The European Central Bank signaled it could raise interest rates this year to quell inflationary pressure in the euro zone. Last week Brazil's central bank raised interest rates half a percent. As for China, the country raised its rates twice in 2010 and is expected to do so again very soon. Peter Schiff, President of Euro Pacific Capital has been sounding alarm bells on impending inflation for quite sometime. Now that it's finally here, he tells Aaron rising prices have got nothing to do with the conventional wisdom the government would like you to believe.

From the weather, to speculators, to greedy corporations, inflation's "got nothing to do with those factors" and everything to do with the money supply, says Schiff. Inflation "is the consequence of what the government has done to try to stimulate the economy," he says, referring to quantitative easing and stimulus spending. Basically, the Fed has had to print money in order to pay for this country's huge deficits, which in turn has pushed up the price of just about everything priced in dollars, which remains the world's reserve currency.

In the case of China, "the only way it can stop its inflation problem is to stop importing it from us, which means... they have to let their currency rise," Schiff says. As resistant as the Chinese have been to doing this, Schiff believes that they are slowly, but surely, starting to realize their economy could benefit from a stronger currency - more purchasing power and a greater standard of living. If that happens, "the US had better brace itself," says Schiff. "It will unleash an inflationary nightmare here in the United States."

"As the Chinese currency increases in strength, the dollar must decrease," he explains. "And, so Americans would experience higher prices, falling purchasing power and a lower standard of living."

The Japanese company reported 8.42 million sales worldwide last year. That's 30,000 more than GM's 8.39 million in global sales for 2010. GM expects its sales growth to continue, and industry analysts say it may dethrone Toyota as the global sales leader this year. The news came the same day that GM announced it was adding a shift and workers to a plant in Flint, Michigan, that makes hot-selling pickup trucks.

GM and Toyota tied for the global sales lead in 2007, ending GM's 76-year string of dominance. Toyota took the title in 2008 and has held it ever since, but last year's string of embarrassing safety recalls and a resurgent GM combined to make the race close again.

Hezbollah and its allies earlier won the nomination of their candidate Najib Mikati as the next prime minister. The US expressed "great concern" over Hezbollah dominating government. "Our view of Hezbollah is very well-known. We see it as a terrorist organisation, and would have great concerns about a government within which Hezbollah plays a leading role," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said. "The larger the role played by Hezbollah in this government the more problematic our relationship will be."

Lebanon's national unity cabinet collapsed on 12 January after a row over a UN tribunal investigating the 2005 murder of Mr Hariri's father, Rafik. Saad Hariri had refused to renounce the UN inquiry that correspondents say will blame senior Hezbollah figures for the murder. Hezbollah says the investigation is politically motivated. Reports on Monday said demonstrations broke out in various regions with a significant Sunni Muslim population.

He ordered increased security across Russia's capital, its airports and other transport hubs. Mr Medvedev also called an emergency meeting with officials and also postponed his planned departure for this week's World Economic Forum at Davos.

The airport - the busiest serving Russia's capital - is 40km (25 miles) south-east of the city centre. Russian investigators said two Britons were among the dead. Footage from mobile phones showed the arrivals area filled with smoke, with bodies strewn across the floor, shortly after the attack around 1630 (1330 GMT). BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said immediate suspicion about Monday's attack would fall on militants from the Caucasus region.

Militant groups fighting in the Caucasus know how important the perception that the president and prime minister provide a secure society is, and to undermine that is a key aspect of their aims, adds our correspondent. Last March the Russian capital's underground system was rocked by two female suicide bombers from Russia's volatile Dagestan region, who detonated their explosives on the busy metro system during rush hour, killing 40 people and injuring more than 80.

The latest leaks show the Palestinians agreed to limit the number of refugees allowed to return to their homes in what is now Israel under a peace deal. The BBC has been unable to verify the documents independently. The documents have been released by al-Jazeera TV, which says it has more than 1,600 confidential records of meetings, e-mails, and communications between Palestinian, Israeli and US leaders covering the years 2000-2010.

The papers, believed to have originated from the Palestinian side, show an apparent willingness to accept Israel's annexation of much of East Jerusalem. They reportedly proposed an international committee to take over Islamic and Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem, and offered to limit the number of refugees returning to a future Palestinian state to 100,000 over 10 years. These highly-sensitive issues have previously been non-negotiable. All were apparently rejected by the Israelis.

