A US intelligence assessment this summer, described to The Daily Beast by current and former US intelligence officials, concluded that any Israeli attack on hardened nuclear sites in Iran would go far beyond airstrikes from F-15 and F-16 fighter planes and likely include electronic warfare against Iran's electric grid, Internet, cellphone network, and emergency frequencies for firemen and police officers.

For example, Israel has developed a weapon capable of mimicking a maintenance cellphone signal that commands a cell network to "sleep," effectively stopping transmissions, officials confirmed. The Israelis also have jammers capable of creating interference within Iran's emergency frequencies for first responders. In a 2007 attack on a suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar, the Syrian military got a taste of this warfare when Israeli planes "spoofed" the country's air-defense radars, at first making it appear that no jets were in the sky and then in an instant making the radar believe the sky was filled with hundreds of planes.

Israel also likely would exploit a vulnerability that US officials detected two years ago in Iran's big-city electric grids, which are not "air-gapped" - meaning they are connected to the Internet and therefore vulnerable to a Stuxnet-style cyberattack - officials say. Tony Decarbo, the executive officer for JWAC, declined to comment for this story. The likely delivery method for the electronic elements of this attack would be an unmanned aerial vehicle the size of a jumbo jet. An earlier version of the bird was called the Heron, the latest version is known as the Eitan. According to the Israeli press, the Eitan can fly for 20 straight hours and carry a payload of one ton. Another version of the drone, however, can fly up to 45 straight hours, according to US and Israeli officials.

US president has vowed to close the door on American military involvement in Iraq by year's end, but Riyadh is reportedly afraid Iran will use the American exit to take over the country. Since 2008, officials in the Iraqi interim government have complained to Washington that both Iran and Saudi Arabia were, respectively, funding the Shiite and Sunni insurgencies that have plagued the country since the US-led invasion that toppled late dictator Sadam Hussein.

Security experts say Baghdad's security forces are unprepared to confront the rival insurgencies that hold Iraq in their grip - and that Obama's dogged drive to fulfill his campaign promise may have disastrous consequences both for the region and US interests.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies have been locked in a strategic battle with Iran for hegemony over the Persian Gulf - and have accused Tehran of seeking to destabilize the region through its 'Shiite Diaspora.' Gulf Arab leaders have sought to exert pressure on Iran and its regional allies - most notably Syrian president Bashar al-Assad - by allying themselves with Western powers opposed to Tehran's aggressive posture. They have also joined western powers in targeting Iran's nuclear program, which they see as targeting them first and foremost - rather than Israel, who Iran has threatened repeatedly with destruction.

The German Chancellor will demand British support for treaty changes to allow greater intervention in national economies - powers she says are vital to stem the crisis engulfing Europe's core. Amid soaring bond yields and plunging markets, Ms Merkel's political deputy said he was "baffled" by British reticence because London could be hardest hit. Michael Meister told reporters: "I'm baffled that in Great Britain there doesn't seem to be a clear view of the consequences a collapse of the euro would have for the City of London."

He told the paper that he thought Europe would one day be united under a single currency, though it would take a little while longer. But he added: "It will probably be sooner than many people believe today in the British Isles." It's a fascinating insight into the view from Berlin.

The sentence was a gift for euroskeptics in Britain. "Suddenly Europe is speaking German," said Volker Kauder, floor leader for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union, at the CDU party congress in Leipzig. The British press eagerly jumped on the soundbite on Wednesday, seeing it as confirmation of the old prejudices about Germany's supposed thirst for power.

"Europe speaks German now!" was the headline in the tabloid newspaper Daily Mail, complete with fat exclamation points. "Controversial claim from Merkel ally that EU countries all follow Berlin's lead - and Britain should fall into line," the paper continued in outrage. But the consensus of the conservative British press was that such a thing would, of course, never happen. Instead, so the euroskeptics argued, Britain should take advantage of the euro crisis to "free" itself from the EU."

