But it's also clear that they have not reached a deal. Serious differences clearly remain. The two negotiators wouldn't reveal what those differences were. Instead they agreed to meet again. These three days of talks were the most intensive negotiations about Iran's nuclear programme for many years.

It's worth noting in particular the fact that the US Secretary of State John Kerry took part in more than eight hours of direct talks with his Iranian counterpart. This marked the most extensive high-level contact between the US and Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. That, in itself, counts as something of a breakthrough.

France is urging caution as top diplomats seem to be on the verge of a landmark nuclear agreement with Iran saying that though it hopes a deal is clinched, there is “no certainty” of a deal at the Geneva talks. “There are still a couple of points that we are not satisfied with,” Fabius told France Inter radio station, adding that the Arak nuclear plant and the 20 percent enriched uranium stock were of particular concern to Paris.

“We are for an agreement, that's clear. But the agreement has got to be serious and credible. The initial text made progress but not enough,” he said, adding the France should avoid falling for “a fool’s game.” In Tehran, Fabius’ comments stirred criticism, with a senior Iranian lawmaker accusing him of “blackmail” and trying to widen the gap between the Islamic Republic and the six world powers, reports Fars news agency.

“The behavior of France’s representative in the nuclear negotiations shows that France seeks to blackmail the negotiations, and this illogical behavior should be confronted by the other members of the P5+1,” rapporteur of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Seyed Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, told the agency on Saturday.

In the most complete explanation yet of the delay in the talks, Laurent Fabius told France-Inter radio that France does not want construction of the Arak plutonium reactor to continue during final negotiations over the nuclear program, which could take six months.

He said world powers needed to limit construction of the reactor because it will be capable of generating huge quantities of plutonium. France was “absolutely firm” on this point, he said. Fabius said France also wanted a provision for converting most of Iran’s stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, which can be easily upgraded into nuclear bomb fuel, to a low-enrichment status.

The program included a video simulation of a potential response by Iran to an Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities. The video showed computer-animated launches of Iran's long-range Sejjil ballistic missiles. The animations show Israel's air defense systems intercepting a few missiles as others penetrate the protective layer and destroy different strategic targets across Israel.

Among the targets shown are the Azrieli Towers and the Kirya in Tel Aviv, the IDF base Tzfirin in central Israel, a generic missile launch site, Ben Gurion Airport, and the nuclear reactor at Dimona. The targets were circled on Google Maps, and the video finished with real pictures of casualties from the Second Lebanon War.

An agreement between the United States and Iran over the latter's nuclear program seems imminent, but the charm offensive in Geneva is not mirrored at home. In Tehran, the Iranian government sent a different message with a broadcast on state television of a simulated missile attack on Israel.

In 2012, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened Israel with the destruction of Tel Aviv and Haifa – part of the usual rhetoric employed by the Islamic regime. "At times, the Zionist entity threatens a military attack, but they know that if they make the smallest mistake, the Islamic republic will obliterate Tel Aviv and Haifa."

Agent Carrie Mathison is a topical figure. The main character in the American TV series "Homeland," played by the wonderful Claire Danes, shows her true relevance in the first few episodes, in which Mathison is nervously sitting at home, observing and listening in on the life of a terror suspect on a large screen. His apartment is bugged and Mathison is determined to find out as much as she can about him. She is hysterical, bipolar, paranoid and sick - all advantageous traits for her job.

The real-life intelligence services of the United States take things much further than agent Carrie Mathison. They spy on just about anyone, even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who, so far, has not been suspected of maintaining ties to Islamist terrorism, and yet whose cellphone was tapped.

It is often assumed that intelligence agencies are worlds of their own, and that they sometimes act on their own authority. However, they are also an expression of the societies in which they exist, especially of their fears. In other words, it is quite possible that there are not just paranoid agents, but also paranoid democracies that act in hysterical ways out of fear.

They are characterized by a strong freedom myth, which leads to paranoia. It, in turn, poses a threat to freedom. The United States is currently in a late phase of this cycle. Other nations also have their fears, but they lack the power to turn the world upside down. Power and paranoia are a dangerous mix.

A Russian official spokesman said that Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, and Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, would discuss issues touching on “military and technical co-operation” – seen as a Russian euphemism for arms sales.

Cairo’s relations with Washington, its primary aid donor and military supplier for four decades, have frayed since the coup in July that ousted the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first elected president. As tensions with Washington increased over the summer, culminating in a US decision to withhold part of its annual $1.3 billion in military aid, Egyptian officials started to hint that their country would seek a realignment in foreign relations.

Nabil Fahmy, the foreign minister, went to Moscow on one of his first trips abroad after the coup. The second of two “popular diplomacy delegations”, made up of intellectuals and public figures, is currently visiting Russia. Observers in Moscow said Russia was eager to build support in the region to ensure that the proposed Geneva II conference aimed at ending the conflict in Syria got off the ground.

While those negotiations now appear on the verge of a breakthrough the key condition for Iran — relief from crippling sanctions — began quietly and modestly five months ago. A review of Treasury Department notices reveals that the US government has all but stopped the financial blacklisting of entities and people that help Iran evade international sanctions since the election of its president, Hassan Rouhani, in June.

On Wednesday Obama said in an interview with NBC News the negotiations in Geneva “are not about easing sanctions.” “The negotiations taking place are about how Iran begins to meet its international obligations and provide assurances not just to us but to the entire world,” the president said.

When an entity is designated as a sanctions violator it can be catastrophic. Banks and other investors almost never take the risk of doing business with the people and companies on a Treasury blacklist because of the potential reputational harm and the prospect they could lose access to US financial markets.

