Record low water stocks could devastate crops and send food prices rocketing unless we get a sustained period of rainfall soon. Trevor Bishop, the Environment Agency’s head of water resources, said: “We have a cumulative effect of two years of low rainfall. This is going to have a very strong input and there is a real risk of restrictions including hosepipe bans.” Anglia Water was planning for “the worst possible scenario” and warned hosepipe bans could be in place before summer.

Last night there were growing fears that the UK could this year face a situation similar to the summer drought of 1976. This saw widespread water rationing, with people having to collect water from street standpipes. Parts of rivers have already dried up, forcing Environment Agency staff to move thousands of stranded fish to spots where water is still flowing.

Experts say that if the dry spell continues, the Midlands, East Anglia and the South-east of England are likely to be worst hit as underground supplies need to be diverted into parched rivers. The Environment Agency said the impending crisis, which could also hit tourism and wildlife, had been building up for almost two years. Head of water resources Trevor Bishop said: “We haven’t seen anything this severe for at least two decades. The effect in the East of England is the worst since the 1920s.” But forecasters say the next few weeks will stay dry with no hope of sustained rainfall until May.

"The savings of the citizens would be at risk. The state would be unable to pay salaries, pensions, and cover basic functions, such as hospitals and schools, and … the country - public and private sector alike - would lose all access to borrowing and liquidity would shrink. The living standards of Greeks would collapse. The country would drift into a long spiral of recession, instability, unemployment and prolonged misery. These developments would lead, sooner or later, to exit from the euro."

Up to a point, these warnings are of course all true. Much less clear is whether the enforced penury of continued euro membership which Greek MPs eventually voted for on Sunday night amounts to a better alternative. Any analysis of the economics suggests powerfully that it does not.

Now it is certainly the case that once in the euro, exiting it is not a path any government would willingly contemplate. Without the second bailout of €130 billion, Greece would not have had the money to redeem the €14 billion of bonds which fall due on 20 March. The resulting default would mark the start of a process of national bankruptcy which in the first order would mean state pensions, wages, contracts and medical bills not being paid. From there, the insolvency would multiply outwards into the already deeply impaired private sector, where many businesses would find it impossible to stay afloat.

It is no surprise, then, that Greece's technocrats, backed by a substantial majority of its existing politicians, have turned their back on such a course. But is it really any worse than the one chosen? Repeated rounds of austerity are proving self defeating, which makes it virtually certain that Greece will eventually have to come back for more. What are Europe's paymasters to demand then?

That ordinary Greeks be further punished for the sins and omissions of the old political and business elite? They've already been driven close to open rebellion. Morally and socially, it cannot be right to push them any further. To keep on demanding more is no longer an economic strategy, but a form of sadistic vindictiveness, designed, perhaps deliberately, to back the country into a corner.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph, the Cabinet Office minister says that to create a “more just society” Britons must “feel stronger in their religious identities”. The minister, who is also chairman of the Conservative Party, says: “My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.”

“For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.” Baroness Warsi leads an unprecedented government delegation to the Vatican where she will be received by Pope Benedict for a private audience on Wednesday.

She will be the first foreign minister to deliver an address to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, which trains Papal diplomats, and the party will stay in the Santa Marta, an official residence in the Vatican for visiting cardinals. The visit, to mark the 30th anniversary of the re-establishment of full diplomatic ties between Britain and the Vatican, follows the Pope’s successful visit to Britain in 2010 when he is said to have been impressed by the Government’s outspoken defence of the importance of religion in public life.

The speech represents one of the most strident defences of the importance of religion by a serving British minister. It comes days after the High Court ruled that local councils could not hold prayers during meetings. There have also been recent cases of public sector workers being banned from displaying Christian symbols at work.

The dividing line of this seaside city still bares the scars of former battles. And it was tense even before the rebellion in Syria broke out a year ago. On Friday night, tempers exploded once more. By the time a shaky truce was reached on Saturday, two people were dead - one from each side - and 12 wounded, six of them soldiers trying to stop the killing. The fighting underscored how the bloodshed in Syria is inflaming emotions in its tiny neighbour Lebanon.

