Ligerod noted "we believe we are called as a nation to be an ally and to support Israel, and we as leaders want to work for change in our country, and for a repentance among the Christians in our country, we want to support Israel." The delegation of Christian leaders from all over Norway, which includes representatives of Norway's original ethnic group, the Sami, presented a 7 page declaration highlighting some of the things they repent for.

The declaration reads "forgive us Israel, as a nation, for the Oslo agreement, dividing up Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel); for not moving our embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel's eternal undivided capital city Jerusalem," as well as not standing up to defend Israel in a world of increasing hostility, including hostility from Norwegian politicians and media.

Ligerod emphasized "we want to stand on the biblical basis, the word of G-d, stating very clearly that the Jews are the chosen people of G-d, and that Eretz Yisrael belongs to the Jews." The visit was a first step in new relations according to Josh Reinstein, Director of the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus.

The latest advancement comes from the UK, where researchers from the Royal Veterinary College have successfully engineered "designer sperm" that can be passed down to future generations.

Researchers generated transgenic animals by altering the genes in the sperm of mice and inserting the custom genes into an embryo. The baby mice were born with the new genetic material intact, and it was passed on through three generations. The study was published last week in the FASEB journal.

This idea of gene therapy — manipulating DNA as a medical treatment — has long held the promise of preventing inherited disease, and researchers say the new sperm-centric approach, if it works in humans, could be a breakthrough for the health industry.

As you will read about below, the total number of banks in the United States has fallen to a brand new all-time record low and that means that the health of the too big to fail banks is now more critical to our economy than ever. In 1985, there were more than 18,000 banks in the United States. Today, there are only 6,891 left, and that number continues to drop every single year.

That means that more than 10,000 US banks have gone out of existence since 1985. Meanwhile, the too big to fail banks just keep on getting even bigger. In fact, the six largest banks in the United States (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) have collectively gotten 37 percent larger over the past five years.

If even one of those banks collapses, it would be absolutely crippling to the US economy. If several of them were to collapse at the same time, it could potentially plunge us into an economic depression unlike anything that this nation has ever seen before.

The article features on the China Military Online website, which is described as “the only authoritative media of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” acting with the “official authorization of the related departments of the state and the PLA.”

Some will see no coincidence in the timing of the report given the current stand-off between China and the US over the disputed Senkaku Islands. It dovetails with a separate announcement that Beijing, “has begun mass producing and delivering its J-15 carrier-based multirole fighter jet.”

China's increasingly jingoistic rhetoric has been backed by aggressive military moves in recent months, first by sending warships to the coast of Syria to in September to “observe” the actions of US and Russian vessels in the region and then by sailing a surveillance ship through Hawaiian waters for the very first time in an unprecedented move which was described as a provocative retaliation to America’s naval presence in the East China Sea.

England's east coast is experiencing the worst tidal surge in 60 years, while in north Wales residents had to be rescued by lifeboat crews. A lorry driver died after his vehicle was blown onto two cars in West Lothian, while another man was killed by a falling tree in Nottinghamshire.

The Environment Agency has more than 55 severe flood warnings in place. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has issued 15 flood warnings. It confirmed to the BBC the North Sea tidal surge is the worst since January 1953, although flood defences built since then mean many parts of the country are now better protected.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson - who chaired two of the government's emergency Cobra meetings on Thursday - said the armed forces were on standby to help if necessary. The storm has also brought disruption to parts of northern Europe, leaving at least four people dead or missing.

Travel by vehicle or foot will be dangerous during and after the storm, due to icy roads and falling trees and power lines. Metro areas from Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas; Cape Girardeau, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Evansville, Indiana; and Louisville, Kentucky; will be affected by a period of freezing rain that will build up on exposed surfaces, including trees and power lines.

In some locations, the storm has the potential to allow one half an inch or more of ice to accumulate on the ground and accrue on elevated surfaces. The storm is similar in size and may be similar in magnitude to a storm just several years ago. According to Jesse Ferrell, weather expert and storm chaser for AccuWeather.com, "This will be the worst ice storm for the United States since January 2009 and will affect many of the same areas as that storm."

The New York Times reported that 1.4 million homes and businesses lost power in that late January storm. Lingering, and in some cases intensifying, cold air in the wake of the storm will prevent the ice from melting quickly and can make immediate cleanup difficult, if not impossible. Many road crews have limited ice-melting compounds at their disposal.

Adding to potential damage or complicating cleanup further, a second round of ice will follow in some areas over the weekend, as a second large storm rolls in from the Southwestern states.

Crowds paid tribute, dancing and singing in front of Mr Mandela's former home in Soweto throughout the night. Flags flew at half mast after President Jacob Zuma announced his death in a late night national TV address. Mr Mandela spent 27 years in jail before becoming South Africa's first black president in 1994.

Eight banks have agreed penalties with the European Commission (EC) over allegations they formed cartels to fix two key rates used to set the price of trillions of dollars of financial products from mortgages to complex financial products.

RBS will pay €391 million (£325 million) for its role in the attempted rigging of the Yen Libor and Euribor - the Tokyo and euro area equivalents of the London interbank offered rate (Libor). But Barclays is immune from a potential €690 million (£573 million) penalty after blowing the whistle on the Euribor cartel. The sanctions - the first from the EC on rate manipulation - are the highest yet for European antitrust enforcement.

Barclays and state-backed RBS have already been fined following an investigation into the rigging of Libor, paying penalties of £290 million and £391 million respectively. Joaquin Almunia, EC vice-president in charge of competition policy, said: 'What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other.'

