The nine Turks were killed by Israeli forces when they attempted to lynch members of Israel's Shayatet-13, or naval commando, when they boarded the Mavi Marmara in accordance with international maritime law. Israel has said it will only 'express regret' for the loss of life. On Sunday, Erdogan said that he still expects a full apology from Jerusalem, "We will wait for the Israelis' decision a certain period. If they don't apologize by this time we shall move to Plan B." According to Hurriyet, "Plan B" means cooling down relations with Israel. One of the most significant steps will be downgrading the level of Turkey's embassy staff in Israel. Ankara recalled its ambassador following last year's flotilla event.

It is also possible Turkey will not approve an Israeli ambassador to replace Gaby Levy. On Sunday, Hurriyet reported that the Palmer Report has ruled that IDF soldiers boarded the ship with "the intent to kill," despite the fact that the commandos were armed with less-than-lethal pneumatic guns with live fire being employed only after the lynching attempt was underway. Hurriyet's claim is spurious as the Palmer Report's publication was delayed until August due to Israel and Turkey's inability to agree on the final wording of the report, including Turkey's insistence it include the phrase 'intent to kill.'

Recent drafts of the report, however, did conclude Israel's arms embargo on Gaza - and the decision to board the Mavi Marmara to enforce it - are legal under international law. Observers suggest Erdogan's second attempt to extort an apology from Israel is based on his frustration with the Palmer Report, which does not support Turkey's - or Hurriyet's - version of events.

Intelligence officials have warned for more than two years that the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza has smuggled missiles that can reach far beyond southern Israel, which was targeted nearly three years ago, before and during the counterterrorist Operation Cast Lead campaign. Hamas and other terrorist groups have at least 10,000 missiles and rockets, according to military intelligence estimates. Advanced weapons are smuggled, in whole or in parts for assembly, entering Gaza from Iran, often via Sudan.

Vilnai said that Israel is improving its defense capabilities against missiles, and referred to bomb shelters and missile interceptors as well as retaliatory measures. Citing Israel's tiny area, he said, "There is no country in the world that is threatened like the State of Israel," he said. "The only country that approximates it is South Korea."

Since the end of Operation Cast Lead, southern Israel has been attacked by nearly 300 missiles and rockets. Israel has carried out tit-for-tat retaliatory tactics, striking rocket manufacturing plants and terrorist tunnels. The Defense Ministry, headed by Ehud Barak, has not explained why orders have not been give to the IDF to conduct pre-emptive strikes before missiles cam bombard Israeli civilians.

Whatever the news has been of 2011, one thing always strikes me: this story, the alleged homicidal hospital worker, or the imminent implosion of Greece, or the famine in the horn of Africa, any one of these would normally have been enough to hold the front pages for days, even weeks: were it not for that story, the Murdoch affair, the imminent collapse of Italy, the Norwegian massacre, the American debt ceiling. There is such an abundance of news that it's torpedoed the news agenda. How do you make an agenda, when everything is as important as everything else? There is just too much news. It's the kind of news environment that makes conspiracy theorists say: "These things are all connected."

There is also a sense of headspin, of being unable to digest one tragedy before another happens. It's compounded by Twitter, as almost everything always is: the modern business of half-knowing meant that the news of Amy Winehouse's death was on Twitter before it was publicly announced, of course. The Facebook profile of the allegedly homicidal nurse would normally have been picked over for clues all week. But they're superseded so fast that you never get time for that half-knowledge to turn into full knowledge before the next thing happens. The effect is a news twilight, where you can't even be sure what has been confirmed and what hasn't.