The already deep divisions between Lebanese are being strained, and many fear the chaos in Syria, which has a history of military and political intervention in Lebanon, will bleed across the border. Lebanon is split along sectarian lines, with 18 religions and sects. But it also has a fragile political faultline over the issue of Syria. The two sides are the legacy of, and backlash against, Syria's virtual rule over Lebanon from its occupation from 1976 to 2005 and its continued influence, including a major backroom role in politics.

Tempers between them are high enough. But Syria opponents worry the regime may intentionally cause trouble during the crisis. "The Syrian regime holds a lot of cards in Lebanon, and the biggest fear is that as the Al Assad regime gets more desperate, it would decide to use them to create regional chaos," anti-Syrian politician Mustafa Alloush said. Among those cards is Hizbollah, the Syrian and Iranian-backed Shiite militant group with an arsenal of weapons more powerful than that of the Lebanese army.

The report also said "Israel has stopped sharing a significant amount of information with Washington regarding its own military preparations" over the Iran nuclear issue. Senior intelligence officials and a military officer said that Israel stopped sharing significant information with the United States for about four months after US President Barack Obama called for the Green Line to be the basis of peace talks with Palestinians.

Despite resuming information sharing, the report says, Israel still withholds a "top layer of information" on Iran. Despite some differences, Newsweek wrote, the US and Israel have an implicit understanding on covert operations, with Israel carrying out those that the US is legally bound to avoid. According to the report, Obama is "willing to come at the Iran problem from every possible angle: from behind, from the sides, overtly, covertly, diplomatically, and economically."

How strange, given that the one crime we all disapprove of utterly and completely is paedophilia. Even convicted gangsters, rapists, burglars and muggers look down on the paedophiles in their midst (they have another word for them, as they cannot spell or pronounce the official term). Those who engage in paedophilia are often also accused of ‘grooming’, preparing their victims for violation and abuse.

Yet here we have a policy that directly condones and encourages the sexualisation of children, and is at the very least comparable to the ‘grooming’ we are all so shocked by. What child, equipped with this rather revolting chemical lump or dose, would not grasp that she was expected by the authorities to act accordingly? I would be very interested to know exactly what the victims of this scheme are told, and how they are chosen.

This thing is done by doctors and nurses, supposedly symbols of rectitude and mercy. It often takes place in schools, where our children are meant to be safe from molesters. It is protected by law. It is paid for by your taxes and mine, extracted under the threat of prison. Perhaps most sinister of all, it is – like all child-molesting – ‘our little secret’. The girls’ parents are not asked their permission beforehand for their daughters to be corrupted by our sick state.

Nor are they told afterwards. This is both totalitarian and evil. The judges are always ready to confirm that this is no longer a Christian country in anything but name, and did so again on Friday – though I do wonder where they think our laws and their powers come from. But it is much worse than that. We are turning into a sort of Babylon, only with drizzle and sleet. Almost every sexual practice and habit – with the single exception of faithful marriage – is now encouraged by the state.

First, the state poisons young minds with so-called sex-education, which is now unleashed in primary schools. Then, when the poor things act on what they have been told, doctors push chemical anti-baby capsules under their skin. I believe this sort of thing is known as ‘harm reduction’. It all depends what you mean by harm. Having privatised the telephones, electricity and the railways, we have nationalised paedophilia.

The tradition appeared to be under threat following a landmark High Court judgment that outlawed formal acts of prayer at council meetings. The National Secular Society brought the case against Bideford Town Council in Devon after atheist ex-councillor Clive Bone said he was ‘embarrassed and disadvantaged’ when prayers were said during meetings.

The court ruled on Friday that councils did not have the power to put acts of worship on the formal agenda. The NSS has indicated that it could attempt to outlaw prayer sessions at Parliament, with spokesman Keith Porteous Wood saying: ‘We will not give up on this.’

Nevertheless, Mr Bercow declared that the High Court ruling would not affect Westminster. A spokesman for the Speaker said: ‘Under the Bill of Rights 1689, the Commons has the right to decide on its own processes and procedures.

‘It says, “The freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.” That means it will be decided here.’ Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, said Christians were being ‘silenced’, while Communities Secretary Eric Pickles called the ruling ‘illiberal and intolerant’ and pledged to overturn it with legislation by the end of the month.

The broadcaster has now said it will change its system after showing documentaries made by FBC Media (UK) whose PR client list included foreign governments and multinational companies. The company made eight documentaries for the BBC about Malaysia, but failed to declare it was paid £17 million by the Malaysian government for 'global strategic communications'. The programmes included positive coverage of Malaysia's controversial palm oil industry.

