“Yesterday we began to apply the skills that we have developed over the last weeks in an irregular warfare scenario… They will last for approximately the coming two weeks,” he added. “The message that I want to send through this exercise is that we have developed the right partners throughout the region and across the world… ensuring that we have the ability to… meet challenges that are coming to our nations,” Tovo said.

Over 12,000 soldiers are taking part in the war games, representing 19 countries, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qatar, Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Australia. Jordanian army operations and training chief Major General Awni Adwan said the military exercise “has been in the planning phase for the past three years.”

“No forces will be deployed north… the exercise is not connected to any real world event,” Adwan said when asked if the war games were related to the ongoing violence in Jordan’s northern neighbor Syria. “This has nothing to do with Syria. We respect the sovereignty of Syria. There is no tension between the Syrians and us. Our objectives are clear,” Adwan said.

Germany has gold reserves of just under 3,400 tons, the second-largest reserves in the world after the United States. Much of that is in the safekeeping of central banks outside Germany, especially in the US Federal Reserve in New York. One would think that with such a valuable stash, worth around €133 billion ($170 billion), the German government would want to keep a close eye on its whereabouts. But now a bizarre dispute has broken out between different German institutions over how closely the reserves should be checked.

Germany's federal audit office, the Bundesrechnungshof, which monitors the German government's financial management, is unhappy with how Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, keeps tabs on its gold. According to media reports, the auditors are dissatisfied with the fact that gold reserves in Frankfurt are more closely monitored than those held abroad. In Germany, spot checks are carried out to make sure that the gold bars are in the right place. But for the German gold that is stored on the Bundesbank's behalf by the US Federal Reserve in New York, the Bank of England in London and the Banque de France in France, the German central bank relies on the assurances of its foreign counterparts that the gold is where it should be. The three foreign central banks give the Bundesbank annual statements confirming the size of the reserves, but the Germans do not usually carry out physical inspections of the bars.

According to German media reports, the Bundesrechnungshof has now recommended in its confidential annual audit of the Bundesbank for 2011 that Germany's central bank check its foreign gold reserves with yearly spot checks. The Bundesbank has rejected the demand, arguing that central banks do not usually check each others' reserves. "The scope of the checks that the Bundesrechnungshof wants does not correspond to the usual practices among central banks," the Bundesbank said in a statement quoted by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. "There are no doubts about the integrity and the reputation of these foreign depositories."

Now the finance committee of the German parliament, the Bundestag, has gotten involved. Parliamentarians apparently demanded to see the Bundesrechnungshof's audit report on the Bundesbank after they were alarmed by a report in the influential tabloid daily Bild, which claimed that the central bank had not checked its gold reserves in five years.

With a price tag of $3,000+ apiece, according to an ABC report, the street lights are now being rolled out in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh, and may soon mushroom all across the country. Part of the Intellistreets systems made by the company Illuminating Concepts, they have a number of “homeland security applications” attached.

Each has a microprocessor “essentially similar to an iPhone,” capable of wireless communication. Each can capture images and count people for the police through a digital camera, record conversations of passers-by and even give voice commands thanks to a built-in speaker. Ron Harwood, president and founder of Illuminating Concepts, says he eyed the creation of such a system after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Hurricane Katrina disaster. He is “working with Homeland Security” to deliver his dream of making people “more informed and safer.”

"The system represents Big Brother on steroids,” commented the website InfoWars.com, which sees Intellistreets as a major threat to privacy.

Currently, Section 5 of the 1986 Act outlaws ‘insulting words or behaviour’, but what constitutes ‘insulting’ is unclear and has resulted in a string of controversial arrests. Human rights campaigners, MPs, faith groups and secular organisations have joined forces to have the ‘insulting words or behaviour’ phrase removed from the legislation, arguing that it restricts freedom of speech and penalises campaigners, protesters and even preachers.

