The 2013 German coalition government agreement states: "We strive for an even closer network of European forces, which can evolve into a parliamentary-controlled European army." "The Chancellor agrees that it is generally good that there is and should be a deeper military cooperation in Europe," said deputy government spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz, also referring to the "concentrated challenges" in European security policy, which require a common response.

Elmar Brok, an influential MEP from Merkel’s CDU party, said an EU treaty change was necessary for giving flesh to the idea of a European army. Normally troops are sent abroad by a decision of parliament. Since it is not possible to wait for 28 parliaments to decide, countries should delegate this right to the European Parliament. In the Berlin's Tagesspiegel, Steinmeier spoke of "new risks and threats" to European peace that necessitate a "swift adaptation" of the security strategy. "For the SPD, the long-term goal of a European army is a major policy matter and has been part of the party program for many years," he said.

"The Arab … ministers agreed on adopting an important principle, which is forming the unified Arab military force," Arab League Secretary General Nabil Elaraby told reporters after the meeting in the resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. "The task of the force will be rapid military intervention to deal with security threats to Arab nations," Elaraby added. The draft resolution will be referred to the Arab leaders during their March 28-29 summit in Egypt.

Egyptian TV reported earlier that the ministers asked Elaraby to coordinate with Arab armies' chiefs of staff within one month to begin forming the unified force. The Arab league chief described the resolution as "historic". The dangers facing the region have perhaps never seemed starker. Conflicts are intensifying in Yemen and Libya and the civil war in Syria is entering its fifth year.

Islamic State militants have taken over swathes of Iraq and Syria and spawned splinter groups across the Arab world. The United States and other major powers are seeking a final nuclear deal with Iran, in a process that worries many Sunni Arab leaders wary of Shi'ite Iran's growing influence in the region.

Some 16,000 personnel are committed to air defences, 2,500 responsible for strategic missiles and 100,000 man the National Guard, according to the IISS Military Balance, 2015. The kingdom also has 24,500 paramilitary forces. The Saudi armed forces have close ties with foreign armies, particularly the United States, Britain and France which gives them access to training and equipment.

The Saudi army regularly buys modern equipment, with the navy seeking to purchase submarines, according to the media. Riyadh's appetite for arms, already high due to a perceived threat from Iran, is fed by regional instability, notably in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia on Thursday launched air strikes as part of a multinational coalition. It is traditionally a customer of the US and British arms industries, although Riyadh has also sealed contracts with France and Germany for its navy and has bought Eurofighter jets.

The Saudi army has 600 heavy tanks, 780 light armoured vehicles and 1,423 armoured troop carriers. Its air force is equipped with 313 fighter jets, including F-15s, Tornados and Eurofighter Typhoons, as well as helicopters. Considered a priority, air defences and deterrents include 16 batteries of Patriot missiles, 17 batteries of Shahine missiles, 16 of Hawk missiles and 73 Crotale/Shahine missile units.

"The higher the oversupply on the oil market became in recent months the more the geopolitical risks were ignored," said commodities analysts at Commerzbank. "These have suddenly come back into sharp focus, however, following the Saudi-led military air strikes carried out by ten Gulf states against the Houthi rebels in Yemen."

The attacks have reversed a prolonged period of weakness in the oil market amid rising inventories in the US and the determination of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to maintain their current policy of pumping around 30 million barrels per day, which is equal to a third of world supply.

Although Yemen has little oil it occupies a strategic location at the base of the Persian Gulf along key shipping channels leading into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Analysts are also concerned over the wider implications for major oil producers among the Gulf Co-operation Council states including Saudi Arabia, which is understood to be preparing to deploy ground forces.

The Financial Policy Committee (FPC), which is in charge of maintaining financial stability at the Bank, said liquidity - or the degree to which assets can be easily traded - may have become "more fragile" in some markets. Policymakers, including Bank Governor Mark Carney, said they would work with the Financial Conduct Authority to assess whether asset managers could cope with a rapid change in market conditions.

"The Committee remains concerned that investment allocations and pricing of some securities may presume that asset sales can be performed in an environment of continuous market liquidity, although liquidity in some markets may have become more fragile," the FPC said following a meeting this week.

Mr Carney warned last month that diverging monetary policies in the US, Britain, Europe, and Japan may set off further currency turbulence and "test capital flows across the global economy, including to emerging markets." "Any of these risks could trigger abrupt shifts in global risk appetite that in turn might lead to a sudden reappraisal of underlying vulnerabilities in highly indebted economies, or sharp adjustments in financial markets."

The current number of DNA profiles created, from the felons’ samples, ranges from 10,000-12,000 per year. Of those cases, 550 positive hits were made on unsolved cases, according to Fox 6. The number of samples is expected to potentially increase to an estimated 60,000 samples being collected per year. Police make the case that perhaps thousands of unsolved crimes could be solved.

“We will save lives. We will save people from becoming sexual assault victims, shooting victims, because of the evidence that is collected and out there,” said Brian O’Keefe, with the Department of Justice. But the infringement upon individual liberties didn’t go unnoticed.

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.