French fries in particular were dangerous because of the extra ingredients added. 'We know that they are adding salt, and cooking it in fat, but they're also putting sugar on them too. Why sugar? Because it helps get them golden crispy,' said Dr Drew Ordon, who is the author of the book 'Better in 7.'

'The amount of fat and saturated fats creates a condition called fatty liver,' Ordon said. He said the changes in liver enzymes are in line with the effects of hepatitis. That disease can ultimately cause liver failure. The US has 160,000 fast food restaurants serving an estimated 50 million customers every day.

'We're all guilty, and every now and then you have to splurge, but the problem is that so many people are getting into eating fast food, especially kids, as their staple, and I think that's the point,' Ordon said. Just ordering a salad won't help as Ordon warned that any item marked healthy or fresh at a fast food restaurant likely has added chemicals, as there aren't clear regulations for those foods.

'Some places actually put propylene glycol on the salads, which is anti-freeze, the reason behind that is that it prevents wilting,' said Ordon. 'And although they say a little anti-freeze isn't going to hurt you, obviously given a choice you don't want to be eating anti-freeze.'

Once the curia – or Vatican bureaucracy – started chewing it over, the theories it spat out were quickly flying around what the papal historian John Cornwell has characterised as “a palace of gossipy eunuchs”. And from there it is one short step to finding their way into the Italian press.

Dan Brown couldn’t have made it up. The ecclesiastical earthquake of a pope resigning has been attributed, variously, to Benedict nursing a fatal illness; to a head injury during his trip to Mexico last March that convinced him to abdicate; to being forced out after an acrimonious meeting with a group of senior cardinals two days before he announced his resignation; to his looming disgrace over either dodgy deals done by the Vatican Bank, past cover-ups of paedophile priests, or an “explosive” forthcoming report by a team of cardinals on a tendering scandal; and to a strategy to secure the succession for his favourite.

All of which at first glance makes me and many Catholics seem hopelessly naive for taking as read Benedict’s explanation in his resignation speech – namely that he was too old, physically and spiritually, to continue to be chief executive of a multinational church of 1.3 billion souls. Given that he is 85 and has always carried himself like a piece of delicate china, that sounded perfectly reasonable in worldly terms, even if it was a radical move in the history of the papacy, tantamount in some eyes to betrayal (“one doesn’t come down from the cross,” Cardinal Dziwisz, former secretary to John Paul II, has remarked disapprovingly).

But then, in what was hastily rebranded his “farewell mass” in Saint Peter’s Basilica on Ash Wednesday, Benedict appeared to add fuel to the fire of claim and counter-claim when he appealed to his Church to move beyond “individualism and rivalry”. Could these be the coded final words of a deposed pope?

Politicians are 'too afraid' of offending cohabiting partners or single parents. Marriage is as important to the future of the nation as climate change and poverty, a senior family lawyer said yesterday.

Baroness Deech said the growing numbers of families without fathers was doing more harm to the next generation than other factors such as smoking, alcohol, poor diet and lack of exercise. And she warned that a conspiracy of silence surrounded the issue because political leaders were afraid to say married families were better for children than cohabiting families or single parent families.

Children of single mothers have greater problems than those of cohabitee parents, and children of cohabitees have greater problems than those of married parents. ‘Since this is so incontrovertible, why is it so brave, as Sir Humphrey would put it, to tackle the desirability of marriage over cohabitation, both for adults and children?’ Lady Deech asked.

Finance ministers at the G20 gathering are understood to have pulled back from explicit criticism of Japan, whose prime minister Shinzo Abe has embarked on a huge programme of monetary and fiscal stimulus to jump start the world's third largest economy out of its third recession in five years.

The currency market was thrown into turmoil this week after the G7 – the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy – issued a joint statement warning against using domestic policy to target currencies.

But the show of unity was immediately shattered by off-the-record briefings against Japan, which needs a weaker yen to help fuel its export-driven economy. European Central Bank president Mario Draghi yesterday labelled the behind-the-scenes briefing as "inappropriate, fruitless and self-defeating".

One resident of the city of Rodas, near Cienfuegos, described the light as "bigger than the sun". He said: "On Tuesday we left home to fish around five in the afternoon, and around 8:00 we saw a light in the heavens and then a big ball of fire, bigger than the sun."

There were also numerous unconfirmed reports of a bright streak of light over the San Francisco Bay area on Friday night. Scientists at the Chabot Space and Science Center, in Oakland, said it had received calls describing what appeared to be a fireball flying west, but it was not clear what the object was. Gerald McKeegan, an astronomer, said the centre's telescopes did not pick up the object.

In a press conference to mark the new year Schulz said he shared some of the "unease" with the EU that UK prime minister David Cameron outlined in a widely-reported speech earlier in the week. "This unease with the EU as it now is, is something that I share. I think there are many people in Europe who also have this unease" said Schulz. "And that's why I would really recommend that we don't label everyone who criticises the EU as a eurosceptic."

