Spain is the next country in the firing line of the euro zone's debt crisis, with spendthrift regions and shaky banks threatening to blow a hole in state finances and pushing funding costs towards levels that signal the need for a bailout. The European Commission gave new help on Wednesday, offering direct aid from a euro zone rescue fund to recapitalize Spanish banks and more time for Madrid to reduce its budget deficit.

That helped lower the risk premium investors demand to hold Spanish 10-year debt rather than the German benchmark on Thursday, but it remained close to the euro-era record, at 520 basis points. Bank of Spain data showed a net €66.2 billion ($82.0 billion) was sent abroad last month, the most since records began in 1990. The figure compares to a €5.4 billion net entry of funds during the same month one year ago.

Spaniards are worried about the health of their banks, hit by their exposure to a 2008 property crash, and have been sending money to deposit accounts in the stronger economies of northern Europe.

Well, it turns out that JP Morgan did not tell us the whole truth. As you will see later in this article, most analysts are estimating that the losses will eventually be far larger than $2 billion. But no matter how bad things get for JP Morgan, it will not be allowed to fail. JP Morgan is the largest bank in the United States, so it is essentially the “granddaddy” of the too big to fail banks. If JP Morgan gets to the point where it is about to collapse, the US government and the Federal Reserve will rush in to save it.

Because of this “security blanket”, banks such as JP Morgan feel free to take outrageous risks. Today, JP Morgan has more exposure to derivatives than anyone else in the world. If they win, they win big. If they lose, US taxpayers will be on the hook. Not only that, but thanks to Dodd-Frank, US taxpayers are on the hook for bailing out the major derivatives clearinghouses if there is ever a major derivatives crisis. So when the derivatives market crashes (and it will) you and I will be left holding a gigantic bill.

Derivatives almost caused the complete collapse of insurance giant AIG back in 2008. But instead of learning our lessons, the derivatives bubble has gotten even larger since that time. Today, the 9 largest banks in the United States have a total of more than $200 trillion of exposure to derivatives. That is approximately 3 times the size of the entire global economy. The US government is already nearly $16 trillion in debt. How in the world can we afford to keep bailing out the huge messes that Wall Street makes?

Sadly, most Americans have no idea how vulnerable our financial system really is. It is a poorly constructed house of cards that could come crashing down at any time. If you still have faith in our financial system you are being quite foolish and you will soon be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

Draghi said bailouts for Bankia in Spain show that national regulators are reluctant to admit the extent of troubles at home. That only has the effect of raising the end costs of rescuing the banks and undermining trust and transparency, he said. He explained: "What Bankia shows is that whenever we are confronted with the dramatic need to recapitalize, if you look back, the reaction of the national supervisors... is to underestimate the problem, then come out with a first assessment, a second, a third, fourth."

"That is the worst possible way of doing things, because everybody ends up doing the right thing but at the highest possible cost and price," Draghi said in testimony in the European Parliament in Brussels. Spain said last Friday it would need to put €19 billion ($23.63 billion) into Bankia to rescue it from losses on real estate loans. The company made a successful stock market flotation only last year but has since had to restate earnings and has been taken over by the government. Dexia was bailed out in October by France, Belgium Luxembourg. It was the second time the bank has needed help, as it was bailed out for €6.4 billion in 2008.

Banks have been a key part of the European economic and financial crisis stemming from excessive levels of government debt. Bank bailouts are a further burden on financially shaky governments, and weak government finances in turn hurt the banks that hold those governments' bonds. The ECB made €1 trillion in emergency loans in December and February to shore up the banking system, but Draghi warned that the ECB cannot fill "the vacuum of lack of action by national governments" in reducing deficits and reforming their economies.

He repeated his call for European officials to come up with a long-term vision of what they wanted the Eurozone to be. "What is the vision... What is the euro going to look like a certain number of years from now? The sooner the answer is specified the better it is."

Though past referendums on European Union issues in Ireland have proven to be problematic, this time things are expected to go off without a hitch. When the Irish vote on the EU "fiscal compact" treaty on Thursday, their clear approval is expected. Polls predict that some 60 percent of the voters will tick the Yes box on the controversial treaty, which commits all ratifying members to fiscal responsibility.

But as certain as a majority vote may appear, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will nevertheless be anxiously focused on the activity in Dublin on Thursday. In the past, the Irish have repeatedly proven to be both unpredictable and resistant to being told what to do. Should they reject Merkel's fiscal pact, it would be a further setback for the German chancellor following the election of Socialist François Hollande in France.

Though the fiscal pact can still go into effect without Irish approval - it only requires ratification from 12 of the 17 euro-zone countries - a vote against it would be highly symbolic. After all, the Irish are the only Europeans allowed to vote on the treaty. On top of that, it would once again make investors on the financial markets question whether the euro zone has a future.

