Abbas Zaki posted a clip of the interview - which was promptly translated and circulated by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) - onto his Facebook page. In response to concern expressed by the interviewer that any US-imposed deal would be "deficient", insofar as it would "only" require Israel to cede Judea and Samaria, a smiling Zaki urges calm.

"You can relax. We find ourselves united for the first time. Even the most extreme among us, Hamas, or the fighting forces, want a state within the '67 borders [sic]. Afterward, we [will] have something to say, because the inspiring idea cannot be achieved all at once. [Rather] in stages," he responded.

The strategy to eradicate the Jewish state "in stages" via a combination of terrorism and diplomacy, as opposed to in a single military conquest, has been voiced by many PA officials in the past, who note that Israel cannot be destroyed in one fell swoop. Palestinian Media Watch has exposed a string of such statements by senior officials in the past, casting serious doubt over the viability of the Obama administration's recent attempt to impose a solution to the conflict.

Appearing on Sky’s Murnaghan show the Ukip leader was read excerpts from the speech without being told the origin of the comments and nodded along. When it was revealed the words had been from Powell Mr Farage said: “Well what he was warning about was the large influx of people into an area, that change an area beyond recognition, there is tension – the basic principle is right.”

In the speech Mr Powell said that the “indigenous” population of Britain in the 1960s had found their “homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition.” A situation that Mr Farage said was now true for much of England.

Mr Farage added: “For different reasons, and on a completely different scale. When immigration was being discussed in the sixties, seventies and eighties we were talking about an annual net inflow to the country of between 30 and 50,000 people a year. What we have had in the last thirteen years is net 4 million extra migrants coming to Britain."

The newly mechanized armies of the early 20th century produced unprecedented slaughter on the battlefields of the "war to end all wars" after a spark lit in the Balkans with the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Professor Margaret MacMillan, of the University of Cambridge, argues that the Middle East could be viewed as the modern-day equivalent of this turbulent region.

A nuclear arms race that would be likely to start if Iran developed a bomb "would make for a very dangerous world indeed, which could lead to a recreation of the kind of tinderbox that exploded in the Balkans 100 years ago – only this time with mushroom clouds," she writes in an essay for the Brookings Institution, a leading US think-tank.

Icy conditions snarled travel across the Midwest and thousands of flights were canceled or delayed, days after the Northeast was hammered by the first winter storm of the season.

"The coldest temperatures in almost two decades will spread into the northern and central US today behind an arctic cold front," the National Weather Service said on Sunday. "Combined with gusty winds, these temperatures will result in life-threatening wind chill values as low as 60 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit/minus 51 degrees Celsius)." In weather that cold, frostbite can set in on uncovered skin in a matter of minutes, experts warned.

ABC News reports that ice-breakers have been deployed to Lake Michigan to clear the way for freighters.

The environment secretary said seven people had died and 1,700 homes had been flooded in England due to storms and flooding in December and January. There are currently three severe flood warnings in place in England and travel by road and rail is being hit.

Western and southern areas are bearing the brunt of the latest severe weather, and forecasters are warning that flooding could be worse than that seen in recent days. BBC Weather's Chris Fawkes warns of hail and thunder mixed with the heaviest downpours.

In a lengthy denunciation of British policy published in Argentine daily Pagina 12 (Page 12), Héctor Timerman, the country's foreign minister, painted Argentina as a valiant underdog cheered on by the world in its David and Goliath-esque battle with an arrogant but ailing colonial power.

He accused Britain of "inappropriate" aggression in its attempt to maintain sovereignty over the Falklands, attributing such behaviour to its "failed attempt to confuse the world" - a reference in part to the islands' 2013 referendum - over what he characterised as the "colonial and military occupation of Argentine territory". Argentina, meanwhile, had through its "peaceful struggle" garnered "renewed and vigorous support the world over, including in Britain" for its claim, the minister said.

Mr Timerman has as foreign minister spearheaded the country's renewed campaign to claim the territory, Britain's sovereignty over which has long rankled in the Argentine historical consciousness. The issue was largely dropped from the public agenda following Britain's victory in the 1982 Falklands War but it remained an open sore and has been seized upon as a nationalist rallying cry by Cristina Kirchner, Argentina's embattled leftist president.

Scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California recently discovered that the number of dead sea creatures blanketing the floor of the Pacific is higher than it has ever been in the 24 years that monitoring has taken place, a phenomenon that the data suggests is a direct consequence of nuclear fallout from Fukushima.

Though the researchers involved with the work have been reluctant to pin Fukushima as a potential cause - National Geographic, which covered the study recently, did not even mention Fukushima - the timing of the discovery suggests that Fukushima is, perhaps, the cause. According to the data, this sudden explosion in so-called "sea snot," which is the name given to the masses of dead sea creatures that sink to the ocean floor as food, has skyrocketed since the Fukushima incident occurred.

"In the 24 years of this study, the past two years have been the biggest amounts of this detritus by far," stated Christine Huffard, a marine biologist at MBARI and leader of the study, to National Geographic. "In March 2012, less than one percent of the seafloor beneath Station M was covered in dead sea salps," writes Carrie Arnold for National Geographic. "By July 1, more than 98 percent of it was covered in the decomposing organisms... The major increase in activity of deep-sea life in 2011 and 2012 weren't limited to Station M, though: Other ocean-research stations reported similar data."

It is almost as if the powers that be want us all to forget about Fukushima and the catastrophic damage it continues to cause to our planet. But they will not be able to cover up the truth forever, as human life is dependent upon healthy oceans, the life of which provides the oxygen that we all need to breathe and survive.

Dioceses across Italy, as well as in countries such as Spain, are increasing the number of priests schooled in administering the rite of exorcism, fabled to rid people of possession by the Devil. The rise in demonic cases is a result of more people dabbling in practices such as black magic, paganism, Satanic rites and Ouija boards, often exploring the dark arts with the help of information readily found on the internet, the Church said.

The increase in the number of priests being trained to tackle the phenomenon is also an effort by the Church to sideline unauthorised, self-proclaimed exorcists, and its tacit recognition that belief in Satan, once regarded by Catholic progressives as an embarrassment, is still very much alive. The trend comes four decades after the 1973 release of The Exorcist, the American horror film based on the demonic possession of a 12-year-old girl and attempts to exorcise her by two priests.

Pope Francis has not publicly commented on exorcisms, but many of his sermons and homilies feature references to the Devil. During a Mass in November in the Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where he lives, he said that although “God created man to be incorruptible”, the Devil entered the world and there are those “who belong to him”. At a Mass days before, he talked of the dangers of worldliness, warning that: “When we think of our enemies, we really think of the Devil first, because it’s the Devil that harms us. The Devil enjoys the atmosphere, the lifestyle of worldliness.”

According to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters, chief US arms buyer Frank Kendall allowed two F-35 suppliers, Northrop Grumman Corp and Honeywell International Inc, to use Chinese magnets for the new warplane's radar system, landing gears and other hardware. Without the waivers, both companies could have faced sanctions for violating federal law and the F-35 program could have faced further delays.

"It was a pretty big deal and an unusual situation because there's a prohibition on doing defense work in China, even if it's inadvertent," said Frank Kenlon, who recently retired as a senior Pentagon procurement official and now teaches at American University. "I'd never seen this happen before." The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is examining three such cases involving the F-35, the US military's next generation fighter, the documents show.

The GAO report, due March 1, was ordered by US lawmakers, who say they are concerned that American firms are being shut out of the specialty metals market, and that a US weapon system may become dependent on parts made by a potential future adversary. The waivers apply to inexpensive parts, including $2 magnets, installed on 115 F-35 test, training and production aircraft, the last of which are due to be delivered in May 2014. Lawmakers noted that several US companies make similar magnets.

The IMF working paper said debt burdens in developed nations have become extreme by any historical measure and will require a wave of haircuts, either negotiated 1930s-style write-offs or the standard mix of measures used by the IMF in its “toolkit” for emerging market blow-ups. “The size of the problem suggests that restructurings will be needed, for example, in the periphery of Europe, far beyond anything discussed in public to this point,” said the paper, by Harvard professors Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff.

The paper said policy elites in the West are still clinging to the illusion that rich countries are different from poorer regions and can therefore chip away at their debts with a blend of austerity cuts, growth, and tinkering (“forbearance”). The presumption is that advanced economies “do not resort to such gimmicks” such as debt restructuring and repression, which would “give up hard-earned credibility” and throw the economy into a “vicious circle”.

