Metropolitan Police investigating the killing of Lee Rigby, a 25-year-old soldier who was run over by attackers then butchered by knives, arrested three more men in the murder investigation Saturday. Stun guns were used on two of the three men, aged 24 and 28, police said.

The latest arrests came as an estimated 1,500 members of an extremist right-wing group called the English Defense League marched in the northern English city of Newcastle, chanting Rigby's name. In the southern English city of Portsmouth, police arrested two men for a racially motivated assault as hundreds of demonstrators gathered near one mosque, while several more people were detained for alleged racist offenses elsewhere.

Meanwhile, the far-right British National Party announced it would rally supporters next weekend on the spot where the young soldier was killed. "Has the horror of Woolwich woken you up too? ... Join the British resistance," British National Party leader Nick Griffin said in a video address Saturday to supporters announcing his plans for a "Stand Up to Muslim Terror" rally at the scene of the crime, where thousands already have left floral bouquets paying tribute to the soldier.

Today there were fears that the Paris attack was a copy-cat crime and that a radical Muslim might once more be responsible. Police in the French capital described the attacker as a being ‘bearded, of North African origin and wearing a light coloured jihab’ under a jacket. He pounced on the soldier outside a Virgin store in La Defence, the business district of the city which was packed with Saturday afternoon shoppers.

The 25-year-old soldier was knifed as a he patrolled around the suburban railway station for RER, a service which links the French capital with the suburbs. Pierre-Andre Peyvel, prefect of the Hauts-de-Seine district, said the soldier's wounds were 'serious enough'. The soldier was stabbed repeatedly, most notably in the throat. The source said that the soldier’s life was not in danger, but he was ‘badly hurt’.

Officers are battling to keep the capital under control after hundreds of cars were torched, a police station set alight and fire services kept from a major blaze by a stone-throwing mob of youths. To make matters worse, rioting has now spread to Sweden’s two other major cities, Gothenburg and Malmo.

Left-wing activists came forward to accuse police of racism – a charge strongly denied by the Stockholm force. Growing unrest turned to violence last Sunday in a north-western suburb called Husby – where more than 80 per cent of the residents are from overseas, mostly Turkey, Somalia and the Middle East. Trouble then spread to some of the city’s most deprived areas, shattering the country’s proud claim that it is a template for a successful and ethnically diverse society.

Government leaders have been stunned by the ferocity of the violence in a country which has long been touted as a paragon of social justice. For decades, supporters of multiculturalism have pointed to Sweden as a classic example of a society which allows immigrants to continue practising their own culture while living peacefully alongside their host communities.

Organized by the 'March Against Monsanto' movement, an estimated 200,000 activists will participate in the massive campaign spanning six continents, 40 nations, and at least 48 US states. Angered by the lack of action from governments on the issue, activists in hundreds of cities – including New York, Chicago, Montreal, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Moscow and Melbourne – will stage coordinated protests against Monsanto and demand a ban on Genetically Engineered and Genetically Modified Organisms (GE/GMOs).

Initially a small, grassroots event, the march became a globe-spanning movement through the efforts of local activists and environmentalists. The protest is being organized on Facebook and Google Documents, where users can find a list of events near their location. In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this month, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant portrayed those who do not agree with his business tactics as snobs: “There is this strange kind of reverse elitism: If I’m going to do this, then everything else shouldn’t exist,” he said. “In the US, we’ve got a system that works.”

In their ongoing struggle to reach a wider audience through the mainstream media, anti-GMO activists have outlined a number of solutions and goals for which they are advocating, including the "labeling of GE/GMOs so that consumers can make those informed decisions easier," "further scientific research on the health effects of GE/GMOs," and, perhaps most importantly, "taking to the streets to show the world and Monsanto that we won't take these injustices quietly."

"We stress the danger of the Iranian nuclear program to the security of the whole region," Prince Saud said Saturday in a joint news conference with Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in the city of Jiddah. Turning to Syria, he also that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his regime should have no role in the country's future.

Saudi Arabia announced last week the arrest of 10 more members of an alleged Iranian spy ring.

Bekele Geleta’s caution comes as police battle with rioters in Stockholm, where high unemployment and social deprivation in migrant communities have been blamed for a week of violence. As Europe continues to grapple with the financial crisis, the situation for many young people is dire. More than half of under-25s are out of work in Greece and Spain. In some areas of Greece, that figure has hit 75 per cent, while in Portugal youth unemployment soared from around 30 per cent two years ago to 43 per cent now.

“If the number does not start being affected and start coming down, the more uneasy people become,” Mr Geleta told The Independent. “I don't rule out social exclusion, tensions, uneasiness and unrest, because if people don't have anything to do, and if people don't see anything in the future, there is mental agitation, there is political agitation.”

Europe is experiencing its biggest depression since the end of the Second World War, with the number of people receiving food aid from the IFRC nearly doubling from 2.3 million in 2009 to 4.1 million today. Twelve per cent of Europe’s workforce is out of a job, while EU figures show that 120 million people – nearly a quarter of the bloc’s population – are at risk of poverty and social exclusion. “The figures are not going down,” said Mr Geleta.

He told the story of a Catholic who asked a priest if even atheists had been redeemed by Jesus. 'Even them, everyone,' the Pope answered, according to Vatican Radio. 'We all have the duty to do good,' he said. 'Just do good and we'll find a meeting point,' the Pope said in a hypothetical conversation in which someone told a priest: 'But I don't believe. I'm an atheist.'

Francis's reaching out to atheists on Wednesday and people who belong to no religion is a marked contrast to the attitude of former Pope Benedict. He sometimes left non-Catholics feeling that he saw them as second-class believers.

