The declaration comes during one of the driest winters on record in California, following two dry years that already have left many reservoirs depleted. The state is facing "perhaps the worst drought that California has ever seen" since records began, Brown said during the Friday morning announcement.

"I've called for a collaborative effort to restrain our water use," Brown said. "This is a call to arms. This is not a partisan adversary, this is Mother Nature." The proclamation allows California to request a broad emergency declaration from President Barack Obama. The federal declaration would expedite some water transfers, provide financial assistance and suspend some state and federal regulations.

The US Drought Monitor has reported extreme drought conditions in central and northern California, and there has been little snowfall so far this winter. Precipitation in most of the state is less than 20 percent of normal, and reservoirs are dwindling. Forecasts suggest the dry spell could continue, exacerbating the already heightened fire danger. California is on pace for the driest January on record. The all-time low rainfall record in January occurred in 1984, when just 0.3 inches of rain fell across California.

“In the face of those who no longer see the full, visible unity of the Church as an achievable goal, we are invited not to give up our ecumenical efforts, faithful to that which the Lord Jesus asked of the Father, ‘that they may be one,’” the Pope told the delegation on January 17.

“Ecumenism is in fact a spiritual process that is realized in faithful obedience to the Father, in fulfilment of the will of Christ and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.” The group, led by Kari Makinen, a bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, was on its annual pilgrimage to Rome for the feast of St Henry, their nation’s patron saint. Their trip coincides with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, held January 18-25.

The week of prayer is sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and the World Council of Churches’ faith and order commission. The week is dedicated to encouraging dialogue and spiritual unity amongst Christians. Pope Francis reflected on this year’s theme, “Has Christ been Divided?”, in his audience with the delegation, noting that the process of working for Christian unity is changing in response to an increasingly secularized culture, particularly in Europe.

As the United States relaxes sanctions against Iran in the wake of the agreement Tehran signed with Western powers, in which it promised to somewhat limit its nuclear development program, Iran's economy has gotten a major boost – without a commitment by the country to stop its production of enriched uranium.

As a result, said McFarland, Iran gets to “dance at both weddings” - improving its economy with the removal of sanctions, and continuing its nuclear development program. This, in turn, enhances the image of Iran's hardline Islamist leaders among its people, and guarantees that they will be emboldened to demand more special treatment in the future, she said.

"The deal with the Persian nation makes it clear we are leaving the region, and leaving Iran in charge,” McFarland wrote. “Iran is now poised to become the Alpha Dog of the Middle East – the dominant economic, military and political power in the region that controls the world’s exported oil. Thanks to the agreement struck by President Obama’s hand-picked Secretary of State John Kerry, it is doing so with America’s blessing.”

With the extra money coming in from oil sales that will be resumed, she said, Iran’s coffers will soon be plump enough to resume funding for terrorist groups throughout the region. In addition, “Iran’s nuclear program will continue and its neighbors will treat Iran as a de facto nuclear weapons state,” she wrote.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, said this week that if Iran decides to resume enriching uranium to levels prohibited by the new nuclear deal, it could begin to do so in one day’s time. Araghchi spoke on January 12 to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Channel 2 following his return from Geneva, where he led the Iranian delegation to the negotiations with the P5+1 countries that resulted in an agreement to implement the Joint Plan of Action signed last November.

The interim agreement goes into effect January 20, giving both sides six months to reach a final deal over Iran’s nuclear program. Critics of the deal, especially in Congress, want any final agreement to force Iran to stop enriching uranium altogether and dismantle its enrichment program.

The interim agreement requires Iran to suspend the enrichment of uranium at 20 percent levels and downgrade their existing stockpile of highly-enriched uranium to lower levels. But Araghchi said in the interview that the enrichment suspension is quickly reversible if Iran decides to pull out of the agreement.

“We can return again to 20 percent enrichment in less than one day and we can convert the [nuclear] material again. Therefore the structure of our nuclear program is preserved,” said Araghchi, in a broadcast which was independently translated for The Daily Beast.

The file was part of Vatican data collected for a UN hearing on Thursday. It was the first time the Holy See was publicly confronted over the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Church officials at the hearing in Geneva faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they were withholding data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.

Victims' advocates complained there was still too little transparency. The Holy See is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legally binding instrument which commits it to protecting and nurturing the most vulnerable in society.

It ratified the convention in 1990 but after an implementation report in 1994 it did not submit any progress reports until 2012, following revelations of child sex abuse in Europe and beyond. Last month, the Vatican refused a request from the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child for data on abuse, on the grounds that it only released such information if requested to do so by another country as part of legal proceedings.

