MAIN CORE uses a variety of intelligence sources as inputs, including your email, web activity, telephone and private financial information. In the event of a major national security crisis, it is alleged that Americans listed in the MAIN CORE database, “Could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

According to a senior government official who served with high-level security clearances in five administrations, “There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.”

Europeans are furious. Revelations that the US intelligence service National Security Agency (NSA) targeted the European Union and several European countries with its far-reaching spying activities have led to angry reactions from several senior EU and German politicians. "We need more precise information," said European Parliament President Martin Schulz. "But if it is true, it is a huge scandal. That would mean a huge burden for relations between the EU and the US. We now demand comprehensive information."

Schulz was reacting to a report in Spiegel that the NSA had bugged the EU's diplomatic representation in Washington and monitored its computer network. The EU's representation to the United Nations in New York was targeted in a similar manner. US intelligence thus had access to EU email traffic and internal documents. The information appears in secret documents obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden, some of which Spiegel has seen.

The documents also indicate the US intelligence service was responsible for an electronic eavesdropping operation in Brussels. Spiegel also reported that Germany has been a significant target of the NSA's global surveillance program, with some 500 million communication connections being monitored every month. The documents show that the NSA is more active in Germany than in any other country in the European Union.

EU High Representative Catherine Ashton said on Sunday the US authorities were immediately contacted about a report in Der Spiegel magazine that the US spy agency had tapped EU offices in Washington, Brussels and at the United Nations. "As soon as we saw these reports, the European External Action Service made contact with the US authorities in both Washington DC and Brussels to seek urgent clarification of the veracity of and facts surrounding these allegations," Ashton said in a statement.

"The US authorities have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us as soon as possible," she said. France also asked for an explanation. "These acts, if confirmed, would be completely unacceptable," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. The US government said it would respond through diplomatic channels.

RT: Despite Morsi having strong support in the country, why is there so much anger at him and the Muslim Brotherhood at present?

William Engdahl: I think a number of issues. Number one – is trying to ram a Sharia constitution down the throats of the Egyptian people. That goes against Egyptian cultural tradition – 80-90 per cent of the population are Sunni Muslims – but it is a tradition of tolerance for other religion groups, Coptic and other Islamic groups. The other thing is the economy. Morsi has done nothing to improve the economy. In fact the economy has generated youth unemployment to bulge to an explosive level. That I think is a lot to do with the tinderbox that you see in the streets right now.

But the other thing is that the military hasn’t yet weighed in as to whether they are going to continue to back Morsi as they have done under enormous Washington pressure – they are dependent on Washington for military aid and have been for decades. But the interesting new factor is that the Tamarod campaign – the reorganized opposition group that led the protest a year ago in Tahrir Square and elsewhere – they have claimed to have gathered a 15 million-strong petition asking for Morsi to step down.

I think this is a make or break situation. The Obama administration continues to back the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a very unfortunate thing, but that’s a part of a larger geopolitical agenda that Washington and the State Department have built up over the past years.

The next 25 years took the nation from Bill Clinton, who famously "didn't inhale," to Barack Obama, who most emphatically did. Now, in just a few short years, public opinion has moved so dramatically toward general acceptance that even those who champion legalization are surprised at how quickly attitudes are changing and states are moving to approve the drug - for medical use and just for fun.

It is a moment in America that is rife with contradictions:

-People are looking more kindly on marijuana even as science reveals more about the drug's potential dangers, particularly for young people.

-States are giving the green light to the drug in direct defiance of a federal prohibition on its use.

Richard Bonnie, a University of Virginia law professor who worked for a national commission that recommended decriminalizing marijuana in 1972, sees the public taking a big leap from prohibition to a more laissez-faire approach without full deliberation. "It's a remarkable story historically," he says. "But as a matter of public policy, it's a little worrisome."

More than a little worrisome to those in the anti-drug movement. "We're on this hundred-mile-an-hour freight train to legalizing a third addictive substance," says Kevin Sabet, a former drug policy adviser in the Obama administration, lumping marijuana with tobacco and alcohol.

Regardless, researchers at MIT have developed a sensing technology that uses low-power Wi-Fi to detect moving people. It follows other wall-penetrating sensor tech using radar and heavy equipment. The Wi-Vi system by Dina Katabi and Fadel Adib sends out a low-power Wi-Fi signal and tracks its reflections to sense people moving around, even if they're in closed rooms or behind walls.

Part of a Wi-Fi signal transmitted at a wall will penetrate it and reflect off people on the other side. The MIT system ignores all the other reflects, such as from objects, to focus on those from moving people only. It can determine the number of moving people in the room and their relative locations.

British researchers have also been investigating how to use Wi-Fi for surveillance and urban warfare, but the MIT system could be used in applications such as search and rescue, law enforcement, or personal security. "If you are walking at night and you have the feeling that someone is following you, then you could use it to check if there is someone behind the fence or behind a corner," said Katabi, a professor in the department. Or the NSA could use it to see how badly you dance in front of your mirror.

Within moments, gay weddings resumed at the city hall - the first such marriages in the state since the voter-approved ban in November 2008.

On Wednesday the US Supreme Court left in place a lower court ruling which had struck down the ban - also known as Proposition 8. The ruling means that 13 US states and the District of Columbia now recognise same-sex marriage.

Supporters of Proposition 8 described the appeal’s court action as "outrageous".

The paper says it was shown the 2010 "top secret" document by fugitive ex-security analyst Edward Snowden. The US National Security Agency document allegedly outlined how it spied on EU internal computer networks, referring to the bloc as a "target".

