Ex-fireman Mr Jones, a former member of the Household Cavalry, said he experienced an ‘Orwellian nightmare’ after commenting on the ease with which a Muslim passenger ahead of him – who had her face almost completely covered by a hijab – had passed through security without showing her face. As he placed his scarf and other belongings into a tray to pass through the X-ray scanner, Mr Jones, 67, said to an official: ‘If I was wearing this scarf over my face, I wonder what would happen.’

To his astonishment, he was stopped by security staff on the other side of the checkpoint at Gatwick and accused of racism after a Muslim security guard who heard the remark said it had caused her offence. Mr Jones, who was flying with his two grown-up daughters to Faro in Portugal – he now lives in the Algarve, where he runs a restaurant – was then subjected to a one-hour stand-off involving security staff, a British Airways manager and a policeman as security tried to make him apologise.

He said yesterday: ‘What I said had nothing to do with the woman’s religion. It was the fact that her face was covered and she seemed to have passed through that part of the security process without showing it.' Mr Jones, originally from Ealing, West London, said: ‘Something like George Orwell’s 1984 now seems to have arrived in Gatwick airport. I feel my rights as an individual have been violated. What I underwent amounts to intimidation and detention. I am not opposed to having this level of security but it must be equal for all.’

He demanded that the officer should arrest him if there was a case against him, but was told ‘that we now live in a different time and some things are not to be said’.

"This is the best visible achievement I have made so far," said Willems, who is based at the law firm's Brussels office and has been representing Chinese clients in trade disputes against their European competitors since 1995. At the beginning of this month, the European Court of Justice annulled anti-dumping duties the EU slapped on Hong Kong shoemakers Brosmann Footwear HK Ltd and Risen Footwear (HK) Co Ltd and Guangdong shoemakers Seasonable Footwear (Zhongshan) Ltd and Lung Pao Footwear (Guangzhou) Ltd.

This has led to the likelihood that another 400 to 500 Chinese and Vietnamese shoemakers, which have been paying 16.5 percent of revenues in anti-dumping duties since 2006, may win lower rates of duty. Willems said that since 2006 the shoemakers had paid more than $1 billion in such duties. "Other shoemakers may request the EU to undertake individual assessments after the ruling, although the EU courts may argue that the cases are too many for it to handle," said Willems, urging the EU to treat the Chinese shoe exporters fairly.

On the European Commission's website there are currently 34 ongoing trade defense investigations listed from the beginning of 2011. Of that total, 20 involve Chinese companies.

Whatever tensions exist could be exacerbated by the looming crisis that provides a backdrop for the election-year meeting. Israel believes time is running out for a military strike against Iran that would prevent the Islamic republic from developing nuclear weapons, something Israel sees as an existential threat. Administration officials acknowledge the Iranian nuclear issue is coming to a head, but US officials have cautioned Israel against a strike that would threaten stability in the Middle East and the global economy.

It’s possible the Obama-Netanyahu meeting next week could determine both countries’ course of actions for Iran. The relationship between Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu is going to be tested like never before,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It doesn’t have to happen on March 5… but if they don't see eye-to-eye, the prospect of Israel going off on its own dramatically increases.”

A few hours earlier, on a steaming July day in 2007, Pasternack was sent to Temple Mount in his role as an Israel Antiquities Authority inspector, in order to supervise excavation works at the holy site, which in the past boasted two Jewish Temples. This marked the first such project at the site since the 1967 Six-Day War, as the area's sensitivity could prompt a political and diplomatic flare-up, thereby discouraging any such work.

According to specific Antiquities Authority instructions, any digging at the site was not allowed to exceed 60 centimeters (roughly two feet) and was not to be undertaken using mechanical equipment. However, reports drafted by Pasternnack and other sources, exposed for the first time by Yedioth Ahronoth Friday, indicate that workers largely ignored the instructions. MUCH OF THE WORK WAS DONE USING A TRACTOR, CONTINUED DURING THE NIGHT with the help of a flashlight, reached deeper than the permit allowed for.

Archeology expert Dr Gabai Barkai, a world-renowned expert on Temple era excavations, was shocked by the reported work: "How could one dig up such a sensitive area at night? How could one dig using mechanical equipment? Every such move is a crime. This is first-rate barbarity."

The Waqf issued the following response: "The Waqf's management was sorry to hear the claims made in the story pertaining to the Waqf's policy on the Temple Mount. In the Waqf management's view, all these claims are baseless and constitute false charges. Our official policy is to preserve and respect any human heritage. You are invited to visit the mosque and see for yourself well preserved Roman, Byzantine and Crusader artifacts, among other items."

Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Tsfarir said he believes the United States should be the one to carry out such a military strike, but added that if there is a feeling that no one is willing to attack Iran, then Israel will have no choice other than to do so itself.

Tsafrir, who in the past has served as the Prime Minister’s advisor on Arab affairs, also said that as an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites takes place, Iranian government sites should be attacked as well, thus allowing the Iranian people to take over their government centers and replace the current regime.

His remarks are being made ahead of a special conference at the Hebrew University’s Truman Institute, in which he will lecture on the issue of the attitudes of the Iranian people. He noted that he believes that almost all Iranian citizens who were born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution would like to see the country return to its status as an empire and in this spirit want to see the Islamic Republic having a nuclear capability. This desire, explained Tsafrir, is part of their greater desire for freedom and independence as they view them.

“Sanctions will not help,” he said. “The Iranians are determined to obtain nuclear weapons. There is no choice other than a military strike. As an Israeli, I think it’s best that America do this, but if there is no other choice and no one will do it, Israel will have to do it.”

The report was researched and written at the urgent request of the Committee for the Prevention of Temple Mount Antiquities' Destruction, a group of archaeologists and scholars concerned about wanton excavations at the site. The police claim, Rabbi Levy was told by the committee's lawyer, that its publication might cause rioting and be a danger to the public order.

The Hebrew language daily, Yediot Aharonot, recently exposed the existence of the report, stating what Arutz Sheva has reported repeatedly, that Israel’s “valuable remnants from the two Jewish Temples were thrown away to an improvised garbage dump by members of the Waqf (the administrative Muslim body in charge of Temple Mount)”. A look at what has occurred reveals the ongoing failure of Israeli authorities in safeguarding the archeological treasures found on Temple Mount, Judaism’s most holy site. In fact, the Waqf is still consistently erasing any trace of Jewish history at the site. Some Islamic scholars claim there is none to begin with.

Most of the damage was done to the underground space which the Crusaders had termed “Solomon’s Stables”. Israeli authorities did not negate the Wakf's proposal to convert the “stables” into an Islamic praying area, called “massalam”. An underground chamber with two pillars and an arch from the Second Temple period has already been turned into a mosque, said Rabbi Levy, and the rumors of plans to unify the mosques so as to cover the entire outdoor area are true.

UNESCO cried when the Taliban bombed the two Buddhas in Bamyan. But this time the UN didn’t say a thing. In Jerusalem, the Arabs are committing an archaeological crime intolerable to any cultured person, regardless of his political identity. Let’s call it archeological Holocaust.

Mr Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers. “The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years,” the Chancellor said. “The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

Mr Osborne’s bleak assessment echoes that of Liam Byrne, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, who bluntly joked that Labour had left Britain broke when he exited the Government in 2010. He left David Laws, his successor, a one-line note saying: “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid to tell you there’s no money left”.

Mr Osborne is under severe pressure to boost growth, amid signs the economy is slipping back into a recession. The Institute of Fiscal Studies has urged him to consider emergency tax cuts in the Budget to reduce the risk of a prolonged economic slump. But the Chancellor yesterday said he would stand firm on his effort to balance the books by refusing to borrow money. “Any tax cut would have to be paid for,” Mr Osborne told Sky News. “In other words there would have to be a tax rise somewhere else or a spending reduction. In other words what we are not going to do in this Budget is borrow more money to either increase spending or cut taxes.”

Meanwhile, the Chancellor made it clear he was resisting pressure to hand over up to another £17.5 billion in taxpayers’ money to help bail out struggling European Union countries. He said Europe had not “shown the colour of its money” by taking measures to help itself tackle its debt problems. Until that happens, Britain will not give any extra funds to the International Monetary Fund.

All the claimants, who would be able to fund a seven-figure mortgage at those rates, live in the London boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea or Westminster. One critic said the figures showed that it was an “unfair” system that punished hard-earning families who could not always afford to live where they wished. In total 130 families are given more than £1,000 a week, including 80 who receive at least £1,100 a week, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

This is in stark contrast to the majority of the near five million claimants, four in five of whom receive less than £100 a week. Concerns over housing benefit deepened in 2010 when it emerged that a family of former asylum seekers from Somalia were getting £2,000 per week to live in a £2.1 million home in Kensington. Abdi Nur, 42, an unemployed bus conductor, his wife Sayruq, 40, and their seven children moved after complaining their previous home had been in a “poor” part of the city.

