In a nationwide referendum just last Sunday, nearly 62 per cent of voters rejected an austerity deal that had been offered by the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank. There were scenes of wild jubilation across the country. “It was an expression of the will of the people,” Manos Agelidis, 27, a biomedical engineering PhD student, told The Telegraph as he celebrated with friends.

Fast forward just a few days, however, and Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, did the unthinkable. On Thursday, with a deadline imposed by the creditors looming, he buckled. His radical Left-wing Syriza government, which came to power in January on the unrealistic promise of putting an end to austerity and the country's six-year long economic nightmare, put forward a plan that promises spending cuts of €12 billion in return for a third international bail-out, this time worth €53.5 billion (£38.4 billion).

What swung it appears to have been Mr Tsipras' realisation that after five months of painstaking and often acrimonious negotiations, Europe's patience really had finally run out and that without a drastic compromise, Greece could crash out of the euro. He also won vague acknowledgment from the creditors that the nation's monumental debt of €320 billion is unsustainable and needs to be restructured.

But on the streets of Athens and in tavernas on the islands, many ordinary Greeks were dumb-founded over the spectacular U-turn. There was a rally against the new bail-out in central Athens on Friday, with demonstrators chanting slogans and waving banners with messages such as "Greece is not a colony" and "No, overturn the bailout". Several thousand Leftists protested in front of Parliament – the exact same place where just a few days before they had celebrated the rejection of the previous bail-out. But if and when the deal is accepted by all sides, the recriminations are likely to start in earnest.

The country faces "a time-out" from the single currency bloc if Greece fails to unlock between €82 billion and €86 billion in a third bail-out deal, according to a draft eurogroup statement. The text was released a day after it was revealed that Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany's finance minister, had tabled the proposal in Brussels.

Athens must now pass a series of tough reforms by Wednesday before the rest of the eurozone will consider a third rescue package, which includes up to €25 billion to shore up the country's beleaguered banking sector. Reforms include VAT hikes, pension cuts and a "scaled up privatisation programme" that will see €50 billion of the country's assets transferred into an "external fund" and sold off under Brussels' supervision.

Greece will also have to welcome back international debt inspectors from the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank to monitor the country's progress. "In case no agreement could be reached, Greece should be offered swift negotiations on a time-out from the euro area, with possible debt restructuring," the draft text said.

We are Government MPs from the European countries who didn’t join the EU – those in the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). It’s been many years since any opinion poll showed a pro-EU majority in an EFTA nation. Iceland has formally withdrawn its application, and the Swiss pro-EU campaign has admitted defeat and closed down. As for Norway, the latest survey there showed 17.8 per cent in favour of joining, 70.5 per cent against.

Why do people prefer our deal to yours? Not because it’s perfect – nothing is perfect – but because it allows us to participate in the European market while retaining our self-government. Of course, each of our states have struck slightly different deals with Brussels. Iceland is part of the European Economic Area, which brings it within some elements of EU jurisdiction, albeit almost entirely in economic fields; Switzerland relies instead on a series of bilateral treaties.

Still, the broad picture is similar enough. We buy and sell freely within the European market. But we are outside the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the rules on common EU citizenship, the harmonisation of criminal justice and other non-economic matters. We pay a contribution to the EU budget – but less than a third, in per capita terms, of what Britain does.

Critically, we are also outside the Common External Tariff. In other words, as well as trading freely with the EU, we can also sign bilateral treaties with non-EU states – something that Britain, as an EU member, can’t do. This is a real advantage in a world where Europe is the only continent that isn’t growing. For example, both our countries signed free trade agreements with China last year. Britain isn’t allowed to do so.

Iran currently faces economic pressure from several different sources. The United Nations began sanctioning Iran in 2006, after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the Islamic Republic was ignoring restrictions on developing nuclear weapons. The United States then began sanctioning the country in 2011, and the European Union followed the next year. Most previous reports on the current negotiations suggested that only the UN sanctions would be immediately lifted, while the US and EU sanctions would remain, at least until Iran guarantees its good will.

The Fars report also states that “the upcoming UN Security Council resolution – that will call all the previous five resolutions against Iran null and void - will be the last resolution to be issued on Iran’s nuclear program and [the UN will withdraw] Iran’s nuclear dossier from under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. This last resolution will remain valid and will be implemented for a specifically limited period of time and will then automatically end at the end of this period.”

While the Fars report did not discuss the deal's restrictions on Iran, a senior US official confirmed that Iran will not open all of its facilities to international inspectors. He explained that if the inspectors believe that Iran is illegally developing nuclear weapons, they will ask permission from the Islamic Republic to inspect suspicious sites.

Under new legislation proposed by over two dozen Democrats, that same rule would be applied federally. The bill, introduced by Representative Lois Capps, Democrat for California, would introduce new “gender-neutral” terms such as “spouse” or “married couple.” “The Amend the Code for Marriage Equality Act recognizes that the words in our laws have meaning and can continue to reflect prejudice and discrimination even when rendered null by our highest courts,” Capps said. “Our values as a country are reflected in our laws. I authored this bill because it is imperative that our federal code reflect the equality of all marriages.”

