According to the article, the four countries are preparing 90,000 troops, 400 aircraft and 1,000 tanks for the massive joint maneuvers, which are to take place along the Syrian coast within a month. The report states that Russian “atomic submarines and warships, aircraft carriers and mine-clearing destroyers as well as Iranian battleships and submarines will also arrive in Syria” and that Egypt has agreed to let 12 Chinese warships cross the Suez Canal for the exercises.

According to Israel Radio, Bouthaina Shaabana, a Syrian official and President Bashar Assad’s special adviser, said the reports about such a drill are “baseless” and false. The IDF spokesman’s office called the report a “political matter” and declined to comment. Iran is currently holding talks with six Western powers over the fate of its nuclear program. The talks, said to be held in a tense atmosphere in Moscow, seek to alleviate world concerns that the Islamic Republic is developing nuclear weapons.

Syria meanwhile faces international pressure to end a 15-month crackdown on local rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. China and Russia have come to the aid of both countries in recent months at the UN Security Council, vetoing military intervention in Syria and expanded sanctions on Iran.

The Palestinians said a copy of an alleged draft agreement prepared for the talks, which could not be independently verified, reportedly includes an implicit recognition by the Vatican of Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem. Asked Monday about the meeting, Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi would only say that the talks would take place on Tuesday following a previous meeting in Jerusalem in January and gave no further details.

The Vatican is reportedly preparing to accept the application of Israeli law on Catholic Church properties in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians say would be a violation of international law. Nabil Shaath, a Fateh negotiator for relations with the Holy See, said the Vatican should "reaffirm its historic position in favour of the Palestinian people's inalienable rights in line with international law".

"We trust that the Holy See will clarify the situation and affirm that it will uphold its legal and moral responsibility," he said. The Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas which rules the Gaza Strip also voiced its "serious concern" at the reported draft agreement. "Holy Islamic and Christian sites will remain Palestinian and Arab and that their control or their administrations will not fall into the hands of the occupier," Hamas said.

Israel and the Vatican have been holding talks on the legal status of Catholic Church property in the Holy Land since 1999.

The study by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee examined the US relationship with the six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — against a fast-moving backdrop. In just the last two days, Saudi Arabia's ruler named Defence Minister Prince Salman Ben Abdul Aziz as the country's new crown prince after last week's death of Prince Nayef, and Kuwait's government suspended parliament for a month over an internal political feud.

The latest developments inject even more uncertainty as the Middle East deals with the demands of the Arab Spring, the end to US combat operations in Iraq at the end of 2011, fears of Iran's nuclear programme and the counterterrorism campaign. "Home to more than half of the world's oil reserves and over a third of its natural gas, the stability of the Persian Gulf is critical to the global economy," the report said. "However, the region faces a myriad of political and security challenges, from the Iranian nuclear programme to the threat of terrorism to the political crisis in Bahrain."

The report obtained by the Associated Press in advance of Tuesday's release provided precise numbers on US forces in Kuwait, a presence that Pentagon officials have only acknowledged on condition of anonymity. Currently, there are about 15,000 US forces in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan, Ali Al Salem Air Base and Camp Buehring, giving the United States staging hubs, training ranges and locations to provide logistical support.

185 domestic flights have already been cancelled due to heavy rain. People have been warned there are risks of mudslides and flash-flooding and advised not to leave their homes unless it is really necessary. Guchol is moving fast and is expected to pass across the country in as little as 12 to 18 hours.

Residents in many suburbs have reported items on shelves falling over. The news caused immediate panic on the internet. The Geoscience Australia website crashed as people flocked online to see what had happened. Hundreds of people from suburbs across Melbourne took to Twitter within seconds of feeling the tremors. Within minutes it was the top Twitter-trending topic worldwide. The US Geological Survey says the quake occurred at a depth of 9.9 kilometers.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said the tremor was felt further afield than Melbourne, with reports coming in from Bright and Myrtleford in the northeast and Wonthaggi in the southeast of Victoria. The joint Australian Tsunami-Warning Center says there is no tsunami threat to Australia.

And he feared that debt-ridden European economies could topple “like dominoes” without radical action to save the euro. The grim forecast came as hopes that the gathering of the leaders of the world’s most industrialised nations would come up with a deal to end the crisis were dashed even before talks began. Early optimism following moves to form a coalition government in Greece vanished amid growing concern about Spain, where borrowing rates soared above crisis levels of 7 per cent.

Mr Cameron, attending the meeting with Chancellor George Osborne, welcomed moves towards the formation of a Greek coalition government under New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaris committed to keeping the euro and tackling the country’s debts. As his privately-chartered jet flew into the Mexican resort of Los Cabos early yesterday, Mr Cameron held a conference with the other leaders about the outcome of the Greek election.

A senior British diplomat said: “There was a sense of urgency – right, we have had the election, now we need the government. That’s where the questions need to go.” But Mr Cameron was concerned that eurozone leaders would “take just enough political and economic action to keep the show on the road but without solving the fundamental problems.” He added: “It may be that the eurozone crisis is going to continue for some time, in which case the UK must do all it can to put its own house in order and link up with the fastest growing parts of the world.”

