In early 2009, the average price of a pound of ground beef was hovering near 2 dollars. In February, it hit a brand new all-time record high of $4.238 per pound. Even just 12 months ago, the price of ground beef was sitting at $3.555 per pound. So we are talking about a huge increase. And this hits American families where they really live. Each year, the average American consumes approximately 270 pounds of meat. The only nation in the world that eats more meat than we do is Luxembourg.

If the paychecks of American workers were going up fast enough to deal with this increase, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But of course that is not happening. In an article just last week, I showed that real median household income is a couple thousand dollars lower now than it was during the depths of the last recession. The middle class is being squeezed, and we are rapidly getting to the point where burgers are going to be considered a “luxury” item.

We are at a turning point. The bubble of false stability that we have been living in is rapidly coming to an end, and when people start to realize that another great economic crisis is coming there is going to be a lot of panic. And as far as food prices go, they are just going to keep taking a bigger chunk out of all of our wallets. As high as prices are already, the truth is that your food dollars are never going to go farther than they do right now.

The 248 meter (813 feet) long Izumo resembles US Marine Corp amphibious assault carriers in size and design but it is designated as a helicopter destroyer, a label that allows Japan to keep within the bounds of a constitutional ban on owning the means to wage war. Aircraft carriers, because of their ability to project force, are considered offensive weapons.

"The vessel can serve in a wide range of roles including peace keeping operations, international disaster relief and aid," General Nakatani, Japan's Minister of Defense said standing beside the vessel after a handover ceremony at the Japan United Marine shipyard in Yokohama. "It also helps improve our ability to combat submarines." Abe's moves to ease Japan's pacifist constitution and its build up in defense capabilities is unnerving neighbor China.

Japan is also adding longer-range patrol aircraft and military cargo planes to its defense capability, and buying Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, amphibious assault vehicles and Boeing's Osprey troop carrier, which can operate from the Izumo. The Izumo does not have a catapult necessary to launch fixed-wing fighters, but a planned vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) variant of the F-35 could fly from the Izumo's flight deck.

Soon, as we have reported, Google will use a new algorithm to determine search engine position. This new algorithm is supposed to weed out “false” data. Essentially, at least within the Google world, Google is seeking to determine what is “true” online and what is not. Given the close relationship the company has with the Obama administration, an administration which has shown itself to be severely “truth challenged,” this is of some concern.

Terrorist networks, such as al Qaeda, generally have only dozens or hundreds of members, attack civilians, do not hold territory, and cannot directly confront military forces. ISIS, on the other hand, boasts some 30,000 fighters, holds territory in both Iraq and Syria, maintains extensive military capabilities, controls lines of communication, commands infrastructure, funds itself, and engages in sophisticated military operations.

If ISIS is purely and simply anything, it is a pseudo-state led by a conventional army. And that is why the counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategies that greatly diminished the threat from al Qaeda will not work against ISIS.

As ISIS has grown, its goals and intentions have become clearer. Al Qaeda conceived of itself as the vanguard of a global insurgency mobilizing Muslim communities against secular rule. ISIS, in contrast, seeks to control territory and create a “pure” Sunni Islamist state governed by a brutal interpretation of Shariah; to immediately obliterate the political borders of the Middle East that were created by Western powers in the twentieth century; and to position itself as the sole political, religious, and military authority over all of the world’s Muslims.

Since ISIS’ origins and goals differ markedly from al Qaeda’s, the two groups operate in completely different ways. That is why a US counterterrorism strategy custom-made to fight al Qaeda does not fit the struggle against ISIS.

Li met IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde in Beijing on Monday. State news agency Xinhua quoted Li as saying “China will speed up the basic convertibility of yuan on the capital account and provide more facility for domestic individual cross-border investment and foreign institutional investment in China’s capital market”.

Including the yuan in the SDR system would allow the IMF to recognize the ascent of the world’s second-biggest economy while aiding China’s attempts to diminish the dollar’s dominance in global trade and finance.

Mr Bullard said investors are far too complacent about the pace of monetary tightening and could be in for a nasty shock as the policy cycle turns over coming months. “I think reconciliation between what markets think and what the committee (FOMC) thinks will have to happen at some point. That's a potentially violent reconciliation and I am concerned about that,” he told a City Week forum in London.

The warning echoes comments this week by the San Francisco Fed’s John Williams, who said the US economy is firing on all-four cylinders. “Things are looking better: in fact, they’re looking downright good. I think that by mid-year it will be time to have a discussion about starting to raise rates,” he said.

This worked as long as the Fed’s interest-rate repression blinded investors to risk, made them desperate for yield, and encouraged them to sink ever more money into the industry. It suited Wall Street just fine: according to Dealogic, banks extracted $31 billion in fees from the US oil and gas industry and its investors over the past five years by handling IPOs, spin-offs, “leveraged-loan” transactions, the sale of bonds and junk bonds, and M&A.

That’s $6 billion in fees per year! Over the last four years, these banks made over $4 billion in fees on just “leveraged loans.” These loans to over-indebted, junk-rated companies soared from about $40 billion in 2009 to $210 billion in 2014 before it came to a screeching halt.

For the time being, the markets remain sanguine, expecting, for example, a gentle increase in the Bank of England’s main interest rate to just 1.5 percent by the end of the decade. And, who knows, maybe the markets are right. But maybe it’s too quiet. Last week, Ray Dalio, the founder of the $165 billion (£110 billion) hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, wrote a widely-circulated note warning his clients that the US Federal Reserve risked setting off a 1937-style crash when it starts raising interest rates again.

