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.

Human rights organizations and groups representing victims of clerical abuse welcomed the hearing as the first occasion the Vatican has had to publicly defend its record. “It’s a moment that has given hope and encouragement to victims across the globe,” Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in Geneva ahead of the hearing.

Amid the shake-up launched by Pope Francis in the 10 months since he took office, rights groups also saw Thursday’s hearing as an occasion that could shed light on the pontiff’s approach to dealing with the clerical abuse scandal. Pope Francis announced last month the creation of a new committee to tackle clerical abuse but has so far said little on the scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church around the world.

Written answers from the Vatican emphasized the distinction between the Holy See and the Catholic Church and said that although it encouraged adherence to the principles of the convention globally, it was responsible only for implementing the convention in the territory of the Vatican City State.

“It was quite shocking. It was a pretty direct, pretty blunt effort to sidestep the questions,” Pam Spees, an attorney with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which is seeking to hold Vatican officials responsible for sexual abuse crimes, said in an interview.

The exercise launched on January 10 is being held in the border region between the Changbai mountain and Heilongjiang river, the paper said. The drill is a normal military exercise to train soldiers to fight in winter and long-range conditions, according to national state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV). However, a source from the People's Liberation Army said that it is very rare to see 100,000 military personnel mobilized for a regular exercise. The 39th Army Group has only just completed its "Iron Flow 134" exercise in the region late last year, the source added.

Chinese authorities have declared that no civilian vessels are allowed to enter the waters of the Bohai Strait and northern part of the Yellow Sea between January 10-17 due to the military operation. Observers claim that the PLA chose to launch the military exercises after the execution of Jang Sung-taek, former vice chairman of North Korean National Defense Commission, by order of North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un. The latest political struggle and execution in the reclusive nation has concerned many in China as Jang was in charge of economic affairs and cooperation with China.

The proposals state that there will be no legal requirement that a woman must consult a doctor before terminating a foetus. MPs and campaign groups said the proposals for private clinics rendered meaningless the central safeguard of the 1967 Abortion Act — that two doctors must authorise a termination.

They claim that the destruction of a foetus will be downgraded to a trivial procedure usually performed by a nurse. Details of the proposals emerged as ministers admitted that fewer than half of women who have abortions now see either of the doctors face-to-face before being granted approval.

That amounts to more than 96,000 abortions a year in England and Wales being signed off by doctors who have never met the patient.

"I wonder if we could be in the very early stages of a redistribution of wealth from capital back to mass income through government policies, whether it be from taxes or things being done to boost minimum wages," O'Neill told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Wednesday. "But obviously this is something else just as human beings, never mind investors, that we all have to watch closely."

Citing class tensions in Chile, where income inequality runs rampant and has spurred heavy tax reform proposals, O'Neill said talk of wealth concentrating among the world's elite has become "de rigueur" in the United Kingdom. Most people haven't seen their incomes rise in tandem with surging stock markets, he said. "The elitist part of the world is still benefiting," O'Neill told CNBC.

O'Neill's comments come as income inequality becomes a hot-button issue across the globe. US lawmakers are debating whether to raise the federal minimum wage; an unsuccessful measure to cap CEO pay in Switzerland made headlines last year; and Pope Francis has gained popularity by sharply criticizing "trickle-down" economics.

Aborting babies because they are female has been widespread in India and China for generations: there are as many as 120 boys for every 100 girls there. Now the practice has come to distort British demography – and values. Sex-selective abortion remains a crime in Britain, but, as the Telegraph investigation last year revealed, it is increasingly common. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has ruled that guidance for doctors in this area should be updated – but did not prosecute the two doctors exposed in the Telegraph investigation.

When parents can abort a baby because it's a girl, they are guilty of the worst kind of sexism. Rape, porn, the tyranny of beauty that compels little girls to perform plastic surgery to attain perfection: these are nothing in comparison to the mindset that will not allow for girls to be conceived in the first place.

