These demands have even reached the Knesset with Likud MK Miri Regev proposing a bill that would allow Jews to pray at the Temple Mount. Deputy Minister for Religious Services Eli Ben-Dahan has also advocated for changing the status quo. The increased Jewish visitation and demands for prayer rights have led to vehement diplomatic objections by the Jordanian government to any change in the status quo, and the demands of Jewish activists have been used by Palestinian religious officials and politicians to incite against Israel.

On October 17, 2014, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said that there was a “fierce onslaught on Al-Aksa Mosque, Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre Church,” and said that Fatah should spearhead the effort to stop “settlers” from entering the Temple Mount. “We should all remain present at the Noble Sanctuary [Temple Mount],” he added. “We must prevent them from entering the Noble Sanctuary in any way. This is our Al-Aksa and our church. They have no right to enter and desecrate them. We must confront them and defend our holy sites,” Abbas said.

Rabbi Chaim Richman, the international director of the Temple Institute which promotes Jewish visitation to the Temple Mount, commented on the new figures and the rise in the number of Jews visiting the site. “The official figures indicating that Jewish visits to the Temple Mount have almost doubled in recent years, clearly demonstrate that the Jewish people are undergoing a spiritual awakening, and reconnecting - not only to their most holy site, but to their own destiny,” the rabbi said.

“Many of our generation's leading rabbinical authorities have determined that not only are halachically-sensitive Jewish visits to the Temple permissible - such visits are actually a mitzva, in fulfilment of Jewish law. The time has come for all rabbis to deal with this important issue in the same earnest manner. As more Jews visit the site, the ability for our people to peacefully pray there increases exponentially.”

On any given day when school is in session, kids who “act up” in class are pinned facedown on the floor, locked in dark closets, tied up with straps, bungee cords and duct tape, handcuffed, leg shackled, tasered or otherwise restrained, immobilized or placed in solitary confinement in order to bring them under “control.” In almost every case, these undeniably harsh methods are used to punish kids for simply failing to follow directions or throwing tantrums. Very rarely do the kids pose any credible danger to themselves or others.

Unbelievably, these tactics are all legal, at least when employed by school officials or school resource officers (aka police officers) in the nation’s public schools. For example, in what may be the youngest example of a child being restrained in this way, in October 2014, a 4-year-old Virginia preschooler was handcuffed, leg shackled and transported to the sheriff’s office after reportedly throwing blocks and climbing on top of the furniture. School officials claim the restraints were necessary to protect the adults from injury.

Even in the face of parental outrage, lawsuits, legislative reforms, investigative reports and endless cases showing that these tactics are not working and “should never be used for punishment or discipline,” full-grown adults — police officers and teachers alike — insist that the reason they continue to handcuff, lock up and restrain little kids is because they fear for their safety and the safety of others. “Fear for one’s safety” has become such a hackneyed and threadbare excuse for behavior that is inexcusable. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that explanation covers a multitude of sins, whether it’s poorly trained police officers who shoot first and ask questions later, or school officials who are ill-equipped to deal with children who act like children, meaning they don’t always listen, they sometimes throw tantrums, and they have a hard time sitting still.

On May 1, 1944, occupying Nazi soldiers executed more than 200 Greek Communist resistance fighters and political prisoners at the site, a former rifle range. Scores of supporters joined him as he made the pointed gesture towards the country which is now one of Greece's major creditors and an architect of the fierce austerity policies enforced on its people. The 40-year-old former communist party youth activist swept to victory overnight on a promise to renegotiate Greece's €240 billion (£179 billion) international bailout deal.

UKIP leader Nigel Farage called it 'a desperate cry for help from the Greek people, millions of whom have been impoverished by the euro experiment'. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called it 'a monstrous democratic slap in the face by the Greek people to the European Union'. Also in France, one of Syriza's left-wing allies, Left Front leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, said: 'The arrogant all-powerfulness of the economic liberals and their so-called miracle formulae to save the economy… have failed in Greece.' He hoped that 'by a domino effect Europe will be refounded and reorganised in a completely different way'.

As the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu asked the congregation if it was their will that Rev Lane was ordained, Rev Williamson shouted: "No. Not in the Bible." He added: "With respect, your grace, I ask to speak on this absolute impediment, please."

However, Dr Sentamu continued and read a statement reaffirming the legality of women bishops - prepared in advance as Church authorities were expecting Rev Williamson. The congregation repeated their assent with a deafening shout of "we will".