Mark Dubowitz is the executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, an organization that has worked closely with Congress and the administration on devising the current Iranian sanctions. By Dubowitz’s estimates, Iran is now selling between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels of oil per day on the black market, meaning that Iran has profited from the illicit sale of over 35 million barrels of oil since Rouhani took office, with little additional measures taken by the United States to counter it.

"I met Secretary Kerry right before he leaves to Geneva," said Netanyhau. "I reminded him that he said that no deal is better than a bad deal. That the deal that is being discussed in Geneva right now is a bad deal. It’s a very bad deal. Iran is not required to take apart even one centrifuge. But the international community is relieving sanctions on Iran for the first time after many years.

Iran gets everything that it wanted at this stage and it pays nothing. And this is when Iran is under severe pressure. I urge Secretary Kerry not to rush to sign, to wait, to reconsider, to get a good deal. But this is a bad deal - a very, very bad deal. It’s the deal of a century for Iran; it’s a very dangerous and bad deal for peace and the international community."

A member of Denmark’s Parliament and, he hopes, mayor of this commuter-belt town west of Copenhagen, Mr Dencker is furious that some day care centers have removed meatballs, a staple of traditional Danish cuisine, from their cafeterias in deference to Islamic dietary rules. No matter that only a handful of kindergartens have actually done so. The missing meatballs, he said, are an example of how “Denmark is losing its identity” under pressure from outsiders.

The issue has become a headache for Mayor Helle Adelborg, whose center-left Social Democratic Party has controlled the town council since the 1920s but now faces an uphill struggle before municipal elections on November 19. “It is very easy to exploit such themes to get votes,” she said. “They take a lot of votes from my party. It is unfair.”

It is also Europe’s new reality. All over, established political forces are losing ground to politicians whom they scorn as fear-mongering populists. In France, according to a recent opinion poll, the far-right National Front has become the country’s most popular party. In other countries — Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Finland and the Netherlands — disruptive upstart groups are on a roll.

But regional police chief Elmer Soria said he was told by the provincial governor of Leyte that there were about 10,000 deaths on the eastern island alone. Hundreds of thousands of people are reported displaced from their homes.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes reports that the scene in the city of Tacloban on Leyte island is one of utter devastation. Houses in Leyte's capital have been flattened by the massive storm surge that accompanied Typhoon Haiyan.

There's no clean water, no electricity and very little food. City officials said they were struggling to distribute aid and that looting was widespread. Our correspondent says hundreds of people are at the airport, itself badly damaged, trying to get on a flight out of Tacloban.

The BBC's Kim Ghattas, who is travelling with Mr Kerry, says his dramatic decision to change his travel plans and go to Geneva is a clear sign that a deal with Iran may be within reach. Mr Kerry is due to meet Mr Netanyahu early on Friday before flying to Geneva.

Speaking at a conference in Jerusalem before the talks began, Mr Netanyahu said the proposals would allow Iran to retain the capabilities to make nuclear weapons. "Israel understands that there are proposals on the table in Geneva today that would ease the pressure on Iran for concessions that are not concessions at all," he said.

Mr Netanyahu said economic sanctions had brought the Iranian economy to the "edge of the abyss" and the P5+1 could "compel Iran to fully dismantle its nuclear weapons programme". "Anything else will make a peaceful solution less likely. Israel always reserves the right to defend itself, by itself, against any threat," Israel's prime minister said.

The plaintiffs accuse the companies of deliberately submitting false and misleading information about Brent prices to Platts, the energy and oil market news outlet, which is used by traders worldwide in daily transactions, Bloomberg reports.

“By providing false or inaccurate information and engaging in false or sham trading, defendants undermined the entire pricing structure for the Brent Crude Oil physical and futures markets,” the plaintiffs allege. By fixing the North Sea oil benchmark, the oil companies and traders, not only manipulated the oil market, but petroleum, food, and other products that look to Brent as a guide for buying and selling across world exchanges.

Four traders - John Devivo, Robert Michiels, Anthony Insinga and Kevin McDonnell - filed the class act in a Manhattan court in New York on October 4.

The October 8 draft of the forthcoming report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission also reveals that China has developed a new armed drone nearly identical to the US military’s Reaper. The Chinese missile-firing drone likely was developed through Chinese cyber espionage against US defense contractors.

The report highlights a rapidly modernizing Chinese military that includes large numbers of new weapons and new warfighting techniques, including attack capabilities in space and cyberspace.

“PLA modernization is on track to alter the security balance in Asia over the next five to 10 years, challenging decades of US military pre-eminence,” the report concludes.

“If he really believes the last claim, then he apparently does not understand the true risks to which he exposed the Treasury as the Fed made the commitments,” writes Wray, a professor of Economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Senior Scholar at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, New York.

“Think about it this way. A half dozen drunken sailors are at the bar, and the bartender refills their shot glasses with whiskey each time a drink is taken,” he writes. “At any instant, the bar-keeper has committed only six ounces of booze. That is a useful measure of whiskey outstanding. But it is not useful for telling us how much the drunks drank.”

That means that Bernanke’s view of the total underestimates dramatically the effect of all that cash into the system, Wray argues.

The report found shortages of consultants at more than half of maternity units, and a shortfall of around 2,300 midwives across the country. More than one quarter of units were forced to close their doors to women in labour because they had no room, or a shortage of midwives, between April and September this year, the NAO found. During the period, one in ten units was closed for the equivalent of at least a fortnight.

The rising cost of litigation means that in 2012/13 almost £500 millon was spent on malpractice claims because of blunders during labour, causing brain damage to infants, and other complications. Margaret Hodge, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee urged ministers to “buck up” and take responsibility for failings in services.

She said: “I find it absolutely scandalous that one fifth of all funding for maternity services, equivalent to around £700 per birth, is spent on clinical negligence cover. The current system is not working as it should.”