But to return to that urge to connect, the urge to understand: even for non-conspiracy theorists, that is a legitimate aim; when huge events tumble up on one another, it is human to look for a link. This is easier with natural disasters than it is with sudden decapitations of the high command, so, to start in New Zealand: the Christchurch earthquake in February would, in a normal year, have taken up news coverage on a scale of the Australian fires of 2009: there would have been eyewitness accounts pouring out, the whole disaster would have been broken down to individual narratives with either an especially tragic or ironic twist. I can remember specific stories about those fires, families who died in cars, brave individuals who fought off flames with a spade. I can't remember anything at all about Christchurch, since less than three weeks later, the Japanese suffered their greatest, costliest disaster since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The tornados that hit Arkansas and Ontario in April would normally - having killed 45 people - have been quite a big story, but were obliterated by the destruction that had already happened. In that ruminative period that usually follows a significant event, people were batting around the theory that one earthquake will predispose the earth to suffer another; otherwise, the coincidence of New Zealand, then Japan, then Japan again a few days later (not to mention New Zealand again in June), just seemed too great. In fact, the intricacies of new tectonic theory were totally wiped out by the threat to the Japanese nuclear power plants, which themselves - and this is surprising, given that the story is far from over - lost coverage to the Arab spring.

At the beginning of BBC radio, if the time rolled around for a news bulletin, and there was no news, the newsreader would simply say "there is no news". Sooner or later, the idea of a news agenda developed, and if there was no news, they would just find some news. But you can imagine today, just waking up to hear that there was no news: what a comfort that would be.

Worried private financial institutions that own Greek debt can swap it for new debt from the European authorities - but they will be paid back after a much longer period than their original agreement stipulated. This is technically a default - although Europe's leaders refuse to call it that - but it does give Greece a little breathing space to try to get its economy moving and pay back its mountain of borrowing. Says a Treasury official: 'The impact of a break-up of the Euro would be absolutely catastrophic.'

But this deal is nothing like the end of the Euro crisis. It is merely a respite before there is more pressure for bailouts for other over-extended Eurozone countries.The only long-term solution to this - other than an extremely messy break-up of the euro - IS FOR THE EUROZONE COUNTRIES TO INTEGRATE MUCH MORE CLOSELY AND BECOME, IN ALL BUT NAME, A UNITED STATES OF EUROZONE (USE).

THAT MEANS GERMANY AND FRANCE IMPOSING ONE ECONOMIC POLICY, with taxpayers in wealthy France and Germany supporting the poorer southern European states in return for them living according to German rules, with tight spending constraints. And in a shift of historic proportions, this is the path the two most powerful leaders in Europe, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel, have chosen. They will deny it publicly, to try to reassure German taxpayers. But their decision to stand behind Greek debts will mean the steady expansion of their authority over economic policy in other Eurozone countries.

THE GERMANS ARE PAYING THE PIPER SO THEY CAN CALL THE TUNE. For Britain this has huge implications. We are in the European Union, but like ten other EU countries not in the Eurozone. Joining the 'USE' is clearly out of the question. Instead, (as I first argued last year) we have a once-in-a-generation chance for Britain to renegotiate its membership of the EU.

The Germans and French will need to amend existing EU treaties to make their new arrangements work. And the crucial point is that Britain will have the power of veto over any changes, as well as a new law requiring new EU treaties to be put to a referendum in the UK. This means we can demand the return of powers back from the EU - if ministers push hard enough. An end to the welter of Brussels-imposed regulations stifling employment in the UK is essential. The restoration of full control of our borders is a must.

"I don't think there are immediate ramifications unless we get a negative or flat outturn. Without a strong bounce back in the third quarter, though, there is quite possibly a risk for the sovereign rating," Ross Walker, UK economist at Royal Bank of Scotland, who expects growth of 0.3 per cent, said. Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Monument Securities, added: "If the third quarter is poor as well, I fear we will be put on negative watch."

A cut to Britain's top-notch rating would be highly damaging, costing the country its safe-haven status, increasing the price of debt for the Government, and potentially slowing the recovery further. Although ratings agencies declined to comment on Monday, they have raised concerns about growth. Moody's said in March: "We believe that slower growth combined with weaker-than-expected fiscal consolidation could cause the UK's debt metrics to deteriorate to a point that would be inconsistent with a triple-A rating."

On Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron indicated the Government would not alter its 110 billion pounds programme, saying: "There's no country, really, that can afford another fiscal stimulus. They've all run out of money."