But the paper says this mantra borders on “collective amnesia” of European and US history, and is built on “overly optimistic” assumptions that risk doing far more damage to credibility in the end. It is causing the crisis to drag on, blocking a lasting solution. “This denial has led to policies that in some cases risk exacerbating the final costs,” it said.

The paper says the Western debt burden is now so big that rich states will need the same tonic of debt haircuts, higher inflation and financial repression - defined as an “opaque tax on savers” - as used in countless IMF rescues for emerging markets. “The magnitude of the overall debt problem facing advanced economies today is difficult to overstate. The current central government debt in advanced economies is approaching a two-century high-water mark,” they said.

The Russian ship, Akademic Shokalskiy, was stranded in the ice while on a climate change research expedition, yet nearly 98 percent of network news reports about the stranded researchers failed to mention their mission at all. Forty out of 41 stories (97.5 percent) on the network morning and evening news shows since December 25 failed to mention climate change had anything to do with the expedition.

In fact, rather than point out the mission was to find evidence of climate change, the networks often referred to the stranded people as “passengers,” “trackers” and even “tourists,” without a word about climate change or global warming. Chris Turney, the expedition’s leader, is a professor of climate change at the University of South Wales. According to Turney’s personal website, the purpose of the expedition is to “discover and communicate the environmental changes taking place in the south.”

Twenty-two crew members stayed with the ship for the time being, as the scientists and researchers were rescued. According to CNN, the ship has enough supplies for “a very long time.” Three rescue attempts had been thwarted by growing levels of sea ice and weather conditions.

Wal-Mart says it will reimburse customers who bought the "Five Spice" donkey meat and the US firm is also helping local authorities with an investigation into its local supplier. The Shandong Food and Drug Administration said the product contained fox meat. Donkey meat is a popular snack in some parts of China. Food safety is a sensitive issue in the country where recent scares have undermined consumer's confidence in the food supply chain.

The analyst, Ronen Bergman, who has close contacts with Israeli intelligence officials, said Thursday that despite Israel’s undeclared campaign of airstrikes in Syria to stop new deliveries, most of the long-range surface-to-surface missiles given to Hezbollah by its allies Iran and Syria have been disassembled and moved to Lebanon.

American intelligence analysts have also concluded that members of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia, are smuggling components of advanced Russian-made antiship missile systems piecemeal into Lebanon from war-stricken Syria to avoid an Israeli air campaign, a United States official said Thursday.

As many as 12 Russian-made antiship cruise missile systems may now be in Hezbollah’s possession inside Syria, according to the American official, who said that the organization had smuggled at least some components from those systems into Lebanon within the past year, but that it did not yet have all the parts needed there. The transfers were first reported Thursday night by The Wall Street Journal.

It has been blamed for 16 deaths and the cancellation of more than 5,000 flights since Wednesday. Forecasters say temperatures in the US Mid-West could feel as low as -58F (-50C) with the effect of wind chill. Authorities have warned residents to remain indoors, both for their own safety and to keep roads clear for snow removal. In Canada, tens of thousands of people on the island of Newfoundland remain without power due to a transformer fire linked to heavy snow.

"The coldest weather in years will be making its presence known from the Upper Mid-West to the Mid-Atlantic region," the US National Weather Service said in a statement. The states of Ohio, South Dakota and Illinois are among those set to be hit. The weather service said "an incredibly strong surge of bitterly cold Arctic air" would sweep across the country from Saturday night until Tuesday.

His predecessor, Pope Benedict XIV, attracted just 2.3 million people for the whole of 2012. Pope Francis, named Person of the Year by Time magazine, is the Roman Catholic Church's first Latin American leader. He is also the first Jesuit at the helm of the Church. The Vatican said the new figures were based on the number of tickets issued for papal events, as well as on estimates of crowds attending his weekly appearances at St Peter's Square.

The data was released a day after the pontiff gave his first New Year blessing, calling for the world to unite against violence as a "community of brothers". Addressing pilgrims in St Peter's Square, Pope Francis departed from his prepared text to vent frustration at the level of conflict in the world. "What is happening in the heart of man?" he asked. "It's time to stop."

He has also adopted a markedly less formal tone than previous popes, underlining his reputation for simplicity and humility. Earlier this year, the pontiff raised eyebrows among conservative factions when he said the Catholic Church was too focused on preaching about abortion, gay people and contraception, and needed to become more merciful. He is expected to announce some major reforms in Church organisation for 2014.