Prof Harari, who has written a landmark book charting the history of humanity, said mankind would evolve to become like gods with the power over death, and be as different from humans of today as we are from chimpanzees. He argued that humans as a race were driven by dissatisfaction and that we would not be able to resist the temptation to ‘upgrade’ ourselves, whether by genetic engineering or technology. “We are programmed to be dissatisfied, “said Prof Harari. “Even when humans gain pleasure and achievements it is not enough. They want more and more.”

“I think it is likely in the next 200 years or so homo sapiens will upgrade themselves into some idea of a divine being, either through biological manipulation or genetic engineering by the creation of cyborgs, part organic part non-organic. It will be the greatest evolution in biology since the appearance of life. Nothing really has changed in four billion years biologically speaking. But we will be as different from today’s humans as chimps are now from us.”

However he warned that the 'cyborg' technology would be restricted to the wealthiest in society, widening the gap between rich and poor in society. In the future the rich may be able to live forever while the poor would die out. Prof Harari said humans had become such a dominant species because of our ability to invent ‘fictions’ which held society together, such as religion, money and the idea of fundamental human rights, which have no basis in nature.

“God is extremely important because without religious myth you can’t create society. Religion is the most important invention of humans. As long as humans believed they relied more and more on these gods they were controllable. But what we see in the last few centuries is humans becoming more powerful and they no longer need the crutches of the Gods. Now we are saying we do not need God, just technology.”

“The most interesting place in the world from a religious perspective is not the Middle East, it’s Silicon Valley where they are developing a techno-religion. They believe even death is just a technological problem to be solved. What enables humans to cooperate flexibly, and exist in large societies is our imagination. With religion it’s easy to understand. You can’t convince a chimpanzee to give you a banana with the promise it will get 20 more bananas in chimpanzee heaven. It won’t do it. But humans will.”

“Most legal systems are based on human rights but it is all in our imagination. Money is the most successful story ever. You have the master storytellers, the bankers, the finance ministers telling you that money is worth something. It isn’t. Try giving money to a chimp. It’s worthless.”

Google has published a patent that suggests creepy-looking teddy bears and rabbits could one day keep a watchful eye on children and adults, eavesdropping on everything we say. The internet-connected devices would listen for instructions and interact with homeowners to switch lights on and off or turn on household appliances upon a simple vocal command, for example.

The toys, dreamed up by Google’s secretive R&D division, have captured the attention of privacy campaigners, because they contain microphones, speakers and cameras. The toys also feature motors to change their facial expressions and have the ability to connect to the internet. Google’s patent suggests the ‘toy’ would listen for a trigger word and upon hearing it, would turn to face the speaker. Using cameras, it would check the person is making eye contact with the toy, the BBC reports.

It suggests that by looking cute, ‘young children might find these forms to be attractive’ and adults would interact with them more naturally than a traditional computer interface. Homes could use one or have a number of ‘toys’ to spread around the home to assist different members of the family.

Thoughts on the continent have now turned to dealing with the 'British question’. Gripped by months of turmoil over Greece's future in the eurozone, the spectre of a British withdrawal from the EU could not have come at a worse time for Brussels' beleaguered institutions. Viewed a “Pandora’s box” in Brussels, a new European treaty would require ratification in 28 national parliaments and potentially trigger referenda in many other member states. Resistance has been led by the French, still scarred by the failure of a popular vote on the European Constitution in 2005.

“Treaty change lasts a long time”, warned Martin Schulz, a German social democrat and head of the European Parliament. “The EU has the four freedoms - of movement, persons, goods capital and services. We will not change that basis of the European Union.” As for Mr Cameron, he embarks on a blitz of Europe's capitals from Amsterdam to Berlin this week, in his bid to visit every member state in anticipation of his renegotiation talks.

His early skirmishes suggest a diplomatic minefield awaits in the Conservatives' attempts to declare victory over the British question in Europe.

It leaves a thin safety buffer against any economic shock - most potently if China abandons its crawling dollar peg and resorts to 'beggar-thy-neighbour' policies, transmitting a further deflationary shock across the global economy. Stephen King from HSBC warns that the global authorities have alarmingly few tools to combat the next crunch, given that interest rates are already zero across most of the developed world, debts levels are at or near record highs, and there is little scope for fiscal stimulus.

"The world economy is sailing across the ocean without any lifeboats to use in case of emergency," he said. HSBC's Mr King says the global authorities face awful choices if the world economy hits the reefs in its current condition. The last resort may have to be "helicopter money", a radically different form of QE that injects money directly into the veins of economy by funding government spending.

It is a Rubicon that no central bank wishes to cross, though the Bank of Japan is already in up to the knees. The imperative is to avoid any premature tightening or policy error that could crystallize the danger. As Mr King puts it acidly. "Many – including the owner of the Titanic – thought it was unsinkable: its designer, however, was quick to point out that 'She is made of iron, sir, I assure you she can'."

Mr Cantlie, whose fellow journalist hostages have all either been released or beheaded, has appeared in the group’s propaganda videos and written previous pieces. In his latest work, presumed to be written under pressure but in his hall-mark style combining hyperbole, metaphor and sarcasm, he says that President Obama’s policies for containing Isil have demonstrably failed and increased the risk to America.

