit conditions are tightening, and once a “liquidity squeeze” begins, it can create a lot of fear.

So what is the bottom line to all of this? The bottom line is that we are starting to see the early phases of a liquidity squeeze. The flow of credit is going to begin to get tighter, and that means that global economic activity is going to slow down. This happened during the last financial crisis, and during this next financial crisis the credit crunch is going to be even worse.

This is why it is so important to have an emergency fund. During this type of crisis, you may have to be the source of your own liquidity. At a time when it seems like nobody has any cash, those that do have some will be way ahead of the game.