The International Monetary Fund appears to believe economic momentum has slackened since the publication of its latest "World Economic Outlook" report in April, based on comments made by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde in a speech at the annual Davos in Provence meeting in France Sunday.

"We are seeing global activity pick up, but the momentum could be less robust than expected because potential growth is weaker [and] investment remains lackluster," Lagarde was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse. In its most recent "WEO" report, the IMF forecast global growth could rise from 3 percent in 2013 to 3.6 percent in 2014 to 3.9 percent in 2015. Its chief apparently did not indicate in her speech the size of the hinted downward revision(s) in her organization's overall projections.

However, Lagarde did estimate China's economic growth would be between 7 percent and 7.5 percent this year, according to Reuters. In April, the IMF's comparable figure was 7.5 percent, which would suggest its outlook for the world's second-largest economy has darkened by as much as 50 basis points since then.

"Despite the many responses to the [global financial] crisis ... recovery is modest, laborious, fragile -- and measures to boost demand, despite the goodwill of central banks, will find their limits," Lagarde said at the meeting in Aix-en-Provence. "We must therefore take steps to boost efforts to strengthen growth."

Acknowledging the need in a number of countries to relaunch their investments, Lagarde warned it should be done "without threatening the viability of public finances." She was clear that increased public investments were currently options not for all nations but for some of them, Reuters reported.

In the U.S., she indicated, growth should accelerate as long as the Federal Reserve's move from looser to tighter monetary policy is orderly and there is a precise intermediate-term budget framework.

In the euro area, she suggested, the 18-member bloc is slowly coming out of recession and it is crucial that those countries continue to carry out reforms, including completing the banking union.

The IMF could promulgate the next update of its global economic outlook as soon as this month.

A Russian MP claims the US kidnapped his son from the Maldives on bogus cyber-fraud charges and may be preparing to offer him as bait in a swap deal for Edward Snowden.

Roman Seleznyov, 30, was arrested at Male international airport as he was about to board a flight to Moscow. He was forced by US secret service agents to board a private plane to Guam and was later arrested. The Russian ministry slammed his detention as "a de-facto kidnapping."

Moscow considers the kidnapping "a new hostile move by Washington," and accused the US of ignoring proper procedure in dealing with foreign nationals suspected of crimes.

"The same happened to Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko, who were forced to go to the US from third countries and convicted on dubious charges."

US authorities have begun to negotiate with Germany's Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank over their dealings with countries blacklisted by American government. That is another crackdown on European banks who are not happy with the US sanctions policy. The talks with state and federal authorities have just begun, a source said, however, the timing of a deal is not set, Reuters reports.

Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank coul not be reached to comment on the allegations.

Washington has pushed European banks which have found ways to evade their sanctions, imposing a record fine on France's BNP Paribas last week and stoking resentment among bankers and officials at what they see as American imperialism.

Commerzbank, Germany's second-largest lender, is 17 percent owned by the German government and the settlement talks could further cool bilateral relations between Berlin and Washington, which are already worsened due to bulj surveillance scandals.

Commerzbank is accused by US authorities of transferring money through its American operations on behalf of companies in Iran and Sudan (which America sees as the so-called "failed states") and could pay at least $500 million in penalties, the New York Times reports.

We bring to the attention of Global Research Readers a video on the atrocities committed in Eastern Ukraine including the indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians. This video was put together by the communities in Eastern Ukraine which are the object of the attacks.

The mainstream media is silent on the issue. These videos are the object of censorship.

As described in the video, Ukraine's National Guard which is supported and financed by the West is controlled by Neo-Nazis with Nazi emblems.

Documented in the video, war crimes are being committed by both the Ukrainian Army and the Ukrainian National Guard.

In the media's coverage of unfolding atrocities directed against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, the words Nazi, Fascist or Neo-Nazi are a taboo. They have been eliminated from the anthology of investigative reporting.

On Wednesday, July 2nd, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko resumed unlimited war against the residents of southeastern Ukraine, whom he calls "terrorists" for their wanting not to be killed by his troops.

European leaders (especially Merkel of Germany, Hollande of France, and Putin of Russia) urged him not to resume his bombing campaign against the southeast, but the US (specifically President Obama) supports the bombings, and that's enough for Poroshenko; so, he did it. As the US State Department said, "he has a right to defend his country." Reuters reports that Poroshenko gave as his reason for the resumption, "to rid Ukraine of 'parasites'." Adolf Hitler had given the same reason for ethnically cleansing his country.

