"Germany's security is also being defended in the Hindu Kush, too," Peter Struck, who was Germany's defense minister at the time, said in 2002. If that's true, then the government should also be expected to defend the security of its people at their own doorstep. Because the massive sniffing out and saving of data of all kinds - that of citizens and businesses, newspapers, political parties, government agencies - is in the end just that: a question of security. It is about the principles of the rule of law. And it is a matter of national security.

We live in changing times. At the beginning of last week, we thought after the announcement of the American Prism program, that US President Barack Obama was the sole boss of the largest and most extensive control system in human history. That was an error. Since Friday, we have known that the British intelligence agency GCHQ is "worse than the United States." Those are the words of Edward Snowden, the IT expert who uncovered the most serious surveillance scandal of all time. American and British intelligence agencies are monitoring all communication data. And what does our chancellor do? She says: "The Internet is uncharted territory for us all."

That's not enough. In the coming weeks, the German government needs to show that it is bound to its citizens and not to an intelligence-industrial complex that abuses our entire lives as some kind of data mine. Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger hit the right note when she said she was shocked by this "Hollywood-style nightmare."

We have Edward Snowden to thank for this insight into the interaction of an uncanny club, the Alliance of Five Eyes. Since World War II, the five Anglo-Saxon countries of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have maintained close intelligence cooperation, which apparently has gotten completely out of control.

The damning article in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the party’s official newspaper, came in response to Washington’s accusations of the “deliberate choice by the government to release a fugitive despite a valid arrest warrant.”

Addressing Washington’s allegations, the People’s Daily wrote that China could not accept “this kind of dissatisfaction and opposition.” “Not only did the US authorities not give us an explanation and apology, it instead expressed dissatisfaction at the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for handling things in accordance with the law,” wrote Wang Xinjun, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science in the People's Daily commentary.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying also denounced the US accusations as “groundless and unacceptable.” “It is unreasonable for the US to question Hong Kong's handling of affairs in accordance with law, and the accusation against the Chinese central government is groundless,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

“In a sense, the United States has gone from a model of human rights to an eavesdropper on personal privacy, the manipulator of the centralized power over the international internet, and the mad invader of other countries' networks,” the People's Daily said.

The carefully planned journey of Edward Snowden from Hong Kong to Russia – then to Cuba possibly, before ending up in Ecuador to seek political asylum – underscores just how many countries, big and small, are happy to have an occasion to stick it in the eye of the United States.

The US and the Obama administration in particular are quick to emphasize the importance they give to the human rights of the citizens of the countries they are dealing with. Needless to say, however, those countries don’t always take well to American lesson-giving. With the case of Mr Snowden – a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked details of top-secret American and British surveillance programs and who is now sought by the US on espionage charges – those countries have a chance to turn the tables on the US.

It will be broadcast live by the state-financed "Deutsche Welle." Safeguarding the supply of natural resources to Germany and the expansion of the German "leadership" in Europe will be among the topics discussed, as well as "special forces missions," "drone warfare," "targeted killings" and the "networking" of government and private sectors for the global implementation of "German interests."

The list of speakers has been established accordingly and will include the director of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, and board chairman of the Commerzbank, Klaus-Peter Müller. Müller is considered the initiator of the "Celler Trialog," which is taking place since 2007 between the political establishment, the military and industry. The Trialog is calling for an intensification of cooperation between the German military and the economic sector.

Yields on Britain's 10-year gilts at one point jumped 13.5 basis points to 2.5% - their highest level since October 2011 - mirroring a rise in borrowing costs across Europe. Investors have been selling off bonds and other assets after the Federal Reserve indicated last week that it could start scaling back stimulus measures.

Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, heralded the end of an era of easy money when he said that if America’s economic health improves as expected, the Fed’s asset purchases would be scaled back later this year and end completely next summer.

Since it was the first journey of the honored guest to Ukraine, his chief purpose was to meet with the Greek, Latin, and Armenian Catholic communities and their respective leaders in a country that John Paul II had called “a laboratory of ecumenism” during his pastoral visit in June 2001. Cardinal Koch spent two days in Kyiv, the capital, then traveled on Saturday to Lviv in Galicia (Western Ukraine), a Catholic stronghold, and finally on Monday to Uzhorod and Mukachevo, near the border with Slovakia and Hungary.

Cardinal Koch is also the co-chairman of the Mixed Commission for Theological Dialogue between Catholic and Orthodox Churches. In that capacity he held talks, during his visit, with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church leader, Metropolitan Volodymyr, of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC MP), and other representatives of that Church. He also learned about the inter-confessional fellowship that takes place within the framework of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, and about the work of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv.

On June 10, in a lecture at Ukrainian Catholic University, he explained that: “from the Orthodox point of view, the Church is present in every local church that celebrates the Eucharist, so each Eucharistic community is a complete church. Instead, from the Catholic point of view, a separate Eucharistic community is not a complete church. Therefore, a basis of the Catholic Church is the unity of separate Eucharistic communities with each other and the bishop of Rome. That is, the Catholic Church lives in the mutual intersection of local churches in one Universal Church”.