In a homily on Thursday, Benedict's successor, Pope Francis, called abuse scandals "the shame of the Church". He announced in December that a Vatican committee would be set up to fight sexual abuse of children in the Church.

“This situation could potentially put the acceptance of the euro currency and the EU as a whole at risk." Official figures put the euro area’s annual inflation rate at 0.8 percent for December. This is well above the eurozone’s benchmark interest rate, which was set again at the record low of 0.25 percent last week. Paul Nuttall MEP, the deputy leader of Ukip, said that the European Central Bank was effectively robbing people of the value of their savings in the name of eurozone dogma.

A wide-ranging report on the EU’s crisis-fighting policies by MEPs has concluded that the ECB and European Commission need greater democratic oversight, while criticising them for “failing to correct recommendations when they proved inadequate and detrimental”.

It may be time to shift yet another conspiracy "theory" into the "fact" bin, thanks to Elke Koenig, the president of Germany's top financial regulator, Bafin, which apparently is not as corrupt, complicit and clueless as its US equivalent, and who said that in addition to currency rates, manipulation of precious metals "is worse than the Libor-rigging scandal."

We wonder how long until this particular investigation is stopped based on an "executive order" from above, because Bafin is now stepping into some very treacherous waters with its ongoing inquiry of gold manipulation: what it reveals will certainly not be to the liking of the financial "powers that be."

Following the Libor-rate scandal, bank practices in setting benchmark currency rates are under intense scrutiny. Salespeople are being accused of fixing special rates for customers with “big orders” over $200 million. Germany’s biggest bank, Deutsche Bank, has already dismissed currency traders over probes involving alleged forex manipulation.

The investigation kicked off last April when the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority started looking into the forex trading practices of Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered, and UBS. Six other regulators are helping with the worldwide investigation. “Before Libor, people thought benchmarks could be trusted. Now there’s a presumption that there’s a risk of manipulation. Perhaps manipulation is not the exception but the rule,” Joaquin Almunia, the European Union competition commissioner said, as quoted in The Financial Times.

Between 2005-2010, banks manipulated the Libor interbank lending rate by setting it low against the dollar in order to mask their financial problems and look better in the market. It is the world's most widely used benchmark for short-term interest rates in the interbank market, and is tied to over $300 trillion in loans, securities, and derivatives.

Obama met with senators from his own party Wednesday at the White House. The White House says Obama and Democrats discussed proposals to raise the minimum wage and efforts to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul. Education initiatives and jobs measures were also on the agenda.

The White House says Obama wants to work with Congress to make progress, but will also act on his own to get things done. The meeting was the first such session of 2014 and comes two weeks before Obama is set to deliver his State of the Union address. The senators left the White House without speaking to reporters.

Many consumers are rethinking their use of plastic after a massive cyber attack on retailers such as Target Corp and Neiman Marcus. For most Americans, living without credit and debit cards seems inconceivable. But Brie Hoffman has tried it, and mostly succeeded over the past six years.

Hoffman, 52, says an occasional online purchase and buying an airline ticket are the only uses for her sole debit card, which sometimes serves as a second form of ID. It's a relief not having a credit card, says the California resident, who has worked as a schoolteacher and as a companion to an elderly man.

"I don't even miss it," she says. "There's a freedom in not having bills." A side benefit, Hoffman says, is not getting junk mail. As much as she has enjoyed living mostly off the plastic grid, she doesn't see herself getting rid of the debit card entirely.

The pope made his remarks January 17 at a meeting with representatives of the Lutheran Church in Finland, who were making their annual ecumenical pilgrimage to Rome on the feast of Finland's patron, St Henry. The meeting occurred one day before the start of the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Pope Francis told the group that ecumenical relations lately have been undergoing "significant changes, owing above all to the fact that we find ourselves professing our faith in the context of societies and cultures every day more lacking in reference to God and all that recalls the transcendent dimension of life."

"For this very reason, our witness must concentrate on the center of our faith, on the announcement of the love of God made manifest in Christ his son," the pope said. "Here we find space to grow in communion and in unity, promoting spiritual ecumenism." Pope Francis quoted the Second Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism, which described "spiritual ecumenism" as consisting of "conversion of heart and holiness of life, together with private and public prayer for Christian unity," which form the "soul of the whole ecumenical movement."

Sir Hew Strachan, an advisor to the Chief of the Defense Staff, told The Daily Beast that the United States and Britain were guilty of total strategic failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obama’s attempts to intervene on behalf of the Syrian rebels “has left them in a far worse position than they were before.”

