From May 1 through August 31, the fund’s assets shriveled 14%, from $292 billion to $251 billion; $26 billion from outflows and $15 billion from the shrinking value of the bonds. The fund lost 5.5% during that period. By riding up the greatest bond bubble in the history of mankind, the fund has become known as a place where investors who don’t mind smaller returns but shudder at the thought of losing some of their principal could park their money without having to worry about it – but now, they’re worrying about it.

September is shaping up to be even worse.

Bonds are cratering and yields are spiking worldwide. In the US, the 10-year Treasury yield kissed the magic 3.0% late Thursday, at least briefly, for the first time since July 2011, up from a low of 2.75% at the beginning of the month. It will drag other bond yields, mortgage rates, and other consumer and corporate rates behind it.

Pimco’s fund wasn’t alone: in total, $39.5 billion were yanked out of bond mutual funds in August, $21.1 billion in July, and a record of $69.1 billion in June. Emerging market funds, international bond funds… they’ve all gotten hit. The Great Rotation out of bonds into stocks? Alas, that concept is vacillating between pipedream and deceptive hype, proffered by Wall Street for its own benefit. In reality, it doesn’t exist.

In this nightmare environment, can the US military make a meaningful difference? I’ve been wrestling about this for several days, and here is where I have come out. I cannot in good conscience support the Congressional resolution to authorize this particular President with the power to use US military force in Syria for 60 days, much less 90 days.

1.) The United States does not currently have a President who is trustworthy, principled, steady and wise — to the contrary, Mr Obama is weak, vacillating, dithering, and devoid of a clear, compelling and principled policy in the Middle East. He doesn’t inspire confidence, not with our allies, not with Congress, and most importantly, not with the American people. It is clear that he drew his “red line” without thinking it through. He doesn’t have a plan. He hasn’t built Congressional or international support. He is winging it. And that is incredibly dangerous.

2.) Nobody is with us — President Obama has been unable to build even the limited international coalition for action that President George W Bush built going into Iraq in 2003.

3.) The unintended consequences of becoming engaged in the war in Syria with an undependable President could be catastrophic, and this could draw our government, and thus us, in even deeper, with no exit strategy —

If a US military strike in Syria leads to the fall of Assad and to al Qaeda or other Radical Islamic groups coming to power?

What if Syria’s chemical and biological weapons fall into the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorists?

What if those terrorists use those weapons against the American people and/or our allies?

What if the Radical jihadist rebels start massacring the Christians of Syria?

What if Assad, in a desperate last gasp of vengeance, unleashes a chemical weapons attack against Israel?

These are just a handful of the nightmare scenarios.

Under a different President — one who was trusted and respected deeply by the American people, and our allies; one with foreign policy experience; one with solid principles and a steady hand – I could support this resolution because I would believe that the President would be ready to handle any unintended consequence. As it stands, I agree with most of the language in the resolution. But I do not have any confidence that President Obama is up to this enormous challenge. And since the downstream effects of what could be unleashed by a mishandling of this crisis are so horrible, I would not be able to vote in favor of the resolution if I were a member of the House or Senate.

It is a dangerous thing to have an American President that the nation does not trust to lead us into battle, or that we can depend upon in times of crisis. But that is where we are.

In a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is hosting the G20 summit, Francis said that lopsided global interests have blocked a diplomatic course in the Syrian conflict and have led to the “senseless massacre” of innocent people.

“To the leaders present, to each and every one, I make a heartfelt appeal for them to help find ways to overcome the conflicting positions and to lay aside the futile pursuit of a military solution,” Francis wrote. The letter follows an announcement earlier this week that the Vatican will host a vigil for peace in Syria in St Peter’s Square on Saturday.

The Vatican outlined Thursday its position on Syria to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See. “Confronted with similar acts one cannot remain silent, and the Holy See hopes that the competent institutions make clear what happened and that those responsible face justice,” the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, told the 71 ambassadors regarding the chemical weapons attack that took place outside Damascus on August 21. The US and its allies believe the attack was launched by the Syrian government.

Mr Obama arrived St Petersburg for a tense G20 summit amid signs that Russia's opposition to US airstrikes was gaining significant international support. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, welcomed Mr Obama to his home town in an encounter that laid bare the increasingly difficult relationship between the two men. After exchanging a stiff handshake and stern looks, Mr Obama and Mr Putin offered fixed smiles for the cameras before entering the Konstantinovsky Palace.

In the summit room, diplomats said the two men were seated well apart from each other and did not speak to one another directly during opening talks about the world economy. The awkward initial encounter came after some other leaders arriving in St Petersburg pointedly sided with Russia in its opposition to US-led military action. Intervention would damage the global economy by pushing up oil prices, China said. Syria is not a significant oil exporter, but the prospect of conflict in the Middle East often pushes up oil prices.

"Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price - it will cause a hike in the oil price," said Zhu Guangyao, the Chinese Vice Finance Minister. Brazil, India and South Africa also worry that intervention would do economic harm, according to Mr Putin's officials. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Russian president, said the leaders of the large emerging economies spoke before the St Petersburg summit and agreed that Syrian intervention would have an "extremely negative effect" on the global economy."

