Benjamin Netanyahu's office had already announced that a meeting would take place during his visit to Italy, reported Haaretz, but the pope has no plans in this regard. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met the Pope during his recent visit to Rome where he received a pen as a gift, with the wish that he will use it to sign a peace agreement with Israel.

According to Haaretz, the Vatican became aware of Netanyahu's visit to Rome and his supposed meeting with Pope Francis through the media. "The Prime Minister's Office worked hard to hold the meeting and to avoid any embarrassment but to no avail," claimed the newspaper. The Vatican informed Israel's ambassador to Italy, Naor Gilon, on Sunday that the prime minister will not meet the Pope; Netanyahu's advisors are said to be "outraged".

Gilon said that the Vatican protocol for meetings is very complex. "To arrange for such a meeting within a week is regarded as an insult, so it has never happened," he explained. Israel Radio reported that a new date for a meeting is to be set "as soon as possible".

A truck was ready. Once in the air, the dirigible balloon would spray 120 litres of fine water droplets into the East Anglia sky, a miniaturised test for a much larger system that would eventually pump out chemical particles to reflect sunlight and, so the scientists calculated, cool the planet. It was to be a momentous day.

Geoengineering – as defined by the Royal Society in 2009 – is the large-scale, technological manipulation of the climate (some call it "planet hacking"). After decades of theorising, the Cambridge group was going to be the first in the West to take research out of doors. But shortly before lift-off, they aborted. There was, they feared, no way of knowing who could use their research, or in what way, and the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (Spice) team did not want to open a door that might be impossible to close. Little has changed in practical terms since 2011.

Geoengineering technologies are the stuff of Hollywood disaster movies. Researchers have suggested sending a giant glass sunshade into space to reflect light; the eruption of artificial volcanoes, or spraying of sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere; dissolving mountains and putting remains in the sea; and, least dramatically, perhaps, filling the ocean with iron filings to stimulate algae blooms. "People are right to be revolted and alarmed," says Matthew Watson, the head of Spice. "That's a good thing. It should not sound easy. If we do this, it will be the clearest indication we have failed as planetary stewards. It will be a desperate thing to do."

The campaign against America's enemies is silent and precise. Commanders fight without troops. They operate from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia - their "troops" in front of computer screens in Nevada or New Mexico. Their weapons are unmanned drones. "The CIA, over the last 12 years, has very much been back in the business of killing," said Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Mazzetti in an interview with DW. "Since the September 11 attacks, the CIA has gradually transformed into very much of a paramilitary organization."

Just released in Germany, "The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth" contains evidence gathered by the New York Times journalist via interviews with intelligence operatives and politicians. Mazzetti speaks of a military complex catalysed by developments in drone technology. "It's the military, it's the spy services, it's private companies that have in many ways created this new state where they can carry out these secret missions and secret eavesdropping," he said.

Ben Emmerson, UN special rapporteur, accused the US of challenging international legal norms by advocating the use of lethal force outside war zones. The investigation was launched in January and had been due to be completed by the autumn, offering a review of the legality of drone strikes and an analysis of the number of civilian casualties – totalling almost 500 across the world.

However, Mr Emmerson said gathering direct data on individual drone strikes – which generally occur in remote, hostile locations – had taken longer than expected and his report would not be complete until next year. Instead, he has issued an interim report which is due to be debated at the UN next week.

Ultimately, all of this nuclear radiation will outlive all of us by a very wide margin. They are saying that it could take up to 40 years to clean up the Fukushima disaster, and meanwhile countless innocent people will develop cancer and other health problems as a result of exposure to high levels of nuclear radiation. We are talking about a nuclear disaster that is absolutely unprecedented, and it is constantly getting worse

Conditions in the unit 4 pool, 100 feet from the ground, are perilous, and if any two of the rods touch it could cause a nuclear reaction that would be uncontrollable. The radiation emitted from all these rods, if they are not continually cool and kept separate, would require the evacuation of surrounding areas including Tokyo. Because of the radiation at the site the 6,375 rods in the common storage pool could not be continuously cooled; they would fission and all of humanity will be threatened, for thousands of years.

