UK - Horse DNA has been found in some beef burgers being sold in UK and Irish supermarkets, the Republic of Ireland's food safety authority (FSAI) has said. The FSAI said the meat came from two processing plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods, and the Dalepak Hambleton plant in Yorkshire. It said there was no risk to health. The burgers were on sale in Tesco and Iceland in the UK and Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland they were on sale in Dunnes Stores, Lidl and Aldi.

UK - Whenever matters European come to a head, you tend to get a great outpouring of angst from those claiming to speak for business on the supposed economic dangers for Britain if we kick too vigorously against further EU integration. We had another example of it last week in a letter to the Financial Times.

BERLIN, GERMANY/ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - The German Bundeswehr is intensifying its combat exercises with dictatorships on the Arabian Peninsular. The German Air Force just concluded, at the end of the year, two major training manoeuvres in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), each exercising joint combat operations. Participating alongside Emirati troops were also troops from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and NATO countries.

EGYPT - An Egyptian mother and her seven children have been given lengthy jail sentences for illegally changing their names on official documents. The family wanted to use their Christian names again after a conversion following their Muslim father's death.

MALI - Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counter-offensive on Monday in central Mali after four days of air strikes by French warplanes on their strongholds in the desert north, promising to drag France into a long and brutal Afghanistan-style ground war. France intensified its air raids on Sunday using Rafale aircraft and Gazelle attack helicopters to pummel training camps at the heart of the vast area seized by rebels in April, while pouring hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako.

MALI - A military offensive to reclaim Mali’s north from Islamist forces entered a fourth day on Monday, as al Qaeda-linked rebels promised to launch attacks on French soil in retaliation for the government’s decision to intervene in the unstable West African country. "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France," Abou Dardar, a leader of Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, one of the Mali-based groups with ties to al Qaeda, told the AFP news agency. According to FRANCE 24’s Matthieu Mabin, who was in the city of Sevare, residents eagerly awaited the arrival of French troops and supported a ground offensive into rebel-controlled areas. “We have not come across a single Malian who is against France’s intervention,” Mabin said.

FRANCE - France will end its intervention in Mali only once stability has returned to the West African country, French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday, raising the prospects of a costly, drawn-out operation against al Qaeda-linked rebels. Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out air raids since Friday in the northern half of the country, which Western and regional states fear could become a base for attacks by Islamist militants in Africa and Europe.

USA - On his Monday radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin said that if President Barack Obama sidesteps Congress on the debt ceiling fight and attacks the Congress’ constitutionally enumerated “core power” – that is control over spending and taxing — through executive action, Congress will have “no choice” but impeachment. Levin explained that if unilateral action by the White House — which White House spokesman Jay Carney ruled out — were to happen, it would infringe on Congress’ “core power” and should be punished with impeachment.

USA - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke criticized the debt ceiling as an unusual device that can be used to prevent the United States from paying its bills, as he suggested that the country would be better off if the debt limit did not exist. "I think it would be a good thing if we didn’t have [the debt ceiling],” Bernanke told students at the University of Michigan today.

USA - Barack Obama has laid out a nightmarish vision of a US debt default, warning his Republican opponents of dire consequences if Congress failed to raise the debt ceiling, including “haywire” financial markets and a spike in interest rates that would shatter business confidence. In a political broadside delivered at a surprise press conference at the White House on Monday, Mr Obama said he would not negotiate with Republicans over raising the $16.4 trillion debt limit, accusing them of risking “blowing up” the US economy because of their “absolutist” positions on spending. Republicans are demanding a dollar of spending cuts for every dollar of additional debt they authorize.

USA - Texas Republican Representative Steve Stockman threatened Monday afternoon that he would file articles of impeachment against President Barack Obama if he institutes gun control measures with an executive order. Stockman warned that such executive orders would be “unconstitutional” and “infringe on our constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.” “Any proposal to abuse executive power and infringe upon gun rights must be repelled with the stiffest legislative force possible,” he added.

USA - International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde has insisted the eurozone economy is 'improving' as latest figures show a third consecutive month of falling factory output. Ms Lagarde said it was "clearly the case" investors were returning to the eurozone, a message at odds with bleak figures released on Monday showing industrial output across the single currency bloc fell 0.3 per cent in November from October. Her words will likely provoke disbelief in the markets.

CHINA - China is the world's second-largest economy and the world's largest exporter. It is also the world's second largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) and it holds the largest share of foreign exchange reserves. Yet, despite these superlatives, its currency, the renminbi, lags far behind others in playing a role internationally. Recent moves, however, show that China has now embarked on the slow and gradual process of internationalizing the renminbi and promoting its role as one of the key global reserve currencies. China is the first developing country to attempt the internationalization of its currency, and it is the first country to do so in the era of true fiat money, when there is no link, even residual, between the reserve currency and gold.

CHINA - People refused to venture outdoors and buildings disappeared into Beijing's murky skyline on Sunday as the capital's air quality went off the index. The Beijing Municipal Environmental Monitoring Center said on its website that the density of PM2.5 particulates had surpassed 700 micrograms per cubic meter in many parts of the city. The World Health Organization considers a safe daily level to be 25 micrograms per cubic meter.

EGALEO, GREECE - While patrolling on a recent cold night, environmentalist Grigoris Gourdomichalis caught a young man illegally chopping down a tree on public land in the mountains above Athens. When confronted, the man broke down in tears, saying he was unemployed and needed the wood to warm the home he shares with his wife and four small children, because he could no longer afford heating oil. Tens of thousands of trees have disappeared from parks and woodlands this winter across Greece, authorities said, in a worsening problem that has had tragic consequences as the crisis-hit country's impoverished residents, too broke to pay for electricity or fuel, turn to fireplaces and wood stoves for heat.