And after years of negative press, the Catholic Church is basking in the 'Francis Effect' which has been credited with a 20 per cent rise in congregations in Britain, and similar boosts around the world. But who is the PR guru working quietly behind the scenes to help push Pope Francis forward and leading the Church out of one of its darkest spells following a slew of recent scandals?

His name is Greg Burke and he is a senior media advisor to the Vatican. The Vatican, stung by communications blunders and mired in a leaks scandal, hired the American journalist in June 2012 from Fox News to help improve its relations with the media.

He became a member of the controversial Catholic group Opus Dei when he was 18 and is a 'numerary' in the movement, a celibate layman. Opus is greatly in favor in the Vatican these days, particularly as other new religious movements such as the Legion of Christ have lost credibility with their own problems. Founded in 1928, Opus Dei is part of the Catholic Church and has 500 members across Britain.

The stated mission of the organisation - which means 'God's Work' - is to spread the Christian message and help people embrace Catholicism in their everyday work. But it has attracted controversy over its practices including self-flagellation and radical teachings that homosexual sex is a sin. Critics have also accused the organisation of brainwashing and being run like a cult.

Depositors already have to cope with near-zero interest rates, but paying just to leave money in the bank would be highly unusual and unwelcome for companies and households. The warning by bank executives highlights the dangers of one strategy the Fed could use to offset an eventual “tapering” of the $85 billion a month in asset purchases that have fuelled global financial markets for the last year.

Minutes of the Fed’s October meeting published last week showed it was heading towards a taper in the coming months – perhaps as soon as December – but wants to find a different way to add stimulus at the same time. “Most” officials thought a cut in the interest on bank reserves was an option worth considering.

Executives at two of the top five US banks said a cut in the 0.25 per cent rate of interest on the $2.4 trillion in reserves they hold at the Fed would lead them to pass on the cost to depositors. Banks say they may have to charge because taking in deposits is not free: they have to pay premiums of a few basis points to a US government insurance programme.

RBS is said to have acted like a ‘hit squad’ by deliberately causing healthy businesses to go bust for its personal gain. In the worst cases, the bank withdrew lines of credit for previously solvent firms by charging eye-watering fees and charges so it could then seize their assets – typically property – at knockdown prices.

Entrepreneur Lawrence Tomlinson was asked by Business Secretary Vince Cable to look into small business lending. He accuses many of Britain’s banks of ‘heavy-handed profiteering and abhorrent behaviour’. Last night Mr Tomlinson said if it was proved there was ‘systematic and institutional fraud’ at the banks, ‘you should see people going to jail’.

His report reserved its most damning criticism for taxpayer-backed RBS and Lloyds. He said: ‘It is undeniable that some of the banks, RBS and Lloyds in particular, are harming their customers through their decisions and causing their financial downfall.’ The allegation will be a major embarrassment for both lenders and the Government, which owns an 82 per cent stake in RBS and 43 per cent in Lloyds.

Last night Mr Tomlinson, the founding chairman of the LNT Group, which employs more than 2,000 people, told Channel 4 News: ‘We’re really concerned that the businesses aren’t really struggling and are pushed over the edge. And then these extra fees tip them over into administration, and then you’ve got the loss of jobs but end up with RBS owning the property.’

Perpetrators have dubbed the violent practice as the "knockout game," in which young people try to randomly knock out strangers with one punch. Recent attacks in New York, New Haven, Connecticut, Washington DC and suburban Philadelphia have raised concerns across the country.

The violence is not new, though. In 2011, St Louis had a rash of similar incidents, one of which led to the death of a Vietnamese immigrant. Some of the assaults are recorded and posted on social media by the attackers.

The attacks in New York have racial overtones because the suspects are black and the victims have been Jewish. In New Haven, police spokesman David Hartman said police are investigating six incidents in the past month as part of the knockout trend. "I think the fact that this has been labeled a game is sickening," Hartman said. "This is not a game. This is violent."

US President Barack Obama welcomed the deal, saying it included "substantial limitations which will help prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon". Iran agreed to give better access to inspectors and halt some of its work on uranium enrichment. But Iranian negotiators insisted they still had a right to nuclear power.

Tehran denies repeated claims by Western governments that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. It insists it must be allowed to enrich uranium to use in power stations. The deal comes just months after Iran elected Hassan Rouhani - regarded as a relative moderate - as its new president, in place of the hardline Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Mr Rouhani said the deal would "open up new horizons". After four days of negotiations, representatives of the so-called P5+1 group of nations - the US, the UK, Russia, China, France and Germany - reached an agreement with Iran in the early hours of Sunday.

