"I felt like I was invaded," she told CBS 2's Dave Carlin. Sherman says a week-long Thanksgiving holiday with family in New York ended with an ordeal that started when the screeners wanted to check the bulge from Sherman's colostomy bag. "This is private for me. It's bad enough that I have it," she said. "I had to pull it from my sweatpants and I had to pull my underwear, my underwear down. You don't do that to anybody," she added. "I felt like I was invaded."

The TSA released a statement Sunday, apologizing to Zimmerman but disputing her story. "TSA contacted the passenger to apologize that she feels she had an unpleasant screening experience; however, TSA does not include strip searches in its protocols and a strip search did not occur in this case," the statement read. State Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens wonders how the TSA can be so sure. He says with no cameras in the private screening rooms, it is a screener's word against the passenger's.

"It's outrageous," he said. "What they need to find out is exactly what happened and if someone crossed the line they need to be penalized."

"I missed my flight and I had to wait two and a half hours for the next one," Zimmerman said.

After meeting in Paris, they announced that an unprecedented bilateral agreement between the two countries will be sent to the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, on Wednesday. It will then be discussed at an EU-wide summit on Friday, with a view to officials drafting the new treaty and putting it to all the nations of Europe. But although both Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy said they wanted all 27 European Union countries - including Britain - to sign up, they made clear the 17 eurozone members would simply go ahead on their own anyway.

Mrs Merkel said: "It's a historic choice - we both believe that the most important thing is friendship between France and Germany."

"We had decades of terrible war and 70 years of peace - we need to understand each other and accept our differences. This is proof of our absolute determination that the stability of the euro is preserved. We have come to a close agreement; there is close cooperation between France and Germany."

Argentine patrol commanders carrying out interceptions near the South American coast told Spanish captains they were in violation of Argentina's "legal" blockade of sea channels to the Falklands. The warning has been backed up in a letter to Aetinape, the Spanish fishing vessels association from the Argentine embassy in Madrid warning boats in the area that "Falklands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and adjoining maritime spaces are an integral part of the Argentine territory."

The confrontation strategy targetting foreign boats marks an escalation of tensions in seas that the Duke of Cambridge, a Flight Lieutenant with the RAF, is set to patrol during a tour of duty next year. The Duke is to be deployed to the Falklands next February as part of routine training duties. Commanders would face the dilemma of despatching the Royal to take part in operations to monitor or contain the Argentine challenge. President Cristina Kirchner has adopted a steadily more beligerent stance towards Britain's South Atlantic possessions.

A newly formed gathering of South American nations meeting in Venezeula backed Argentina's sovereignty demands at the weekend. Argentina's claim over the Falklands was backed by a newly formed block of South American and Caribbean countries, CELAC, on Saturday with unanimous approval. Mrs Kirchner used the last UN General Assembly meeting to put Argentina's claims of sovereignty over the Falklands on a par with Palestinian claims to statehood.

But that debate, experts say, misses large parts of the bigger picture. An increasingly isolated Iran alarms not just Israel and the West but its Gulf neighbors, especially longtime foe Saudi Arabia, and they are already fighting back - and the confrontation goes well beyond simply tightening sanctions. From proxy wars in Iraq and Syria to computer worm attacks and unexplained explosions in Iran - to allegations of an assassination plot in Washington - a confrontation once kept behind the scenes is breaking into increasingly open view.

The storming of Britain's Tehran embassy last week - and the tit-for-tat shutdown of Iran's embassy in London - were just the latest signs that already limited dialogue is beginning to break down. That, analysts say, is inherently dangerous. "With Iran, you have a government that is increasingly isolated and acting in increasingly unpredictable ways," says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and National Studies in Washington.

Western intelligence officials said the Islamic Republic had initiated plans to disperse long-range missiles, high explosives, artillery and guards units to key defensive positions. The order was given in response to the mounting international pressure over Iran's nuclear programme. Preparation for a confrontation has gathered pace following last month's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna that produced evidence that Iran was actively working to produce nuclear weapons. The Iranian leadership fears the country is being subjected to a carefully co-ordinated attack by Western intelligence and security agencies to destroy key elements of its nuclear infrastructure.

Recent explosions have added to the growing sense of paranoia within Iran, with the regime fearing it will be the target of a surprise military strike by Israel or the US. Its ballistic missile programme suffered a major setback on November 12 after an explosion at the regime's main missile testing facility at Bidganeh, about 30 miles west of Tehran. At least 17 people died, including General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the head of Iran's missile research programme.