The IBEX index of stocks in Madrid fell 2.6 per cent, the lowest since the dotcom bust in 2003. Chaos over the €23.5 billion rescue of crippled lender Bankia has led to the abrupt resignation of central bank governor Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez, who testified to the senate that he had been muzzled to avoid inflaming events as confidence in the country drains away.

Markets are on tenterhooks as Spanish yields test levels that forced the European Central Bank to respond last November with its €1 trillion liquidity blitz. “Nobody is short Spanish debt right now because they are expecting ECB intervention,” said Andrew Roberts, credit chief at RBS. “If it doesn’t come - if we take out 6.8 per cent - we’re going to see a hyberbolic sell-off,” he said.

Italy felt the full brunt of contagion from Spain on Wednesday, with 10-year yields back near 6 per cent. The euro fell to a 2-year low of $1.239 against the dollar. Crude oil and metal prices plummeted and save-haven flight pushed rates on 2-year German debt to zero. Gilt yields fell to 1.64 per cent, the lowest in history.

Mr Roberts said the collapse in Spanish tax revenues is replicating the pattern in Greece. Fiscal revenues have fallen 4.8 per cent over the last year, and VAT returns have slumped 14.6 per cent. Debt service costs have risen by 18 per cent. The country is caught in a classic deflationary vice: a rising debt burden on a shrinking economic base. “Once you get into such a negative feedback loop, YOU CAN MOVE BEYOND THE POINT OF NO RETURN QUICKLY,” HE SAID.

A minister named Philip Caminiti was sentenced to 2 years in prison for simply teaching that parents should spank their children when they misbehave. Please note that Caminiti was not accused of spanking anyone or of physically hurting anyone. He was put in prison simply for his speech. He was put in prison simply for what he was teaching others to do.

Whether you agree with spanking or not, this should be incredibly sobering for all of us. Increasingly, speech is being penalized in the United States. Much of the time, the focus of the attacks by the forces of political correctness is on religious speech. If this trend continues, many of you that are reading this article might be put in jail for the things that you say in the coming years.

Instead of going after the parents who were doing the spanking, prosecutors chose to go after the pastor instead. They claimed that Caminiti was “the spoke in the wheel of this conspiracy”. Even after Caminiti leaves prison, he will be forbidden from having any contact with his old church. Caminiti will be on extended supervision for six years after his release from prison. Despite objections on constitutional grounds by Caminiti’s lawyers the judge ordered that he not have any contact with the Aleitheia Bible Church and have no leadership role in any church.

What in the world is happening to this country? Criminal predators are literally eating the faces off of people, and yet authorities want to go after pastors that are encouraging their congregations to follow the teachings of the Bible? Have we stepped into a really bizarre episode of The Twilight Zone? Sadly, this is not the only example of how our free speech is under attack these days.

Police tell Alex Jones and crew to leave the hotel. Surveying the scene at the hotel today, radio host Alex Jones described a chaotic picture, with Bilderberg security, including a particularly vocal Swedish woman, stomping around the building announcing that “machine gun nests” were being set up in anticipation of a deluge of protesters arriving over the next few days.

Given the fact that a record number of demonstrators are expected to attend, Bilderberg has been more stringent than ever before in its efforts to get people out of the way, telling customers who had made room reservations for two days before the start of the conference that their bookings would not be honored. Undercover Fairfax police, secret service, hotel security, as well as diplomatic service personnel are all now rushing to finalize preparations for the arrival of Bilderberg members tomorrow morning.

According to London Guardian journalist Charlie Skelton, conference organizers were also using iPhones to film guests who had arrived for brunch. Regular guests as well as journalists are also having background checks run against their names. Alex Jones also heard discussions between members of Bilderberg security about how sophisticated surveillance equipment using satellites was being used to tap phones of prominent activists and media personalities set to cover the event.

The erratic blaze grew overnight to more than 170,000 acres, surpassing a blaze last year that burned 156,593 acres in Los Conchas and threatened the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation's premier nuclear facility. The Gila forest fire is also the largest currently burning in the country. It formed last week when two lightning-sparked blazes merged in an isolated mountainous area in southwestern New Mexico, where it has destroyed about a dozen homes and prompted evacuations of nearby towns and health alerts for some of the state's largest cities.

Fire information officer Jerry Perry said about 1,200 firefighters from around the state were battling the growing blaze, but that they continue to face low humidity and shifting winds in their efforts. "We are still facing adverse weather conditions that are posing a challenge," Perry said. "We're doing a lot of burnout operations and yesterday we had to deal with a lot of spot fires." The fire has not been contained, and officials worry that shifting winds and dryness related to the state's record drought may cause the blaze to grow even more.

The full genome sequence of a tomato breed known as Heinz 1706, and a draft sequence for its closest wild relative Solanum pimpinellifolium, were published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. Researchers who carried out the work said that together the sequences provide the most detailed look yet at the functional parts of the tomato genome and show order, orientation, types and relative positions of all of its 35,000 genes.

