He also warns that rising global economic inequality is bound to explode in conflict. Since becoming Pope in March, Francis has struck a markedly different tone to his predecessor on several issues. In his "apostolic exhortation", Pope Francis said he preferred a Church that was "bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security".

The document suggests major changes are on the way, with Francis noting that the Church has to get over an attitude that says: "We have always done it this way," the BBC's David Willey reports from Rome. It represents an ambitious programme to try to rekindle his church's missionary zeal, our correspondent says. However, the document reiterates the Church's opposition to the ordination of female priests, saying this is "not a question open to discussion".

That was the message conveyed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to President Barack Obama in a private telephone call Sunday to discuss the interim deal on Iran's nuclear program, according to a senior Israeli lawmaker in Netanyahu's ruling coalition, as reported by the Jerusalem Post.

The White House's own official statement on the telephone call made no mention of any disagreement being aired, merely referring to "their shared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon." Meanwhile, Netanyahu said that he would send a high-level diplomatic team to the US to lobby for a tough final agreement with Iran that sees that country's entire nuclear enrichment program dismantled.

As the Wall Street Journal notes, Iran didn't ratify an additional protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreement allowing on-demand inspections at Parchin and other sites. Furthermore, it is noted that Iran could send out UN inspectors at any time like North Korea did in 2009.

The Wall Street Journal similarly comments that the Iran deal did not address the Parchin issue at all. It is suspected that nuclear weapons research is being conducted at the Parchin site, particularly as satellite imagery from August provided evidence of ongoing construction and testing being carried out in secret at the base.

The satellite evidence showed major alterations at the site which the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) says were meant to hide possible tests of conventional triggers for a nuclear explosion. The evidence followed satellite images from August 2012 showing cleanup activities at the base, as well as images showing suspicious activities at a building suspected of housing nuclear blast experiments.

Furthermore, the IAEA has not been allowed in to inspect Parchin since 2005 despite calls by Yukiyo Amano, head of IAEA, to allow inspections.

The United States is still, despite recent debacles, the global hegemon. Ignoring the pleas of allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia is just one of those things a superpower can do if a president wants to put a diplomatic achievement in the White House column marked "legacy".

But for Sunni Arab leaders, deeply hostile to Iran, the deal is a sign that America's power is waning, that it has suddenly funked, decided it needs a multipolar world: one in which Washington negotiates with rather than rides roughshod over regional rivals like Iran, and global rivals like Russia and China. Those leaders are now fast reassessing their own relations with Moscow and Beijing. If you believe the noises coming out of Riyadh and Jerusalem, after the deal comes the deluge. Even if Israel holds off from bombing Iran's nuclear facilities - and it was ruling nothing out on Sunday - other disasters are lining up.

More quietly, convinced that Iran's promises are hollow and that it can no longer trust the United States, could Saudi Arabia itself go nuclear? It too has never ruled this out. Pakistan's nuclear deterrent has been described as "Saudi's proxy bomb" because of the two nations' close co-operation; that might become reality.

Meanwhile, it remains the world's number one oil producer, and has recently become the main guarantor of Egypt's new military-backed regime. It seems quite happy to see Cairo currying favour and arms deals with Russia. The Sunni world, it seems, may be on the verge of falling out of the American orbit.

As Britain urged the main regional powers to back the agreement, the Saudis offered their grudging support, with an official statement saying that it "could be a first step towards a comprehensive solution for Iran's nuclear programme, if there are good intentions". But the kingdom's rulers remain deeply suspicious of Iran's intentions - and almost equally wary of America's diplomacy, especially since they were kept in the dark about the secret US contacts with Iran that preceded the Geneva agreement.

Nawaf Obaid, a counsellor to Prince Mohammad bin Nawaf, the Saudi Ambassador to London, accused America of dishonesty. "We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva, but how it was done." The response, said Mr Obaid, would be a "new defence doctrine" based on containing Iran.

His comments reflect Saudi fears that America's overtures towards Iran could upset their own traditionally close alliance with Washington. Although Saudi Arabia has great wealth, its military strength is limited and its 75,000-strong army is barely a fifth of the size of Iran's - forcing the country to rely on America as the ultimate guarantor of its territorial security.

"There is no absolute replacement for the US for Saudi Arabia as it casts around for allies, but there is a longer term project of looking to spread its focus," said Daniel Levy, the Middle East director of the European Council for Foreign Relations.