Our daughters – and not just in immigrant communities – are learning that a girl's life is worthless. Feminists should be up in arms about this. They are not. While they have fought tooth and nail the sexist app that allows little girls to perform plastic surgery on a Barbie, most have stayed silent on a far worse crime against women.

So far, talks are progressing to the point that Russia could purchase up to 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil in exchange for Russian equipment and goods, according to Reuters. "We are concerned about these reports and Secretary (of State John) Kerry directly expressed this concern with (Russian) Foreign Minister (Sergei) Lavrov… If the reports are true, such a deal would raise serious concerns as it would be inconsistent with the terms of the P5+1 agreement with Iran and could potentially trigger US sanctions," Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, told Reuters.

Russian purchases of 500,000 bpd [barrels per day] of Iranian crude would lift Iran's oil exports by 50% and infuse the struggling economy with some $1.5 billion a month, some sources say. Since sanctions were slapped on Iran in July 2012, exports have fallen by half and Iran is losing up to $5 billion per month in revenues.

Missing from the list? Germany. All of this commemoration has proven tricky for the nation on the other side of the battle lines. "The German government is fundamentally uninterested in marking this important anniversary," Gerd Krumeich, a historian at Dusseldorf University, said. "And this reflects the mentality of most Germans today. They don’t seem to feel that the war had anything to do with Germany even though almost 2 million of our soldiers died in the trenches."

British Prime Minister David Cameron has added to the Germans discomfiture. Britain is spending some $80 million dollars on commemorative concerts, school visits to battlefields and other events. Cameron says Britain and its allies were fighting a just war against German aggression. Many historians agree.

"The Germans fought a war of conquest," said military historian Garry Sheffield of Wolverhampton University. "And the British and the French found themselves fighting a defensive war against an aggressive neighbor, bent on achieving hegemony in Europe."

These words have an uncomfortable resonance today.

Since becoming pope less than a year ago, Francis has shifted personnel in important Vatican departments, placing his picks in key positions while signalling that he intends to crack down on the intrigues and disarray that plagued the Vatican bureaucracy under the shy, aloof Benedict.

The Vatican Bank, officially known as the Institute for Works of Religion, has been under scrutiny for years, amid suspicions that some accounts might be fronts for illegal interests. European regulators are pushing the secretive bank to become more transparent and adhere to international banking standards, a process that began under Benedict.

Shortly after he announced his surprise resignation last February, Benedict approved new five-year terms for the existing five-man committee overseeing the bank, including Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, then the secretary of state, the Vatican’s second-ranking official. On Wednesday, Francis retained only one of those five — Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran — while replacing Cardinal Bertone with Pietro Parolin, the man who also replaced him as secretary of state.

Francis’ move comes a month before cardinals from around the world will come to the Vatican for a consistory to witness the formal appointment of new cardinals and discuss church affairs. On Sunday, Francis designated his first group of new cardinals, with a majority coming from outside Europe.

While most of the software is inserted by gaining access to computer networks, the NSA has increasingly made use of a secret technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet, according to NSA documents, computer experts and American officials.

The technology, which the agency has used since at least 2008, relies on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards inserted surreptitiously into the computers. In some cases, they are sent to a briefcase-size relay station that intelligence agencies can set up miles away from the target.

German media reports of an impasse at US-German talks to avert spying between allies prompted several senior German politicians on Tuesday to suggest diplomatic and economic pressure on Washington. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere however said that the talks were continuing, telling journalists at a Berlin press conference that negotiations remained confidential.

Stephan Mayer, the new internal affairs spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative parliamentary group, told Reuters on Tuesday her government should consider withholding contracts with US firms that operate in Germany. Mayer said if the talks failed then Germany must contemplate whether "US firms receive government contracts from the German side or public institutions."

"The Americans understand one language very well, and that is the language of business," Mayer said, adding that such a deal could not be seen in isolation from current EU-US free-trade negotiations. The Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted a German source close to the 'no-spying' talks as saying: "We're getting nothing." The German public broadcaster NDR jointly reported that German delegation sources had almost lost hope that an agreement would emerge.