The pope's warning not to engage in gay propaganda puts him on par with homophobes like Russian President Vladimir Putin, he contends.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: On the flight from Brazil to Europe, Pope Francis was unexpectedly candid. "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" he said, causing many commentators to rejoice. Was this really such a big sensation?

BERGER: It is incredibly naïve to liken it to a dam bursting. What are gays or lesbians to think when someone tells them: I don't want you to be discriminated against, but you are not allowed to live out your "tendency" anyway? According to doctrine, the homosexual act is still a sin.

While the program is still in its early stages, the document shows the White House is already working on such projects with almost a dozen federal departments and agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. "Behavioral sciences can be used to help design public policies that work better, cost less, and help people to achieve their goals," reads the government document describing the program, which goes on to call for applicants to apply for positions on the team.

The document praises subtle policies to change behavior that have already been implemented in England, which already has a "Behavioral Insights Team." One British policy concerns how to get late tax filers to pay up. "Sending letters to late taxpayers that indicated a social norm - ie that '9 out of 10 people in Britain paid their taxes on time' - resulted in a 15 percent increase in response rates over a three-month period, rolling out to 30 million of extra annual revenue," the document reads.

But some economists urge caution. "I am very skeptical of a team promoting nudge policies," Michael Thomas, an economist at Utah State University, told FoxNews.com. "Ultimately, nudging ... assumes a small group of people in government know better about choices than the individuals making them." And sometimes, he added, government actually promotes the wrong thing.

Her warning came after the leaders of major parties in the coalition reiterated their opposition. On Tuesday, she and her Palestinian counterpart gave themselves nine months to reach a "final status" agreement. After hosting the first direct negotiations in three years in Washington, US Secretary of State John Kerry announced that there would be substantial talks in the next two weeks, either in Israel or the Palestinian territories.

Mr Kerry said all issues were "on the table" for discussion. "We cannot pass along to another generation the responsibility of ending a conflict that is in our power to resolve in our time," he added. Speaking to army radio, Ms Livni said she had been "encouraged" by her meetings with the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat. "It was an event in which there was a kind of excitement and also hope."

"It was important that there was a first meeting, after several months in which the Americans ran between us and them and we didn't sit with one another," she added. Mr Erekat told reporters on Tuesday: "I'm delighted that all final status issues are on the table and will be resolved without any exceptions."

In her radio interview, Ms Livni also warned all parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government - in which she is justice minister - not to criticise the negotiations publicly. "I know that there are partners in the coalition that are not interested in a two-state solution, but they have a collective responsibility and as long as they are part of the coalition they must support negotiations," she said.

"I am expecting you in Jerusalem, not just me but the whole country of Israel," Peres told the pope in the presence of reporters after 30 minutes of private talks in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace. Francis was close to the Jewish community in his native Argentina.

Lured by news stories that proclaim that you can buy homes in Detroit for as little as one dollar, Chinese investors are eagerly gobbling up properties. In some cases, this is happening dozens of properties at a time. Not only that, according to the New York Times “dozens of companies from China” are investing in businesses and establishing a presence in the Detroit area. If this continues, will Detroit eventually become a city that is heavily dominated by China?

At this point, not too many others appear interested in saving Detroit. Right now, there are approximately 78,000 abandoned buildings in Detroit and about one-third of the entire city is either vacant or derelict. People have been moving out in droves and there are only about 700,000 residents left.

For many Americans, Detroit is about the last place that they would want to live. But to many Chinese, this sounds like a perfect buying opportunity. Detroit is a dying, bankrupt city. There does not seem to be much hope of a turnaround for Detroit any time soon.

So why are the Chinese gobbling up so much real estate and so many businesses in Detroit?

That is a very good question.

“As cyber technology continues to develop, cyber warfare has quietly begun,” the report concludes, noting that the ability to wage cyber war in space is vital for China’s military modernization. According to the report, strategic warfare in the past was built on nuclear weapons. “But strategic warfare in the information age is cyber warfare,” the report said.

“With the reliance of information warfare on space, cyberspace will surely become a hot spot in the struggle for cyberspace control,” the report said. The new details of Chinese plans for cyber and space warfare were revealed in a report “Study on Space Cyber Warfare” by four engineers working at a Chinese defense research center in Shanghai.

The report presents a rare inside look at one of Beijing’s most secret military programs: Cyber warfare plans against the United States in a future conflict. “Cyber warfare is not limited to military personnel. All personnel with special knowledge and skills on information systems may participate in the execution of cyber warfare. Cyber warfare may truly be called a people’s warfare,” the report says.

