"We need to agree on common values for all religions as soon as possible, a kind of secular Ten Commandments on which we will build the world of tomorrow," he said in an opening speech kicking off the three-day summit.

Walesa won the Nobel 30 years ago for leading Poland's Solidarity trade union, which negotiated a peaceful end to communism in Poland in 1989. Besides universal values, the international community needs to focus on the economy of tomorrow, he said. "That's definitely neither communism nor capitalism as we have it today," said the former shipyard electrician, who became Poland's first post-war democratic president.

The 4.3m (14ft) dead snake-like fish was found in the city of Oceanside - five days after another and larger specimen (5.5m) had been found. Reports on social media recall an ancient Japanese myth linking extremely rare oarfish sightings to tremors.

But scientists remain sceptical of any link to increased tectonic activity. They remain puzzled, however, by the two discoveries of this rare deepwater fish near the beach. The larger specimen, found on Santa Catalina island, has now been dissected and it appears well-fed, healthy and with little sign of disease.

Now, Belgians want to allow euthanasia for children.

Under legislation currently being debated in the Belgian Parliament, terminally ill or suffering children under 18 could be euthanized if they request it, their parents consent to it, and an expert deems the child capable of understanding their decision. The bill is widely supported and is expected to become law. Supporters of Belgium's proposed euthanasia law say it is necessary and compassionate, but critics say it is only the next phase in what they call "a culture of death." Euthanasia is now considered medical therapy in Belgium.

Michel De Keukelaere, a law student and the founder of the March for Life in Brussels, views it as "...really a symbolic law. It's sort of the revenge of these socialist and liberal parties who want to show that Christianity in Belgium is finished." What the law will almost assuredly do is make the practice of killing suffering children more common. Some Belgian doctors are already killing newborns with spina bifida at the parents' request.

A long statement from the Wikimedia Foundation, the charitable organisation that oversees the sixth largest site on the web, revealed that some 250 sock puppets have been "blocked or banned" after being found to have carried out "non-neutral editing" of Wikipedia pages.

Wikipedia, which has grown to more than 30 million articles (with more than 4 million in the English language edition) since it was founded in 2001, uses a team of some 250,000 volunteer editors to protect the authenticity of its content.

But in the statement, Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, acknowledged that it had been the victim of concerted activity in falsifying pages for commercial and other motives. "It looks like a number of user accounts - perhaps as many as several hundred - may have been paid to write articles on Wikipedia promoting organizations or products," she said, "and have been violating numerous site policies and guidelines, including prohibitions against sock puppetry and undisclosed conflicts of interest".

He told the BBC that he had not seen another situation in Washington where "compromise" seemed so far away. Mr Greenspan confessed to sympathies with the aims of the Tea Party, the Republican faction that fought the government during debt ceiling talks. But the former central banker said the movement's tactics were "undemocratic".

Mr Greenspan, the most powerful figure in economic policy when he ran the Fed between 1987 to 2006, spoke to the BBC's Evan Davis ahead of publication of his new book, The Map and the Territory. In a wide-ranging interview to be broadcast on Radio 4's Today programme and the World Service's Business Daily, the former Fed chief had strong words for those who thought the eurozone crisis was over.

The crisis is likely to continue until the eurozone sees "consolidation politically. I think that's where we are going". He said: "The culture of Greece is not the same as the culture of Germany, and to fuse them into a single unit is extremely difficult. The only way you can do it is by political union, like with East and West Germany, and even that is not working as well as it should be."

We’re already at war in numerous countries all over the world. But top economic advisers warn that economic factors could lead to a new world war.

Kyle Bass writes:

Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation.

We’re in the middle of a global currency war – ie a situation where nations all compete to devalue their currencies the most in order to boost exports. And Brazilian president-elect Rousseff said in 2010: The last time there was a series of competitive devaluations … it ended in world war two.

The Most Rev Justin Welby told The Telegraph that a strong economy was “necessary but not sufficient” to solve Britain’s problems and that creating a more caring society was as important as generating greater wealth.

He cautioned against excessive celebration of growth figures, to be released this week, which are expected to show that the recovery is firmly established and that Gross Domestic Product is rising at a healthy pace. The archbishop suggested that more should be done to ensure that the poorest share in national prosperity and called for more help to provide affordable housing and jobs for the long-term unemployed.

“A flourishing economy is necessary but not sufficient,” he said after delivering a sermon in Nairobi yesterday. “A healthy society flourishes and distributes economic resources effectively, but also has a deep spiritual base which gives it its virtue.”

In this case to Mexico, which according to the OECD has surpassed the US as the world's fattest country and is "notorious for its love of sweets, fried foods and pastries" and where as the WSJ reports, the lower House of Congress passed on Thursday a special tax on junk food that is seen as potentially the broadest of its kind, part of an ambitious Mexican government effort to contain runaway rates of obesity and diabetes.