Capps said that amending the language used was necessary to reflect “the equality of all marriages” following last month’s Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage that mandated all states to license same sex marriages. “Now that compulsory gay marriage is the law of the land thanks to the US Supreme Court, liberals are reaching out from that decision to see where else they can force the gay lobby’s agenda on the country,” writes Warner Todd Huston.

Volcanoes are erupting around the globe this weekend, causing flight cancellations in southeast Asia and evacuations in Mexico. Hundreds of people have been forced to flee from their villages located at the foot of the Colima Volcano in western Mexico's Colima State, following an eruption this weekend which saw the active mountain spew ash and fire. The volcano, also known as the Volcano of Fire, also forced a local airport to close as authorities have sealed off a 7.5 mile area amid fears an even bigger eruption may occur.

In Chile, the Villarrica Volcano, around 460 miles south of the capital Santiago, has been erupting overnight. The Villarrica, located near the popular tourist resort of Pucon is among the most active in South America.

In Bali, Indonesia a volcano eruption on the neighbouring island of Java has forced one of Indonesia's busiest airports to close for the second time in just a few days. Mount Raung on Indonesia's main island of Java has been erupting for weeks, and on Thursday a cloud of drifting ash forced the closure of Bali airport during peak holiday season, and four others.

Indonesian government vulcanologist Gede Suantika said that Mount Raung continued to erupt Sunday, spewing ash up to 3,200 feet into the air, and the wind had in the morning pushed the cloud of dust towards Bali, some 90 miles away. Authorities raised the alert status of Mount Raung, a 3,300-metre volcano, late last month to the second highest level after it began to spew lava and ash high into the air.

Air traffic is regularly disrupted by volcanic eruptions in Indonesia, which sits on a belt of seismic activity running around the basin of the Pacific Ocean and is home to the highest number of active volcanoes in the world, around 130. Also in Indonesia, Mount Sinabung in Sumatra, has been erupting for two months, forcing the evacuation of more than 10,000 people.

It is clear that many conspiracy theories about the training exercise were bizarre, to say the least. The United States government is not “taking over”, they already “took” over. There’s no need to “invade” Texas, the government already controls it. But while there were plenty of rumors and conspiracy theories about Jade Helm these have apparently been generated in large part by the unusual secrecy surrounding the exercise.

A military spokesman even told the Washington Post that they will not be allowed to observe Jade Helm exercises, or report on them, in any way. Still, there is a plethora of social media users who see the words “Jade Helm” in the title of an article and then start talking about how any critical concerns about the exercises are tantamount to “tin foil hats”. But the Internet is replete with fallacious argumentation, and the government seems to count on the action-reaction of these types, interplaying and debating with those who jump to the most outrageous conclusions, to cooperatively create an informational smokescreen for whatever it is that the military is trying to hide.

We go on with that chaos around the Channel Tunnel and across much of Europe over the ever-growing flood of desperate immigrants trying to find safety from Africa and the Middle East. We might continue with the impasse between the EU and Russia over Ukraine; or with the insistence by Germany and Poland that, to keep their economies functioning, they must – regardless of their commitment to the EU that they will reduce “carbon emissions” by 40 per cent within 15 years – continue to burn vast quantities of “CO2-polluting” coal.

The answer to what these have in common is that they all reflect the moment when, more obviously than ever before, the dream of a cosily “united Europe” is running into the brick wall of that very thing the “European project” was above all designed to rise above: a narrow sense of national interest. To the man who more than any set the “project” on its way, Jean Monnet, this was always its supreme purpose. He wanted to create a “supranational” government capable of eliminating that destructive evil which he described as “national egoism”.

For decades his dream seemed to be inching successfully towards its goal. But what we are seeing today is that the sense of national interest is so ingrained in human nature that it cannot be eliminated. The desperate Greeks, having seen their country crucified on the folly of the euro, fight crazily to survive as a nation without any idea of how this can be done. Many Germans, looking to their own interest, are fed up with having to pour their money into the bottomless pit of Greek debt – while the EU struggles to deal with a crisis it brought on itself, to which there is no sensible solution.

We are caught between that belief that we must all pool the interests of our countries in some artificial “common interest”, and the reality that, when it comes to the crunch, there is no way to stop that damned “national interest” reappearing. Such is the lesson which every day’s news should now be bringing home to us. But how we might escape from it, not a single politician can yet begin to give us a plausible answer.

In a weekend billed as Europe’s last chance to save the monetary union, ministers will now reconvene on Sunday morning ahead of an EU leaders' summit later in the evening, to thrash out an agreement or decide to eject Greece from the eurozone. Should no deal be forthcoming, the German government has made preparations to negotiate a temporary five-year euro exit, providing Greece with humanitarian aid while it makes the transition.