The specifics of the deal have yet to be released, but negotiators indicated the broad outlines:

• Iran will stop enriching uranium beyond 5%, the level at which it can be used for weapons research, and reduce its stockpile of uranium enriched beyond this point

• Iran will give greater access to inspectors including daily access at Natanz and Fordo nuclear sites

• In return, there will be no new nuclear-related sanctions for six months

• Iran will also receive sanctions relief worth about $7 billion (£4.3 billion) on sectors including precious metals

US Secretary of State John Kerry said the agreement would make the region safer for its allies, including Israel. But the Israeli government criticised the deal and said Israel did not feel bound by it.

"We awoke this morning to a new reality. A reality in which a bad deal was signed with Iran. A very bad deal," Bennett stated on his Facebook page. "This bad deal gives Iran exactly what it wanted: a significant easing of the sanctions while retaining the most significant parts of its nuclear program." Bennett emphasized the long-term implications of the deal, stating that "if a nuclear suitcase blows up five years from now in New York or Madrid, it will be because of the deal that was signed this morning."

The remarks provide a telling rebuttal to claims by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, an alleged moderate, that "Israel is only concerned about its own interests, and it does not think about the interests of the world." Bennett also vowed that Israel will not take the news lightly. "There is still a long campaign ahead of us," he continued. "We will continue to act in every possible way."

"It is important that the world knows: Israel will not be committed to a deal that endangers its very existence," Bennett concluded. Those comments come soon after the Jewish Home party head made similar statements in an interview with Army Radio, declaring that Israel is not bound by the deal.

"Israel is not engaged by the Geneva accord," he said, in a statement to Army Radio. "Iran is threatening Israel and Israel has the right to defend itself."

Along with the creation of the zone in the East China Sea, the defence ministry released a set of aircraft identification rules that must be followed by all planes entering the area, under penalty of intervention by the military.

Aircraft are expected to provide their flight plan, clearly mark their nationality, and maintain two-way radio communication allowing them to "respond in a timely and accurate manner to the identification inquiries" from Chinese authorities. "China's armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures to respond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification or refuse to follow the instructions," according to the ministry. The zone became operational as of 10:00 am Saturday.

Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said in late October that the repeated incursions were a threat to peace and fell in a "grey zone (between) peacetime and an emergency situation". A few days earlier, the Chinese defence minister warned Japan that any bid to shoot down its drones would constitute "an act of war".

A 3,000-seat outdoor theatre in a park in downtown Tokyo, near the parliament, was not enough to contain everyone who came on Thursday to denounce government plans to considerably broaden the definition of classified information. According to organizers’ estimates, about 10,000 people crowded shoulder-to-shoulder in the aisles of the theater and outside of it, holding banners that read: “Don't take away our freedom.”

The adoption of the law, proposed by the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, would enable the authorities to put civil servants responsible for information leaks behind bars for up to 10 years. This would seriously threaten the freedom of the press, as Japanese media would face serious problems gathering information on burning issues, because state employees would be reluctant to share information for fear of prosecution.

That’s why a group of Japanese journalists gathered at the Nagatacho District, close to the country’s parliament, to protest the proposed bill. Currently, long prison terms for whistleblowers only apply to those Japanese citizens who leak classified data that came from the US military.

“The definition of what will be designated as secrets is not clear, and bureaucrats will make secrets extremely arbitrarily,” TV journalist Soichiro Tahara told Japan Daily Press. Protesting journalists have submitted a petition to the Cabinet Office, calling for the bill to be scrapped.

The White House website posted a memo stating the following: My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Has he kept that promise? Journalists don’t think so.

Bob Schieffer, CBS News anchor and chief Washington correspondent, told The Washington Post:

"Whenever I’m asked what is the most manipulative and secretive administration I’ve covered, I always say it’s the one in office now. Every administration learns from the previous administration. They become more secretive and put tighter clamps on information. This administration exercises more control than George W Bush’s did, and his before that."

Obama’s White House is arguably the LEAST transparent administration in recent years. CBS’s Sharyl Attkisson posted a series of Tweets that blasted the Obama administration for restricting the access of photojournalists at certain presidential events, “while releasing government photos and videos of the same events”.

This administration supplies their own propaganda photos and videos; why would they want journalists coming in there and interfering? The White House Correspondents Association and 38 news organizations sent a letter to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to complain and ask for more access. The complaint was also endorsed by the White House News Photographers Association.

