Now, however, the military is developing an alarming new interest in the human body and brain. It wants to create armies of mutant soldiers, equipped with unstoppable physical and mental powers. Within 30 years, according to newly released Ministry of Defence papers, British soldiers should be able to lift huge weights, run at high speeds over extreme distances, have infra-red night vision built into their brains, and even be capable of transmitting thoughts by electronically aided telepathy.

And this is not just pie-in-the-sky planning. Science is now emerging that may make these army dreams real. A recent Freedom of Information request revealed details of a two-day future-gazing summit by the MoD’s obscure Development Concepts and Doctrine Centre, where military spooks swapped ideas with experts from universities, industry and government.

The summit concluded that by 2045, advances in medical technology could create a class of genetically superior humans — rather like the super-powered science fiction characters Wolverine, Storm and Rogue from Marvel Comics.

Every six weeks or so, they gather in Basel, Switzerland, for secret discussions and, to an extent at least, they act in concert. The decisions that emerge from those meetings affect the entire world. And yet the broad public has a dim understanding, if any, of the job they do.

In fact, these individuals now wield at least as much influence over the lives of ordinary citizens as prime ministers and presidents. The tool they have used to change the world so profoundly is one they alone possess: creating money out of thin air. There is an economic term for this: quantitative easing. More colloquially, it's called printing money.

Since the great economic meltdown in 2008, these central bankers have probably saved the world's economy from collapse, and dragged it into the unknown at the same time. The amounts they have created are so vast as to be almost incomprehensible — trillions of dollars in pounds and euros, among other currencies.

“Italy is dying from fiscal consolidation. Growth policies cannot wait any longer,” he told Italy’s parliament. He said the country is in “very serious” crisis after a decade of stagnation and warned of violent protest if the social malaise deepens. The grand coalition of Left and Right - the first since the late 1940s - will abolish the hated IMU tax on primary residences, a wealth levy imposed by ex-premier Mario Monti, and push for tax cuts for business and young people to pull the country out of perma-slump. A rise in VAT to 22 percent in July may be delayed.

Vice-premier Angelo Alfano - the appointee of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi - said he agreed with every word from “beginning to end”, as the Berlusconi camp claimed “total victory” over the policy agenda. Mr Letta said Italy would abide by EU budget pledges but in reality he seems to have broken with the core demands of the EU fiscal compact.

Some homes that were destroyed along shore towns in New Jersey still look as they did the day after the storm: piles of rubble and kindling, with the occasional bathroom fixture or personal possession visible among the detritus. The cost of the damage wrecked by Sandy has been estimated at $50 billion (£32 billion), second only to the $108 billion (£70 billion) caused by Hurricane Katrina in Gulf Coast states in 2005.

US Congress approved more than $60 billion (£39 billion) in storm aid for Sandy victims and their communities.

Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations. In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church - the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.

"It has no sting for me," said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. "It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives."

The ordination of women as priests, along with the issues of married priests and birth control, represents one of the big divides between US Catholics and the Vatican hierarchy. Seventy percent of US Catholics believe that women should be allowed to be priests, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll earlier this year.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said this is one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen. Spain needs shock therapy for its labor markets, but that's an impossible political sell when more than a quarter of the population is unemployed. In an ideal world, Spain would pair major reforms with major stimulus; in the real world, it will drag its feet on reforms, try to cut its deficit, and fall deeper into depression.

Here's the story of Spanish unemployment in three acts. During the boom, joblessness was relatively high due to persistent structural problems. Then it shot up fast and faster as Spain's building bust and then Lehmangeddon hit in 2008. But it has kept climbing up since the panic abated, albeit at a less catastrophic pace, due to the toxic combination of too tight money and budgets.

It's hard to see anything resembling a case for optimism. In other words, austerity hasn't been the path to prosperity. It's been the path to perma-slump. Let me leave you with this, well, depressing question: Assuming everything goes perfectly, how long will it be till Spanish unemployment gets below 20 percent?

