Turkish news channel NTV reported that six or seven people were being treated for injuries in a local hospital, citing local health officials. There were no immediate reports that tourists were among the injured. Witnesses said phone lines are down in Fethiye, the closest town to the quake's epicenter. As the quake was in the Aegean Sea, it was also felt on the Greek island of Rhodes, but no injuries or casualties were reported there.

Earthquakes are a daily occurrence in Turkey, which is crisscrossed by geological fault lines. In October last year, more than 600 people died in the eastern province of Van after a quake of 7.2 magnitude. And in 1999, two massive earthquakes killed about 20,000 people in the country's densely populated northwest.

On the day she met David Cameron in Berlin to try to tackle the eurozone crisis, she declared: “We need more Europe. We don’t only need monetary union, we also need a so-called fiscal union. And most of all we need a political union, which means we need to gradually cede powers to Europe and give Europe control.” Her comments added weight to the Daily Express crusade to get Britain out of the EU. And they triggered a chorus of calls for the Prime Minister to stand up to Germany’s desire to dominate.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: “The euro is beyond fixing, it is a busted flush. The sooner they accept that the better. We don’t need more politics to sort the problem. This Soviet-style political project has failed.” Fellow Conservative backbencher Douglas Carswell said: “The German taxpayer is going to be extremely reluctant to take on eurozone debt.”

“What we are seeing is a deluded European elite resisting failure at all costs.” Ms Merkel’s remarks highlighted a growing rift with non-euro member Britain. At their meeting later, Mr Cameron pledged he would not ask British taxpayers to underwrite the debts of ailing banks in Greece and Spain. THE PRIME MINISTER SAID HE HAD “NO DOUBT” THAT THE 17 NATIONS OF THE EUROZONE WOULD MOVE TOWARDS CLOSER FISCAL UNION WITHIN THE NEXT WEEKS AND MONTHS. BUT HE MADE CLEAR BRITAIN WOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN ANY SUCH ARRANGEMENT.

The depth and breadth of the Obama campaign’s 2012 digital operation — from data mining to online organizing — reaches so far beyond anything politics has ever seen, experts maintain, that it could impact the outcome of a close presidential election. It makes the president’s much-heralded 2008 social media juggernaut — which raised half billion dollars and revolutionized politics — look like cavemen with stone tablets.

Mitt Romney indeed is ramping up his digital effort after a debilitating primary and, for sure, the notion that Democrats have a monopoly on cutting edge technology no longer holds water. But it’s also not at all clear that Romney can come close to achieving the same level of technological sophistication and reach as his opponent. “It’s all about the data this year and [Mr] Obama has that.”

“When a race is as close as this one promises to be, any small advantage could absolutely make the difference,” says Andrew Rasiej, a technology strategist and publisher of TechPresident. “More and more accurate data means more insight, more money, more message distribution, and more votes.”

“It is held in extremely high esteem by both the public and the politicians,” one veteran gilts market expert said. “It sets the tone of debate in Germany. It would be incredibly influential in the decision-making process of who should stay in the euro and who should go.”

The Bundesbank has been the keeper of German inflation-fighting orthodoxy and, if anything, its sway is now stronger than ever. After all, its president is Jens Weidmann, who was Merkel’s top economic adviser for the five years before his appointment in February 2011.

“Weidmann knows the Berlin machine. At the same time, he understands how the Bundesbank works,” Mayer said. “He is now in a very good position to leverage the power of the Bundesbank. And the power of the Bundesbank really goes through its reputation among the German people. Weidmann has positioned the bank as the institution that speaks out in the German national interest. Berlin cannot ignore what the Bundesbank has to say.”

Europe has been a one-way street ever since Winston Churchill, in 1946, spoke of building "a kind of United States of Europe"; ever since France's Robert Schuman four years later proposed a European Coal and Steel Community, forerunner of the European Community. These men saw, after two world wars, not the desirability but the utter necessity of Europe's unification. Only neo-fascists and other wackos were rash enough to dream different dreams.