While the British and French governments have both backed the principle of military intervention to punish the Assad regime's alleged use of chemical weapons, the European Union as a whole is opposed, European officials said.

Herman van Rompuy, the EU president, arrived at the summit with a warning against military action.

Up until Thursday, the German government and the opposition had been unanimously proclaiming that the use of chemical weapons near Damascus must have "consequences" and emphasizing their approval of the British prime minster's belligerency. Now the German government is declaring that it is not considering "a military strike," while the opposition is professing that "a military intervention would be a mistake."

This about-face must be seen in the context of the strategic leeway in Europe, resulting from the new situation, which only concerns Syria at a secondary level. As the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) notes, the British parliament's decision has not only "damaged the special relationship with the United States," it also provides Germany new political advantages. Moreover, "the British-French security and defense policy alliance has been weakened," thereby strengthening Germany's position.

In spite of its about-face in foreign policy, bellicose positions are still remnant in Berlin. For example, the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, declared that the West should not "from the outset" exclude any option - including participation in a war.

In a statement Thursday, Grimm says the window for action has now passed and that the feedback from his constituents has made him re-think his previous position. “Thus, after much thought, deliberation and prayer, I am no longer convinced that a US strike on Syria will yield a benefit to the United States that will not be greatly outweighed by the extreme cost of war,” Grimm said.

Grimm added: “Now that the Assad regime has seen our playbook and has been given enough time to prepare and safeguard potential targets, I do not feel that we have enough to gain as a nation by moving forward with this attack on our own.”

The remarks stand in stark contrast to what Grimm said less than a week ago. The Staten Island Advance quoted Grimm as saying he was “supporting the president on this.” “We have to keep our word; this is about our credibility,” Grimm said. “We can’t permit a precedent where there is a use of chemical weapons and there is no response.”

Grimm is the 91st House member to express opposition to military action in Syria, along with 93 who have expressed scepticism. That means the ranks of those likely to vote against a use of force resolution is getting close to the 217 that will be required to defeat it.

Lord Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, described as “very dubious” the decision overseen by his successor, Keir Starmer QC, not to charge two doctors who agreed to arrange abortions of baby girls purely because of their gender. Britain’s biggest abortion provider declared that the decision showed that terminating babies because of their gender is not necessarily a crime.

The Crown Prosecution Service has told two doctors, who were exposed by an undercover Daily Telegraph investigation last year, that they will not be charged even though there was enough evidence, because it did not consider the issue to be in the public interest. The CPS said the key reason for the decision was that the doctors would still be investigated by the General Medical Council.

But Lord Macdonald said this amounted to letting them “avoid criminal action” because of their professional status — undermining the basic principle that “everyone is equal under the law”.

Snowden now lives in Russia after a Hollywood-like nearly six-week-long stint in a Moscow airport waiting for a country to grant him asylum. Journalists and pundits have spent countless articles and news segments conveying the intrigue and intensity of the standoff that eventually resulted in Russia granting Snowden one year of asylum. Attention now has shifted to his father, Lon Snowden, and his announced visit of Edward in Russia.

Lost in the excitement of this “White Bronco Moment,” many have missed the elephant in the room: the “Great Game”-style geopolitical standoff between the US and Russia underlying it all, and which may have served as the impetus for Russia to grant Snowden asylum to begin with. What’s at stake? Natural gas.

Russia, of course, has its own surveillance state and has been described by The Guardian’s Luke Harding as a “Mafia State” due to the deep corruption that reportedly thrives under Putin’s watch. It all comes as the US competes with Russian gas production thanks in part to the controversial drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing - “fracking” - transforming the United States into what President Barack Obama has hailed as the “Saudi Arabia of gas.”

Russia produced 653 billion cubic meters of gas in 2012, while the US produced 651 billion cubic meters, making them the top two producers in the world.

From the FT: “China warned on Thursday that military intervention in Syria would hurt the world economy and push up oil prices, reinforcing Vladimir Putin’s attempts to talk US President Barack Obama out of air strikes. “Military action would have a negative impact on the global economy, especially on the oil price – it will cause a hike in the oil price,” Chinese vice-finance minister Zhu Guangyao told a briefing before the start of the G20 leaders’ talks.”

This follows Obama’s humiliating backtracking on his “redline” statement from yesterday at Stockholm, which hardly won the punting president much allies in the “world”: Mr Obama said that he had not set a “red line” over the use of chemical weapons in Syria, saying “the world set a red line”, a reference to a global treaty banning their use… “We as a country and the world are going to have to take tough choices,” he said. Russia and China have made it clear they will veto action on Syria in the Security Council.

Perhaps Russia and China, two of the most important nations in the world, are not part of it according to the US president?