The IAEA report said Iranian scientists had worked to develop a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Security analysts described Iran's missile advances as "a turning point" that had "profound strategic implications". Last week another mysterious explosion caused significant damage to Iran's uranium conversion facility at Isfahan.

"It looks like the 21st century form of war," said Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank, told the Los Angeles Times. "It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and cyber war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's spiritual leader, issued a directive to the heads of all the country's military, intelligence and security organisations to take all necessary measures to protect the regime.

Iranian officials called the blast an accident. Perhaps it was. Decades of international sanctions have left Iran struggling to obtain technology and spare parts for military programs and commercial industries, leading in some cases to dangerous working conditions. However, many former US intelligence officials and Iran experts believe that the explosion - the most destructive of at least two dozen unexplained blasts in the last two years - was part of a covert effort by the US, Israel and others to disable Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The goal, the experts say, is to derail what those nations fear is Iran's quest for nuclear weapons capability and to stave off an Israeli or US airstrike to eliminate or lessen the threat.

"It looks like the 21st century form of war," said Patrick Clawson, who directs the Iran Security Initiative at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Washington think tank. "It does appear that there is a campaign of assassinations and cyber war, as well as the semi-acknowledged campaign of sabotage." Many Western experts are convinced that American and Israeli engineers secretly fed the Stuxnet computer worm into Iran's nuclear program in 2010. The virus reportedly caused centrifuges used to enrich uranium to spin out of control and shatter. Neither the US nor Israeli government has acknowledged any role in the apparent cyber-attack.

Nor did anyone claim responsibility after two senior nuclear physicists were killed, and a third wounded, by bombs attached to their cars or nearby motorcycles in January and November last year. Militants waving pictures of one of the slain scientists stormed the British Embassy in Tehran last week, setting fires and causing extensive damage. Several European countries recalled their envoys from Iran after the British government closed its embassy and expelled Iranian diplomats from London.

Like the deaths, the explosions have drawn special scrutiny in the think tanks of Washington, where Iran watchers have tracked reports of unexplained blasts in Iranian gas pipelines, oil installations and military facilities. In October, Iranian news services reported three such explosions in a 24-hour period. The blasts killed two people. Another large blast was reported last week in Esfahan, Iran's third-largest city. Whatever the cause, headlines about unsolved killings, unexplained explosions and sinister computer viruses have rattled Iranians, especially those who work in the nuclear program, analysts said. Perhaps that's the point. "All these things have a profound effect," Clawson said. "You have to watch your back when you go to work. You're not certain what's going to happen when you turn on your computer. You're not certain whether you can talk to your colleagues."

The evidence of an extensive Western covert program against Tehran, and Iranian retaliation, is now too obvious to ignore. Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran's nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired US official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.

"It's safe to say the Israelis are very active," the official said, adding about US efforts: "Everything that [GOP presidential candidate] Mitt Romney said we should be doing - tough sanctions, covert action and pressuring the international community - are all of the things we are actually doing." Though the activities are classified, a senior Obama administration official also would not deny that such a program was under way. He indicated that the US was not involved in every action, referring to recent alleged explosions at Isfahan and elsewhere. But, he added: "I wouldn't assume that everything we do is coordinated."

In September, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, accused Great Britain, Israel and the US of conducting attacks on him and other Iranian scientists."Six years ago the intelligence service of the UK began collecting information and data regarding my past, my family, the number of children," Abbasi-Davani told a news conference at the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Abbasi-Davani, who was said to have been wounded in a 2010 car bomb explosion, said the attacks were carried out by Israel with the "support of the intelligence services of the United States and England."

US officials alleged in October that agents acting for Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which has increasingly exerted control over the Tehran regime, were involved in a plot to kill that Saudi ambassador to Washington in a restaurant. Iran denied the allegations. Then, on Sunday, in what may have been another escalation, Iran's news agency reported that Iranian armed forces shot down an unmanned US spy plane that illegally crossed the country's eastern border.

"This is a big prize in terms of technology," a senior US military source told Fox News. The spy plane uses the same stealth technology as the drone used to monitor the compound during the raid that killed Usama bin Laden, US military sources told Fox News on Monday. Military sources confirmed that the Iranians have the RQ-170 drone, which is so advanced that the US Air Force has not distributed even a photo of it. However, they did not say that the Iranians shot down the spy plane, as was reported by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

IRNA quoted an unidentified Iranian military official saying Sunday that the spy plane was shot down by Iran's armed forces and suffered minor damage. The official also warned of strong and crushing response to any violations of the country's airspace by American drone aircraft.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, as expected, emerged with the largest share with 36.6 per cent of the vote. Defying expectations, the far more funadamentalist al-eNour - the "Party of Light" - emerged in second place with 24.4 per cent. It is backed by Egypt's growing community of Salafists, adherents of one of the most puritanical strains of Islam.

