It is there for all to see, somewhat incongruously, right behind Dalian's Ikea superstore. The huge carrier has been years in the making, and it is an unmistakeable sign of China's expanding military and its desire to project Chinese power further beyond its borders than ever before. "An aircraft carrier is a symbol of the power of your navy," says General Xu Guangyu, who used to serve in the PLA's headquarters and is now retired. "China should at least be on the same level as other permanent members of the UN Security Council who have carriers."

Gen Xu now advises China's government on its military modernisation programme. Seven nations currently operate carriers - it used to be eight, but the UK has just withdrawn its last one from service and will have to wait several years for a new one to be built.

"It's also a symbol of deterrence," adds Gen Xu, "It's like saying, 'Don't mess with me. Don't think you can bully me.' So it's normal for us to want a carrier. I actually think it's strange if China doesn't have one."

Flames were spotted on a ridge on the southeastern side of nearby Springerville and columns of orange smoke rose from the hills. Ash rained from the sky, which was filled with thick smoke, and when the sun peeked through, it was blood-red. The blaze has burned 486 square miles (1,259 square kilometers) of ponderosa pine forest, driven by wind gusts of more than 60 mph (96 kph) since it was sparked May 29 by what authorities believe was an unattended campfire. On Tuesday, it became the second-largest fire in Arizona history.

Thousands of firefighters, including many from several western states and as far away as New York, hope to keep the flames from getting into Springerville and Eagar, which sit in grassland at the edge of the forest.

This gap between spending commitments and revenue last year equals more than one-third of the nation's gross domestic product. Medicare alone took on $1.8 trillion in new liabilities, more than the record deficit prompting heated debate between Congress and the White House over lifting the debt ceiling.

The $61.6 trillion in unfunded obligations amounts to $527,000 per household. That's more than five times what Americans have borrowed for everything else - mortgages, car loans and other debt. It reflects the challenge as the number of retirees soars over the next 20 years and seniors try to collect on those spending promises.

"The (federal) debt only tells us what the government owes to the public. It doesn't take into account what's owed to seniors, veterans and retired employees," says accountant Sheila Weinberg, founder of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, a Chicago-based group that advocates better financial reporting. "Without accurate accounting, we can't make good decisions."

The government has promised pension and health benefits worth more than $700,000 per retired civil servant. The pension fund's key asset: federal IOUs.

The floods led to the evacuation of about 45,000 county residents, while another 3,000 remained stranded, relief officials said. Essential services including electricity have been disrupted in several towns and cities. More precipitation was forecast for the flooded-hit areas. The long-due rains, however, have brought huge relief from the months-long drought that has savaged several provinces in central China, described as the worst in the past six decades.

It was no coincidence the upheaval in Syria that began two weeks ago amid unprecedented political turmoil across the entire Arab world flared first in the town of Daraa in the country's drought-ridden south. Daraa is one of Syria's poorest towns, jammed with large numbers of people made destitute by the water crisis and long-neglected. "Syria faces an unprecedented water crisis, compounded by poor agricultural infrastructure and management," observed Middle East analyst Victor Kotsev.

But these have been chronic problems across the Arab world for decades, largely because of inept governance by the very authoritarian regimes now wrestling with pro-democracy uprisings. "There is a twist also to the geopolitical ramifications of what is happening," Kotsev warned. "If it develops much further, the unrest could theoretically destabilize the entire region in a more profound way than any other regional crisis."

In this context, Daraa becomes the template of the turbulence sweeping the region and which shows no sign of abating. Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southern Syria, in the 1967 war cut Syria off from a major aquifer that now feeds the Jewish state along with water sources in still-occupied Palestinian West Bank.

That was compounded by Turkey's decision in the early 1980s to build giant dams on the Euphrates River, a key source of water for Syria, its southern neighbor, across impoverished southeastern Anatolia. The water flow of the Tigris River, too, was cut by the Turkish program for 22 dams, causing a severe reduction in water supplies in Iraq, through which the Euphrates also runs.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization warned February 3 that global food prices were at an all-time high due to climate change and poor harvests in key grain exporters like Russia and Ukraine. Escalating food prices may not have been the primary force behind the current turbulence but they may soon become so.

"It's just completely out of control," said Ana Gomez. "Just imagine you can't wash your clothes, cook or clean your house." As many as 70 percent of Havana's water pipes are leaking and in need of repair and residents are forced to use buckets and bottles to haul water from trucks to their homes, the report said.

Cuba's rainy season in May and June will put some water back into reservoirs, but a normal rainfall season will not fill them up, officials said.

If the water level drops below 10.5 feet, there is insufficient water for gravity to pull it south through farmlands and into the Everglades, the newspaper reported. Since the dry season began last October, only 11.75 inches of rain have fallen, the lowest since rainfall recording began in 1932.