Angola's ban was first announced last Friday, when Angolan Minister of Culture, Rosa Cruz e Silva said "the process of legalization of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human rights, their mosques would be closed until further notice."

India Today reports Silva's statement was made at the 6th Commission of the Angolan National Assembly, and that the ban includes orders to demolish mosques in the country. Silva reportedly said the ban was necessary since Islam is "contradictory to the customs of Angolan culture."

The crackdown on Islam comes as Christians in the Middle East are being forced from Muslim countries. The Minister of Culture added that there is a legalization process through which over a thousand religious sects are currently applying.

At least the beginning of the "For the Future of the Family" conference offered a spectacle: For several minutes, a mighty drumming sound echoed through the conference hall. Dozens of demonstrators banged against the walls of the building in Schkeuditz, a small town located near Leipzig. "Your idea of family makes us want to puke," read placards held up by young leftist protesters.

In the run-up to it, the event attracted significant controversy, in no small part due to the second half of the title to Saturday's program: "Are Europe's peoples being abolished?" German Middle East expert Peter Scholl-Latour and former news anchor Eva Herman - who gained notoriety in Germany and was fired from her job at a public broadcaster several years ago for making favorable remarks about family values during the Third Reich - had both been scheduled to attend.

But both withdrew at short notice, Scholl-Latour citing scheduling issues while Herman said she was doing so out of fear for her family's safety and "because I don't want to expose myself to media mud-slinging." Several speakers from Russia took part in the Leipzig conference, sparing no effort to promote President Vladimir Putin's family policies.

Among them was lawmaker Yelena Mizulina, chair of the Duma Committee on Family, Women and Childrens' Affairs and co-author of the country's infamous law banning "homosexual propaganda". Mizulina told the audience how she'd been kicked by demonstrators on arrival at the convention center and that she planned to press charges. "These people are intolerant, aggressive and well organized," she complained. "This shows that ineffective gay activists are a thing of the past," she continued.

“Blessed Father. Beloved by all Ukrainians, Pope Francis!” The enthusiasm from the major archbishop for the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, was evident as he greeted Pope Francis in the Pope's native language.

Along with the much larger Ukrainian group, a smaller Greek-Catholic delegation from Belarus attended. The Pope spoke about how St Josaphat is an example of the communion of saints. “The memory of this martyred saint speaks to us about the communion of saints, of the communion of life between all of the people who belong to Christ.”

The Pope added that the best way to honor St Josaphat is to love and serve towards the unity of the Church. He called on Ukrainians to build stronger relationships with other Churches. “I hope that the deep communion that you wish to strengthen each day within the Catholic Church, will help you build bridges of fraternity also with other Churches and ecclesiastical communities in Ukrainian land, and wherever your communities are present.”

“With good information about risk, pain and lack of health benefits of the intervention, I think parents from minorities would voluntarily abstain from circumcising children,” Anne Lindboe, Norway’s Children’s Ombudsmen, told the Norwegian Aftenpost daily last week.

Lindboe, who last year advised Jews and Muslims to replace circumcision with “a symbolic ritual,” also told the paper that non-medical circumcision of pre-teen boys should be outlawed and those performing it should be punished similarly to people who use violence against children.

“We introduced a law on violence against children even though we had reason to believe that individuals would still be beaten and mistreated,” she said, dismissing concerns raised in Norwegian media that a ban on ritual circumcision would mean that parents would perform it illegally.

They emphasized “the need to bring an end to the violence” in Syria, ensuring humanitarian assistance to Syrians affected by the fighting while seeking ways to find a “peaceful solution to the conflict,” the Vatican said in a statement.

They also touched on “the life of the Catholic community in Russia,” according to the Vatican, but the Holy See spokesman, the Rev Federico Lombardi, said that the “ecumenical question” between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, whose relationship has been tense since the two churches divided nearly 1,000 years ago, was not discussed.

A recent signatory is Dr Belinda Martineau, former member of the Michelmore Lab at the UC Davis Genome Center, University of California, who helped commercialise the world’s first GM whole food, the Flavr Savr tomato. Dr Martineau said: “I wholeheartedly support this thorough, thoughtful and professional statement describing the lack of scientific consensus on the safety of genetically engineered (GM) crops and other GM organisms (also referred to as GMOs). Society’s debate over how best to utilize the powerful technology of genetic engineering is clearly not over. For its supporters to assume it is, is little more than wishful thinking.”