The Kauder controversy is the latest indication of a growing rift between Berlin and London. On the British side, Business Secretary Vince Cable added fuel to the fire on Wednesday in connection to a proposed European Union tax on financial transactions. Cable described the so-called Tobin tax, which Germany has been campaigning for, as "completely unjustified." Kauder, meanwhile, had earlier criticized British opposition to the tax as irresponsible.

Things are not running smoothly between Berlin and London. And the timing of the conflict is far from ideal. On Friday, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister David Cameron are due to meet in Berlin. Given that Europe is in the middle of a crisis of historic proportions, they will have a lot to discuss.

But even at the highest level, the two countries are not singing from the same song sheet. On Monday, Merkel and Cameron both happened to hold keynote speeches on Europe - and their messages couldn't have been more different.

"Merkel: More Europe, Cameron: Less Europe," was how Benedict Brogan, deputy editor of the Daily Telegraph, pithily summed up the speeches. Merkel, speaking at the CDU party congress, called for the European Union to be deepened step by step. Meanwhile, Cameron, talking at a banquet in London's financial district, said he would use the crisis to claw back power from Brussels. In doing so, he was echoing a central demand of the euroskeptics in his Conservative party.

The poll of 50 bond strategists across Europe and the United States conducted this week gave a median 48 percent probability that the ECB will be forced to conduct outright quantitative easing (QE). That would be a highly controversial break from its existing policy, where it offsets government bond purchases in its Securities Markets Programme by draining liquidity from the system in separate operations.

Of those who predicted the ECB would start QE, as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have done, a majority said it would happen by March 2012. A slim majority, 25 of 49, of analysts saw an even bigger role for the ECB, expecting it to become the lender of last resort, providing emergency loans for governments. ECB policymakers have rejected international calls to intervene decisively to shore up the euro zone, but volatility in regional debt markets in recent weeks has made a decision on a bigger role for the monetary authority more pressing.

Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades, temporarily halting the demonstration of around 30,000 people. No injuries or arrests have been reported. Greeks rallied to mark the 38th anniversary of the day in 1973 when military tanks quashed a student rebellion at the Athens Polytechnic. Some 7,000 police officers were deployed as the city braced itself for anti-austerity demonstrations arising from the annual march.

Authorities feared the threat of trouble this year was much more acute thanks to anger at the price being paid by ordinary workers for the country's economic crisis. Greece has already had to change its government as it battles to introduce sweeping austerity measures in order to stay solvent and part of the eurozone.

The International Monetary Fund said it was awaiting 'broad political support' before giving Greece more aid. Across the atlantic, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in New York's famous Wall Street financial district, with some trying to stop workers getting into their offices. Demonstrators angry at budget cuts clashed with police across Italy, where transport strikes left buses and trains stranded.

Police in riot gear clashed with students in Milan, while in Palermo, Sicily, protesters hurled eggs and smoke bombs at a bank. They also threw stones at police who hit back back with pepper spray and charged demonstrators who were trying to occupy another bank. In Rome, hundreds of students gathered outside Sapienza University, while others assembled near the main train station ahead of a planned march on the Senate. The protests came as new Italian Premier Mario Monti unveiled his economic strategy ahead of a confidence vote in the new technocrat government.

Addressing the Italian senate on Thursday night, Mario Monti said Europe was living through its "most difficult moments since the aftermath of the second world war". And he warned that "the end of the euro would pull apart the single market".

The Monti government's first day in office was clouded by a warning from former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi that it would last only as long as he and his supporters wanted. Berlusconi, who could still command a majority in the senate, was quoted as having told his followers in the upper house that he would be deciding whether to support the government bill by bill.

In Milan, meanwhile, police clashed with demonstrators protesting at austerity measures and the new political importance assumed by Italy's financial elite. Monti was the rector of Milan's business-oriented Bocconi University and his industry ministry, Corrado Passera, was the head of the country's biggest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo.

Presenting his government's programme to the senate, Monti, a former European commissioner, sent a warning that Italians could expect yet another package of deficit-reduction measures. He said it would ensure "full implementation" of initiatives already agreed with European institutions. But he added: "We shall assess further correctives."

