George Osborne described the damning trail of emails that emerged from the bowels of Barclays last week, in which traders addressed each other as "big boy," and "dude," as they connived to fix the Libor rate, as "the epitaph to an age of irresponsibility". He would dearly like us to believe the comforting fiction that under the failed regulatory regime designed by Gordon Brown and Ed Balls, selfish bankers ran amok, wreaking havoc on the economy and society; but that since the credit crunch - and his own arrival in Downing Street - the culture in the Square Mile has changed.

Barclays boss Bob Diamond has sung from the same hymn sheet in recent months, insisting that far from being a rapacious, morally bankrupt monster, the bank is now a "good citizen".

Yet the Libor revelations were only the most recent of a string of scandals over the past weeks and months that have laid bare what Sir Mervyn King, capturing the public mood, has called "shoddy" and "deceitful" behaviour.

In a sign of tensions between Berlin and Washington, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said on Sunday that President Barack Obama should focus on cutting America's own budget deficit before advising Europe on how to tackle its debt problems.German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble rebuffed recent criticism of Germany's handling of the euro crisis from Barack Obama, telling the US president to get his own house in order before giving advice.

"Herr Obama should above all deal with the reduction of the American deficit. That is higher than that in the euro zone", he told German public broadcaster ZDF on Sunday night. It is easy to give advice to others, he added,

Obama, worried about the impact of the debt crisis on the global economy and financial markets -- and on his own prospects for re-election --has been urging Europe to step up its efforts to tackle the problem.

In the interview, Schäuble also reiterated his opposition to euro bonds, saying countries must remain individually liable for their public debt as long as they were taking sovereign decisions on how the money was being spent.

"If you spend the money from my account, you won't be frugal with the money," said the finance minister. He added that he was against devoting large sums of money -- for example from the European Central Bank -- to fight the crisis. The roots of the crisis needed to be fought credibly, he said, adding that that was succeeding in Ireland and Portugal, which have both received international bailouts. "It's not succeeding so well in Greece", he added.

Are today's captains of industry - the wealthy and powerful figures who control the digital universe - any different from the ruthless corporate figures of the past?

Here's an interesting fact: 10 of the people on Forbes magazine's tally of the world's 100 richest billionaires made their money from computer and/or network technology. At the top (second on the list) is Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes at $61bn, despite the fact that he continues to try to give it away. Gates is followed by Larry Ellison, boss of Oracle, with $36bn, and Michael Bloomberg with $22bn. Larry Page and Sergey Brin - co-founders of Google - occupy joint 24th place with $18.7bn each. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is No 26 with $18.4bn while the newly enriched Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook sits at No 35 with £17.5bn. Michael Dell, founder of the eponymous computer manufacturer, is at No 41 with $15.9bn while Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, is three places lower on $15.7bn and Paul Allen - co-founder of Microsoft - brings up the rear at No 48 with a mere $14.2bn. Steve Jobs, who was worth about $9bn when he died, doesn't even figure.

What's striking about this is not just the staggering wealth that these people have managed to squeeze out of what are, after all, just binary digits (ones and zeros), but how recent are the origins of their good fortunes. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, went from zero to $17.5bn in less than eight years. Microsoft - the company that has propelled Gates, Ballmer and Allen into the Forbes pantheon - dates only from 1975. Oracle was founded in 1977. Bloomberg turned a $10m redundancy cheque from Salomon Brothers into his personal money-pump in 1982. Dell started making computers in his university dorm in 1984. Bezos launched Amazon with his own savings in 1995. Brin and Page turned their PhD research into a company called Google in 1998. And Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004.

Katie Holmes was scared she was turning 'into a robot' while with Tom Cruise.

The former Dawson's Creek actress - who has filed for divorce from the 'Rock of Ages' star after five years of marriage - felt like she had changed 'so much' in her time with Tom.

Sources close to the 33-year-old, who played innocent Joey in the popular teen drama, told friends she had found her relationship with the megastar, 49, had become 'too much' for her.

A source said: 'After five years of this Katie really felt like she was going crazy and that she was actually turning into the robot that the press had always made her out to be.

'Katie has actually got a great personality and she used to be spunky and feisty. She changed so much when she was with Tom, she became downtrodden and insipid.

'In the end it just got too much, she was sick of it and decided she had to do something. Basically, she grew up and lost the starstruck goggles she had been wearing.'

Katie is reportedly seeking full custody of their six-year-old daughter Suri after beginning to question her life with Tom and his control of their decision making.