And meanwhile Ms Merkel has once again begun to chant the European integration mantra. Looking forward to the European summit in Brussels on 28 and 29 June, she said: "We need more Europe. We need not just a currency union, we also need a so-called fiscal union, more common budget policies. And we need above all a political union. That means we must step by step, as things go forwards, give up powers to Europe as well."

It was the same old same old, but the background was decidedly different. As the leader of the only nation with the financial muscle to address Europe's crisis, the German Chancellor has frequently been accused of being too rigid, of doing too little too late to avert disaster. But The Economist argued yesterday that Ms Merkel has eventually come round to adopting many measures that she initially opposed. "By July," the newspaper's Berlin correspondent reported, "she will push through parliament the European Stability Mechanism, the permanent fund she once opposed."

If all the money was lent and everyone defaulted, "Germany's potential liability... could be €280 billion". In return she is asking her European partners to reaffirm their commitment to the grand project that yokes them all together. For Europe's embattled economies, to be at the beck and call of Brussels is better than being at the mercy of foreign hedge-fund managers. And to slide towards the sort of future envisaged by the neo-Nazis of Greece's Golden Dawn and their kin is a fate well worth avoiding.

On Thursday, the State Department said that Shabab “is responsible for the killing of thousands of Somali civilians, Somali peace activists, international aid workers, journalists and African Union peacekeepers.” Individual rewards were offered for tip-offs about various leaders depending on their seniority, with the founder Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed valued at $7 million.

The group has claimed responsibility for mass suicide bombings and prides itself on its connections with Al-Qaeda. It was, therefore, no surprise that Shabab was defiant in the face of a new US manhunt. "I can assure you that these kind of things will never dissuade us from continuing the holy war against them," posted Fuad Mohamed Khalaf (bounty: $5 million) on a propagandist website.

He then referred to an incident in Koran, when a bounty of 100 camels was offered on the prophet Mohammed. The US President was then priced at one tenth of that. Perhaps reflecting Shabab’s view of women, Hillary Clinton fetched an even lower reward: “10 hens and 10 roosters.”

The IAEA and Iran failed at talks on Friday to unblock an investigation into suspected atom bomb research by the Islamic state, a setback dimming any chances for success in higher-level negotiations between Tehran and major powers later this month. The IAEA, a Vienna-based UN agency, said no progress had been made in the meeting aimed at sealing a framework deal on resuming its long-stalled investigation.

Six world powers were scrutinizing the IAEA-Iran meeting to judge whether the Iranians were ready to make concessions before a resumption of wider-ranging negotiations with them in Moscow on June 18-19 on the decade-old nuclear dispute. "We're disappointed," Robert Wood, the acting US envoy to the IAEA, told Reuters in an emailed comment. "Yesterday's outcome highlights Iran's continued failure to abide by its commitment to the IAEA, and further underscores the need for it to work with the IAEA to address the international community's real concerns," he said.

The air force bombed a weapons cache east of Jaar, in the southern province of Abyan, and tribal militiamen fighting alongside the army killed two Islamist fighters north of the town, the defense ministry said in a statement. Yemen's military is attempting to retake several towns in the province from Islamists who seized them over a year ago during mass protests against then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh that split the military into warring factions.

Saleh gave way to his deputy Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in February in a power transfer deal brokered by Saudi Arabia and blessed by Washington, which fears chaos in Yemen will empower the wing of al Qaeda that has plotted attacks from the country. The air strikes followed complaints from residents of towns near Jaar, one focus of the military campaign that began last month, that no food or fuel was reaching them.

"All the roads are cut, and there is no food or gas" Ali Mohammed Mojahed said by telephone from the outskirts of Jaar, about 60 km (40 miles) from the port city of Aden. "A lot of people have stayed put because they don't have the fare for a car to Aden," he said. "It's better for me to die at home than flee to Aden and live in misery ... the shelling continues and the army is hitting areas outside Jaar. Most of the damage is to civilians."

