The paedophile priest scandal currently enveloping the Vatican has spread to one of the most Catholic areas of the world following a string of new abuse revelations throughout Latin America.

Reports of priests raping or abusing minors have now emerged in Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile causing growing anger in a continent that is home to nearly half the world's Catholics.

In Brazil an 83-year-old priest has been arrested after he was secretly filmed in bed with a 19-year-old altar boy. The footage was broadcast on national television networks prompting a police investigation which led to the arrest of Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa and two other priests in the north eastern state of Alagoas. They have since been accused of abusing boys as young as 12 and have been suspended by their diocesan bishop.

The Catholic Church in Chile confirmed this week that there have been 20 alleged or confirmed cases of child abuse by priests. At a press conference yesterday, Monsignor Alejandro Goic, the head of Chile's bishops' conference, apologised and vowed to crack down on any priests who had abused children.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have today announced that two "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" leaders have been killed in an air strike carried out by American troops. A major flaw in the story that seems to have been overlooked, is that both of the men have already been reported captured and killed on several occasions, with U.S. officials also having previously declared one of them a "fictional character" that was invented by the other!

The Washington Post reports:

The deaths of Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the head of an umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq, should disrupt insurgent attacks inside the country, officials said. Their slayings could also provide Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (pictured above) with a decisive political boost at a critical time.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander of U.S. troops in Iraq said in a statement. "There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq [of] terrorists."

Jever, Germany - A large fleet of warships, submarines, frigates and aircraft from 10 NATO countries and one non-NATO member has congregated here to take part in the 'Brilliant Mariner' maritime exercise in the Baltic Sea.

The 10-day long multi-nation naval drill began here on April 12, 2010. It will engage the NATO forces to respond to a number of challenges, including asymmetric or terrorist threats, maritime security operations and embargo operations "in a realistic scenario," a NATO statement said.

The exercise will see participation of 6,500 defence personnel, 31 warships, 28 aircraft and four submarines that will operate in the Northern European waters and airspace.

The French Navy, which is commanding the maritime exercise, has sent 10 of its warships and 30 aircraft.

When Pat Bond told her lover Henry Willenborg, a Franciscan priest, that she was pregnant, he urged her to have an abortion.

Bond, who was 28, had a miscarriage and then became pregnant again. This time Willenborg's superiors urged her to give up the child for adoption.

Bond, from Missouri, kept the child but agreed to a vow of silence. In a signed contract with the Catholic Church, she undertook to keep the priest's identity secret in exchange for financial support for her son, Nathan.

In America, Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Austria, women made pregnant by priests have signed such pledges in exchange for hush money from the church.

Railway porter-turned-billionaire financier George Soros delivered a stark warning last night that the financial world is on the wrong track and that we may be hurtling towards an even bigger boom and bust than in the credit crisis.

The man who 'broke' the Bank of England (and who is still able to earn a cool $3.3 bln in a year) said the same strategy of borrowing and spending that had got us out of the Asian crisis could shunt us towards another crisis unless tough lessons are learned.

Soros, who worked as a porter to pay for his studies at the London School of Economics after emigrating from Hungary, warned us to heed the lesson that modern economics had got it wrong and that markets are not inherently stable.

"The success in bailing out the system on the previous occasion led to a superbubble, except that in 2008 we used the same methods," he told a meeting hosted by The Economist at the City of London's modern and impressive Haberdashers' Hall.

Evidently, American presidents wish to continue to guard Israel's nuclear "secret". If the motivation is thought to be a simple case of double standard, surely one must be deplored by the submissiveness of the general community. On the other hand, the more inquisitive mind would prod deeper and question the drive behind the guarding of this "secret"?

Perhaps motivations have changed over time. In 1969, Kissinger, aware that Israel had deceived the United States about its nuclear bomb program, which it was suspected to have stolen from the U.S., wrote to Nixon that pressuring Israel to reveal its nuclear arsenal would result in a Soviet nuclear guarantee for the [oil rich] Arabs and increase conflict in the region [i]. Ironically, it was Nixon who soon after had considered sending airborne troops to seize oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi pursuing the 1973 war.

Today, the secrecy continues, as does the aid to Israel -- perhaps towards a messianic return - the building of the Third Temple.

In 2006, the Israeli government began work on an exact replica of the Hurva synagogue on its original site. The story of the Hurva has received little attention other than coinciding with Joe Biden's visit to Israel and that government's insistence on building more illegal settlements. But Hurva is the beginning of the end.

As the United States, acting as Israel's proxy, imposes its will on the world and pushes for sanctions and war on Iran, thereby distracting the international community, rabbis are being tailored for the special kind of garments they will be wearing in a "rebuilt temple". 'The Third Temple of the Third Jewish Commonwealth.' They believe that the return of Jews to Jerusalem are the obvious signs - "Less obvious are the more subtle realities that add up - the rebuilding of the Jewish Quarter, Jews steadily moving into the Old City, even the Temple Mount tunnel excavations. But alas, those big mosques are still situated on the Temple Mount. For now." [ii]

Russia's nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky has arrived in Syria's Mediterranean port of Tartus ahead of Russian Navy drills in the Indian Ocean.

A large Syrian naval delegation accompanied by Russia's ambassador to Syria, Sergei Kirpichenko, visited the Russian warship on Wednesday.

"The Pyotr Veliky's visit to the Syrian port of Tartus is a symbolic event. It is a continuation of our historic ties with Syria that serves as a guarantee of our future cooperation not only in the naval sphere but also in other areas," Kirpichenko said.

"I am certain that we will witness new and significant progress in our bilateral cooperation in the near future," he added.

Nazareth - An Israeli journalist who went into hiding after writing a series of reports showing lawbreaking approved by Israeli army commanders faces a lengthy jail term for espionage if caught, as Israeli security services warned at the weekend they would "remove the gloves" to track him down.

The Shin Bet, Israel's secret police, said it was treating Uri Blau, a reporter with the liberal Haaretz daily newspaper who has gone underground in London, as a "fugitive felon" and that a warrant for his arrest had been issued.

Options being considered are an extradition request to the British authorities or, if that fails, a secret operation by Mossad, Israel's spy agency, to smuggle him back, according to Maariv, a right-wing newspaper.

It was revealed yesterday that Mr Blau's informant, Anat Kamm, 23, a former conscript soldier who copied hundreds of classified documents during her military service, had confessed shortly after her arrest in December to doing so to expose "war crimes".

Syria on Tuesday blasted new Israeli military orders that pave the way for large-scale expulsions of Palestinians from the West Bank and warned the move was an "ethnic cleansing policy" in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Under the new rules, which are to take effect on Tuesday, anyone caught in the West Bank without an Israeli permit could face expulsion within days or be sentenced to up to seven years in prison.

This would include thousands of Gazans who have moved to the West Bank, foreign-born Palestinians married to West Bankers and foreigners who are in the West Bank on expired tourist visas.

"This decision is the adoption of the ethnic cleansing policy and a step to the mass deportation aiming at emptying the land from its people," a Syrian Foreign Ministry official said. "It also constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and human rights and disregard of the will and resolutions of the international community.