The Sun normally undergoes an 11-year cycle of activity. At its peak, it has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. This is followed by a calmer period. Last year, it was expected that it would have been hotting up after a quiet spell. But instead it hit a 50-year year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions, and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

According to Prof Louise Hara of University College London, it is unclear why this is happening or when the Sun is likely to become more active again. "There's no sign of us coming out of it yet," she told BBC News. In the mid-17th Century, a quiet spell - known as the Maunder Minimum - lasted 70 years, and led to a "mini ice-age".

According to economist and political scientist Jacques Attali, that is what the future has in store for us by 2025. In the belief that past experiences are indicative future events, Attali combs through the history of human kind, all the way back to Homo Habilis, separating the past into nine distinct periods to isolate "what is possible, what changes and what is unvarying" and applies those trends to the coming century. Attali's predictions range from the future of journalism (completely paperless) to the end of the economic crisis (around 2011), offering a glimpse into the future that is both provocative and petrifying

Attali correctly notes that our future is not inevitable. Mankind must learn how to appropriately respond to the crises and opportunities that await us, and grow cognizant of the fact that large-scale violence can be so dangerous to humanity so that we become "AWARE OF THE NEED FOR A RADICAL CHANGE IN ATTITUDE."

Today the opposite is threatening: if Europe were to be shattered by the global economic crisis, there would be no limits to the unhappiness, poverty and shame of its politicians and its 500 million people. Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall collapsed unexpectedly, followed by the socialist Soviet Union, and the cold war bipolar global order. Now the capitalist model - the idea that the free market is the solution - whose triumph was celebrated at the time, is threatening to collapse, and drag the EU down with it.

WHERE CAN WE FIND THE PASSIONATE EUROPEAN REBELLIOUSNESS OF A CHURCHILL TODAY, A VISIONARY VOICE TO BRING HOME TO EUROPEANS THAT THE NATIONAL PROVINCIALISM THAT IS PROLIFERATING IN THE GLOBAL CRISIS IS NOT ONLY JEOPARDISING THE EUROPEAN MIRACLE - NAMELY, THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENEMIES INTO NEIGHBOURS - BUT IS DESTROYING ITSELF? No one wants that, of course. But nobody wanted the state socialism for the rich and the neoliberalism for the poor that we suddenly have, either.

The choice is between more Europe and no Europe. This imperative of possible failure justifies hope in a falling market: only an EU rejuvenated by the crisis - hand-in-hand with the US openness to the world under Obama - can build on the seeds of a united global solution that were sown at the start of this month.

"We are trying to push the envelope as far as we can within the current environment." Staff are being discreetly trained, "without being too obvious", on 59 courses with the help of foreign ministries from 17 member states, according to EU sources. Secret negotiations on the EEA negotiations recognise the need "to remain cautious in presenting these issues" ahead of the second Irish referendum.

Conservative Europe Spokesman Mark Francois is quoted saying, "This project shows how much more power Brussels would gain over our foreign policy. IT IS OUTRAGEOUS THAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE ARE BEING DENIED ANY SAY" OVER THE LISBON TREATY. The paper notes that the External Action Service will take over the EU's 160-plus representative offices, which will be granted the same legal diplomatic status as national embassies. Last Spring, Britain narrowly blocked a proposal to call the offices the "Embassies of the Union".

He also called on voters to use the European elections in June as a "protest vote". Mr Hague went on to say, "It's not too late to stop the Lisbon Treaty… I think it's time to ring the alarm bell, it's time to alert people to the fact that THIS DENIAL OF DEMOCRACY IS NOT FAR AWAY UNLESS WE DO SOMETHING."

He also raised the possibility that Gordon Brown could be forced into holding a belated referendum on the Treaty, saying "He [Mr Brown] doesn't want to have a referendum, he doesn't like having elections about anything. But I think it's a Government of such spectacular u-turns you can't rule anything out."

Mitchell, who arrived in Israel Wednesday evening, made the comment after he met for the first time with Lieberman in his new role as foreign minister. Lieberman raised eyebrows earlier in the month when he stated that the Netanyahu government would not be bound by decisions made in Annapolis in November 2007, noting they had never been ratified by the government, nor had they been approved by the Knesset.

"The U.S. policy favours a two-state solution, which would have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside with the Jewish State of Israel," Mitchell told reporters following the meeting. Interior Minister Eli Yishai commented that regardless of what the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama might want, ISRAEL COULD NOT BE FORCED DOWN A PATH THAT MIGHT BE UNREALISTIC.

"The preferable course of diplomatic action at this time is two economies for two peoples, and not two states for two peoples," Yishai told reporters. "The American emissary also knows that forcing the region into virtual diplomatic discourse will only breed the opposite results."

Speaking during a ceremony on Iran's Army Day, Ahmadinejad said Iran was one of the strongest countries in the region and that "the gall to threaten the Iranian nation has been quashed forever. The Iranian nation is ready to become more involved in maintaining order and security based on justice in many regions of the world," Ahmadinejad said.

His speech on Saturday was much more toned down than Army Day speeches from previous years. In 2006 Ahmadinejad warned that Iran's army would "cut off the hand of whoever dares attack it." In 2007 he said "the resistance of the Iranian people will bring down world powers."

