Specifically, they have pointed the finger at the highly secretive National Security Agency. UN computer security chief Marco Obiso moved to highlight the gravity of the situation after it emerged the bug had been used to hack into computers in Iran. The sophisticated spyware – said to be about 100 times the size of most malicious software – also hacked other machines in the Middle East, including Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt.

Mr Obiso said the warning will underline the danger the virus represents to the critical infrastructure of member nations. The conclusion by Moscow-based internet security firm Kaspersky Lab ZAO that it was crafted at the behest of a national government fuelled claims that Flame was part of an Israeli-backed campaign of electronic sabotage aimed at archrival Iran.

While Israel has done little to dispute the claims, some believe they do not have the capacity to launch such an attack. Earlier this week, Iran's National Computer Emergency Response Team posted a security alert saying it believed Flame was responsible for 'recent incidents of mass data loss.' It also claimed an antidote had been found. The discovery of the Flame virus came just days after talks between Iran and six world powers in Baghdad failed to persuade Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment.

That these monitoring features are available on cell phones was a known fact, as FBI surveillance networks already have the ability to turn on any cell phone microphone or camera remotely without tipping off the user. It’s believed that this surveillance technique can work even when the cell phone user has shut down their phone, with the only surefire way to prevent such surveillance being removal of the unit’s battery.

Computers, however, were believed to be secure from these kinds of backdoors, and the majority of computer users believe their PC’s are protected from such intrusive technologies once they install virus and malware protection software. However, a new virus identified by leading digital security firm Kaspersky Lab, is reportedly capable of not only embedding itself onto computer systems without being identified by traditional anti-virus applications, but able to execute total surveillance and monitoring that includes turning on your camera and microphone, copying your data, and recording emails and chat conversations.

Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.

Flame can gather data files, remotely change settings on computers, turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots and log instant messaging chats. “The scary thing for me is: if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now,” Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.

Article - http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/big-brother-cyber-weapon-can-take-screen-shots-turn-on-microphones-copy-data-record-communications_05292012

Paris joined other Western nations in expelling Syrian envoys in response to last week's killing of 108 people in the town of Houla, many of whom were women and children. Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States acted in concert to step up the pressure on Damascus. Bulgaria, the Netherlands and Switzerland also dismissed Syrian diplomatic missions.

"It is not possible to allow Bashar al-Assad's regime to massacre its own people," Reuters quoted Hollande as saying.

RIA Novosti points out that in his speech, Francois Hollande also referred to French intellectual, philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy, who, in March 2011, persuaded the then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy to recognize the leaders of the emerging Libyan opposition and to initiate a military campaign against the Gaddafi regime. Now, he is openly pushing for the same scenario in Syria.

"I want what happened in Libya to be perceived as proof that foreign intervention is possible in Syria. Homs today is Benghazi yesterday," he said. The weekend massacre in Houla seems to have become a turning point for Russia’s rhetoric on the Syrian crisis.

International media note that Moscow has taken an unusually hard line against President Assad's government.

“The government bears the main responsibility for what is going on,'' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Moscow on Monday, following a meeting with British Foreign Secretary William Hague. “Any government in any country bears responsibility for the security of its citizens.” Some suggest that Russian government is sending a warning message to Assad – that he needs to change course, otherwise he will lose Moscow’s support. Russia has grown increasingly critical of Damascus in recent months, but Lavrov's latest comments were unusually strong. Losing Russia’s support is not something Assad could afford right now.

It was supposed to be a gesture of solidarity, a major public event: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Joachim Gauck, his German counterpart, working on a puzzle together in Moscow's Red Square, right outside the Kremlin's gates. Along with carefully selected guests, the two heads of state were to assemble the 1,023 individual pieces of the puzzle, an oversized copy of the self-portrait of German artist Albrecht Dürer, an iconic painting in European art. But Putin lost interest in putting together puzzles. At first, the Kremlin called off a meeting planned for May that was supposed to kick-off the "German-Russian Year." And now Putin's office has informed Gauck that he doesn't have time for a meeting in June, either.

Putin, the former KGB agent, doesn't want to offer Gauck, an ex-champion of freedom in communist East Germany, a spot in the limelight. The cancellation of the puzzle event aptly reflects the current state of German-Russian relations. On Friday, Putin is expected in Berlin on an official visit. It will be his first trip to a Western country since being inaugurated as president for the third time on May 7 - the message was intended as a positive one. But in fact, relations between Berlin and Moscow are worse than they have been in years.

Ties with Russia have traditionally enjoyed a special status in German foreign policy. Given the history of suffering, German governments see themselves as an important intermediary between Russia and its Western partners. Moscow, in turn, can only exert its influence in Europe via Berlin. Yet despite being more dependent on each other than ever, Germany and Russia are steering toward a new ice age. With plans for the Nabucco pipeline in southern Europe on the verge of collapse, Germany continues to be dependent on Russian natural gas. For his part, Putin needs German investors if he wants to modernize his country's economy.