London-based FBC also made a documentary about the spring uprising in Egypt for the BBC without declaring that they were paid to do PR work for former dictator Hosni Mubarak's regime. In November, the BBC Trust's Editorial Standards Committee identified 15 breaches of editorial guidelines. FBC closed its London offices and went into administration in October. Broadcasting regulator Ofcom is investigating FBC.

A BBC spokesman said: 'We have accepted the BBC Trust's findings and [have] also apologised to viewers. We are committed to the highest standards of broadcasting. Since these issues were raised, we've brought forward a series of changes to tighten our systems and strengthen the protection of our editorial independence.'

It already seems an age since we were told, last June, that David Cameron had “won his fight” to prevent the EU extracting a loan of billions of pounds from Britain to help Greece pay off some of the colossal debt it has run up since it was so foolishly allowed to join the euro. The next move, we learned, was that we would have to lend the money anyway, not through the EU but through the IMF. George Osborne still cannot promise that he will be able to resist this demand, even though he knows we are having to borrow an additional £2.5 billion every week just to pay for the ever-rising deficit on our own Government’s spending.

Thus, in order to lend £17 billion through the IMF to Greece, which it will never be able to repay, we would have to borrow even more money than we are doing already. The latest contribution to this tragi-farce, it seems, is Sir Mervyn King’s decision to roll the printing presses and conjure a further £50 billion of imaginary money out of thin air. As Fraser Nelson explained in Friday’s Daily Telegraph, this will keep interest rates on annuities at rock-bottom, and thus rob Britain’s pensioners of an estimated £74 billion.

So our pensioners’ money will be disappearing into a bottomless pit of debt, not least to help save the euro, which the EU cannot allow Greece to leave, because this might set off a domino effect, bringing down in turn all those other eurozone countries that have run up debts they cannot repay, and plunging Europe’s and the world’s economy into unimaginable chaos. There were those of us who long ago came to see that the dream of building a politically united Europe had all the makings of a tragedy doomed eventually to end very badly, and to carry what remained of European democracy with it. But I confess that not even in our worst nightmares did we foresee that it would end quite like this. And even now the end game has hardly begun.

Iran has made a series of threats in recent weeks to disrupt shipping in the Gulf or strike US forces in retaliation if its oil trade is shut down by sanctions, or if its disputed nuclear program comes under attack. "They have increased the number of submarines ... they increased the number of fast attack craft," Vice Admiral Mark Fox told reporters. "Some of the small boats have been outfitted with a large warhead that could be used as a suicide explosive device. The Iranians have a large mine inventory."

"We have watched with interest their development of long range rockets and short, medium and long range ballistic missiles and of course ... the development of their nuclear program," Fox, who heads the US Fifth Fleet, said at a briefing on the fleet's base in the Gulf state of Bahrain. Iran now has 10 small submarines, he said.

Military experts say the US Navy's Fifth Fleet patrolling the Gulf - which always has at least one giant supercarrier accompanied by scores of jets and a fleet of frigates and destroyers - is overwhelmingly more powerful than Iran's navy. But ever since al Qaeda suicide bombers in a small boat killed 17 sailors on board the destroyer USS Cole in a port in Yemen in 1996, Washington has been wary of the vulnerability of its huge battleships to bomb attacks by small enemy craft.

Cinemas, cafes, shops and banks were set ablaze in central Athens and black-masked protesters fought riot police outside parliament before lawmakers voted on the package that demands deep pay, pension and job cuts - the price of a 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout needed to keep the country afloat.

State television reported the violence spread to the tourist islands of Corfu and Crete, the northern city of Thessaloniki and towns in central Greece. Police said 150 shops were looted in the capital and 34 buildings set ablaze. Altogether 199 of the 300 lawmakers backed the bill, but 43 deputies from the two parties in the government of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the socialists and conservatives, rebelled by voting against It. They were immediately expelled by their parties.

Greece needs the international funds before March 20 to meet debt repayments of 14.5 billion euros, or suffer a chaotic default which could shake the entire euro zone. Outside parliament chaos reigned. A Reuters photographer saw buildings in Athens engulfed in flames and huge plumes of smoke rose in the night sky. "We are facing destruction. Our country, our home, has become ripe for burning, the center of Athens is in flames. We cannot allow populism to burn our country down," conservative lawmaker Costis Hatzidakis told parliament.