The House passed the proposed measure to charge a 5% tax on packaged food that contains 275 calories or more per 100 grams, on grounds that such high-calorie items typically contain large amounts of salt and sugar and few essential nutrients.

The tax, which was proposed just this week, is sure to stir controversy among big Mexican and foreign food companies that operate here. It comes on top of another planned levy on sugary soft drinks of 1 peso (8 US cents) per liter that was passed by the same committee, an effort that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg supported.

Most of the country suffered wet weather yesterday and today, with flash flooding causing chaos in Cardiff. The roofs of nearly 100 houses on Hayling Island in Hampshire were damaged this morning when a mini tornado struck, bringing down telegraph poles and sending fallen trees and broken fences crashing on to cars.

The high winds and rain also damaged seafront beach huts, but no injuries were reported. Paul Knightley, forecast manager for Meteogroup, said: "The conditions were favourable for a tornado. There is an unstable atmosphere, it is fairly warm for this time of year and there is a lot of moisture in the air."

"Now, this debt ceiling - I just want to remind people in case you haven't been keeping up - raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does, is it says 'you got to pay the bills that you've already racked up, Congress.' It's a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved."

Obama went on to suggest that "the average person" mistakenly thinks that raising the debt ceiling means the US is racking up more debt: "It's always a tough vote because the average person thinks raising the debt ceiling must mean that we're running up our debt, so people don't like to vote on it, and, typically, there's some gamesmanship in terms of making the President's party shoulder the burden of raising the - taking the vote."

But, isn't the fact that the US has hit its debt ceiling "over a hundred times" - and, thus, has had to keep raising it - proof that raising the limit does, in fact, lead to increased debt?

Three fires near Lithgow, a city by the Blue Mountains, are thought to be at risk of merging into one fire front. New South Wales has been badly hit by bushfires after the hottest September on record. It has declared a state of emergency. Officials say conditions are likely to worsen this week.

NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said that the fire at State Mine in Lithgow was at risk of merging with the fire at Mount Victoria. He added that in a "worst-case scenario" the fire could merge with a third fire at Springwood but said: "With the continued success of the fire-fighting effort, let's hope that it doesn't extend all that far eastward."

Fire crews have been back-burning - a controlled burn aimed at managing a fire - to try to prevent the fires merging. In a briefing on Monday morning, Mr Fitzsimmons said that 58 blazes were still burning, with 14 out of control.

Most people have already heard about the $2.9 billion Kentucky kickback and a $174,000 payment to the wealthy widow of Senator Frank Lautenberg. Fox News found another billion-plus: The bill also put up another $600 million for firefighters in the Forest Service, who have been dealing with a rash of major blazes this year. Another $36 million was appropriated for Interior Department firefighting.

On a related note, the bill authorized $450 million to be spent, via the Federal Highway Administration, on road repairs and other projects in Colorado - to rebuild after destructive flooding in that state.

All of this spending might be justifiable. But to sneak it into a bill no one was going to vote against, looks terrible. If this spending can win passage in the light of day on the merits, then pass it on the merits.

American adults also scored below the average in both numeracy and literacy for all respondents in all 23 advanced economies. Japan and Finland ranked first and second in both categories and Italy and Spain took the bottom two spots in both.

The international survey - the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) - was developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Both earthquakes measured 3.6 on the Richter scale. The first earthquake on Sunday morning was felt east of Kibbutz Ginossar. There were no reports of injuries or damage in the first earthquake. A minor earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale was felt on Saturday in northern Israel in the area of the Sea of Galilee and the Hula Valley. There were no reports of injuries or damage following the event.

A third light earthquake was felt in the region near Tiberias on Thursday. Last month a 3.5 earthquake was felt in the Jerusalem area. That quake was also felt on the northern side of the Dead Sea. Dr Uri Frieslander the head of the Geophysical Institute of Israel told Channel 2: "There is still no explanation for the series of recent earthquakes but we are investigating the matter."

Tiberias is known to have endured numerous earthquakes throughout ancient and modern history.

The shockingly high number came as the federal government was looking to replacing ‘extraordinary measures’ funds it had been borrowing from as it approached the borrowing limit and appeared to take advantage of no debt ceiling being enforced until at least February.

Total federal debt now adds up to $17.075 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. The previous single day borrowing high was $238 billion, set in 2011, according to the Washington Times.

The Washington Times adds: “Usually Congress sets a borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, that caps the total amount the government can be in the red. But under the terms of this week’s deal, Congress set a deadline instead of a dollar cap. That means debt will rise by as much as the government spends between now and the February 7 deadline.”