The Bundesbank, as the author David Marsh entitled his book, was The Bank That Rules Europe. Then, or so it was widely assumed, the creation of the euro and the European Central Bank (ECB) meant the end of Bundesbank influence. But did it? Today's Bundesbank, under a steely young new president, is re-asserting itself.

Jens Weidmann, formerly Chancellor Angela Merkel's adviser, questions much of what eurozone leaders and the ECB are doing. And he does not pull his punches. In a speech to a G20 conference late last month, he said of the latest bailout deal for Greece: "Ultimately, Greece cannot be forced to comply with the programme. But it should be clear," he said, "that no further disbursements will be warranted if Greece fails to keep its side of the bargain." He questioned too how far the latest eurozone and international measures had solved the crisis, saying: "A crucial requirement now is to prepare for the eventuality of a further escalation of the crisis by initiating appropriate ring-fencing measures."

And in a letter leaked last week to the prominent conservative German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Mr Weidmann warned that the ECB risked "loss of reputation" in its increasing provision of liquidity to weaker European banks. Where ECB and eurozone leaders acclaim a welcome easing of euro troubles, Mr Weidmann appears to see alarming potential liabilities. He does not think the conditions attached to new ECB loans are strict enough. And he points out that the Bundesbank, through its participation in ECB action, may be liable for substantial losses in the event of future banking defaults. This, as author David Marsh explains, "opens up the German public to possibly quite big losses."

Mr Weidmann seems to be reviving the idea of the Bundesbank as defender of German citizens' money against political irresponsibility. The Bundesbank's creed is sound money and hatred of inflation - atoning for the sins of its German monetary predecessors. In 1923, at the peak of notorious hyper-inflation, the Reichsbank oversaw German consumer prices increasing two-billion-fold in a single year. But the arrival of the Deutsche Mark in 1948 changed things dramatically, and in the 1950s the Bundesbank was created to defend the people's cash from politicians armed with printing presses. German school children visit the bank's Geld Museum (Money Museum) to be taught that "only stable money is good money".

So today's European politicians, just like their predecessors, may have to spend more time wondering what the Bundesbank will do, and where its latest crusade in defence of "sound money" will ultimately lead. Should Germany be the model for the UK's future economy?

"Iran's ability to strike back directly against Israel is limited," says Mark Fitzpatrick, director of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). "Its antiquated air force is totally outclassed by the Israelis and it has only a limited number of ballistic missiles that could reach Israel." Mr Fitzpatrick says Iran's missile arsenal includes "a modified version of the Shahab-3, the Ghadr-1, which has a range of 1,600km (995 miles), but Iran only has about six transporter-erector launchers for the missile".

"Iran's new solid-fuelled missile, the Sajjil-2, can also reach Israel, but it is not yet fully operational," he adds. But, Mr Fitzpatrick argues that "both of these missiles are too inaccurate to have any effect against military targets when armed with conventional weapons". "Nor are they a very effective way to deliver chemical or biological weapons, and Iran does not have nuclear weapons." In summary, he believes that "an Iranian missile strike would be only a symbolic gesture".

Mr Fitzpatrick believes Iran is more likely to respond against Israel "asymmetrically, and through proxies". Its ally, the Shia Islamist group Hezbollah, has more than 10,000 rocket launchers in southern Lebanon, many of them supplied by Iran. He says that the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, could also attack Israel with shorter-range rockets. The great danger here is of a more extensive conflict breaking out either between Israel and Hezbollah, or Israel and Hamas.

With so much instability in the Middle East - not least because of the Syria crisis - there is a very real risk of an Israeli strike sparking a much broader regional conflagration. The Iranian Navy, and especially the naval arm of its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), are well-equipped with small, fast craft capable of laying mines or swarming attacks against larger vessels. Iran also deploys capable land-based anti-shipping missiles. These could all be used to close off the vital oil artery - the Strait of Hormuz. The US Navy is confident that it could re-open the Strait. But this risks an extended naval conflict between the US and Iran, and in the short term, there could be a significant impact upon oil prices.

"We've waited for diplomacy to work. We've waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. As Prime Minister of Israel, I will never let my people live under the shadow of annihilation," he said in a speech given just hours after meeting Mr Obama for critical talks in the White House. In his speech to a gathering of Aipac, America's most influential pro-Israel lobby group, Mr Netanyahu reasserted once more Israel's willingness to use force – if necessary on its own – to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

In the most emotive section of a speech given to an audience that included half of the US Congress as well as members of Mr Obama's cabinet and some 13,000 delegates, Mr Netanyahu drew comparisons with America's unwillingness to bomb the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Brandishing a copy of a 1944 letter from the US Department of War, he recounted how the Allies had refrained from attacking the camp out of fear it might provoke "even more vindictive action" from the Germans. "My friends, 2012 is not 1944... Never again," he cried, repeating one of the founding slogans of Israel to a roaring standing ovation from the audience.