Last year, another family who fled war-ravaged Somalia exchanged a modest home in Coventry for a £2 million house in West Hampstead, north-west London. Saeed Khaliif, 49, who was unemployed, was able to sign what was believed to be a £2,000 a week lease for the six–bedroom property despite having no connection with their new area. The Government announced last year that housing benefit, which currently costs the taxpayer £22 billion every year, should be capped at £400 per week for any new applicants from last April.

“There is no order there and no one to uphold the law,” she said. “No one can enforce the law there. Not the Israel Antiquities Authority, not the Nature and Parks Authority and not the city of Jerusalem. The police are there but they are precluded from enforcing.” The Temple Mount was left in the hands of the Waqf following Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967, a decision of then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. The Waqf has taken advantage of this and removed every sign of ancient Jewish presence at the most Jewish holy site. At the entrance, a Waqf sign says, “The Al-Aqsa Mosque courtyard and everything in it is Islamic property”.

Police, in an attempt to appease the Waqf, discriminate against Jews. They limit the number of Jewish worshippers allowed on the Temple Mount at one time in order to prevent conflict with Muslim worshippers. They often close the Mount to Jews in response to Muslim riots – despite evidence that Muslim riots have been planned in advance for the specific purpose of forcing Jews out. Mazar, a member of a group of Israelis who work to prevent the destruction of antiquities on the Temple Mount, said that the State Comptroller wrote a report which exposed serious findings about Israeli authorities’ inability to enforce the law on the Temple Mount, but noted that the report has remained confidential to this day.

“The Comptroller produced a thorough report and questioned all the right people. He came to important conclusions which so far have not been published. Our group has demanded and continues to demand that the contents of the report be published.” She warned that the excavations of antiquities being performed on the Temple Mount by the Waqf may lead to disaster. Mazar said the Waqf’s final plan is to unite all the mosques on the Temple Mount and create one big mosque. She added that it has been working for years to put the plan into practice and warned that if this happens, Jews will not be able to go to the Temple Mount.

Becoming the first member of Germany’s cabinet to openly call for a Greek exit, Hans-Peter Friedrich told Der Spiegel magazine that Greece’s chances of restoring its financial health would be greater outside the euro. “I’m not saying that Greece should be thrown out but rather to create incentives that it can’t say ‘no’ to,” he added.

His comments came as eurozone leaders faced calls to increase their own efforts before any more money is made available from the IMF. Fresh from agreeing a second €130 billion (£110 billion) bail-out for Greece, there were hopes that this weekend’s gathering of G20 finance ministers in Mexico City would achieve a deal on how to ramp up the IMF’s own European war chest by as much as $600 billion (£378 billion).

UK Treasury officials made it clear that any new deal with the IMF was now likely to be delayed until meetings in April. Eurozone leaders have been negotiating with the US, China and Japan to contribute more to the IMF to build a “financial firewall” that would shield the likes of the Spanish and Italian economies from any intensification of the region’s crisis this year.

Despite fears in Washington, Tokyo and Beijing that Europe still poses a real threat to the wider global economic recovery, they want to see Europe take further steps first. America’s opposition is fiercest, with the White House making clear it won’t contribute more to the IMF. “What we don’t want to see is the IMF substitute – and it really cannot substitute – for a stronger European response,” US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said.

Having launched the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history, Athens now faces the Herculean task of persuading holders of Greek bonds to accept a "voluntary" hair-cut. Creditors are being asked to swap their bonds for a combination of new short-term instruments, issued by the European Financial Stability Facility, and longer-term Greek government debt. If half of them agree to take the hit then, under "collective action clauses" approved by the Greek parliament, the deal could be forced on all bond-holders. This is a default in all but name, then, with "the powers that be" desperate to hold the single currency together while not triggering credit default swap (CDS) insurance policies that could themselves spark a whole new wave of financial panic.

Enough of Europe, though. Despite the eurozone's overwhelming ability to set the tone in terms of global investor sentiment, other economic indicators deserve attention – not least the price of oil. Brent crude hit a nine-month high on Friday, breaking through $125 (£79) a barrel. While the black stuff remains $24 below the all-time nominal peak of July 2008, it is now above those levels in terms of both sterling and the euro. Oil prices are up 14% since the start of the year. That's obviously bad news for the big Western energy-importers, the UK included, that are struggling to generate sustainable economic recovery.

Oil is soaring, we're told, because the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just issued a report on the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the world's third-biggest crude exporter. Responding to European and US sanctions on its oil exports, due to bite in July, Iran refused inspectors access to the Parchin military complex where the IAEA has "reason to believe" a nuclear detonation device has been tested. As such, the risk of near-term anti-Iranian military action has apparently just risen sharply, not least because a US presidential election is looming into view.

