Developed by Odortec, an Israeli company that specializes in scent-based weapons for law enforcement, in collaboration with the Israeli police, skunk water emits a stench that has been described as a cross between a rotting animal corpse, raw sewage and human excrement. The smell is so strong that Israeli police refuse to store the substance inside their stations.

Released at high pressure from a water cannon attached to the top of a military truck, the skunk odor sticks to walls, clothing, hair and skin for days and is impossible to wash away. Ramallah-based activist and writer Mariam Barghouti once told The Electronic Intifada’s Patrick Strickland that “the water lingers on your skin to a point when you want to rip your skin off.”

The German public are said to be excited about the prospect of the royal visit and Mrs Merkel will attend a dinner with Mr Cameron at the Bellevue Palace on June 24, the day before a vital two-day meeting with other European leaders.

Downing Street insists that the Germans have invited Mr Cameron to the dinner and that the timing is coincidental.

However, the visit and dinner could barely have come at a better time for the Prime Minister as he is struggling to attract European allies in his attempts to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU.

The agenda was poverty, and Francis inveighed against the “economy of exclusion” as he addressed Mr Ban’s delegation at the Apostolic Palace. But in an informal meeting with Mr Ban and his advisers, Francis shifted the discussion to the environment and how environmental degradation weighed heaviest on the poor.

“This is the pope of the poor,” said Robert Orr, who attended the May 2014 meeting as Mr Ban’s special adviser on climate change and described the informal conversation with Francis. “The fact that he is making the link to the planet is really significant.”

On Thursday, Francis will release his first major teaching letter, known as an encyclical, on the theme of the environment and the poor. Given the pope’s widespread popularity, and his penchant for speaking out on major global issues, the encyclical is being treated as a milestone that could place the Roman Catholic Church at the forefront of a new coalition of religion and science.

Francis, the first pope from the developing world, clearly wants the document to have an impact: Its release comes during a year with three major international policy meetings, most notably a United Nations climate change conference in Paris in December. This month, the Vatican sent notifications to bishops around the world with instructions for spreading the pope’s environmental message to the more than one billion Catholics worldwide.

By wading into the environment debate, Francis is seeking to redefine a secular topic, one usually framed by scientific data, using theology and faith. And based on Francis’ prior comments, and those of influential cardinals, the encyclical is also likely to include an economic critique of how global capitalism, while helping lift millions out of poverty, has also exploited nature and created vast inequities.

“We clearly need a fundamental change of course, to protect the earth and its people — which in turn will allow us to dignify humanity,” Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, who oversaw the drafting of the encyclical, said at a conference on climate change this spring at the Vatican.

Bioethics benefits: “Bioethics is better than it would otherwise have been, because people queer in their sexual interests and identities have challenged misconceived concepts of health and disease, challenged obstacles to access and equity in healthcare, and forced attention to professional standards in clinical care, among other things.”

Defending LGBT parenting: To show that the battle is not completely over, Murphy cites Oxford philosopher John Finnis’s implacable opposition to adoption by male and female homosexuals as “intrinsically evil”. Putting “skepticism about LGBT people as fit parents fully behind it” will be one of the first tasks of fully developed LGBT bioethics.

Promoting new reproductive technologies: In the not-too-distant future it may be possible to use stem cell technology to create synthetic gametes for gay and lesbian couples. This will allow them to raise their own genetic children. “This option would go a long way in helping transgender people express and consolidate their gender identity,” writes Murphy.

Another development could be “male pregnancies”: Now that it is possible to transplant a uterus, why couldn’t males bear children? Paying for them: Shouldn’t insurers and the government pay for these very expensive technologies, if they already cover costs for heterosexual couples? “We need to begin asking these LGBT-centric questions.”

According to the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics], after a torrid 2014, in which there was a 24% surge in beef prices which central planners blamed on everything except their policies, in May the Beef and Veal price index just rose to a new all time high of 260.8, up 12.3% from a year ago, and up 30% in the past two years.

So yes, aside from soaring rent prices and costs of food that won't actually force you into an early grave, there is almost no inflation anywhere. Well, except gasoline prices too. After dropping sharply through the end of 2014 and in January, they have unambiguously surged pretty much in a diagonal line ever since.

The political left is hoping for a document that ties belief in global warming to a religious obligation. Climate skeptics have already started criticizing the document. The choice of Professor John Schnellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as one of three presenters may be giving the left added hope and giving skeptics severe heartburn. He has been described as one of the more aggressive scientists on the question of man-made global warming.

