Recipients since 1998 include the traitor George Blake, extremist cleric Abu Qatada and the IRA killer dubbed Mrs Doubtfire. The House of Commons figures fuelled fresh demands for Britain to pull out of the convention on which the European Court of Human Rights bases its rulings.

Because they are political appointees many of the court’s judges are not even legal experts.

Gibraltar has called on the United States to use its diplomatic heft to help end a bitter dispute over its sovereignty, accusing Spain of "bullying" the tiny British territory amid a flare-up of tensions. "The United States must stand for the right of people to determine their own future," Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar's head of government, said.

"I don't think there's anything in the American psyche that says that individuals like me and the Falkland islanders and the Gibraltarians should be told under whose sovereignty they will come."

Picardo is on a charm offensive – his fourth trip to the United States this year – in a bid to win international backing for Gibraltar and Britain in a festering diplomatic row with Spain.

The territory of 30,000 people perched on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula bordering Spain this year marks the 300th anniversary of the Treaty of Utrecht which ceded its control to Britain.

Just how much is that worth? Almost $93 billion each year, according to a first-of-its-kind study for Texas conducted by Texas A&M Forest Service.

The five core ecosystem services and their annual, statewide values are listed below.

• Climate Regulation, $4.2 billion/year

Affect forests have on regional and local climates by absorbing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide - a greenhouse gas.

• Watershed Regulation, $13.2 billion/year

Ability of the forests to provide a continuous, stable supply of clean drinking water through various hydrological processes (aquifer recharge, purification, flood and storm protection, etc).

• Biodiversity Services, $14.8 billion/year

Capacity forests have to promote essential biological diversity and provide sustainable habitats for plants and animals.

• Cultural Services, $60.4 billion/year

Non-material benefits (spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection and aesthetic experience) obtained from forest ecosystems.

• Air Quality Services, $190.3 million/year

Ability of forests to remove particulates and other pollutants from the air.

The online version of the study — found at TexasForestInfo.com — allows residents to see the ecosystem values for their specific location.

It comes seven years after the introduction of same-sex civil unions in 2005 and six years after the number of couples forming them peaked. Figures from the Office for National Statistics also showed that lesbian couples are markedly more likely to dissolve civil partnerships than gay men.

Family lawyers said that the patterns mirrored those for heterosexual couples in which marriages which break down typically do so between four and eight years in, with women more likely to file for divorce than men.

According to the ONS there were 7,037 new civil partnerships formed in the UK last year, a 3.6 per cent rise on the previous year. The rise came at a time when the debate about legalising same-sex marriage was at its height.

China, the United States' largest creditor, is "naturally concerned about developments in the US fiscal cliff," vice finance minister Zhu Guangyao told the BBC. "The executive branch of the US government has to take decisive and credible steps to avoid a default on its Treasury bonds," he said, referring to President Obama. "It is important for the US economy as well as the global economy."

"We hope the United States fully understands the lessons of history," Mr Zhu said, referring to a similar deadlock in 2011 that led to a downgrade of the US "AAA" credit rating. A deadlocked US Congress, meanwhile, confronted an October 17 deadline to increase the nation's borrowing power or risk default.

But House Speaker John Boehner vowed not to raise the US debt ceiling without a "serious conversation" about what is driving the debt, while Democrats said it was irresponsible and reckless to raise the possibility of a US default. The last big confrontation over the debt ceiling, in August 2011, ended with an eleventh-hour agreement under pressure from shaken markets and warnings of an economic catastrophe if there was a default.

An initial test vote on the proposal, described by the aide on condition of anonymity, could occur as soon as October 11, just six days before federal borrowing authority is set to expire. Democrats have been pressing for a one-year increase in the nation’s $16.7 trillion debt ceiling without any of the spending cuts of policy changes Republicans are demanding.

The method of giving Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling barring a congressional disapproval was first proposed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, in 2011 and became part of the Budget Control Act passed in August of that year.

Economists say a default could trigger a financial crisis and recession that would echo 2008 — or worse. The 2008 financial crisis plunged the country into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930's.

"We are wide open to receive the most advanced knowledge from overseas to contain the problem," said Mr Abe, during a speech made in English at a science forum in Kyoto. "My country needs your knowledge and expertise." His comments were made against a backdrop of on-going technical issues, with operators confirming that the latest mishap was an accidental power cut stopping pumps used to inject water to cool damaged reactors.

The incident occurred when a worker carrying out system inspections accidentally pushed a button which switched off power to some of the systems within the four reactor buildings. Although a backup system was implemented immediately, the accident is the latest in a spate of high-profile problems at the plant, which is currently in the sensitive early stages of a decades-long decommissioning process.

Many investors had predicted that the game of brinkmanship between the White House and the Republicans would be resolved over the weekend, but instead the stalemate became more deeply entrenched as they issued the first categorical warnings that they are prepared to play the same game of chicken over negotiations regarding America’s borrowing limit.

The US has until around October 17 to agree a deal to raise its self-imposed $16.7 trillion debt ceiling, or default on its payments and throw the global economy into financial turmoil. Both sides issued categorical warnings on Sunday that the United States would default debt unless the other capitulated, raising expectations that the negotiations will go all the way to the wire, or even beyond it.

The Republicans say they will not agree a stop-gap budget to keep the government running, or raise the borrowing limit, unless the White House makes certain policy changes, including delaying President Obama’s flagship healthcare programme by a year.