An incendiary plan drafted by Berlin's finance ministry, with the backing of Angela Merkel, laid out two stark options for Greece: either the government submits to drastic measures such as placing €50 billion of its assets in a trust fund to pay off its debts, and have Brussels take over its public administration, or agree to a "time-out" solution where it would be expelled from the eurozone.

There is now open revolt among the eurozone's 19 member states, with a group of smaller creditor nations threatening to reject a European rescue from the bloc's firefighting fund, the ESM. Finland's parliament stands on the brink of withdrawing its negotiating mandate from the government, in a move which would force creditors to adopt an emergency voting procedure to pass a new rescue deal.

What Greece has not done is change its own behaviour. At the outset Greeks moved money to Switzerland, to Luxembourg, to shelter their cash from tax. Then, when it became clear that actual reform was required, Greece approached all the financially weak countries in the EU in an attempt to form a coalition against Germany. This too, failed. So Greece started talking about the Second World War, playing games of guilt, not reform. Germany was hugely upset, but still the tactic failed. Then Greece raised the threat of it becoming a client state of Putin’s Russia, or China. Anything but embrace the reality, and necessity, of reform.

In negotiations they didn’t submit their position papers – at least not on time. Even their clothes were a statement that they played by different rules; we in suits, they in leather jackets. They were, in other words, very, very good strategists. They got their money from the ECB, they got the French and all the others who are indebted and don’t want to make reforms either – they got them on side. It was a brilliant move to say they would have a referendum. Who in the EU could argue with that and maintain some shred of commitment to democracy? I would go so far as to say they have made only one mistake until now.

This mistake was to campaign for “No” in the referendum. It was a move that united everyone in the EU in anger. So Varoufakis was sacrificed, and made to ride into the sunset on his motorcycle. What is the answer? It is this. People say that if Greece leaves the euro, it will be a great defeat for the single currency. But the fact is that the real defeat will come if Greece wins and does not leave the euro, and for the same reason: trust. The trust that the euro is a currency based on rules will disappear.

What Europe needs is the common sense of Germany, Austria and the Netherlands to bring order to a EU which is out of order and led by a failure.

They are considering proposals by eurozone finance ministers which would impose tough conditions on Athens. Greece risks being ejected from the eurozone if a deal to rescue it from financial collapse is not reached. Finnish Finance Minister Alex Stubb said one condition in the ministers' proposal requires Greece to implement new laws by Wednesday.

Greece will also be required to introduce tough conditions on labour reform, VAT and taxes, and tough measures on privatisation and privatisation funds, Mr Stubb told reporters. The head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, said a "couple of big issues" remain which would be left to the heads of government to rule on, though he did not give details.

But the damage done by months of fractious talks and Tsipras's decision to hold a snap referendum on the bailout terms on July 5 means securing a deal will be tough. Lawmakers including in Germany, Greece's biggest creditor, are skeptical over whether Athens will carry out reforms that the Greek people overwhelmingly rejected in the referendum. Highlighting the reluctance to grant another rescue, Germany's finance ministry floated proposals demanding stronger Greek measures or a five-year "time-out" from the euro zone.

"What is at play here is an attempt to humiliate Greece and Greeks, or to overthrow the Tsipras government," Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Vice-President of the European Parliament and member of Greece's ruling Syriza party, told Mega TV. Their economy pummeled by years of recession, their banks shut and dozens of businesses closing daily, some Greeks have vented their anger on figures such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

It means that Britain would no longer be forced to abide by the Working Time Directive, which for eurosceptics has become a totemic symbol of Brussels’ interference in the British economy. The move will delight Conservative backbenchers, who had warned that Mr Cameron’s renegotiation strategy has been insufficiently ambitious in clawing back powers from Brussels.

Many Conservative MPs worry that the changes Mr Cameron has so far suggested, which focus on new welfare rules preventing EU migrants accessing benefits for four years, do not go far enough. They have demanded he sets out a detailed package of reforms before the autumn Tory conference.

Rather, Britain could emerge from the EU to enjoy a free-trade only relationship and become more prosperous, they argue. Thomas Aeschi, of the Swiss People’s Party and a former banker at Credit Suisse, said that the UK’s exit could see the bloc move in a more protectionist direction, harming its remaining members.

“There are certainly some countries that are on the line, waiting to see how the EU develops. If the UK were to leave, it could trigger a chain reaction,” he said, noting that Denmark and Sweden “would at least start reconsidering their relationship with the EU”. A British departure could have a domino effect across the rest of the bloc, encouraging other nations to seek their own independence, and boost economic growth.

Ms Yellen, however, remained cautious, saying she still saw slack in the jobs market, which has been a key factor in how the Fed approaches its first rate hike since 2006. "We will be watching carefully to see if there is continued improvement in labour market conditions, and we will need to be reasonably confident that inflation will move back to 2 percent in the next few years," she said.

She also stressed that the move toward a tighter monetary policy would be gradual and that Fed policy would need to remain supportive of economic growth "for quite some time".