The 200 metre high ‘InTempo’ towers in Benidorm were billed as 'a vision of the future' and a symbol of Spain's reemergence from a crippling financial crisis. With 47 floors of living space it was intended to be the tallest residential building in Europe. But with only months until it is due for completion, contractors have hit upon a slight problem. They forgot to build a lift.

The towers were originally designed to be only 20 floors high, but ambitious developers decided to double the scale of the project midway through. A lift exists for the first 20 floors, but beyond that there is only the stairs. And reports seen by Spain's El Pais newspaper suggest there is no more space for another lift or motor equipment. It is only the latest in a series of setbacks which have beset the project.

‘InTempo’ was dreamed up in the decade-long building boom that saw new structures leap up across Spain in the late Nineties and early Noughties. ‘InTempo’ is not the only Spanish white elephant to have hit the headlines. An airport constructed in Ciudad Real, near Madrid, cost €1 billion before it was closed in 2012 due to a lack of business. It is now being sold off for just €100 million.

But taxpayers are also funding aid programmes in South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya – all of which have their own space agencies. Many are in their early stages, but include ambitious and expensive plans for satellites and even rockets. Over the five years of this Government, the four nations will receive more than £1.5 billion from British taxpayers.

Kenya will be handed the most, a total of £596 million, followed by Uganda which is getting £480 million. Ghana will receive £460 million. South Africa will be given £112 million – almost as much as it spends on its space programme. The long-standing project is estimated to cost some £110 million a year. Britain is also handing about £280 million a year in aid to India, another country with its own space programme.

The row was sparked by comments from UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom who said it was folly to give billions in aid to ‘Bongo Bongo land’. He said: ‘How we can possibly be giving a billion pounds a month, when we’re in this sort of debt, to Bongo Bongo land is completely beyond me.’

But the revelations that oil-rich Nigeria, which is receiving £300 million in British aid this year alone, had ambitious plans to launch its own rockets sparked fury. Critics asked why Britain was, in effect, subsidising a space programme for a nation where 70 per cent of people live below the poverty line. Backbench Tory MP Philip Davies said it was ‘totally unjustifiable and unaffordable’ for Britain to give this money to Nigeria, given the scale of its ‘grandiose’ space programme.

Prayers for Britain to stay in the EU forming part of a Brussels-backed event to mark the 40th anniversary of the UK joining the Common Market are to be said in a service at Salisbury Cathedral. The event next month is being held in Salisbury because it was the home of the late Sir Edward Heath, the Prime Minister who took the UK into what is now the EU in 1973. Leading pro-Europeans will attend.

The programme, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, advertises as part of the event: ‘Evensong in the cathedral, during which prayers will be said for the European Union and the UK’s place therein.’ Last night, leading Eurosceptic MP Peter Bone claimed the C of E was being ‘hijacked’ in an outrageous attempt to influence the EU debate. He said: ‘It is disgraceful the Europhile lobby should be trying to embroil the Church in this debate.’

'I can’t remember the passage in the Bible where God or Jesus comes out in support of the EU. It cannot be right to pray for a European Superstate mismanaging the lives of millions.’ But embarrassingly for the organisers, Salisbury Tory MP John Glen has refused to attend. ‘I do not see the bloated bureaucracy of Europe as something to celebrate,’ he said.

The problem? The market ended up tanking in the second half of that year — dropping 36 percent from the August 25 peak to the October low, before closing out 1987 nearly exactly where it began. And Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, predicts that the very same thing will happen in the back half of 2013.

"In 1987, we had a very powerful rally, but also earnings were no longer rising substantially, and the market became very overbought," Faber said on Thursday's "Futures Now." "The final rally into August 25 occurred with a diminishing number of stocks hitting 52-week highs. In other words, the new-high list was contracting, and we have several breaks in different stocks."

Faber says that's exactly where we find ourselves this August. So what kind of a decline does Faber predict, once all is said and done? His year-end market call lives up to his "Dr Doom" moniker. Faber expects to see stocks end the year "maybe 20 percent lower, maybe more!"

The move by Harare and Tehran is expected to provoke international outrage because of the attempt to circumvent punitive Western sanctions imposed on the two regimes. Gift Chimanikire, the Zimbabwean Deputy Mining Minister, said that a memorandum of understanding had been signed to export uranium to Tehran, despite warnings from Washington of serious “ramifications” if such a deal went ahead.

“We have no capacity to handle uranium as a country, and besides we don’t even know the quantity of uranium deposits viable for mining," Bloomberg quoted Chimanikire as saying during a phone interview. He added that Zimbabwe "signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran, which covers various agreements in mineral trading such as diamonds, gold and other minerals.”

Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated from the area on Palue island, according to the National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Mount Rokatenda is one of about 129 active volcanoes in Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 17,000 islands that's home to some 240 million people. The country is prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity because it sits along the Pacific 'Ring of Fire,' a horseshoe-shaped series of fault lines.