Beck, a multimillionaire darling of the Tea Party movement, said on his nationally-syndicated radio show: "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing." Torbjorn Eriksen, a former press secretary to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister, described the comment as "a new low" for the broadcaster, who has frequently been forced to apologise for offensive remarks.

"Young political activists have gathered at Utoya for over 60 years to learn about and be part of democracy, the very opposite of what the Hitler Youth was about," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful." The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a Washington-based campaign group, said the remark by Beck, a free agent after being forced out of the Fox News channel earlier this year, was "absolutely disgusting".

Despite Beck expressing surprise that political movements would hold camps for children, followers of his 9/12 Project - which aims to "recapture the spirit of the day after America was attacked" - have this summer been doing just that. Organisers of the "vacation liberty schools" in several states told the Daily Telegraph how they taught children as young as eight a Tea Party-endorsed curriculum spanning religion, economics and political principles.

"The Federal Reserve and the Treasury can work together to generate enough cash probably for the next two or three months to avoid any kind of automatic default on the Treasury debt," Silvia, who is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop" with Betty Liu. "There's a way of getting around this issue for at least another month or two."

Political party leaders are preparing dueling plans for raising the US debt ceiling, unable to break a partisan stalemate over how to tackle the nation's $14.3 trillion debt by August 2. That is the date when the Treasury Department says its borrowing authority will end. Greater-than-forecast tax revenue might give the Treasury until August 10 before it runs out of cash, Barclays Capital said in a report last week.

"Tax-receipt inflows from July 14 to date have been considerably stronger than we were expecting," New York-based Barclays analysts, including Ajay Rajadhyaksha, said. Inflows over the five-day period from July 14 were about $14 billion higher than Barclays had foreseen, and outlays were about $1 billion less, according to the report. Even if the two parties fail to reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling in time, officials will still be able to stave off a default for at least a month, Silvia said. Bond investors have realized they will probably still get paid in the event the impasse goes past the deadline.

Silvia cautioned that there is still a risk that the US will lose its AAA debt rating. "OK you've got a deal, the debt ceiling's raised - that's not the issue," he said. "The issue is what are the details behind that, that alter the long-term trend in terms of federal spending and the deficit, and that's what the credit agencies are talking about."

Confirmation of the close encounter comes as the US and China are trying to cool tensions in the South China Sea and safeguard a recent improvement in bilateral military relations. Taipei, whose relations with Beijing have also been on the mend, moved to downplay the incident. "This was not between Taiwan and China, but between China and the US," said a senior Taiwanese defence official. "The Chinese crossed the line to repel a perceived intrusion by a US reconnaissance aircraft."

China and Taiwan have long respected the middle line, which was drawn by the US when it signed a mutual defence treaty with the island in 1954. The line functions as a buffer zone between China and Taiwan's militaries, which still regard each other as enemies. Chinese military aircraft have not crossed the middle line since July 1999, at a time of heightened tensions with Taiwan. That summer the People's Liberation Army Airforce, which had rarely patrolled the area previously, flew hundreds of sorties over the Taiwan Strait.

China has also long objected to reconnaissance patrols of its coastline, especially since a PLA jet fighter collided with a US spy plane in April 2001 near Hainan island. The PLA pilot died and Chinese authorities detained the US crew for 11 days in a tense stand-off. "This once again shows that US military activity very close to our territory is a destabilising factor in the region," said a Chinese defence source. Chinese and US military officials declined to comment. The Pentagon declined to comment on this specific case but said US reconnaissance flights in the area were "fairly routine" and were conducted in international airspace, as were the Chinese intercepts.

With eight days left before the US Treasury runs out of cash to pay its bills, and investors growing increasingly concerned that gridlock in Washington could hit financial markets, Mr Obama warned Americans on Monday night that the impasse could spark a "deep economic crisis". The president was speaking after Republican and Democratic lawmakers had spent much of Monday jousting over competing schemes to increase the country's borrowing limit by the August 2 deadline set by the Treasury.

