UK - Britain's security agencies and police would be given unprecedented and legally binding powers to ban the media from reporting matters of national security, under proposals being discussed in Whitehall.
USA - The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
MOSCOW - Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has said that the Obama administration in the United States needs far-reaching 'perestroika' reforms to overcome the financial crisis and restore balance in the world.
WASHINGTON - President-elect Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas.
USA - The US has carried out nearly a dozen anti-terror attacks in Pakistan, Syria and elsewhere in the past four years, the New York Times has reported. The previously unreported attacks were authorised in 2004 by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Times quoted senior officials as saying.
LONDON - Gordon Brown will use a keynote foreign policy speech later to argue the global financial crisis has given world leaders a major opportunity for change. The PM, in his annual speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London, is expected to call for the rebuilding of the INTERNATIONAL financial system.
JERUSALEM - Israeli police have had to restore order at one of Christianity's holiest sites after a mass brawl broke out between monks in Jerusalem's Old City. Fighting erupted between Greek Orthodox and Armenian monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Christ's crucifixion.
UK - The Government is being accused of a cover-up after it was claimed that secret documents show it was wrong to rule that Prince Charles's register office marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles was legal.
UK - The chancellor should think about a temporary cut in Vat from 17.5% to 12.5% to help the economy through the recession, according to a report to be published this week.
UK - High Street banks have told Alistair Darling they will not pass on any further interest rate cuts to consumers and businesses.
LONDON - A leading candidate to become the next head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales believes priests should be allowed to marry.
LONDON - Secret enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, Birmingham and Luton are planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain, according to a leaked Government intelligence report.
MIDDLE EAST - Among the captains of industry, spin doctors and financial advisers accompanying British prime minister Gordon Brown on his fund-raising visit to the Gulf this week, one name was surprisingly absent. This may have had something to do with the fact that the tour kicked off in Saudi Arabia. But by the time the group reached Qatar, Baron David de Rothschild was there, too, and he was also in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
UK - The security services have intercepted up to 100 suspects posing as postgraduate students who aim to acquire weapons material and expertise
VATICAN CITY - Religions can and should be a factor of peace, Benedict XVI is affirming. The Pope said this today when he received the letters of credence from the new Egyptian ambassador to the Holy See, Lamia Aly Hamada Mekhemar.