Tarik Kafala, the head of BBC Arabic, the largest of the BBC’s non-English language news services, said the term “terrorist” was too “loaded” to describe the actions of the men who killed 12 people in the attack on the French satirical magazine.

Mr Kafala, whose BBC Arabic television, radio and online news services reach a weekly audience of 36 million people, told The Independent: “We try to avoid describing anyone as a terrorist or an act as being terrorist. What we try to do is to say that ‘two men killed 12 people in an attack on the office of a satirical magazine’. That’s enough, we know what that means and what it is.”

Mr Kafala said: “Terrorism is such a loaded word. The UN has been struggling for more than a decade to define the word and they can’t. It is very difficult to. We know what political violence is, we know what murder, bombings and shootings are and we describe them. That’s much more revealing, we believe, than using a word like terrorist which people will see as value-laden.”

"Unity will not be the fruit of subtle theoretical discussions in which each party tries to convince the other of the soundness of their opinions ", but "seeking instead to grasp more fully what unites us, namely, our call to share in the mystery of the Father's love revealed to us by the Son through the Holy Spirit ". In the basilica dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles, Pope Francis was joined by Metropolitan Gennadios, representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and Bishop David Moxon, personal representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury in Rome, as well as representatives of other Christian communities.

The Pope's homily is centered on the need to try to overcome divisions and contrasts the fruits of the past, "we need to encounter one another and to challenge one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who harmonizes diversities and overcomes conflicts " because it is the common duty to announce and the Gospel "in the call to be evangelizers, all the Churches and Ecclesial Communities discover a privileged setting for closer cooperation".

"Dear brothers and sisters" - concluded the Pope - "today all of us who thirst for peace and fraternity trustingly implore from our heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ the one Priest, and through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostle Paul and all the saints, the gift of full communion between all Christians, so that "the sacred mystery of the unity of the Church" (Unitatis Redintegratio, 2) may shine forth as the sign and instrument of reconciliation for the whole world".

If you got your news from the mainstream media, what is increasingly known in Germany as the ‘liar press’ (Luegenpresse), the story might very well end there. Then again, the report might also throw in salacious details about the former leader of this movement and his colourful past, or the tragic death of an immigrant man who was killed shortly after a demonstration in Dresden last week.

There is no doubt about what these reports are meant to leave you thinking. Germans actually taking pride in their country, and very soon after in the neighbourhood a young Eritrean is murdered with no apparent motive? Must be a racist attack. This has been a large part of the German establishment’s haughty dismissal of the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) group: that they are cold, angry racists with hatred in their hearts.

The fact that many of the supporters appear to be middle class, grandparents, or young couples doesn’t matter. As one government minister remarked, they are merely “Pinstripe Nazis”. Nor does it matter that as was revealed on Wednesday, 20-year old Eritrean Khaled Idris Bahray was actually killed by his flat mate, rather than a roving band of politically engaged Germans protesting against government policy.

The fact is PEGIDA weren’t the ones throwing glass bottles and fireworks at Wednesday’s demonstration, it was the tens of thousands of left-wing counter-protesters who would stop at nothing to prevent the PEGIDA march from going ahead.

Despite that, Yemen's minority Shiite Houthi fighters, who are believed to be funded and supported militarily by Iran, have taken up guard at President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi's home and forced his and his Cabinet's resignation. In a statement, the Gulf Arab foreign ministers meeting in Saudi Arabia considered the violence in Sana'a on January 20 a "coup d'etat," This comes on the back of perceptions that this is a major advance for Tehran in the Arabian Peninsula.

At the same time, he once again said that the current decline in investment could cause a significant energy shortage in the future and therefore a price rise. "Suppose we cut production, and then we'll have spare capacity," he said. "Producers when they have excess capacity they will not invest.”

He added that the lack of investment can lead to a shortage of supply in about 3-4 years, which in turn can lead to a repetition of 2008, when prices rose rapidly. "Maybe we will go to $200 if there is a real shortage of supply because of the lack of investment," he said.

“The big question for us right now is ‘where are they going to go?’ Obviously, a part is going to stay here,” Hodges said, referring to the Grafenwöhr training area. “We really want to put some in southeastern Europe, some in the Baltics, some in Poland. Those countries want them bad — an obvious reason, they’re a deterrent aspect.”

Once the surveys are concluded, a formal recommendation will be submitted to European Command chief General Philip Breedlove, Hodges said. That will happen sometime in February.