Mr Obama supports a plan by Senate Democrats to raise the debt limit in one move accompanied by $2,700 billion in spending cuts, which would give the US government enough borrowing authority to last until after the 2012 presidential election. But Republicans in the House of Representatives want to initially increase the debt ceiling by about $1,000 billion, and have a second vote in six months for a further increase tied to deeper fiscal reforms. Mr Obama said the Republican approach might still lead to a downgrade of the country's triple-A credit rating. He said it would not solve the problem of the country's rising debt levels, and would force a repetition of the brinkmanship that unfolded over the past few months.

"Once again, the economy will be held captive unless [Republicans] get their way," Mr Obama said in a televised address. "We can't allow the American people to become collateral damage to Washington's political warfare." In a sharply worded televised response, John Boehner, the Republican House speaker, said Mr Obama was seeking a "blank cheque" to raise the debt limit, charging that the Democratic plan was laden with "phoney accounting and Washington gimmicks".

"That is just not going to happen," added Mr Boehner.

For the time being, the markets have been mollified. But, of course, we have been here before. Once again the deckchairs are being rearranged on the Titanic. Indeed, exactly 40 years after Edward Heath's government published the terms for British entry into the European Economic Community, the ancestor of today's EU, there has never been a wider gulf between the privileged European political class and their anxious, bewildered and hard-pressed people.

Back in the summer of 1971, in a moment heavy with idealistic excitement, Heath addressed the British people on TV. 'We have the chance of new greatness,' he said, announcing the ground-breaking European deal. 'Now we must take it.' But four decades on, those optimistic words ring terribly hollow. For behind the self-congratulatory backslapping at Thursday night's Press conference about the Greek bail-out, the facts remain stark and chilling. Despite its latest gigantic handout, it seems impossible that Greece can stomach the necessary austerity measures to keep the markets happy for long. Ireland totters on the brink of a second bail-out, while even more disturbingly Italy and Spain, with massive deficits and soaring unemployment, are still dancing on the edge of disaster.

Yet almost unbelievably, the Euro elite's faith in their great project remains undaunted. Despite the palpable costs of federalist idealism, the leaders of Germany and France seem determined to keep moving towards their dream of 'ever-closer union' - with Britain, as always, trudging gloomily behind.

So far, Britain has escaped the worst of the eurozone meltdown, and for the time being the Greek deal seems to have staved off a market crash.

But when the financial contagion spreads to Italy and Spain, as it surely will, then British banks, manufacturers and construction firms, the City of London and thousands of exporters will face an almighty reckoning. It is hard to resist the feeling that public opinion has reached a tipping point. European enthusiasm, never strong in this country, curdled into indifference and suspicion long ago.

But the looming collapse of the euro - a disastrous experiment we would have joined if Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson had had their way - represents something different. Ten days ago, one opinion poll found 66 per cent of Conservative voters would choose to leave the EU if a referendum were held tomorrow. The disgraceful absurdities of the Common Agricultural Policy, to take one flagrant example of EU policy, are well known. It accounts for almost half the EU budget, costing taxpayers a whopping 50 billion euros a year, most of which goes to French farmers. According to the consumer magazine Which?, it ramps up food prices by 1,000 pounds a year for a family of four.

And it makes it impossible for Third World farmers to export to Europe, effectively blocking them from climbing out of poverty. Then there is the sheer wastefulness of EU institutions. Once a month, the 736 members of the European Parliament, as well as thousands of officials, have to travel from Brussels to Strasbourg, followed by a fleet of lorries carrying their documents. You might think they should stay in Brussels, but the French insist they must have sessions in Strasbourg, too.

It is little wonder that for 16 years in a row, auditors have refused to sign off the EU's accounts. It would almost be funny were it not so depressing.

In the meantime, the EU seems rudderless. For all its armies of officials and consultants, spanking new offices and lofty pronouncements - and the 96 billion pounds hurled heedlessly into the Greek maw this week - the Brussels empire has no long-term answer to the financial contagion sweeping across Europe.

