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.

And where is the Church? In a nation of tens of millions of self-professed born-again, evangelical Christians, how can we be in so much trouble? And is there any hope of turning this around? These are not normal times. Americans have been gripped by a widespread and deeply rooted pessimism in recent years. They are openly asking whether our nation can survive.... A growing number of Americans fear that this period of our history is different and the crises we face today - and those coming up over the horizon - may be far worse than anything we have experienced in the past.... Many Americans genuinely fear that God is preparing to removed his hand of protection and blessing from our country, or perhaps already has.

The fear that unlike previous dark times in our national history, God may not intend to help us turn things around and get us back on the right track.... We must not kid ourselves. The evidence suggests we may very well be aboard the Titanic, heading for icebergs and inexplicably increasing our speed toward disaster. So many on board are unaware of the dangers fast approaching and not concerned in the slightest. We haven't hit the icebergs yet, but if we don't make a sharp turn fast, we soon will, and we will sink.

Who will serve as our captain and crew going forward? Will they understand the gravity of the threat and have the wisdom, courage and speed to take appropriate action before it is too late? What is our role as passengers? Are we to succumb to decadence...?

A few weeks after European Union (EU) managed to thwart the Greek financial crisis, Spain has sought a bailout of its banks. And while EU leaders want Germany to again use its financial muscle to drag Spain out of this crisis, the terms of this bailout could well change the way the continent functions.

The idea isn’t exactly new. A European state had been predicted by US President George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte in the 18th century. In 1849, Victor Hugo used the term ‘United States of Europe’ in his speech at the International Peace Conference pushing for the creation of a common senate. And of course, The United States of Europe is what Adolf Hitler started World War II for.

Sixty seven years after that war ended, talk of a common European state - or something on the lines of it - is suddenly gathering steam again. With experts giving the eurozone just three months to solve the Euro crisis, its leaders are considering taking the step forward from a common European currency towards common banking system and a common budget. With Greece, Spain and others near bankruptcy and France dealing with an economic crisis of its own, it’s Germany that finds itself charting Europe’s future - again.

All of Europe is looking to Germany to underwrite the debts of Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland and others - worth about a trillion dollars. However, they’re not comfortable with the austerity measures Germany wants countries to impose in return. So, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Council leaders are busy hammering out a revised plan: Germany underwrites the debts. In return, eurozone governments surrender control of their budgets and fiscal policies to a central eurozone authority.

The radical steps would involve gradual loss of national sovereignty over budgetary, fiscal, social pensions and labour market policies with the aim of forging a new European political union over five to 10 years.

Underlining the sceptical message, George Osborne hinted at a referendum on Europe following the euro crisis, saying any “reshaped” relationship with the EU might have to be put to British voters. He signalled that Britain was prepared to veto a new EU treaty unless it included safeguards for the City. But Mr Cameron and his Chancellor accepted that the only way to resolve the eurozone crisis was deeper integration between the 17 countries using the single currency, including a new “banking union”.

German calls for political, fiscal and financial union in the eurozone have revived fears of a two-speed Europe, where a core of eurozone members tries to set the rules for the entire European Union. At a joint press conference with Mrs Merkel, Mr Cameron pledged to prevent that, insisting the eurozone members would not be allowed to work against Britain’s economic interests.

“I understand why single currency countries have to look at deeper integration. What I will do is make sure that Britain’s interest, particularly in the single market, is protected,” he said. “I am convinced that as Europe develops, we can protect Britain’s interests in a proper way.” As its price for financial support for weaker southern members, Germany wants a deeper fiscal and political union that would give Berlin greater influence.

In an interview before her meeting with Mr Cameron, Mrs Merkel said: “We need more Europe, a budget union, and we need a political union first and foremost,” she said. “We must, step by step, cede responsibilities to Europe.” She also insisted that countries outside the eurozone, such as Britain, should not be able to block that process.

Output is shrinking, unemployment is 11 percent, and factory orders are down. IMF chief Christine Lagarde believes the European Central Bank (ECB) has room to cut rates, but monetary easing doesn’t address the fundamental problem that caused the debt crisis: countries living beyond their means. Spain is the immediate concern, but Greece is just a step behind, with elections coming up shortly.

It would take around $100 billion to recapitalize Spanish banks enough to restore stability. Already struggling with a large fiscal deficit, Madrid simply cannot shore up the financial sector on its own. The latest desperate plan is to integrate the banks of the various members of the European Union (EU), cutting the governments out. This banking union would mean stronger, better capitalized institutions would keep the weaker banks afloat instead of having national governments provide direct bailouts. The idea has received an icy reception in Germany, which has the healthiest economy in the region.

That frugal nation realizes it will almost certainly end up paying the bills in a banking union. A leading member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition dismissed the notion as a “new, admittedly creative, way to tap German solvency.” That opposition is good news for Teutonic taxpayers. Germany can’t bail out all of its profligate neighbors. Perhaps if this crisis forces European governments to concentrate on the need to balance their books, the heavy price that is being paid will do some good.

Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris flew into a rage during a heated argument with radical left Syriza party member Rena Dourou on a morning TV talk show in Athens. Kasidiaris was already agitated after Dourou made reference to a criminal case pending against the far-right spokesman. Kasidiaris appeared in court on Monday for his alleged role in a 2007 armed robbery which saw a postgraduate student viciously stabbed. His trial was postponed for a week.

Kasidiaris finally snapped after Dourou, 58, animatedly expressed there was a "crisis of democracy when people who will take the country back 500 years have got into the Greek parliament." The 31-year-old Kasidiaris bound out of his seat and doused her with a glass of water from across the table, deriding her as a “a circus act.” Communist Party member Liana Kanelli stood up and swatted him with a piece of paper in protest, to which the brawny former Special Forces soldier unloaded on her with a three slap combo.

Talk show host Giorgos Papadakis jumped into the melee, repeatedly shouting “No!” in a failed bid to restrain the enraged right winger deputy. The channel immediately cut to a commercial break. Afterwards a journalist from the TV station said they had tried to keep Kasidiaris from leaving the premises. Five minutes later when the cameras starting rolling again Kasidiaris had fled the scene. The Athens prosecutor immediately ordered police to hunt him down.