Even with the rainy season expected in June, climate forecasts suggest the lake could experience low levels the entire summer, Peter J Kwiatkowski, director of resource evaluation, said. "The really sobering thing is that, come November, we could still be in a shortage," Kwiatkowski said. "That is not a good indicator of what we could be looking at for the next rainy season."

It said large-scale emergency assistance was urgently needed "to save lives and treat acute malnutrition" in the region. It also stressed that the current humanitarian response was "inadequate". In a statement, Fewsnet said the eastern Horn of Africa "has experienced two consecutive seasons of significantly below-average rainfall, resulting in one of the driest years since 1995". It said that crops had failed and local cereal prices remained very high.

"This is the most severe food security emergency in the world today," the statement said. In southern Ethiopia and some pastoral areas of Somalia, the agency said, "poor households are unable to access the basic food supplies needed for survival". Fewsnet also said that recent nutrition surveys suggested that global acute malnutrition remained above 20% in the region, and more than seven million people needed humanitarian assistance.

"Predictions over weeks to one to three months suggest the drought will continue, and even intensify, in some areas as we struggle to get any rainfall," David Brown, director of climate services for NOAA's Southern Region, said. "This really is a historical climate event affecting our region," he said, characterizing the conditions as "extreme and exceptional." More than half the state is experiencing either "extreme" drought, expected to occur every 20 to 50 years, or an "exceptional" drought seen every 50 to 100 years, ScientificAmerican.com reported.

Meteorologists say the drought conditions have been driven by a strong La Nina weather pattern that emerged last summer, with colder than normal conditions in the equatorial eastern central Pacific Ocean that has wide-ranging effects, including dry winter conditions in the southeastern United States.

The general manager of Angeli Foods, Mike Jankovich, acknowledged reluctantly to columnist John Schneider of Michigan's Lansing State Journal that the receipt was real. "I've been hearing from lots of people about this," Jankovich told Schneider. "They're mostly people who don't understand how this can happen." Jankovich insisted, however, that the purchase is technically legal under Michigan's Bridge Card food stamps program and that his staff had no right to refuse the sale, even if buying live lobster and expensive steaks might seem a wasteful use of welfare funds.

Asked if the receipt surprised him, Jankovich said, "Yeah, it's usually not this blatant." Schneider also reports a discussion with a Michigan Department of Human Services spokesperson, who told the columnist the state was aware of the receipt and is conducting an investigation. "While federal guidelines allow for food assistance to be used to buy those items, these purchases go against the intent of the program, which is to provide help to those who are truly needy," DHS spokeswoman Gisgie Gendreau said in a statement. "The department is currently reviewing all of our policies to ensure that we continue to help those who need assistance, but not those who are trying to game the system."

The move has been praised for dragging the group into the 21st century. But some have slammed it for 'steering the organisation' away from its original Christian values. Wayne Bulpitt, the association's UK chief commissioner, filmed a video offering support to an anti-bullying campaign led by gay rights charity Stonewall.

In it he stated: 'Bullying is wrong on every level, not just for the person being bullied, but for the bully too. In Scouting we believe that all young people, irrespective of their sexuality, gender, race, creed or background, have an equal opportunity to develop and to be themselves.' Scouts spokesman Simon Carter said the campaign was designed to move the group away from its reputation as being 'austere and militaristic'. He said: 'There was an assumption that being gay meant you couldn't be part of the movement.'

'That was never the case and we are keen to make it clear that we accept people of any particular orientation. We have had youth members and adults attend Pride events and plan to do so again this year. It shows that we are not just talking about it but are demonstrating our support publicly.' They are aimed at counselling young people about informing others about their sexuality. It states: 'Coming out is a major decision in your life. You may decide to tell your family, a friend, your teacher or a Scout leader. There is nothing wrong with being gay and being a Scout and the person that you tell should be supportive and non-judgemental to what you are telling them.'

John Cormack, of the Scottish Christian Party, said: 'My reaction to this is one of dismay and I suspect many other people will also be deeply concerned. Sexual morality is an area where the parents should be taking the lead, not the Scouts. This is a huge step away from the Christian founding ethos of the Scout movement.'

The formal act was quickly settled, but German Finance Minister had no time to celebrate. The members of the budget committee in the German parliament, the Bundestag, had hardly given their blessing to billions in new aid for ailing Portugal last Wednesday before parliamentarians were drilling the finance minister with questions about the next troublespot - Greece. The lawmakers wanted to know more about the secret meeting held the previous Friday, which had been reported by Spiegel Online and which top European politicians were still denying as their limousines were pulling up to the Chateau de Senningen in Luxembourg.

Was it true that Greece needs billions more in financial assistance? More importantly, the parliamentarians wanted Schauble to elaborate on reports that Greece is insolvent and that the government in Athens has already considered withdrawing from the monetary union.

