Cold rain and grey skies mirrored the sombre mood of world leaders commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War in Paris on Sunday, in a reminder of the atrocious conditions endured by troops.

In a show of unity, more than 60 presidents, prime ministers and ­dignitaries, many of them holding black umbrellas, walked the last few yards to the Tomb of the Unknown ­Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe, after arriving in a fleet of buses.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the grim weather was fitting for an occasion that was not a ­celebration of victory but a ceremony marking the end of four years of ­horrific bloodshed.

Donald Trump, the US president, who was criticised the previous day for cancelling a scheduled visit to a US ­military cemetery because of rain, ­arrived after the others in his armour-plated limousine, the “Beast”, because of security concerns. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, also arrived ­separately a few minutes later.

Mr Macron delivered a politically-charged speech warning of the dangers of rising nationalism and praising the European Union and the United ­Nations for their contribution to peace.

Afterwards he said he was delighted that so many world leaders had ­attended, but questioned whether the occasion would be remembered as “a symbol of lasting peace or the last ­moment of unity before world falls into disorder. That depends on us.”

Warning the assembled leaders that re-emerging “old demons” were to threaten peace, he said: “Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism.

“Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism.”

Mr Trump, who has proudly ­declared himself a nationalist, sat stony-faced, but smiled broadly as he exchanged a handshake with Mr Putin, who flashed him a thumbs-up sign.

The US president’s cordiality ­towards his Russian counterpart – ­despite alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US election – has alarmed western European leaders who see Russia as a growing threat.

Feminist activists from the Femen group broke through the security ­cordon and staged a brief topless ­protest near Mr Trump’s car before ­being dragged away by police.

Despite a plea by Mr Macron for a strong EU, Europe’s deep political divisions were underscored by an independence day celebration in Warsaw, in which the Polish president and prime minister marched with far-Right groups for the first time.

The Paris event produced some unlikely pairings. It was attended by the presidents of both Serbia and Kosovo, which are struggling to normalise ­relations nearly 20 years after a Nato bombing campaign ended the conflict in Kosovo and paved the way for its ­independence from Serbia.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, spoke to Mr Putin for the first time since a Russian plane was shot down in Syria during an Israeli air strike.

French commentators criticised the lack of high-level British representation in Paris. Franck Ferrand, an author and broadcaster, said it was regrettable that “no British leader or member of the Royal Family has chosen to attend”. 

The UK was represented by David Lidington, the de facto deputy prime minister and Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Before Mr Macron spoke, teenagers read out letters written by First World War soldiers on the day the bloodshed ceased. One of them, from British ­officer Charles Neville of the Royal Horse Artillery, described streets “packed with wildly cheering civilians, chucking flowers at us and carrying on only like a foreigner can”.

After the ceremony and lunch at the Elysée Palace, dozens of leaders ­attended the inaugural meeting of the International Peace Forum, intended by Mr Macron to promote multilateral cooperation to resolve conflicts.

Mr Macron told the gathering that the allies had won the war, but not the peace, as they had failed to prevent the Second World War. 

Mrs Merkel denounced the “national vaingloriousness and military ­arrogance” that led to the “senseless bloodshed” of two world wars.

Mr Trump did not attend the ­session, instead visiting a US military cemetery in Suresnes, western Paris, where he paid tribute to the bravery and sacrifice of French and American soldiers, ­before flying home.

From strip joints to nightclubs and pizzerias, the Vatican is urging Catholic countries around the world not to allow deconsecrated churches to be used for profane purposes, in the first conference dedicated to the issue.

Falling congregations, a lack of clergy and crippling maintenance costs means that thousands of Catholic churches around the world are being decommissioned and turned into restaurants, pubs, cafes and even skateboarding venues.

More than 500 Catholic churches have closed down in Germany since 2000, while in Canada one fifth of Catholic churches were deconsecrated in the same period.

In the Netherlands, an estimated 500 churches are due to fall out of religious use in the next decade.

There is a danger that they will end up being used for “inappropriate activities”, as one delegate delicately put it at the conference, titled “Doesn’t God Live Here Anymore?”