People’s War was first developed by China’s Communist founder Mao Zedong as a Marxist-Leninist insurgency and guerrilla warfare concept. The article provides evidence that Chinese military theorists are adapting Mao’s peasant uprising stratagem for a future conflict with the United States.

There are concerns as the political upheaval grows, elements of the former regime of Zein Abidine Ben Ali, driven from power in January 2011, retain considerable influence and maintain ties with the labor unions and the internal security forces and could try to stage a comeback. “The most successful democratic transition after the 2011 Arab uprisings is now under severe pressure,” Oxford Analytica warned.

The cause of Tunisia’s slide toward anarchy was the assassination Thursday of secular opposition leader Mohammed Brahmi, a member of the 217-seat parliament who represented the central city of Sidi Bouzid, his hometown. That’s where the January 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali began when a humble fruit seller committed self-immolation to protest the tyranny of the regime.

Brahmi, 58, one of the top figures in the Arab People’s Party, was shot 14 times by a gunman on a motorcycle outside his home in Cite el-Ghazala, a Tunis suburb, in full view of his wife and handicapped daughter. That was the second killing of an opposition political leader this year. Chokri Belaid of the leftist Popular Front was gunned down in the capital in broad daylight February 6. Both men were outspoken critics of the Ennahda party of moderate Islamists that has dominated Tunisia since elections in October 2011, and their extremist rivals.

For most, soaking up the sun and gulping down Sancerre, much will seem the same as last summer. Behind the scenes, however, financial markets in the Club Med countries are very different compared with 12 months ago, when the eurozone’s straitjacket appeared to be splitting.

Share prices in particular have enjoyed a remarkable resurgence. Stock market indices in Portugal, France and Spain are up by about 30 per cent. That’s pretty impressive for economies running on empty but is completely outshone by Greece, where the main index is now 64 per cent higher than in June 2012. If that sounds too good to be true, remember that at its current level of 294, the Athex 20 is still 85 per cent lower than its high point of 2008. None the less, there’s a temptation to look at the direction of travel and conclude that, even for the eurozone’s weaklings, the point of maximum danger is history. This is what EU leaders and the European Central Bank would like us to believe, because it fits their broader narrative: the single currency works, is sustainable and benefits all in the long run.

At the core of this “recovery” is a bluff that has yet to be called. In August last year, the European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi, promised to do “whatever it takes” to defend the euro through the unlimited purchase of bonds issued by troubled EU states. It was high-quality legerdemain. Presented with the perceived safety net of a one-way bet, private investors returned to buying sovereign debt and company shares in the EU’s angst-ridden periphery.

Not since the Wizard of Oz has an illusionist created so much fuss with so little substance. Without spending a single cent, Draghi conjured up a fall in borrowing costs and a rise in stock markets. What’s more, consumer confidence improved in the EU’s more solvent regions, albeit from a woefully low base. The killer question now is: how long can the magician keep the trick going? Or, as Toto did in the movie with Judy Garland, will the curtain be pulled back to reveal nothing more than bluster behind a screen of smoke and noise?

The answer will not be known until after September 22, when the Germans go to the polls.

How many were devout participants in World Youth Day is another question: one poll claimed that 65 per cent disagreed with Catholic teaching on birth control. But if Francis was attracting "cafeteria Catholics" or non-believers, then he'd surely say: so much the better.

On the other hand… what if Francis succeeds in decontaminating the Catholic brand? Sorry about the jargon, but if Catholicism really were a brand, ad agencies wouldn't be fighting for the account right now. You can sum up the reason for the Church's global unpopularity in one sentence. Catholic priests abused children and Catholic bishops covered up their crimes.

We can argue until the cows come home about what percentage of priests were involved, how many of them are long dead, whether their offences were technically paedophile, whether local dioceses or the Vatican are more to blame for the cover-ups, and how many clergy were falsely accused. The fact remains: the Church betrayed children on an unimaginable scale.

It is one thing for the Church to face hostility because it challenges fashionable and comfortable ways of life; quite another for it to become synonymous with evil. If Pope Francis can create an atmosphere where Catholics are judged by their actions today rather than by the abhorrent crimes of a minority of their clergy, then even the most staunch traditionalist will be in his debt.

President Barack Obama has signalled over recent days that he wants a shift towards a hard money stance at the Fed, calling for a new chairman willing to “keep our dollar sound” and ensure financial stability. “Let’s also keep an eye on inflation, and if it starts heating up, if the markets start frothing up, let’s make sure that we’re not creating new bubbles.” The comments have been taken as a desire to move beyond the era of quantitative easing (QE) under current chairman Ben Bernanke, who steps down in January and is already a lame duck.