In his lengthy response to their questions, the minister denied the reports, explained the turf battles during the negotiations in Brussels and asked the parliamentarians to remain patient until an international panel of experts had thoroughly assessed the situation in the country. "For now, we're going to wait until the results of the report are out in July. Then we'll see what happens next." As they play down the issue, try to appease critics and play for time, Germany's finance minister and his European counterparts are determined to keep on denying reality in the struggle to rescue the common currency.

More than a year ago, they created a 110 billion euros ($157 billion) bailout fund for Greece. Since then, however, the likelihood of a government bankruptcy has only increased. The country's mountain of debts is growing, the economy is at risk of collapsing and the promised austerity programs are not progressing as planned.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency has warned that a militant left-wing movement is on the rise in the country. An arson attack on cables that caused severe disruption to the Berlin rail network last month has thrown a spotlight on left-wing extremism, and official figures reveal a steep rise in violence this year.

"The security situation has markedly worsened," says a confidential report on the radical left-wing scene compiled by regional and national intelligence agencies. The number of left-wing activists deemed prone to violence increased by more than 20 percent from 2005 to 2010, reaching an all-time high of 6,800, the report says. The number of offenses committed by extremists in the first quarter of 2011 was significantly higher than in same period last year, it adds.

Authorities are pointing to the protests against the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in 2007 as the start of an escalation in left-wing violence. The anti-globalization demonstrations, joined by tens of thousands of people, were a "turning point in the development of German left-wing extremism," the report says. Authorities are worried that the militant left is attracting support from young people who had hitherto been outside the core left-wing scene. It has started to appeal to a violent, thrill-seeking and less ideological youth culture.

One item on the list of eligible securities of the European Central Bank (ECB) is a Portuguese bond from the year 1943. It will be roughly 8,000 years before this money is due for repayment on December 31, 9999.

But this bizarre bond is now extremely valuable for a Portuguese bank, because the document can be submitted to the ECB as collateral in return for a fresh loan in euros. Since the international capital markets are practically closed to banks from Portugal, Greece and the other ailing economies in the euro zone, the financial institutions in these countries desperately need such cash injections from the ECB. Many of the submitted securities are not really secure - and it is difficult to say what they are actually worth. As a result, the ECB is slowly degenerating from the guardian of the euro to the bad bank of the euro system, where Europe's banks can dump their junk bonds.

Spiegel reported in May that the ECB and, especially, its member national central banks, don't scrupulously examine the securities submitted by European banks. This has resulted in junk bonds worth hundreds of billions of euros on their balance sheets. "These errors were reviewed and corrected," Irish Central Bank Governor Patrick Honohan told the Reuters news agency in response to the report. The reaction of the ECB was also strangely muted. What else can it do? It can't deny the risks. If banks go bankrupt and their collateral isn't sufficient to cover their debts, the central banks will have to cover the losses. And if the central banks' reserves are lacking, then taxpayers will have to pick up the tab.

The dimensions are huge: The ECB has accepted some 480 billion euros ($700 billion) in so-called asset-backed securities (ABS), and it has an additional 360 billion euros in "non-marketable financial instruments" on its books. To make matters worse, the bank has given tens of billions of euros to Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland in return for government bonds of dubious value. Although these are only valued at significantly reduced market prices and have been discounted in accordance with their ratings, the central banks often turn a blind eye to this fact.

"It's not our job to constantly bail out insolvent banks in insolvent countries," says a concerned banker at Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. He says this jeopardizes the reputation of the ECB and, ultimately, the euro.

More than 300,000 jobs are set to disappear with public spending cuts of 81 billion pounds over the next four years. Public sector unions are threatening to strike on June 30 over planned changes to pensions. Speaking to delegates from the 600,000-member GMB union, Cable called for "cool heads" but was heckled as he spoke and drew an angry response from other union leaders.

Cable noted that days lost to strikes had fallen to its lowest level since the 1930s. "On that basis, and assuming this pattern continues, the case for changing strike law is not compelling," said Cable. "However, should the position change, and should strikes impose serious damage to our economic and social fabric, the pressure on us to act would ratchet up. That is something which you and I will both collectively want to avoid."

Unions said the government should focus on getting the economy moving, rather than picking a fight. "Talking tough about cracking down on working people is a circus engineered by a government that is clueless about the real problems facing this country," said Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite union, the country's largest. "The whole country is now significantly poorer than it was before," he told the conference. "That is reflected in the pressures on everybody including public spending and including pay in the public and private sector."

Relations between the Conservatives and the unions remain fraught after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher curbed their power in the 1980s. Union membership has halved since then and the number of days lost to strikes has plunged, but the unions remain strong in public sector occupations. Union critics have called for rules to be tightened to ensure that strike action is backed by a significant number of members, rather than winning approval by a simple majority on a low turnout in ballots.