Don't answer that.

"We need more cameras, and we need them now," ran a Slate headline. Representative Peter King (Republican for New York) agrees. In an interview the day after the bombings with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, he called for more video surveillance so that we can "stay ahead of the terrorists." "So yes, I do favor more cameras," said King, who sits on the US House Homeland Security and Intelligence committees and has also called for increased monitoring of Muslim Americans. "They're a great law enforcement method and device. And again, it keeps us ahead of the terrorists, who are constantly trying to kill us."

Law enforcement officials in New York are almost certain to oblige. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly wants to "increase significantly" the amount of surveillance equipment in Manhattan, which already has one of the country's most robust systems.

Turkey and SCO signed a memorandum of understanding in the Kazakh city of Almaty. Davutoglu, who was on a formal visit to Kazakhstan met with Secretary General of the SCO Dmitri Mezentsev, and signed the MoU in regards to the cooperation to be carried out between Turkey and the organization as “dialogue partners.”

“Today we announce that as Turkey, our destiny is the same as those states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” Davutoglu said following the signing ceremony. “The partnership would strengthen Turkey’s ties with the organization especially in the fields of economy and transportation, and would provide the opportunity of collectively fighting against threats,” Davutoglu added.

The White House announced Thursday that intelligence officials have concluded that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has twice used sarin gas on its own people. But even though US President Barack Obama has called that a “red line” for taking some kind of further action to assist the rebels, administration officials said Thursday that the intelligence wasn’t solid enough to warrant such a move.

On Thursday, US officials said there has been no new movement of US military assets to the region. The military options could include establishing a no-fly zone over or a secured area within Syria, launching airstrikes by drones and fighter jets and sending in tens of thousands of ground forces to secure the regime’s chemical weapons caches.

Setting up a no-fly zone over Syria would present a greater challenge than it did in Libya in 2011 because Syria has a more sophisticated and robust air defense system. Crippling it would require jamming its radars and taking out missile sites, or possibly even using some type of cyber-attack to interfere with the system.

The hardline central bank - known as the temple of monetary orthodoxy - told Germany’s top court that the ECB’s pledge to shore up Italian and Spanish debt entails huge risks and violates fundamental principles. “It is not the duty of the ECB to rescue states in crisis,” it wrote in a 29-page document leaked to Handelsblatt.

The Bundesbank unleashed a point by point assault on every claim made by ECB chief Mario Draghi to justify emergency rescue policies - or Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) - unveiled last summer to stop Spain’s debt crisis spiralling out of control. The Draghi plan mobilized the ECB as lender of last resort and led to a spectacular fall in borrowing costs across the EMU periphery, buying nine months of financial calm. The credibility of the pledge rests entirely on German consent. Analysts say the crisis could erupt again at any moment if that is called into question.

“The report borders on economic warfare,” said Harvinder Sian from RBS. “We think there is going to be fear and dread in the market that the court will reject OMT.” The document said OMT entails the purchase of “bad bonds”, violates ECB independence and entails a high risk of heavy losses in the “not unlikely” event that debtor states are forced out of EMU.

On Wednesday, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, with support from Germany, Austria and Holland wrote to the European Commission demanding tighter restrictions on access to welfare benefits and other state-funded services for EU migrants.

Two days later, the commission responded with a proposal for a new directive to "make it easier for people to exercise their rights in practice" in defiance of British claims that the current rules on free movement are being abused by migrants.

"With much higher levels of unemployment in some member states than others at the moment, it is all the more important to make it easier for those that want to work in another EU country to be able to do so," said Laszlo Andor, the EU commissioner for "employment, social affairs and inclusion". "This proposal will help workers to overcome obstacles to working in another EU country." Mr Andor dismissed British concerns and accused Mrs May of scaremongering over claims of benefit tourism by EU migrants "inflated because of domestic political reasons" ahead of free movement for Bulgarians and Romanians next year