American Jewish organisations and the Israeli Foreign Ministry have welcomed Wednesday's decision by the United Nations Security Council to impose new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

Betty Ehrenberg of the World Jewish Congress said: "The WJC applauds the passage of this latest round of UN sanctions. It demonstrates that the international community is less and less willing to tolerate a rogue state that has an abysmal human rights record and continues to threaten its neighbours and the Western world.

Denis MacShane, who led the all-Party enquiry in anntisemitism, has criticised the President of Brazil for posing in photographs with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Labour Rotherham MP has spoken of his “shock” and “profound sadness” in an open letter to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Iran has agreed to ship low enriched uranium to Turkey, but has said it will still continue to enrich uranium to up to 20 per cent.

After talks with Brazil and Turkey, Iran has agreed to exchange Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium in exchange for nuclear fuel rods, for use in scientific research.

Although nuclear weapons need uranium enriched to 90 per cent, the deal deprives Iran of its current stocks of enriched uranium, which could be used in future bomb production. Fuel rods cannot be processed any further than their current state.

In 2002, Alex Bellos published Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life to much acclaim.

Its appeal stemmed partly from its having been written by someone who had lived in Brazil and was a student of that nation's obsession with football, and partly because the subject is a sexy one. Now, Bellos is sharing with readers another of his passions: mathematics.

China? Brazil? India? What has the world come to that these are the countries that seem to attract investments from all corners? Is the elevated status of emerging markets just a fashionable concept, or is this the embodiment of a massive transition?

Does it reflect on “the decline of the West” and a rise of new, far-away powers, or just some mirage that will soon fade?

Let us consider a few facts:

A London Chabad Rabbi said his community was “in grief and shock” over news that an active member of the French Chabad community was among the 228 passengers feared dead following the Air France flight that crashed en route from Rio to Paris on Sunday night. Another French Jew was also feared dead.

An American strictly Orthodox website, VIN News, has carried a report saying that Serge (Shlomo) Anidjar, 40, a resident of Boulogne-Billancourt , in France , was on his way back home after spending three days in Brazil on a business trip.