The prime minister, himself a former commando, used the speech to lay out the justifications for a possible Israeli attack that would undoubtedly draw fury from Islamic nations around the world. "There's been plenty of talk recently about the costs of stopping Iran. I think it's time to talk about the costs of not stopping Iran," he said, claiming that a nuclear Iran would trigger an arms race in the Middle East and allow the regime to choke off the world's supply. "The worst nightmare of all," he said, was the prospect of nuclear terrorism in which an Iranian bomb could be smuggled into an American or Israeli city.

Linking the US's fate with that of his own country, he said: "For the sake of our prosperity, for the sake of our security, for the sake of our children, Iran must not be allowed to get nuclear weapons."

Twelve hours is an agonizingly long time for endurance athletes as they punish their bodies, pushing themselves to the ultimate limit in events like triathlons or mountain bike races. Twelve hours is also an agonizingly long time for politicians, acting under the pressure of an ultimatum, to prevent a war that would mean the inevitable deaths of large numbers of people.

In 1914, the German Reich gave the Russians 12 hours to stop mobilizing their troops. In 1956, the French and the British gave then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser the same amount of time to withdraw his troops from the Suez Canal, which he had just nationalized, and allow Israel to use the waterway again. A war ensued in both cases, partly because those who had threatened to use military force knew that it would hardly be possible to comply with their demands so quickly. In other words, they wanted the situation to escalate.

An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities would apparently also involve a 12-hour lead time. According to intelligence sources in Tel Aviv, Israeli politicians told Martin Dempsey, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Israeli leadership intends to give the White House only half a day's notice once it has decided to proceed with a military strike. In other words, Israel wants to be sure of two things: on the one hand, that US President Barack Obama is not taken completely by surprise by a possible attack, and on the other that he is not in a position to seriously question his ally's decision and undermine it with diplomatic efforts. Is this how a country should treat its most important ally? Is this the way it should pressure the very power on whose goodwill it depends?

There is still no absolute proof - the famous "smoking gun" - that Tehran is actually developing a bomb. Even the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), hasn't been able to furnish such evidence. There are indications on which the IAEA bases its assumptions, including a large number of observations by IAEA inspectors, as well as reports provided to the agency by individual intelligence agencies. Based on this information, the IAEA concludes that it cannot rule out that the Iranian nuclear program has a "military dimension."

The crucial clue came from the same man whose signature once adorned the deutsche mark: Helmut Schlesinger, former president of Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank. He was the one who pointed Hans-Werner Sinn, an economist in Munich, in the direction of a strange entry in the Bundesbank's statistics: In late 2010, records showed claims on other euro-zone central banks totaling over €300 billion ($400 billion). Curious, Sinn began to dig deeper. What he found exceeded his worst expectations.

"In the beginning, all I had was this number, and I didn't really know what it meant," says Sinn, who is president of the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research. "The Bundesbank told me those were irrelevant balances. But that didn't reassure me." Sinn spoke with specialists at various central banks and with colleagues in his field. "Each person knew a little bit," Sinn explains, "and I had to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. It was real detective work." After weeks of work, Sinn had assembled enough pieces to create a picture that would make any one shudder: Since the 2007 financial crisis, immense imbalances have formed within the otherwise harmless payment system that exists between the central banks of the 17 euro-zone member states.

While Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Greece, all hit hard by the debt crisis, show deficits totaling over €600 billion, the claims owed the Bundesbank have climbed to €498 billion. As long as the monetary union continues to exist, this isn't a catastrophe. The money is virtual, created by central banks, and its existence doesn't mean that an equivalent amount is lacking elsewhere. But as soon as a country leaves the euro zone, or the currency union collapses entirely, things get critical. "We're caught in a trap," Sinn says. "If the euro breaks apart, we're left with an outstanding balance of nearly €500 billion, owed by a system that no longer exists." That figure, €500 billion, is more than one and a half times Germany's annual federal budget.

"This is dangerous," Sinn says, his eyes flashing. These outstanding balances owed by other central banks open Germany up to blackmail, he explains. "Now everyone knows we have to save the euro, at almost any cost."

The costs of this effort, started by the Bush administration and promoted faithfully by the Obama administration, have been, and continue to be, virtually incalculable. In the process, public service and the public imagination have been weaponized. The ubiquitous fantasy of “homeland security,” pushed hard by the federal government in the wake of 9/11, has been widely embraced by the public. It has also excited intense weapons- and techno-envy among police departments and municipalities vying for the latest in armor and spy equipment.

