Though Arab officials have been careful not to side with Israel in their stated positions, their worries over the possibility of a nuclear-armed Tehran are in fact similar to those of Jerusalem, and their attitudes towards the current state of nuclear talks between Tehran and Western powers are similarly pessimistic, according to the report.

Leaders of Sunni states such as Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia fear a bad deal with Tehran would allow it, with the removal of sanctions, to become a nuclear threshold state, the WSJ reported. They say it could also lead to a nuclear arms race in the region. “At this stage, we prefer a collapse of the diplomatic process to a bad deal,” an official from an unnamed Arab nation told the paper.

Arab officials have also reportedly held discussions with the US over the possibility of Washington placing their countries under its “nuclear umbrella” — a guarantee to take military, even nuclear, action to protect an allied state under certain circumstances.

New members may enter – seven have done so since 2005 – but none, not even Greece, which should never have been allowed to join, may leave. And that’s the way it may have looked after Friday’s 11th-hour agreement on a four-month extension to Greece’s existing bail-out.

But fans of Wolf Hall might observe that “old-style marriage” never stopped old-style monarchs securing divorce or annulment whenever it suited. Students of monetary history know that very few currencies (other than the pound and the US dollar) have ever achieved the permanence that eurocrats claim for their creation. Currencies – and cross-border currency unions – are not stone-built institutions, but tools of commerce and exchange that reflect the politics of their time.

There are technocrats from the IMF and the World Bank who have spent long careers helping countries recover from bankruptcy, notably in Latin America. A Greek economy with a devalued currency, shorn of public-sector excess, attractive to tourists, would be far more competitive. Recovery is possible, and with popular will and collective effort it might even be surprisingly swift.

Not only is Grexit still very much on the cards – skilfully managed, it could prove that the euro itself is robust and flexible enough to achieve the permanence its founders crave. In the long term, it might put Greece in a better place as well.

Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman to sit in Cabinet, handed official posts to people linked to Islamist groups, including a man involved in an “unpleasant and bullying” campaign to win planning permission for the controversial London “megamosque” proposed by a fundamentalist Islamic sect. He sits – alongside other radicals or former radicals and their allies – on a “cross-Government working group on anti-Muslim hatred” set up by Lady Warsi and Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Some members of the group are using their seats at the table to urge that Whitehall work with Islamist and extremist-linked bodies, including one described by the Prime Minister as a “political front for the Muslim Brotherhood”. Some are also pressing to lift bans on foreign hate preachers from entering Britain, including Zakir Naik, who has stated that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”.

The Swat team, as they're known, park at the same spot every week so a group of volunteers from the Sikh community can hand out vital supplies. Homeless people, who overwhelmingly are not Sikh, patiently wait in line to be served. The Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara in Southall, thought to be the biggest Sikh temple outside of India, says it alone serves 5,000 meals on weekdays and 10,000 meals on weekends.

Every Sikh has the duty to carry out Seva, or selfless service, says Surinder Singh Purewal, a senior member of the temple management team. "It means we're never short of donations or volunteers to help prepare the Langar."

After painting the wooden sticks black, the German soldiers swiftly attached them to the top of armored vehicles, according to a confidential army report which was leaked to ARD. A defense ministry spokesperson said the use of broomsticks was not a common practice, and that the decision of the involved soldiers was "hard to comprehend."

According to the ministry, the armored vehicles were furthermore not supposed to be armed. It remains unclear how many broomsticks were substituted for machine guns. To make matters worse, the broom-equipped German soldiers belong to a crucial, joint NATO task force and would be the first to be deployed in case of an attack.

Opposition politicians have expressed concerns about Germany's ability to defend itself and other European allies, given that even some of the most elite forces lack basic equipment.

The view was reflected elsewhere too yesterday: "I think they've now reached a point where they will tell Greece 'if you really want to leave, leave'," Edward Scicluna, Malta's finance minister, told the 'Malta Today' newspaper.

German finance ministry officials had described Greek proposals for an extension of the country's €240 billion bailout as a "Trojan Horse" because the Leftist government had not explicitly agreed to "conclude" austerity targets agreed in 2012. Meanwhile, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister who chairs the eurogroup, earlier had also struck a pessimistic note. "I do not have to tell you it's quite complicated," Mr Dijsselbloem said.

Turkey originally awarded the tender to China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corporation (CPMIEC) in 2013, prompting US and NATO officials to say the deal could raise questions over security. Turkey later said it was in talks with France on the issue. However, in his written response to the question filed in late December 2014 by main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) İzmir deputy Aykut Ciray, Yilmaz said no new bids had been received.

“The project will be financed through foreign financing. Work on assessing the bids has been completed and no new official bid has been received,” the minister said, in his response released by Ciray’s office February 19. “The system in question will be integrated with the national system for Turkey’s defense and will be used without integrating it with NATO,” he added. Eurosam, which is owned by Franco-Italian missile maker MBDA and France’s Thales, came second in the tender.

The bank executive was listed as the beneficial owner of an account in the name of Worcester Equities Inc, an anonymous company registered in Panama, containing a balance in 2007 of $7.6 million. It was through this entity that Gulliver’s HSBC bonuses were paid until 2003. He also held a second account in the name of Worcester Foundation, which had been closed before 2007.

