Analysts of Middle Eastern affairs said the meeting is likely to increase outside support for Khalifa Hifter, a former Gadhafi general who defected to the United States in the late 1980s and returned to Libya during the 2011 uprising that ended in Gadhafi’s death. Hifter, who had expected to lead the creation of a new Libyan army after Gadhafi’s fall but was sidelined by the country’s political rivalries, launched an assault last year on what he said were radical Islamist groups that had taken control of much of Libya in the past three years.

Libya is now divided between two main factions, one known as Operation Dignity, which is allied with Hifter and based in Tobruk, near the Egyptian border, and another called Libya Dawn, which is based in Tripoli and is backed by several militia factions. The civil war anarchy has left room for the Islamic State to organize. It now controls Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte. In January, it posted a video of what it said were 21 Egyptian workers being beheaded on a Libyan beach.

On both occasions, the Italian was shouted down as he was forced to defend his institution’s role in Greece’s debt drama. The ECB were the main obstacles to an IMF plan to restructure a portion of Greece's debt. Mr Trichet [the previous head of the ECB] feared any move to impose losses on private investors could trigger another "Lehman moment" in the fragile world economy.

The subsequent move to lend more than €300 billion in loans to the bankrupt country has been called a "fatal error" by former IMF bail-out chief Ashoka Mody. The IMF later admitted it had sacrificed Greece at the altar of Europe's banking system, with more than 90 percent of its rescue cash being used to prop up banks in France and Germany rather than keep Greece afloat.

Gutiérrez was the founder of a progressive movement within the Catholic church known as liberation theology, and while he was never censured in the manner that some of his philosophical compatriots were, there were often rumblings that Gutiérrez was being investigated by Pope John Paul II’s doctrinal czar, a German cardinal named Joseph Ratzinger who would later become Pope Benedict.

But when the 86-year-old Peruvian arrives in Rome this week as a key speaker at a Vatican event, he will be welcomed as a guest, in a striking show of how Pope Francis – the first Latin American pontiff – has brought tenets of this sometimes controversial movement to the fore of his church, particularly in his pronouncements against the blight of poverty and the dangers of capitalism.

In its height in the late 1960s and 1970s, liberation theology – a distinctly Latin American movement – preached that it was not enough for the church to simply empathise and care for the poor. Instead, believers said, the church needed to be a vehicle to push for fundamental political and structural changes that would eradicate poverty, even – some believed – if it meant supporting armed struggle against oppressors.

We have governments elected by minorities, we have acts of murder condoned by world leaders, we have military aircraft strafing houses with kids, we have military aircraft targeting water supplies and we have military aircraft bombing the electricity grid. Civilian targets.

Our cities, towns and villages are full of marauding feral children with no respect for their elders; in the UK recently a lady in her nineties was so savagely beaten in her home than she has died - her cries for help were not heard. With governments behaving like they do, using terrorists to create havoc and then blaming the authorities when they try to restore order, it is hardly surprising that downstream there is a breakdown in societies because the same lack of values is apparent in both cases.

Suppose we all take action against all those accountable for a breakdown in values and morals, whether they be the rude child that answers back in the classroom, the schoolyard bully, the drunken lout who swears at an old lady, the group of youths who kick to the ground someone who told them to mind their manners, the demonic filth walking our streets and the demonic filth waltzing round the world attacking governments as they impose freedom and democracy from 30,000 feet?

What has happened, and isn't it time we won the world back to the side of decency and Good?

A snip:

“As the second anniversary of our fraternal meeting in Rome is at hand, I wish to express to Your Holiness my prayerful best wishes for your well-being, as well as my appreciation for the spiritual bonds which unite the See of Peter and the See of Mark.

Today more than ever we are united by the ecumenism of blood, which further encourages us on the path towards peace and reconciliation. I assure you and the Christian community in Egypt and throughout the Middle East of my unceasing prayer, and I remember in particular the Coptic faithful recently martyred for their Christian faith. May the Lord welcome them into his Kingdom…

…Christians throughout the world are facing similar challenges, which require us to work together in confronting these issues. I appreciate your appointment last year of a delegate to participate in the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops dedicated to the family. It is my hope that our cooperation in this area may continue, especially in addressing matters related to mixed marriages.”

