Striking statements were made by one of Europe's most powerful men on Monday night, when European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said the strict austerity measures thus far imposed on the EU's beleaguered economies may have reached their political limits.

Although this policy is "fundamentally right," it has nevertheless "reached its limits," he told a conference in Brussels. "A policy, to be successful, not only has to be properly designed, it has to have the minimum of political and social support," he added. Barroso's comments came just ahead of the release of the EU's latest budget deficit numbers by the body's statistics agency Eurostat on Monday. They showed that for 2012, though Europe's combined deficit level dropped, the overall debt for the 17 members of the EU currency union jumped from €8.2 trillion ($10.7 trillion) to €8.6 trillion.

The drastic belt-tightening policies imposed on a number of ailing member states have apparently had little effect. On the contrary, many theorize that the spending cuts intensify budgetary problems because they stifle growth, which has prompted fierce protest in the Southern European countries in recession.

Father Georg Ratzinger, himself a priest, told the Daily Telegraph his younger brother was "very happy" to be living at Castel Gandolfo, the papal summer retreat south of Rome he moved to after stepping down in February, becoming the first pope to resign in 600 years. Father Ratzinger, 88, who travelled from Germany to celebrate Benedict's 86th birthday with him on April 16, said his brother "still suffers the problems of the Church, but is really relieved to no longer have the weight of the Church on his shoulders."

His comment about Benedict continuing to "suffer" the problems of the Church appeared to be a reference to the alleged infighting and power seeking plaguing the Vatican's bureaucracy, details of which emerged when the pope's butler leaked Benedict's private correspondence.

In 1942-43, the Nazis murdered within the framework of "Operation Reinhard" around two million west and east European prisoners in the Treblinka, Chelmno, Majdanek, Bełżec, and Sobibór extermination camps. In Sobibór, alone, by July 1943, the Nazi terror regime had murdered more than 34,000 Dutch Jews, including German emigrants.

By early January, Berlin had still refused to contribute to the costs of this year's scheduled Sobibór memorial services of the Netherlands, Slovakia, Israel, and Poland. Berlin also does not intend to contribute to covering the costs of the other "Reinhard" memorial sites.

Speaking at an event hosted by Deutsche Bank in Berlin alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Merkel also defended her approach to the crisis against critics who argue she has put too much emphasis on austerity, saying Europe must find a way to deliver both growth and solid finances.

The comments came two months before European leaders are due to gather in Brussels to discuss moving towards a so-called "fiscal union". Expectations are low, in part because an easing of the crisis has reduced pressure on leaders to produce a big leap forward in integration, but also due to differences between Germany and its partners, notably France, over the next steps.

"We seem to find common solutions when we are staring over the abyss," Merkel said. "But as soon as the pressure eases, people say they want to go their own way. "We need to be ready to accept that Europe has the last word in certain areas. Otherwise we won't be able to continue to build Europe," she added.

Though the cumulative level of government deficits fell last year, mainly because of Germany swinging into a budget surplus, many countries have continued to reel from the costs associated with recession. Spending cuts and tax increases have helped to reduce deficits across the 17 EU countries that use the euro, but the region's debt burden rose after economic growth flatlined and fewer companies and households paid taxes.

David Whipple kept the fast food meal for a month to show friends how the preservative-packed hamburger would keep its composure. But he forgot about it, finding it two years later in his coat pocket and then he decided to continue the bizarre experiment. However, even he was shocked to see that the hamburger still looks the same a whopping 14 years later.

'It wasn't on purpose,' Whipple told TV show 'The Doctors,' of his decision to keep the burger for such a long time. I was showing some people how enzymes work and I thought a hamburger would be a good idea. And I used it for a month and then I forgot about it. It ended up in a paper sack in the original sack with the receipt in my coat pocket tossed in the back of my truck and it sat there for, I don't know, two or three months.'

He said his coat ended up in the coat closet of his Logan, Utah, home. The burger had no signs of mold, fungus or even a strange odor, the show's hosts said. The only thing that had changed over the years was that the pickle had disintegrated. Whipple, who still has the original receipt for the burger, said he now shows the sandwich to his grandchildren to encourage them to eat healthily. 'It's great for my grand-kids to see. To see what happens with fast food,' he said.

Bernd Lucke, the spokesman of the newly established Alternative for Germany party, is no ordinary economics professor. Giving the most complicated answers to the most straightforward questions is normally one of the trademarks of his profession. But the Hamburg economist takes precisely the opposite approach. He has a simple solution for even the trickiest problem of the day.

And what is Lucke's miracle cure for a crash without side effects? He proposes that the Southern European countries introduce parallel currencies - that is, bring back the drachma, the peseta, the escudo and the lira alongside the euro. The countries' national central banks would then tie these currencies to the euro at fixed rates. The professor essentially wants to combine the best of both worlds, allowing Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to remain connected to the euro zone and yet receive their own currencies.

This would allow them to devalue their currencies and still have a calculable form of payment at their disposal. At the same time, argues Lucke, this will reduce the cost of their goods in world markets without assets losing their value overnight. Even Lucke probably senses that his proposal doesn't really solve the current problems. When it comes to the side effects of his recipe, he issues a typical caveat: "It goes without saying," he writes, "that the transition to a second national currency entails a number of technical problems."

According to the report, Jordanian King Abdullah made the decision in March during US President Barack Obama’s visit to Jordan, which came immediately after his first trip as president to Israel. Le Figaro quoted the military source as saying that the Israeli drones fly at night to avoid detection.

The source added that “the Syrians have Russian air defense assets, but Israeli aircraft are difficult to detect and therefore virtually immune to anti-aircraft measures.” According to the source, the unmanned aerial vehicles are carrying out surveillance, but “they are also armed and therefore can hit targets anywhere in Syria.”

Life on Earth depends on the energy emitted by plasma produced during fusion reactions within the sun. However, Curry warns that without federal funding of basic research, America will lose the race to develop new plasma energy technologies. The basic research program was originally funded by the Office of Naval Research, but continued research has been funded by MU.

Curry’s device launches a ring of plasma as far as two feet. The plasma doesn’t emit radiation, and it is completely safe for humans to be in the same room with it, although the plasma reaches a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun. The secret to Curry’s success was developing a way to make the plasma form its own self-magnetic field, which holds it together while it travels through the air.

“Launching plasma in open air is the ‘Holy Grail’ in the field of physics,” said Curry, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering. “Creating plasma in a vacuum tube surrounded by powerful electromagnets is no big deal; dozens of labs can do that. Our innovation allows the plasma to hold itself together while it travels through regular air without any need for containment.”