The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) presented a report in Geneva admitting both were guilty of harming Christian unity in the past and describing a growing consensus between the two churches in recent decades. The 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses, the doctrinal challenge that launched the Protestant Reformation, will be the first centenary celebration in the age of ecumenism, globalization and the secularization of Western societies.

"The awareness is dawning on Lutherans and Catholics that the struggle of the 16th century is over," the report said. "The reasons for mutually condemning each other's faith have fallen by the wayside." They now agree belief in Jesus unites them despite lingering differences, it said, and inspires them to cooperate more closely to proclaim the gospel in increasingly pluralistic societies.

"This is a very important step in a healing process which we all need and we are all praying for," LWF General Secretary Martin Junge said at the report's presentation in Geneva. "The division of the church is something we cannot celebrate but we can see what is positive and try to find ways towards the future together," said Cardinal Kurt Koch, head of the Vatican's department to promote Christian unity.

They currently vow to "to love my God, to serve my Queen and my country". The new oath drops the reference for the first time since Guides began in 1910 and will see them promise to "be true to myself and develop my beliefs". The revised wording from September will also see members of the 540,000-strong organisation promise "to serve the Queen and my community".

The promise has been changed 11 times in the organisation's history, most recently in 1994 when the long-standing phrase "duty to God" became "to love my God" and "serve the Queen" was supplemented with "and my country".

In December last year, the UK Scout Association announced its own consultation to see if its members would support an alternative Scout Promise for atheists, who are unwilling to pledge a "duty to God". And in July 2012, the Girl Guides in Australia dropped their allegiance to both God and the Queen, agreeing to serve their community and be true to themselves instead.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama is coming to Germany. But who, really, will be visiting? He is the 44th president of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. He is an intelligent lawyer. And he is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

But is he a friend? The revelations brought to us by IT expert Edward Snowden have made certain what paranoid computer geeks and left-wing conspiracy theorists have long claimed: that we are being watched. All the time and everywhere. And it is the Americans who are doing the watching. On Tuesday, the head of the largest and most all-encompassing surveillance system ever invented is coming for a visit. If Barack Obama is our friend, then we really don't need to be terribly worried about our enemies.

What, exactly, is the purpose of the National Security Agency? Security, as its name might suggest? No matter in what system or to what purpose: A monitored human being is not a free human being. And every state that systematically contravenes human rights, even in the alleged service of security, is acting criminally.

He announced the start of formal negotiations on a trade deal worth hundreds of billions of pounds, aimed at boosting exports and driving growth. Mr Cameron said a successful agreement would have a greater impact than all other world trade deals put together.

The talks were announced ahead of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland. US President Barack Obama said the first round of negotiations would take place in Washington in July. They aim to conclude by the end of 2014.

“We have agreed to push the sides of the Syrian conflict to come to the negotiating table at the international Geneva conference,” Putin said. “On some points, we still have a different stance, but we are united by an aspiration to prevent violence, to put an end to the growing number of victims, to solve the problem by peaceful means, including through negotiations at the international conference at Geneva,” the Russian President added.

President Obama conceded that he has a “different perspective” on Syria than his Russian counterpart, but confirmed that both countries have a shared interest in stopping the violence and “securing chemical weapons” in Syria. “We do have differing perspectives on the problem but we share an interest in reducing the violence, securing chemical weapons and ensuring that they're neither used nor are they subject to proliferation,” Obama said. “We want to try to resolve the issue through political means if possible.”

Hasan Rowhani's first post-victory news conference was a study in what may make his presidency tick. Rowhani may be hailed as a force for change, but he also appears to carry a deep and self-protective streak of pragmatism. He knows he can only push his views on outreach and detente as far as allowed by the country's real powers, the ruling clerics and their military protectors, the Revolutionary Guard.

Many of Rowhani's statements reflected these boundaries, which could later expand or contract depending on how much the theocracy wants to endorse his agenda. When he appealed to treat "old wounds" with the US, he also echoed the ruling clerics' position that no breakthroughs can occur as long as Washington is seen as trying to undermine their hold on power. Rowhani's urging for greater "nuclear transparency" as a path to roll back sanctions was also punctuated by a hard-liner stance: No chance to stop the uranium enrichment labs at the heart of the stalemate with the West and its allies.