“I know of a little church in northern Ontario that was turned into a strip club,” Paul-André Durocher, the archbishop of Gatineau in Canada, told The Telegraph. “It went up in flames, thank God. That’s one of the worst examples.”

In Prague, a church was turned into an ice cream parlour, while in Arnhem in the Netherlands, a deconsecrated church became a skateboarding hall.

In Asti in northern Italy a church has been turned into a bar called “Il Diavolo Rosso” – The Red Devil.

In 2005, a late 18th century Catholic church in Liverpool was converted into a nightclub, which is “still very much regretted by the Catholic community,” said Sophie Andreae, vice-chair of the patrimony committee of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales.  

“This is going to be a big issue in the future and that’s why guidance from Rome is so important.”

There was a scandal in Naples earlier this month when a former church was used for a Halloween party, with young women dressed in sexy witch outfits and leather mini-skirts sitting on the altar.

A fashion show held in a church in Florence also caused a stir. “Some of the models were rather scantily clothed,” said Monsignor Carlos Azevedo, one of the conference organisers. “People were a bit scandalised.”

In a message sent to the conference, held in a Catholic university in Rome, Pope Francis acknowledged a decline in the number of faithful and a dearth of priests but said that deconsecrated churches could be given “a new life”, preferably in service of the poor.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, the Vatican body that organised the event, said that turning a former church into a pizzeria or something similar amounted to “blasphemy”.

“A museum would be fine, or perhaps a community meeting place,” he said.

Delegates from around the world, including Australia, the US, Spain, Nigeria, Poland and Ireland, spoke of growing secularisation, an over-supply of churches and the headache of what to do with them.

Dioceses complained of having little say over the future use of deconsecrated churches.

In the case of the church in Ontario, when it was first sold to a local businessman he wanted to turn it into a family restaurant.

But he went bust, the church was repossessed by the bank and the next buyer turned it into a strip club.

Some bishops, including in Britain, are looking at using covenants to lay down legally binding rules about what can and cannot be done with deconsecrated churches.

“The critical thing is that it carries forward so that even if the church is sold again, the covenant still applies,” said Ms Andreae.

While striptease clubs and bars are definitely out, the Vatican looks favourably on former churches being turned into social centres, soup kitchens, museums or bookshops.

“A church in my diocese was turned into a palliative care centre. That’s in keeping with the Church’s mandate,” said Archbishop Durocher.

At the end of the two-day conference, the Vatican is expected to issue guidelines for dioceses around the world on how to manage the sale of deconsecrated churches.

“Property laws differ around the world so it has to be tackled on a country-by-country basis,” said Monsignor Paul Tighe, the secretary for the Pontifical Council for Culture.

“But bishops need to explore what options there are for protecting churches when they are sold.”

It’s the bro-five. That moment when two like minded members of a brotherhood come together, outstretched hands colliding in a clasp somewhere between a high-five and a handshake.

If Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, had any nerves about how he would be received at the G20 summit – his first major trip since being implicated in the murder of a dissident journalist – then Vladimir Putin’s warm but calculating greeting would have put him at ease.

The opening session on Friday was freighted with symbolism and vivid reminders of the realpolitik at work in Argentina. For world leaders are assembling at a time of extraordinary geopolitical turbulence, setting up a string of contentious clashes.

A looming Brexit, the new round of hostility between Russia and Ukraine, global trade wars and the fall-out from the killing of Jamal Khashoggi have officials struggling behind the scenes to find a joint statement that would rescue the summit from failure.

So an awkward air hung over the traditional “family photo” of prime ministers, presidents and princes. MBS, as the crown prince is known, found himself on the periphery, visibly and diplomatically, with empty space to either side at stage left. Theresa May, Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau placed themselves to the right, where they could be sure not to catch his eye.

Picture done, MBS exited quickly. He was alone again minutes later standing at his allotted seat in the conference hall. And alone he might have remained, were it not for Mr Putin who swept in with that beaming smile and bro-five to remind the world that a Saudi with massive reserves of oil and a need for military defence systems is never long in want of an ally.

