Europe is indeed currently the hottest topic on the global financial markets. The value of the battered euro has been falling since the Greek government confessed to the actual scope of its debt - and since it became clear that things are not looking significantly better in the other PIIGS countries (the acronym refers to Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain).

There has never been this much uncertainty. No one knows whether the Greeks will manage to solve their problems, whether and how other countries will come to their aid, whether the crisis can be confined to Greece or whether it will spread like wildfire among the PIIGS - and end up tearing apart the European currency union. All of this translates into excellent opportunities for foreign currency traders and speculators. They can either bet on a decline of the euro or a bailout for the Greeks in the form of a rescue effort by other euro zone countries. In the first case, the price of Greek government bonds will hit rock bottom, and in the second case it will rise.

These are the kinds of conditions that make it possible to make a lot of money quickly - but with devastating consequences, because speculators amplify trends and increase risks. If they bet on a Greek bankruptcy, it will become even more difficult, and expensive, to attract fresh capital. This could lead to a national bankruptcy or the feared conflagration - or even the collapse of the euro.

Mr Rudd said that many "home-grown terrorists" were inspired by what he called international jihadist narratives, as he released a new report compiled by intelligence agencies. "The threat of home-grown terrorism is now increasing," he said. "This white paper is clear: some of the threat we now face comes from the Australian-born, Australian-educated and Australian residents."

Al-Qaida-linked groups in Yemen and Sudan are the new centre of threat internationally, the policy paper says, and the risks posed by Afghanistan and Pakistan remain high. The paper says that, despite Indonesia's successes against terrorism, the Jakarta hotel attacks of last July point to an ongoing threat there.

"Terrorism continues to pose a serious threat and a serious challenge to Australia's security interests. That threat is not diminishing," Mr Rudd said. "In fact, the government security intelligence agencies assess that terrorism has become a persistent and permanent feature of Australia's security environment. These agencies warn that an attack could occur at any time."

The announcement comes as a British rig began drilling for oil off the islands. According to reports from Cancun, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner says her government has won the backing of other regional leaders in its dispute with the UK over the territory in the South Atlantic. The Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, is reported to have said that a document has been drawn up behind closed doors giving Argentina unanimous support.

The BBC's Andy Gallacher in Cancun says that any broad agreement at the summit could put more pressure on the British government in what has become an escalating diplomatic row. Leaders at the summit, between the Rio Group and the Caribbean Community (Caricom), are also said to have discussed plans for a new pan-American alliance which would exclude Canada and the United States.

The new grouping would serve as an alternative to the Organisation of American States (OAS), the main forum for regional affairs in the past 50 years. "It's time to realise the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean," said Mr Calderon, asking the attending leaders and foreign ministers to put aside their political differences. UK Defence Minister Bill Rammell said the government had a "legitimate right" to build an oil industry in its waters. Mr Rammell said the UK would take "whatever steps [were] necessary" to protect the islands and that it had made Argentina "aware of that".

The study, published in 2009 in Nature Geoscience, one of the top journals in its field, confirmed the conclusions of the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It used data over the last 22,000 years to predict that sea level would rise by between 7cm and 82cm by the end of the century. At the time, Mark Siddall, from the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Bristol, said the study "strengthens the confidence with which one may interpret the IPCC results".

The IPCC said that sea level would probably rise by 18cm-59cm by 2100, though stressed this was based on incomplete information about ice sheet melting and that the true rise could be higher. Many scientists criticised the IPCC approach as too conservative, and several papers since have suggested that sea levels could rise more. Martin Vermeer of the Helsinki University of Technology, Finland and Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany published a study in December that projected a rise of 0.75m to 1.9m by 2100.

Announcing the formal retraction of the paper from the journal, Siddall said: "It's one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science." He said there were two separate technical mistakes in the paper, which were pointed out by other scientists after it was published. A formal retraction was required, rather than a correction, because the errors undermined the study's conclusion.

This principle was enshrined in the Maastricht treaty and has since been rigorously interpreted by the German constitutional court. The euro was a unique and unusual construction whose viability is now being tested. The construction is patently flawed. A fully fledged currency requires both a central bank and a Treasury. The Treasury need not be used to tax citizens on an everyday basis but it needs to be available in times of crisis. When the financial system is in danger of collapsing, the central bank can provide liquidity, but only a Treasury can deal with problems of solvency.

This is a well-known fact that should have been clear to everyone involved in the creation of the euro. Mr Issing admits that he was among those who believed that "starting monetary union without having established a political union was putting the cart before the horse". The European Union was brought into existence by putting the cart before the horse: setting limited but politically attainable targets and timetables, knowing full well that they would not be sufficient and require further steps in due course. But for various reasons the process gradually ground to a halt. The EU is now largely frozen in its present shape.

The Papandreou government is determined to correct the abuses of the past and it enjoys remarkable public support. There have been mass protests and resistance from the old guard of the governing party, but the public seems ready to accept austerity as long as it sees progress in correcting budgetary abuses - and there are plenty of abuses to allow progress. So makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large a portion of euroland to be helped in this way. The survival of Greece would still leave the future of the euro in question.