"You can make any kind of promises you want," said Merhzad Boroujerdi, director of the Middle East Studies program at Syracuse University. "At the end of the day, it's the ruling clerics that decide whether they go anywhere."

The government raised the threat of putting soldiers on the streets after a weekend of violent clashes prompted by the eviction of campers occupying Istanbul's Gezi Park, the epicentre of the protest movement. Police "will use all their powers" to end the unrest, Bulent Arinc, deputy prime minister, said in a televised interview. "If this is not enough, we can even utilise the Turkish armed forces in cities."

The deployment of the military, the self-described guardian of the secular state, would mark an escalation of a crisis posing the biggest challenge yet to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government. The US and other Western allies have widely criticised Erdogan's handling of the crisis, undermining Turkey's image as a model of Islamic democracy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for her part, urged Turkey to respect democratic freedoms and said the police response to the protesters "was much too harsh". "I am in any case shocked," she told RTL television on Monday.

They will also try to work out why this spring was the coldest in 50 years - with a UK average of 6C (42.8F) between March and May. The Met Office hopes the meeting will identify new priorities for research. Over the past three years, British weather records have been under increasing pressure. The big freeze that gripped the UK in December 2010 saw the lowest temperature for the month in 100 years.

Even the buzz of the London Olympics could not disguise the washout that was last summer, the second wettest for the UK since records began. Puzzled by these events, scientists from across the UK are meeting at the Met Office in Exeter to try to understand the reasons behind this run of what they term, "unusual seasons".

However a discussion of man made climate change is unlikely to feature. "This meeting isn't looking at climate change, it's looking at climate variability in recent seasons," said Dan Williams.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who chairs the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, acknowledged there was “a big difference” between the positions of Russia and the West on Syria. Moscow said it would not permit no-fly zones to be imposed over Syria.

US President Barack Obama will meet Putin later on Monday and, in what could be a frosty encounter, will try to convince the Kremlin chief to bring Assad to the negotiating table. Putin has warned the West it risks sowing turmoil across the Middle East by arming the Syrian rebels.

Other Western leaders criticized Russia, Assad’s only big-power ally, for delivering arms to Assad while the rebels – whom Putin described on Sunday as cannibals who ate their enemies’ intestines – perished.

The answer is simple. If you can receive 2-3 times as much money from unemployment, disability, and/or welfare benefits (subsidized housing, food stamps, free cellphones, etc.) as you can from a temporary or part-time job, and live a life of leisure, why work? This is the ugly reality we illustrated just six months ago and the situation - amid what is apparently called a 'recovery' remains a depressingly real sign of the times.

The political allure of ‘free’ is so strong that an alarming number of people choose to become wards of the entitlement/welfare state rather than captain their own destiny. Indeed, while many are 'proud', 49% of American households now receive one or more government transfer benefits amounting to 18% of all personal income and a burden of $7,400 for every American - seemingly threatening the supposed self-reliance that has long characterized the American national psyche.

As The Telegraph reports, pensioners and other retail investors in the Co-operative Bank are facing massive losses under a £1.5 billion rescue plan for the ailing mutual as investors and the bank's parent would make "a joint contribution" to the bank's recapitalisation, without any help from taxpayers.

Holders of £370 million of permanent interest bearing shares (PIBS) issued by the Co-op and Britannia Building Society before its takeover are expected to have their coupons cancelled, making them effectively worthless. The group notes there could be an outcry among retail investors but argued there was little choice because of where they sat in the capital structure since the PIBS were the mutual equivalent of stocks (which would have been wiped out if the bank was public).

However, as one analyst notes, "the bail in represents a profound change in the business model of the Co-op bank," as the typical owner of these PIBS are pensioners attracted by the steady guaranteed income. It seems the days of hoping for a bail-out are over and perhaps that is why European financial credit has been underperforming - as that reality has yet to strike equity holders.

The realization that deposits (or their mutual equivalent) are nothing more than loans to highly levered institutions may begin to dawn on a European (or in fact global) depositor base.

