That is certainly true when babies survive abortions and are born alive. Killing them becomes murder, the law says, which is precisely the issue in the case of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, who is currently on trial for allegedly killing at least seven babies authorities and witnesses say survived abortion attempts.

Now, however, an official from Planned Parenthood, the taxpayer-supported organization that provides abortion, among other "women's health" services, has said her organization believes that mothers whose babies survive the procedure should have the right to have them killed nonetheless.

Alisa LaPolt Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified before a shocked panel of Florida legislators, who are considering a bill that would require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion, that any such decision should be left to the abortion doctor and the mother.

"So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I'm almost in disbelief," said Representative Jim Boyd. "If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?"

"We believe that any decision that's made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician," Snow said, apparently unaware that such an act constitutes murder under most any other circumstances.

The student news agency ISNA had quoted Rouhani as saying: "The Zionist regime is a wound that has sat on the body of the Muslim world for years and needs to be removed."

However, Rouhani was seen in video footage broadcast by Press TV as saying: "In our region there's been a wound for years on the body of the Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the beloved al-Qods (Jerusalem)". He was speaking to journalists during an annual Qods Day rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people and to call for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

ISNA's version of his remarks echoed the fiercely anti-Israeli language of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but was swiftly repudiated by Iranian state media which said news agencies had distorted what Rouhani had said.

Finding propaganda-free information has been difficult, until now. In recent months, courts, governments and vaccine manufacturers have quietly conceded the fact that the Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccine most likely does cause autism and stomach diseases. Pharmaceutical companies have even gone so far as to pay out massive monetary awards, totalling in the millions, to the victims in an attempt to compensate them for damages and to buy their silence.

The British government unilaterally withdrew the importation license for the single vaccines, therefore depriving parents of having these on the NHS.

[In an interview with Dr Wakefield, an advocate against the MMR, he confirmed] “I said to Dr Elizabeth Miller of the Health Protection Agency, ‘why would you do this, if your principal concern is to protect children from serious infectious disease? Why would you remove an option from parents who are legitimately concerned about the safety of MMR?’ And her answer was extraordinary. She said, ‘if we allow parents the option of single vaccines, it would destroy our MMR program.’ In other words, her principal concern seemed to be full protection of the MMR program and not protection of children.”

Dr Wakefield himself reiterates the final conclusion of the courts in various countries, but censored by the world’s media outlets saying: “Now this question has been answered not by me, but by the courts, by the vaccine courts in Italy and in the United States of America where it appears that many children over the last thirty years have been awarded millions of dollars for the fact that they have been brain-damaged by MMR vaccine and other vaccines and that brain damage has led to autism. That is a fact.”

Banks, retailers and traders are keen to get consumers to drop cash in favour of plastic because it is a much easier and cheaper way to handle and process payments. Behavioural Psychologist, Donna Dawson, said consumers are more likely to spend more if they use a card rather than cash. While they might be good for the business, many shoppers will view that as a disadvantage.

She said: ‘As a society, we are beginning to demand the ease and convenience of being ‘cashless’, and those service providers who do not keep up will lose out. The most important reason for service providers to take heed is that using a card changes our fundamental shopping behaviour.’

All but one Republican voted against the measure, denying it the 60 votes it needed to advance past a procedural hurdle. Blockage of the Senate's first appropriations bill, along with a decision on Wednesday by Republicans in the House of Representatives to halt consideration of their own transportation funding measure, sends Congress back to the drawing board to find a way to agree on spending and taxes.

It marked the failure of a much-touted return to normal budgeting practices in Congress as a way to try to overcome deep fiscal divisions between the two parties. When Congress returns from a five-week recess in September, lawmakers will have just nine legislative days to craft a stop-gap funding measure to keep government agencies from shutting down as the new fiscal year gets under way on October 1.

"Every problem in this city revolves around jobs," said Lindsay Chalmers, vice president of non-profit Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit. "That's at the heart of the issue for Detroit."

The decline of manufacturing jobs, above all in the automotive industry, has played a major role in the slide of the Motor City's population to 700,000 from a peak of 1.8 million in the 1950s. Despite recent gains, Michigan has 350,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2000. Seismic shifts in the local labor market have left many unskilled workers behind.

