There are skeptics, certainly, on both sides of the ecumenical divide. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the leader of the Byzantine-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church, has been forthright about his concerns. Now Patriarch Kirill has acknowledged that “powerful forces” opposed the meeting - and almost on cue, the Georgian Orthodox Church reminded the world that there are still pockets of intransigent opposition to ecumenism in the Orthodox world.

Perhaps the ecumenical importance of the meeting in the Havana airport had always been exaggerated. In the days leading up to the meeting, the Moscow patriarchate inflated the drama, saying that it could mark the beginning of the end of 1,000 years of Catholic-Orthodox estrangement. That claim was invalid for two reasons.

First, the Great Schism of 1054 broke off relations between Rome and Constantinople; the Patriarchate of Moscow did not even exist at the time, and would not be formed until the 16th century.

Second, the healing of that painful East-West breach began in 1965, when Pope Paul VI met with Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople. For 50 years since then, relations between the Vatican and the Ecumenical Patriarchate have been growing steadily more regular, friendly, and productive. The Moscow patriarchate is arriving late to the ecumenical party.

Anyone who hoped for a dramatic ecumenical breakthrough at the Havana airport meeting should have revised his expectations after seeing the schedule established in advance for this summit meeting. The encounter was to take place not in a church but in an airport meeting room. (Is there any more thoroughly secular venue than an airport?)

There was no opportunity for the Pope and the Patriarch to pray together — or to be more precise, if they did pray together, they would do so behind closed doors, with no witnesses. That schedule seemed to testify to the existence of those “powerful forces” the Patriarch later mentioned; the Moscow patriarchate was afraid that a joint prayer session with the Pope could touch off angry protests among recalcitrant Russian prelates.

The rejection of the preparatory document by one of the world's fourteen autocephalous Orthodox churches poses the first serious challenge for the council's planners. A key organizing principle for the council has been that any statement or document produced by the participants must have unanimous support. The opposition of the Georgian hiearchy also illustrates the deep suspicions about ecumenical work within some Orthodox circles.

Patriarch Ilia II of Tbilisi, the leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, announced that the Georgian Synod had rejected the document on ecumenism. "Our Church is that which saves our country and our people," he said. "In the future our Church will stand as a guard for Orthodoxy."

Cambodia is considered a “high deforestation” country by the United Nations, but the prime minister’s comments reported by AP mark a serious escalation in the fight to prevent illegal logging. The prime minister was speaking at the opening of Cambodia’s new Ministry of Environment building on Thursday when he revealed the dramatic anti-illegal logging tactic. Hun Sen told reporters that no rockets have been fired under the new orders as of yet.

It has been estimated that, over the past two decades, industrial development and illegal logging has cost the country approximately 2.85 million hectares of forest – the size of a small country.

This is a crushing defeat for the Obama White House, as the President is hopeful to leave a legacy on the Supreme Court that could spend the next 20-40 years enacting his radical left-wing agenda: “We believe the American people need to decide who is going to make this appointment rather than a lame duck president,” said Majority Whip John Cornyn.

When asked if they would start the process after the new president took office or if they would consider doing it in the lame duck session, Cornyn replied “No, after the next president is selected. That way the American people have a voice in the process.”

The Republican members of the Judiciary Committee were unanimous in agreeing not to move forward with any Obama nominee for the Supreme Court, said Cornyn, who was in the meeting. Senator Bob Corker (Republican for Tennessee), who was not in the meeting, later said that GOP senators were told at their weekly lunch that the Judiciary Committee Republicans were in unanimous agreement on the strategy.

Senator Lindsey Graham said that “there’s no use starting a process that’s not going to go anywhere and we are going to let the next president decide,” when asked why there would be no hearings.

Because it is huge, some in the UK feel we would be safer and economically stronger in the EU. This is wrong. We now have the opportunity to jump ship to safety. An opportunity we are never likely to have again. Not a leap into the dark, but for those able to look ahead, a move to safety.

Brexit allows the UK to address directly the areas that the EU has rendered us rudderless in. These include returning sovereignty and having a meaningful immigration target that can be met. We can focus attention on what is needed for small firms and for ordinary workers across the whole country. Outside the EU we can position the UK to be outward looking.

Consider this. Of the $215 million spent by Super Pacs – the cash-guzzling, arm's-length organisations that do the dirty work of a campaign – so far only $9.2 million has been spent on attacking Mr Trump, according to The New York Times. Peanuts. And that's for the thinnest skinned candidate in the race. A glance at his Twitter feed is evidence enough of how badly he takes criticism. A toddler would be embarrassed.

A bolder strategy is needed. It's time for the Republican party to start to love the Donald, to groom him as their candidate, rein in his excesses and curb his profanities. It is not as crazy as it sounds. In fact it has started. Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is among the establishment figures who have begun quietly advising Mr Trump in something of a kitchen cabinet.