Tensions surrounding the Syrian crisis boiled over at a G20 summit in St Petersburg. Mr Cameron has backed calls for military intervention in Syria after the Assad regime allegedly used chemical weapons. Mr Putin has opposed intervention and questioned Western claims about the attack. Britain has faced questions about its role and influence in the world since Mr Cameron was embarrassed by last week’s Commons vote to rule out a military strike against Syria.

Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s official spokesman, is said to have highlighted that embarrassment, telling Russian journalists that Britain was now diplomatically irrelevant. Britain is “just a small island … no one pays any attention to them”, Mr Peskov is reported to have said. The blunt remarks appeared to realise British fears that the Russians would use the St Petersburg summit to upstage Mr Cameron over his criticism of Syria, Russia’s closest Middle Eastern ally.

Furious David Cameron today fired back at Russia's dismissal of Britain as a 'small island', reeling off a passionate, patriotic defence of the nation's global strengths and triumphs. Suggesting his tribute to Great Britain be 'set to music', Mr Cameron argued it had saved Europe from fascism, abolished slavery and 'invented most of the things worth inventing'.

The Prime Minister, speaking at the G20 in St Petersburg, refuted Russian claims that 'no one pays any attention to' the country he leads, insisting its art, sport, literature, diplomacy, philosophy, music, economy and military put it among the great nations of the world. And he even ridiculed the idea that the UK was just one island, declaring he did not want the People of Northern Island, Orkney or Shetland to 'feel left out' from his tribute to the nation's great history.

The extraordinary diplomatic row erupted last night when Russia dismissed Britain as ‘just a small island no one pays any attention to'. It meant the summit of world leaders descended into acrimony over planned military strikes on Syria.

Jordan has put its forces on high alert ahead of anticipated Western airstrikes against the Syrian regime. Jordan has said it will not be a launchpad for any foreign military intervention in Syria. But as the West threatens to strike the regime in Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons, it seems that Jordan’s army is ready for various possibilities.

The Jordanian Air force is one of the strongest in the Arab world, possessing many of the most advanced fighter-jets in the world today. Jordan is also one of few countries that possess the multiple Himars truck -mounted rocket launchers that exceed 70 kilometers in range and can identify a target within seconds. A political solution in Syria remains the favorable option for Jordan, but the army says it is prepared to defend the country and its people at any time.

‘Gibraltar is British and wants to stay British and for us that is the end of the matter,’ he said. ‘We will never negotiate over sovereignty over the people of Gibraltar’s heads, as the last Labour government did.’ Veteran Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman urged Mr Hague to make it clear to Spain that the harassment ‘will not be tolerated and that, if need be, there will be reprisals’. Mr Hague replied: ‘I absolutely will.’

But DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr urged him to go further and order Federico Trillo to leave the capital if the ‘hostility’ towards Gibraltar is not halted. Tensions over the Rock escalated this summer after Spain threatened to impose a £43 fee on anyone entering or leaving the British territory. Madrid also imposed strict checks on traffic at the border with Gibraltar in protest at the creation of an artificial reef.

Speaking to journalists from Russia’s state Channel 1 television and Associated Press, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a number of decisive statements regarding the supposed use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, which evoked a threat of a US-led strike on Syria.

“We believe that at the very least we should wait for the results of the UN inspection commission in Syria,” Putin said, adding that so far there is no information about what chemical agent exactly was used in the attack in Damascus’ suburbs and who did it.

“I’ve already said I find it absolutely ridiculous that [the Syrian] government’s armed forces, which today are actually on an offense mission and in some regions have already encircled the so-called rebels and are finishing them off, that the Syrian army has used prohibited chemical weapons,” Putin said. “They know all too well that this could become a cause for sanctions and even for a military operation against them. That’s stupid and illogical.”

“We proceed from the assumption that if anyone has information that chemical weapons were used by the Syrian regular army, then such proof must be presented to the UN Security Council and the UN inspectors,” Putin said, stressing that the proof must be “convincing” and not based on “rumors” or any sort of “eavesdropped intelligence data,” conversations etc. Putin says he “does not exclude” that Russia may agree with a military operation if it is proved that the Syrian government is behind the attack, however he emphasized that in accordance with international law a decision of the UN Security Council is needed for that.

Leaders of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee said they reached an agreement on a draft authorization for the use of military force in Syria, paving the way for a vote by the committee on Wednesday. However, the draft is much narrower than the request made by Obama and includes a provision barring the use of US troops on the ground.

Speaking after the United Nations said two million Syrians had fled a conflict that posed the greatest threat to world peace since the Vietnam war, Obama said on Tuesday the United States also has a broader plan to help rebels defeat Assad's forces. "What we are envisioning is something limited. It is something proportional. It will degrade Assad's capabilities," Obama said. "At the same time we have a broader strategy that will allow us to upgrade the capabilities of the opposition."

Having startled friends and foes alike by delaying a punitive attack on Assad until Congress reconvenes and agrees, Obama met congressional leaders at the White House to urge a prompt decision and assure them it did not mean another long war like Iraq or Afghanistan. John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor both pledged their support for military action after the meeting.