Another signatory, Dr Judy Carman, director of the Institute of Health and Environmental Research, Adelaide, and adjunct associate professor, health and the environment, Flinders University, South Australia, said: “Of the hundreds of different GM crops that have been approved for human and animal consumption somewhere in the world, few have been thoroughly safety tested. So it is not possible to have a consensus that they are all safe to eat – at least, not a consensus based on hard scientific evidence derived from experimental data.”

A third signatory, Professor Elena Alvarez-Buylla, coordinator of the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of Plant Development and Evolution, Institute of Ecology, UNAM, Mexico, said: “Given the scientific evidence at hand, sweeping claims that GM crops are substantially equivalent to, and as safe as, non-GM crops are not justifiable.”

Civil society groups (including ENSSER, Testbiotech, the Foundation on Future Farming, and the German Family Farmers Association) filed a lawsuit in March 2013, claiming that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had recommended approval for the “stacked” GMO variety without carrying out proper risk assessments as required by law.

The variety is a complex one, containing traits for producing its own toxins and also providing resistance the Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. However, in spite of Intacta’s potential for introducing novel proteins and unique toxic effects into the animal and human food supply, EFSA did not insist on any safety or animal feeding studies prior to approval, so its real health effects are completely unknown.

Ecological organizations are also deeply concerned about the new GMO soy, because of its potential for inflicting considerable damage in sensitive ecosystems.

But for MK Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism, the reason Iran was able to “pull the wool” over the eyes of the US and other negotiating countries, who agreed to ease sanctions on Iran in exchange for a promise by Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, has as much to do with Israelis as it has to do with Iran's negotiating savvy.

“This is a bad deal,” said Porush, who is a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “The Prime Minister needs to know that the Torah is the only thing that can defend and save the Jewish people. We as Jews believe that the attempts to harm the world of Torah harms the security of Israel.” By advocating drafting yeshiva students and cutting funding to yeshivas, the government is endangering Israel's security – with one result being that Iran has now been strengthened.

Agreeing with him was MK Eli Yishai (Shas), chairman of the Knesset Committee on Homefront Preparation. “The nations of the world see their narrow financial interests before them, not their responsibility to defend the Jewish people,” he said. “Once again we see that the Jewish people is a nation that dwells alone. We have no one to rely on but our Father in heaven,” he said.

Saudi Arabia claims they were kept in the dark by Western allies over Iran nuclear deal and says it will strike out on its own. Nawaf Obaid told a think tank meeting in London that Saudi Arabia was determined to pursue its own foreign policy goals. Having in the past been reactive to events, the leading Sunni Muslim nation was determined to be pro-active in future.

Mr Obaid said that while Saudi Arabia knew that the US was talking directly to Iran through a channel in the Gulf state of Oman, Washington had not directly briefed its ally. "We were lied to, things were hidden from us," he said. "The problem is not with the deal struck in Geneva but how it was done."

A fellow of Harvard University's Belfer Centre and adviser to Prince Mohammad, the Saudi ambassador to London, Mr Obaid said Saudi Arabia would continue to resist Iranian involvement in the Syrian civil war. In particular he pointed to Iranian Revolutionary Guards involvement in battles in Syria on behalf of the regime.

The deal itself is modest enough. It in effect freezes Iran's nuclear programme, in return for the lifting of a handful of sanctions, making it easier for Iran to sell cars, oil, petrochemicals and gold. Congress is very sceptical about the deal. Many are suggesting that they should push for fresh sanctions even though the White House has claimed this could shatter the agreement.

Some have vociferously protested Iran gets more out of it than the West. This is probably correct, and those who say this is largely a confidence-building measure are almost certainly right. But it is the next step that worries people. The constant critics who see Obama as weakness personified trot out "Munich" and "deal with Hitler".

Some point out that what can be frozen can be thawed - in other words, it is pretty easy for Iran simply to re-start its programme once the sanctions have disappeared. The Saudis are unhappy that Iran's influence may grow. Perhaps they would rather have that country as a dangerous pariah than see it accepted as a legitimate player in the region.

Others are concerned it is part of a wider trend of US disengagement from the Middle East. If Iran does give up on the weapons programme it says doesn't exist, Israel might find itself under greater polemical, if not actual political, pressure to give up its own undeclared nukes.

This may be a historic deal; it is what sort of history it leads to that is really important.