VATICAN - Pope's staff decline to confirm or deny La Repubblica claims linking 'Vatileaks' affair and discovery of 'blackmailed gay clergy'. A potentially explosive report has linked the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI to the discovery of a network of gay prelates in the Vatican, some of whom – the report said – were being blackmailed by outsiders.

GERMANY - German President Joachim Gauck made a passionate plea on Friday for greater European integration in the most important speech of his term in office thus far. He called on Britain to remain in the EU and said that Germany does not want to impose its will on the rest of its EU partners.

NORTH KOREA - North Korea on Sunday warned the top US military commander stationed in South Korea that his forces would "meet a miserable destruction" if they go ahead with scheduled military drills with South Korean troops, North Korean state media said.

NORTH KOREA - The latest in the North Korea drama is the release of a video portraying US President Barack Obama and American troops going up in flames. But it's not just cheap and cheesy rhetoric by a new leader who wants to be taken seriously: North Korea is preparing for a war because, in their eyes, the US and its allies may really be planning an offensive. Earlier this month, we were regaled with a similar video, this time portraying a US city being attacked by North Korean missiles. Before that, in December, North Korea launched a satellite, and its official news agency declared a "nationwide preparation for an all-out great war for national reunification."

UK - The UK has lost its top AAA credit rating for the first time since 1978 on expectations that growth will "remain sluggish over the next few years". The ratings agency Moody's became the first to cut the UK from its highest rating, to Aa1. Moody's said the government's debt reduction programme faced significant "challenges" ahead. Chancellor George Osborne said the decision was "a stark reminder of the debt problems facing our country". "Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it," he added. "We will go on delivering the plan that has cut the deficit by a quarter."

USA - The US has grounded its entire fleet of 51 F-35 fighter jets after the discovery of a cracked engine blade. The fault was detected during a routine inspection of an air force version of the jet (F-35A) at Edwards Air Force Base in California, said the Pentagon. Different versions are flown by the navy and the marine corps. All have been grounded. The F-35 is the Pentagon's most expensive weapons programme with a cost of nearly $400 billion (£260 billion).The Pentagon said flight operations would remain suspended until the root cause is established. Friday's order was the second time in two months planes from the F-35 range have been grounded.

JAKARTA, INDONESIA - An undersea earthquake has rocked eastern Indonesia, causing panic among residents in neighboring East Timor. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. Witnesses in Dili say residents ran out of their houses in panic, with many staying outside in fear of aftershocks. Indonesia's Meteorology and Geophysics Agency put the quake's magnitude at 6.2 with a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). Indonesia and East Timor are prone to seismic upheaval due to their location on the Pacific "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin.

USA - Six underground storage tanks at a nuclear site in the US state of Washington are leaking, authorities say. Governor Jay Inslee described the situation at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation as "disturbing news". But he stressed that there was no current risk to human health.

USA - US Federal Reserve officials are likely to press on with their bond-buying stimulus program even though some harbor growing concerns the purchases could fuel an asset bubble or inflation if pushed too far. A full-throated debate among US central bankers over the wisdom of ongoing quantitative easing, or QE, sent US stock prices down sharply when minutes of the meeting were released on Wednesday. Investors were right to assume the Fed is treading more carefully as it weighs the risks of its effort to spur a faster economic recovery, but that does not mean policymakers will conclude the costs outweigh the benefits.

EUROPE - Even as the euro zone periphery starts to spy some glimmers of hope, concern is mounting that Germany is drifting apart from other countries at the core of the single currency bloc, notably France.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel has been accused of engaging in an “unholy alliance” with Britain after backing David Cameron’s demands for a cut to the European Union budget.

EUROPE - The schism dividing the euro zone's strong and weak economies deepened to include its core pairing in February as French firms suffered their worst month in four years in stark contrast to prospering Germany. The gap between the two biggest economies in the euro zone is now at its widest since purchasing manager surveys (PMIs) started in 1998, the latest sounding showed. It dealt a blow to hopes the euro zone might emerge from recession soon, showing the downturn across the region's businesses worsened unexpectedly this month.

ITALY - Regardless of who wins next weekend's parliamentary election, Italy's long economic decline is likely to continue because the next government won't be strong enough to pursue the tough reforms needed to make its economy competitive again. Bankers, diplomats and industrialists in Rome and Milan despair at how Italians are shifting allegiances ahead of the February 24-25 vote to favor of anti-establishment upstarts and show disgust with the established parties. That makes it more likely that no bloc will have the political strength to tackle Italy's deep-rooted economic crisis, which has made it Europe's most sluggish large economy for the past two decades.

MALI - Al-Qaeda's list of 22 tips for dodging drone attacks - including at least one believed to originate with Osama bin Laden - has been found hidden inside a manila envelope in a building abandoned by Islamists in Mali. The document includes advice such as "hide under thick trees" (believed to be bin Laden's contribution), and instructions for setting up a "fake gathering" using dolls to "mislead the enemy". "This new document... shows we are no longer dealing with an isolated local problem, but with an enemy which is reaching across continents to share advice," said Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the CIA, now the director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institute.

USA - Is the US economy about to experience a major downturn? Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of signs that economic activity in the United States is really slowing down right now.