Becoming the first member of Germany’s cabinet to openly call for a Greek exit, Hans-Peter Friedrich told Der Spiegel magazine that Greece’s chances of restoring its financial health would be greater outside the euro. “I’m not saying that Greece should be thrown out but rather to create incentives that it can’t say ‘no’ to,” he added.

His comments came as eurozone leaders faced calls to increase their own efforts before any more money is made available from the IMF. Fresh from agreeing a second €130 billion (£110 billion) bail-out for Greece, there were hopes that this weekend’s gathering of G20 finance ministers in Mexico City would achieve a deal on how to ramp up the IMF’s own European war chest by as much as $600 billion (£378 billion).

UK Treasury officials made it clear that any new deal with the IMF was now likely to be delayed until meetings in April. Eurozone leaders have been negotiating with the US, China and Japan to contribute more to the IMF to build a “financial firewall” that would shield the likes of the Spanish and Italian economies from any intensification of the region’s crisis this year.

Despite fears in Washington, Tokyo and Beijing that Europe still poses a real threat to the wider global economic recovery, they want to see Europe take further steps first. America’s opposition is fiercest, with the White House making clear it won’t contribute more to the IMF. “What we don’t want to see is the IMF substitute – and it really cannot substitute – for a stronger European response,” US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said.

Having launched the biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history, Athens now faces the Herculean task of persuading holders of Greek bonds to accept a "voluntary" hair-cut. Creditors are being asked to swap their bonds for a combination of new short-term instruments, issued by the European Financial Stability Facility, and longer-term Greek government debt. If half of them agree to take the hit then, under "collective action clauses" approved by the Greek parliament, the deal could be forced on all bond-holders. This is a default in all but name, then, with "the powers that be" desperate to hold the single currency together while not triggering credit default swap (CDS) insurance policies that could themselves spark a whole new wave of financial panic.

Enough of Europe, though. Despite the eurozone's overwhelming ability to set the tone in terms of global investor sentiment, other economic indicators deserve attention – not least the price of oil. Brent crude hit a nine-month high on Friday, breaking through $125 (£79) a barrel. While the black stuff remains $24 below the all-time nominal peak of July 2008, it is now above those levels in terms of both sterling and the euro. Oil prices are up 14% since the start of the year. That's obviously bad news for the big Western energy-importers, the UK included, that are struggling to generate sustainable economic recovery.

Oil is soaring, we're told, because the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just issued a report on the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the world's third-biggest crude exporter. Responding to European and US sanctions on its oil exports, due to bite in July, Iran refused inspectors access to the Parchin military complex where the IAEA has "reason to believe" a nuclear detonation device has been tested. As such, the risk of near-term anti-Iranian military action has apparently just risen sharply, not least because a US presidential election is looming into view.

Geo-political issues are important, of course. A major Gulf conflict would obviously see oil prices spike. But crude is now expensive not due to political argy-bargy but because of the fundamental truths of demand and supply. Meanwhile, Western share prices keep rising.

The unit received £1,042,000 in funding last year from the local healthcare Trust. In layman’s terms, it treats patients who believe they are ‘trapped in the wrong body’. Few would associate such a place with children barely old enough to attend school. But it emerged this week that a little boy called Zach Avery, just five years old, now wears his hair permanently in bunches after being assessed by ‘experts’ at the Tavistock and ‘coming out’ as a girl. And Zach is not an isolated case. Over the past year, 165 children have been referred to the clinic’s team of social workers, child psychotherapists, psychologists and psychiatrists. Seven children under the age of five were officially diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) — when a person is born one gender, but feels they are the other.

Now, some might ask whether it’s not Zach but his parents who need counselling for allowing him to go down this path — when even his grandparents believe he is ‘just going through a phase’. The research supports their view. According to the Tavistock’s own figures, up to 80 per cent of youngsters who think they are the wrong sex will change their minds upon reaching adolescence. Nevertheless, a clinical trial is currently underway at the Tavistock which involves prescribing children from around the age of 12 with drugs to suspend puberty, thus preventing — so the theory goes — the mental anguish caused by the maturing of sex organs and changes in the voice.