The extraordinary critique by a leading advisor to the United States’ closest military ally comes days after Obama was undermined by the former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who questioned the President’s foreign policy decisions and claimed he was deeply suspicious of the military.

Strachan, a current member of the Chief of the Defense Staff’s Strategic Advisory Panel, cited the “crazy” handling of the Syrian crisis as the most egregious example of a fundamental collapse in military planning that began in the aftermath of 9/11. “If anything it’s gone backwards instead of forwards, Obama seems to be almost chronically incapable of doing this. Bush may have had totally fanciful political objectives in terms of trying to fight a global War on Terror, which was inherently astrategic, but at least he had a clear sense of what he wanted to do in the world. Obama has no sense of what he wants to do in the world,” he said.

Temperatures in the area are usually expected to be around the 30C mark at this time of year and fears have been raised that the southern part of the country could experience a repeat of the 2009 day dubbed Black Saturday, when 173 lives were lost. Yesterday, a maximum temperature of 46.4C was recorded in Roseworthy, a town on the outskirts of Adelaide - which itself hit 44C - according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Meanwhile, temperatures in Melbourne could reach the 44C mark today. Residents in the path of more than 100 devastating bushfires in Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales were ordered to leave their homes immediately today - but at least one person, who stayed behind at their home in Wartook, Victoria, has died in the flames. The death comes as more than 200 others have been admitted to hospitals in South Australia for heat-related conditions. According to Adelaide Now, 90 people were admitted to hospitals in South Australia yesterday alone – including 65 in and around the city.

In New South Wales, meanwhile, there are reported to be almost 50 blazes, with 12 out of control. In South Australia, there are 19 blazes, according to ABC. In Victoria, the state has estimated that fire conditions could be the worst experienced since Black Saturday, when 173 people died in 2009. Fire crews and police - who said 12 fires burning in South Australia had been deliberately lit - ordered those with a chance of escaping the flames to evacuate their homes immediately.

Three people had been arrested in connection with the fast-moving Colby fire, but Glendora police declined to provide further information. LA County Fire Inspector Scott Miller said the cause of the fire, reported shortly before 6 am, was still under investigation, but said arson investigators were on hand and working with Glendora police.

Chris Jeffers, Glendora city manager, said in an email that the city’s emergency operations center was activated and “we have declared a state of emergency so that we can better access resources and coordinate them." Jeffers said city officials were in the process of assessing the damage. About 550 fire personnel were battling the blaze, which has destroyed at least two homes. Mandatory evacuations were in place for all residents north of Sierra Madre Avenue and east of San Gabriel Canyon Road. The fire was "spreading fairly aggressively" as winds gusted around 25 mph, fire officials said.

Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Scott Miller told KTLA-TV that the fire was moving aggressively, "especially for this time of year.” He urged residents to follow evacuation orders, saying that although he understood the instinct for people to stand their ground, “their lives are way more important.” “Act quickly,” he said. “Don’t sit around and contemplate what you should do.”

RT: George Osborne says 'no reforms - no Britain in the EU'. How serious is he? Is it really London's final warning?

Robert Oulds: There won’t be any reform in the EU, it can’t actually change. And hopefully, we will have a referendum. The British public still needs to pressure the politicians to deliver the referendum they have promised. So we, the British public, can have this and hopefully will vote to leave the European Union because we are very pessimistic about the chances of the EU changing. It’s been in existence since 1957, it’s about ever-closer union, it's about more regulation, it’s about less power for nation states, more powerful unaccountable bureaucracy that is not going to change in the time frame the government is giving it.

RT: The European economy is slowly recovering... Do you think Britain's Treasury chief is exaggerating when he says the EU is declining?

RO: The economic crisis is actually spreading throughout the EU. Unemployment is still dangerously high in countries like Greece, which has 27% unemployment and over 60% youth unemployment. The same is in Spain, Italy is lurching from crisis to crisis. Britain is on the up but it’s not in the euro [zone] and that’s one of the key aspects because France has also got developing economic problems, as well as political problems. So the economic crisis in the European Union is spreading and it does seem to be only Germany that is benefiting for the time-being.

RT: Euro-bashing is always a crowd-pleaser for any politician's home crowd. But is Europe really what's bothering the people of Britain right now?

RO: This is absolutely fundamental. Most British people do actually want a referendum, more than 80% say they want to vote on the membership in the EU. It’s absolutely fundamental to our economy as well because at the moment having to pay billions each year to Brussels, EU red tape is holding back the British economy as well as other European nations as well. It’s not to our economic benefit, things really must change. The EU doesn’t have much of an economic future, it is declining as a bloc. So Britain should look at other opportunities that await us around the globe.