An EU official said the claim could have a "severe impact" on EU-US ties. "On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations," Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.

Holdings of US Treasuries held at the Fed on behalf of official foreign institutions dropped a record $32.4 billion to $2.93 trillion, eclipsing the prior mark of $24 billion in August 2007. It was the third week of outflows in the past four.

Private investors are also dumping fixed income. Bond funds tracked by EPFR Global, a data provider, saw total redemptions of $23.3 billion in the week to June 26. US funds were the worst hit, with withdrawals totalling $10.6 billion, but emerging market debt funds also saw record redemptions of $5.6 billion.

Over the past five weeks emerging market debt and equity fund outflows have totalled $35 billion, of which $22.5 billion has fled stock market funds. “People are throwing in the towel,” said Markus Rosgen, chief Asia equity strategist at Citigroup. “It’ll drag the market down lower over the course of the summer.”

The heat wave is expected to last through the weekend. Cities in the region are opening cooling centres and officials fear the heat could delay air travel. Most large aircraft can operate in temperatures up to 52C, but readings as low as 47C could affect lift-off conditions. Temperatures in Death Valley in the California desert are forecast to reach 53C over the weekend. The hottest air temperature ever recorded on Earth, 57C, was marked there almost 100 years ago on 10 July 1913.

All that was lacking was a guru from McKinsey to design that reform of the curia which everyone expects from Pope Francis. And here he comes. His name is Thomas von Mitschke-Collande, he is German and was the manager of the Munich branch of the most famous and mysterious company of managerial consulting in the world. In matters of the Church, he knows his stuff.

Last year he published a book with a title that was hardly reassuring: “Does the Church want to destroy itself? Facts and analyses presented by a business consultant.” The diocese of Berlin turned to him to get its accounts back in order, and the German episcopal conference asked him to draw up a plan to save on costs and personnel. The proposal, which he welcomed enthusiastically, was made to him by Father Hans Langerdörfer, the powerful secretary of the German episcopal conference, a Jesuit.

Bergoglio is also a Jesuit, and by now his actions have made it clear that he intends to apply to the papacy the methods of governance typical of the Society of Jesus, where the superior general, nicknamed the “black pope,” has practically absolute power.

His reticence in attributing to himself the name of pope and his preference for calling himself bishop of Rome have made champions of the democratization of the Church rejoice. But theirs is a blunder. Pope Francis wanted his eight advisors to be chosen by himself alone, not by others - called to answer only to him, not to an elective assembly as well. Only the superior general decides, with direct and immediate powers. The assistants do not need to agree with one another and with him; they advise the superior general one by one, in the greatest freedom.

One effect of this system upon the reform of the Roman curia announced by Pope Francis is that no commission of experts has been installed with the task of elaborating a unified and complete project. The eight cardinals are asking separately for the contribution of persons they trust, of the most disparate profiles. In addition to the McKinsey man recruited by Cardinal Marx, at least a dozen of them have been consulted, from various countries. In early October the eight will be gathered around the pope. They will deliver to him a sheaf of proposals.

He will be the one to decide. Alone.

Prosecutor Nello Rossi says Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is accused of corruption and slander stemming from the plot and was being held at a Rome prison. He was allegedly asked by friends to bring back the money that had been given to financier Giovanni Carenzio in Switzerland. Scarano is supposed to have asked Giovanni Zito, a military official, to bring the money back by jet, avoiding customs.

Scarano was allegedly due to pay Zito a commission of 600,000 euros for the work. He paid only an initial installment of 400,000 euros before being arrested.

It is not just the death toll, but the extreme violence that is often brought to bear, that causes the greatest fear in the white community. But white nerves have not been soothed by the disturbing behaviour of Jacob Zuma, the ANC’s leader and the country’s third black president since Mandela.

At a centenary gathering of the African National Congress last year, Zuma was filmed singing a so-called ‘struggle song’ called Kill The Boer (the old name for much of the white Afrikaner population). As fellow senior ANC members clapped along, Zuma sang: ‘We are going to shoot them, they are going to run, Shoot the Boer, shoot them, they are going to run, Shoot the Boer, we are going to hit them, they are going to run, the Cabinet will shoot them, with the machine-gun, the Cabinet will shoot them, with the machine-gun...’

Alongside him was a notorious character called Julius ‘Juju’ Malema, a former leader of the ANC youth league, who is now Zuma’s bitter enemy and is reportedly planning to launch a new political party after Mandela’s death. Ominously, Malema, 32, who wears a trademark beret and has a fondness for Rolex watches, this month promised his new party will take the land from white people without recompense and give it to blacks.

The country's Cour des Comptes said the budget is likely to breach EU targets by a wide margin yet again this year, perhaps reaching 4.1% of GDP, risking a fresh showdown with Europe at a time when French support for the EU Project is already in freefall. The watchdog called for €28 billion in extra belt-tightening over the next two years to prevent a debacle, demanding a "particularly vigourous effort" to rein in unemployment benefits, housing aide, pensions and help for families.

President Francois Hollande has already angered much of his own Socialist base with plans to cut spending next year in absolute terms for the first time since 1958, but this may be just start of the battle. The Cour des Comptes said France is not even "halfway" through its fiscal squeeze. The warnings came as a blizzard of grim news dashed hopes for a rapid recovery from two years of slump. The data office INSEE said consumer confidence fell to 82 in June, the lowest since the series began 40 years ago.

A new report on French competitiveness as a country by Ernst & Young entitled "Last Chance" confirmed the worst fears of business leaders, concluding that the country is being left behind as foreign investment migrates to Germany and Britain.