As Europe's leaders came under intense pressure to act decisively to cure the euro's ills, and a campaign gathered pace to relax some of the austerity programmes laying waste to countries with unsustainable debt levels, Barroso said Europe had not come to the G20 summit in Mexico to receive lessons on how to handle the economy.

Asked by a Canadian journalist: "Why should North Americans risk their assets to help Europe?" he replied: "Frankly, we are not here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy. This crisis was not originated in Europe … seeing as you mention North America, THIS CRISIS ORIGINATED IN NORTH AMERICA and much of our financial sector was contaminated by, how can I put it, unorthodox practices, from some sectors of the financial market."

The European council's president Herman Van Rompuy, speaking alongside Barroso, said a draft G20 communique showed "support and encouragement for the euro area countries and leaders and for the European Union as a whole to overcome this crisis. We are not the only ones that are so-called responsible for the current economic problems all over the world," he said.

Voicing exasperation with the European response to the debt crisis, Robert Zoellick, the outgoing American head of the World Bank, warned the G20 summit in Mexico of a growing rift between the Europeans in charge of the bailouts and the IMF. "The world's waiting for the Europeans to say what they want to do," said Zoellick. He predicted a showdown between the IMF and Europe by the end of the summer in the absence of any decisive action.

The “limite” text - published exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, is secret, restricted for the "eyes only" of diplomats and officials preparing for the 28 and 29 June European Council in Brussels. Most of the text, the annexed “Compact for Growth and Jobs”, are deals on project bonds and other small scale EU initiatives that Francois Hollande is trumpeting as a €120 billion “growth pact”.

The first draft is relatively uncontroversial because the eurobond and "banking union" issues are currently all too sensitive to be committed to paper for officials. Other so-called "non-papers" are circulating at a top secret level between national capitals and Brussels.

Sunday’s Greek election was trailed for weeks as a make-or-break event. We got a minority victory for a party notionally committed to keeping Greece in the euro by sustaining a national austerity programme that has already reduced the nation’s economy by 20 per cent since 2007, and next year promises to cut wages and pensions by another 15 per cent. Global markets flickered momentarily upwards in the wake of the announcement, then fell back in disbelief. They recognise the following about Greece’s predicament: if it persists with the austerity programme necessary to cling on in the euro, only penury and political extremism lie ahead. The country is no more fit to share a currency with Germany than I am to play tennis with Andy Murray.

Greece, like Italy, espouses a historic culture of corruption and tax-evasion that may enable those countries to muddle along in splendid isolation, but disqualifies them as partners in an economic union with northern Europe. The second big weekend European political event was the Socialist triumph in France’s parliamentary elections. The outcome of this was to put fantastists securely in charge in Paris as well as Athens. The Socialists’ mantra — matching that of our own Labour Party’s Ed Balls — is ‘growth’.

What does that mean? ‘Going for growth’, in Balls/Hollande-speak, means printing money governments do not have, to give voters goodies their societies cannot rationally afford. Southern Europe will be condemned to almost perpetual slump, soaring unemployment and bad debt as the price of staying in the euro. This in turn will tempt impoverished and desperate voters towards the lunatic fringes. The leader of Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star movement, Beppe Grillo, is a populist extremist we are likely to hear more of. It is hard to disagree with his words yesterday: ‘The EU is out of control and the euro is a box of dynamite with a fuse that is getting ever shorter. And we are sitting on top of it’.

So where does Britain end up in all this? It seems highly likely that a referendum about our membership of the EU will take place in Britain within the next few years. But it is impossible to hold one until we know what question should be asked. My own strong hunch — and I say this without any pleasure — is that within a decade Britain will find itself outside the European Union. But what else can we do if a statist, over-regulated, undemocratic and unaccountable Europe remains bent on economic and political suicide in a mindless, obsessive pursuit of the euro-ideal? It is an extraordinary spectacle: the 17 nations of the eurozone, and for that matter the 27 of the European Union, committed to preserving the eurozone in its present form, even though this course seems bound to end in train wreck for southern Europe, if not for the entire continent.

The communist had just called him a “bloody fascist” and he addressed her as a “commie”. Greek elites (journalists, intellectuals, politicians) condemned his violence almost unequivocally. Yet the ugliest part of this incident was the readiness of many lay people to defend him, even cheer him, while the neo-nazis rose in the polls.

Unfortunately this episode was not isolated. Despite the narrow victory of a centrist party in Sunday’s vote, almost every day extremist violence breaks out in Athens and beyond. Neo-nazis against immigrants, anarchists and leftists. Anarchists, ultra-leftists and other fringe groups of the nationalist-populist camp against riot police, mainstream politicians, journalists, liberal intellectuals, even artists. Add to this a surge in crime and rising tolerance of violence and you have a clearer picture of today’s Athens. Does it remind you of anything?

That’s right. Greece’s situation recalls the Weimar Republic. Violence (and its banalisation), hate, rage, polarisation, fear, despair and resignation. As for the police, it has already taken sides: neo-nazis won by a landslide in polling stations where officers were assigned to vote.

