Delegates from more than 20 Christian churches and ecumenical organizations announced their attendance. However, the presence of His Holiness Bartholomew I is of historic significance. Considered “first among equals” in the Eastern Orthodox Communion, the Patriarch of Constantinople has not attended the installation of a Pope of Rome in more than 950 years, since Constantinople split from Rome in 1054.

Father James Puglisi, who is the Minister-General of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement and director of an ecumenical centre in Rome, called Centro Pro Unione, says the participation of Bartholomew I sends a strong signal in favour of ecumenical dialogue.

Efforts to save the euro have long been criticized for being undemocratic, with bailout packages being assembled behind closed doors in Brussels. But after Tuesday evening's vote in the Cypriot parliament, that critique will be difficult to maintain. Not a single parliamentarian in Nicosia cast a vote in favor of the bailout package, one which foresaw a mandatory levy on accounts held with Cypriot banks.

With their veto of the expropriation plan, parliamentarians in the island nation showed that representatives of a small European Union member state can indeed block euro-zone efforts to save the common currency. One thing, though, is clear. If the euro zone blinks in its game of chicken with mini-member Cyprus, it will be forfeiting many future duels as well.

Cypriot Finance Minister Michael Sarris said he had not reached a deal at a first meeting with his Russian counterpart Anton Siluanov in Moscow, but talks there would continue. Russia's finance ministry said Nicosia had sought a further 5 billion euros, on top of a five-year extension and lower interest on an existing 2.5 billion euro loan.

Cyprus is seeking Moscow's help after parliament voted down the euro zone's plan for a 10 billion euro bailout on Tuesday. Cypriots balked at EU demands for a levy on bank deposits to raise 5.8 billion euros, an unprecedented measure that opponents said would have violated the principle behind an EU-wide guarantee on deposits of up to 100,000 euros.

The European Central Bank's chief negotiator on Cyprus, Joerg Asmussen, said the ECB would have to pull the plug on Cypriot banks unless the country took a bailout quickly.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr Bofinger, Cyprus will be saved - and every Cypriot bank customer will have to pay up. Whether that person is Greek or Russian, whether they have €1,000 or €10 million in their account, part of that person's savings will be taken. Is this a good strategy?

Bofinger: It is the worst possible. Making small-scale savers pay is extremely dangerous. It will shake the trust of depositors across the Continent. Europe's citizens now have to fear for their money.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you expect that despositors in Spain, Italy, Portugal and other crisis-plagued countries will make a run on their accounts because they, too, might have to pay someday?

Bofinger: Yes. These fears will now be stoked. The Spaniards, Italians and Portuguese may not run to the banks today or tomorrow, but as soon as the crisis intensifies in a euro-zone country, the bank customers will remember Cyprus. They will withdraw their money and, by doing so, intensify the crisis.

The food would not come free. Instead, the items would be scanned as you walked towards the exit and the total cost charged to your mobile device, with loyalty points added automatically. "The same could be true anywhere you see humans clustering to pay," said futurologist Peter Cochrane. "Technology has the ability to change all that."

Those who feel uneasy at the thought of paying for their morning coffee by waving their debit or credit card over a card reader should brace themselves for a new era in payment technology. Experts warn that in the coming years debit and credit cards not to mention the collection of dog-eared loyalty cards in your wallet will give way to a new generation of contactless payments, from mobile transactions to digital jewellery.

Mr Cochrane predicted that by 2015 contactless technology will have become a mainstream payment system.

The IMF and the EU could have easily bailed out Cyprus without any trouble whatsoever, but they purposely decided not to do that. Instead, they decided that this would be a great time to test the idea of a "wealth tax". The government of Cyprus was given two options by the IMF and the EU - either they could confiscate money from private bank accounts or they could leave the eurozone. Apparently this was presented as a "take it or leave it" proposition, and many are using the world "blackmail" to describe what has happened.

Sadly, this decision is going to set a very ominous precedent for the future and it is going to have ripple effects far beyond Cyprus. After the banksters steal money from bank accounts in Cyprus they will start doing it everywhere. If this "bank robbery" goes well, it will only be a matter of time before depositors in nations such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal are asked to take "haircuts" as well. And what will happen one day when the US financial system collapses? Will US bank accounts also be hit with a "one time" wealth tax? That is very frightening to think about.