Piecing together Breivik's various posts on the Internet, many media reports have characterized the terrorist - who says he was upset over the multiculturalist policies stemming from Norway's Labour Party - as a "right-wing, Christian fundamentalist." Yet, while McVeigh rejected God altogether, Breivik writes in his manifesto that he is not religious, has doubts about God's existence, does not pray, but does assert the primacy of Europe's "Christian culture" as well as his own pagan Nordic culture.

Breivik instead hails Charles Darwin, whose evolutionary theories stand in contrast to the claims of the Bible, and affirms: "As for the Church and science, it is essential that science takes an undisputed precedence over biblical teachings. Europe has always been the cradle of science, and it must always continue to be that way. Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I'm not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe."

The terrorist also candidly admits he finds no support within either the Catholic or Protestant churches for his violent ideas. "I trust that the future leadership of a European cultural conservative hegemony in Europe will ensure that the current Church leadership are replaced and the systems somewhat reformed," he writes. "We must have a Church leadership who supports a future Crusade with the intention of liberating the Balkans, Anatolia and creating three Christian states in the Middle East. EFFORTS SHOULD BE MADE TO FACILITATE THE DE-CONSTRUCTION OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH WHOSE MEMBERS SHOULD CONVERT BACK TO CATHOLICISM. The Protestant Church had an important role once, but its original goals have been accomplished and have contributed to reform the Catholic Church as well. EUROPE SHOULD HAVE A UNITED CHURCH lead [sic] by a just and non-suicidal POPE WHO IS WILLING TO FIGHT FOR THE SECURITY OF HIS SUBJECTS, ESPECIALLY IN REGARDS TO ISLAMIC ATROCITIES."

In an extraordinary outburst, the Business Secretary accused Republican politicians in the US of sabotaging recovery by opposing tax rises to help cut America's budget deficit. Mr Cable told the BBC's Andrew Marr show: 'The irony of the situation at the moment is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few Right-wing nutters in the American Congress rather than the Eurozone.' The Liberal Democrat's emotive language comes at a time when the world is in shock at the murderous killing spree in Norway perpetrated by a Right-wing fanatic, and is likely to spark anger in the US.

But his questionable choice of words highlighted conflict within the Cabinet over the best way to kick-start the struggling economy. Chancellor George Osborne has given the strongest hint yet that he wants to scrap the 50 pence tax rate, while Mr Cable is calling on the Bank of England to start printing money again. Former Tory Chancellor Kenneth Clarke yesterday described the US debt crisis as 'the next big iceberg coming towards us'.

Congress has just days to agree a budget deal to begin to tackle America's debt mountain before the US Treasury runs out of money. Last night American politicians scrambled to reassure global markets the country would avert a debt default, but the two sides gave no sign they were moving closer to a deal. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said it was imperative to construct a deal that will get the country into 2013.

'It's unthinkable that this country will not meet its obligations on time,' he said.

Mr Cable yesterday acknowledged that economic growth was 'not great'. In a highly unusual move he suggested the independent Bank of England should resume pumping billions of pounds into the economy to prop up flagging consumer confidence. Many Tories fear the policy of 'quantitative easing' - or printing money - will fuel inflation.

Once yields on 10-year Spanish and Italian bonds had blown through 6 per cent, global leaders knew we risked a second and more dangerous Lehman-AIG debacle within days. You cannot let two world class sovereign states blow up together. "The situation was really grave," said Herman Van Rompuy, Europe's president. It is why President Barack Obama telephoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel to plead urgency.

It is why Britain's well-briefed Chancellor George Osborne abjured the central credo of Tory policy on Europe for twenty years and more or less urged EMU leaders to embrace fiscal union, warning of "the potential for a set of economic events that could be as damaging as 2008." Angela Merkel was steamrolled by events. Yielding with a gun held to your head is hardly a fair test of civic enthusiasm for EU integration. Eurosceptics can claim a less tainted vindication. They warned from the outset that EMU was unworkable as constructed and would lead ineluctably to the traumatic choice of break-up or fiscal union, with all the implications for democracy that such union implies. They have been absolutely right.