Palestinian negotiators are said to have proposed an international committee to take over Jerusalem's Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, which houses the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque - Islam's third holiest site.

The Dublin meeting is of the 38 leaders, or primates, of autonomous Anglican churches around the world. The Episcopal Church in the United States - headed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori - has recently defied other Anglican churches by ordaining a lesbian bishop, and authorising services for the blessing of same-sex relationships.

The archbishops boycotting the meeting have become disillusioned by what they see as the failure to act on views they have expressed in the past. Some have called for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to be replaced as the figure around which the Communion unites.

According to BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott, the boycott reflects growing frustration among traditionalist archbishops - several from Africa - about what they see as the lack of effective sanctions against the American church. Worryingly for Dr Williams, the absent primates will include at least three normally considered moderate, our correspondent added.

- 'Perfect storm' of issues will bring widespread starvation if nothing is done

- World will need '40% more food, 30% more water and 50% more energy' by middle of the century

- 'Scaremongering' over GM foods is no longer acceptable, says UK science chief

- Global population to grow to 9 billion by 2050

Spiralling food prices will push hundreds of millions of people into hunger, trigger mass migrations and spark riots around the world, the report warned. And in the UK, the price of everyday basics like bread, rice and milk will spiral to inflation-busting record prices within the next few decades. The report called for 'urgent action' to prevent food shortages and said genetically modified crops may be needed to prevent famines.

The warning comes as global food prices are already at a record high. Last month the price cereals, sugar and meat soared on the world's markets after a series of crop failures caused by bad weather. The new report comes from Foresight, a think tank set up to predict future crises. It predicted that the world's population would rise from 6.9 billion today to around 9 billion by the middle of the century.

As the world gets more crowded and more wealthy, demand for food, water and energy will soar. At the same time, climate change will increase the risk of droughts, floods and crop failures - creating a 'perfect storm' of food shortages and above inflation hikes in prices. 'There is a very large risk of a quite substantial increase in prices over the next 30 or 40 years,' said co-author Professor Charles Godfray of Oxford University. 'We are going to have to produce considerably more food. So inescapably we are going to have to produce more food from the same amount of land without wrecking the environment.'

Households would be given a set number of free energy 'tokens' which would be offset against any fuel burnt in a vehicle or at home, under the proposals made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil. Under the Tradable Energy Quotas programme, surplus energy units could be sold and extra tokens bought.

The Coalition Government has so far insisted it has no plans to implement the scheme. But the all-party committee of 20 MPs said its proposals were necessary to deal with global energy shortages and the climate change crisis. It comes as the RAC Foundation warned that fuel could hit 1.75 pounds a litre - 8 pounds a gallon - in parts of the country by the summer. Prices of 1.50 pounds a litre are already being charged in the Orkney Isles.

'Tradable Energy Quotas are the only way we can reduce carbon emissions and at the same time guarantee that everyone gets fair access to limited energy supplies,' said Shaun Chamberlin, co-author of the report into TEQs. But Luke Bosdet of the AA dismissed the idea as an 'academic's brainwave typically out of touch with reality', according to the Daily Express. He told the newspaper: 'It sends alarm bells ringing because of its administration and fears of exploitation.

Government sources say Chancellor George Osborne is looking at plans to slash fuel costs for British truck drivers. Ministers believe that would prevent a repeat of the fuel blockades in cities and on British motorways which brought the country to a grinding halt in 2000. The plans being examined would see hauliers claim back VAT on their petrol and diesel costs - or see road tax cut for lorry drivers. Foreign truckers could also be charged extra for using British roads in order to level the playing field for UK hauliers.

Boris Johnson weighed into the row about fuel taxes last night, calling on the Prime Minister to protect motorists from soaring oil prices. He said last night: 'If I were the government, I would think seriously about that fuel duty stabiliser because when it costs more to fill your tank than to fly to Rome, something is seriously wrong.'