• All the ingredients of a self-fulfilling crisis are now in place:

It will be individually rational to withdraw deposits from local banks to avoid the remote probability of a confiscatory tax.

• As depositors learn what others do and proceed to withdraw funds, a bank run will occur.

• The banking system will collapse, requiring a Cyprus-style programme that will tax whatever is left in deposits, thus justifying the withdrawals.

This would probably be the end of the euro.

First, that the savings of ordinary people should be protected, up to a high threshold - or 100,000 euros in the European Union for example. And that financial institutions which lend to banks by buying their bonds should incur losses when banks are bailed out: bondholders should, to use the jargon, be bailed in, as part of resolution plans.

So what is seen by many as profoundly shocking about the terms of the rescue of Cyprus by the rest of the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund is that both of these principles have been broken.

Open Bank Resolution (OBR) is Finance Minister Bill English’s favoured option dealing with a major bank failure. If a bank fails under OBR, all depositors will have their savings reduced overnight to fund the bank’s bail out. “Bill English is proposing a Cyprus-style solution for managing bank failure here in New Zealand – a solution that will see small depositors lose some of their savings to fund big bank bailouts,” said Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman.

“The Reserve Bank is in the final stages of implementing a system of managing bank failure called Open Bank Resolution. The scheme will put all bank depositors on the hook for bailing out their bank. Depositors will overnight have their savings shaved by the amount needed to keep the bank afloat.”

“While the details are still to be finalised, nearly all depositors will see their savings reduced by the same proportions.” Bill English is wrong to assume everyday people are able to judge the soundness of their bank. Not even sophisticated investors like Merrill Lynch saw the global financial crisis coming.

He said the 19 destroyers and frigates currently in service are not enough to deploy warships to the Falklands and Persian Gulf and maintain escort duties for the Reaction Group. Mr Clarke said for every ship deployed the Navy needs at least another two because one will be on its way back from its tour and another will be in refit or training.

As a result of the shortages, said Mr Clarke, Britain faces having to ask France or America to plug the gaps by providing Air Defence escorts. His analysis was produced for Major General Julian Thompson who commanded 3 Commando Brigade in the Falklands brigade.

“The Royal Navy has been emaciated. It is no longer a fleet. It is a flotilla. Britain is disarming when many countries around the world are rearming. The consequence is that we will lose lives, lose operational capabilities and we will be a shadow of our former selves” said Mr Clarke.

Argentina's president met the Pope at a private audience in the Vatican, a day before his papacy is formally inaugurated, becoming the first foreign head of state to meet him. "I asked for his intervention to promote dialogue between the two sides and to avoid problems that could arise from the British militarisation of the South Atlantic," she said at a press conference in Rome.

"We want a dialogue and that's why we asked the pope to intervene so that the dialogue is successful." She referred to the diplomatic confrontation as "the question of the Malvinas", noting that Pope John Paul II had mediated in a conflict between Argentina and Chile in 1978. Her remarks were the latest expression of the vociferous campaign against British ownership of the Falklands.

The government proposed to nationalize the private pensions, which would provide it with much of the cash it needs to meet debt payments and avoid a second default this decade.

The move came as wealthy nations unveiled fresh steps to fight the credit crunch. The US Federal Reserve said it would bolster money-market funds, which have faced withdrawals, by lending as much as $540 billion to the industry. France said it would inject $14 billion into six banks on condition they agree to increase their lending. In a sign banks were a little more willing to lend to each other, the London interbank offered rate, a benchmark for many business and consumer loans, again declined.

Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said the move to take over the private pension system was aimed at protecting investors from losses resulting from global market turmoil. Funds in the system, which is parallel to a government pension system, are administered by financial firms. The private system has about $30 billion in assets and generates about $5 billion in new contributions each year.

While no one knows for sure what the government would do with the private system, economists said nationalization would let the government raid new pension contributions to cover short-term debts due in coming years.