He raises a “hypothetical” possibility under which Isil operatives in Pakistan bribe an official to provide them with a nuclear device which is smuggled into America via Libya, Nigeria, South America and Mexico. “Perhaps such a scenario is far-fetched but it’s the sum of all fears for Western intelligence agencies and it’s infinitely more possible today than it was just one year ago,” he writes.

“And if not a nuke, what about a few thousand tons of ammonium nitrate explosive? That’s easy enough to make.” He says it is no secret that Isil is planning to attack America on a large scale.

His remarks came as Greece's finance minister Yanis Varoufakis cautioned that the entire euro project could unravel if Athens crashed out of the single currency. Greece is due to hand over the money in four instalments in June as part of its settlement for the bail-out in 2011.

But Mr Voutsis said the government was determined to fight the lenders' strategy of 'asphyxiation', warning: 'This money will not be given and is not there to be given.' Greece could be forced to leave the euro and revert to the drachma if it fails to pay its creditors. It is struggling to pay wages and pensions while meeting its debt obligations.

But Mr Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that if a deal was not made, it could also spell the end for the euro project.

As you can imagine, that means that Greek government accounts are just about bone dry. The new Greek government continues to insist that it will never “violate its anti-austerity mandate”, but the screws are tightening. Right now the unemployment rate in Greece is over 25 percent and the banking system is on the verge of collapse. It isn’t going to take much to set off a panic, and when it does happen there are already rumors that the EU plans to confiscate money from private bank accounts just like they did in Cyprus.

Throughout this entire multi-year crisis, things have never been this dire for the Greek government. In fact, Greece came this close to defaulting on a loan payment to the IMF back on May 12th. And with essentially no money remaining at all, the Greek government is supposed to make several large payments in the weeks ahead…

The Germans believe that at some point the economic and financial pain will become so immense that it will force the new Greek government to give in to their demands. The Greeks believe that the threat of a full blown European financial crisis will cause the Germans to back down at the last moment. So what if they are both wrong? What if both sides are fully prepared to stand their ground and take us over the cliff and into disaster?

According to Al-Khatib, the pronouncements by Netanyahu's ministers – such as the statement last week by new Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people – were simply reflective of the feelings of most Israelis. Such statements, he said “merely highlight the religious nature of the dispute,” as opposed to the proclamations by Israeli leaders that the dispute is “political,” and that in the end, Jews and Muslims would end up in a conflict over the Land.

In 2013, Al-Khatib warned of a possible internal conflict with "the Israeli occupation" and threatened a "huge eruption" if Israel intervened on the Temple Mount ("Al Aqsa") and continued, according to him, to bother the Muslims praying there. Khatib called on Muslims to come to the aid of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, calling for it to be a place of Muslims alone, and claiming that all statements of the Jews regarding the construction of the Third Temple are nothing but "tales of the imagination."

"The protection of the Al-Aqsa mosque is not solely a task for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, residents who have been occupied since 1948 (referring to the State of Israel) and the Palestinian people themselves. It is the task of the entire Muslim and Arab world,” he said.

These environmental advocates - who work with bishops, religious orders, Catholic universities and lay movements - have been preparing for months to help maximize the effect of the statement, hoping for a transformative impact in the fight against global warming.

“This is such a powerful moment,” said Patrick Carolan, executive director of Franciscan Action Network, a Washington-based advocacy group formed by Franciscan religious orders. “We're asking ourselves, ‘What would be the best way for us to support the faith community in getting this out and using it as a call to action?’”

Francis is issuing the encyclical by the end of June with an eye toward the end-of-year UN climate change conference in Paris. “People are really putting a lot of weight on this,” said Nancy Tuchman, director of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago.

So Bofinger told the German magazine Der Spiegel in an interview that cash should be done away with. In Denmark, a new law was proposed that would allow shops to refuse cash payments. Officially, it’s to reduce the “administrative and financial burdens” of handling cash. Since it’s up to the shop to decide, the law sounds innocuous. But it would be another step to making money a purely electronic entity that can be seamlessly tracked anywhere. It would also be another step in granting the central bank the absolute power to inflict confiscatory monetary policies on any entity or person with money in the bank.

This law would come in handy. Denmark’s Nationalbank has imposed a negative deposit rate of -0.75%, with the intent of flogging savers and confiscating their money until their mood improves and limiting the appreciation of the krone against the sagging euro. But to evade the wrath of negative deposit rates, savers can pull cash out of the bank and store it under their mattress. And this must be stopped – by making cash useless.

But support is not unanimous on the German Council of Economic Experts. Lars Feld, one of the other “Five Sages on the Economy,” shot him down in the Frankfurter Allgemeine with a nod to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s famous quote, “Money is coined freedom.” Feld put it this way: “Cash is coined freedom.” Feld also criticized Bofinger for having “apparently neglected the constitutional aspects of this proposal.” Not that they couldn’t be ruled away by the courts, but for now, the constitution – and not only in Germany – would still be a roadblock.