"Britain will not sit back while children starve to death in the Sahel," he added. In January, Oxfam and Save the Children said thousands of people in East Africa died needlessly from famine last year because the international community failed to heed early warnings. Mr Mitchell urged his counterparts around the world to take action against the latest threat.

According to DfID, a combination of conflict and poor harvests have left eight million people in need of urgent assistance and a further 10 million requiring additional support. Oxfam has launched a £23 million ($36 million) emergency appeal to help reach more than a million of the most vulnerable in West Africa.

In March, the charity said malnutrition rates across Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and northern Senegal were hovering at between 10% and 15%, and in some areas had risen beyond the emergency threshold level of 15%. In parts of Chad, Oxfam says, some villagers have been digging up ant hills to gather grain that the ants have stored. The charity says drought, high food prices, severe poverty and regional conflict are causing the crisis. Recent fighting between rebels and the army in northern Mali has caused more than 100,000 people to flee their homes - half of them crossing into Niger and other countries that are already hard-pressed.

Once beloved of funds dealing in scores of securities across the globe, the sovereign debt crisis and its daily assault on markets have exposed weaknesses in the 'black box' investment approach, now seen by some as a liability rather than an asset. A realisation that risk cannot always be measured and conspicuous failures to foresee sharp market moves is prompting a return to manager-led strategies, and in some cases, hiring of new talent with expertise in areas such as political analysis.

"This is where we are, which is a potentially dangerous position, where politics for the first time in 50 years becomes pertinent to markets," said Saker Nusseibeh, head of Hermes Fund Managers, which is owned by Britain's largest pension pot, the BT (British Telecom) Pension Scheme.

Currently many of the risk models used by investors are based on the analysis of volatility and correlations of traditional asset classes such as equities and bonds, but critics say this needs to be tempered by an assessment of the safety of the asset by a well-informed analyst. "True skill is actually rarer than people think, so if you happen to be an organization that has that, you can command a premium. The skill is in recognizing disruption, particularly in recognizing that the old rules no longer apply," he said.

He emphasised that the help would be for the financial system, not the economy as a whole. "This is not a rescue," he said. "This is a loan which is given in very favourable conditions, which will be determined in the next few days. But they are very favourable - much more favourable than the market ones," Mr de Guindos told a news conference. The Spanish government had been reluctant to ask for a bailout like the one given to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, as these rescue packages came with demands for stringent spending cuts.

Most analysts, most experts would say this is a bailout. It is different to the bailouts of Greece and Portugal and Ireland; it's not going to have such strict conditions, the money is going to be directed via the Spanish government via this Frob [Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring] - which is essentially a bank restructuring fund that exists here in Spain. But it is a government institution, so the money is going to go into that - the debt is going to be on the Spanish government's books. It is money that will be directed towards troubled Spanish banks, banks that lent heavily during the construction boom here - of course the property market crashed and the loans turned bad.

Up to the last moment, Spain was at least refusing comment, with some ministers at times denying that Spain was going to go for a bailout. The impression we get is that Spain has been led by the hand slightly and at least sped up in the process of asking for help from abroad. Mr de Guindos said there would be conditions attached for the banks receiving the loans, but there would not be "micro-economic conditions" for Spain.

The pro-Assad “resistance” has its finger on the trigger and the aggressors will not survive the conflict, a senior commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Brigadier General Massoud Jazaeri, told Mashregh, a media outlet run by the Guards. Iranian officials often refer to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as the resistance front. Mashregh reported in March that Iran’s armed forces had formed a joint war room that included officers from Syria, Iran and Hezbollah for a coordinated military response to an attack on Syria.

“A conflict in Syria will engulf the region and its main victims will be the people of Syria themselves,” Jazaeri warned the protesters. “The Zionist regime and the interests of the enemies of Syria are all within range of the resistance fire.”