Many Greeks believe their living standards are collapsing already and the new measures will deepen their misery. "Enough is enough!" said 89-year-old Manolis Glezos, one of Greece's most famous leftists and a national hero. "They have no idea what an uprising by the Greek people means. And the Greek people, regardless of ideology, have risen."

Defence analysts said that proposals for the number of full-time troops to fall below 100,000 would mean our brave fighting men and women could not technically be classed as an army. Prime Minister David Cameron was last night urged to rethink the current planned cuts, which would slash troops from 101,300 to just 82,000 by 2020. The UK National Defence Association said Britain’s proud 370-year-old Army would fall below the internationally recognised indicator that separates an army from a militia or other type of defence force.

Commander John Muxworthy, founder and director of the defence association, said: “According to all international military definitions, and the generals I have spoken with, it will be too small to technically be called an army if all the proposed cuts go through – it should be a home defence force instead.”

In the first tranche of redundancies last September, the Army lost 920 posts. Commander Muxworthy said: “The tragic thing is that these cuts will not actually save money. The MoD axed a virtually new Nimrod aircraft at the cost to the taxpayer of £4 billion – that’s not a saving.” Patrick Mercer MP said: “The fact the cuts are causing analysts to consider the prospect of our Army being called a Home Defence Force, even if it is a matter of semantics, should give the Government pause for thought.”

Just off the side of a motorway on the fringes of the picturesque town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mismatched collection of 30 tents tucked in the woods has become home - home to those who are either unemployed, or whose wages are so low that they can no longer afford to pay rent. Conditions are unhygienic. There are no toilets and electricity is only available in the one communal tent where the campers huddle around a wood stove for warmth in the heart of winter.

Ice weighs down the roofs of tents, and rain regularly drips onto the sleeping campers' faces as they sleep. Tent cities have sprung up in and around at least 55 American cities - they represent the bleak reality of America's poverty crisis. According to census data, 47 million Americans now live below the poverty line - the most in half a century - fuelled by several years of high unemployment. One of the largest tented camps is in Florida and is now home to around 300 people. Others have sprung up in New Jersey and Portland.

These tent cities - and this level of poverty - are images that many Americans associate with the Great Depression. Unemployment in America today has not reached the astronomical levels of the 1930s, but barring a short spike in 1982, it has not been this high since the Depression era. There are now 13 million unemployed Americans, which is three million more than when President Barack Obama was first elected.

The Temple Mount remained open for Arabs Sunday. Mosques on the Temple Mount frequently are used by Muslim clerics to call for the removal of all Jews from the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall. The posters were posted throughout the city and called for the "cleansing of the Temple Mount of the enemies of Israel." Feiglin, who last week won 25 percent of the Likud party's support in a challenge to the leadership of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, routinely ascends to the Temple Mount around the 19th day of every Jewish month, which this month begins Sunday evening.

"The Temple Mount and the Western Wall Plaza are holy prayer sites, and the police will not allow them to be used for politics or for incitement," Jerusalem police officials stated Sunday. Spokesmen for Feiglin vehemently denied allegations they are involved in the posters and called on the police to investigate who is behind the incitement.

Feiglin last week accused backers of Prime Minister Netanyahu of "dirty tricks" during the voting for the chairman of the party. Many polling sites, especially in Feiglin strongholds in Judea and Samaria, did not open on time.

According to the foundation, the 3,700-square-meter structure will be built near the Mughrabi Gate. It will consist of five floors, two of which will be underground. The building will reportedly be designed to include a Jewish museum, lecture halls, exhibition halls, a library and archives center, and a center for information. Ma’an quoted a statement by the Al-Aqsa Foundation, which claimed the structure would be built on Islamic and Arab ruins.

“The building will serve settlers and foreign tourists who visit the square,” the foundation said. “The Israeli archeology department has been digging and excavating for about five years demolishing structures that date back to different Arab and Islamic eras.” Israel has not officially responded to the claims, a report on Israel’s Channel 2 News on Saturday said. Last week, the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation’s website featured photos of IDF soldiers touring the Temple Mount.