Thomas Drake, William Binney and J Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way. For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from US citizens.

They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media.

To the intelligence community, the trio are villains who compromised what the government classifies as some of its most secret, crucial and successful initiatives. They have been investigated as criminals and forced to give up careers, reputations and friendships built over a lifetime. Today, they feel vindicated.

France, the other half of the partnership at the European Union’s core, is weak and badly led; Britain is distracted by a debate about its EU membership. Nothing can happen in the EU without the active support of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. Mrs Merkel is Europe’s most impressive politician. Many times, during the past five difficult years, she has used her power for good. But she is a naturally cautious woman who faces a potentially tight election in September. Her reluctance to lead Europe is widely shared by her compatriots.

As a result, Europe is drifting towards disaster. Although markets are calmer than last year, euro-zone GDP is shrinking, unemployment is over 12%, progress on building the structures needed for a stable currency area has stalled and faith in the European project is ebbing away. Unless Germany stirs itself, the continent’s economy — and its politics — will get worse.

Three barriers block Germany taking on that leadership — all understandable ones. The first and hardest to surmount is historical. Even the word for leader, Führer, conjures up terrible memories. Having twice plunged Europe into war, many Germans believe their country’s duty is to be a bigger version of Switzerland: economically prosperous, politically modest.

But these days the danger for Europe lies not in too much German leadership, but too little — something even Poland’s foreign minister has publicly pointed out. And taking a back seat is not an option. As the euro zone’s biggest creditor, Germany has most to lose if the euro collapses. Across southern Europe austerity policies are associated with Mrs Merkel. Support for the EU is, as a result, crumbling: a recent Pew survey found that 60% of Spaniards, 75% of Italians, 78% of Greeks and even 77% of the French believe that European integration has harmed their economies. If the euro falls apart, Germany will be held responsible.

It accounts for a fifth of the European Union’s output and a quarter of its exports. From Volkswagen to SAP, Germany’s big companies are world-renowned. Many smaller German firms are global champions in niche markets such as tunnel-boring machines and industrial cleaners.

Germany’s jobless rate, at 5.4% (using standardised OECD statistics), is less than half Europe’s average. Youth unemployment, a scourge throughout much of the rest of the continent, is at a 20-year low in Germany. The country’s budget is balanced, government debt is falling and long-term bond yields are the lowest in Europe. It is the largest creditor country in the euro zone, and as chief paymaster it has the biggest clout in determining the single currency’s future.

The weakness of other heavyweights has added to Germany’s heft. Britain, outside the euro and distracted by a domestic debate about its EU membership, has lost influence. The Franco-German tandem at the core of post-war European integration has become lopsided. Relations between Berlin and Paris are unusually poor, with some French politicians decrying the “selfish intransigence” in the euro crisis of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. The economic gap between Germany and France is wider than it has ever been. France’s economy is stagnant, statist and uncompetitive and urgently needs reform.

As a result, power within Europe has shifted sharply towards Berlin. Mrs Merkel is widely seen as the continent’s most important politician. In Beijing or Washington, DC, the question: “Where is Europe going?” has become synonymous with: “What do the Germans want?” Bureaucrats in Brussels talk ruefully about Berlin becoming the capital of Europe. “When the German position changes on an issue, the kaleidoscope shifts as other countries line up behind them,” says one official. “That’s unprecedented in the history of the EU.”

Then there is the functionalist model, where national states delegate common administration of their shared interests to a supranational authority. Thirdly, the federalist model proposes conserving and respecting the sovereignty of national states for questions of national scope and character, while transferring to a European government sovereignty over matters of Europe-wide scope and character.

Federalist Altiero Spinelli defined European government as having limited but real powers, democratically controlled by a European parliament and operating in conformity with European laws. In terms of political relations between communities of men and women there is only one possible reply to the question: "How should shared problems, which require shared, complex and permanent solutions, be faced?"

The answer is simple: entrust the function of addressing shared problems to a shared power. Carrying out this project would require not only full enforcement of the Treaty of Lisbon, approved by the bloc in 2007, but also updating it with an agenda that extends beyond the May 2014 European elections. This will be a unique opportunity to resume the path toward a European constitution on a federalist basis.