“We must break the taboos and make sanitation for all a global development priority,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared. The UN estimates that 1.1 billion people – including around half of India’s population – defecate in the open, which is both a symptom and a cause of unsanitary conditions. More than 800,000 children under five die from diarrhoeal diseases that could be easily prevented each year.

The problem, already prevalent in some of the world’s poorest countries, has a cruelly disproportionate impact on the most impoverished. In total, inadequate sanitation robs the world’s economy of $260 billion worth of productivity annually. A lack of private toilets also particularly affects women, who generally suffer more infections, spend more time looking for available spots, and leave themselves more open to assault when they do find them.

He was quoted by an official website as telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that they could "complicate the process towards a win-win agreement". The Kremlin said Mr Putin had stressed there was a "real chance" of a deal.

Representatives from Iran and the P5+1 group of nations will begin a new round of negotiations in Geneva on Wednesday. Three days of high-level talks earlier this month failed to achieve a breakthrough. US Secretary of State John Kerry said Iran been unable to accept a deal "at that particular moment", while Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed divisions between Western powers and appeared to single out France for "gutting over half" of a US draft deal.

Some reports said France's delegation had wanted to place tight restrictions on the heavy-water reactor being built at Arak; others that the Iranian government's insistence on formal recognition of its "right" to enrich uranium had been the major obstacle.

The worst-hit area appears to be in and around the north-eastern city of Olbia. Prime Minister Enrico Letta has declared a state of emergency, speaking of a "national tragedy". Mr Letta announced that 20 million euros (£16.8 million, $27 million) would be allocated immediately to emergency relief efforts, with soldiers deployed in the region.

"We are focusing on essential operations: saving human lives, assisting displaced people and clearing road access," he said after an emergency cabinet meeting on Tuesday. "We haven't seen a situation as extreme as this, perhaps for decades - especially because it's been across the whole island."

The first of the fuel-rod assemblies at the plant’s No. 4 reactor building was transferred from an underwater rack on the fifth floor to a portable cask just before 4 p.m., the utility known as Tepco said in an e-mailed statement.Tepco planned to remove 22 assemblies from the pool, which contains 1,331 spent fuel assemblies and 202 unused assemblies, by the end of tomorrow, the company said. Crews are beginning with the unused assemblies because they are less fragile, spokesman Yusuke Kunikage said by phone.

The operation is the most significant test to date of Tepco’s ability to contain the threat stemming from the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Were the rods to break or overheat, it could prompt a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction similar to the meltdowns at three Fukushima reactors following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Both powers have expressed concern that restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program will not be enough. According to The Sunday Times newspaper, Saudi Arabia already gave Israel the green light to use its airspace in the case of an attack on Iran. It was also revealed that the Saudis were willing to assist an Israeli attack by cooperating with the use of drones, rescue helicopters, and tanker planes. “Once the Geneva agreement is signed, the military option will be back on the table. The Saudis are furious and are willing to give Israel all the help it needs,” an unnamed diplomatic source told the paper.

Tehran has been negotiating sanction relief in Geneva with the P5+1 countries - consisting of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China - in exchange for assurances that it will not develop a nuclear weapon. Exact terms on offer from both sides have not been made public, but no agreement was made last weekend. The sides will sit down for a new round of talks on November 20.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that lifting sanctions on Iran without demanding sufficient concessions in return will only encourage Tehran on its path to nuclear armament and lead to future conflict. Israel has been lobbying hard against appeasement, with Netanyahu himself claiming that Iran is about to clinch “the deal of the century.”

On Saturday, Netanyahu spoke to French daily Le Figaro about the situation, stating that Israel and the “leading states in the Arab world” agree when it comes to Tehran and its nuclear capabilities. “We all think that Iran should not be allowed to have the capacities to make nuclear weapons,” he said. “We all think that a tougher stance should be taken by the international community. We all believe that if Iran were to have nuclear weapons, this could lead to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, making the Middle East a nuclear tinderbox.”

The Switzerland-based organization, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, collated the views of academics, business experts and government employees for its report on the outlook for key economic trends, published Friday. It found that unemployment and a widening income gap were also major concerns for world leaders, although MENA tensions ranked highest.

The WEF highlighted the ongoing civil war in Syria, which has involved high-profile negotiations between Russia and the US, and political instability and unemployment across North Africa as particular areas of concern. "The year 2014 is absolutely not the year for complacency," Martina Gmur, senior director at the WEF, said in a press release. The WEF's report also identified structural unemployment as a key trend, which it described as a "global issue demanding a global solution."

The number of unemployed people worldwide rose by 4.2 million in 2012 to over 197 million, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), marking an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent. The ILO said it expects the number of jobseekers across the globe to rise to more than 210 million over the next five years.

"A major redistribution of power" is currently taking place in Europe, with France and Great Britain falling clearly behind Germany, according to a recent declaration of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). In Southern Europe, there are already massive protests against the German government's dictates.

These have not yet had major consequences, but timely preventive measures should be taken to pre-empt the establishment of a "countervailing power." The SWP's suggestions support various initiatives from within Berlin's establishment aimed at consolidating German domination over the EU and pushing the next German government toward a more offensive global policy.

The German president, for example, called in this year's National Holiday speech for a more offensive German approach to global politics, and the SWP pleads for Berlin to assume a more decisive "leadership." Whereas German predomination over the EU is today taken for granted, a shift is perceived in relations to the most important global rival - the United States.

This process could erase a century of medical advances, say government doctors in a special editorial in The Lancet health journal. Although the looming threat of antibiotic, or anti-microbial, resistance has been known about for years, the new warning reflects growing concern that the NHS and other national health systems, already under pressure from ageing populations, will struggle to cope with the rising cost of caring for people in the "post-antibiotic era".