They come amid leaks that Mr Obama has narrowed his choice to Professor Summers, a titanic figure in US finance with a hot temper to match. Professor Summers, a former Treasury Secretary, is a “General Theory” Keynesian who sees fiscal stimulus as the only effective way to fight slumps once interest rates reach zero. Yet the Fed has no role in fiscal policy. Budgetary matters belong to the Treasury and Congress.

He has been disdainful of monetary stimulus, the Fed’s sole domain, questioning whether QE does much good. He wrote last year that it distorts investment, worsens inequality, and stokes “asset bubbles” without helping the real economy.

According to this thorough analysis, Monsanto appears to be aggressively targeting independent researchers, scientists, activists, and others opposed to genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) by utilizing the vast resources and manpower of both the United States federal government and the American military-industrial complex

The report, which recently appeared in the July 13 print edition of Suddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), explains in rigorous detail how both individuals and groups opposed to GMOs and other chemical-based crop technologies have been threatened, hacked, slandered and terrorized for daring to digress from the pro-GMO status quo. On numerous documented occasions, pertinent information about the dangers of GMOs or lack of GMO safety data has been effectively blocked from timely release by mysterious forces that many say are the chemical industry in disguise.

“A conspicuously large number of Monsanto critics report regular attacks by professional hackers,” explains an English-translated snippet from the SZ report. “There are (Monsanto) ties with the US secret services, the US military, with very hard operating private security companies and of course, with the US government.”

A telling example of this was when the European environmental group Friends of the Earth (FOTE), together with the German Environmental and Nature Protection Association (BUND), was targeted prior to releasing a damning study on the health-damaging effects of glyphosate, the primary active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. A mysterious virus infected the computer of the study’s main organizer just days before publishing, which threatened to delay several important press releases.

“With pride, I announce my defection from al-Saudi family in Saudi Arabia,” he wrote in his statement, according to a report from the Tehran-based Al-Alam news channel. “This regime in Saudi Arabia does not stand by God’s rules or even the country’s established rules and its policies, decisions and actions are totally based on the personal will of its leaders,” he continued.

The ruling royal family is composed of the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud and his brothers, though the ruling faction of the family is primarily led by the descendants of Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman al-Saud. “All that is said in Saudi Arabia about respecting law and religion rules is factitious, so that they can lie and pretend that the regime obeys Islamic rules,” he said, criticizing the royal family for considering the country its own property and silencing all voices from inside and outside the government that called for any change or reform.

The Saudi prince said everything that the pro-reform opposition said about the country’s political, economical, judiciary, social and security conditions as well as their abuse of religious values was true, the report said. “The situation is even worse than what is said in criticisms.” He called on all those who cared for the future of the country to join him and break their silence.

"This is a pivotal moment for Egypt," he said in a statement issued after their conversation. "The United States calls on all of Egypt's leaders across the political spectrum to act immediately to help their country take a step back from the brink."

The US has struggled in its reaction to the turmoil gripping its Middle Eastern ally, with the Obama administration refusing to declare the military's ouster of the country's first democratically elected president a "coup". By Washington's own rules, such a condemnation would have forced President Obama to halt the more than $1 billion in annual military aid to the country.

He is the sort of street rebel whom, at home, Saudi Arabia’s autocracy most fears. But this week he gave the absolute monarchs from across the Red Sea his absolute backing. “The Saudis are our brothers,” he said, from his tent in Tahrir’s continuous encampment. “They are Muslims, they believe in God. President Morsi, now he was an agent of America and Qatar, but the Saudis are helping us.”

The shifts of allegiance in the Middle East in the last three years have been as startling as the convulsions of the Arab Spring itself. But the latest has caught diplomats, analysts and, to the extent they notice the relationships their masters quietly foster, Egypt’s ordinary people by surprise.

Saudi Arabia, not long ago written off as a gerontocracy whose oil billions could not prevent it being outmanoeuvred by a host of rivals in the power struggles of the Middle East, has suddenly re-emerged as the region’s most powerful influence-peddler.

The figure comes four months after Cyprus agreed on a 23 billion-euro ($30.5 billion) rescue package with its euro partners and the International Monetary Fund. In exchange for a 10 billion euro loan, deposits worth more than the insured limit of 100,000 euros at the Bank of Cyprus and smaller lender Laiki were raided in a so-called bail-in to prop up the country's teetering banking sector.

The savings raid prompted Cypriot authorities to impose restrictions on money withdrawals and transfers for all banks to head off a run. Christopher Pissarides, the Nobel laureate who heads the government's economic advisory body, forecast Monday that the bank controls could be in place for another two years.

"The (economy) has absorbed the initial shock and is moving ahead. We see things improving," he told reporters after talks with Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades Monday.