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is today expected to tell David Cameron that Britain does not need a referendum on EU treaty changes, despite demands from senior Conservatives for more powers to be repatriated to Britain. The leaked memo, written by the German foreign office, discloses radical plans for an intrusive new European body that will be able to take over the economies of beleaguered eurozone countries.

It discloses that the EU's largest economy is also preparing for other European countries, which are too large to be bailed out, to default on their debts - effectively going bankrupt. It will prompt fears that German plans to deal with the eurozone crisis involve an erosion of national sovereignty that could pave the way for a EUROPEAN "SUPER STATE" with its own tax and spending plans set in Brussels.

Britain would be relegated to a new outer group of EU members who are not in the single currency. Mr Cameron will today travel to Brussels and Berlin for tense negotiations with Mrs Merkel amid growing disagreement between the leaders over how to deal with the eurozone.

The Prime Minister is increasingly exasperated that Germany refuses to provide more financial help for Italy and other struggling countries amid concerns that the crisis is having a "chilling effect" on the British economy. Mrs Merkel yesterday said she expected Mr Cameron to "examine a stronger involvement with other countries" once the eurozone crisis had been resolved.

The six-page German foreign ministry paper sets out plans for the creation of a European Monetary Fund with a transfer of sovereignty away from member states. The fund will have the power to take ailing countries into receivership and run their economies. The negotiating document also explicitly examines ways to limit treaty changes to speed up the reforms. It indicates that Mrs Merkel will tell Mr Cameron to rule out a popular EU vote in Britain.

As a young man, the utopian socialist Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) insisted that his valet wake him each morning with the exhortation: "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do." Saint-Simon was the first systematic advocate of rule by industrialists who made things and scientists who knew things. He was an apostle of "technocracy", that is the belief that we would all be better off if only experts were allowed to rule.

"The role of the talkers is approaching its end, that of the doers will not be long delayed in making its appearance," he warned the 30,000 clerics and rentiers he thought France could do without. Technocracy has suddenly become all the rage amidst the debt crisis of the eurozone. In Greece, prime minister George Papandreou was ousted in favour of the unelected former central banker Lucas Papademos, after he had the effrontery to call the referendum that never was.

In Italy, Mario Monti, the unelected former EU commissioner, has appointed a cabinet of academics, bankers and an admiral, without a single representative of Italy's political parties. This novel step is designed to reassure international bond markets, which have recently pushed Italy's yields to perilous levels. Leaving aside the notorious petty-mindedness and hopeless indecision that characterises any academic meeting I've ever attended, the example of the Soviet Union, 89 per cent of whose politburo consisted of graduate engineers, should give us pause for thought.

During the Cold War, US foreign policy was dominated by a group of mainly East Coast "wise men", many of them wealthy industrialists or corporate lawyers such as Averell Harriman or John Foster Dulles. The elitist nature of this group was made very clear when one of the greatest Secretaries of State, the anglophile snob Dean Acheson, said: "If you truly had a democracy and did what people wanted, you'd go wrong every time."

Representatives from dissident groups submitted a formal request to Turkey for troops to be sent across the border to create a haven for civilians and rebels fighting Mr Assad's regime, according to a Turkish newspaper with close links to the government in Ankara.

The Turkish administration has already provided shelter to the Syrian Free Army, an increasingly potent rebel force, on its side of the border, but has long denied having any intention of forming a buffer zone within Syrian territory itself.

Despite the risks of being drawn into a regional war with its neighbour, Turkey is considering the request and could take action if it received backing from the United Nations and the Arab League, the Sabah newspaper quoted officials as saying.

Stepping up the pressure on Ankara, Islamists within the Syrian opposition indicated yesterday that they could ask Turkey to broaden its mission by imposing a no-fly zone across the country. "If the international community procrastinates, then more is required from Turkey as a neighbour to be more serious than other countries," Mohammed Riad Shaqfa, an exiled leader of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood, said in Istanbul.