Every promise made by the President and Congressional democrats who supported Obamacare legislation has turned out to be a complete falsehood. But what’s critical to our future well-being is that we understand that the machinations and conjecture are not restricted solely to the health care debacle. They pervade every aspect of government on the federal, state and local level alike.

We have been lied to on every front, as evidenced by revelations just yesterday that the Bureau of Labor and Statistics completely fabricated unemployment numbers in an effort to sway the 2012 election results. This is supposed to be an impartial, non-partisan agency whose sole purpose is to calculate numbers, and even that has been hijacked by agenda-driven politicians and special interests.

Whether we’re talking about health care, the economy, personal privacy, or national security, we must assume, unless proven otherwise, that we are being lied to.

Dr Roberts goes on to say, “The whole question of the dollar’s longevity depends on the willingness of other countries to continue holding dollars and dollar denominated assets while the Federal Reserve prints a trillion dollars a year to prop up the big banks and to finance the federal budget deficit.”

There are many ways countries are currently moving away from the dollar. One of the most startling, says Dr Roberts, “China is accumulating very large quantities of gold. So, this does show that the dollar may have a limited life as the supreme currency.”

With global NSA spying scandals, if the dollar starts coming under attack in the currency markets, Dr Roberts predicts, “All of this makes it very difficult if there is a run on the dollar for the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to call up these foreign governments and say help us stop this run.” Don’t think the Fed is ever going to stop printing money because Dr Roberts contends, “They’re trapped because you can’t expect them to say let’s blow up the world right now so we don’t have a crisis in the dollar next year.”

One of the Springer publisher's journals bore the headline, "Radiant Victor meets Helpless Hollande," referring to the dramatic economic situation France finds itself in: The country is looking "into the Abyss." Beyond this blatant smear campaign, experts are noting that there is a "disengagement" of the French economy from that of Germany.

According to their analysis, Berlin has created significant advantages for the German industry with its "Hartz Reforms" - wage waivers and cuts in social spending. France has not been able to break popular resistance to these kinds of austerity programs. The German-French dichotomy has become so large that "there are growing doubts" about "whether there remains a sufficient basis for German-French cooperation," according to a recent analysis of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

Observers interpret France's recent decision to repatriate an important detachment of the German-French Brigade from German territory, as further evidence of erosion in the ties between the two countries. In reference to the economic and financial policy issues, Henrik Uterwedde recently noted that "doubts are growing about whether there remains a sufficient basis for German-French cooperation." These doubts have long since settled in on many other areas of policymaking - one of the results of the brachial imposition of German predominance.

Mr Grieve told the Daily Telegraph it was not restricted to "any one community" but he was referring mainly to "the Pakistani community". He said it must be made "absolutely clear" that a "favour culture" is unacceptable in Britain.

One Pakistan-born MP accused Mr Grieve of "dividing" communities. Mr Grieve told the Telegraph he would be "wary of saying" it was just a Pakistani problem, pointing out corruption was found in the "white Anglo-Saxon" community too. But he said some immigrants come to Britain from countries where corruption is "endemic".

These are societies "where they have been brought up to believe you can only get certain things through a favour culture," he said. "One of the things you have to make absolutely clear is that is not the case and it's not acceptable." Mr Grieve, Conservative MP for Beaconsfield and the government's chief legal adviser, added: "It is something as politicians we have to wake up to."

In an explosive Daily Mail survey, eight out of ten said they did not want citizens of the two countries to be handed free access to UK jobs from January 1. Ministers warn Britain will be taken to court if it ignores the Brussels edict to let the migrants in.

But the threat of big fines from the European Court of Justice was brushed off by almost two thirds of the public.

They said that – even if it meant legal sanctions – the Prime Minister should keep the restrictions in place to ‘serve the national interest’. And 80 per cent of voters say Westminster should retain the final say over who enters the country.

Only 5 per cent think Brussels should be in charge. An overwhelming 85 per cent said migration was putting too much pressure on schools, hospitals and housing. The findings of the Harris poll, conducted earlier this week, will heap further pressure on Downing Street to stop a potentially major influx from Romania and Bulgaria.

The ad reported by The Blaze contained the text: “Don’t forget your holiday stamps. You’ll find them at your nearest post office or on eBay.” And below the text were pictures of three stamps: One showed a candle holder with nine lighted candles, emblazoned with the word “Hanukkah.” Another showed an colorful symbol over an open book, above the block-type word “Kwanzaa.”

And the third, in the middle, showed — a gingerbread house. Twitter reflected the outrage of at least one eagle-eyed writer. The poster @RennaW said: “Don’t forget those three American holidays : Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and … gingerbread house.” The same poster followed with another comment: “What happened to Christmas?”