The concept is known as Receptive Ecumenism, introduced by UK theologian Paul D Murray during a visit to SA in July. He said greater unity among churches was possible but only if a counter-instinctive move was made away from churches thinking others should be more like them and instead asking what they must learn.

This could include anything from the methods of welfare and education groups to how churches deal with governance and finances. SA Council of Churches executive officer Geraldine Hawkes said it was hard for Christian churches to foster unity in families, workplaces and government if they were not leading by example.

"I think it's (about) recognising something that they might value in another church and to be able to go to that church, have a coffee with the people there and ask how they do things well," she said. "If people see the church as divided and at odds with one another, what hope is there for Gaza and Israel?"

The SA Council of Churches' member denominations include the Anglican, Catholic, Uniting, Presbyterian and Greek Orthodox.

Nigel Farage said: 'The life of a eurocrat is easy, with high salaries, low taxes and generous pension schemes not to mention numerous holidays, 'subsistence allowances' and 'relocation allowances' and money for each child they have.

'Many have Friday afternoons off, there are subsidised restaurants and cafes and of course discounts in shops if they show their parliament pass. And yet they have the audacity to strike outside the budget talks when the rest of the EU were demanding that yet more of their taxes went into the EU slush fund. No wonder the majority of people in the UK want to leave the EU.'

In these letters, Israel urged the United Nations to act against repeated rockets attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians, and, at a minimum, to speak out and condemn the attacks.

“Inaction today could help ignite an escalation of conflict tomorrow,” Israel warned the UN, while exercising astonishing measures of restraint that no other country facing a similar onslaught of rockets has ever shown. Yet we are unaware of any UN action whatsoever taken in response.

“We now have clear evidence from a large international study that the initial use of [Avandia] is more effective than standard therapies,” a senior vice president of GlaxoSmithKline, Lawson Macartney, said in a news release.

What only careful readers of the article would have gleaned is the extent of the financial connections between the drugmaker and the research. The trial had been funded by GlaxoSmithKline, and each of the 11 authors had received money from the company. Four were employees and held company stock. The other seven were academic experts who had received grants or consultant fees from the firm.

Whether these ties altered the report on Avandia may be impossible for readers to know. But while sorting through the data from more than 4,000 patients, the investigators missed hints of a danger that, when fully realized four years later, would lead to Avandia’s virtual disappearance from the United States:

The drug raised the risk of heart attacks. A Food and Drug Administration scientist later estimated that the drug had been associated with 83,000 heart attacks and deaths.

According to Debka, US troops will soon be en route to the Sinai peninsula, Egyptian territory in North Africa that’s framed by the Suez Canal on the West and Israel on the East. In its northeast most point, Sinai is but a stone’s throw from Palestinian-controlled Gaza, and according to Debka, Hamas fighters there have been relying on Iranian arms smugglers to supply them with weaponry by way of Egypt.

Debka reports this week that Sinai will soon be occupied by US troops, who were promised by President Barack Obama to Israel’s leaders as a condition that a ceasefire be called. Once deployed, the Americans will intervene with the rumored arms trade orchestrated by Iranians, ideally cutting off supplies for Hamas while at the same time serving as a thorn in the side of Iran.

“Once the missile and arms consignments depart Iranian ports or Libyan arms bazaars, Tehran has no direct control of their transit from point to point through Egypt until they reach Sinai and their Gaza destination,” Debka reports. “All the same, a US special forces operation against the Sinai segment of the Iranian smuggling route would count as the first overt American military strike against an Iranian military interest.”

The decision to send US troops to Sinai in exchange for a ceasefire was reportedly arranged early Wednesday morning after President Obama made a deal over the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “By opening the Sinai door to an American troop deployment for Israel’s defense, this recognizes that the US force also insures Israel against Cairo revoking or failing to honor the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979,” adds Debka.

According to their sources, US troops are expected in Egypt early next week. Meanwhile, American forces have all but surrounded Iran and are stationed in countless bases across the Middle East.

When he presented his proposals for taming banks in late September, Peer Steinbrück was once again spoiling for a fight. The Social Democratic candidate for the Chancellery in next year's general election railed against the chase for short-term returns and excesses within the sector and harshly criticized the "market-conforming democracy" in which politics and people's lives had become mere playthings of the financial markets.