The La Nina weather phenomenon - little girl in Spanish - is causing havoc all over the world as it destroys crops and floods mines. It has already hit the price of coal, rubber, soybeans, palm oil and wheat - and the phenomenon is expected to last until at least April. La Nina is a weather event that sees surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean cool. This brings heavy rainfall to places such as Australia, Indonesia, Brazil and Colombia - and causes dryness in California and the southern US. La Nina is a regular and predictable event. Unfortunately, this year it is much worse than normal.

"The solid record of La Nina strength only goes back about 50 years and this latest event appears to be one of the strongest ones over this time period," Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said. Dr Rob Allan, a scientific manager at the Met Office, agrees. He even raises the prospect of a "double event". "The average lifecycle of La Nina indicated that there are a few months left to run - but it is not unknown that it can carry on for much longer." However, current models suggest that the weather system will weaken in the coming months.

The most high profile event hitting business has been the devastating floods in Queensland, Australia, which have washed away infrastructure and closed mines. They have resulted in A$2.3 billion (1.4 billion pounds) of lost coal sales for the mining industry, according to the Queensland Resources Council. This sent the spot price of coking coal soaring to as high as $370 a tonne, significantly higher than the first quarter contract price of $225. This is bad news for steel makers, which were already suffering from a jump in the price of iron ore.

But it is not just miners that could see their finances hurt by La Nina weather patterns. The weather has hit agriculture hard in Asia - and prices of products used in manufacturing such as rubber and palm oil have been on the rise. Rains in Brazil have hit crop production - and even the price of fruit is expected to soar in the country, which is battling significant inflation. In Sao Paulo, lettuce, broccoli, watercress and cauliflower production have reportedly fallen by 20 per cent, prompting a 60 per cent rise in vegetable prices.

Inflation is a real threat to the global economy and concerns are mounting that central banks may have to increase rates earlier than they wanted - putting the recovery at risk. This little girl could have a very big impact over the next few months.

Record rains that began in November left huge parts of Australia's northeast Queensland state under water, killing 30 people, damaging or destroying 30,000 homes and businesses and causing at least 3 billion Australian dollars in damage to crops and lost coal exports.

The flood disaster is now moving across southeast Victoria state, where driving rains have forced swollen rivers over their banks. The State Emergency Service has warned that a vast inland sea about 55 miles (90 kilometers) long northwest of the Victorian capital of Melbourne will continue coursing inland for the next week until it spills into the Murray River. Emergency services were focusing their efforts 210 miles (340 kilometers) northwest of Melbourne at Swan Hill, a town of 10,000 where the Murray meets the swollen Lodden River and flood waters are expected to peak mid week, the State Emergency Service said.

The State Emergency Service said Monday that 76 towns in Victoria have been affected by flooding, with 1,770 properties suffering some water damage. Another five to 10 towns are still in the floodwaters' northern path across flat wheat-growing country.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal ahead of this week's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jean-Claude Trichet warned that inflation pressures in the euro zone must be watched closely, and urged central bankers everywhere to ensure that higher energy and food prices don't gain a foothold in the global economy. Mr Trichet's warning comes at a time when inflation concerns are mounting among investors around the world. Fast-growing emerging markets such as China and Brazil are seeing rising inflation at home, and their demand for globally traded commodities is pushing prices higher elsewhere.

While high unemployment and spare capacity are restraining underlying inflation pressures in the US and elsewhere in the developed world, annual inflation in China is almost 5% - and a sizzling 9.8% economic growth rate in the fourth quarter triggered fears of more price pressures ahead. Inflation in Brazil is even higher.

With the global recovery still in its early stages, those moves could accelerate. Higher raw material prices, especially coal and iron ore, are pushing up steel prices across the globe. Steelmakers including AK Steel and Nucor in the US, and China's Baosteel and South Korea's Posco - the world's second and third largest - have been steadily increasing prices in recent weeks. The world average carbon-steel price is forecast to exceed $1,000 per metric ton by the second half of 2011, up from an average $733 last year, according to UK-based consultancy MEPS.

"All central banks, in periods like this where you have inflationary threats that are coming from commodities, have to… be very careful that there are no second-round effects" on domestic prices, said Mr Trichet.