The powerful Kepler telescope was designed to search for unknown planets among more than 100,000 stars in the Milky Way. Kepler's first image reveals a vast star field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Lia LaPiana, programme executive at the American space agency Nasa's headquarters in Washington DC, said: 'Kepler's first glimpse of the sky is awe-inspiring. To be able to see millions of stars in a single snapshot is simply breathtaking.' From a vantage point trailing the Earth round the Sun, it will spend three-and-a-half years focused on a patch of sky equivalent to the size of a human hand held at arm's length.

Dr William Borucki, the mission's chief scientist based at Nasa's Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, California, said: 'It's thrilling to see this treasure trove of stars. We expect to find hundreds of planets circling those stars, and for the first time, we can look for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones around other stars like the Sun.'

Advisers manning the "Frank" helpline are informing callers they believed to be children as young as 13 that alcohol is a "much more powerful drug than cannabis" and that using the illegal drug recreationally is not harmful because it "doesn't get you that high". Callers are also being told that taking ecstasy will not lead to long-term damage and that if they are in doubt, to "just take half a pill and if you are handling that OK, you can take the other half."

They are even being told that they would be able to smoke a cannabis joint, on top of ecstasy, with no ill-effects. The advice, given to reporters who rang the helpline posing as young people, has alarmed anti-drugs campaigners who branded it "scandalous" and "irresponsible." Health experts have condemned the advice given to children as "frankly appalling", "factually incorrect" and "worryingly cavalier".

The helpline, established by the Government in 2003 with £3 million funding, was described in a Home Office drugs strategy recently as "the key channel by which Government communicates the dangers of drugs, including cannabis, to young people". But in calls to its helpline, manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, reporters posing as teenagers were told by different advisers that drug taking was not harmful. AT NO POINT IN THE CONVERSATIONS DID THE FRANK TEAM TRY TO DISSUADE THE CALLERS FROM TAKING DRUGS.

Two Federal Reserve policy-makers, Vice Chairman Donald Kohn and New York Fed chief William Dudley, both pointed to signs that measures taken by the US central bank are indeed working to help revive the economy. And Paul Volcker, a senior economic adviser to the Obama administration and a former Fed chairman himself, said the rate of the economy's decline is set to slow.

Volcker, who like the other officials spoke at a conference of policy-makers and academics at Vanderbilt University, said, however, that the economy faces a "long slog" towards recovery.

In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Geithner was quoted as saying US authorities were making sure there was steady funding and that banks were able to meet commitments. "So in some ways what we're saying is we're going to backstop the amount of capital-raising that's necessary," he was quoted as saying in an English text of the interview.

"And again, a lot of that will come from the market, ultimately. But where it doesn't we'll make sure we provide it." In an attempt to assess banks' capital needs, the US government is testing how they would fare under more adverse economic conditions than are expected. The results are due at the end of April.

"Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words," one senior defence official told The Times.

Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250 tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor produces plutonium.

The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870 miles, a distance that the Israeli force practised covering in a training exercise last year that involved F15 and F16 jets, helicopters and refuelling tankers. The possible Israeli strike on Iran has drawn comparisons to its attack on the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981. That strike, which destroyed the facility in under 100 seconds, was completed without Israeli losses and checked Iraqi ambitions for a nuclear weapons programme.

This recession is likely to be "unusually long and severe, and the recovery sluggish," said the Fund, releasing two advance chapters from its World Economic Outlook. However, it warned there is a risk that it could spiral down into a full-blown slump unless further action is taken to stop "feedback effects" gathering force.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, said millions of people risk being pushed back into poverty as the economic storm ravages the most vulnerable countries. "The human consequences could be absolutely devastating. THIS IS A TRULY GLOBAL CRISIS, AND NOBODY IS ESCAPING," he said. "The free-fall in the global economy may be starting to abate, with a recovery emerging in 2010, but this depends crucially on the right policies being adopted today."

Mr Strauss-Kahn called for a urgent action plan to "cleanse banks" of toxic assets and for further fiscal stimulus beyond the 2pc of global GDP already agreed. The snag is that high-debt countries may have hit the limits already. "The impact becomes negative for debt levels that exceed 60pc of GDP," said the Fund. While no countries were named, this would raise questions about Japan, Germany, France, Italy and ultimately Britain and the US after their bank rescues.

"Chinese penetrations of unclassified DoD networks have also been widely reported. Those are more sophisticated, though hardly state of the art," said National Counterintelligence Executive, Joel Brenner, at the Austin University Texas last week, according to a transcript made available on Wednesday.

Listing out some of the examples of Chinese cyber spy penetration, he said: "We're also seeing counterfeit routers and chips, and some of those chips have made their way into US military fighter aircraft. You don't sneak counterfeit chips into another nation's aircraft to steal data. When it's done intentionally, it's done to degrade systems, or to have the ability to do so at a time of one's choosing."

Referring to the Chinese networks penetrating the cyber grids, he said: "Do I worry about those grids, and about air traffic control systems, water supply systems, and so on? You bet I do. America's networks are being mapped. There has also been experience of both Chinese and criminal network operations in the networks of some of the banks".

That, however, is not enough. Following the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread holiday, the IWA will launch another campaign urging Israelis to help save the Sea of Galilee from shrinking any further by making additional cuts to their private water usage.

The government is also gearing up to implement some direct measures to curb water use, including cutting agriculture quotas, heavily taxing farmers and private homes that use too much water, and fining anyone who waters their private lawn.