The International Criminal Court - Processing Complaint Against The New Zealand Government for Crimes Against Humanity

Right to Life is pleased that the International Criminal Court [ICC] in The Hague has initiated a formal legal preliminary examination into a complaint against the New Zealand government for crimes against humanity. Right to Life welcomes the preliminary examination by the Prosecutor of the ICC and expects that it will encourage the government to comply with its obligations under international law and United Nations Conventions.This complaint was lodged with the Court by SavingDowns and Right to Life New Zealand. SavingDowns is an organised group of parents with children with Down syndrome. Their children are greatly loved and valued as members of their families and communities.

The complaint is in respect to the government's controversial ante-natal screening programme introduced nationally in February 2010. The Ministry of Health directed that doctors and midwives were obligated to offer screening to all pregnant women in New Zealand. One of the declared objective of this programme was to prevent the births of babies born in New Zealand with Down syndrome and other conditions such as Spina Bifida.. It was expected that the screening programme would result in up to 90 per cent of babies diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome being killed before birth. This is eugenics that decrees that only the perfect may be born. It is a crime against humanity.

Human life begins at conception. At the moment of conception the new human being is endowed by its Creator with human rights, the foundation right being an inalienable right to life. From conception the unborn child is entitled to the respect and protection that is accorded to the human person. Unborn children diagnosed as having Down syndrome are members of the human family and do not forfeit their right to life because of a genetic condition. Right to Life calls upon the government to cease discrimination against the unborn with Down syndrome or other conditions.

After seven decades of rule, the PRI lost power 12 years ago. Now, under telegenic leader Peña Nieto, it is on its way back. But many still fear that none of the candidates can bring longed-for change to a country weary of violence

For weeks the sky over Mexico City has kept its inhabitants guessing - one moment it has been azure and sunny; the next an ominous grey vault of clouds belly full with rain. The downpours, when they come, whip flash floods across streets and topple trees.

"At my age you learn to be ready for anything," said Mario Rojas, 86, clutching an umbrella and tramping in rubber boots across Avenida Alvaro Obregón to his tailor's shop. He wasn't referring to the weather. "This vote, God knows what happens after."

Mexico elects a new president and congress on Sunday, after a fraught campaign that has shone a harsh light on its fledgling democracy. Whoever wins the keys to Los Pinos, the presidential mansion, will inherit a country as uncertain as its current weather and a people demoralised by the seemingly never-ending "war on drugs".

An international conference on Saturday accepted a U.N.-brokered peace plan for Syria, but left open the key question of whether the country's president could be part of a transitional government.

The U.S. backed away from insisting that the plan explicitly exclude President Bashar Assad from any role in a new Syrian government, hoping the concession would encourage Russia to put greater pressure on its longtime ally to end the violent crackdown that the opposition says has claimed over 14,000 lives.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted that Assad would still have to go, saying it is now "incumbent on Russia and China to show Assad the writing on the wall."

"There is a credible alternative to the Assad regime," she said. "What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that he and those with blood on their hands can stay in power."

HRWF (27.06.2012) - Russian Bishop Konstantin Bendas reacts to report about his visit to MIVILUDES in Paris

Georges Fenech, the president of MIVILUDES, convicted by the Paris Criminal Court

The Russian media dealing with religious issues have widely echoed the 1 June 2012 decision of the Paris Criminal Court convicting Georges Fenech, the president of MIVILUDES (Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combatting Cultic Deviances), for public defamation, as it can be seen hereafter.

Stocks surged Friday as investors cheered an agreement by European leaders to stabilize the region's banks, a pact that helped remove some of the uncertainty that has been plaguing markets.

The broad rally saw the Dow Jones industrial average tack on 278 points and chalk up its best day since June 6.

Still, for the quarter the broader stock market ended lower, down 3.3 percent, marking the first down quarter for the benchmark S&P 500-stock index in the last three after inconclusive Greek elections and concerns about the solvency of Spanish banks roiled financial markets around the world.

The S&P 500 is up 8.3 percent since the start of 2012.

Crucially, euro-zone leaders agreed that countries would be able to recapitalize banks directly without increasing a country's budget deficit.

The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia has dropped one genocide charge against wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, but a similar charge over the Srebrenica massacre still stands.

Presiding judge O-Gon Kwon said there was not enough evidence to substantiate the definition of genocide in relation to killings by Bosnian Serb forces in towns and villages of Bosnia from March to December 1992.

In addition to the Srebrenica genocide charge, Karadzic faces nine other charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the 1992-1995 conflict which left some 100,000 people dead and more than 2 million homeless.

"The chamber partially grants the motion and acquits the accused on count one of the indictment and denies the remainder of his request," Mr Kwon said.

Genocide is the gravest crime in international humanitarian law - and the hardest to prove.