Pope Francis spoke at the end of a two-day conference at the Vatican called "Re-Thinking Europe" revealing he has major concerns for the future of the bloc. He spoke out in front of European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, the vice president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, and religious leaders as Spain imposed direct rule on Catalonia, for declaring independence.

While the pope did not specifically mention the situation in Catalonia, where the region's leaders want to break away from Spain, or Britain's decision to leave the EU, he spoke often of solidarity, teamwork and mutual sacrifice.

He said: "A European Union that, in facing its crises, fails to recover a sense of being a single community that sustains and assists its members - and not just a collection of small interest groups - would miss out not only on one of the greatest challenges of its history, but also on one of the greatest opportunities for its own future.” 

"Particular and nationalist agendas risk thwarting the courageous dreams of the founders of Europe." Francis appeared to warn against the dangers to Europe posed by populist anti-immigrant parties, which are becoming more popular. The first Latin American pope said politics had often gone astray. He said: "Sadly, all too often we see how politics is becoming instead a forum for clashes between opposing forces."

After two World Wars ripped through the continent, Europe deserves peace, the Pope said, expressing disappointment that “particular and national agendas risk thwarting the courageous dreams of the founders of Europe.” To preserve European values, the Argentinian-born leader of the Catholic Church urged his followers to rediscover their traditional identity, starting with the family, which, he said, “remains the most fundamental place for this process of discovery.”

The Pope noted that Christians must pass on the values of past generations to their offspring as Europe is suffering a period of “dramatic sterility” which began in the 1960s. Pope Francis said that Christians can shape Europe's future by promoting political dialogue “where it is threatened and where conflict seems to prevail.” Politics, he noted, “is becoming a forum for clashes between opposing forces. The voice of dialogue is replaced by shouted claims and demands.”

“Leaders together share responsibility for promoting a Europe that is an inclusive community, free of one fundamental misunderstanding: namely that inclusion does not mean downplaying differences,” Francis added. In such a political environment, he called on Christians “to restore dignity to politics and to view politics as a lofty service to the common good, not a platform for power.”

After 11 hours of talks on Thursday, negotiators said they had failed to find much common ground on the difficult topics of climate change and immigration, but would take the weekend to consider the arguments of the other parties.

“We hope to take further steps in the course of next week,” Nicola Beer, general secretary of the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), told journalists. Immigration was the most divisive topic, with many conservatives keen to take a harder line after blaming their election setback on Merkel’s decision to open Germany to more than a million mainly Middle Eastern migrants in 2015 and 2016.

An agreement reached between Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian CSU sister party to cap annual refugee numbers had to be the basis of any coalition accord, Andreas Scheuer, CSU general secretary, said after Thursday’s talks. “That is really going to be the crunch point,” he said, adding that the issue was the reason for the gains of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the election.

The Chinese plan to roll out a yuan-denominated oil contract before the end of this year is a very brave move, since countries who “tried to exit the oil-dollar matrix have met terrible ends,” Keiser pointed out. “Saddam Hussein wanted to trade oil in Euros and he was killed, Muammar Gaddafi wanted to trade his energy in something other than the US dollar – he was killed,” Keiser said.

China, however, has the resolve and the resources to pull-off the de-dollarization, and besides, it’s backed by several major countries which are “resistant to America’s financial cartel,” namely Russia and Iran, Keiser said. Countries worldwide are tired of funding America’s “military adventurism by being a party to the ‘Empire of Debt,’ as it’s known around the world – the US dollar,” and therefore, will likely join the de-dollarization movement, Keiser said.

The US financial sector and its military-industrial complex are unlikely to give up the dollar hegemony without a fight, though, as the dollar is both the basis and the main product of America. And the US will use its other favorite tool for it – war, Keiser believes. “Maybe they will start a war between Japan and China, and maybe they will start a war with North Korea. America will do anything to keep the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” Keiser said.

“They will invade the countries, like Afghanistan, they will stop at nothing. Because this is the basis of the US empire. It’s not land-based, it’s not based on material goods, it’s based on rent-seeking. It’s based on landing dollars, getting out income and when countries can’t pay they dismantle the assets and take them over. We saw it in Latin America, South America, this is how America built its empire.”