'Today's decision sends a clear message that the commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector.'

Alan Rusbridger, editor of the British paper, was testifying in front of a British parliamentary committee Tuesday when lawmakers suggested that the Guardian had helped terrorists by revealing the clandestine activity conducted by the American and British intelligence agencies.

Critics have already compared the MPs line of questioning to the infamous anti-communism hearings conducted by US Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Cold War. Writing in the Guardian, Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism, said Tuesday’s hearing was disheartening for those hoping for less surveillance in the future.

“The astonishing suggestion that this sort of journalism can be equated with aiding and abetting terrorism needs to be scotched decisively,” he wrote. “Attacking the Guardian is an attempt to do the bidding of the services themselves, by distracting attention from the real issues. It is the role of a free press to hold government to account, and yet there have even been outrageous suggestions from some conservative MPs that the Guardian should face a criminal investigation.”

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, a group of doctors and senior academics from the Medical Research Council and two leading universities said that the effect of Government policies on vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently” monitored.

A surge in the number of people requiring emergency food aid, a decrease in the amount of calories consumed by British families, and a doubling of the number of malnutrition cases seen at English hospitals represent “all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative action,” they write.

Despite mounting evidence for a growing food poverty crisis in the UK, ministers maintain there is “no robust evidence” of a link between sweeping welfare reforms and a rise in the use of food banks. However, publication of research into the phenomenon, commissioned by the Government itself, has been delayed, amid speculation that the findings may prove embarrassing for ministers.

It was after 4:30 am, the air cold, the sky black. As they got their bearings, the half-lit bell tower of St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery beckoned. Inside, the fleeing demonstrators found more than warmth and safety. They had arrived in a bastion of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, where they were welcomed not only on a humanitarian basis but because the church, driven by its own historical tensions with Moscow, is actively supporting their uprising. It strongly favors European integration to enable Ukraine to break free from Russia’s grip, and has joined the calls to oust the Ukrainian government.

In recent days, the Kyivan Patriarchate, which controls St Michael’s, has emerged as a powerful ally of the thousands of protesters demanding the resignation of President Viktor F Yanukovich and the revival of the far-reaching political and trade accords with the European Union that he has refused to sign. Some priests have even led prayer sessions in Independence Square, which has been occupied by protesters.

“Our church is together with the people,” the Kyivan Patriarchate’s 84-year-old leader, Filaret, said in an interview. “It supports Ukraine entering the European Union. We pray to God that he will help us enter the European Union in order to keep our statehood, to keep peace and to improve the life of the people.”

In extremely high-security environments it is common practice to create an “air gap” between PCs containing sensitive information and others which are connected to the internet, in order to prevent remote malicious attacks. This research proves that it would be possible to use computer speakers and microphones to bridge this gap and send sensitive information back to a remote attacker, which authors warned was a “considerable threat to computer security”.

In the proof-of-concept attack from Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics, researchers were able to use the built-in speakers and microphones of computers to transmit passwords and other data at a rate of 20 bits per second over a distance of almost 20 metres, allowing the malware to “secretly leak critical data to the outside world”.

“If we want to exploit a rigorously hardened and tested type of computing system or networks of this type of computing system, we have to break new ground,” said the paper.

Strawberries pollinated by bees were of far higher commercial value than fruit that was self-pollinated or pollinated by the wind. They were heavier, firmer and redder and had a longer shelf life, researchers in Germany found.

Bee benefits may partly be explained by the effects on achenes, the tiny seeds that dimple the strawberry's sides. Bee-pollinated strawberries had far more fertilised achenes than other fruit, because the insects, with their typical diligence, pollinated all of the plant, rather than just part of it.

The achenes are important because they control levels of a plant hormone called auxin, which in turn influences a second hormone called gibberelic acid. Higher levels of the two hormones delay fruit-softening proteins called expansins. Bees are under threat from hive "collapse", a disorder that some have linked to pesticides and pollution.

The move is being spearheaded by a Harvard university professor and if successful could see other animals also given human rights. Steven Wise, President of the Nonhuman Rights Project said: "In this case, we are claiming that chimpanzees are autonomous."

"That is, being able to self-determine, be self-aware, and be able to choose how to live their own lives. Once we prove that chimpanzees are autonomous, that should be sufficient for them to gain legal personhood and at least have their fundamental interests protected by human rights."

Campaigners say that chimps have all the rights of habeas corpus – according to law, science and history – and therefore their detention can be ruled as unlawful and they should be freed. Mr Wise, who lectures on the subject at Harvard, said if the case succeeds similar ones for dolphins, gorillas, orangutans, whales and elephants could follow.

According to KATU-TV, Madison Root and her father were selling bags of the hand-cut, hand-wrapped Christmas favorite Saturday morning next to the Skidmore Fountain in downtown Portland, where the city holds a weekly market. Everything was going well until a security guard told her that she had to stop selling due to a city ordinance that bans such activity in a park "except as expressly permitted under the terms of a lease, concession or permit."

The guard then told Madison that she could sell her mistletoe outside the boundaries of the park where the fountain and the market are located, away from the crowds, or she could simply ask for donations to cover the cost of her braces.

"I don't want to beg! I would rather work for something than beg," Madison told KATU reporter Dan Cassuto. "It's crazy. People can get money for pot. But I can't get money for braces. I'm working for this! They're just sitting down on their butts all day asking for pot." A Portland Parks Bureau spokesman told the station that begging is a form of free speech and is protected by the First Amendment.