Based on what is predicted for the rest of the season, Bastardi also says that this winter could end up being the coldest for the nation as a whole since the 1980s. While cold weather is of course a part of winter, the persistent nature of colder-than-normal conditions and a lack of brief warm spells people can typically look forward to during midwinter have been unusual this season. Temperatures since December 1, 2010 have averaged below normal from Boston and New York City to Chicago, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Atlanta and even Miami.

Temperatures are expected to continue averaging below normal in many of these places, from the northern and central Plains into the East, through at least the middle of February. The biggest snowstorms in February will target areas mainly north of a line running from the Mason-Dixon Line to the Ohio River and I-40 across the Plains, according to Bastardi.

He adds that late-season winter storms in the Plains and East are common during La Ninas, when sea surface temperatures across the equatorial central and eastern Pacific are below normal. Bastardi says the current La Nina could continue into next year. Bastardi says La Ninas also tend to "conjure up a more intense severe weather season," which typically ramps up in April into May from the southern Plains to the Great Lakes, mid-Atlantic and Southeast.

"I'd like to make sure that we once and for all kill all US funding for that beast," she said last month. "Because I don't think that it advances US interests, I don't think that that's a pro-democracy group, it's a rogue's gallery, pariah states, they belong there because they don't want to be sanctioned."

Supporters of continued US support of and participation on the HRC say that it's essential that Washington have leverage on the panel, renowned for including countries that have their own records of human-rights violations. The UN is also included in a broad-reaching budget-slashing bill by Ways and Means Committee member Kevin Brady (Republican for Texas).

The Cut Unsustainable and Top-Heavy Spending Act of 2011, introduced January 7, calls for a 10 percent reduction in voluntary contributions to the United Nations -- monies the US is not required to give by law -- for fiscal year 2011. Total US contributions to the UN system were more than $6.347 billion in FY 2009, an all-time high. Brady said his bill targets $3.5 billion in voluntary funds, slashing that in line with the recommendation of the president's deficit-reduction commission. "There are constituencies for every spending item in the federal budget, but I believe there can be no sacred cows if Congress is to prove itself to be serious about reducing our deficit," Brady told The Hill, adding he thinks the proposals should attract bipartisan support.

The flooding is considered the worst natural disaster Brazil has ever experienced. According to figures compiled by the newspaper O Globo, a third of all victims were under age. The youngest fatality was a five-day-old baby buried in a mudslide in Nova Friburgo, the worst affected town with 324 dead. The number of missing has been declining as forensic experts identify more bodies, but rescue workers fear the full extent of the disaster is not yet known, with some remote communities still only reachable by helicopter.

Emergency workers say their priority is to make sure no new deaths occur. They are warning of the risks of contaminated water. Three people are known to have contracted leptospirosis, an infectious bacterial disease, which is caused by exposure to water contaminated with rats' urine. In Teresopolis, doctors have been administering thousands of tetanus vaccines. In Sao Jose do Vale, workers were erecting more than a hundred tents sent from the UK to house those whose homes were swept away or flooded.

Lesson plans have been drawn up for pupils as young as four, in a scheme funded with a 35,000 pounds grant from an education quango, the Training and Development Agency for Schools. The initiative will be officially launched next month at the start of "LGBT History Month" - an initiative to encourage teaching about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual issues. The lesson plans, spread across the curriculum, will be offered to all schools, which can choose whether or not to make use of them. But critics last night called the initiative a poor use of public money which could distract from the teaching of "core" subjects.

Among the suggestions are:

Maths - teaching statistics through census findings about the number of homosexuals in the population, and using gay characters in scenarios for maths problems;

Design and technology - encouraging pupils to make symbols linked to the gay rights movement;

Science - studying animal species where the male takes a leading role in raising young, such as emperor penguins and sea horses, and staging class discussions on different family structures, including same-sex parents;

Geography - examining the transformation of San Francisco's Castro district in the 1960s from a working-class Irish area to the world's first "gay neighbourhood", and considering why homosexuals move from the countryside to cities;

Languages - using gay characters in role play scenarios, and teaching "LGBT vocabulary".

The lesson plans, written by teachers and backed by the Department for Education, will be available for schools to download from the Schools Out website. A Department for Education spokesman added: "These are optional teaching materials. Ultimately, it is for heads and teachers to choose the most appropriate teaching resources to help promote equality and tolerance."