"If other interventions are required, such as air protection, because of the regime's intransigence, then the people will accept Turkish intervention. They do not want Western intervention."

Italian and French borrowing costs also rose as investors feared the countries may default on their debt repayments amid fears the eurozone is on the brink of recession. Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG Index, said: "Italian benchmark yields are back in the bailout zone, above 7 per cent, despite the installation of a cabinet of technocrat experts in Rome, while Spanish yields are heading merrily towards the same abyss.

"Even more worrying was the continuing rise in French bond yields, and while these might be nowhere near the danger zone, it reminds everyone that the next eurozone domino after Italy and Spain is France." When Portugal and Ireland's borrowing costs rose above 7 per cent they were forced to accept bail-outs.

The rise in borrowing costs for Spain and Italy are creating panic because the countries are seen as too big to bail-out and could crash the eurozone. Kathleen Brooks, of Forex.com, said: "Expect a lot of volatility in the markets for as long as Spain remains under pressure."

Although the number of Catholics in Benin is rising quickly, the majority of the population follow voodoo, which was taken by slaves to the Caribbean. The Pope is also likely to face questions about comments on condoms. On his 2009 visit to Africa, he sparked outrage among Aids activists by saying that handing out condoms was worsening the spread of HIV in the continent worst hit by Aids.

Pope Benedict is to visit the city of Ouidah on Saturday, where there is a voodoo museum. Voodoo Day is celebrated as a public holiday in Benin, where 40% of the population say they follow traditional African religions. Some 27% classify themselves as Christians and 22% Muslims, but the BBC's Virgile Ahissou in the largest city, Cotonou, says MANY OF THESE PEOPLE COMBINE VOODOO PRACTICES WITH EITHER CHRISTIANITY OR ISLAM.

The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now claim to protect against dehydration. Any producer breaching the order, signed by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, faces being jailed for up to two years. It took the 21 scientists on the panel three years of analysis into the link between water and dehydration to come to their extraordinary conclusion.

Last night the decision of the European Food Safety Authority's panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies was labelled "beyond parody". Ukip's deputy leader Paul Nuttall, who sits on the European Parliament's Public Health Committee, said: "I had to read this four or five times before I believed it. It is a perfect example of what the EU does best and makes the bendy banana law look positively sane."

Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: "The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are, highly paid, highly pensioned officials trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true. IF EVER THERE WERE AN EPISODE WHICH DEMONSTRATES THE FOLLY OF THE GREAT EUROPEAN PROJECT THEN THIS IS IT." A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "Of course water hydrates. While we support the EU in preventing false claims about commercial products, we need to exercise common sense as far as possible."

In early 2010, when Greece first ran into serious debt problems and required an immediate 110 billion euros ($148 billion) bailout, the debate in Europe was more of a philosophical one. European Union member states, said many, should not be forced to pay the debts of fellow members. This year, the discussion has taken a much more existential turn. With an ever-increasing number of countries becoming infected by the debt contagion spreading across the Continent, serious questions have been raised as to whether the EU is even able to help out its struggling members.

And the heart of the increasingly tense debate as to what should happen next has become the ongoing clash between France and Germany. Should the European Central Bank (ECB) become the lender of last resort or not? On Wednesday, France reiterated its affirmative answer to that question. In comments to the newspaper Les Echos, French Finance Minister Francois Baroin demanded that the ECB step in to do everything in its power to prop up the common currency. "We want to deploy all European institutions, including the ECB, to find the best possible answers to the crisis," he said. Baroin added that the US Federal Reserve "actively intervenes" in times of need, as do the central banks of Britain and Japan. The ECB, he demands, should do the same.

Berlin, however, is adamantly opposed to such a move. Were the ECB to flood the market with liquidity in the form of unlimited purchases of government bonds from debt-stricken euro-zone member states, rapidly climbing inflation could be the result. And Germany, for historical reasons stretching back to the 1920s - when hyperinflation smoothed Adolf Hitler's rise to power - has a deep-seated phobia of rapidly rising prices.