For all the public posturing, the criticism of MBS, the lining up of governments alongside Ukraine after its gunboats were seized by Russia, the anger at Mr Trump for his unilateralist foreign policy, the merry-go-round still has to spin.

Mrs May will still meet the crown prince even if Number 10 is avoiding saying whether or not she will shake his hand. And Mr Trump may well talk to Mr Putin even if he issued a very public tweet cancelling a planned, formal meeting.

It is a two-track summit. One designed for public consumption back home and the other, more discreet, calculated to get business done.

The same old game of public perception and private diplomacy as world leaders dance around the issues and each other. Just perhaps more so as a new breed of populist leader ups the ante.

But in this age of social media and cameras in every pocket, it is not an easy line to draw. You can imagine the delight of the Saudi foreign office when it published a photograph of Mr Macron chatting happily with the crown prince on the sidelines.

And then there is Mr Putin. Already at odds with the West, condemned for the Salisbury poisoning and facing additional sanction for seizing Ukrainian naval vessels at the weekend, he can burnish his domestic credentials with another display of independence and an embrace of MBS.

If you already have blood on your hands, what difference does a bro-five with a man accused of ordering the murder of a journalist matter anyway?

The ultra-conservative and anti-immigration Vox has stormed into the Andalucian assembly in Sunday’s regional election, marking the first time a far-Right party has achieved parliamentary representation on any level in Spain’s recent history as a democracy.

The party that favours the end of autonomy in Catalonia and the expulsion of all immigrants who entered Spain illegally won 12 out of 109 seats in Andalucia’s parliament with 11 per cent of the vote.

“Vox was the party that led the political debate,” said the party’s secretary general, Javier Ortega.

“We put on the table the need to control our borders and end illegal immigration, end abusive levels of taxation and the need to put an end to ideological laws relating to gender.”

Despite running out narrow winner in the region it has ruled continuously for 36 years, the PSOE Socialist party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez suffered a hugely disappointing result in Andalucia. The party’s all-time low of 28 per cent and 33 seats mean it will not be able to govern with a majority, even with the support of the Left-wing coalition Adelante Andalucia, which includes Podemos.

Spain’s main conservative opposition force, the Popular Party (PP), also lost ground, sliding six percentage points to just under 21 per cent, while the liberal Ciudadanos was the night’s only winner among the established parties, doubling its share to 18 per cent.  

Ahead of European and possibly a general election in 2019, Spain’s political scene appears more fractured than ever after the dramatic emergence of Vox on the extreme right of the spectrum.

Despite having seen its number of seats in the Andalucian parliament shorn from 33 to 26, the PP appeared to welcome the arrival of Vox on the political scene.

For the PP’s candidate for the presidency of the region, Juan Manuel Moreno, it was a “historic day” on which “Andalucia had chosen change”, saying he wants to lead a right-of-centre coalition including Vox and Ciudadanos.

“Ahead of this election we proposed change, now we guarantee change,” Mr Moreno told an ecstatic crowd of PP members in Seville.

Ciudadanos’ leader in Andalucia, Juan Marín, echoed the PP’s message. “There is a majority in the parliament for change; change has arrived in Andalucia,” Mr Marín said.

Ciudadanos’ national leader, Albert Rivera, challenged Spanish Prime Minister Sánchez to call national elections now that “the Andalucians have turned their back on you”.

The PP and Ciudadanos’ candidates have been careful not to describe Vox as far-Right, while also refusing to rule out accepting the support of the ultra-conservative grouping to remove the Socialists from power.

Andalucian President Susana Díaz blamed a low turnout of 59 per cent for her Socialist party’s small margin of victory, and asked all other mainstream political forces to freeze out Vox from the political scene.

“This phenomenon we have seen in other European countries is now present in the Andalucian parliament. I call on all the other political parties who consider themselves defenders of our democratic constitution to brake the extreme right,” she said. 

The office of Rodrigo Duterte, the controversial Philippine president, on Thursday was forced to play down remarks he had made about killing bishops, claiming it was only “hyberbole” and not a genuine threat. 