The planes can fly at least 20 consecutive hours and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying diverse payloads. At the fleet's inauguration ceremony at a sprawling air base in central Israel, the drone dwarfed an F-15 fighter jet parked beside it. The unmanned plane resembles its predecessor, the Heron, but can fly higher, reaching an altitude of more than 40,000 feet (12,000 meters), and remain in the air longer.

"With the inauguration of the Heron TP, we are realizing the air force's dream," said Brigadier General Amikam Norkin, commander of the base that will operate the drones. "The Heron TP is a technological and operational breakthrough." The commander of Israel's air force, Major General Ido Nehushtan, said the aircraft "has the potential to be able to conduct new missions down the line as they become relevant."

Israel's military refused to say how large the new fleet is or whether the planes were designed for use against Iran, but stressed it was versatile and could adapt to new missions. The plane's maker, state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries, has said it is capable of reaching the Persian Gulf, which would put Iran within its range. Israeli defense officials said the Heron TP could be a useful tool against Iran. It could provide surveillance, jam enemy communications and connect ground control and manned air force planes.

Israeli companies are considered world leaders in drone technology and now export unmanned aircraft to a number of armies, including US-led forces that have used them in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Heron TP has been in development for about a decade, but the aircraft first saw action during Israel's offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip just over a year ago.

It can be assembled by villagers in a back yard and it enables the Taliban to take on an enemy with far superior numbers and fire power just as Stinger surface-to-air missiles enabled the Mujaheddin to neutralise Soviet air power in the 1980s. In Afghanistan now, in the battle for Marjah, the coalition has 15,000 soldiers ranged against an estimated 400 Taliban fighters.

It sounds like no contest. Yet progress is slow and bloody because the Taliban have ringed the town with IEDs in what soldiers call the "belt of death". January was a bad month, with about one a day killed, all in Afghanistan. In 2003 there were 81 recorded IED incidents in Afghanistan. Last year there were 8,159. In Helmand it is common to see soldiers vomit before they go on patrol because the chances of being hit are so high.

About half of all American soldiers who died in Iraq were killed by IEDs, while in Afghanistan the figure is now about two-thirds. But insurgents quickly learnt that they inflict more than just death and injury. Over the past three years, the Pentagon has spent $15.5 billion and employed top scientific minds in an effort to come up with the best ways to detect and survive IEDs. Its scientists and engineers are working round the clock on robots, lasers, chemical detectors and even specially trained bees.

Sergeant John Stricklett has done four tours in Baghdad, often taking the "long walk" to defuse a bomb. He shows me how he can operate the Talon robot from a laptop in a case, studying the area from its four mounted cameras and manoeuvring its claw-like hands. "It becomes my hands and disassembles the bomb while I can stay at remote distance," he says. "On my last deployment I lost three robots. If I’d walked down that street instead, they would have got me." At $150,000 a time, the robots are expensive, but cheap in comparison with the lives they save.

One of the more bizarre suggestions has been to use honeybees because of their acute sense of smell. The small hairs that bees use to detect pollen can be used to detect any scent, prompting them to stick out their tongues. A defence research laboratory in Los Alamos has found they can be trained within 20 minutes to recognise a particular chemical. But the logistics of carrying bees inside army vehicles moving around Afghanistan have proved unworkable.

IEDs are nothing new. Guy Fawkes used one to try to blow up parliament. Lawrence of Arabia placed bombs on the road and railway to disrupt Turkish supply routes during the first world war. They were common in Vietnam when the Vietcong fashioned them from unexploded American ordinance. The term IED was coined in the 1970s by the British Army when the IRA made bombs from fertiliser and Semtex smuggled from Libya.

Ordinariate is the term established in the November 4, 2009, apostolic constitution "Anglicanorum Coetibus," which allows for groups of Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. "It's the first step on the road, saying thank you, we are going to go along this particular track because the door has been closed to us by the Anglican Church of Australia over a long period of time," Bishop David Robarts, chairman of Forward in Faith, told the Telegraph newspaper. "We're not really wanted any more [in the Anglican Communion]," he said, "our conscience is not being respected."

The Pope's apostolic constitution is an answer to just that type of experience, which many Anglicans have expressed as the Communion moves toward greater approval of homosexual behavior - including openness to active homosexuals in ordained ministry - and women bishops. The path to establish ordinariates was the Pope's response to requests from disconcerted Anglicans.

The Church in Australia is celebrating as Benedict XVI announced that Blessed Mary MacKillop will soon be proclaimed as the country's first saint. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, commented that the sainthood of Mother MacKillop is "deeply significant" and "an inspiration" for all Australians.

The president of the unity council, Cardinal Walter Kasper, will participate in the visit. Rome's Lutheran community had invited the Pope in 2008 to mark the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's visit to the church. The Polish Pontiff's 1983 visit commemorated the 550th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther (1483-1546).

According to the Lutheran community, Benedict XVI's homily will be on the biblical passage from John: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." For his part, Pastor Jens-Martin Kruse will analyze the first chapter of the Second Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians, which speaks about Christ's consolation in moments of tribulation.

