These threats peaked last year with disorderly default, and when that wasn’t enough, with the collapse of the Eurozone. But now, the ultimate threat has been pronounced: War.

It wasn’t an idle thought by a wayward parliamentarian on the radical fringe but a well-articulated statement by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker who was, until January, the President of the Eurogroup that manages the political aspects of the euro. And he’d picked Europe’s largest magazine, Der Spiegel, to make it.

In the state of California, factors such as a felony conviction or a history of mental health issues mean roughly 20,000 gun owners are holding onto their firearms illegally. Slowly but surely, though, Golden State police officers are prying them away. There’s more, though: backers of the program suggest this becomes a nation-wide practice, and are asking the White House to help make it happen.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris seized roughly 2,000 weapons last year, reports Bloomberg, as well as 117,000 rounds of ammunition and 11,000 high-capacity magazines. But as concerns escalate about a possible war against the right to bear arms in America, will other states soon follow suite?

In one of the first detailed studies of the virus - which emerged in the Middle East and has so far infected 15 people worldwide, killing nine of them - Dutch researchers identified a cell surface protein it uses to enter and infect human cells. The finding, published in the journal Nature, came as the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the 15th case of the virus, known as novel coronavirus or NCoV, in a male patient in Saudi Arabia who died on March 2.

Other cases have been in Jordan and Qatar, and in patients in Germany and Britain linked to travel in the Middle East. NCoV is from the same family of viruses as those that cause common colds and the one that caused the deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that first emerged in Asia in 2003.

The new Pope was born on 17 December 1936 in Buenos Aires and later became its archbishop. He was born to a Piedmontese family, graduated as a technical chemist and then entered the novitiate of the Company of Jesus. He completed studies in the humanities in Chile and obtained a degree in Philosophy and Theology in Argentina. He was Professor and Rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel and vicar of the Patriarch of San José, in the Diocese of San Miguel.

In 1986 he completed a PhD in Germany, after which he returned to Argentina, where his superiors made him spiritual director and confessor in the Jesuit Church of Cordoba. In 1992 John Paul II appointed him Auxiliary Bishop of Buenos Aires, in 1997 he became coadjutor bishop and a year later he succeeded Cardinal Antonio Quarracino for six years, until 2011, when he became President of the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina.

He doesn’t have a chauffeur and preferred to use the metro to get around Buenos Aires. In Rome he prefers to get around on foot or use public transport. Those who know him well see him as a true man of God: the first thing he always asks people to do is pray for him.

In the pre-Conclave General Congregations, the new Pope spoke of Christianity as merciful and joyful. His favourite priests are those who work in the “villas miserias”, the slums of the Argentinean capital. Instead of driving people away with rigid doctrinal preachings, he tries to look at all possible solutions in an attempt to embrace those who are the furthest from the Christian community. The Church, he insists, must show the merciful side of God.

The Bundesbank said it had raised its risk provisions, or the money it sets aside to cover losses like a default on euro zone bond holdings, to €14.4 billion, or $18.7 billion, from €7.7 billion a year ago. The bank’s profit for the year, which it transfers to the German government, was little changed, rising to €664 million from €643 million.

“The crisis is not yet over despite the interim calm on financial markets,” Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank president, said during a news conference. The decision to set aside further billions can be interpreted as a verdict by Mr Weidmann on European Central Bank measures he has long criticized, and which include purchases of Italian and Greek government bonds to try to keep those countries’ borrowing costs under control.

“New risks are continually being acquired and distributed among member nations,” he said as the bank presented its financial results for 2012. “This has left a clear mark on the Bundesbank’s balance sheet.”

The fact that the channel is owned and tightly controlled by the undemocratic and authoritarian Qatari royal family, that jails independent journalists who criticise the regime at home, seems to have gone unnoticed and ignored by many. But since the start of the Arab Spring, that is slowly starting to change.

