SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA, USA - An airline pilot is being disciplined by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for posting video on YouTube pointing out what he believes are serious flaws in airport security.
USA - The US has denounced North Korea for threatening a "sacred war" against the South, whose military has been holding live-fire drills near the border. The state department's Philip Crowley told the BBC there was no justification for Pyongyang's "belligerent words".
UK - God is faithful to his promises but often surprises us by how he fulfils them, the Pope has said in a BBC broadcast. Pope Benedict's Christmas message for the UK was broadcast as the Thought For The Day on Radio 4's Today programme. The child born in Bethlehem brought liberation - but not by military or political means, he said.
UK - The freezing conditions that have blasted Britain are being blamed on a series of weather patterns that are bringing Arctic temperatures to much of western Europe, California and even Australia. One of the main factors is a change in the position of the jet stream - the fast-moving current of air that moves from west to east, high in the atmosphere.
NORTH KOREA - North Korea is ready for a "sacred war of justice" using a nuclear deterrent, its armed forces minister has said. Kim Yong-chun accused South Korea of making preparations for war by holding live-fire exercises near the border.
GERMANY - Sueddeutsche reports that a leaked position paper has revealed that the German Finance Ministry has drawn up proposals for a new body, named the "European Stability and Growth Investment Fund", to manage the permanent eurozone bailout fund planned for 2013, the European Stability Mechanism.
UK - Fanatics from a banned Islamic hate group have launched a nationwide poster campaign denouncing Christmas as evil. Organisers plan to put up thousands of placards around the UK claiming the season of goodwill is responsible for rape, teenage pregnancies, abortion, promiscuity, crime and paedophilia.
UK - When airports freeze, so does the British economy, along with the nation's growth, prosperity and job creation. The real scandal is that despite Heathrow's economic and strategic importance to Britain, the Government is virtually powerless to do anything because the Authority is owned by a foreign company.
UK - In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Paul Fisher, the executive director of markets and a member of the rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), said central bank policymakers would like rates to increase as much as tenfold from their current historic low of 0.5 per cent as soon as possible.
UK - Pope Benedict XVI will deliver his Thought For The Day on Radio 4 on Christmas Eve, the first time in history the head of the Catholic church has delivered the address. In a huge coup for the corporation the Pope will deliver a Christmas message to the nation in the tradition 7.45am slot on the Today programme.
FRANCE - The mayor of a tiny French village has called for the army to seal it off from a swathe of UFO hunters and rapture believers who believe it is one of the few places on Earth that will survive Armageddon. Picturesque Bugarach is located in the Aude region of southwest France and is home to just 189 people.
UK - Labour spent 1 billion pounds of taxpayers' money on foreign aid to African and Asian schools without even monitoring whether it provided value, a damning report has found. The Department for International Development failed to measure if the huge cash investment has made any difference to school attendance rates in the poorest nations.
SOUTH KOREA - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said its military should launch a "merciless counterattack" if its territory is attacked again by North Korea, as Seoul's military held major land and sea exercises on Thursday.
USA - Even as tens of millions of American families find themselves suffering through the worst economic downturn in modern history, the US government continues to spend money on some of the craziest and most frivolous things imaginable. Every single year articles are written and news stories are done about the horrific government waste that is taking place and yet every single year it just keeps getting worse. So just what in the world is going on here?
USA - In the United States, it is not just the federal government that has a horrific debt problem. Today, state and local governments across America are collectively deeper in debt than they ever have been before. Many analysts are now openly speaking of the possibility of a municipal bond market crash in 2011. The truth is that dozens upon dozens of city and county governments are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.