In a talk given to what’s described as the “failed” 2009 Copenhagen climate conference, reported in the New York Times, Schnellnhuber, who has advised German President Angela Merkel and is a visiting professor at Oxford, said of global warming: “In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something - namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people.”

Schnellnhuber is also author of what’s called the “two-degree target” that says governments must not allow the temperature to rise more than 2 degrees higher than at the start of the industrial revolution. Any higher, the theory holds, and much life on earth would either perish or be gravely harmed.

To deal with climate issues, he has also called for an “Earth Constitution that would transcend the UN Charter” along with the creation of a “Global Council… elected by all the people on Earth” and a “Planetary Court… a transnational legal body open to appeals from everybody, especially with respect to violations of the Earth Constitution.”

In 1986, Monckton was among the first to advise the prime minister that “global warming” caused by carbon dioxide should be investigated. Monckton has since become a vocal advocate that global warming — subsequently called climate change, most recently camouflaged by the term “sustainable development,” doesn’t exist.

Monckton believes the Obama administration is spending vast amounts of money on “trashing their own economy by driving every steelworks and aluminum works overseas, by not allowing the development of the XL pipeline, interfering with fracking, and establishing a war on coal.” He contends that all of this has had “catastrophic effects on the jobs of the very people that will be foolishly voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016.” Bannon asked Monckton why does he believe Pope Francis is getting involved in the climate change movement, which he is about to justify in a Vatican encyclical this week.

Monckton explained that if one looks at the book of Genesis (“with dominion over the earth comes responsibility”) and heroes of the church like St Francis of Assisi, taking care of the earth has always been “part of established Catholic social teachings. Nothing new in any of that. But what happened was a communist managed to get control of the pontifical academies of sciences and social sciences — Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo.”

According to Monckton, Sorondo is an “out and out marxist who decided that climate change was useful to marxism.” Monckton said that Sorondo could care less whether climate change is true or not. He ignored information from the Vatican’s most influential scientists demonstrating that global warming was more theoretical than empirical. Francis, who was brought up in the Communist tradition of liberation theology in Latin America, encourages Sorondo.

Monckton further explained that Francis is influenced by extremist Professor John Schnellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who said in 2009 at a climate conference in Copenhagen that if we let global warming continue, six billion of the seven billion people on earth will be killed by it. Monckton said that Schnellnhuber will be standing by the side of Pope Francis when they announce the encyclical next week. “The fact that Schnellnhuber is going to be there is an extremely bad sign,” he declared.

The influence that Schnellnhuber may have had over the papal letter worries Monckton. The fact that he will be there next to the pope suggests to Monckton that Francis is thanking him for having written the climate portion of the encyclical.

The segment included supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, "It's June 8th, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99" (on the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39). Another clip featured this prediction for the current year: "Gas reached over $9 a gallon" (in reality, gas costs an average of $2.75).

Ultimately, ABC delayed the air-date for Earth 2100 and the one-hour show didn't debut until June 2, 2009. The program showcased the terrible impact of global warming from 2015 through 2100. In the special, a "storm of the century" wiped out Miami. Other highlights included a destroyed New York City and an abandoned Las Vegas. By 2084, Earth's population will apparently be just 2.7 billion.

The measure, meant to give assistance funds to re-train workers, has been supported by Democrats in the past, but only 40 Democrats voted in Obama’s favor. The “no” vote was cast with a strong push by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, which claimed that bill would have hurt American workers. The president really went to the mat for this bill, too. On Wednesday, he made a rare trip to the House to impress upon Democrats how important his bill was to him. He essentially told his party that a vote against the bill was a vote against him.

But even after his personal plea, Democrat minority leader Representative Nancy Pelosi (Democrat for California) was unmoved, and immediately announced that she was prepared to vote “no” on the issue. She was joined by the bulk of her party in that vote. In fact, some Democrats weren’t willing to simply vote “no” and move on. Take Oregon Representative Peter DeFazio (Democrat), for instance. He took the opportunity to seriously criticize Obama.

“He’s ignored Congress and disrespected Congress for years, and then he shows up at the baseball game with homemade beer, and then comes to the caucus and lectures us for 40 minutes about his values and whether or not we’re being honest by using legislative tactics to try and stop something which we believe is a horrible mistake for the United States of America and questions our integrity,” the Democrat complained. “It wasn’t the greatest strategy.”