At Detroit's high unemployment levels, employers in the Detroit area can "afford to be picky," Jacobs said. "Workers here often need training for new skills, but why should an employer bother doing that when there are thousands of workers to choose from?" he said.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?" That was the disarming rhetorical question which Pope Francis put to journalists accompanying him back from Brazil; it prompted reports of a major shift in the church's attitude to same-sex relations. While carefully citing the church's catechism, he also said gays should be "integrated" into society rather than marginalised.

The church does not, of course, make major doctrinal refinements in off-the-cuff remarks to the press. Other procedures exist for that. And the reason the question even arose has to do with some very awkward news reports over the past month. One of Italy's best-known church-watchers has asserted that Pope Francis was trapped, in effect, by the gay lobby into naming a prelate with a very murky personal life to a job that would supposedly involve cleaning up the troubled Vatican bank.

Pressed about this matter, the pontiff said he hadn't come across any specifically "gay lobby" although there were plenty of other lobbies of "greedy people" in sight. A "quick investigation" had found the allegations about the newly appointed cleric to be unfounded, he insisted.

To a cynical mind, the pope's headline-catching refusal to judge gay people might sound like an artful way of neutralising the most embarrassing saga that has come to light during his young papacy. But Pope Francis has drawn a generally positive response from the secular world, even though he made it clear that the church still considered homosexuality a sin.

Public displays of affection by gays, including holding hands or displaying symbols like a rainbow flag, are now banned. Violators face steep fines and jail time; foreigners face similar penalties plus deportation. So what will happen to openly gay athletes and fans, as well as any vocal supporters or protestors, when Russia hosts the Winter Olympics next year in Sochi?

This week, comments by a lawmaker from St Petersburg set off a firestorm online when he said that fans and athletes would not be immune from prosecution during the games. Vitaly Milonov, who sponsored legislation in St Petersburg last year that became the basis for a national law signed by President Vladimir Putin in June, was quoted telling the Interfax news agency that the law will remain in place during the Olympics and will be applied to foreigners.

Over the past few years, special meetings of ministers of the German speaking countries have been systematically intensified. They are based on the extraordinarily close economic ties, which secure Germany a predominating position. By way of its ties to the media market, Germany achieves a significant ideological influence within the German speaking countries. These meetings of the alpine countries have now been extended to include the participation of Luxemburg.

This growing cooperation has been justified with the assertion that these countries constitute a "unitary cultural realm." However, the integration is not determined by culture, but is the result of German domination, supplanting the previously strong French influence in Luxemburg and Switzerland.

Parting from a solid economic and ideological base, Berlin is also increasingly drawing the German-speaking countries into its foreign policy plans. Last Friday's "quadripartite meeting," focused not only on themes deemed attractive for public relations - such as a common plea for a global ban on the death penalty - but also on the Egyptian crisis and the war in Syria. Foreign policy cooperation is reinforcing - under German leadership - the already strong economic bonds between the German-speaking countries "in the heart of Europe"

With the inclusion of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, this cooperation extends beyond the limits of the EU - and reinforces, as Berlin's national project, Germany's standing in Europe, regardless of the development of the European Union. At the same time, it draws previously neutral German-speaking countries into Berlin's expansionist policies. Switzerland already has its soldiers stationed on several foreign fronts alongside Bundeswehr soldiers - in the countries of the former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan.

Now a Kenyan lawyer wants to overturn Pilate’s decision, though he wants to keep the faith that flowed from it. “The selective and malicious prosecution (of Jesus) violated his human rights,” said Dola Indidis, a Roman Catholic who is petitioning the International Court of Justice, based at The Hague, to nullify Jesus’ conviction and death sentence. Indidis, a former spokesman for the Kenyan judiciary, accuses Pilate, who was the Roman governor of Judea, of “judicial misconduct, abuse of office, bias and prejudice.”

That may well be the case, at least in the view of believers and many Bible scholars. But getting a court to rule on a 2,000-year-old case from an outlying province in a long-defunct empire will not be easy. Indidis first brought his case before the Kenyan High Court in Nairobi in 2007, but the court refused to hear it, saying it lacked jurisdiction.

Now he is turning to the International Court of Justice, often referred to as the World Court, which is best known for ruling on territorial disputes between members of the United Nations.

On the surface, Israelis saw little reason to jump back into negotiations. The status quo in the occupied Palestinian territories was holding and the question of the so-called peace process had largely fallen off the domestic political agenda. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have realized he could not take the rap for cold shouldering US efforts to revive the talks, and recognized that turbulent regional dynamics made it worthwhile to engage with the Palestinians once more.