“I extend greetings to all of you participating in this meeting, and I assure you of my spiritual closeness. I hope that your encounter will be an occasion to strengthen the bonds of fraternity which you share, and to deepen your commitment to making known the cry of the innocents through the language of music.

In union with you, I ask the Lord to hear this cry and to heal the afflictions of all who suffer. So too I pray that hearts may be opened to the plight of the innocents throughout the world. With these sentiments, I invoke abundant divine blessings upon all of you as a pledge of peace and strength.”

Once inside, players are then blasted by hot air (up to 40C) and light to create an “authentic experience of burning,” according to its creators, Huange Weiping and Ding Rui. When the “burning” is over, volunteers see a womb projected on the ceiling and must crawl until they reach a large, white padded area – supposedly representing a womb – where they are “reborn”.

Approximately 50 per cent of Chinese elect for cremation upon their deaths, and the creators told CNN they went to extensive lengths to ensure their simulation was accurate, including visiting a real crematorium and being placed inside. Much of the start-up costs were covered by Jue.so, China’s version of kickstarter, with more than $65,000 raised. Similar operations have successfully opened in South Korea and Taiwan.

A transformer exploded. Fire and black smoke were visible. The plant's Unit 3 was shut down after the incident. Officials claimed no threat to public safety. Whether true or not, who knows. When incidents like this happen, the public is systematically lied to. Nuclear experts cite Indian Point's notorious history of unaddressed health hazards, safety violations, numerous accidents and pollution - issues persisting throughout its operating life.

Waste water emitted from its facilities killed millions of Hudson River fish and other aquatic life forms. High levels of cancer occur in communities close to all nuclear power plants - notably in the case of Indian Point. Hazards remain. Critics want Indian Point decommissioned before a potentially catastrophic one occurs. It needs to be shuttered to avoid a potentially catastrophic incident. Millions of New York City and state residents are at risk. Imagine the possibility of turning the entire area into an uninhabitable dead zone - like around Chernobyl and Fukushima.

These distinctive arrangements have been good for the UK overall. Remaining a united kingdom has magnified its global clout, and being in the EU, but not fully of it, has spared it the worst of the continent’s Euro-driven woes. But neither arrangement may last much longer. In the headlines, last week’s British elections were a big victory for David Cameron’s Conservatives. But the deep winners were the forces of nationalism, Scottish and English, which suddenly have the United Kingdom as we know it on the ropes.

The Scottish story is the more remarkable one, since a decade ago Scottish independence still seemed a crank’s hobby, and after losing last year’s referendum on independence it was assumed that the nationalists had shot their bolt. Instead, the referendum campaign seems to have affected Scottish politics more than its technical outcome. As Alex Massie, a pro-union Scottish writer, put it last week, in Scotland, “Nationalism is our new secular religion,” and the politics of identity suddenly “defeats all comers.” All but three, as it turned out: In Thursday’s vote, the nationalists took 56 out of 59 parliamentary seats in Scotland, effectively turning the heathered north into a single-party state.

What the Scottish nationalists ultimately want is to trade the Union Jack for the EU’s postmodern bargain: ethnically-rooted self-government under a distant supranational umbrella, rather than a political union that can back wars or budget cuts that most Scots oppose. Not every Scot who voted nationalist last week is ready to support this vision. But the pull of union is clearly weakening in the north. Meanwhile to the south, a more English sort of nationalism wants out of the European Union completely, and suspects the Scots are getting too sweet a deal within the UK as it is. This is the spirit at work in UKIP, the populist, antiglobalist party that’s taking votes from both left and right, and in the Tory base as well.

The two nationalisms, north and south, can feed on one another. However reluctantly, Cameron’s government will have to give “little Englander” sentiment its due. (He’s promised a referendum on Britain’s EU membership for 2017). This will confirm the Scottish nationalists in their alienation, their desire to rule themselves alone.

Keen to respond to a reporter asking about when interest rates might rise in March last year, Ms Yellen suggested that the Fed would start to increase these “probably something in the order of six months” after it ceased buying up bonds.

Financial markets reacted instantaneously. Ms Yellen’s offhand comment was interpreted as a clear sign that the bank would tighten policy much faster than expected, causing US stocks to tumble.

If Fed rates were to rise sharply, this could cause chaos for economies with large dollar-denominated debts. Their currencies would likely fall, resulting in much higher inflation as their import costs rose. Emerging market central banks would be forced to hike their own interest rates, putting a brake on their economies.