That once-great news organisation seemed determined to turn every bulletin into a seminar on the life and opinions of Ralph Miliband [Marxist father of the leader of the Opposition in Parliament]. As Lefties would say, there was a sub-text here. The BBC went well beyond objectivity. It was using the Miliband affair to attack its enemies. In so doing, it was also exposing its own cast of mind.

When John Birt became director-general of the BBC, he realised that there was a problem with many of his journalists. In recent years, there had been an infestation of soggy Leftism (my paraphrase, not his words). These characters often lived in an intellectual bubble, socialising solely with their colleagues and with others who held the same opinions. They never met anyone who argued that there might be a case for the death penalty, or that Maggie was not a monster any more than Reagan was a slow-witted war-mongering cowboy.

As they all held the same views, they also persuaded themselves that theirs were the only permissible ones and that anyone who disagreed was morally inferior. Some Marxists used to talk approvingly of “fused groups”: cells of like-minded comrades who would reinforce each others’ revolutionary rigour. The BBC was in danger of becoming a fused group.

Egypt was hit by a series of terrorist attacks on Monday in apparent retaliation against the country's security forces for deadly clashes the previous day which left at least 53 people dead. In the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, six Egyptian soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting on their patrol. Shortly afterwards, a car bomb detonated outside South Sinai's security directorate, killing four people and injuring 48.

Another attack, by rocket-propelled grenade, damaged a satellite dish, part of the country's main television transmission system, in the upmarket Cairo suburb of Maadi. Satellite television stations, some private, have played a major role in drumming up support for the army's takeover of Egypt from the Muslim Brotherhood's President Mohammed Morsi.

The Grid said reserve supplies of electricity will be wafer thin after a dramatic fall in the amount of coal-based power plants operating across the UK. And it warned it may have to issue NISMs – warnings to industry to bring mothballed plant into action or increase generation to cope.

National Grid expert Chris Train said that in a cold winter, the UK's electricity "margin" or safety buffer will be just 5 per cent, almost half last year's level and the lowest since early in 2007. He told an industry conference this morning: "Things will be tighter than they have been historically."

He insisted it was wrong to say Britain faced blackouts and that he was confident extra energy would flow from the Continent if the country risked a supply shortage. He would not comment on the likelihood manufacturers may be forced to cut back on their electricity or gas use at times of peak demand.

The courses where Barack Obama plays at Andrews Air Force Base and Fort Belvoir (146 rounds to date as president, he’s probably on the links as I write this) are still open. The commisaries are closed. People can’t shop for groceries. But the President gets to play golf.

Mr Obama can play golf on a course which demands upkeep, watering, staff etc, but this couple in their 70s, who own their home outright, who don’t need any federal employee assistance, don’t get to sleep in their own bed. That is pretty messed up.

In a crony capitalist world some are more equal than others.

From TheLibertyPaper.org: Last Thursday park rangers arrived at the elderly couple’s home and forced them to leave. Their home sits on federal lands. Even though the Spencers have owned their home for more than 4 decades, the park ranger told them they could not return until a budget was passed. “I had to be sure and get his walker and his scooter that he has to go in,” Mrs Spencer said of her husband Ralph.

A fire at Camp Pendleton, a major Marine Corps base north of San Diego, caused 230 residents to evacuate their homes in a housing unit, the Associated Press reports. The base’s hospital suffered a power outage, leading to the evacuation of 30 patients. By late Sunday night, the 2,500-acre fire was nearly one-fourth contained.

Another fire further north in Orange County broke out at a plant nursery, causing 23 area residents to evacuate, and smoke from a small fire blanketed a key interchange in northern Los Angeles County, bringing traffic to a halt for 90 minutes. Southern California is currently in peak wildfire season, where hot, dry conditions are exacerbated by Santa Ana winds, which include gusts of nearly 100 mph.

Most of the activists are described in the population registry as Jewish. In its 26-page ruling, the court explained it did not have the authority to determine ethnicity or statehood. In an editorial, the Haaretz newspaper described the move as a "defeat for Israeliness."

'Weighty implications'

"The state and its legislators must relate to all its citizens as Israeli citizens and eliminate the nationality line item in the Population Registry," the paper said. The court said that any recognition of Israeli nationality would have "weighty implications" on the state of Israel and endanger Israel's founding principle: To be a Jewish state for the Jewish people, the Associated Press news agency said.

As President Barack Obama proclaimed a few years ago on this occasion, "Our citizens of German descent excel in every discipline and open our minds to the expanses of human possibility. When we drive across a suspension bridge, listen to music played on a Steinway piano, or send a child to kindergarten, their unique traditions and customs surround us."

So why are there so many German-Americans in the United States anyway? For some history, we turn to an English translation of "The German-Americans: An Ethnic Experience" by Willi Paul Adams from the Max Kade German Center. A slow but steady stream of Germans immigrated to the US starting in the 1680s, coming to represent 9% of the total population around the close of the 18th century. It all started with that fateful day in October:

On October 6, 1683, thirteen Quaker families from Krefeld arrived in Philadelphia. From the outset, their settlement on the northern outskirts of Philadelphia was called Germantown. From then on, the tolerant Quaker colony of Pennsylvania served as a beachhead for the immigration of pietistic and other Protestant minorities, notably dissidents of the Reformed and Lutheran persuasion. When the first American census was taken in 1790, Pennsylvania's German population was put at 225,000 which amounts to a third of the state's entire population.

If we further count those Germans who in the course of the 18th century settled in the English colonies of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and South Carolina, especially those from the Palatinate, Baden and Wurttemberg, and include their children, then Americans of German origin were about 9% of the total population of the youthful United States around the close of the 18th century.