While economists generally agree the recession would have been worse without the government spending spree, it's a hard sell to voters with unemployment at 9.5 percent and unlikely to fall much by November's congressional elections. "I think it's a very risky strategy to use the term 'recovery' and the promise and claim of recovery when for many Americans, the evidence is simply not there," said Julian Zelizer, a history professor at Princeton University.

White House officials are trying to frame the mid-term elections as a choice between Republicans, whose policies the administration says caused the economic mess, and Democrats, who are trying to dig the country out.

Dana Milbank, a Washington Post columnist, pointed out this wasn't exactly the stuff of catchy bumper sticker slogans. "Vote Democratic. Things might have been even worse without us" probably won't sway voters, he wrote.

The latest foray into this area comes from Alan Brown, global chief investment officer at the large UK fund firm Schroders. But he does it with twist, blaming what he sees as the eventual collapse of the euro zone not on the structure itself nor on the profligacy of peripheral economies, but on Germany's response to the crisis. Brown reckons countries like Greece cannot do what is needed.

If Greece does all that it is asked to do, it's debt/GDP ratio will rise to around 150 percent as debt continues to accumulate and the denominator declines as a result of a renewed recession and deflation. With debt at 150 percent and real interest rates anywhere near today's level, Greece would have to run a primary surplus of around 8 percent of GDP just to stabilise its debt ratio. In the best of worlds, Brown says, German and other northern euro zone countries would solve the problem by stimulating their own economies to offset the deflationary impact of measures to improve public finances in the profligacies.

Increased demand from Germany (and other Northern European countries) would boost demand for goods and services from the South helping to maintain growth in the euro zone region as a whole and to reduce the current chronic current account imbalances. Brown says the trouble is that is not likely to happen. Germany has actually done the opposite, launching its own austerity programme.

As a result, Schroders reckons it is highly likely in the medium term that Germany will break the euro.

Fortunately, this run of unfavorable farming news follows strong harvests that for now should keep grain prices in check, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. But to see the effects of a bad year for food - and what the world could be in for if the present trend persists - one only has to look to 2008.

Two years ago, a confluence of environmental causes compounded by rising fuel costs and a global credit crunch caused food prices to skyrocket an average of 43 percent worldwide, leading to starvation and riots from Mexico to Bangladesh. Some are worried that was just a warning.

In a new book, "Empires of Food," journalist Andrew Rimas and Leeds University agricultural researcher Evan Fraser examine civilizations from Mesopotamia to Rome to Great Britain. They argue that every empire was made possible by agriculture, and that when those agricultural systems failed, the empires they supported failed with them.

Fraser and Rimas worry that the food system in place today is built around nitrogen-based fertilizers that require petroleum to create, as well as good weather that's graced the world since the dust bowl. If fuel prices go up again, or if the weather gets worse, they say, we could see our food empire unravel as well.

Kansas is the third largest cattle state with more than 2 million cattle in feedlots. "It is all cattle in feedlots. It is more the humidity than the heat," Ken Powell, environmental scientist with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said of the more than 2,000 cattle deaths.

The cattle deaths have overwhelmed rendering plants and some feedlots are burying the carcasses in accordance with state regulations, said Powell. "From the standpoint of dealing with the disposal of animals, this is the worst I have seen in the almost 17 years I've been here," he said.

Temperatures reached 101 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) at Garden City in southwest Kansas on Monday, and highs in the region were expected to reach the upper 90s to low 100s F (upper 30s C) through Friday, said Joel Burgio, meteorologist at Telvent DTN.

The government's point man on the disaster, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, will decide again later Tuesday whether to continue the test of the experimental cap - meaning the oil would stay blocked in.

He said Monday the amount of oil leaking was so far inconsequential. But ever since the flow of oil was closed off Thursday, engineers have been glued to underwater cameras and pressure and seismic readings, trying to determine whether the cap is displacing pressure and causing leaks underground, which could make the sea bed unstable and cause the well to collapse.

BP and the government had been at odds over the company's desire to simply leave the cap in place and employ it like a giant cork in a bottle until a relief well being drilled deep underground can be used to plug up the well permanently.

Allen initially said his preference was to pipe oil through the cap to tankers on the surface to reduce the slight chance that the buildup of pressure inside the well would cause a new blowout. That plan would require releasing millions more gallons of oil into the ocean for a few days during the transition - a spectacle BP apparently wants to avoid.

They also represent a human tragedy, as if those same numbers lacked limbs or lived in handcuffs. Never mind being cut off from Jane Austen or even Stieg Larsson - these people cannot use the internet, read a newspaper or instruction manual or write a letter. What is happening in our schools that this should be so? The answer, according to an important paper on national literacy by Miriam Gross, published yesterday, is horribly familiar.