The rocket, also known as RS-28 Sarmat, was fired from the Plestek Cosmodrome and travelled 3,600 miles before hitting a target on the Kura test range. Three submarines capable of carrying nuclear warheads also carried out successful ballistic missile tests, while three bombers hit ground targets with cruise missiles.

Russian military forces 'have carried out an exercise to manage its strategic nuclear forces,' the ministry said in a statement. 'All objectives of the training have been successfully completed,' the statement said. The Sarmat next generation intercontinental ballistic missile can 'beat any defences' and wipe out entire countries, according to Russia's military. It would be capable of delivering warheads of 40 megatons - 2,000 times as powerful as the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The vote in Barcelona was a secret ballot backed 70-10 and boycotted by opposition MPs. Secessionists hold a slim majority in the parliament. Minutes after the vote, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy appealed for calm and vowed to restore legal order to the rogue region, which he will now seek to govern directly from Madrid.

"Spain is a serious country, a great nation, and we are not going to watch while a few individuals try to liquidate our constitution," he said. As Madrid's senate approved his motion to take special powers, including direct rule over Catalonia, he also announced that a cabinet meeting would be held at 5pm BST.

Meanwhile, thousands of pro-independence activists cheered in Barcelona as the Catalan parliament result was announced.

The 46-year-old's name carries greater weight in Brussels than that of any other EU official, his reputation forged through ruthless back-room tactics and allegations of bullying. Some former colleagues refer to him as the "monster in the Berlaymont" - the Commission's headquarters - while others praise him as a master manipulator with a diabolical intellect honed through his previous career as a lawyer.

His enemies and allies agree on one thing, however: the chief of staff is utterly committed to the European project and will do whatever is necessary to ensure its survival.

Trump said on October 13 he would not certify Iran is complying with an agreement on curtailing its nuclear program, signed by his predecessor, Barack Obama, opening a 60-day window for Congress to act to reimpose sanctions. “If international efforts led these days by US President Trump don’t help stop Iran attaining nuclear capabilities, Israel will act militarily by itself,” Katz said in an interview in Tokyo. “There are changes that can be made (to the agreement) to ensure that they will never have the ability to have a nuclear weapon.”

Israel has taken unilateral action in the past without the consent of its major ally, the United States, including air strikes on a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007 and in Iraq in 1981. A strike against Iran, however, would be a risky venture with the potential to provoke a counter strike and roil financial markets.

An Israeli threat of military strikes could, nonetheless, galvanize support in the United States for toughening up the nuclear agreement but it could also backfire by encouraging hardliners in Iran and widening a rift between Washington and European allies.

So far, none of the other signatories to the deal — Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, Iran and the European Union — has cited serious concerns, leaving the United States isolated.

Haredi lawmakers reacted with fury to the ruling, vowing to introduce legislation that will override the ruling and even give the Knesset the ability to overide High Court rulings more broadly, as has also been proposed of late by the Bayit Yehudi party. Korach and the association argue that by opening on Shabbat when other businesses seek to take advantage of their day of rest, large chains are unfairly taking business away from smaller independent outlets. 

“They are stealing the income of grocery stores that observe the law,” he said, referring to the Law for Hours of Work and Rest, which prohibits requiring an employee to work on the Sabbath.

Far from the scope of free religious expression is “Xi Jinping Thought,” the colloquial name for the ideology the Chinese president has now formally enshrined into the CPC’s constitution. At the congress this week, the head of the umbrella agency that supervises religion insisted that “socialist core values” must be at the heart of any religious faith active in China.

Zhang Yijiong, the head of the United Front Work Department (UFWD), explained on Friday that the Communist Party had a long way to go to “sinicize religion” — make it more Chinese. This required, Zhang argued, harsh measures to prevent anyone from “taking advantage of religion to harm national security,” “promoting extremism for terrorist activities,” and “endangering national unity,” according to the Diplomat.