Steinbrück's speech lasted half an hour, or a minute for each of the pages of a document he had prepared on the same issue. The paper lists a whole series of suggested regulations, most of which seem entirely sensible. Most interesting, however, is what's missing from the paper - and what has thus far been absent from almost all of the proposals of other financial reformers: the disastrous degree to which countries are now dependent on banks.

As European countries have dug themselves deeper and deeper into debt in recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in this dependence. Governments are addicted to borrowed money - and banks meet this need by purchasing sovereign bonds. As an unspoken reward, the banks expect nothing less than a guarantee of their own survival. Should a bank run the risk of collapse, the state is expected to use taxpayer money to prop it up.

It is a situation which suggests that policymakers should act with caution, but does not justify the complete lack of action. Still, the benefits of doing nothing are clear. It allows states to continue piling up debt.

The Judges' Club, a body representing judges across Egypt, called for a strike during a meeting interrupted with chants demanding the "downfall of the regime" - the rallying cry in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year. Mursi's political opponents and supporters, representing the divide between newly empowered Islamists and their critics, called for rival demonstrations on Tuesday over a decree that has triggered concern in the West.

Issued late on Thursday, it marks an effort by Mursi to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. The decree defends from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year. It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt's new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the body with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of parliament.

Egypt's highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, said the decree was an "unprecedented attack" on the independence of the judiciary. The Judges' Club, meeting in Cairo, called on Mursi to rescind it.

He told Mr van Rompuy and Mr Barroso they could save almost £5 billion by raising the retirement age for staff from 65 to 68, cutting 10 per cent from the pay bill and capping pensions at 60 rather than 70 per cent of final salary. EU bosses were said to have reacted ‘very defensively’ to his proposals. They claimed it would be ‘legally difficult’ to change employees’ terms and conditions, even though similar reforms have been implemented in many member states.

‘These are not dramatic changes,’ said one senior British official. ‘The terms and conditions people are currently on are extremely generous. The Commission and others are telling the Greeks, the Italians and others to raise their retirement age. It’s not too much to ask them to do the same.’

The European Commission wants to increase its budget by a staggering 350 per cent – from £6.5 billion to £29 billion. Britain said that at most it should be doubled to £13 billion, saving £16 billion.

Mr Cameron said: ‘Clearly at a time when we are making difficult decisions at home over public spending it would be quite wrong – it is quite wrong – for there to be proposals for this increased extra spending in the EU.’ Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg agreed: ‘What we want from the European Union is just common sense. There is not enough money to go around at the moment. Everyone is tightening their belts - let’s make sure it is reflected in the EU budget.’

Most EU members support an increase in the budget but several countries say it is unacceptable at a time of austerity. Earlier, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy circulated a revised proposal for the new budget and said he believed that a compromise was possible. "I think we're advancing a bit, but I doubt that we will reach a deal," Mrs Merkel said. She has previously said that another summit may be necessary early next year if no deal can be reached now.

The UK is the most vocal of EU member states seeking cuts in the budget to match austerity programmes at home. "No, I'm not happy at all," Prime Minister David Cameron said about Mr Van Rompuy's offer to cap spending at €973 billion (£783 billion; $1.2 trillion). "Clearly, at a time when we're making difficult decisions at home over public spending, it would be quite wrong - it is quite wrong - for there to be proposals for this increased extra spending in the EU."

MEPs in Brussels have approved a resolution saying the EU must respond to growing geostrategic changes and threats to global security and make full use of all existing means, including military, to secure peace and security for its citizens. This means a new EU operational headquarters is on the cards, and that Brussels will have the authority to jump into different crises, including what it calls “high intensity conflicts” – otherwise known as wars.

It is a question of business as well. European MPs stressed that building up Europe’s capabilities would save and even create jobs, pumping more investment into the military industry. Not all EU member states are going to be jumping for joy over the plans. The more ambitious EU common security and defense policy could leave Britain between a rock and a hard place. The UK could end up getting dragged into military campaigns that it has no interest in joining.

MEP David Campbell Bannerman from the UK Conservative Party voted against the move and slammed it. Bannerman told RT that Brussels is encroaching on the sovereignty of its members, with Britain relinquishing control of its own defense and security decisions.