With the moderately Islamist al-Wesat winning 4.3 per cent of the vote, religious parties are just shy of a two-thirds majority that would give them the power to draft a new constitution without reference to secular rivals, which made a poor showing. The rise of al-Nour has caused particular alarm among liberals. Their leaders openly espouse the introduction of the harshest interpretation of Islamic law.

They call for women to be segregated and veiled, the ban of alcohol, the stoning of adulterers and the amputation of the hands of thieves.

After individually outlining their views last week on closer fiscal integration, the two leaders must overcome remaining differences to fine tune proposals they want to present to EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday, on the eve of a summit. The duo, increasingly dubbed "Merkozy" as they intensify bilateral efforts to restore confidence in the euro zone, will meet over lunch at 1:30 pm (1230 GMT) on Monday and are expected to hold a news conference afterwards. They aim to agree plans for more coercive budget discipline in the euro zone, likely via EU treaty change, which they want all 27 EU leaders to approve at Friday's summit.

"We need profound treaty modifications," French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse told France Inter radio, but stressed the idea was to give euro zone governments the final say on applying any punitive sanctions proposed by the European Commission for fiscal slackers. The sticking point is that France opposes Germany's push to have euro states surrender budgetary control to a European authority with veto power.

While Germany, fed up with costly bailouts, wants a more federal EU system, Sarkozy is under fire five months from a presidential election from political rivals who accuse him of being ready to hand over sovereignty to unelected EU officials. Socialist presidential hopeful Francois Hollande, in Berlin on Monday to address opposition Social Democrats (SPD), and far-right leader Marine Le Pen have both criticized the idea of handing Brussels more control of public finances. Hollande aide Pierre Moscovici told French LCI television on Monday that acquiescing to Berlin's demands would be evidence that the Franco-German relationship had become unbalanced. "We do not need a treaty to have budgetary union," he said. "Most of all, it erodes our sovereignty. We do not need to be under the nitpicking control of the European Court of Justice."

Several other governments, notably Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands, oppose treaty change for domestic political reasons and fear they would not win public backing in referendums. "Investors would be well advised to adopt a cautious stance in the run-up to next Friday's EU summit," said Nicholas Spiro of debt consultancy Spiro Sovereign Strategy. British Prime Minister David Cameron said after talks with Sarkozy in Paris on Friday that he would only agree to treaty change if Britain's interests were protected.

Tehran denied links to the bombing but in July offered talks with Argentina to start "shedding light" on the case. The 1994 attack came two years after a group called Islamic Jihad Organization, which was believed to be linked to Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, claimed responsibility for bombing the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29.

For more than a decade Argentina appeared to do little to investigate the attacks. But when Nestor Kirchner became president in 2003 he vowed to reopen the cases, calling the neglect "a national disgrace." Several years later former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani was among those indicted by Argentine prosecutors and sought by Interpol.

But there have been signs of a thaw in the two nations' frosty ties. Argentine exports to Iran, which dropped to a few tens of millions of dollars annually amid sour relations, have grown in recent years, soaring more than 70 percent last year to $1.5 billion. Iran is the biggest buyer of Argentine corn, a key crop for the Latin American country as it strives to bolster its trade surplus. "As the rest of us work to pressure Iran to end its nuclear weapons program and stop supporting terrorism, Argentina's government has been considering moving in the opposite direction," a European envoy said on condition of anonymity.

China cut reserve requirements for banks last week for the first time in three years and its factory sector shrank to levels not seen since February 2009. Brazil also lowered rates for the third time since August. Only the United States has enjoyed a steady stream of improving data. The unemployment level dropped to 8.6 percent in November, the lowest level in two and a half years, factories expanded and retail spending accelerated, pointing to a slow and gradual pick-up in growth.

But Europe casts a pall over everything. So serious are the risks that it could disrupt three years of painful global economic recovery that politicians, central bankers and market strategists are starting to compare the danger of European leaders deadlocking to the collapse of Lehman Bros in September 2008. That shock plunged the world into its deepest recession since the 1930s. "Let us not hide it: Europe may be swept away by the crisis if it doesn't get a grip, if it doesn't change," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King warned of a "systemic crisis," adding that "none of us really know" how the euro zone would survive if the crisis explodes into sovereign default. "This is Lehmans, Take Two. Cubed," said Kathleen Gaffney of Loomis Sayles, a part of Natixis Asset Management.