Citing a conspiracy to weaken the resistance front and that foreign hands were involved in the events in Syria, Jazaeri said, “At the right time, people of the region will retaliate against these actions. The defeat of the enemy at this stage will be a big event and, God willing, we will witness that.”

There have been several reports alluding to the Revolutionary Guards’ involvement in the Syrian suppression. Recently the deputy commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Commander Esmail Ghani, said his forces have been playing a “physical and nonphysical” role in Syria. The Guards last year called Syrian protesters “rabble-rousers” who are “puppets of Zionists and the United States” and that their chanting slogans against Iran and Hezbollah “will be their last stand.”

Naghdi predicted that America will be forced to pack up and leave the region, taking with it all of its forces. The mullahs ruling Iran, based on centuries-old hadiths, believe that an attack on Syria and Iran and an ensuing counterattack on Israel WILL TRIGGER THE COMING OF “MAHDI,” THE SHIITES’ 12TH IMAM AND THE LAST ISLAMIC MESSIAH. Both those events are looking increasingly likely as Assad continues to murder his own people and Iran continues its quest for nuclear weapons.

That’s why Christine Lagarde, the formidable French chief of the International Monetary Fund, told me this week that she wants to lock Europe’s dithering leaders in a room and leave them there until they figure things out. “If I was able to do one thing, I would lock them in a room, take the key and let them come up with a comprehensive plan,” Lagarde said, when I asked what her fantasy scenario was for Europe. “I’m sure they can make it. I know the fundamentals are solid. The numbers on an aggregate basis are good. And, as I said, we have to take the key because they cannot escape unless and until they’ve firmed up the plan. But they can do it.”

Lagarde’s dream is frustrating and encouraging in equal measure because she is right: There is a clear, credible and widely accepted path to safety for Europe. But that car crash may still happen, because no one has the power to lock Europe’s leaders in a room, and, absent that forcing mechanism, they may not muster the will or the sense of urgency to act in time. The sticking point is not policy. Speaking on a panel with Lagarde, Jörg Asmussen, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board and a former official at the German Ministry of Finance, outlined what Europe needs to do.

“It’s very simple,” Asmussen said. “We need a more integrated monetary union, because the monetary area that we have now is incomplete. And we have to complement it in a way to make it more stable. One point is a fiscal union. The second one is a financial market union with three key elements: a resolution regime; second element, a deposit guarantee insurance; and third, we need a centralized supervision for the large 25 banks in Europe.”

“WE NEED A DEMOCRATICALLY LEGITIMIZED POLITICAL UNION,” HE ADDED. “WE NEED TO START THIS SPEEDILY.” That’s a plan the overwhelming majority of European leaders would agree to in principle. The problem is putting it into practice.

"The Iran-Syria alliance grew out of common cause - and common enemies," writes Professor Jubin Goodarzi in The Iran Primer. "(Iran) is actively engaged in supporting the (Syrian) government in perpetrating the violence. Their common strategic goals have held the alliance together for three decades, despite repeated attempts to rend them apart."

Historically the two countries came together in order to fight against a common rival, Saddam Hussein's Iraq; to check Israeli advances in Lebanon; and to prevent any American attempts to enter the Middle East. In particular, the two countries united to provide support to the Lebanese armed Shia movement, Hezbollah, and to the Palestinian Islamist militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Diplomats trying to end the fighting inside Syria recognise the influence that Iran has upon its ally.

“I would encourage all the Catholics in Melbourne to take an interest in this new venture," said Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott of Melbourne, project delegate for the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "It is an historical moment, of course it is small but from small things big things grow and I think this will have a remarkable future.”

The Australian ordinariate is the third to be established. The first, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, under the patronage of St John Henry Newman, was established in the United Kingdom in January of 2011. The Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter was established in the United States in January of this year.

Benedict XVI's 2009 apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum Coetibus" OFFERED A WAY FOR GROUPS OF ANGLICANS TO ENTER THE CATHOLIC CHURCH through the establishment of these personal ordinariates, a new type of canonical structure.