The MOU builds upon a deal signed in June in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, which saw Rosneft receive a $70 billion upfront payment from CNPC for its promise to raise exports by 300,000 barrels per day.

Under terms of the MOU Rosneft will have a controlling stake of 51 percent in the future joint venture, while CNPC will own 49 percent. Rosneft President and Chairman of the Management Board Igor Sechin said, “The memorandum is another step in developing the strategic partnership between Rosneft and CNPC in various areas of cooperation.”

Now that China, flush with cash, has acquired a share in Russia’s upstream activities, it is not likely to be Beijing’s last such deal with Moscow.

These numbers come directly from official US government websites and can easily be verified. For a long time the national debt was stuck at just less than $16.7 trillion because of the debt ceiling fight, but now that the debt ceiling crisis has been delayed for a few months the national debt is soaring once again.

In fact, just one day after the deal in Congress was reached, the US national debt rose by an astounding $328 billion. In the blink of an eye we shattered the $17 trillion mark with no end in sight. We are stealing about $100,000,000 from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day. This goes on 24 hours a day, month after month, year after year without any interruption.

Over the past five years, the US government has been on the greatest debt binge in history. Unfortunately, most Americans don't realize just how bad things have gotten because the true budget deficit numbers are not reported on the news. The following is where the US national debt has been on September 30th during the five years previous to this one...

09/30/2012: $16,066,241,407,385.89

09/30/2011: $14,790,340,328,557.15

09/30/2010: $13,561,623,030,891.79

09/30/2009: $11,909,829,003,511.75

09/30/2008: $10,024,724,896,912.49

The George Cross was introduced by King George VI at the height of the Blitz to recognise “acts of the greatest heroism or of the most conspicuous courage in circumstances of extreme danger”. It has been awarded to just two groups: the island of Malta, in recognition of its bombardment in World War Two; and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which lost 300 officers during the Troubles.

Oliver Colvile, the Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, said the Rock had been under siege fourteen times since it was secured by Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and its people have remained loyal to the Crown since. The peninsula, a British naval base used to resupply ships and submarines, was crucial during the Battle of Trafalgar, the Gulf War and the Falklands crisis, he said.

An astonishing new book by François Heisbourg – La Fin du Rêve Européen (The End of the European Dream) – argues that the "euro cancer" must be cut out to save the rest of the EU Project before it is too late. "The dream has given way to nightmare. We must face the reality that the EU itself is now threatened by the euro. The current efforts to save it are endangering the Union yet further," he writes:

There is nothing worse than having to confront the sunless mornings (matins blêmes) of an endless crisis, but we are not going to avoid it by denying the reality, and God knows denial has been for a long time, by default, the operating mode of those in charge of EU institutions.

At some time in the future, the author insists, Europe's leaders should relaunch the euro, but only after they have established the necessary federalist foundations, and only among a vanguard willing to accept the full implications of a federal currency.

Bet on Europe's recovery if you want, but remember one thing. The North-South gap at the root of EMU's troubles will be not closed by a return to tolerable growth – far from assured – because it will also bring forward the day when Germany demands interest rate rises. The crisis changes shape. It does not go away. Monetary union remains dysfunctional with growth or without growth.

And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris. What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat. The birds were missing because the fish were missing.

Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line. "There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled. But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two. No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all. "I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3,000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen."

In place of the missing life was garbage in astounding volumes. "Part of it was the aftermath of the tsunami that hit Japan a couple of years ago. The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it's still out there, everywhere you look."

"On the bow, in the waters above Hawaii, you could see right down into the depths. I could see that the debris isn't just on the surface, it's all the way down. And it's all sizes, from a soft-drink bottle to pieces the size of a big car or truck. "We saw a factory chimney sticking out of the water, with some kind of boiler thing still attached below the surface. We saw a big container-type thing, just rolling over and over on the waves.

Back in Newcastle, Ivan Macfadyen is still coming to terms with the shock and horror of the voyage. "The ocean is broken," he said, shaking his head in stunned disbelief.

At the beginning of her third term, Merkel has more power in Germany and Europe than any chancellor before her. There hasn't been such a strong majority behind a government in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, since the first grand coalition half a century ago. In the midst of the European crisis, Germany has become the undisputed dominant power in Europe.