"The EU is not in a good state. We have to do better."

As flaws he pointed to the economic developments that have led to more "social injustice" and a democratic deficit which he said was not so much to do with the European institutions themselves but rather with opaque EU decision-making.

"Why do EU institutions meet behind closed doors? Everything that happens behind closed doors is anonymous and leaves open great room for interpretation." He suggested this only prolongs the practice of member states blaming the EU when things go wrong and taking credit for positive developments. Much of the legitimacy criticism about the EU concerns the future role of national parliaments when issues considered to be the core of a sovereign state - such as budget policy - are increasingly being decided in Brussels.

Mr Berlusconi made the comments as a response to recent corruption scandals within several state-controlled conglomerates in Italy. Mr Berlusconi, spoke against the arrest of Giuseppe Orsi, CEO of Finmeccanica defence group, who was taken into custody yesterday accused of paying Indian government officials to secure a helicopter contract.

The 76-year-old politician, who is running for his fourth term as Prime Minister in the country’s elections this month, said bribes are essential in international business, the Financial Times reports.

‘Bribes are a phenomenon that exists and it is useless to deny the existence of these necessary situations when you are negotiating with third world countries and regimes,’ Mr Berlusconi said in an interview with Italian State broadcaster, RAI 3. ‘These are not crimes. We are talking about paying a commission to someone in that country. Why? Because those are the rules in that country.’

Aktham Suliman's wristwatch was always ahead. Although he lived in Berlin, it always showed him the time in Doha, the capital of the emirate of Qatar - which is also the home of Al-Jazeera, the television news network that had been employing Suliman, born in Damascus, as a correspondent for Germany since 2002. One and a half years ago, Suliman, 42, re-set his watch to German time, having become disenchanted with Al-Jazeera. And it wasn't just because the broadcaster seemed less interested in reports from Europe. Rather, Suliman had the feeling that he was no longer being allowed to work as an independent journalist.

Last August, he quit his job. "Before the beginning of the Arab Spring, we were a voice for change," he says, "a platform for critics and political activists throughout the region. Now, Al-Jazeera has become a propaganda broadcaster."

Suliman is not the only one who feels bitterly disappointed. The Arab TV network has recently suffered an exodus of prominent staff members. Reporters and anchors in cities like Paris, London, Moscow, Beirut and Cairo have left Al-Jazeera, despite what are seen as luxurious working conditions in centrally located offices. And despite the fact that the network is investing an estimated $500 million (€375 million) in the US, so as to reach even more viewers on the world's largest television market - one in which its biggest competitor, CNN, is at home.

A prominent correspondent who, until one year ago, used to report in Beirut for the network, says: "Al-Jazeera takes a clear position in every country from which it reports - not based on journalistic priorities, but rather on the interests of the Foreign Ministry of Qatar," he says. "In order to maintain my integrity as a reporter, I had to quit."

The spectacle deeply frightened many Russians, with some elderly women declaring that the world was coming to an end. Many of the injured were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows to see what the reason was for such an intense flash of light.

The meteor - estimated to be about 10 tons - entered the Earth's atmosphere at a hypersonic speed of at least 54,000 kph (33,000 mph) and shattered into pieces about 30-50 kilometers (18-32 miles) above the ground, the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

The meteor released several kilotons of energy above the region, the science academy said. It was probably about 2 meters (6 ½ feet) across, about the size of an SUV, said Richard Binzel, a professor of Planetary Science at MIT.

The shock wave blew in an estimated 100,000 square meters (more than 1 million square feet) of glass, according to city officials, who said 3,000 buildings in the city were damaged. At one zinc factory, part of the roof collapsed.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the incident showed the need for leading world powers to develop a system to intercept objects falling from space. "At the moment, neither we nor the Americans have such technologies" to shoot down meteors or asteroids, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Japanese yen has seen a big decline, while the euro has risen against a basket of currencies. The G20 has previously asked nations to refrain from market intervention. Earlier this week, the G7 group of nations issued a statement saying they would not set targets for exchange rates of their currencies.

"The language may differ [from the G7], but the intent will remain the same," the minister was quoted as saying by the Reuters news agency. That was echoed by Germany's Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, on German radio. He said he was confident of a joint agreement, expressing the official line. "We do not want state intervention in exchange rates. We want exchange rates that are determined by the markets," he said.

The head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, attempted to dampen talk about currency wars ahead of the meeting, by saying loose talk about currencies was "inappropriate, fruitless and self-defeating". The meeting comes at a time when some of the world's biggest economies and regions are still struggling to spur economic growth.

Meanwhile, the eurozone recession also deepened in the final three months of 2012. The economies of Germany, France and Italy, the biggest members of the eurozone, all shrank by more than expected.

This has led to fears that countries that continue to struggle may try to devalue their currencies in order to trigger growth.