Teachers who do not know how to teach, guided by a Left-wing educational establishment ideologically opposed to disciplined learning, are using the wrong methods to instil basic skills in our children. After visiting primary schools, talking to teachers and attending classes, Gross paints a portrait of a mad world dominated by the theory that education must be 'child led'.

Teachers assist illiterate children to cheat their way to passes in the government's SATS assessments at primary school, to sustain the lie of progress. This educational establishment is committed to teach reading and writing by the 'whole word' method - discredited by independent assessors - because it is thought to be 'easier for the kids'. The ideologues stubbornly refuse to accept overwhelming evidence that synthetic phonics - teaching children to link sounds and letters - works much better.

Teachers also reject such obvious disciplines as correcting children's spelling and grammar. The head of a Church of England primary school told Miriam Gross defiantly: 'It's so important not to crush the children's creativity when they write down a story. It would undermine their confidence if we pointed out mistakes.'

But ma'am, how will your pupils learn to do things right if nobody tells them when they do it wrong? What is so shocking about what is happening, or rather not happening, is the arrogance of this Left-wing educational establishment in the face of overwhelming evidence of their failure.

The move, which was described by economists as "very rare", means that Hungary will not have access to standby funds that were secured as part of a 2008 loan deal. The credit line was suspended on Saturday after the European Commission voiced concerns over the newly-elected Hungarian government's budget plans.

The stark move by the IMF and EU will reignite fears in global stock and money markets about the state of Europe's sovereign debt. It could also derail the fragile confidence that has been returning to markets after moves to resolve the economic crisis in Eastern Europe. Hungary's woes come amid fears of a broader bear market developing as investors adjust to signs of a global slowdown led by the US and China. The weekend's events will only add to market jitters.

Economists have argued that the return of confidence to Europe is partly based on the assumption that the IMF and the EU will automatically step in as sugar daddies to save failing economies. The suspension of the review of Hungary's credit line at the weekend will send out an international warning and shows such views to be naive, observers said last night.

The WDM, a London-based non-governmental organisation, on Monday started an on-line campaign to persuade the public to report Goldman to the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as the biggest bank allegedly distorting commodities markets. The organisers said they want to put pressure on authorities to limit the ability of banks and hedge funds to trade in commodity futures. The move came as Armajaro, a hedge fund run by Anthony Ward, was accused of cornering the cocoa market and pushing up prices after buying 650 million pounds, or 240,000 tonnes, of cocoa beans.

The money flowing into commodity index funds and commodity derivatives soared from $46 billion in 2005 to $250 billion in March 2008, according to the report. The authors claim that the flood of cash pushed up food prices across the world, particularly impacting developing countries. The high price of staple foods provoked a wave of riots in cities across the world during 2007 and 2008.

Tim Jones, who wrote the report, told The Daily Telegraph: "In the 1930s, rules were introduced to limit financial speculation in food markets but these were eroded by the banks, in particular by lobbying from Goldman. Although lots of banks and hedge funds are causing the problems, Goldman is the biggest. We estimate the bank made $1 billion profit from trading on food last year."

It was just the sort of photo-op German Chancellor Angela Merkel urgently needs. Peter Loscher, the CEO of electronics giant Siemens, was sitting on a throne-like chair in the governor's palace in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Contracts were being handed to him in brown leather folders, and every time Loscher signed one of the documents with his malachite green pen, the chancellor clapped with delight. The procedure took place four times, and by the time the round of contract signing ended, Siemens had secured Russian orders worth about 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion).

The real purpose of Merkel's five-day visit to Russia and China last week was to hold political talks with the two countries' leaders, but the most important message of the trip was meant for the German people. Look, Merkel seemed to indicating to German citizens, German industry is in demand worldwide, even if the government at home is divided and lacking direction.

The German economy has indeed come roaring back to life this summer. Two years after the outbreak of the financial crisis, the auto industry is adding extra shifts once again. The machine building, electronics and chemical industries are all reporting a rapidly growing number of orders. Total unemployment is expected to drop below the 2.8 million mark this fall, the lowest level since 1991.

For the first time in decades, the former "sick man of Europe" is back to being an engine for economic growth.

White Christians and ethnic Catholics. Though two-thirds of the US population then, they had dropped to one-fourth of the student body. Comes now a more scientific study from Princeton sociologists Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Radford to confirm that a deep bias against the white conservative and Christian young of America is pervasive at America's elite colleges and Ivy League schools.

Wake up! This is the reality of what Christian students face in the secular world of academia.

China clinched the top slot more quickly than had been expected because the US has over the past decade far outpaced China in using energy more efficiently. On a per capita basis, the US still uses far more energy than China and remains less efficient than Europe.

Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist, said: "In 2000, the US consumed twice as much energy as China, now China consumes more than the US." He noted that the US had improved the efficiency with which it uses energy by 2.5 per cent annually during that time, while China managed only a 1.7 per cent annual improvement.

"On the one hand, the US has come to a certain saturation of energy use, but there have also been lots of efforts, especially since 2005, to use energy more efficiently," he said.

Raytheon said the solid state fibre laser produces a 50 kilowatt beam and can be used against UAV, mortar, rockets and small surface ships. The idea of using lasers as weapons has been around almost as long as the laser itself, invented in 1960. Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, told BBC News that CIWS was the start of real world applications for military solid state lasers.

"OK, so a UAV isn't armoured, nor is it flying fast, but as you can see from the video they shot it down in flames," he said. "That's the very beginnings of what we can expect to see as firms miniaturise their technology and make them more effective." Speaking to BBC News, Raytheon Missile Systems' vice president, Mike Booen, said that the tests, performed in a maritime environment, were a big step forward for laser technology.

In May, the firm knocked out a number of UAVs at the US Navy test range on San Nicolas Island off the coast of California. Although Raytheon would not give details of the height, speed and range of the UAVs, saying that data is "sensitive", it did say that the Navy wanted tests to be as realistic as possible, suggesting that the aircraft were behaving in the way military planners would expect them to. "This is the first time a UAV threat has been targeted and neutralised in a marine environment," said Mr Booen.

The Syrian campaign is backed by Heron (Eitan) spy drones Israel sold to Turkey, made accessible on the personal say-so of Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan. Turkey therefore becomes the first NATO member to make advanced Western military technology available for the use of a strong ally of radical Iran and an active sponsor of terrorists. Following intense exchanges between Jerusalem and Washington, the NATO command was urged to put Ankara on the carpet - with no response as yet.

The drones are being used to track Kurds in flight across Syria's borders, mainly into Lebanon, where Hezbollah is helping Syria hunt the refugees down. The accessibility to Damascus of the unmanned aerial vehicles is in direct breach of the Israel-Turkish sales contracts which barred their use - and the use of other Israeli high-tech items sold to Turkey during years of close military collaboration - in the service of hostile states or entities.

In his first major speech on the theme of the "Big Society" since winning the election, the Prime Minister will announce the "biggest redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street". Mr Cameron - who is keen to present his administration as offering optimistics new policies that are not just about cuts - will say that the "liberation" of volunteers and activists to help their own communities is the vision which drives his premiership.

As part of his drive to roll back the reach of the public sector, the Prime Minister will attack the previous Labour government for turning state employees into "disillusioned, weary puppets" and communities into "dull, soulless clones". He will announce that four areas in diverse parts of the country have been chosen to form a "vanguard" in realising his dream of "people power" in which individuals rather than the state come together voluntarily to solve their problems.

The four - the greater London borough of Sutton and Cheam, the leafy Berkshire council of Windsor and Maidenhead, rural Eden Valley in Penrith, Cumbria, and the metropolitan city of Liverpool - were chosen after they petitioned Downing Street to start their own projects. They will be the first to be invited to submit applications to the Big Society Bank, a fund which will allocate the proceeds of dormant bank accounts worth hundreds of millions of pounds to help set up volunteer schemes to improve communities.

Does this change of language indicate a change of policy? As Catholics, this is an area where we must remain vigilant. These small changes can be used to change our perception of rights and freedoms. The change in language was barely noticeable to the average citizen but political observers are raising red flags at the use of a new term "freedom of worship" by President Obama and Secretary Clinton as a replacement for the term freedom of religion. This shift happened between the President's speech in Cairo where he showcased America's freedom of religion and his appearance in November at a memorial for the victims of Fort Hood, where he specifically used the term "freedom of worship." From that point on, it has become the term of choice for the president and Clinton.

In her article for "First Things" magazine, Ashley Samelson, International Programs Director for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, stated, "To anyone who closely follows prominent discussion of religious freedom in the diplomatic and political arena, this linguistic shift is troubling: The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It's about the right to dress according to one's religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don't go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves - yet "freedom of worship" would protect none of these acts of faith."

In the Second Vatican Council's Declaration of Religious Freedom entitled "Dignitatis Humanae", the Church summarizes this right: "Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ."

As we can see, the practice of religion permeates the very fabric of our lives. It cannot and should not be separated into approved and non-approved expressions. Unfortunately, such limits are being instituted across the globe. Samelson writes, "The effort to squash religion into the private sphere is on the rise around the world. And it's not just confined to totalitarian regimes like Saudi Arabia. In France, students at public schools cannot wear headscarves, yarmulkes, or large crucifixes. The European Court of Human Rights has banned crucifixes from the walls of Italian schools."

The list of countries and limits is growing constantly.