Whether Europe can muddle for more than just the summer depends on two conditions:

1) a return to brisk global growth, not obviously on offer as the fiscal squeeze intensifies across the West, and Europe's PMI surveys drop to a 23-month low. HSBC's manufacturing index for China falls below the contraction line of 50.

2) A willingness by the ECB to pursue ultra-stimulus, steering the euro towards 7 yuan or $1.15 to the dollar, and pulling the 1-year Euribor rate used to price mortgages in Spain from 2.2 per cent to 1.5 per cent. Such a policy would cause apoplexy in Germany, of course. There lies the rub.

Angela Merkel said Europe's leaders had finally tackled the "root problem". They did no such thing. The root problem is that vastly disparate nations with different growth rates, productivity patterns, debt structures, sensitivity to interest rates, legal systems, wage bargaining practices, and inflation proclivities, were meshed together by Hegelian politicians acting against the warnings of the Bundesbank and the European Commission's economists.

One "solution" to this root problem is for the Geman bloc to pay subsidies to the South equal in scale to Versailles reparations, for decades.

This is where fiscal union ultimately leads. Or GERMANIA CAN OPT FOR AN ORDERLY DEPARTURE FROM MONETARY UNION before sinking deeper into this morass. Take your pick.

The downgrade means Greece now has the lowest rating of any country in the world covered by Moody's, which, like Fitch last week, said it would offer a new rating after the debt swap was completed. "Once the distressed exchange has been completed, Moody's will reassess Greece's rating to ensure that it reflects the risk associated with the country's new credit profile, including the potential for further debt restructurings," it said. Last Friday, Fitch Ratings said Greece would be declared in restricted default due to the steps taken in the new euro zone rescue package but that new ratings of a low speculative grade would likely be assigned once the bond exchange is completed.

Moody's said the combination of the announced EU support programme and debt exchange proposals by major financial institutions implied that private creditors would incur hefty losses on their Greek government debt holdings. It said that while the overall package carried a number of benefits for Greece, including lower debt-servicing costs and reduced reliance on financial markets for years to come, the impact on its debt burden would be limited.

The rating agency also warned that despite some debt reduction thanks to the new rescue package, the country still faced medium-term solvency challenges and significant implementation risks. "The announced EU programme along with the Institute of International Finance's statement implies that the probability of a distressed exchange, and hence a default, on Greek government bonds is virtually 100 percent," Moody's said. The IIF said that the bond-exchange deal would help reduce Greece's debt pile by 13.5 billion euros (11.8 billion pounds), and by offering a menu of new instruments it aims to attract 90 percent investor participation in the plan. But Moody's noted that Greece would still have a mountain of debt to service after that.

The waxing obsession with the planet Nibiru, which conspiracy theorists say is a planet swinging in from the outskirts of our solar system that is going to crash into Earth and wipe out humanity in 2012 - or, in some opinions, 2011 - shows that an astonishing number of people "are watching YouTube videos and visiting slick websites with nothing in their skeptical toolkit," in the words of David Morrison, a planetary astronomer at NASA Ames Research Center and senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

Morrison estimates that there are 2 million websites discussing the impending Nibiru-Earth collision. He receives, on average, five email inquiries about Nibiru every day. "At least once a week I get a message from a young person - as young as 11 - who says they are ill and/or contemplating suicide because of the coming doomsday," Morrison told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to SPACE.com.

What's the origin of this mass panic about Nibiru, which astronomers say doesn't exist? The idea that doomsday will result from a planetary collision was first proposed in 1995 by Nancy Lieder, a self-described "contactee." Lieder claims she has the ability to receive messages through an implant in her brain from aliens in the Zeta Reticuli star system.

The Nibiru conspiracies are so nonsensical that Morrison wonders whether even their purveyors believe them. Because many websites sell Nibiru books, tapes and even "survival kits," Morrison thinks they are purposely taking advantage of people who aren't able to distinguish credible sources from crackpot ones. "This is especially a problem for young people, which is why I am so angry at those who target children," he said.