The correct term is 'Stability Union', as the Chancellor calls it at home. It certainly entails unprecedented intrusion into the internal affairs of sovereign states, but in one direction only: discipline, without transforming help. The Greeks have had a taste of this with EU commissars lodged in each ministry under the occupation terms of their loan package, and it may come back to bite Germany itself one day as the economic cycle plays its trick. Nor is the idea going down well in France, where Leftist MP Jean-Marie Le Guen compared President Nicolas Sarkozy's kowtowing to the Iron Chancellor with Daladier's capitulation at Munich in 1938, and where Le Front Nationale's Marie Le Pen is running near 20 per cent in the polls with calls to "let the euro die a natural death."

"The time has come to take on the political confrontation with Germany and defend our values," said socialist doyen Arnaud Montebourg, equating Mr Sarkozy's epic humiliations with French defeat at Sedan in 1870. Even socialist leader Francois Hollande is dipping his toe in these nationalist waters. "Merkel decides and Sarkozy follows," said the man most likely to be France's president next year. The Latin revolt is underway. None of Mrs Merkel's proposals - whether enshrined in EU treaties or not - offer any meaningful solution to the crisis at hand. They continue to ignore the cancer in the EMU system: the corrosive 30 per cent currency misalignment between North and South, and the German-Dutch trade surplus.

Brussels has warned that Europe will "disintegrate" unless leaders grasp the nettle this week. It is a scare tactic. There is no necessary linkage between a euro break-up and the end of the EU. One might equally argue that the surest way to bedevil Europe is to persist in trying to hold this unworkable currency together with coercive powers. But having cranked up the rhetoric, Europe's leaders will have to conjure some pro-forma triumph for the headlines, as they have at each of the last seventeen crisis summits.

No doubt there will be a "bazooka" of sorts, a mish-mash of big talk on the EFSF bail-out fund, with IMF flanking operations, and accompanying ECB action to keep banks afloat for longer, all cloaked in a fiscal union that isn't what it seems. Mandarins will slip the figure 1 trillion euros somewhere into the communique to nourish a hungry media.

In other words, we may just have to hunker down yet again and wait for Germany to blink at last, or detonate the fuse.

Portuguese premier Pedro Passos Coelho set the tone for the week in an interview on Sunday: "We have to find a response, a much stronger response than so far. If we don't, clearly that could represent the end of the European Union." Senior opposition politicians put severe pressure on French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of their pre-summit talks in Paris on Monday to approve a "grand bargain" or, at least, workable plan that will gain the support of partners such as the US. Timothy Geithner, Treasury secretary, will be in Europe for talks all week.

Sarkozy's main opponent in next spring's presidential election, socialist leader Francois Hollande, accused him of caving into German demands for a new EU treaty on budgets that was bound to fail, exacerbating French weakness in an unbalanced relationship with Berlin and ignoring the need for immediate solutions. Mark Rutte, Dutch premier, said: "It is really important that the markets see that Europe is prepared to help the countries in trouble, so long as those countries commit to very tough reforms and austerity programmes."

Market hopes are that - despite their differences - Merkel and Sarkozy agree on both a short-term solution and longer-term vision that will persuade the ECB not only to cut interest rates by 0.25% to 1% but extend loans of up to three years maturity to struggling banks. The ECB governing council meets hours before the EU summit on Thursday.

The survey found that just 22.5 per cent of all staff professed to be Christians. Yet the combination of those who said they were atheists and those who had no faith came to a total of 23.5 per cent. Some 40 per cent of staff failed to respond to the questionnaire. Other beliefs represented in the workforce included Islam, Hinduism and Judaism.

BBC veteran Roger Bolton, who until recently presented BBC Radio 4's religious current affairs programme, Sunday, said: 'There is an inbuilt but unconscious bias against religion, fuelled by the fact staff are not representative of the public. It is not a conspiracy but it needs a correction.' And Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, said the statistics confirmed the belief that the BBC is 'institutionally incapable of reflecting the society it serves since BBC staff are not representative of the audience they broadcast to'.

The independent Christian Broadcasting Council also told the media watchdog Ofcom in a report earlier this month it was 'concerned' that Christians were not fairly represented. The criticisms follow complaints the BBC has cut back its religious broadcasting. Viewers have also claimed the BBC portrays Christians in soap operas or dramas as 'weak' or 'bigoted'. The beliefs of BBC staff have been disclosed for the first time after the Corporation carried out a costly audit earlier this year to comply with the 2010 Equality Act. The census by pollsters Ipsos MORI, was voluntary.