The country has changed. Donald Trump offers the Republican Party a chance to change with it. This is no longer about whether he is the best candidate. That was last year's question. He is simply the candidate.

They are set to proceed with plans to make London the domicile for the new holding company, despite the looming June 23 referendum on British membership of the EU, in a boost to the City’s role as Europe’s dominant financial centre.

Carsten Kengeter, a former banker in charge of the German exchange for just over eight months, would be the chief executive of the enlarged company, which would be chaired by Donald Brydon, chairman of the LSE, people close to the talks said. The potential deal, which both sides confirmed on Tuesday, would pave the way for LSE’s head Xavier Rolet to depart after a seven-year run that has re-established the company among the world’s leading exchanges.

The two companies have already outlined what they call an all-share “merger of equals” that would create a European champion, an indication of the heightened political and regulatory sensitivities of any agreement. Neither side has revealed crucial details, such as future management and the domicile of the combined group.

People close to the matter said a deal could come within two weeks but warned that discussions were not finalised and there was no certainty a deal would go ahead. Both companies declined to comment.

Ya’alon, speaking in Cyprus, said Iran is aiming to destabilize the Middle East and other parts of the world and is training, funding and arming “emissaries” to spread a revolution. He called Tehran the anchor of a “dangerous axis” that includes Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut, Saana and other cities in the region.

In 2012, a Lebanese man was arrested in Cyprus and accused of plotting a Hezbollah attack against Israelis.

Israel considers Iran the biggest threat to the region, citing its support for anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as efforts to use the power vacuum in Syria to set up cells to attack Israel from the Golan Heights.

She wondered how Muslims would have reacted if Christians had committed suicide bombings among them, or tried to force their faith on them and called on the Muslim world "to be introspective and enact reforms, instead of condemning Western attitudes towards it," said MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.

"Imagine a Western youth coming here and carrying out a suicide mission in one of our public squares in the name of the Cross," wrote Al-Budair.

"Imagine that two skyscrapers had collapsed in some Arab capital, and that an extremist Christian group, donning millennium-old garb, had emerged to take responsibility for the event, while stressing its determination to revive Christian teachings or some Christian rulings, according to its understanding, to live like in the time [of Jesus] and his disciples, and to implement certain edicts of Christian scholars…

"Imagine hearing the voices of monks and priests from churches and prayer houses in and out of the Arab world, screaming on loudspeakers and levelling accusations against Muslims, calling them infidels, and chanting: 'God, eliminate the Muslims and defeat them all.'

"Imagine that we had provided an endless number of foreign groups with visas, ID cards, citizenships, proper jobs, free education, free modern healthcare, social security, and so on, and later a member of one of these groups came out, consumed by hatred and bloodlust, and killed our sons on our streets, in our buildings, in our newspaper [offices], in our mosques and in our schools.

"Imagine a Frenchman or a German in Paris or Berlin leading his Muslim neighbor [somewhere] in order to slaughter him and then freeze his head in an ice box, in a cold and calculating manner… as one terrorist did with the head of an American in Riyadh years ago.

"Imagine that we visited their country as tourists and they shot at us, blew up car bombs near us, and announced their opposition to our presence [there] by chanting: 'Remove the Muslims from the land of culture.'

"After all these farces, some Arab analyst comes out touting a pathetic message, and reciting the same words in his friend's ear that he has repeated millions of times: 'Those Muslims who commit terrorism do not represent Islam, but only themselves.' This is all we know how to do – absolve ourselves of guilt."

The head of the interior ministry’s election headquarters, Mohammad Hossein Moghimi, said on Thursday that 4,844 hopefuls would contest the 290 seats, meaning 1,385 candidates have withdrawn. Polls will open at 0430 GMT and are scheduled to close at 1430 GMT but voting could be extended if required, Iranian media quoted him as saying.

His comments followed a state television appearance late Wednesday by Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli who revealed the fall in numbers. “It now leaves around 17 people competing for each parliamentary seat,” Fazli said. Iranian politics is dominated by factions rather than political parties and Friday’s poll will see conservatives up against moderates and reform-minded candidates on a series of lists.

Dependent almost entirely on foreign aid, Afghan security forces are struggling to secure the country amid a rising insurgency. As the NATO-led coalition's military presence dwindled last year, Afghan leaders reached out to Moscow, which fought a war of its own in Afghanistan during the 1980s, for more Russian-made weapons, including small arms, artillery and attack helicopters.

"This donation represents a deep friendship between two nations," Afghan national security adviser Hanif Atmar said at an event marking delivery of the arms shipment. "This important donation is from an important friend of Afghanistan in a crucial time for Afghanistan and the region." Wednesday's delivery comes as Russian officials say they have become impatient with the failures of Washington's policies in Afghanistan.