Former shadow home secretary David Davis, a leading campaigner for civil liberties, said reform was ‘vital to protecting freedom of expression in Britain today’. ‘There is a growing list of examples where the law against using “insulting” language has led to heavy-handed action by police and prosecutors. It is not only distressing for the individuals concerned, it constitutes a threat to Britain’s tradition of free speech,’ he said. ‘Of course nobody likes to be insulted, particularly in public, but nor does anyone have a right not to be insulted. Freedom of speech includes the right to criticise, to ridicule and to offend. It is not the job of the police and the courts to prevent us from having our feelings hurt.’

‘The solution is simple: The law needs to change. The word “insulting” should be removed from section 5 of the Public Order Act. This would provide proportionate protection to individuals’ right to free speech, while continuing to protect people from threatening or abusive speech.’

“We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi,” the cleric, Safwat Hegazy, blared from his podium. “The capital of the Caliphate and the United Arab States is Jerusalem, God willing,” he added, as thousands cheered and waved the Brotherhood’s green flag, chanting, “The people want to implement God’s law.”

On the campaign trail for the presidential election, now only nine days away, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken a sharp turn rightward, becoming bolder in saying it wants to bring a state where religion and Islamic law play a major role — and insisting that it has the right to rule.

As a result, it has moved away from the more moderate face that it promoted since even before the fall of Hosni Mubarak 15 months ago. During campaigning for parliament elections late last year, the Brotherhood insisted that implementing Islamic law was not its immediate priority, instead speaking vaguely of an “Islamic background” to government. It also sought to assuage fears that it seeks to take over the country by promising to work with other, liberal factions.

The scathing assessment, published days ahead of a meeting of Nato leaders, found the country’s ‘special relationship’ with the United States was under threat, with a “worrisome” outlook for the future of military capability. Led by R Nicholas Burns, the former US ambassador to Nato, the document condemned the “weakened” state of military capabilities at least until 2020.

It added Prime Minister David Cameron’s attitude to Europe “threatened to leave London isolated” and ruled: “British foreign policy vision and strategy remain unclear”. The 'Anchoring the Alliance' report reads: “The UK must not let shrinking defence budgets shrink its global ambition.”

“The United States has no better or more capable ally than the United Kingdom. There is indeed a ‘special relationship’ between the two nations. But the operational nature of the ‘special relationship’ is at risk.”

Since the demise of the coalition government in the Netherlands, Berlin has found itself rather isolated and, alongside declarations of not allowing the EU zone to budge from its current austerity course, is resorting to methods to create confusion within the rebelling populations. The government is keeping "a placebo for the Euro partners" on hand, explains the press. The chancellor will most likely adopt some of the terminology used by François Hollande, but with her own interpretations.

For example, she will speak of "promotion of growth," while meaning the imposition of "structural reforms," as envisaged by the austerity dictates. No new expenditures are planned. This is how the French growth offensive will be verbally ensnared, without having ceded an inch on the essence. Up to the second round of last Sunday's French presidential elections, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had refused - against diplomatic customs - to even receive the French Socialist candidate, François Hollande.

With other heads of European states, Merkel even organized a European boycott of the French challenger - because his demands for a change of course in the European crisis policy was seen in Berlin as a threat to German predominance over the EU. Now, President Hollande will visit Berlin immediately following his inauguration May 15 - and the chancellor will have no other choice than to welcome the newly elected head of state with "open arms," as Merkel immediately reassured.

But in questions of crisis policy, Berlin intends to remain as hard as nails. A close friend of the chancellor, Norbert Röttgen, the CDU top candidate entering the last lap of the regional legislative election campaign in North Rhine-Westphalia, openly reverted to the increasingly aggressive chauvinism of his electorate, when he insinuated that the French head of state was only out to get the German's money. "But, we are not going to use the German taxpayers money to pay for Hollande's electoral promises," said Röttgen.

Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil. The FTSE-100 index of Britain’s major companies fell by two per cent to 5465, with bank shares hit particularly hard. The cost of Spanish government borrowing also hit a record high since the single currency was introduced because of concerns that the crisis will spread.