"Resuming the diplomatic process at this time is important for the state of Israel both in order to try to end the conflict and given the complex reality in our region, especially the security challenges from Syria and Iran," Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday before it sanctioned the resumption of talks.

The Israeli leader has said for years that Iran is planning to build a nuclear bomb and warned that this represents an existential threat to the Jewish state. Despite Tehran's denials, Netanyahu believes time is running out to deal with the issue. Israeli leaders have repeatedly said Washington must take the lead in halting Iran - either through military means, economic sanctions or diplomacy.

In this context, analysts said Israel could not risk rousing Washington's ire by spurning Kerry's extraordinary efforts. "Netanyahu has Iran on his horizon and has made a very calculated move in order to guarantee some American support on more concrete, assertive steps in the Iranian matter," said Uzi Rabi, head of the Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle East Studies.

Feiglin, who heads the Jewish Leadership faction of the Likud party, visited the Temple Mount on Thursday despite knowing he would find it locked to Jews, as a display of protest. In an "unprecedented" move, police on Wednesday informed Jewish groups that the Temple Mount will be closed to all non-Muslims until at least the end of Ramadan, on 11th August. The announcement has provoked renewed anger over anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount, and sparked calls by activists for a mass-protest on 7th August, at the start of the Hebrew month of Elul.

Temple Mount activists had complained that for the past three days the Temple Mount - the holiest place in Judaism - remained inexplicably closed to non-Muslim visitors. The only "explanation" offered was a bland sign which simply read "Today the Temple Mount will be closed to visitors." Those restrictions did not, however, apply to Muslim visitors, who continue to receive unrestricted access.

On Wednesday, Police Commander Avi Bitton finally informed representatives of the Organisation of Temple Movements - an umbrella of various Temple Mount groups - that the sign would remain up for at least another two weeks, until after the Muslim festival of "Eid", which marks the end of Ramadan. Feiglin told Arutz Sheva on Thursday that the closure of the holy site to Jews for the Ramadan holiday is a real cause for concern. The unprecedented move is linked to diplomatic talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, he confirmed.

Since returning to the presidency, Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed the importance of a strong military, including Russia seeking a greater presence in the Mediterranean. Russia has been strengthening its presence, establishing a floating Mediterranean naval flotilla — consisting of some 16 warships — for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In June Putin stated, “This is a strategically important region, and we have tasks to carry out there to provide for the national security of the Russian Federation.” It is speculated this deployment is partially meant to deter any NATO move towards Syria.

With the future of Russia’s Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coastline looking uncertain (Moscow recently evacuated all personnel), Russia is looking for other opportunities to maintain and strengthen its foothold in the Middle East. Therefore, increased speculation over a possible military presence on Cyprus is not surprising.

In a joint letter and ideas paper, dated Friday (26 July), the foreign ministers of both countries say that amid "asymmetrical threats" the EU needs to "assume increased responsibility for international peace and security." They add that they are committed to making a planned EU defence summit in December a "success" with "tangible results." Among the results they are hoping for is agreement on improved "operational effectiveness" of EU battle groups, clusters of 1,500 soldiers meant to be deployed rapidly.

Launched in 2007, they have never been used. And ambitions have been scaled back amid dwindling defence budgets. Meanwhile, although France and the UK, the EU's most significant military powers, made the most noise about a military intervention in Libya in 2011, they were unable to take action without the US' help.

More broadly, Washington has said it will intensify its role in the Asia-Pacific region, leaving the EU to do more in its own neighbourhood.

The government spent 708 million euros ($938 million) on research and development of energy technologies last year, up from 399 million euros in 2006, the Economy Ministry said today in an e-mailed statement, citing a new study. Projects included reducing noise from offshore wind power, making buildings more energy-efficient and producing electro-chemical storage units.

“Research and development of modern energy technologies are an important condition for the success of the energy switch,” Economy Minister Philipp Roesler said in the statement. Renewable and efficiency projects accounted for about 500 million euros of the funding last year, the ministry said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is attempting to lead the biggest transition to renewables of any developed country in history, seeking to more than triple the share of renewable power by 2050 to 80 percent of consumption. The clean-energy plants will help replace nuclear reactors, all of which are due to close by 2022.