The clip released by LiveLeak shows a Muslim Brotherhood "demonstration" in Egypt that was specifically staged to get the most dramatic poses, as the actors freeze their poses for the photographers. Injuries and even bloodstains are faked. Which is not to say only the MB is responsible for such drama: what is shown is a prevalent tactic used across various ideologies and factions around the world to generate sympathy with the naive, gullible and easily influenced "western" audiences who are always willing to accept "reality" at face value.

The take home, if there is one?

Never trust anything you are told or shown, especially when national interests or intelligence agencies are involved and/or providing the funding. And always verify independently, preferably with numerous sources: after all the video may well be a counter-provocation to discredit the MB, or not. Nobody knows for sure.

That, and of course just enjoy what is shown on TV for what it is: a thrilling, and often times very fictional, action movie which ALWAYS has an agenda.

So what will happen to the venerable Washington Post now that it is being sold for US$250 million to Jeff Bezos, the owner of the internet bookshop Amazon? Nothing, he says: "The values of The Post do not need changing. The duty of the paper is to the readers, not the owners."

But what are Jeff's values?

Politically, he has supported both the Democrats and the Republicans. But on social issues, he is best known for throwing, together with his wife, $2.5 million into the coffers of the campaign in Washington state (where Amazon has its HQ) to legalize same-sex marriage. It was the biggest-ever donation to the cause. And he didn't have to. Even Bill Gates of Microsoft, only gave $100,000.

One of his former employees asked him to donate between $100,000 and $200,000. He wrote back, "this is right for so many reasons. We're in for $2.5 million. Jeff & MacKenzie."

Demolishing Iran’s nuclear program by force is entirely possible, he said, estimating that it would take “a few hours of airstrikes, no more.” He was not overly concerned with the possibility that Iran could fire missiles on Israel in response to an international attack on its facilities. Such an attack would cause “very limited damage,” he said, explaining that Israel would be able to intercept most of the missiles.

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has expressed willingness to negotiate with the international community over his country’s nuclear program. However, Israeli leaders have warned the world against being convinced by Rouhani’s public statements. “Of course he wants more talks. He wants to talk and talk and talk. And while everybody is busy talking to him, he’ll be busy enriching uranium,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned this week in a meeting with US lawmakers.

“This isn't a secret. The new Iranian president boasts that that is his strategy,” he added. Steinitz agreed. “Rouhani is charming, he is cunning, and he will smile all the way to the bomb,” he told the Post.

“What we witnessed in 2006 is the very tip of the iceberg,” said the official, referring to the 33-day war between Israel and the Lebanese-based Shiite militia Hezbollah. In that case, a third of the country was forced into bomb shelters for a month while rockets rained down on northern Israel.

The official spoke to reporters Wednesday on the condition that his name not be used, in keeping with Israeli military practice. In the 2006 Second Lebanon War, nearly 4,000 rockets were fired into Israel, killing more than 40 civilians and causing widespread devastation to property and the economy.

Hezbollah is now believed to have 60,000 to 100,000 rockets that boast longer ranges, improved accuracy and larger warheads. “This will be a whole new ballgame,” the official said.

The proposal of $15 billion in weapons contracts was allegedly made during the July 31 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and influential intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Reuters reported. Neither Moscow nor Riyadh has officially commented on the agenda of the talks, but a Thursday AFP report revealed new details of the negotiations.

According to an undisclosed European diplomat, Prince Bandar proposed the deal and told Putin that "whatever regime comes after" Assad will be "completely" in Riyadh’s hands. The Prince reportedly stated that if the deal was accepted, Saudi Arabia would not sign any contracts damaging Russian interests by allowing Gulf countries to transport its gas across Syria to Europe.

The terms included Moscow dropping its support of President Bashar Assad, as well as not opposing any future Security Council resolutions on Syria. "President Putin listened politely to his interlocutor and let him know that his country would not change its strategy," a separate Arab diplomat told AFP.

But defence officials have revealed that three of them – the frigate Westminster and two support vessels – will call in at the British sovereign base at Gibraltar for three days, beginning on August 19. In a show of force, the warships will practise ‘a range of operations’ including ‘deterring adversaries’.

Although diplomatic relations between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar have plunged into the deep freeze, the Ministry of Defence insisted that the mission, called Cougar ’13, is a long-planned exercise. But senior government sources conceded that the timing is convenient since it will reassure the people of Gibraltar after Spain imposed draconian border checks in a dispute over fishing.

And while the deployment could have been delayed to avoid upsetting the Spanish government, it was not.

His frankness contrasts sharply with Tony Blair, who was advised by his spin doctor Alastair Campbell he should not ‘do God’ as it could put voters off. He said: ‘I’m a Christian and I’m an active member of the Church of England, and like all Christians I think I sometimes struggle with some of the sayings and some of the instructions.’

‘But what I think is so good about Jesus’s teachings is there are lots of things that he said that you can still apply very directly to daily life and to bringing up your children. Simple things like do to others as you would be done by; love your neighbour as yourself, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount. To me they’re still pretty fresh and good instructions... but the particular one that you mention, I find a little bit more difficult.’