All told, the federal government has appropriated about $635 billion, accounting for inflation, for homeland security-related activities and equipment since the 9/11 attacks. To conclude, though, that “the police” have become increasingly militarized casts too narrow a net. The truth is that virtually the entire apparatus of government has been mobilized and militarized right down to the university campus.

In addition to the earthquakes, Wahlstrom said major floods in Thailand and other countries caused extensive damage. "The main message is that this is an increasing — very rapidly increasing trend with increasing economic losses," Wahlstrom said. Despite the rising costs, she said, deaths from disasters are proportionally declining because countries are getting much better at instituting early warning systems and preparedness measures. "But the economics of disasters is becoming a major threat to a number of countries," Wahlstrom said.

"We say today that 50 percent of the world's population is exposed to disaster risks because they live in the highly vulnerable areas," she said. She praised Japan for its preparedness efforts but said there are lessons to be learned from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami on March 11. While buildings generally withstood the massive quake, the tsunami that followed engulfed the northeast, wiped out entire towns, and inundated the Fukushima nuclear powerplant, triggering the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Wahlstrom said the risk of disasters is increasing globally because of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, poor land use, and worsening environmental problems. For example, she said, by 2050 the world will need 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water for a growing population — and these resources are already under threat and are triggers of disaster. Wahlstrom said every plan to improve development in a country must include measures to deal with the impact of climate change and natural disasters.

If an asteroid of that size hit our planet, it would cause an explosion similar to a nuclear blast. Two astronomers from the the Observatorio Astronómico de La Sagra in Spain spotted 2012 DA14 in late February and its orbit has been calculated to be very similar to Earth’s. Some reports suggested that on February 15 next year an impact was a possibility, but US astronomer Phil Plait, the creator of the Bad Astronomy blog, has ruled out an impact.

He wrote: ‘Asteroid 2012 DA14 is almost certainly not going to hit Earth next February. And by “almost certainly”, I mean it. The odds of an impact are so low they are essentially zero. This does not rule out an impact at some future date, but for now we’re safe.’ The space rock will come within 17,000 miles of Earth, which is closer than some of our satellites, but Plait says this is nothing to worry about.

He adds: ‘Seventeen thousand miles is well beneath many of our own orbiting satellites. To the best of my knowledge, this is the closest pass of a decent-sized asteroid ever seen before the actual pass itself. However, let’s again be very clear - it will miss. In astronomical terms, 17,000 miles is pretty close, but in real human terms it’s a clean miss.’

Last night a space rock caused panic across the UK, with police forces inundates with calls after spotting it in the sky and mistaking it for a burning aircraft.

Eight people were reported with minor injuries after being hit by falling debris, Masbate mayor Socrates Tuason said on national radio. "There was panic, people were scared to go out," he said. "People were having breakfast and preparing to go to work and school when the quake happened." Cracks appeared in some buildings in Masbate City, and many of its 90,000 residents had been told to stay home for the day, he said.

"There was an old three-story building that collapsed, but engineers had already condemned it long before the quake," he said, adding that there was no one inside the structure when it crumbled. He said classes in all schools were suspended as city engineers fanned across the city to further assess the damage and ensure all buildings were safe. The Office of Civil Defense in Manila said six aftershocks were felt within hours of the initial quake.

The Philippines is situated in the "Ring of Fire," a belt around the Pacific region frequented by earthquakes and volcanic activity. Tuesday's temblor came exactly a month after a 6.7 quake hit the central island of Negros, twisting roads, crushing homes and causing massive landslides that killed at least 113 people.

The first quake was reported at 5:33am one mile southeast of East Richmond Heights with a depth of about 5.5 miles. A second quake was reported at 6:03am in around the same location. BART stopped trains due to the first temblor, and held trains at stations for 5 to 10 minutes to check the tracks for damage. Trains continue to have short delays this morning as the system gets back on track. The quake was felt in San Francisco, throughout the East Bay as far south as Hayward and as far east as Antioch and Concord, and even in peninsula cities like Redwood City. Many Bay Area residents on Twitter said they were woken from a deep sleep by the shaking.

"This is devastating for small businesses, for farmers and for those whose houses have been flooded," said NSW state premier, Barry O'Farrell, who toured the state's affected region. Attention has focused on the NSW town of Wagga Wagga, 475km south west of Sydney, as it faces its biggest flood in 150 years. Around 9,000 residents have been evacuated from the city centre amid fears the town's levee banks may not withstand the flood coming down the Murrumbidgee river. It brings to 13,000 the number of people evacuated from their homes across the state.