Officials at the Chancellery are forging plans for Europe that are practically visionary for someone like Merkel. If she prevails, they will fundamentally change the European Union. The goal is to achieve extensive, communal control of national budgets, of public borrowing in the 28 EU capitals and of national plans to boost competitiveness and implement social reforms. The hope is that these measures will ensure the long-term stability of the euro and steer member states onto a common economic and fiscal path. This would be the oft-invoked and ambitious political completion of Europe's monetary union - a huge achievement.

It isn't a new goal, but what is new is the thumbscrews Brussels will be allowed to apply if Merkel has her way, including sooner and sharper controls and veto rights, as well as contractually binding agreements and requirements. In short, this would amount to a true reconstruction of the euro zone and a major step in the direction of an "economic government" of the sort the SPD too would like to see put in place.

Scenarios to this effect formed the basis of an informational training exercise for the military's future commanders that ended last week. The large-scale manoeuvre, which involved a total of 3,500 soldiers and 700 ground and aerial vehicles - carried out in the close vicinity of the former Nazi Bergen-Belsen concentration camp - also exercised combat against insurgents in congested urban areas.

Various surveillance drones and elite units specialized in "covert operations" as well as those specialized in psychological warfare were also in action. They trained using live ammunition. According to the German military, the exercise took the "reality" of past warfare into consideration, while anticipating "foreseeable challenges of the future."

Since August 1971, when US President Richard Nixon unilaterally tore up the Bretton Woods Treaty of 1944 and told the world that the Federal Reserve ‘gold window’ was permanently closed, Wall Street banks and US and City of London financial powers have done everything imaginable to prevent gold from again becoming the basis of trust in a currency.

On Friday, October 11, when there was no sign of any deal between US Congress members and the Obama White House that would end the government shutdown, the Chicago CME Group, which operates Comex - the Chicago Commodity Exchange, where contracts in gold derivatives are traded - announced that at 8:42am Eastern time the trading was halted for 10 seconds after a safety mechanism was triggered because a 2-million-ounce (56.7 million grams) gold futures sell order was executed.

UBS gold trader Art Cashin echoed the suspicion. “…if that happens once it could be an accident of technology, or it could be a simple error. But when it happens five times over a period of months, it does raise questions. Is it being done purposefully? Is somebody trying to influence the market?”

That ‘someone’ market sources believe is the Obama White House, in league with the Federal Reserve and key Wall Street banks that would be ruined were gold to really rise.

Pope Francis, who has called for the Roman Catholic Church to be “poor and for the poor”, intervened in response to appeals by German congregations concerned at alleged mishandling of funds by Church institutions.

Only the Pope has the authority to remove a bishop, who, according to church law, cannot normally resign or be dismissed. The 53-year-old bishop, Germany’s youngest at the time of his appointment, was reported to have flown to Rome last week on a budget airline. The furore in Germany over the bishop’s reported extravagance is being seen in the Vatican as a test of the Argentine pontiff’s resolve to bring more transparency and frugality to the Church.

The controversy has enraged the Catholic community in a country where a church tax and state direct funding bring billions of euros a year to the German Church – the country’s second largest employer after the state.

"The question is not tapering. The question is at what point will they increase the asset purchases to say $150 [billion], $200 [billion], a trillion dollars a month," Faber said in a "Squawk Box" interview. The Fed-which is currently buying $85 billion worth of bonds every month - will hold its October meeting next week to deliberate the future of its asset purchases known as quantitative easing.

Faber has been predicting so-called "QE infinity" because "every government program that is introduced under urgency and as a temporary measure is always permanent." He also said, "The Fed has boxed itself into a position where there is no exit strategy."

While there may be little inflation in the US, Faber said there's been incredible asset inflation. "We are the bubble. We have a colossal asset bubble in the world [and] a leverage or a debt bubble." Back in April 2012, Faber said the world will face "massive wealth destruction" in which "well to-do people will lose up to 50 percent of their total wealth."

"One day this asset inflation will lead to a deflationary collapse one way or the other. We don't know yet what will cause it," he said.