Gauck spoke on Thursday of a "very friendly" and "very open" meeting between the two. They discussed the need "for the people to keep alive the awareness of the value of the European idea" given the current economic crisis.

The meeting in the Apostolic Palace was the first between the German-born pope and the German president, who is a former Lutheran pastor. "I come as a president, as a fellow countryman, and above all a man of God," said Gauck when he greeted the pope in front of the private library.

In talks behind closed doors, the topic of conversation switched between politics and religion. The discussion centered on the impact of the economic crisis, and the role of the church and Germany within Europe. "When two Christians meet each other, then they also speak about God," the president said. Gauck said he was there not just to represent Protestants in Germany, but also to send a signal to the 25 million Catholics in the country.

A masterplan for “completion of economic and monetary union” has been set out in a confidential document to be discussed by EU leaders at a Brussels summit next week.

In the nine-page paper, seen by The Daily Telegraph, Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council – the monthly summits of EU leaders – charts a series of steps from ongoing financial reforms to overall political union for the eurozone. “The general objective will be to aim for a progressive pooling of economic sovereignty at the European level,” the paper states.

In the final stage, all eurozone countries will essentially surrender fiscal sovereignty with an “increasing degree of common decision-making on national budgets and an enhanced co-ordination of economic policies”. The step-by-step “road map” will leave Britain isolated and is expected to trigger a fierce British EU referendum debate in the last half of 2014, just months before a general election.

In the past year, hundreds of thousands of people across the world have switched on their computers to find distressing messages alerting them that they no longer have access to their PCs or any of the files on them.

The messages claim to be from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, some 20 other law enforcement agencies across the globe or, most recently, Anonymous, a shadowy group of hackers. The computer users are told that the only way to get their machines back is to pay a steep fine.

And, curiously, it’s working. The scheme is making more than $5 million a year, according to computer security experts who are tracking them. The threat, known as ransomware, recently hit the United States. Some gangs have abandoned previously lucrative schemes, like fake antivirus scams and banking trojans, to focus on ransomware full time. Essentially online extortion, ransomware involves infecting a user’s computer with a virus that locks it. The attackers demand money before the computer will be unlocked, but once the money is paid, they rarely unlock it.

In the vast majority of cases, victims do not regain access to their computer unless they hire a computer technician to remove the virus manually. And even then, they risk losing all files and data because the best way to remove the virus is to wipe the computer clean.

Security experts warn to never pay the ransom. A number of vendors offer solutions for unlocking machines without paying the ransom, including Symantec, Sophos and F-Secure. The best solution is to visit a local repair shop to wipe the machine clean and reinstall backup files and software.

The largest nine banks have an overall exposure to derivatives of over $200 trillion, a figure that is more than three times the size of the entire global economy. For all global banks, the total “notional” value of derivatives is well over $1,500 trillion; $1,000 trillion is $1 quadrillion.

In simplest terms, a derivative is a bet on the outcome of some future event. While a bookie takes a bet on the outcome of next week’s horse race, derivative traders make bets on events months and years into the future.

A bet works like this. I purchase $1 million in low-rated corporate bonds that currently yield 6 percent and are not due for repayment for another 10 years. I’m going for the higher income knowing that there is a higher risk of default. Thus, I seek to find a bettor that will bet against that risk for a tolerable fee. Banker X thinks my bonds will be paid off when due, and charges me $25,000 for the assurance that if the corporation does default, the bank will make up any difference. My $25,000 payment is pure income to the bank, and there is no offsetting liability recorded.

However, if my corporation defaults five years down the road, and I lose $800,000 in the process, then banker X immediately owes me $800,000, which, by the way, is also the so-called “notional value” of the contract. Because of all the uncertainty, the current notional value of a derivative contract can only be guessed at.

However, there is still a vigorous debate in Downing Street about how the Prime Minister should address the issue in his long-promised speech on Britain’s future in Europe – now expected to come in the New Year. The article notes that Number 10 has been persuaded to drop plans in which voters would be given the choice between a looser relationship and the status quo.

London Mayor Boris Johnson yesterday said that he wanted Britain to have a looser relationship with the EU, which would be “boiled down” to membership of the single market and allow the UK “to shape legislation”. Writing in City AM, Open Europe’s Christopher Howarth argues, “The single market, not the euro, is the EU’s ‘core’ project. We should remain inside, but reduce the EU’s involvement in other policy areas. This is fully achievable – and indeed necessary if we are to reconcile a sceptical public to continued EU membership."

Nor was the phone call, a rarity, followed by any immediate announcement of a face-to-face meeting that has been widely anticipated all week and was explicitly requested early in the day by House of Representatives Republican leader Eric Cantor. Asked in an interview with CNBC if the administration was ready to go over the so-called fiscal cliff if Republicans don't come around on taxes, [Mr] Obama's chief negotiator, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, responded: "Oh, absolutely."

Facing spending cuts and tax increases that start to take effect in January unless Congress acts, Republicans on Capitol Hill were privately acknowledging that they were taking a public relations thrashing at the hands of the White House, which has marshaled a campaign-style offensive that involves some of the very "job-creators" Republicans say they are protecting.

The focus on the debt ceiling is already raising concerns among market watchers. "The more the Republicans talk about raising or not raising the debt limit, that really makes the market nervous, and makes the White House more nervous than Congress," said John Brady, managing director at RJ O'Brien & Associates in Chicago. "The cliff can be punted into the future, but the debt ceiling can't be."