“The expansion of the restrooms for visitors at the Western Wall is being carried out by The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which Palestinian officials have called ‘the agency of the occupiers,’ even though it is under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office,” read a statement issued Wednesday by Rabinowitz’s office.

“It is unfortunate that a minimal action designed to cater to the needs of visitors to the remnant of the Jewish temple is turning into a contentious issue and a pretext for unnecessary tension,” he said. He called for more education about the importance of the holy site to the Jewish people in order counter the propaganda.

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, said Eurogroup finance ministers had ignored a deal already agreed with the European Commission for a four-month delay and a “new contract for growth”, returning instead to old demands. "The only way to solve Greece is to treat us like equals; not a debt colony,” he said, predicting that EU authorities would soon have to withdraw their latest “ultimatum”.

The talks were halted after four hours of stormy exchanges, risking a traumatic showdown that could precipitate the biggest default in world history and force Greece out of the euro by the end of the month. Mr Varoufakis said Syriza had won a landslide vowing to overthrow the EU-IMF troika memorandum and could not betray Greek democracy. "It would be an act of subterfuge to promise our partners that we will complete a programme we were elected to challenge."

But even before we get to the end of the week, the prospects of a disorderly exit for Greece could be heightened significantly. On Wednesday, the European Central Bank will have its say on events. The ECB will be meeting to discuss whether or not it should continue to provide the emergency funds that are helping keep Greece's banks alive.

This Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) is the last remaining link between the country's lenders and the eurozone.

For that very reason, ELA now hangs like the "sword of Damocles" over Greek banks, according to Lorcan Roche Kelly of Bloomberg. The lenders themselves have no control over whether they will remain eligible for this vital source of assistance. It is the politics that will decide that. Should no extension of a bail-out agreement be reached before Friday, the plug may well be pulled at the end of the month, effectively dumping Greece out of the euro.

In an impromptu appeal at the Church of Scotland, Pope Francis called for all Christians to hear the cries of the recently executed Coptic Christians. “The blood of our Christian brothers is a testimony which cries out to be heard. It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians. Their blood is one and the same.” The Pope added, “as we recall these brothers who died only because they confessed Christ, I ask that we encourage each another to go forward with this ecumenism which is giving us strength, the ecumenism of blood.”

“The martyrs belong to all Christians.” Ecumenism describes the initiative to promote unity among the world’s Christian churches. The Argentinian Pope Francis notably switched to his native Spanish to talk about the executions; leaving behind the Italian he uses at most formal events.

According to the New York Post, an ISIS member in the execution video vowed the group would eventually sack Rome, about 600 miles from Tripoli. Italy’s Foreign Minister, Roberta Pinotti, is ready to answer the threat immediately if necessary, telling the newspaper Il Messaggero that 5,000 troops are ready for action. Egypt is already responding to the execution. Reuters reports they’ve hit militant camps and training centers in pre-dawn airstrikes.

Now, after a brief lull, that incitement is back in full force, with the three top PA religious leaders repeating the claims this month alone. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) revealed that in the last several days, the PA Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Hussein, Abbas's adviser on Religious and Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash, as well as PA Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is have all echoed the claims heard last October and November which elicited a string of high-profile attacks.

Hussein last Thursday claimed that Israel hopes "to build the alleged Temple on the ruins of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque," in a reference to the Third Temple to be built on the holiest site in Judaism, which the PA has aggressively claimed to be Muslim-only in an attempt to erase roughly 3,000 years of Jewish history. UNESCO must stop Israel from "destroying the human heritage in Jerusalem," al-Habbash said last Wednesday, in another claim against Israel.

Laubenthal’s role in the organization will be much more than symbolic, Campbell said, though US law precludes Laubenthal, as a German officer, from seeing some classified information that American officers in the same position would be able to access. As the US and NATO allies draw down from Afghanistan, military leaders have emphasized the need to continue to work together to maintain the interoperability the various forces have gained over more than a decade of war.

“As we all know, actions speak louder than words,” Campbell said, “and this innovation carries a very strong message regarding our seriousness about a multinational team.” One US official said it’s estimated that Laubenthal will be able to carry out about 90 percent of the tasks typically performed by a USAREUR chief of staff, who is directly responsible for organizing, directing and supporting roughly 30 senior leaders who make up the command’s staff.

“Thanks to the destabilisation effort by the US and British coalition in 2011, Libya is now an open canvas to be filled with the blood red paint of ISIS. If it were not for the removal of Colonel Gadaffi we would not be in serious trouble right now. It is very hard to establish how strong the ISIS army is, however our statisticians estimate a fighting force of over 150,000 well armed and trained men.”

“This estimate grows daily as the air strikes by the US coalition only serve to swell ranks through adverse propaganda. We also have reason to believe that the air strikes are a mere show because there have been reports of ISIS combatants being warned before any such strike. Indiscriminate bombing within residential areas also causes a lot of civilian collateral damage thus inflaming the situation further and poses as a great recruitment tool.”

“It is also not easy to establish which agencies are engineering the rise of ISIS, but we may have clues from past geopolitical occurrences. For example, the so-called Arab Spring controlled by US command centres paved the way for ISIS. America armed and trained fighters across the Middle East giving them continual support. The additional Libyan operation, as well as Tunisian removal of ruling parties added extra impetus by creating a power vacuum.”