In light of how much importance Obama placed on passage of the bill coupled with his rare personal appeal, The Associated Press hinted that in these now waning months of his last term in the White House, this loss might signal the end of his political power within his own party. At the very least, it was plain that few Democrats seemed to fear voting against the president’s interests. Many didn’t even pause, leaving little doubt that they would vote against Obama’s trade interests.

The parade, boasting trucks bearing DJs, dancers and drag performers, began at 11 am local time as participants gathered at the city’s Meir Park. At noon, marchers began walking down some of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, ending at Charles Clore Park on the Mediterranean beach. Some one-sixth of the estimated 180,000 participants, or 30,000 people, are tourists, many of whom came to Israel to participate in the march, according to officials.

The event has become one of Tel Aviv’s most popular annual festivals. Streets and stores have been decorated with rainbow flags for days. Thousands of Israelis flocked to the city center to observe the parade, filling cafes and restaurants along the route to capacity.

“Welcome to all our guests from abroad to the gay-friendliest city in the world,” Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai declared at the event’s launch Friday morning. “We’ve been through a lot,” he added. “In 17 years, we’ve achieved a different reality in this city, and also in Israel. I want to tell all the politicians, there is still a great deal of legislation that has to be passed to accept the gay community. We will continue to walk this path, and to support the pride parade.”

A panel discussion featured a gay Marine officer, a gay Army sergeant who is a criminal investigator, a lesbian chaplain and a transgender woman, Amanda Simpson, who is executive director of the Army’s Office of Energy Initiatives. She is the first openly transgender political appointee in any presidential administration. She was chosen for the civilian post, she said, because she was “the best person to do the job.”

All four introduced their wives, husbands, and, in one case, a fiancé before a filled auditorium.

For LeGendre, the decision was a no-brainer: “I wanted minimally invasive prenatal care and a completely natural childbirth experience,” she explains. She’d known several women who had positive birth experiences with midwives; meanwhile, some mothers who had gone the traditional physician route told her they had been urged to accept interventions that LeGendre didn’t want, like genetic testing, early induction of labor, or IV antibiotics during labor.

LeGendre is part of a small but growing minority of American mothers opting for midwives over obstetricians: In 1989, the first year for which data is available, midwives were the lead care providers at just 3 percent of births in the US. In 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, that number was close to 9 percent.

The growing popularity of midwifery care is partially a response to rising Caesarean rates, says Eugene Declercq, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University who studies American maternity care. Currently, around a third of all births in the US are Cesarean sections, a number far higher than the World Health Organization-recommended target of 10 to 15 percent. The inflated rate is due in part to longstanding misperceptions in the US medical community about how quickly labor should progress and when medical intervention is necessary.

Greek stocks had climbed by more than 8 percent before the IMF statement was released. Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the IMF, said: "The ball is very much in Greece's court." The relief rally enjoyed by holders of Greek equities is now expected to dissolve on Friday morning. "There are major differences between us in most key areas," Mr Rice said, adding: "There has been no progress in narrowing these differences recently."

He said that he understood Greek authorities were preparing further proposals. Mr Tsipras said on Thursday: "We are working in order to bridge the main differences, especially the differences on fiscal and financial issues." The IMF said that the Greek pension system is "unsustainable", with state spending on pensions accounting for 10 percent of GDP, compared with 2.5 percent across the EU as a whole.

"The risk of insolvency is increasing by the day," said the head of the German Bundesbank Jens Weidmann. "The main losers in that scenario would be Greece and the Greek people." Add in the decision by the International Monetary Fund to withdraw its team from technical talks with Greek officials in Brussels, and fly them back to Washington, and the prospects look alarmingly gloomy. Sometimes the toughest talking happens just before a deal is done. But occasionally it means things are about to fall apart.

So the public pressure on Alexis Tsipras is growing - reflecting concern within the EU and the IMF that he has miscalculated the extent to which he can orchestrate a change in policy. But a brief visit to Athens this week was a reminder of the countervailing pressures the prime minister is under at home.

He was elected in January when his party, Syriza - the Coalition of the Radical Left - swept to power. Now his supporters expect him to deliver, and some are taking a hard line. Twenty-two Syriza MPs wrote a joint letter to Mr Tsipras on Tuesday urging him to implement election pledges as soon as possible to bring back collective bargaining and raise the minimum wage - reversing reforms pushed through over the last few years.