NATO - NATO foreign ministers will agree on Tuesday to send Patriot missiles to beef up Turkey's air defenses and calm Turkey's fears that it could come under missile attack, possibly with chemical weapons, from Syria, diplomats said. Turkey last month asked NATO for Patriots, which can be used to intercept missiles and planes, after weeks of talks with allies about how to shore up security on its 900-km (560-mile) border with Syria, which is immersed in civil war.

INDIA/CHINA - India has declared itself ready to deploy naval vessels to the South China Sea to protect its oil-exploration interests there, a potential new escalation of tensions in a disputed area where fears of armed conflict have been growing steadily. India's naval chief made the statement on Monday just as Vietnam's state oil and gas company, Petrovietnam, accused Chinese boats of sabotaging an exploration operation by cutting a seismic cable being towed behind a Vietnamese vessel.

PHILIPPINES - More than 40,000 people have been moved into shelter as a powerful typhoon hits the southern Philippines. Typhoon Bopha made landfall on Mindanao early on Tuesday, bringing heavy rain and wind gusts of 210 km/h (130mph). The storm has caused widespread power cuts, travel disruption and flooding in areas at risk of landslides. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Bopha comes a year after Typhoon Washi killed more than 1,500 people in the southern Philippines.

GERMANY - David McAllister speaks English with a distinct Scottish brogue and has a name that most Germans struggle to pronounce. But he is already a powerful figure in the centre-Right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), as leader of Lower Saxony, one of the country's richest and politically most powerful states. As the CDU opens its annual conference in his home state tomorrow (Tuesday), Mr McAllister will be presented as the standard bearer of Chancellor Angel Merkel's efforts to win a third general election victory next autumn. "He is the next in line for Angela Merkel's job. Right now he has the star power in German politics," said Dirk Banse, a Hanover political reporter.

UK - A top Bank of England official has told the BBC the banking crisis has been as bad for the economy as a world war - and that bankers' pay should fall.

EUROPE/VATICAN - All references to Europe’s Christian character have been expunged by the EU bureaucrats. Europe is now officially secular. Pope Benedict XVI identified our real crisis with terrifying clarity: “The EU is godless. But then it is unthinkable that the EU could build a common European house while ignoring Europe’s identity. Europe is a historical, cultural and moral identity before it is a geographic, economic or political reality. It is an identity built on a set of values which Christianity played a part in moulding.”

EUROPE/ISRAEL - International pressure is mounting against Israeli settlement plans in a strategically sensitive area near East Jerusalem. UN head Ban Ki-moon called it a ‘fatal blow’ to a two-state solution, while the UK and France may withdraw envoys from Israel. This comes as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the construction of thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements in the area known as E1, between Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem – a step widely seen as retaliation for recognition of Palestine as a non-member state by the United Nations. “This time it won’t just be a condemnation, there will be real action taken against Israel,” a senior European diplomat told Haaretz daily.

ISRAEL - Israel has seized more than $120 million (£75 million) in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority in response to last week's overwhelming vote at the UN general assembly to recognise the state of Palestine. The move came as the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas, returned to cheering crowds in Ramallah in the West Bank following Thursday's vote, in which 138 countries backed enhanced "non-member state" status for Palestine. Only nine countries opposed the move and 41 abstained. The financial sanction is Israel's second punitive response to the vote. On Friday, it announced a big settlement expansion programme.

VATICAN - Vatican clergy and employees will be issued with an identity card complete with a microchip-tracking device in sweeping new security measures designed to prevent a repeat of the Vatileaks scandal. Much tighter controls have already been introduced for anyone seeking access or photocopies of the Holy See's archives, dossiers and documents. The Papal Apartments, which include the living quarters of Pope Benedict XVI and the offices of his personal staff inside the Apostolic Palace, are totally off limits to anyone without strict authorisation.

USA - The US Navy has executed the first launch of a stealth drone set to be the first robot aircraft piloted by artificial intelligence. The “killer robot” might be the next step in the development of machines with the power to decide who lives or dies. Landing on a flight deck just might be the most difficult thing a naval pilot can do. But if the United States Navy has its way, it might be an operation no pilot ever has to complete again. After five-years in the making, the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator completed its first land-based catapult launch, “marking the start for a new era of naval aviation,” the navy announced on Thursday.

USA - After a watershed year for gay marriage in the United States that included ballot victories and a presidential endorsement, advocates have staked out a handful of states where they believe the next round of fights over same-sex unions can be won. But any victories will not come easily.

USA - The first same-sex marriage at the US Military Academy's Cadet Chapel at West Point will be celebrated Saturday as Brenda Sue Fulton and Penelope Dara Gnesin exchange vows. The ceremony comes a little more than a year after President Obama ended the military policy banning openly gay people from serving. Fulton, a veteran and the communications director of an organization called Outserve — which represents actively serving gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel — confirmed in an e-mail to USA TODAY Friday night: "We will be the first same sex couple to wed at the Cadet Chapel at West Point."

UK - Almost half of dying patients placed on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway are never told that life-saving treatment has been withdrawn, a national audit has found. The study suggests that in total, around 57,000 patients a year are dying in NHS hospitals without being told that efforts to keep them alive have been stopped. It also reveals that thousands of dying patients have been left to suffer in pain, with no attempt to keep them comfortable while drugs were administered. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, last night described the disclosures from records held by 178 NHS hospitals as "totally unacceptable".

EUROPE - “The euro has profound economic advantages and is the most powerful symbol of European integration,” said not some wild-eyed dude with a joint between his lips, slouching in a café in Amsterdam, but the “Final Report“ issued by the Future of Europe Group, composed of the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Portugal, and Luxembourg.

It remains uncertain what they were smoking.

USA - During a press conference today, House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi signaled that she supported “unilateral control” for the President over the country’s debt limit.

“Do you support President Obama having the power to unilaterally increase the debt limit as Secretary Geithner proposed?” asked a reporter.

“Yes.” Pelosi answered shortly.