It also makes it easier for them to have gender-changing surgery, should they so wish, when they are older. Dr Kenneth Zucker, a world authority in this field, runs a specialist children’s gender clinic in Toronto. He is opposed to them. He told me: ‘Suppose you saw a black kid who came into your clinic and wanted to be white. Wouldn’t you try to understand what is happening in the child’s life that is making him feel like that? You certainly wouldn’t recommend skin-bleaching.’ He believes Gender Identity Disorder is the product of nurture, not nature — the result of ‘a dysfunctional family or cultural background.’

Is this is the voice of common sense — not political correctness?

This week, the State Department sent a diplomatic demarche to Syria's neighbors Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, warning them about the possibility of Syria's WMDs crossing their borders and offering US government help in dealing with the problem, three Obama administration officials confirmed to The Cable. For concerned parties both inside and outside the US government, the demarche signifies that the United States is increasingly developing plans to deal with the dangers of a post-Assad Syria - while simultaneously highlighting the lack of planning for how to directly bring about Assad's downfall.

Syria is believed to have a substantial chemical weapons program, which includes mustard gas and sophisticated nerve agents, such as sarin gas, as well as biological weapons. Syria has also refused IAEA requests to make available facilities that were part of its nuclear weapons program and may still be in operation.

The State Department declined to provide access to any officials to discuss the private diplomatic communication on the record, such as the author of the demarche Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation Tom Countryman. In a meeting with reporters earlier this year, Countryman expressed confidence that the United States knows where Syria's WMD stockpiles are, but warned that they could become a very serious security issue for Syria and the region going forward.

But the Bipartisan Policy Center said Friday that the debt-limit doomsday could come earlier than that. Analysts from the Bipartisan Policy Center projected that the United States will hit its $16.4 trillion debt ceiling between late November 2012 and early January 2013 due to lower-than-expected corporate tax revenues and the recent extension of the payroll tax holiday. A number of other factors, such as the ongoing financial crises in Europe, volatile gas prices and how quickly the US economy continues to grow could push the debt-ceiling deadline forward or backwards, according to the center.

“When the Budget Control Act of 2011 increased the debt ceiling last August, Congress, the administration, and outside analysts believed that this increase would allow federal borrowing under the limit well into 2013,” the center’s analysts wrote. “Due to unexpected circumstances … that belief appears increasingly likely to have been misguided.” The current debt level is $15.4 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.

Her comments come as ministers prepare to launch a public consultation on legalising gay marriage next month. Traditionalists want the law on marriage to remain unchanged. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Ms Featherstone said: "Some believe the government has no right to change it (marriage) at all; they want to leave tradition alone."

"I want to challenge that view - it is the government's fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better." Ms Featherstone, a Liberal Democrat minister, responded to comments made by Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that "not even the Church" owns marriage.

She said: "(Marriage) is owned by neither the state nor the Church, as the former Archbishop Lord Carey rightly said. "It is owned by the people." Ms Featherstone also appealed to people not to "polarise" the debate about same-sex marriages. "This is not a battle between gay rights and religious beliefs," she said. "This is about the underlying principles of family, society and personal freedoms."

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey backed C4M, saying the plan was a "hostile strike" on marriage. But gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell said C4M's stance on marriage was homophobic and discriminatory. "The Coalition for Marriage is intolerant and out of touch," Mr Tatchell said.

"Coalition members are entitled to believe that same-sex marriages are wrong, but they are not entitled to demand that their opposition to such marriages should be imposed on the rest of society and enforced by law." In September, Liberal Democrat Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone announced the coalition government's proposals to legislate for same-sex marriage. David Cameron told last October's Conservative Party conference he supported gay marriage.

"The legal and theological definition of marriage is that of a man and a woman in a lifelong relationship." A public consultation on how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples will be launched in March. C4M's petition states: "I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it."

At a media conference in central London, Lord Carey said he had signed the petition. Lord Carey said legalising gay marriage would be "an act of cultural and theological vandalism".