Today, François Hollande, the new French president, will be sworn in and, in an indication of the concern gripping Europe, will almost immediately travel to Berlin to hold talks with Mrs Merkel that will be dominated by Greece’s plight. Attempts to form a new government in Athens have been thwarted for the past nine days, although the country’s president will meet all major parties this afternoon to discuss the forming of a “technocratic” administration rather than a coalition.

An outgoing Greek minister warned that the country could descend into “civil war” amid the chaos of a euro exit. “If Greece cannot meet its obligations and serve its debt the pain will be great,” Michalis Chrysohoidis was quoted as telling a local radio station. “What will prevail are armed gangs with Kalashnikovs and which one has the greatest number of Kalashnikovs will count… we will end up in civil war.”

Party leaders, deadlocked since a parliamentary vote nine days ago, will convene at the presidential palace at 2 pm (1100 GMT) but said they had little hope President Karolos Papoulias's offer would resolve a political crisis that has fuelled speculation Greece's days in the euro zone are numbered.

The multi-party political landscape has been in disarray since an inconclusive election on May 6 left parliament divided between supporters and opponents of a €130 billion ($168-billion) EU/IMF bailout, with neither side able to form a coalition that would have a stable majority in the legislature.

If supporters and opponents of the bailout cannot agree a government, the head of state must call a new election in June.

The bailout's main opponents - the surging radical leftist SYRIZA party which now leads opinion polls - said they saw the president's plan for a government of non-partisan experts as nothing but a scheme to impose the harsh wage and pension cuts demanded by the foreign lenders but already rejected by voters.

"We will attend the meeting. But we are sticking to our position. We don't want to consent to any kind of bailout policies, even if they are implemented by non-political personalities," SYRIZA spokesman Panos Skourletis said.

But the turbulence has spread, with the French people having kicked out Nicolas Sarkozy and replaced him with his Socialist rival, Francois Hollande. The new president promises massive new state spending to reinvigorate the economy — even though this flies in the face of the austerity pact championed so sternly by Germany’s Angela Merkel. Today, the two countries’ leaders meet as the financial markets ponder a possible rupture in Franco-German relations. This Merkel-Hollande showdown looks set to be the most decisive European meeting since the end of the Cold War.

Given the growing panic in the markets, the pair probably have only one chance to decide a clear line and save the euro — though even that now looks dubious. But the record of the past few years, as well as the deep ideological gulf between the German and French leaders on the issue of ‘growth versus austerity’, means their meeting will probably produce yet another fudge, and the eurozone will slide further towards disaster. Meanwhile, the Spanish government has been forced to bail out the troubled lending giant Bankia, sending tremors though the stock market.

All this probably sounds very familiar. For more than four years, the headlines have been full of doom and gloom, with the sorry saga of the euro usually at their heart. But the truth is that Europe is approaching the crunch. And in their very different ways, the Greek and French people may have pronounced the death-knell for an economic regime conceived in hubris but now collapsing in ruins. With every passing day, the chances recede that Spain will escape the kind of meltdown that has afflicted Greece and Ireland. With every passing day, too, the chances of the eurozone surviving dwindle still further.

But the election of Francois Hollande may have changed everything. In place of austerity, Mr Hollande proposes to start chucking money around as if it grew on the apple trees of his native Normandy. He has promised to hire 60,000 new teachers, to create 150,000 new public sector jobs, to bring the retirement age down to 60, and to take on the ‘financial elite’ he blames for the crisis. Unfortunately, it is not obvious where the money is going to come from considering that the French economy is in a pretty poor state. In any case, if he sticks to his spending promises, he risks alienating the markets, smashing the European fiscal pact and breaking the alliance with Mrs Merkel.