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund is paid a salary of $467,940 (£298,675), automatically increased every year according to inflation. On top of that she receives an allowance of $83,760 – payable without "justification" – and additional expenses for entertainment, making her total package worth more than the amount received by US President Barack Obama according to reports last night. Unlike Mr Obama, however, she does not have to pay any tax on this substantial income because of her diplomatic status.

The news will intensify criticism of the former French Finance Minister following her controversial remarks on the increasingly bleak prospects for the Greek economy last week. Stating that she had more sympathy for poor African children with little education than for jobless people complaining about austerity measures in Greece, she said last week: "As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about all those people who are trying to escape tax all the time. All these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax."

Speaking to The Guardian, she added that they could "help themselves collectively" by "all paying their tax," and agreed that it was "payback time" for ordinary Greeks.

Darren McBride, 42, software consultant, Dublin, said, “We're damned if we vote Yes and we're damned if we vote No. My personal preference would be to vote No because the euro model is not working for all of the countries using it and I would like to see it destroyed. It is clear that all countries in the zone cannot share the same interest and exchange rates and the current environment is very suited to the Germans.”

“A devalued currency would be very much in the interest of the so-called "PIGS" [the heavily-indebted Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain]. However, if we don't approve the plan there will be no more money to draw from and we will become another Greece. I will be voting Yes, but only because our government has sold our future to the German bankers.”

“I know that I am voting in another 10 to 15 years of austerity, but perhaps I will have left Europe by then. Things are tight for us financially, and I think they can only get tighter with continued austerity measures. I have two young children so I have to think about their future too. We could end up moving to Australia or the US.”

Rothschild's London-listed RIT Capital Partners (RCP.L) said on Wednesday it was buying the 37 percent stake from French group Societe Generale's (SOGN.PA) private banking arm for an undisclosed sum. The transatlantic union brings together David Rockefeller, 96, and Jacob Rothschild, 76 - two family patriarchs whose personal relationship spans five decades.

Rockefeller & Co traces its origins back to 1882 when it was founded as one of the world's first family offices by John D Rockefeller to manage his personal wealth. Since then it has developed into a wealth advisory group administering assets of $34 billion. The Rothschild banking dynasty began when Mayer Amschel Rothschild started a business in Frankfurt in the late 18th century.

The family has worked on some epochal deals during its history, such as helping finance Britain's war against Napoleon in the 19th century and raising funds for a loan allowing the British government to buy the Suez canal. SocGen, which has held the stake in the Rockefeller wealth and asset management operation since 2008, appointed a new head of private banking in March, replacing Daniel Truchi with Jean-Francois Mazaud as it moved to overhaul the business.

Banks across the world are shedding non-core assets to reduce their risks and strengthen their capital positions to meet tough regulations aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis. The deal is expected to close by the end of September.

Essentially, the thinking goes that a large European bank is no longer capable of borrowing directly from the ECB because it no longer has creditworthy collateral. Instead this bank has been forced to borrow from the Emergency Liquidity Assistance Program, which allows commercial banks without collateral to access money through domestic central banks.

CNBC's John Carney notes that the amount of money the ECB is lending to banks via long-term refinancing operations decreased significantly over the time period, by about €21 billion. Bloomberg's Linda Yueh pointed out that the €34 billion weekly increase on "other claims on euro area credit institutions" probably indicates lending from the ELA. The ECB's financial statements are always a little bit murky, so it might be wise to take this with a grain of salt. That said, this does not bode well for struggling European banks.

“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the US and Japanese governments.

Previously, smaller fish and plankton were found with elevated levels of radiation in Japanese waters after a magnitude-9 earthquake in March 2011 triggered a tsunami that badly damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors. But scientists did not expect the nuclear fallout to linger in huge fish that sail the world because such fish can metabolize and shed radioactive substances.

The Tory cabinet minister claimed that the MPs who have been calling for a referendum were 'a few extreme nationalist politicians.' The comment provoked outrage among Tory backbenchers who have been increasing pressure on the Prime Minister to promise a referendum in a bid to escape the grips of Brussels.

Dozens have signed up to the People's Pledge campaign, which is staging votes around the country to gauge support - with the first showing 89.9 per cent in favour. But Mr Clarke, among the most pro-European Tories, said it was a "ridiculous" idea that would do nothing to end the complaints of "frenzied" eurosceptics. "It is the demand of a few right-wing journalists and a few extreme nationalist politicians."

According to the report, the information mentioned in the report came from officers and soldiers who deserted the Syrian Army at the beginning of the popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime over 14 months ago. The FSA consists of some 30,000 poorly organized and equipped army defectors who are headed by a small cadre of senior dissident officers who have taken refuge in Turkey. They constitute roughly half of the estimated number of Syrian army defectors to date.

According to the report, Jerusalem and Washington are now aware of all storage sites for biological and chemical weapons in Syria, as well as the names and locations of all Syrian defense research facilities. The rebels are said to have also provided Israel and the US with the capabilities of all of Syria's conventional and non-conventional warheads, as well as the exact location of where bombs and missiles capable of delivering biological or chemical payloads are stored.