He supported civil partnerships, he said, but only "dictators" tried to overturn history and redefine marriage. Dr Sentamu also said the Church should do more to avoid its leadership being mainly white and middle class. The government will open a consultation on the issue of same-sex marriages in March. A consultation on the subject by the Scottish government ended last month.

But the Archbishop told the Telegraph that it was not the role of government to "gift" the institution of marriage to anyone. "I don't think it is the role of the state to define what marriage is. It is set in tradition and history and you can't just (change it) overnight, no matter how powerful you are.”

"We've seen dictators do it, by the way, in different contexts and I don't want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way." Dr Sentamu pointed out that bishops in the House of Lords did not seek to obstruct the introduction of civil partnerships between same-sex couples in 2004.

But Dr Sentamu said the Church would not stand idly by if the government sought to allow same-sex marriages to be on a par with heterosexual ones. He said: "If you genuinely would like the registration of civil partnerships to happen in a more general way, most people will say they can see the drift. But if you begin to call those marriage, you're trying to change the English language."

Nato commander General John Allen condemned the attack as "cowardly". The shootings come amid five days of deadly protests over the burning of copies of the Koran by US soldiers. The interior ministry was put in lock-down after the shootings, officials said. The BBC's Orla Guerin in Kabul says eight shots were reported inside the building, which should be one of the safest in the capital, and that any Afghan who carried out the attack would have had the highest clearance.

Analysis - Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul, writes: If the gunman is Afghan, serious questions will be raised about how an attacker managed to get inside one of the most secure buildings in the country, especially its command and control centre.

Afghan security has signally failed to find a strategy to prevent the killing of Nato forces at the hands of Taliban infiltrators and rogue soldiers. One senior Afghan general said it was "a nightmare that refuses to go away" and one presidential aide called it a major obstacle that has created mistrust, anger and frustration between Nato operatives and their Afghan counterparts.

The pulling out of Nato advisers will for now paralyse important areas, such as technical support, intelligence sharing and many ongoing security operations. It disconnects the coordination of the Afghan government with Isaf. The killings could also not have come at a more tense time - on a fifth day of demonstrations, with attacks on police and army positions across several provinces.

Scientists are urgently trying to find out how the disease, which also affects cattle, spreads and how to fight it, as the number of farms affected increases by the day. So far, 74 farms across southern and eastern England have been hit by the virus, which arrived in this country in January. A thousand farms in Europe have reported cases since the first signs of the virus were seen in the German town of Schmallenberg last summer.

The lambing season has only just begun, which means that the full impact of the disease will not be felt until the weather warms up and millions more animals are born. On the Continent, some farms have lost half of their lambs. So far the worst hit in Britain have lost 20 per cent, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Approximately 16 million lambs are born in Britain every year and sell at market for about £100 each. The effect of the disease on farms that are already struggling in the downturn could be severe.

The worst affected counties are Norfolk, Suffolk, East Sussex and Kent, but the virus has spread all along the south coast to Cornwall. Farmers fear the disease may spread to larger flocks in the north of England, Wales and Scotland. In Europe, Germany, Holland and France have suffered worst, while recent cases have been reported in Italy and Luxembourg.

The AHVLA identifies Schmallenberg as one of a group of viruses “typically primarily spread by biting insect vectors, such as midges and mosquitoes, although the routes of Schmallenberg virus transmission have not yet been confirmed. The potential for direct transmission (ie direct from one animal to another) is therefore, as yet, unknown.” It said: “There is unlikely to be a risk to human health from Schmallenberg virus; but this is not yet certain.”

“As sure as night follows day if it doesn’t rain, food prices will go up. I can guarantee you that,” he said. “If there is less water across bigger areas of northern Europe food will cost more money.” Drought-afflicted areas need 120 per cent of normal rainfall between now and March to avoid drought but the Met Office is forecasting a dry period.

Mr Kendall said in the past, when the UK relied on imported food, farmers were ignored during a drought. For example golf courses would continue to be watered - but farmers banned from irrigating crops. "Bluntly you can still play golf on a brown golf course. What sort of society puts golf before affordable food?" he said. Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, agreed that farmland should be a priority in a drought.