Geo-political issues are important, of course. A major Gulf conflict would obviously see oil prices spike. But crude is now expensive not due to political argy-bargy but because of the fundamental truths of demand and supply. Meanwhile, Western share prices keep rising.

The unit received £1,042,000 in funding last year from the local healthcare Trust. In layman’s terms, it treats patients who believe they are ‘trapped in the wrong body’. Few would associate such a place with children barely old enough to attend school. But it emerged this week that a little boy called Zach Avery, just five years old, now wears his hair permanently in bunches after being assessed by ‘experts’ at the Tavistock and ‘coming out’ as a girl. And Zach is not an isolated case. Over the past year, 165 children have been referred to the clinic’s team of social workers, child psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Seven children under the age of five were officially diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) — when a person is born one gender, but feels they are the other.

Now, some might ask whether it’s not Zach but his parents who need counselling for allowing him to go down this path — when even his grandparents believe he is ‘just going through a phase’. The research supports their view. According to the Tavistock’s own figures, up to 80 per cent of youngsters who think they are the wrong sex will change their minds upon reaching adolescence. Nevertheless, a clinical trial is currently underway at the Tavistock which involves prescribing children from around the age of 12 with drugs to suspend puberty, thus preventing — so the theory goes — the mental anguish caused by the maturing of sex organs and changes in the voice.

It also makes it easier for them to have gender-changing surgery, should they so wish, when they are older. Dr Kenneth Zucker, a world authority in this field, runs a specialist children’s gender clinic in Toronto. He is opposed to them. He told me: ‘Suppose you saw a black kid who came into your clinic and wanted to be white. Wouldn’t you try to understand what is happening in the child’s life that is making him feel like that? You certainly wouldn’t recommend skin-bleaching.’ He believes Gender Identity Disorder is the product of nurture, not nature — the result of ‘a dysfunctional family or cultural background.’

Is this is the voice of common sense — not political correctness?

This week, the State Department sent a diplomatic demarche to Syria's neighbors Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, warning them about the possibility of Syria's WMDs crossing their borders and offering US government help in dealing with the problem, three Obama administration officials confirmed to The Cable. For concerned parties both inside and outside the US government, the demarche signifies that the United States is increasingly developing plans to deal with the dangers of a post-Assad Syria - while simultaneously highlighting the lack of planning for how to directly bring about Assad's downfall.

Syria is believed to have a substantial chemical weapons program, which includes mustard gas and sophisticated nerve agents, such as sarin gas, as well as biological weapons. Syria has also refused IAEA requests to make available facilities that were part of its nuclear weapons program and may still be in operation.

The State Department declined to provide access to any officials to discuss the private diplomatic communication on the record, such as the author of the demarche Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Tom Countryman. In a meeting with reporters earlier this year, Countryman expressed confidence that the United States knows where Syria's WMD stockpiles are, but warned that they could become a very serious security issue for Syria and the region going forward.

But the Bipartisan Policy Center said Friday that the debt-limit doomsday could come earlier than that. Analysts from the Bipartisan Policy Center projected that the United States will hit its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling between late November 2012 and early January 2013 due to lower-than-expected corporate tax revenues and the recent extension of the payroll tax holiday. A number of other factors, such as the ongoing financial crises in Europe, volatile gas prices and how quickly the US economy continues to grow could push the debt-ceiling deadline forward or backwards, according to the center.

“When the Budget Control Act of 2011 increased the debt ceiling last August, Congress, the administration, and outside analysts believed that this increase would allow federal borrowing under the limit well into 2013,” the center’s analysts wrote. “Due to unexpected circumstances … that belief appears increasingly likely to have been misguided.” The current debt level is $15.4 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.

Her comments come as ministers prepare to launch a public consultation on legalising gay marriage next month. Traditionalists want the law on marriage to remain unchanged. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Ms Featherstone said: "Some believe the government has no right to change it (marriage) at all; they want to leave tradition alone."

"I want to challenge that view - it is the government's fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better." Ms Featherstone, a Liberal Democrat minister, responded to comments made by Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that "not even the Church" owns marriage.

She said: "(Marriage) is owned by neither the state nor the Church, as the former Archbishop Lord Carey rightly said. "It is owned by the people." Ms Featherstone also appealed to people not to "polarise" the debate about same-sex marriages. "This is not a battle between gay rights and religious beliefs," she said. "This is about the underlying principles of family, society and personal freedoms."