The fast-moving tornadoes, numbering at least 30, splintered blocks of homes and tossed around vehicles like toys. Officials said the death toll was at least 39 - 21 in Kentucky, 13 in Indiana, three in Ohio and one in Alabama. Georgia also reported a storm-related death. In hard-hit West Liberty, Kentucky, the wet, heavy snow is contributing to the danger of more structural damage to buildings already weakened by the storm. The snow has already caused the collapse of 20-foot by 30-foot tent set up to serve meals to emergency workers and survivors. Kentucky Baptist Convention volunteers shifted meal service to a crowded community center.

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear said on Sunday the storm had caused at least $5.8 million in property damage. He described the scene in West Liberty as "total devastation" and signed an executive order barring price gouging for food and other necessities. Reports of looting began to surface late Friday, according to the Kentucky State Police, though the situation is now under control. As recently as Sunday afternoon, police stopped a vehicle on a back road that was trying to leave a home with a load full of stolen copper, said Albert Hale, the emergency manager for Laurel County.

The opportunity for looters is clearly visible - even from a busy highway drivers can view destroyed homes where items such as televisions sit unattended. Hale estimated that seven miles worth of damaged homes need to be monitored. In hard-hit areas, officials stopped drivers to make sure they had a good reason to be in the area.

The violent storms raised fears that 2012 would be another bad year for tornadoes after 550 deaths in the United States were blamed on twisters last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the National Weather Service. AccuWeather.com reported that Friday's storms may be one of the worst tornado outbreaks for early March on record, with 80 sightings between 10am and 9pm. March and April are typically busy months for tornadoes, and it is difficult to predict how bad the rest of the tornado season would be, according to Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist, NOAA's National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.

In 1982, Argentina occupied the fiercely British islands only to be driven off by a Royal Navy-led task force in a war that cost the lives of 255 British servicemen, three Falkland Islanders and 655 Argentines. Major General Thompson, the land commander in the war, tells a Channel 5 documentary: “We couldn’t do it again. We couldn’t retake them without a carrier, so they would be lost.”

“It would be a huge betrayal because all that blood and sacrifice and the money we spent defending them would have been wasted.”

Since 1982, Britain has built the vast Mount Pleasant air base which is garrisoned by 1,300 troops and four Typhoon Eurofighters. The islands are also protected by a Royal Navy warship while a submarine is thought to be in the area to deter any threat.

But in a separate interview, Major General Thompson said Argentina had the forces to seize the islands. He said: “The Argentines have a marine brigade. They’ve got a parachute brigade and special forces. All they’ve got to do is get those guys in for long enough to destroy the jets and that’s the end of it.”

It's called the Scroll of Esther, a tale of palace intrigue featuring a Jewish beauty who charms a Persian king into foiling an evil adviser's genocidal plans for her people some 2,500 years ago. "Then too, they wanted to wipe us out," Mr Netanyahu told Mr Obama, according to an Israeli official. Jewish faithful gather in synagogues on Wednesday to read the parchment text, popularly known as the Megillah, on the eve of the Jewish costume holiday of Purim, a celebration of salvation and of turning the tables on one's foes.

"And the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, and with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto them that hated them," one of the verses says. Mr Netanyahu, who has called Iran's nuclear program a threat to the Jewish state's existence, made a point of telling reporters after his White House meeting with the president that he had given the Megillah to Mr Obama.

The Israeli leader, in a frosty meeting with Mr Obama last May, lectured the president on Jewish history and criticized his approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr Netanyahu has also invoked the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed, in citing the dangers he says a nuclear-armed Iran - the modern-day Persia - would pose. Mr Obama appealed to Mr Netanyahu at their White House meeting to give economic sanctions time to work, amid concern that Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, could strike Iranian atomic sites.

The two men, who have had a strained relationship, sought to present a united front in the Iranian nuclear standoff as they held White House talks. But their public statements revealed differences over how to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Behind closed doors, however, Netanyahu confirmed to Obama what the president has already stated publicly - that Israel has yet to decide whether to hit Iran's nuclear sites but retains the right to resort to military action, a source close to the talks said.

Kicking off one of the most consequential meetings of US and Israeli leaders in years, Messrs Obama and Netanyahu made no mention of lingering disagreements over what Washington fears could be an Israeli rush to attack Iran's nuclear program in the coming months. Mr Obama, facing election-year pressure from Israel's US supporters and Republican presidential contenders, sought to assure Mr Netanyahu the United States was keeping its own military option open as a last resort and "has Israel's back."

But he also urged Israeli patience to allow sanctions and diplomacy to work.