"The most important thing we can do is catch the water when it comes," she said. "Water capture and storage is the key to building resilience, not just for agriculture, for everyone in the country." Mr Kendall told the NFU’s annual conference the Treasury’s “woeful” decision to phase out tax allowances for reservoirs last year could make the situation worse. “I can get my shiny German machinery and write it off against tax but if I am building a reservoir with UK labour, UK machinery, UK contractors there is no write-off. In terms of economic recovery and resilience it is a no-brainer.”

The soil moisture deficit recorded for East Anglia of 51mm is the driest recorded for this time of year and could mean a very poor harvest for the "bread basket of Britain". Now the Environment Agency say areas of central and south west England and south east Yorkshire are at risk because of dry weather and extremely low groundwater levels. There is very little time left for groundwater levels to be restored by rainfall this winter before the growing season begins again, and the risk in drought in the spring and the summer in those areas is very high.

The Environment Agency also said dry weather is continuing in the south and east of England, with eastern parts receiving just 27 per cent of February's average rainfall so far this month. The drought is continuing to dry up domestic boreholes in eastern England, while on the River Meon in Hampshire, the Environment Agency has responded to fish kills and distressed fish, thought to be due to low river flows. The drought conditions, which come after two dry winters in a row, have raised the prospect of hosepipe bans in the coming weeks.

It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.

The task force would look at the feasibility of Wyoming issuing its own alternative currency, if needed. And House members approved an amendment Friday by state Representative Kermit Brown, Republican for Laramie, to have the task force also examine conditions under which Wyoming would need to implement its own military draft, raise a standing army, and acquire strike aircraft and an aircraft carrier.

The bill’s sponsor, state Representative David Miller, Republican for Riverton, has said he doesn’t anticipate any major crises hitting America anytime soon. But with the national debt exceeding $15 trillion and protest movements growing around the country, Miller said Wyoming — which has a comparatively good economy and sound state finances — needs to make sure it’s protected should any unexpected emergency hit the US.

Several House members spoke in favor of the legislation, saying there was no harm in preparing for the worst.

Gauck had in fact expressed his approbation of Thilo Sarrazin, the SPD politician, known for his racist statements against "Turks and Arabs." The next German president also raised eyebrows when he spoke out on the question of the German-Polish border, the resettlement of ethnic Germans and the Shoah.

He considers that the "excessive exaltation" of the "German Judeocide to become something unique," sometimes begins to take on a quasi-religious "dimension of absoluteness," which he says must be rejected. In about four weeks, with the votes of the parliamentarians of nearly all of the parties in the Bundestag, Joachim Gauck is supposed to be elected the eleventh president of the Federal Republic of Germany - with a cross-party consensus.

Since the resignation of German President Christian Wulff, almost all of the parties represented in the German Bundestag have agreed to elect Joachim Gauck, the Protestant pastor and former director of the Commission for the Stasi Archives, to be Wulff's successor. When the Federal Assembly is convened, March 18, in Berlin's Reichstag to decide on the next German President, Gauck can count on 90 percent of the votes.

Diametrically contrary to Christian Wulff, his predecessor, Gauck joined in the debate on the racist theses of the social democrat, Thilo Sarrazin. Gauck... contended that Sarrazin "showed courage." "He publicly addressed a problem that exists in the society more directly than the politicians." From this success, "the political class" could learn that "their politically correct way of talking" does not come across to the majority in this society.

Scientists led by virologist Peter Palese of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York argue in an analysis published in the online edition of the journal Science that the WHO, a UN agency, is calculating the death rate using an estimate of human bird flu cases that is simply too low. Palese and his colleagues did not offer a specific death rate for people infected by bird flu. But based on figures cited in their analysis, the rate appears to be under 1 percent.

The WHO stood by its calculations and some experts criticized the Palese team's findings, saying they were based on misleading data. As of Thursday, the WHO counts 586 cases of people infected by bird flu. Of those, 346 died, for a fatality rate of 59 percent. Palese declined requests for an interview, and asked his co-authors not to speak to reporters, according to the Mount Sinai press office.