In a stark reflection of the seriousness of the threat, England's deputy chief medical officer, Professor John Watson, said: "I am concerned that in 20 years, if I go into hospital for a hip replacement, I could get an infection leading to major complications and possible death, simply because antibiotics no longer work as they do now."

About 35 million antibiotics are prescribed by GPs in England every year. The more the drugs circulate, the more bacteria are able to evolve to resist them. In the past, drug development kept pace with evolving microbes, with a constant production line of new classes of antibiotics. But the drugs have ceased to be profitable and a new class has not been created since 1987.

In the eight months since he was chosen, cathedrals in Britain have seen a rise of about 20% in congregations, drawing in both new and lapsed members. More than half of the priests surveyed in Italy said there had been a rise in support for the church. In Spain, the church has halted a decade-long slump in attendance.

Catholic leaders in the US, France and Latin America report growth in the faithful. In Argentina, the Pope’s home country, 12% more now define themselves as religious than before his appointment. The results sugest Francis’s “electrifying” appeal is breathing new life into a church badly stained by the serial paedophile priest scandals.

Francis' simple blue Ford Focus and the small Vatican motorcade pulled up quietly to the Quirinale Palace without the blaring of sirens that typically accompanies politicians and foreign dignitaries cruising through central Rome. Once inside the onetime summer residence of popes, Francis walked slowly with President Giorgio Napolitano past the honor guard and then greeted staff members and their children, further evidence of a more casual approach to official duties by the Argentine "slum pope."

Francis' shunning of the trappings of the papacy — including its security apparatus — has defined his papacy so far. But his desire to be close to his flock and his aim to curb corruption and waste in the Vatican have raised fresh security fears, beyond the occasional mobbing of his open car by overly enthusiastic pilgrims.

At least five people were killed and it is feared that several hundred people may have been injured in the fast-moving storms. A number of people are said to be trapped inside buildings. Forecasters say up to 53 million people could be affected. Hailstones the size of tennis balls have been reported.

The rapid-moving storm - with winds of up to 111km/h (68mph) - is continuing its way east. November is ordinarily one of the quietest months in the tornado calendar, meaning these storms are unusually destructive for this time of year, the BBC's Nick Bryant in New York reports.

At least four people were reported missing in Riyadh, according to local media. One of them, a 26-year-old Yemeni woman, has been confirmed dead. The body of the young woman was found in the Wadi Nimar valley, which is surrounded by steep banks and can therefore suddenly fill with water in case of rainfall, Al-Arabiya reported, citing the Saudi Civil Defense authority.

According to Saudi news website Sabq, the woman was washed away while attempting to cross the flooded area. She had been traveling in a car with her father, but they had to stop as it became too dangerous to remain in the vehicle. The search continues for other people who went missing as a result of the rainfall, which experts have already called the worst in 30 years.

The Civil Defense Force said it received over 5,000 reports of incidents, including 4,968 in the capital. Almost 100 people trapped by the flooding were rescued, Gulf News reported. Defense teams also recovered 148 vehicles that were submerged under water.

The earthquake struck at 8:44 pm local time (11:44 am GMT) at a depth of 63 kilometers (39 miles) in the Chiba prefecture which neighbors Tokyo, the US Geological Survey reported. The quake shook skyscrapers in the Japanese capital and temporarily halted the city’s high-speed train service, according to AFP. The trains soon resumed after a track inspection.

Local broadcaster NHK assured that neither Tokyo’s Narita International Airport nor regional nuclear installations were affected by the earthquake. While earthquakes of different magnitudes are not uncommon in Japan, the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that triggered the core meltdowns of three reactors at the Fukushima plant has made every quake report in the region particularly alarming.

As the world watches with apprehension at how Fukushima’s decommissioning work unfolds, prominent Japanese-Canadian scientist David Suzuki warned last week that another nearby earthquake of magnitude 7 or higher could trigger a serious nuclear catastrophe, decimating Japan and reaching the US west coast.

“If the fourth [reactor] goes under an earthquake and those rods are exposed, then it’s bye, bye, Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should be evacuated. And if that isn’t terrifying, I don’t know what is,” Suzuki said.

Around thirty Muslim Brotherhood activists managed to gain entry into Bloomsbury’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), which is part of the University of London, on Friday. The mob of demonstrators forced their way into a lecture hall where guest speaker, Mohamed El-Nabawy, was giving a talk, disrupting the lecture and forcing Nabawy from the stage.

The lecture in question dealt with the challenges facing Egypt following the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood party. The protesters took issue with guest speaker, Nabawy, because of his affiliations with the Tamarod movement that supported the military in its removal of Morsi as president.

The Brotherhood members behaved in an aggressive manner and reportedly tried to harass the speaker. They chanted “fall, fall the rule of the military” as Nabawy was escorted from the stage by security staff. The Muslim Brotherhood organization has denounced the trial as a farce aimed at political revenge and maintains Morsi’s legitimacy as president.

“We have said what we mean, and will do what we say. The carbon tax goes,” Prime Minister Abbott told Australian lawmakers. “Repealing the carbon tax should be the first economic reform of this parliament.”

The Liberal-National Party swept up seats in September’s election in large part due to their opposition to the left-wing Labor Party’s imposition of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. The unpopular tax was blamed for rising power bills and hurting economic growth. Abbott has touted his party’s bill to repeal the carbon tax as “our bill to reduce your bills.”

However, this is only a portion of the Abbott government’s agenda. The carbon tax repeal plan will also cut $435 million in Australian dollars funding to the country’s renewable energy bureaucracy, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). The move was met with hostility from environmental groups who believe that funding cuts will cause the country to fall behind in the global marketplace.