Britain’s benchmark index of leading shares climbed as much as 46.73 points to 6,958.89, a 0.7 percent advance that meant the FTSE 100 finally surpassed its previous intraday peak of 6,950.6 that was set on December 30, 1999, just before the dotcom bubble burst.

On the first trading day of 2000, however, the FTSE 100 tumbled 3.8 percent and by the end of 2001 the index had slumped to 5,217.4 as the dotcom boom unravelled. Peter Sullivan, head of European equity strategy at HSBC, said it would be unwise to follow suit and cut exposure to the index. The new record “inevitably raises questions about how sustainable it is and whether it has got ahead of itself."

The far-left party has vowed to spend nearly 60 million euros (£44 million) on free electricity for the poor and more than 750 million euros on a program of meal subsidies. Such policies are aimed at fulfilling pre-election pledges to help those hit by years of economic crisis.

The main points of the summary of the proposals include:

- Creating a fairer tax system;

- Combating tax evasion;

- Tackling corruption;

- Targeting fuel and tobacco smugglers;

- Implementing labour reforms on collective contracts and bargaining agreements;

- Tackling Greece's "humanitarian crisis" with housing guarantees and free medical care for the uninsured unemployed.

Greece's creditors - the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund - are expected to deliver their verdict on the proposals later on Tuesday, before the reforms are discussed in a conference call with eurozone finance ministers.

Veteran Greek activist and Syriza MEP Manolis Glezos criticises his party in a weekend blog: "Renaming the troika as 'institutions', the bailout as an 'agreement' and creditors as 'partners' [in Friday's deal] ... does not change the previous situation. I apologise to the Greek people because I took part in this illusion. Let's react before it is too late."

The sole concession to Athens was to allow it to propose changes to the requirements agreed to with creditors by the previous Greek governments, in effect allowing Athens to change the shape of its obligations, not reduce them. Victory or not, the deal agreed to Friday has immediately put Mr Tsipras in a tight corner at home, where pressure has mounted on him to pare back his government’s austerity program, despite pressure from Brussels.

As the Tsipras government worked Sunday to devise changes to propose, a chorus of lawmakers took to the airwaves and social media to condemn the deal, opening the way to a potentially embarrassing backlash in Parliament in Athens. At least one Syriza lawmaker threatened to resign. The criticism was accompanied by furious speculation about how any proposed overhauls might affect citizens who voted in large numbers for Syriza, the anti-austerity party, with the express goal of easing hardships linked to the conditions of European loans.

The deal reached Friday allows Mr Tsipras to ask to drop austerity measures to which the previous government committed but never enforced, such as further cuts to pensions, an increase in a special value-added tax on the Greek islands and the relaxing of restrictions on mass dismissals in the private sector. In return, Mr Tsipras and his government are expected to propose other, chiefly structural changes, including some actions that the previous government failed to deliver on, such as a crackdown on tax evasion and corruption.

Both countries are troubled by the situation in Libya and have an interest in influencing it. However, neither has given any evidence to support its warnings. The migrants are mostly from Syria and sub-Saharan Africa. The idea that they pose a threat evokes a vicious logic at odds with humanitarian imperatives: refugees bring conflict, as conflict breeds refugees. What threat do the migrant boats pose? And what - if anything - can be done about it?

Last week, Libyan militants allied to IS released a video that appeared to show the beheading of 21 Egyptian prisoners. The choreography echoed videos shot in Iraq and Syria. However, instead of desert, the prisoners were positioned on a beach, against the grey Mediterranean Sea. Addressing the camera, a masked man promised attacks in Europe. "And now we are south of Rome, on the land of Islam, Libya," he said, "sending you another message."

America today contributes about $400 million a year in direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, and another $400 million in other assistance and investments. The European Union provides a similar amount. In 2011, Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch spoke before the US Congress to explain how this money was being cynically used to encourage the slaughter of Israeli Jews by paying healthy monthly salaries to those sitting in Israeli jails, or to the families of terrorists killed during successful attacks.

