The advisers, known in Germany as the 'wise men', predicted the economy would almost grind to a halt this year, growing just 0.3 per cent compared to 0.7 per cent in 2012. In October they had forecast Europe's largest economy to expand 0.8 per cent in 2013, but data has since shown that it shrank by 0.6 per cent in the last three months of 2012.

Foreign trade, traditionally the main driver of German growth, would subtract 0.3 percentage points from German gross domestic product (GDP) this year, the advisers said. Demand for Germany's goods has weakened as austerity measures and recession take their toll on demand in other members of the euro zone, where Germany sends 40 per cent of its shipments. The advisers said investment was unlikely to make any significant contribution to growth in the first half of 2013.

The cash-strapped island nation needs a 10 billion euro (£8.5 billion) rescue package to recapitalise its ailing lenders and keep the government afloat. But savers with more than £85,000 in its banks will lose up to 40 per cent of their cash as one of several draconian measures imposed by Brussels to stop the country going bust. Russian investors have around 20 billion euros in Cyprus, and would be particularly hard hit, prompting speculation they could pull out their money.

'In my view, the stealing of what has already been stolen continues,' furious Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was quoted by news agencies as telling a meeting of government officials. The Kremlin warned it could retaliate by ‘punishing’ European businesses if the EU imposes a bank levy. Andrew Nekrassov, a former government adviser, added: ‘There are a number of large German companies operating in Russia. You could look at freezing assets.’

Under the Bank of England’s worst-case estimate, lenders need to raise something in the order of £60 billion, more than three times the amount required to bail out Cyprus, which gives some idea of the scale of the problems officials think the industry faces.

This week, the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee, the most powerful body overseeing macro-economic stability, will reveal its decision on how to tackle any capital shortfall. Banks are braced for grim news on the strength of their balance sheets. Arguments over bank capital have raged since November when the FPC came out with its demand for regulators to begin a detailed examination of the books of the country’s banks. The FPC’s statement crystallised the nagging worry many banking experts have that lenders have not come close to admitting the scale of the losses they face.

“Under-recognition of expected losses would imply that the banking book valuations of banks’ assets were overstated,” said the FPC in its financial stability report. “Given the number of conduct issues, and the potential for associated legal challenges, it seemed likely that banks could face additional sizeable costs as a result of this factor.”

The “Notice of Charges” against Ryan Rotela is contrary to a statement the university released late Friday night saying no one had been disciplined as a result of the classroom activity. “We can confirm that no student has been expelled, suspended or disciplined by the university as a result of any activity that took place during this class,” the university said in a prepared statement.

However, according to a letter written by Associate Dean Rozalia Williams, Rotela is facing a litany of charges – including an alleged violation of the student code of conduct, acts of verbal, written or physical abuse, threats, intimidation, harassment, coercion or other conduct which threaten the health, safety or welfare of any person.”

“We believe the university punished him in retaliation for him exposing the class assignment to the public,” Hiram Sasser, director of litigation at the Liberty Institute, told Fox News. “Sadly, it is a testimony to the indoctrination that some of the public schools and universities are engaging in – to demonize anything that was valuable in the culture. He’s being punished because he told the professor to never do the assignment again because it’s offensive and that he was going to complain to the university,” he said. Rotela, a devout Mormon, ran afoul of the university after he refused to participate in a classroom assignment that involved writing the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper – and then stomping on it.

The university initially defended the Christ-bashing lesson which is included in the textbook titled, “Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5th Edition.” “Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper,” the lesson reads. “Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.”

Sasser said Rotela’s case has generated national outrage and a number of high-profile attorneys have offered to volunteer their services. “The textbook reveals the agenda,” he said. “So-called intellectual enlightenment is stomping on everything that has held western civilization together for the past 2,000 years.”

The European Central Bank had set a deadline of Monday for a deal. Laiki will be split into "good" and "bad" banks, with its good assets eventually merged into Bank of Cyprus. The president of the Eurogroup of eurozone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, told a press conference in Brussels the deal had "put an end to the uncertainty" around Cyprus's economy.

In another development on Sunday, Bank of Cyprus - the island's biggest lender - further limited cash machine withdrawals to 120 euros a day. With queues growing outside cash machines across the island, the second biggest lender, Laiki, also lowered its daily limit to 100 euros, Cyprus News Agency reported. The bank's previous limit had been 260 euros per day. Banks have been closed since last Monday and many businesses are only taking payment in cash.

Correspondents say Germany has pushed hard for a levy on investors who have benefited from high interest rates in recent years, rejecting a Cypriot plan to use money from pension funds.

Back then — a long, long week ago — Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades stood firm: there was no way he would allow uninsured depositors to lose more than 10% of their money. What a difference a week makes: now, if your uninsured deposits are at the Bank of Cyprus, you’re probably going to lose about 40%. And if they’re at Laiki, you’re going to lose everything.

The agreement between the Cypriot government and the Troika of the EU, IMF, and ECB is a bold and brutal geopolitical power-play. There might be language in the official communiqué about how “The Eurogroup looks forward to an agreement between Cyprus and the Russian Federation on a financial contribution”, but given the billions of euros that Russians are being forced to contribute unwillingly, the chances that they’ll happily throw a bit more money into the pot have to be tiny.