Speaking to the Huffington Post, Father James Martin explained Pope Francis' homily. He said: 'Pope Francis is saying, more clearly than ever before, that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for everyone... rarely do you hear it said by Catholics so forcefully, and with such evident joy.

One of the pair – Michael Adebolajo – was so high profile he was photographed outside Paddington Green police station six years ago behind notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary. He was even intercepted by officials as he attempted to travel to Somalia to fight alongside Islamist terrorists last year.

It also emerged that Adebolajo was a violent ex-prisoner who was a member of a banned terrorist group. Incredibly, he was said to have been preaching jihad on the streets of Woolwich earlier this week, only a few hundred yards from where 25-year-old Army Drummer Lee Rigby – a married father – was beheaded. As MI5 faced accusations that they let the men slip through the net, David Cameron ordered a full intelligence review by a Westminster committee.

The young soldier was run over and hacked to death with a meat cleaver and knives near his barracks in Woolwich, South East London. Minutes later the two Islamists were gunned down by firearms officers after charging towards them in an apparent attempt to kill themselves. The atrocity triggered a wave of national revulsion as the Prime Minster branded it an attack on the British way of life and a ‘betrayal of Islam’.

From Italian MEPs who enjoy free haircuts to Maltese ones who get 52 free gallons of petrol a month, the perks - and expenses - continue unabated for the representatives of European Union nations. MEPS from the 27 EU nations are paid salaries of £137 million a year, according to research by German pricing watchdog Preisvergleich.de and some earn 740 per cent more than the average citizen.

The data mined by the Preisvergleich investigators will only serve to fuel rising resentment in the UK with the entire European project. An average monthly salary and other allowances of £15,239 is received by an MEP, totalling £182,826 a year. A MEP’s salary adds a base fee and additional extras such as allowances, attendance fees and travel expenses.

In addition, the costs for offices and staff for the plenary members of the European Parliament make up an amount of up to £18,125 per month or up to £217,507 annually.

Yields on 10-year Japanese bonds (JGBs) have doubled in a month and spiked dramatically to 1 percent on Thursday, triggering a 7.3 percent crash in the Nikkei stock index. It was the biggest one-day fall since the tsunami two years ago, comparable with wild moves seen at the height of the Asian crisis in 1998. Richard Koo from Nomura, an expert on Japan’s Lost Decade, said the sell-off in recent days has shown that the BoJ may not be able to hold down yields “no matter how many bonds it buys”. This could lead to a “loss of faith in the Japanese government” and the “beginning of the end” for its economy, if handled badly.

The drama in Tokyo came amid fresh signs that China is struggling to manage the hangover from its four-year lending boom, which has pushed credit to 200 percent of GDP and spawned a shadow banking system. The HSBC manufacturing index tipped below the contraction line to 49.6 in May. “There is simply no recovery,” said Yao Wei from Societe Generale.

Japan has taken a huge gamble, but Mr Abe says the status quo is not an option either. With public debt to reach 245 percent of GDP this year, the country must restore growth in nominal GDP to head off a debt compound spiral. That Holy Grail is at last in sight.

The network has seized control of the media to cover up its crimes, too, she explained. In an interview with The New American, Hudes said that when she tried to blow the whistle on multiple problems at the World Bank, she was fired for her efforts. Now, along with a network of fellow whistleblowers, Hudes is determined to expose and end the corruption. And she is confident of success.

Hudes, an attorney who spent some two decades working in the World Bank’s legal department, has observed the machinations of the network up close. “I realized we were now dealing with something known as state capture, which is where the institutions of government are co-opted by the group that’s corrupt,” she told The New American in a phone interview. “The pillars of the US government — some of them — are dysfunctional because of state capture; this is a big story, this is a big cover up.”

At the heart of the network, Hudes said, are 147 financial institutions and central banks — especially the Federal Reserve, which was created by Congress but is owned by essentially a cartel of private banks. “This is a story about how the international financial system was secretly gamed, mostly by central banks — they’re the ones we are talking about,” she explained. “The central bankers have been gaming the system. I would say that this is a power grab.”

While Hudes sounded upbeat, she recognizes that the world is facing serious danger right now — there are even plans in place to impose martial law in the United States, she said. The next steps will be critical for humanity. As such, Hudes argues, it is crucial that the people of the world find out about the lawlessness, corruption, and thievery that are going on at the highest levels — and put a stop to it once and for all. The consequences of inaction would be disastrous.

As she appeared in court, there were calls for her to stand down from her high-profile £305,000-a-year job if she is charged. Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the Minister for Women’s Rights, said: ‘Knowing the IMF and the way this type of institution works, I tend to think that if she was placed under investigation, she would without doubt be asked to quit her post.’

Last night the court adjourned after 13 hours sitting but it was widely predicted Mrs Lagarde, 57, would be placed under investigation by the Court of Justice of the Republic, equivalent to a suspect being charged in the UK. They have suggested that Mrs Lagarde – who was France’s Finance Minister at the time and the first woman ever to hold the post – was partly responsible for ‘numerous anomalies and irregularities’ which could amount to complicity in fraud and misappropriation of public funds.

There is no suggestion Mrs Lagarde profited personally in any way from the final settlement. The affair has become a huge embarrassment to France and the IMF.

The major highway bridge linking Seattle with Canada and the rest of the Pacific Northwest region collapsed on Thursday evening - dumping a handful of vehicles and people into a river, according to the Washington State Patrol. Authorities said there were no deaths, and that three people were taken to hospital. The collapse came before sundown on a clear day.

The four-lane Interstate 5 Bridge - more than half a century old - collapsed about halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, according to a state trooper. The collapse will raise questions about the nation's infrastructure, which has been a popular issue with US President Barack Obama, who earlier this year warned against "raggedy" roads and wants to focus more money on rebuilding to improve the economy.