A year later, two Hamas operatives from the Gaza Strip admitted to an Israeli court that they had gotten into the terrorism game in order to earn a decent living. Killing Jews, they said, was the best way to secure a good and steady income. Last summer, Israel’s Knesset was shocked to learn that in 2012 the Palestinian Authority had paid no less than $150 million to jailed terrorists and their families. It was further revealed that these salaries were determined on a sliding scale according to the length of the terrorists’ sentence. In other words, the more Jews killed, the worse the sentence and the bigger the reward.

He was speaking after The Sun newspaper published a list of jobs advertised by some Church institutions with a salary below the rate currently set at £7.85 an hour, or £9.15 in London. It included the Archbishop’s own cathedral in Canterbury which this week advertised for two kiosk assistants to be paid £6.70 — plus "company bonus". One Church job is being advertised at £6.50 an hour, prompting remarks from MPs that the church should practise what it preaches.

During the 76-minute video, which was published on YouTube by Al-Shabaab's media wing, the terrorist, who has a strong English accent, recites a list of potential targets which included London's Oxford Street as well as the Westfield malls in Stratford and White City. Donning a camouflage jacket with a headscarf covering his face, the fighter threatens action and refers to the group's 2013 siege on Kenya's Westgate Mall, in which 62 people died.

The terrorist even supplied the GPS co-ordinates for the Westfield shopping centres in Stratford, East London and White City in West London. He said: 'We call upon our Muslim brothers, particularly those in the West, to answer the call of Allah and target disbelievers wherever they are. If just a handful of mujahedeen fighters can bring Kenya to a complete standstill for nearly a week, imagine what a dedicated mujahed in the West could do to American or Jewish owned shopping centres across the world?'

Sometimes people just help themselves to water from natural resources. The East Bay Municipal Utility District - like many Bay Area water districts - has never fined people who steal or attempt to steal water. Instead, repeat offenders have had their water turned off and been charged reconnection fees, the Contra Costa Times reported. But now, water district board member John Coleman says the district should have a penalty greater than the cost of water. On March 10, the board will consider options for criminal penalties for tampering with district equipment or neighbors' pipes.

Other places in the state also are grappling with water bandits:

- In the Silicon Valley, an open space district removed irrigation pipes that rangers say allowed a nudist colony to make unauthorized water diversions from a waterfall.

- In the Central Valley city of Modesto, a handful of homeowners were fined $1,500 for allegedly taking water from a canal.

- In the Bay Area suburb of San Ramon, officials say a construction crew hooked up hoses to a fire hydrant and siphoned about 700 gallons of water last fall amid requests to stop.

- In the Sierra town of North San Juan, thieves hooked up their truck up to a valve on a fire department tank and stole hundreds of gallons of water.

So far, she said, the nursery where she works has managed to stay open but schools, universities and hospitals are having to adapt to cope with reduced water supplies. With the lowest rainfall since 1930, reservoirs that supply almost half of the 20 million people in the metropolitan area - including the financial district - are close to running dry.

Doctors have reportedly had to cut short dialysis for patients with kidney failure because of the shortage while schools have introduced water-saving measures to avoid suspending lessons. Despite Brazil having the largest water supply in the world, one of the main reservoir networks in São Paulo, the Cantareira system, is at just 10 per cent including deep reserves known as the "dead volume".

And Professor Semensatto said water stress was likely to continue in São Paulo for four to five years, threatening not only the city's economy but the rest of the country as well. "When we start to see businesses based in São Paulo slowing down, then we will see the effect on other cities across Brazil," he added.

"Americans are woefully undersaved for emergencies," said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate. "By not having emergency savings and using some of your available credit, your options in the event of unplanned expenses are much more limited."

Bankrate's figures released Monday do show some improvement from a year earlier. Only 58 percent of Americans have more emergency savings than credit card debt, Bankrate found, but a year ago that figure was 51 percent. Respondents in the new survey also feel better about their finances than the respondents a year earlier.

But Americans may be fooling themselves. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's 2014 Retirement Confidence Survey, 60 percent of workers have less than $25,000 in savings and investments, and 36 percent have less than $1,000 — up from 28 percent in 2013. "Americans are still woefully undersaved for emergencies and retirement, and that's not something that's going to change overnight," McBride said.