Although now based in the UK, where HSBC has its headquarters, Gulliver is domiciled in Hong Kong for legal and tax purposes.

However, Schaeuble, who in recent weeks had taken a tough line on Greece, also said that "as long as the programme is not successfully concluded, there will be no payment." Athens will get an extension of four months, not six, as it had requested, according to an eurozone top official.

In return, Greece has committed to make a series of unspecified reforms to be enacted over the coming months. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis claimed the deal was a win for his country because his government will be able to decide what reforms to propose. The agreement will mean that Greece will avoid going bankrupt, at least over the four months of the extension.

It should also mean that capital controls won't be needed and that Greek banks will have enough money to stock up their ATMs. To get the money though, the Greek government has one more hurdle to clear. On Monday, it has to present a series of unspecified economic reforms measures that are deemed acceptable by creditors and rooted in Greece's previously enacted bailout agreement - something the government had promised not to do.

The deal is widely regarded as a major climb down for the PM, who won power vowing to reverse budget cuts. He hailed the agreement as a "decisive step" that "achieved much" towards ending austerity, but added: "We have a long and difficult road ahead." The BBC's Mark Lowen in Athens says the government is engaged in a hard-sell to the Greek people over the deal.

It was reached on Friday in talks between Greece, eurozone ministers and the IMF in Brussels. The Greek cabinet is due to meet to discuss it later on Saturday. No details have emerged about the list of reforms, which must be approved by creditors before eurozone members ratify the bailout extension on Tuesday. Analysts say a collapse of the deal would revive fears of an exit from the euro, a so-called "grexit" - something both the EU and Greece say they want to avoid.

Greece and Germany have stepped back from the brink. And for now Greece remains in the eurozone. But there will be months of fraught negotiations before it will be clear whether the economy and finances of this recession-battered nation have been put back on a stable footing. In fact, what was agreed on Friday night guarantees there will be no fresh crisis - no fears of Greece quitting the eurozone - for a full two days.

Because by Monday night, the Syriza government has to submit a preliminary list of proposed economic reforms - which will form the basis of negotiations till the end of April on a new financial settlement for the country. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble stressed on Friday that there would be no payment of new funds to Greece until the conditions of the deal had been met. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said he would work night and day until Monday to devise the list of reforms. "If the list of reforms is not agreed, this agreement is dead," he admitted.

Misrata operates as a city-state, with its own semiautonomous government. Most of its income comes from iron and cement factories, and it is a magnet for foreign investors. As such, Misrata also poses a temptation to ISIS, which seeks to expand its economic base for its operations in the Middle East and, like any economic institution, wants to diversify its sources of revenue.

But as in Syria, it is a challenge to draw the map of control of ISIS and the other Islamic organizations in Libya — with the exception of Darna, Sirte and parts of Benghazi, where ISIS has near-total control. The war between the numerous militias in the streets of Libya’s main cities and the absence of a unified leadership — the country has two rival governments — presents an impossible challenge to international forces trying to evaluate their options.

In a special session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday that was convened after the Egyptian airstrikes on Darna, which ISIS controls, Egypt proposed the creation of an international military coalition to fight ISIS in Libya as well as the removal of the arms embargo on Libya, in order to let the recognized government acquire the weapons it needs to fight the Islamic State.

In our super-connected 21st-century world, rather than promoting economic fairness, the net is a central reason for the growing gulf between rich and poor and the hollowing out of the middle classes. Its cultural ramifications are equally chilling. Rather than creating transparency and openness, it secretly gathers information and keeps a watch on each and every one of us.

You need only have read the stories this month about how smart TVs can spy on us in our living rooms to realise that Orwell’s vision in Nineteen Eighty-Four, of a Big Brother society, is becoming a reality. Because such TVs are connected to the internet, they can watch us and listen to us, then beam that information around the world for companies to use for commercial gain. And thanks to the explosion in social media, rather than creating more democracy, the internet is empowering mob rule.

This month, after years of social networks being scarred by appalling personal abuse and bullying - leading to several suicides - Twitter, which has 288 million users a month, finally admitted there was ‘no excuse’ for its failure to stop its users sending vile messages to the targets of their hatred. The company’s boss, Dick Costolo, admitted: ‘I’m frankly ashamed at how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue. It’s absurd.’

As the internet transforms every electronic object into a connected device, we are drifting into a world where everything — our fitness, what we eat, our driving habits, how hard we work — can be profitably quantified by companies such as Google. Faceless data-gatherers wearing all-seeing electronic glasses watch our every move. Our networked society is like a claustrophobic village pub, a frighteningly transparent community in which there are no longer any secrets or any anonymity.

We are observed by every unloving institution of the new digital surveillance state, from big data companies and the Government to insurance companies, healthcare providers and the police. Google and Facebook boast that they know us more intimately than we know ourselves. They know what we did yesterday, today and, with the help of predictive technology, what we will do tomorrow. And it is, frankly, our fault for choosing to live in a crystal republic where cars, mobile phones and televisions — hooked up to the internet — watch us.