Spanish and Italian 10-year borrowing costs shot up to their highest levels this year and European stock markets suffered their biggest one-day drop in three weeks. German 10-year bond yields fell to a record low, widening the premium Madrid pays to borrow compared to Berlin to a new euro-era high. “It’s looking alarming right now,” said Luke Spajic, a senior fund manager at Pimco, one of the world’s largest bond investors. “The market is effectively trying to price in a disorderly exit for Greece.”

The chance of Greece falling out of the eurozone – previously seen as a cataclysmic event that many European policymakers had refused to discuss – has attracted renewed speculation following an election that resulted in strong gains for parties opposed to budget cuts imposed as a condition for Greece’s bailout.

European leaders have created a €500 billion eurozone rescue system, the European Stability Mechanism, as a financial firewall. But many analysts and investors have questioned whether it is big enough to rescue the larger economies at risk, such as Spain and Italy. “The firewall is big enough in theory for Spain,” said Justin Knight, a strategist at UBS, but added that the ESM would be likely to face practical difficulties raising large loans. To add to the sombre mood, Moody’s announced on Monday night it was downgrading 26 Italian financial institutions by between one and four notches.

Under normal Greek-debt contracts, if Greece doesn’t pay, it would have only a seven-day grace period. But experts who have pored over all of this have found that one of the key paragraphs from the normally boiler-point language is missing. As a result, Greece will have a 30-day grace period, leading to the possibility of an extended, “Will they?” or “won’t they?” drama.

Here’s what happened. In debt contracts there is a section titled: Events of Default. In a typical Greek bond it says “If the Republic defaults in the payment of principal… and such default is not cured by payment within 7 days from the due date for such payment.” However, that paragraph is missing from tomorrow’s debt payment.

Instead, if Greece chooses not to pay, it will likely fall under a different paragraph: “the Republic is in default in the performance of any other covenant, condition or provision set out in the Notes and continues in default for 30 days after written notice thereof.” If Greece doesn’t pay, it will mean the country officially enters into default.

Experts worry that unemployed seniors face a long-term threat as the impact of lost wages compounds. In what should their be prime earning years, these older workers rely on savings, miss out on potential wages and prematurely tap into Social Security - all at a time when Americans live longer and health care and other living costs are rising.

About 55 percent of jobless seniors, or 1.1 million, have been unemployed for more than six months, up from 23 percent, or less than 200,000, four years earlier, according to a copy of the Government Accountability Office report obtained by Reuters. The GAO, a non-partisan investigative arm of Congress, also found that years of lost work significantly reduced retirement income, particularly for those with defined contribution retirement plans.

"Long-term unemployment has particularly serious implications for older Americans," the GAO said in its report to the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Those seniors who continue looking for work amid a tepid economic recovery confront competition from younger, cheaper workers. They also must keep pace with ever-changing technology. Senator Herb Kohl, chairman of the Special Committee on Aging who is to lead a hearing on the issue on Tuesday, is investigating ways to counter age discrimination and boost seniors' job prospects.

"These are the people we should be most worried about," he said. "With the aging of the baby-boom generation, the fact is that older workers will continue to make up a much larger share of our country's labor force."

Speaking Monday evening, Danny Dayan, the Chairman of the Yesha Regional Council, said that the EU was mistaken if it thought that its condemnation was going to halt construction in Judea and Samaria. “It's time that the EU realized that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are flourishing, and that they will continue. This is a fact that cannot be changed,” he said.

The number of Greeks searching for homes costing more than £1.5 million ($2.4 million) on the website of property agent Savills jumped 39 percent in April compared with the average of the preceding six months, the company said. "The reason Greeks are coming is very simple," said Dinos Joannou, a 65-year-old Cypriot who works in the Athenian Grocery in the Bayswater district of London and has seen growing numbers arrive this year. "Greece is screwed, there are no jobs and it has been run by crooks.”

The number of Europeans buying property in London has grown steadily over the last year as the euro zone debt crisis has worsened but numbers spiked ahead of elections in Greece last weekend that failed to produce a government.