The Right Reverend Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, said yesterday: ‘No-one expects bishops to offer a political programme at election time but to highlight the moral questions which underpin the public debate. Faced with the unprecedented scale of family breakdown and its immense human and social costs, this election debate surely cannot ignore support for marriage.

'At the very foundation of society is respect for the sanctity of human life. We mustn’t forget the newly-elected parliament in 2015 will decide the legality of assisted suicide in our hospitals and care homes with far-reaching consequences for the way society regards the sick and the elderly.' It contrasts with the widely-criticised manifesto by Anglican bishops last week which made no mention of marriage.

Instead the Church of England said families could best be helped by outside organisations like housing associations or credit unions. Nor did the CofE bishops choose to remind voters of the difficulties of elderly people needing care nor the scourges of drugs and pornography. The Church of England election letter was the first attempt to sway voters by the Anglican bishops and was widely criticised for its focus on inequality and the alleged evils of the market economy, consumerism and the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.

Roman Catholic bishops, however, have regularly given advice to churchgoers on the central issues they should consider in advance of each general election.

Italian officials fear extremists could enter the country amid the growing tide of refugees arriving by boat from North Africa. About 500 extra troops have been stationed to guard symbolic targets in Rome and monitor the streets of the capital for suspicious activity. The video threat, released with images of 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt who were beheaded this month, warned that Islamic State forces were "south of Rome," in Libya. At its closest point, Libya is little more than 100 miles from the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

This comes four months after the Islamic State's propaganda magazine Dabiq ran a cover photo of the militant group's flag flying above the obelisk in St Peter's Square in the Vatican with the headline: "The failed crusade." "The risks are real," said Sabrina Magris, president of the International University School of Rome and Florence, the only European institution that prepares negotiators for hostage and terror threats. "The goal may be an actual attack of some kind or simply using threats to create an atmosphere of fear. But the risks shouldn't be underestimated."

Experts say ISIS' control in Libya could create potential 'disaster scenario' and coalition airstrikes are fueling the militants' manipulative propaganda

ISIS has 31,500 loyal fighters according to CIA but estimates place this far higher at around 200,000 militants. The vastness of its influence went largely unnoticed among the wider public until Sunday when it released a gruesome video showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach.

It was once a rebel group defying the British and US occupation of Iraq. Now other extremists across the Middle East and northern-Africa are pledging allegiance to it. 'ISIS has name brand power,' Harleen Gambhir says. 'What we've seen in a few different places is ISIS' ability to transfer new military expertise, explosives planning, new planning to other groups to win over their allegiance and we're seeing that in Libya.'

Terrorist organisations inside the country such as Ansar al-Sharia - which has taken control of Benghazi and declared its own Islamic state - also announced its alliance with ISIS in 2014. While Yemen-based militant group Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - one of Al-Qaeda's most powerful branches - defected to ISIS this month according to US monitoring group SITE.

And while it has no confirmed territory in Tunisia, the country has become a breeding ground for ISIS fighters with the Interior Ministry claiming 2,400 citizens had become combatants since 2011. ISIS does control regions in the north and west of Iraq, including Fallujah near the capital Baghdad and its second largest city Mosul.

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said his ministers were to be briefed on "the security challenges developing around us, first and foremost Iran's attempt to increase its foothold on Israel's borders even as it works to arm itself with nuclear weapons." An Israeli air strike inside the Syrian-controlled sector of the Golan Heights on January 18 killed six members of Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as a general from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied responsibility, but it has carried out several such strikes over the past two years, stressing its policy of preventing arms transfers to militant groups and potential attacks. Netanyahu said that Tehran's ongoing "murderous terrorism" has "not prevented the international community from continuing to talk with Iran about a nuclear agreement that will allow it to build the industrial capacity to develop nuclear weapons."

World powers are trying to strike a deal with Iran that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for an easing of punishing international economic sanctions. Israel has repeatedly warned that Iran's nuclear programme has military objectives, a claim Tehran denies.