Here are videos and photos of the Obama Administration's sponsored ethnic cleansing to reduce the population in the areas of Ukraine that had voted overwhelmingly "the wrong way" in Ukraine's final nationwide election, in 2010: the areas of Ukraine that overwhelmingly chose as Ukraine's President the man whom Obama's coup overthrew in February 2014. After this ethnic cleansing, maybe Ukraine can have another nationwide election, which will produce the type of outcome that the US Government likes. But on 25 May 2014, we held in Ukraine an election where people voted only in the pro-American portion of Ukraine, and only leaders who were acceptable to the US White House were allowed onto the ballot.

US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said to reporters at a press briefing that the Ukrainian government has every right to conduct attacks on civilians, as this upholds the unity of the country.

According to US State Department spokesman Jen Psaki, the Ukrainian government defends the country, inflicting air strikes on civilians in the east of the country. She stated this today at a regular meeting with reporters. Psaki justified Kiev's actions in relation to the militia.

Asked by the RT reporter Gayane Chichakyan of civilians who are suffering from the bombing, which is conducted exactly by the Ukrainian army, and not from the actions of the militia, Jen Psaki said that Kiev has the right to do it, so it protects the integrity of the country. "The Ukrainian authorities are protecting the country. I think they have to have every right to do it, it is the same way to act in the international community," she said.

While our southern border is being purposefully collapsed here at home by one government-created crisis, halfway around the world our government is busy working on another: turning a blind eye to the "cleansing" of "parasites" (read: bombing of innocent civilians) in Ukraine by the globalist puppet president our White House helped put into power there.

Reuters reported that, "Ukrainian forces struck at pro-Russian separatist bases in eastern regions with air and artillery strikes on Tuesday after President Petro Poroshenko announced he would not renew a ceasefire but go on the offensive to rid Ukraine of 'parasites'".

Read that again - he has openly declared he is bombing to "rid Ukraine" of "parasites" - the kind of talk that made Adolf Hitler famous before and during World War II - while our government and mainstream media stand silent and, essentially, complicit.

The UK Home Office has admitted that it can't find 114 "potentially relevant files" relating to the pedophile scandal engulfing Westminster, in which there are allegations that senior political figures were involved in, or covered up, child sex abuse.

The lost files were part of a dossier compiled in the 1980s by the now deceased Conservative MP Geoffrey Dickens and which was passed to the then-Home Secretary Leon Brittan, British media reports.

Mr. Dickens, who died in 1995, told his family that he had details in the dossier that would "blow the lid off" the lives of powerful and famous child abusers.

Lord Brittan has confirmed that he received a "substantial bundle of papers" from Dickens in 1983 when he was Home Secretary, and that he handed them all over to the relevant officials for further investigation.

A review by the Home Office found that information it received between 1979 and 1999 had been passed on to the relevant authorities. This fairly lengthy 20-year period would have included anything received from Lord Brittan in 1983.

In a letter to Dickens at the time, Lord Brittan suggested his information would be passed to the police, but according to the Guardian Scotland Yard says it has no record of any investigation into the allegations.

Nearly three-quarters of the reported incidents of sexual abuse took place in residential care homes. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP Image

Sexual abuse in Victoria's out-of-home care system has been described as "endemic" after leaked documents revealed hundreds of reports of alleged rape, indecent assault and exploitation of minors in the year to March.

Internal documents reveal a total of 342 critical incidents of a sexual nature reported in the state's child protection system, which houses children who are removed from their parents due to significant risk of harm.

The total includes 98 alleged rapes, 96 reports of indecent sexual assault and 73 alleged incidents of sexual exploitation, where children are abused in exchange for cash or other gifts, the ABC reported.

Nearly three-quarters of the reported incidents took place in residential care homes, where about 500 children are currently placed. The small units usually house about four children each, with staff rostered on eight-hour shifts, including just one overnight.

Sandie de Wolf, the chief of children's charity Berry Street, said the reports of abuse were an "indictment on the system".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said allegations of a German working as a double agent for the US intelligence are "serious" and if proven correct contradict the spirit of bilateral cooperation.

Merkel on Monday joined in a chorus of German politicians voicing their concern over the arrest of a German intelligence employee for allegedly spying for the US.

"If the reports are correct it would be a serious case," Reuters cited Merkel as saying. "If the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners."

Berlin is now waiting for explanations from the White House. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Sunday that giving prompt clarification of the details in the case was in the "US's own interest." Earlier, US Ambassador to Germany John B. Emerson was summoned to the German Foreign Office.

Washington has not yet commented on the matter, however.