The electoral results demonstrate the dangers to the Greek democracy. The centre-right New Democracy party may have edged ahead, but the parliament, for the first time in Greek history, will be full of extremists. Besides the neo-nazis and a Stalinist communist party there is Syriza, whose leader is a fan of Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez. It is difficult to find a notable dictator, even among the great butchers of the 20th century, without a steady following in the Greek parliament.

The three protagonists of the dreadful TV incident were also elected. Imagine them together in routine parliamentary proceedings. Golden Dawn members have already made it clear they would come down hard on any member of parliament saying something they strongly disapprove of. How did Greece, the birthplace of democracy, come to have a parliament full of hammers, sickles and swastikas? This is not how it was ever meant to be.

The Daily reports: While 144 Americans have died in Afghanistan in 2012, a whopping 228 Chicago residents have been killed, and the murder rate is up a staggering 35 percent from last year. That’s a rash of homicides quadruple the rate of New York City’s, and police and crime experts fear it may only get worse.

Meanwhile, between 100 and 200 cops will provide protection at the wedding of [Mr] Obama's adviser Jarrett’s daughter: In the midst of a recent homicide spike and prediction of a weekend weather scorcher, the Daily is told somewhere between 100 to 200 police officers will be dispatched to help “secure the perimeter” of a high-profile wedding in Kenwood.

The federal government did not pay for the police presence; the cost of the extra security will be borne by the Chicago Police Department.

Ynet was able to document the presence of Israeli tanks in close proximity to the border – maneuvers which are barred by Jerusalem's peace treaty with Cairo. The last time the IDF boosted its front-line combat vehicle presence in the sector was in August 2011, following a murderous terror attack by the Islamic Jihad, which left nine Israelis dead. At the time, the military deployed several armored personnel carriers along the border, as part of the heightened security measures in the sensitive area.

Ynet's chief military commentator Ron Ben Yishai noted that several months ago, Israel and Egypt arrived at an agreement by which Cairo would be able to deploy 20 tanks near the border, to ward off attacks by Bedouins on Egyptian forces, despite the fact that such a move contradicts the peace treaty. It is likely that the deal also allowed Israel to do the same in favor of increased protection for the area's communities.

As final ballot results trickled in and unofficial tallies suggested that Mohamed Morsi had secured approximately 52% of the popular vote, the Brotherhood deployed its harshest language yet against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), promising to bring millions of Egyptians back on to the streets if attempts to rebuild the old regime continued.

"Over the past 18 months we were very keen to avoid any clashes or confrontations with other components of Egypt's political system because we felt that it would have negative consequences for the democratic system and for society as a whole," said Fatema AbouZeid, a senior policy researcher for the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice party and a media co-ordinator for the Morsi campaign. "But now it's very clear that Scaf and other institutions of the state are determined to stand in the way of what we're trying to achieve, and we won't accept this any more. Egypt will not go back to the old regime through any means, legal or illegal."

"If we find that Scaf stands firm against us as we try to fulfil the demands of the revolution, we will go back to the streets and escalate things peacefully to the highest possible stage," she said. "Now we have a new factor in Egyptian politics, the Egyptian people themselves, who will not accept a return to the old regime in any form, not after so much Egyptian blood was shed to remove it."

Sudan has avoided an "Arab spring" but anger is rising over spiraling food prices among a population strained by years of conflict, poverty and US trade sanctions. The Arab-African country has been struggling with economic crisis after losing three-quarters of its oil production, the lifeblood of the economy, when South Sudan seceded a year ago. Protests erupted after news of Bashir's plans to cut the number of civil servants, reduce fuel subsidies and raise taxes on consumer goods, banks and imports.

Sudan effectively devalued its currency in May - pushing inflation up to 30 percent - to try to attract more remittances from expatriate Sudanese and to boost gold and farm exports after the International Monetary Fund urged it to take emergency measures to overcome the "daunting" challenges it faces.

“My concern is we are experiencing an epic failure of leadership at almost every level of American society right now,” Rosenberg told WND. “Something has gone terribly wrong with the American experiment. Our families are imploding, our national debt is exploding, experts on the left and right are warning us that we need to change our direction because we’re on an unsustainable trajectory economically, socially and culturally.”

“Unfortunately, too many leaders in our country are stuck in business as usual mode and Americans are getting anxious that the ice is cracking under our feet.” Many Americans have come to believe that the US has entered a period of severe and potentially irreversible decline and fear the nation is in serious risk of economic and social collapse, Rosenberg wrote. Economically, the nation is more than $15 trillion in debt and is fast approaching $65 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities – promises the government has made regarding Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that it can’t afford, Rosenberg says.

Further, America has lost 53 million children to abortion since 1973. “That’s horrific in its own right – murder in my view,” Rosenberg says. “But on top of that, as if that weren’t bad enough, it’s having an economic affect that liberals didn’t intend, which is if you build a social welfare system in which young people pay the bills of older people through taxes and then you kill 53 million younger workers you are going to have a crisis.”

Meanwhile, the nation’s “horrible pornography industry,” which exports its lurid materials worldwide, earns more money than NBC, ABC and CBS combined, Rosenberg says.