In a speech to local government officials on Wednesday, Mr Duterte, who has a running feud with the influential Catholic Church over its criticisms of his drugs war, lashed out again, calling it “the most hypocritical institution” and denouncing priests as “useless.”

“These bishops, kill them, those fools are good for nothing. All they do is criticise,” he said, according to the Rappler news site. 

Salvador Panelo, the presidential spokesman, later clarified to reporters that the president’s provocative statement was borne out of frustration that his efforts to improve the country were being under-appreciated. 

“I think that’s only hyberbole on the part of the president. We should be getting used to this president. He makes certain statements for dramatic effect,” he said. 

“The president, just like any ordinary human being, is upset when the good things that he does for this country and not even appreciated by people who are supposed to support it, like the Church,” Mr Panelo added. 

However, the country’s Commission on Human Rights slammed his statements against religious leaders as “gravely alarming”, warning that they could embolden violence against government critics, reported the Philippine Star.

“Churches and priests… work directly with communities and families who continue to suffer the many forms of human rights violations allegedly stemming from the government’s drug campaign,” said Jacqueline Ann de Guia, the CHR spokesperson.

“Instead of calling them useless, the government must take their concerns as valid challenges from the ground and as means to improve, rather than degrade protection of human rights of all,” she added. 

An estimated 90 per cent of the Philippines 100-million-strong population identify as Catholic and the Church has played a central role at times of political upheaval, including during the 1986 “people power” revolution that overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos. 

It initially refrained from criticising the war on drugs launched by Mr Duterte in 2016, but began to campaign against it last year as the death toll mounted, particularly among the poor. 

Based on official police records, at least 4,000 drugs dealers and users have been killed, but human rights groups allege the death toll is three times higher, with many of the victims, some innocent bystanders, targetted by gun-wielding assassins on motorbikes. 

Mr Duterte has been incensed by the Church’s stand against his drugs campaign, most recently focussing his ire on Manila Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, whose innercity Caloocan parish has been badly hit by vigilante killings. 

The president accused the bishop of having links to drugs and stealing church donations, reportedly also threatening to cut off his head. 

Bishop David denied the charges, urging people to pray for their leader, who was “a very sick man.”

In an interview with The Telegraph last year, the bishop admitted he was sometimes fearful he would be targetted over his strong stance against the drugs war. 

“Who would not be afraid? I’m just a human being. I know how they operate,” he said. 

“Sometimes we’re in a car and the car stops in the middle of traffic and then you have people in motorcycles riding in tandem coming up the side of you. You get a bit queasy, thinking if this man has a gun that could be the end of me,” he said. 

Bishop David’s fears are not unfounded. Three Catholic priests have been killed since December last year, although their murderers’ motives have not been established.

Their deaths have raised alarm among church leaders over “a culture of impunity.”

"They are killing our flock. They are killing us, the shepherds. They are killing our faith. They are cursing our church," Catholic leaders said in a strongly-worded statement earlier this year, urging Mr Duterte to refrain from “verbal prosecution” that could embolden more crimes.    

For decades since Lynette Dawson went missing in Sydney’s northern beaches, her family has believed that the case was mishandled and that the evidence pointed to her husband, Chris Dawson, who moved his teenage lover into the family home two days after his wife disappeared.

Despite pleas to politicians and authorities, and two coroner’s inquiries in 2001 and 2003 concluding that Dawson should be charged, the 70-year-old former sports teacher and professional rugby league player lived a quiet life in the state of Queensland. 

Earlier this year, the case was taken up by a podcast, The Teacher’s Pet, which painstakingly reviewed the evidence, re-interviewed witnesses, and raised allegations that…

It is 8am and the rain is coming down in sheets. The streets are empty except for a dozen women and their pimps – women from some of the world’s poorest regions including Moldova, Romania, West Africa and Southeast Asia. Some are still in their teens.

Not far away are numerous massage parlors and saunas offering women and girls for sale.

This is not Amsterdam or a seedy quarter of one Asia’s megacities. It is Geneva, Switzerland, home to the World Health Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross and countless other UN bodies and NGOs dedicated to humanitarian causes.

Human trafficking and modern slavery are supposed to be what they are fighting against. Yet here it is happening…