According to an article that appeared in the German magazine Der Spiegel, many leading journalists and TV anchors have started to leave the channel in recent months. According to one of those that has recently left, the German based Aktham Sulimen, “Before the beginning of the Arab Spring, we were a voice for change... a platform for critics and political activists throughout the region. Now, Al-Jazeera has become a propaganda broadcaster.”

Since the Muslim Brotherhood has come to power in Egypt, Al-Jazeera has done all in its power to portray the group in a favourable light. Protests against the Brotherhood-dominated regime are presented as being led by violent thugs with no political grievances, while Morsi's poorly constructed and shallow speeches are given positive coverage.

Argentina, 300 miles to the west of the Falklands, has claimed the South Atlantic archipelago for almost 200 years and in 1982 invaded the islands only to be repelled in a 74-day war with Britain. British nationals first settled in the Falklands in the 19th century and three decades after the war for ownership of the islands, many still feel strongly about their fate.

"The Falkland Islands may be thousands of miles away but they are British through and through, and that is how they want to stay, and people should know we will always be there to defend them," Cameron said in televised remarks. "They want to remain British and that view should be respected by everybody, including by Argentina."

In a referendum on Sunday and Monday designed to send a defiant message to Argentina, all but three of those who cast their ballots on the islands voted to remain a British Overseas Territory.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) explained it could not exact a penalty greater than one month’s profits against HSBC because doing so would cause systemic repercussions to the financial system. In shorthand, HSBC was “too big to jail.”

The financial crash of 2008 demonstrated the enormous expense taxpayers incur when banks become gambling operations with an understanding that their winnings will be privatized, and losses socialized. The HSBC case sharpens the problem that banks of a certain size can actually engage in criminal activity with essential immunity.

PIRC has calculated the amount of bad debts the banks may have to write off in coming years but have yet to subtract from profits, together with other items such as deferred bonuses not booked. HSBC, which is the biggest bank by assets, was shown to have £10.4 billion of hidden losses, the Royal Bank of Scotland has £9.4 billion, and Barclays has £7.3 billion. Lloyds Banking Group has £2.5 billion and Standard Chartered £2.2 billion. Together the undeclared losses total £31.8 billion.

The warning follows regulatory pressure to force the UK’s banks and building societies to disclose their hidden losses, which supervisors at the Bank of England have suggested could total as much as £60 billion. Lenders have just weeks left to clarify [their position and] present the regulators with plans to fill the holes.

From Bloomberg: "Bank of Japan governor nominee Haruhiko Kuroda said that the central bank will consider buying derivatives if he’s confirmed as governor and signaled a readiness for a quick expansion in monetary stimulus. “We will carefully consider such a proposal,” Kuroda, the Asian Development Bank chief, said in response to a lawmaker’s question in his second Diet confirmation hearing today."

This development makes intuitive sense: central banks are desperate to destroy their currencies in the fastest and most spectacular fashion, and what better way than to have your central bank load up on the riskiest of "assets", which would be one brief downturn away from wiping away all the of the bank's capital and then some, and thus sending the currency into an even greater tailspin - just the outcome sought.

After all, in the new normal, it is he who "collateralizes" their currency with the most toxic biohazard, that wins. The Bank of Japan may have just taken a commanding lead over everyone else. The question now is: how soon until Bernanke follows suit and demands that the Fed be allowed to monetize equities, HY bonds, and other E-Trade baby specials.

Down to a handful of staffers, the NCC will consolidate into the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.” The Spectator article notes that since its heyday in the 1960′s, membership in a NCC-affiliated denomination has dropped from 1 on 6 Americans to 1 in 15, as well as noting the Marxist focus of the organization – reported on Sixty Minutes and other media in the 1980s.

This is important to note, as many have mused over the years that ecumenism is in decline. It isn’t; because its ultimate goal of confessional relativism is alive and well. To assume ecumenism is “dead” is a mistake commonly made in the hopes of improvement in the confusing situation in Orthodoxy currently.