Then, as now, the central bank had spent years printing money in order to help the American economy recover from the 1929 crash. But the side effect was a stock market bubble, which promptly burst when the Fed prematurely increased rates. Mr Dalio is worried about a repeat performance: “We don’t know - nor does the Fed - exactly how much tightening will knock over the apple cart.”

The transfer was originally arranged by the previous Greek administration. But eurozone officials have blocked the claim, saying it is "legally impossible" to transfer the money back to the debt-stricken country. "There was agreement that, legally, there was no over payment from the HFSF to the EFSF," said a fund spokesman. Germany's finance ministry was also reluctant to allow the release, claiming there was "no reason" to make the transfer.

The decision is a further blow to the Greek government's attempts to stay afloat over the next few weeks. Athens has been scrambling to make repayments to its creditors and continue to pay wages and pensions. The government now faces another €2.4 billion cash squeeze in April, including a €450 million loan repayment to the IMF on April 9.

Speaking as the leaders of Greece and Germany met for high-stakes negotiations over Greece’s ongoing support within the currency union, Mr Soros warned that “we are at the cusp and I can see both possibilities”. “It’s now a lose-lose game and the best that can happen is actually muddling through,” Mr Soros said in a Bloomberg Television interview that will be shown on Tuesday. “Greece is a long-festering problem that was mishandled from the beginning by all parties.”

Mr Soros, known for his bet against the pound during the UK’s exit from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992, said Greece was running out of time to put its finances on a sustainable footing within the eurozone. “You can keep on pushing it back indefinitely” by making interest payments without writing down debt, Soros said. “But in the meantime there will be no primary surplus because Greece is going down the drain.”

The Greek government has estimated that it could run out of money by the end of April if a vital €7.2 billion in bail-out funds is not released. The head of the European Central Bank, meanwhile, has hit back at accusations it is blackmailing Greece's new anti-austerity leadership. “We haven’t created any rule for Greece, rules were in place and they’ve been applied,” Mario Draghi told an audience of the European Parliament on Monday.

Michael Fallon said: "The threat remains. It is a very live threat. We have to respond to it." He said reports that Russia is working on an agreement to lease 12 long-range bombers to Argentina which could be used to support a renewed attack are unconfirmed. "We do need to modernise our defences to ensure that we have sufficient troops there and that the islands are properly defended in terms of air defence and maritime defence."

"The threat, of course, to the islands remains but so does our commitment to being absolutely clear that islanders have the right to remain British and the right to proper protection by our forces. It is our general view that the threat has not reduced. Argentina still, sadly, maintains its claim to the islands 30 or more years after the original invasion and the war and we have to respond to that."

It came as Russia questioned the legitimacy of Britain’s claim on the Islands. Alexander Yakovenko, the Russian Ambassador in London compared the referendum held in 2013 that found 99.8 per cent of the Falkland Islanders wanted to remain a British territory to that held in Crimea last year. The snap Crimean referendum, held at gunpoint and used to justify Putin’s annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula, was denounced as a sham by Britain.

Some £180 million will be spent over the next decade in upgrading the island’s defences, Mr Fallon told the Commons. Two Chinook helicopters, which were sent to Afghanistan in 2006, will return and allow troops to respond to possible incursions more quickly, while a new system will replace the Rapier air defence missiles when they go out of service at the end of the decade.

The proposal, outlined in the Siberian Times, would see the road follow a similar route to the Trans-Siberian railway, through cities including Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk and Vladivostok. A new high-speed train line would also be constructed, along with pipelines for gas and oil. The rail network may also be extended to the Chukotka region of Russia and across the Bering Strait to Alaska – making overland trips from Britain to the US – via the Channel Tunnel – a possibility.

The idea, which developers hope will help boost tourism and make Russia a global transportation hub, was presented at a meeting of the Russian Academy of Science. Vladimir Fortov, the Head of the Russian Academy of Science, said the project is "very ambitious and expensive". But he added: "It will solve many problems in the development of the vast region. It is connected with social programs, and new fields, new energy resources, and so on.

The Trans-Siberian Railway links Moscow and Vladivostok, covers 9,258km (6,152 miles) and takes seven days to complete.

Such a plan would represent a leap of faith for news organizations accustomed to keeping their readers within their own ecosystems, as well as accumulating valuable data on them. Facebook has been trying to allay their fears, according to several of the people briefed on the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were bound by nondisclosure agreements.

Facebook intends to begin testing the new format in the next several months, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. The initial partners are expected to be The New York Times, BuzzFeed and National Geographic, although others may be added since discussions are continuing. The Times and Facebook are moving closer to a firm deal, one person said.

Facebook has said publicly that it wants to make the experience of consuming content online more seamless. News articles on Facebook are currently linked to the publisher’s own website, and open in a web browser, typically taking about eight seconds to load. Facebook thinks that this is too much time, especially on a mobile device, and that when it comes to catching the roving eyeballs of readers, milliseconds matter.

The FoI response confirms that BBC staff applied for, and accepted, about £3 million of EU funds between April 2011 and November 2013, most of which has been spent on unspecified ‘research and development’ projects, with the remaining £1 million spent on programming.

However, the size of these EU gifts is arguably irrelevant, even though they are indicative of the BBC’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for public money. What is undeniably true is that the BBC has acted with characteristic slyness by concealing that it ever requested, let alone received, this European cash, suggesting that it is uneasy about the public being aware of its financial arrangements.

With the European elections only three months away, the timing of this disclosure is certainly unhelpful to the BBC, fuelling longstanding pro-EU bias concerns.