"Tomatoes are one of the most important fruit crops in the world, both in terms of the volume that we eat and the vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals that both fresh and processed tomato products provide to our diets," said Graham Seymour, a professor of biotechnology at Nottingham University, one of 300 scientists involved in the Tomato Genome Consortium (TGC). Tomatoes represent a $2 billion market in the United States alone, while in Britain the market for tomatoes is worth around £625 million ($980 million) a year.

The research also offers some insight into how the tomato and its relatives diversified and adapted to new environments over the years. The scientists said the findings show the tomato genome expanded abruptly about 60 million years ago. Some of the genes generated during that expansion were involved in the development and control of ripening, making them particularly interesting to tomato breeders.

Giovanni said the work has implications for other plant species. Strawberries, apples, melons, bananas and other fleshy fruits share some characteristics with tomatoes, he explained, so knowledge about the genes involved in fruit ripening could potentially be applied to them, helping breeders and growers to improve food quality and cut costs. "Now we can start asking a lot more interesting questions about fruit biology, disease resistance, root development and nutritional qualities," he said in a statement.

Researchers reporting in Plos One have sampled the rock at the supervolcano site of Long Valley in California. Their findings suggest that the magma pool beneath it erupted within as little as hundreds of years of forming. That eruption is estimated to have happened about 760,000 years ago, and would have covered half of North America in its ash. Such super-eruptions can release thousands of cubic kilometres of debris - hundreds of times larger than any eruption seen in the history of humanity.

Eruptions on this scale could release enough ash to influence the global weather for years, and one theory holds that the Lake Toba eruption in Indonesia about 70,000 years ago had long-term effects that nearly wiped out humans altogether.

“If eurozone integration proceeds without Britain, and so deeply that the single market starts to fragment into inner and outer cores, the strongest argument for British membership will be undermined.” He writes that Open Europe enjoys a “central role” the shaping the debate about the UK’s role in Europe and “cannot be ignored.”

The waves of energy from the quake and tsunami that were so destructive on the ground reached into the ionosphere, a part of the upper atmosphere that stretches from about 50 to 500 miles above Earth's surface. The ionosphere is the last, thinnest part of the atmosphere, where solar ultraviolet radiation breaks up molecules and leaves a haze of electrons and ions.

In images released on Friday, NASA showed how the earthly disturbances from the March 11, 2011, quake and tsunami were echoed in the movement of electrons far aloft. This movement was monitored by tracking the GPS signals between satellites and ground receivers. Scientists have seen this phenomenon before, for tsunamis in Samoa in 2009 and Chile in 2010. The Japanese event, however, occurred in a region more closely monitored by a dense network of GPS receivers, NASA said in a statement.

Nervy top officials are reluctant to speak on the record for fear of slipping up. Policymakers contradict one another. Plans keep changing. Financial markets reel amid the uncertainty. The gloom in ministry corridors is palpable. The latest gaffe: after weeks of insisting that one of the country's biggest banks, Bankia, did not need fresh funds, ministers dropped the bombshell last Friday that there was a €23 billion hole in the accounts. They have yet to explain clearly how they will find the money when they are already struggling to finance a spiraling national debt.

The effect of the Bankia news on fragile financial markets was devastating. Spanish shares dived to 9-year lows, the euro sank and investors fled Spanish government debt, pushing the yield towards the 7 per cent level at which fellow eurozone members Ireland and Portugal were forced to seek national bailouts from Brussels.

To hear the government tell it, outsiders have got it all wrong: Spain has lived beyond its means for too long and is now going through a painful but necessary period of adjustment to shrink its state sector, cut spending and boost competitiveness. All the right things are being done. Rajoy's government is serious, committed and enjoys a comfortable parliamentary majority. Now, ministers say, Madrid just needs time and some help and support from its European partners to get through the most acute phase of the crisis and give the reforms time to work. Unfortunately, time is running out.

He also said that a Greek exit “could be used as an excuse not to implement structural reforms.” Thanasis Gavos, the London Correspondent of SkAI TV and Radio, said that, in the short term, eurozone countries may breathe “a sigh of relief” following Greece’s euro exit, but warned of the consequences in the longer term, noting that if Greece were to leave, “the irreversibility of euro membership would be declared void.”

He also said that he expected the result of the 17 June elections to be “inconclusive”, potentially leaving Greece with either a weak government or no government at all, and forcing the country to hold a referendum on its euro membership.

In the Irish Examiner, Colette Browne argues that “What we have tomorrow is the illusion of democracy” noting that Ireland is losing control over its “economic destiny”. A leader in the Irish Times urges voters to vote Yes “Not just out of an incurable and uncritical Europhilia, but also a pragmatic assessment of Ireland’s vital interests at the time.” Ireland’s Newstalk radio reports that latest polls indicate 47% in favour of a ‘Yes’ vote compared with 35% in favour of a ‘No’ vote, while 18% still remain undecided.