The group which some say rules the world meets in England;  The United Nations seeks aid for a humanitarian crisis in Syria;  Europe deals with record flooding on the Danube, all caught on video.  Enjoy the weekend, Australia!!!

That ever-so-secret cabal that everyone knows about, the Bilderberg Group, is meeting at a rural hotel in Watford, UK.  I know what you’re thinking; my invitation was also lost in the post.  World leaders such as England’s PM; the heads of banks, brokerages, and Oil Companies; high tech CEOs; royals; and other movers and shakers will attend (check out the guest list).  And they will discuss.. well, we don’t know what they’ll discuss.  It’s all held in secret, and Bilderberg says, “There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued.”  Yeah, the most powerful people in the world are just there for the hors d'oeuvres!  That leaves conspiracy theorists to fill in the blanks will such idiotic things as global economic enslavement, world domination, UFOs, Lizard People, et cetera.

The UN will ask member nations to pony up more than A$5 Billion for humanitarian aid to the worsening situation in Syria, devastated after more than two years of civil war.  UN Emergency Relief officials say one in three people in Syria urgently need aid right now, and that will go up to 50 percent by the end of the year. 

A verbal gaffe from the first French President to visit Japan in 17 years: Referring to the Algerian hostage crisis in January, in which 10 Japanese people were killed, President Francois Hollande said he had expressed “the condolences of the French people to the Chinese people.”   He did not correct himself, but the translator eventually did.  It’s a little more of a sore spot than usual lately, because China and Japan are currently at loggerheads over China’s increasingly belligerent territory grabs in the East China Sea and some Japanese Politicians’ penchant for (loudly and stupidly) minimizing World War II atrocities.  Words are just words but business is money:  Japan and France have agreed to the joint development of military hardware.

Mere hours remain until the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Obama in a desert resort in California.  Mr. Obama is under pressure to discuss human rights and cyber-spying with his Chinese counterpart.  Hey, why aren’t these guys at Bilderberg in Watford, UK?

A Texas woman has been arrested and charged with mailing letters tinged with the poison Ricin to President Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Prosecutors say Shannon Guess Richardson was allagedly trying to frame her ex-husband, a gun aficionado who opposed the two officials’ gun control policies.  Richardson is also an actress who had (very) small roles on the TV shows “The Vampire Diaries” and “The Walking Dead”.

American serial killer Richard Ramirez, aka “The Night Stalker”, is dead of liver failure in California’s San Quentin prison where he was on death row.  He was convicted of 13 murders that terrorized southern California in the middle of the Reagan era and contributed to “Satanic Panic” scare in America when he would blurt out trite witticisms such as “Hail, Satan” during his trial.

A teenager suspected of rape was buried alive by angry villagers in Bolivia.  Police named 17-year old Santos Ramos as a possible culprit in the rape and murder of a 35-year old woman.  During her funeral, they blocks the roads into the village, seized the boy, and put him in grave alongside the initial victim’s casket and covered them with earth. 

Peru's President Ollanta Humala is refusing to pardon former president Alberto Fujimori on humanitarian grounds. Humala says Fujimori is not terminally ill, as defense lawyers claim.  Fujimori is jailed for 25 years for human rights violations during his rule from 1990-2000, including ordering the murders of dozens of his countrymen by death squad. 

The Beautiful Blue Danube is brown, muddy, and pretty horrible-looking as it flows over its banks and across cities and valuable farmland throughout its floodplain in Central Europe.  Hungary is warning citizens to brace for the highest-ever flooding.