Yes, these normally come out on a Sunday, its a bank holiday weekend, shoot me.

Mr. Hollande has won the French Presidential election. Interesting to say the least. Europe's response to the sovereign debt crisis has been steered up till now by a combined German-French policy. My. Hollande disagrees with this policy. Presuming local elections go his way next month and he is able to form a government and enact his policy, how will Europe fair. In my opinion very little will change. I think this because firstly, it doesn't matter what France says. Germany are too big and if they say austerity is the way to go then, tough luck Hollande. Secondly what is the alternative to austerity? The poorer countries don't have a sufficient tax base to simply raise taxes. The amount of inflation required to mitigate the debt would unfairly affect the other eurozone members. The debt is being serviced at too high an interest rate to just take on more of it. This leaves you with the final option of reducing government spending. Or as we like to call it these days, austerity.

Rupert Murdoch has been found "not fit" to run a company as large as News Corp. by a committee of MPs. Though unsurprisingly the Tories are remaining more neutral, given there links to News International, a subsidiary of News Corp., who still run several influential papers here in the U.K. It does lead me to wonder, now that this inquiry is over, what the police will do. Is a member of the board going to be arrested? I will not be at all sad to see any demise of Murdoch's business. Though this whole state of affairs has brought to surface a debate of how influential the major media outlets are in swaying public opinion and thus governmental policies. Are we truly in a democracy, or are we just pawns in a much more sinister game?

Russia has threatened to make pre-emptive strikes against U.S. missile shield facilities. These aren't what you may conventionally called a shield. They are missile bases located in strategic places around the globe. They contain short-range missiles which are faster than the ICBMs which would be used against the U.S. and are meant to strike the ICBM mid flight. Detonating it harmlessly in the air. Russia are annoyed at a planned new shield site to be located in central Europe. The idea being that these missiles would be close enough to either attack Russia directly, or intercept Russian missiles targeting someone other than America. This could compromise Russia's defence capabilities, leaving them at America's mercy. I'm not sure if this would be a good or bad thing. It raises tensions, but gives the U.S. a major strategic advantage if the shit does hit the fan.

The Independent has brought to light horrifying statistics on the slaughter rate of Rhinos. There is now a legitimate fear of them going extinct within a generation. The astonishing kill rate of rhinos is primarily for their horns. Demand in Vietnam sky-rocketing due to a belief that the horn can cure cancer! I don't know what we can do about the risk of Rhino extinction. I wish I did.

The Vatican has backed a high ranked catholic priest in Ireland, who failed to protect child abuse victims. He knew the molestation was going on, he knew who was involved, and he didn't report anything to the police. What a horrible person. I don't care how your morality is formulated, if you allow children to have their innocence violated, your morality is wrong. Then the Vatican has the nerve to support this enabler. It's disgusting. How the Vatican are allowed to get away with this kind of shit really gets my blood boiling, people can believe whatever they want, just don't affect the happiness of others with your crap. Tim Minchin sings about this better than I ever could, warning, strong language: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYDXrPy04sc

Canada has stopped minting the penny, saying it was too expensive to make. I live in the U.K. and I wish we'd follow suit. Pennies aren't even worth picking up off the ground. Whenever I get given change and it includes coppers, and theres one of those charity change pots, that's where my coppers go. In a way though, if everyone did that, across the entire country, that'd be a fair chunk of money going to charity. Just a thought.