Much more importantly, the two main vectors of contagion — hitting insured deposits, and exiting the euro — have been avoided. And most elegantly of all, from the Troika’s point of view, the whole thing has been constructed under existing bank-resolution authorities, which means that no vote needs to be put to the Cypriot parliament, and therefore no amount of Russian pressure can veto the deal in Nicosia. And 800,000 Cypriots will for years to come be paying the price of what Mohamed El-Erian elegantly calls “bailout fatigue”.

A pre-emptive ‘defensive’ nuclear attack on Iran using tactical nuclear weapons was envisaged to annihilate the Islamic Republic's non-existent nuclear weapons program. So-called ‘mini nukes’ were identified as the ‘ideal weapon’ to conduct a pre-emptive nuclear attack.

In 2003, the mini nukes, consisting of bunker-buster bombs with nuclear warheads, were re-categorized by the US Senate as bona fide conventional weapons. The new definition of a nuclear warhead has blurred the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons.

Senator Edward Kennedy, at the time, accused the Bush Administration for having developed “a generation of more useable nuclear weapons.” Through a propaganda campaign which enlisted the support of ‘authoritative’ nuclear scientists, the mini-nukes were upheld as an instrument of peace rather than war.

The practice sacrifice has been held annually for the past several years. This year organizers were unpleasantly surprised by a veto from Israel’s Veterinary Services, which refused to authorize the event. Organizers took the matter to court, and were able to quickly get a ruling permitting the ritual.

The various groups involved in the event were represented by Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who told Arutz Sheva that the ritual was carried out with as much Biblical accuracy as possible. “We took the goat, as the Torah commands, we had an altar built like the real one, and a cooking pit built according to halacha [Jewish law],” he said. “We slaughtered the goat with Leviim singing and priestly clothing, just like in the real Passover sacrifice.”

Leviim are Jews belonging to the Biblical tribe of Levi, whose members took part in Temple services. The ritual was emotionally moving, Rabbi Glick reported. “The symbolism of standing opposite the Temple Mount and preparing for the real Passover sacrifice – it was without doubt a special moment,” he said.

"After three years of a disconnect in Israeli-Turkish relations," he wrote, "I decided that this is the time to rebuild them. The changing reality around us forces us to continually re-examine our relations with the countries surrounding us in the region. In the last three years, the state of Israel has made several attempts to end the disconnect between us and Turkey.”

"The fact that the crisis in Syria is getting worse by the minute was, for me, a central consideration. Syria is crumbling, and the huge, advanced stockpiles of weapons within it are starting to fall into the hands of different elements. The great danger is that the chemical weapon stockpiles will fall into the hands of terror groups.”

"The reality in Syria, which includes, among other things, jihadist elements that have begun to establish their presence next to our border on the Golan, creates great challenges for our security establishment. We are following the goings-on there and are prepared to respond accordingly.”

"It is important that Turkey and Israel, which border on Syria, are able to communicate with each other, and this is also desirable with regard to additional regional challenges.”

Emeritus Pope Benedict embraced his luncheon guest on Pope Francis' arrival at the helipad at the papal summer villa at Castel Gandolfo, which has become Benedict's temporary home. Benedict, who stepped down from the papacy at the end of February, wore a white padded jacket and looked rather frail in comparison to 76-year-old Pope Francis, nine years his junior.

The two white-clad clerics then prayed together in the villa's private chapel where Pope Francis insisted on kneeling side by side with his predecessor, rather than using the padded papal kneeler prepared for him. "No! We are brothers, we pray together!" Francis told Benedict in a gesture of humility.

Pope Francis has arrived in Rome “from the ends of the earth,” and he is innovating the manner of governing the Church from on high, starting with himself. The reform of the curia will come. And many other things will come as well. But after “a certain time,” he has cautioned.

Meanwhile, he has told all of the heads of the curia whose mandates ended with the resignation of his predecessor to get back to work. “Temporarily,” and “donec aliter provideatur,” until he, the new pope, decides. Since March 13 the Vatican curia has been a tremulous army of functionaries without a certain future.

The new pope wants to be the bishop of Rome for all intents and purposes, as he implied immediately on the first Sunday of his pontificate, with the Mass celebrated in the parish of St Ann on the border of the Vatican and the Borgo, amid a rejoicing crowd. He will go from church to church, he will visit center and periphery, “for the evangelization of this city that is so beautiful.” In direct contact with the people of the diocese which now is his “bride.”

Above all, Pope Francis loves to call himself “bishop of Rome.” But he also holds firm, and said so immediately, that “the Church of Rome is that which presides in charity over all the Churches.”

Today the tiny island's 56 MPs have a stark choice, to implement draconian capital controls and to put the country's largest banks into receivership or else face exit from the euro and a dramatic economic crash.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, warned Cyprus this morning that it had to abandon an economy built on a financial sector, fuelled by Russian cash, which is eight times larger than Cypriot GDP. "It must realise its current business model is dead," she said