It is a highly creative way out of the debt crisis, but is not a soft option for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and other states in trouble. The plan is drafted by the German Council of Economic Experts and inspired by Alexander Hamilton’s Sinking Fund in the United States - created in 1790 to clean up the morass of debts left by the Revolutionary War. Flourishing Virginia was comparable to Germany today. Chancellor Angela Merkel shot down the proposals last November as "completely impossible", but Europe’s crisis has since festered, and her Christian Democrat party has since suffered crushing defeats in regional elections.

The Social Democrat opposition supports the idea. The Greens say they will block ratification of the EU Fiscal Compact in the German Bundesrat - or upper house - unless Mrs Merkel relents. "The Redemption Pact cleverly combines the advantages of lower interest rates through joint European borrowing with a reduction of debt," says Green leader Jürgen Trittin. "Joint liability would be limited in both time and scale."

Germany would have a lockhold over the fund, able to enforce discipline. Each state would have to pledge 20 per cent of their debt as collateral. "The assets could be taken from the country’s currency and gold reserves. The collateral nominated would only be used in the event that a country does not meet its payment obligations," said the proposal. This demand could enflame opinion in Italy and Portugal. Both states have kept their bullion, resisting the rush to sell by Britain and others. Italy has 2,451 tonnes of gold, valued at €98 billion in March.

It's the rich soil and perfect climate that has helped make the Central Valley so productive, but something else has made a big difference as well: irrigation. Fountains running up and down the fields sprinkle a steady stream of water onto the soil, without which farming on such a massive scale would be all but impossible in this dry climate. And that water comes from both the ground — farmers pumping deep water to the surface — and from a sprawling irrigation network that is fed in part by the great Colorado River.

Or at least, it used to be great. These days the Colorado River — which starts in the Rocky Mountains and cuts through much of the Southwest — isn't what it once was. The water of the river has been dammed and divvied up, with more than 40 million people in the region now depending on it for irrigation and municipal supplies. But persistent drought along with the growth in the West has reduced the river's flow, to the point that these days it usually dries up before it reaches what had been its mouth on the Pacific coast of Mexico. We're draining the river dry.

And this year is likely to be worse than most. The Southwest is still recovering from a historic drought that lasted much of the previous year, setting off wildfires and severely damaging agricultural output. Snowpack across the Colorado River Basin — important because melting snow in the spring helps feed the river — was less than half normal levels, which made for a terribly dry spring. Water levels at Lake Mead — the man-made reservoir created by the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas — was barely half full at the end of April, and is expected to drop another 14 feet this summer.

By mid-April 61% of the lower 48 states were listed by the US Drought Monitor as being in abnormally dry or drought conditions. Already wildfires are sweeping across New Mexico. The West is set to burn this summer, once again. But what's really scary is what long-term changes in water availability and water use could mean for our ability to feed ourselves.

Gunter Grass angers him, but the writer's positions do not reflect those of most of his countrymen, he believes. He doesn't buy the games Iran is playing with the international community, but he doesn't support the way the Israeli prime minister is dealing with the situation, either. Joachim Gauck, Germany's 11th president, begins his first official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Tuesday, a visit that has generated a great deal of curiosity.

And for good reason. In less than three months as president, the Lutheran pastor has developed the aura of a national superstar. The charismatic Gauck, a former anti-Communist civil rights activist in East Germany, has been hailed as the "president of hearts" and "Germany's Nelson Mandela." He is an apolitical personality and a proud patriot who describes himself as a "conservative liberal with leftist leanings." All told, Gauck, one of the leaders of the "peaceful revolution" that led to the downing of the Berlin Wall, is a symbol in the eyes of his countrymen a symbol of freedom, unity and hope.

But regarding Israeli-German relations, hope is not the prevailing attitude. If anything, the opposite is true. In advance of Gauck's visit, Stern magazine published a poll showing that around two-thirds of Germans believe Israel is an "aggressive state," a "state that advances its own interests while ignoring other peoples," and worst of all, "a state to which Germany has no special responsibility."

He attributes the poll results to ignorance, which he plans to fight, and to a general wave of xenophobia that "flares up here and there, time and again." GERMANY, HE INSISTS, "HAS A UNIQUE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ISRAEL DUE TO THE DARKEST CHAPTER IN OUR HISTORY," A RESPONSIBILITY, HE SAYS, "THAT WILL NEVER CEASE. Germany is fully committed to the security and right to exist of the State of Israel. I will therefore, come to Israel with a little bit more self-confidence, since I sincerely believe that Germany today can be trusted by other nations, Israel included."

A woman was pulled out alive in the evening in Cavezzo, but officials say at least one more person is missing. The quake on 20 May killed seven people and left thousands homeless. The 6.0 magnitude tremor also caused significant damage to Emilia Romagna's cultural heritage, destroying churches and historic buildings. The number of people made homeless has now gone up from 6,000 to 14,000 after the two quakes, the Italian government says.