In statements to the NEV agency, Kruse noted his sense of the importance of the visit: "To have the Bishop of Rome among us is a good sign for ecumenism in our city."

The vote has sparked the usual questions about whether there is a fundamental cultural divide between the US and Europe over balancing security concerns with civil liberties. But the real significance may be simply institutional: the European Parliament, freshly endowed with new lawmaking powers following the passage of the Lisbon Treaty last year, is flexing its muscles as an emerging player in European politics. Suddenly, the legislative body has a semblance of real power - something it never really had before.

That Parliament members chose to take a stand on the bank data issue is a little surprising. The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) has always been a controversial initiative. It was secretly set up after the September 11 attacks, allowing CIA agents and US Treasury officials to sift through the European financial messaging data collected by SWIFT, an international bank transfer consortium based in Belgium.

Until recently, SWIFT had its data servers on US soil, giving American authorities the jurisdiction they needed to access them. But at the end last year, the servers covering European wire transfers were moved to Switzerland and the Netherlands, forcing the US to seek European consent to continue sifting through SWIFT's database of some 8,000 banks.

European governments said the bank data legislation, while not perfect, at least required US authorities to abide by several European demands on data protection and improved oversight. Yet despite their pressure - and last-minute pleas by such high-ranking US officials as Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner - the European Parliament voted down the measure on February 11 by a hefty margin of 378-196. After the vote, the Obama Administration called it "a setback for US-EU counter-terror cooperation."

As the economy has weakened, with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring, bank failures have accelerated and sapped billions of dollars out of the federal deposit insurance fund. It fell into the red last year. The 140 bank failures last year were the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. They cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. There were 25 bank failures in 2008 and just three in 2007. The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years.

Banks have been especially hurt by failed real estate loans, both residential and commercial. Banks that had lent to seemingly solid businesses are suffering losses as buildings sit vacant. As development projects collapse, builders are defaulting on their loans. Smaller banks are more vulnerable to the losses than their bigger Wall Street counterparts, because commercial real estate makes up a larger portion of their portfolio.

If the economic recovery falters, defaults on the high-risk loans could spike. Many regional banks hold large concentrations of these loans. Banks face as much as $300 billion in losses on loans made for commercial property and development, according to a report issued last week by the Congressional Oversight Panel, which monitors the government's efforts to stabilize the financial system.

Trees have been brought down and cars swept away, blocking roads and hampering relief teams. Some bridges and roads have been washed away. British holidaymaker Cathy Sayers told the BBC Funchal was like a ghost town. She said the infrastructure had been wrecked. "The drains just cannot cope with the water that's coming down from the mountains - they are just overfilled with sludge. There had not really been any warning that it would be quite so bad", she said. "I think everyone is extremely shocked that this has happened at this time of year."

Local media say the authorities' main concern now is for residents of Nuns valley - an isolated mountainous region that rescue workers have been unable to reach.

The fall of the government in the EU country, just two days short of the coalition's third anniversary, all but guarantees that the 2,000 Dutch troops will be brought home this year. That would be the first major crack in the coalition of some 40 nations battling a steadily increasing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The collapse, the fourth for a cabinet led by Balkenende in eight years, throws into doubt the scope and timing of planned budget cuts for next year as well.

Right-wing legislator Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, which has called for an end to the Afghan mission, could be the big winner at the next election. Opinion polls tip the party, campaigning on an anti-immigration ticket, to become the largest or second biggest party in parliament. "Unlike the leftish parties of the Dutch political spectrum, we are not against fighting against the Taliban and fighting for freedom in Afghanistan, but we believe the Dutch have done enough," Wilders told Reuters in an interview.

The Netherlands has some 1,940 troops based mainly in the volatile southern Afghan province of Uruzgan and has lost 21 of its soldiers there, adding to Dutch opposition to the war.

Customs workers have extended their strike against salary freezes and bonus cuts through next Wednesday, when unions across Greece will hold a general strike that is set to bring the country to a standstill. European finance ministers have told Athens it must demonstrate signs of fiscal improvement by March 16 or it will be ordered to impose even tougher budget cuts. Greece has promised to slash its deficit from an estimated 12.7 percent of gross domestic product to 8.7 percent this year.

Taxis also held a 24-hour strike Friday, protesting parts of the austerity package that increased fuel tax and will force them to issue receipts. Taxi drivers chanting "The measures mean unemployment" staged a noisy protest in central Athens that choked traffic. "These measures won't do anything, all they will do is throw us out of work," cab driver Anastasis Damianidis said. "We can't become tax collectors - that's what they're trying to do. We will keep demonstrating."

Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the incident was a single act by a sole individual, who appeared to be targeting the federal building. He refused to classify it as terrorism. The FBI identified the pliot as Joseph Stack, a 53-year-old software engineer. Stack was confirmed dead, but his body has not yet been recovered.

A US law official said investigators were looking at a lengthy, anti-government "manifesto" Stack is believed to have written on his website. The message outlines problems with the IRS and says violence "is the only answer."

To read his message, go to:- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,586627,00.html