Anyone who considers himself a faithful Christian has no right not to remember the Commandment that Christ gave to the apostles at the Last Supper, saying: “Father, that all may be one, as You are in Me and I in You, so that they be united in Us, so that the world may come to believe that You sent Me.” The Head of the Church Himself says that evangelization can be successful only when there is a deep-felt unity among Christians.

A number of US news websites had reported in the past two days that a group of US soldiers will be deployed to Egypt in the near future for a nine-month peacekeeping mission aimed at "curbing riots … if protests and riots reach the point of threatening Israel's security."

"We are providing this clarification as we respect the right of the great Egyptian people to know the truth from its original sources and to prevent distortion of information by any instigators," Ali added. News of the US troop deployment started to raise controversy coming a week before opposition-backed anti-government protests scheduled for 30 June aimed at the removal of President Mohamed Morsi.

That the implication behind said warning was that QE can not continue at the current pace, was just as lost. A few short weeks later following the biggest plunge in markets since 2011 in the aftermath of Bernanke's taper tantrum, some are finally willing to listen.

However, they will certainly not like what the BIS just released as a follow up, both in the form of the BIS' 83rd Annual Report, and the speech by Jaime Caruana to commemorate said annual meeting. For the simple reason that it reads like a Zero Hedge sermon, which says, almost verbatim, that the days of kicking the can via flawed monetary policy are now over, and that the time for central banks to head for the exit has finally come.

The BIS message, as summarized by the FT, is that "central banks must head for the exit and stop trying to spur a global economic recovery... cheap and plentiful central bank money had merely bought time, warning that more bond buying would retard the global economy’s return to health by delaying adjustments to governments’ and households’ balance sheets."

Turn Down the Heat: Climate Extremes, Regional Impacts, and the Case for Resilience builds on a World Bank report released late last year, which concluded the world would warm by 4 degrees Celsius (4°C or 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century if we did not take concerted action now. This new report looks at the likely impacts of present day, 2°C and 4°C warming on agricultural production, water resources, coastal ecosystems and cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia.

Carney, Bank of Canada (BoC) governor until earlier this month, may be celebrated as a policy innovator but, as his old BoC colleague David Longworth points out, in the UK “there’s not much left for him to try”. Interest rates have been at a historic low of 0.5% for more than four years, the BoE has bought a third of the national debt to the tune of £375 billion, banks are being plied with cheap credit, and taxpayers are underwriting risky mortgages.

In one sense, Carney is woefully underprepared for the challenges that will greet him on his arrival next week. Canada’s experience of the financial car crash of 2008 was as innocent bystander. The UK, in contrast, was at the wheel and travelling way over the speed limit. Britain’s banks were operating at leverage ratios of as high as 80 times. Canada’s regulators had set a limit of 21 times – lower even than the UK post-crisis standard of 33 times.

“There is a risk that poor communication could lead to stimulus being inadvertently withdrawn too soon,” Osborne [the British Finance Minister] said. “More clarity about the future path of interest rates could help keep financial markets more stable.” With the economy “out of intensive care”, as Osborne put it, market sentiment could change rapidly – pushing up government borrowing costs and making lending for households and businesses more expensive. “Guidance”, in the form of a “conditional commitment”, could smooth the transition, controlling the markets to ensure rates only rose once the economy was strong enough to bear it – “escape velocity”, in Carney’s language.

If the economic data continue to surprise, Carney may have to devise a plan sooner than he expected. Either way, QE exit will be his greatest challenge of all.

In our cover piece this week, Ross Clark explains why the chancellor’s reputation as a mad axeman is wholly undeserved: public spending is projected to rise by £2.6 billion in real terms this year. Even public sector pay, which Osborne is supposed to have "frozen", has climbed from £165 billion in 2009/10 to £171 billion.

Why spend £500 million (over the last three years) to send the offspring of diplomats and military officers to public school? Why do civil servants get a £75 evening dress allowance? Osborne, contrary to his protestations, has dodged every “tough decision”, putting off until tomorrow what he had to do today.

The official Saudi Press Agency said late Sunday that a royal decree takes effect this week after an advisory body in April recommended changing from the current system, in which the two-day weekend begins Thursday. A similar proposal in 2007 failed, but the Saudi business community has been lobbying for the switch for years to match the schedule in main regional commercial hubs, such as Dubai. Oman switched to Friday-Saturday weekends last month. Most other countries in the Gulf start their weekends Friday, the Muslim day of communal prayer.

One drug company executive said it was a “hallelujah” moment when the NHS announced in 2011 how much it was prepared to pay for common prescription drugs – because the price cap was so high. A Daily Telegraph investigation discloses that high street chemists are being offered all-expenses paid holidays throughout the world by drug companies desperate to profit from the lucrative NHS business. The price for the drugs are set by the NHS, but patients only have to pay a standard fee of up to £7.85 with the taxpayer funding the remainder of the cost, which can run into hundreds of pounds per prescription.

The disclosure that the system of regulated drugs is being exploited for excessive profit comes after this newspaper reported that drug companies and chemists stand accused of colluding to manipulate the sale of unregulated drugs. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, ordered an investigation into the allegations, which he described as “deeply concerning”.