“The Syrian attempt is still under way, and ISIS has grown exponentially from these events. We must also not forget Iraq, which was invaded by US forces on numerous occasions, eventually splitting the country by installing a Shia led Vichy government which in turn created more conflict.”

Eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels on Monday hoping to reach a compromise before the bailout expires on February 28. However, Greek politicians reacted with anger to a draft statement tabled by Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs meetings of eurozone finance ministers. The communique committed Greece's far-Left Syriza government to “successfully conclude” the EU-IMF programme.

Greece's government blasted the document, with one source telling Reuters that "carrying out the bailout programme was off the table at the summit. Those who bring this back are wasting their time." To replace the bailout, Greece is seeking a “bridging arrangement”, worth up to €21 billion, that would allow the government in Athens breathing space to implement radical economic reforms.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister, accused the Greek government of “behaving irresponsibly” by threatening to tear up agreements made with the eurozone in return for access to the loans which are all that stand between Greece and financial collapse. “It seems like we have no results so far. I’m quite sceptical. The Greek government has not moved, apparently,” he said.

Yanis Varoufakis, the Greek finance minister, has also told the eurozone that Athens will not implement unpopular austerity measures, such as privatisations or changes to labour laws, that were promised in return for EU aid. “We are asking for a few months of financial stability that will allow us to embark upon the task of reforms that the broad Greek population can own and support, so we can bring back growth and end our inability to pay our due,” he wrote in The New York Times on Monday.

"It aspires to acquire nuclear weapons. It is trying to encircle us with four murderous arms. Three, for now – one in Lebanon, one in Gaza and a new one – on the Golan. It vows openly to destroy the State of Israel in one way or another. Joining it are the forces of extremist Islam who are breaking through every crack in the Middle East and bringing their murderous acts to the entire world… The next four years will be no less difficult. To my assessment, they will be even tougher. We will require every tool, every person, because there's no mercy for the weak in the Middle East. Only the strong ones survive. The IDF is strong in spirit, and certainly in might."

Eisenkot, too, acknowledged the challenges ahead as he accepted the promotion. He vowed to make "preparedness and moral strength" top priorities during his term. "We will aspire to deter the enemy, to ward off war, to threaten and be victorious. I promise to command the Israel Defense Forces with determination and wisdom. I promise to continue in the fulfillment of the vision of the founders of our country. To continue to carry the torch of security that passes from generation to generation," said Eisenkot.

The AfD vote was hovering just above the 5 per cent threshold needed to win seats in parliament in initial projections based on a partial vote count. The AfD made significant gains from Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who saw their share of the vote fall by a projected 5.9 per cent in one of their worst results in recent times.

Hamburg, one of three city states along with Berlin and Bremen, has been a fortress for the centre-left Social Demoracts since the Second World War, and the winner of the vote was never in doubt. But this was the first time support for the AfD has been tested in a west German state, after it made striking gains in the less affluent east last year.

It is also the first election since the anti-Islam and anti-immigrant Pegida movement swept though the German political scene. Unlike Eurosceptic parties in other countries, the AfD is not opposed to the EU, but wants an end to the single currency, starting with the expulsion of poorly performing economies like Greece.

Intelligence officials estimate that the group’s fighters number 20,000 to 31,500 in Syria and Iraq. There are less formal pledges of support from “probably at least a couple hundred extremists” in countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen, according to an American counterterrorism official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information about the group.

Lieutenant General Vincent R Stewart, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in an assessment this month that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, was “beginning to assemble a growing international footprint.” Critics fear such assessments will once again enmesh the United States in a protracted, hydra-headed conflict as President Obama appeals to Congress for new war powers to fight the Islamic State.

He asks the president, "Will you join me in hearing the case for keeping weapons from those who preach death to Israel and America?" Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 and is a survivor of the death camps at Buchenwald and Auschwitz. In the ad, he relates the actions of present-day Iran to the biblical story of Haman in the book of Esther, who vowed to "annihilate, murder, and destroy the Jews, young and old, children and women."

"The Ayatollah Khameini has been as clear as his predecessor in declaring his goal: 'the annihilation and destruction' of Israel. He is bent on acquiring the weapons needed to make good on the deadly promise," he continued. President Barack Obama has said he will not attend the Netanyahu speech, and the White House has expressed irritation that House Speaker John Boehner issued the invitation during the run-up to Israel's national elections on March 17.

Netanyahu, who has taken heat from both domestic and overseas political adversaries, tweeted this week he is determined to follow through on his invitation to address Congress at this time. The advertisement supporting him was sponsored by New Jersey Rabbi Shumley Boteach. The London Times refused to run the ad.

Titled “A Message Signed With Blood to the Nation of the Cross,” the video depicts the 21 prisoners in the now-familiar orange jumpsuits being led down a beach by 21 ISIS fighters in their equally familiar black outfits. As they kneel in the sand, subtitles indicate that the men are, “the people of the cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church.”

After declaring unity with other international branches of the extended ISIS network, the executions begin. At the end of the video, the camo-clad executioner, knife in bloodied hand, pledges that ISIS will conquer Rome. It’s the second reference to the city which was once center of the Holy Roman Empire – at one point he says that they are situated in the land “South of Rome”.