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.”

The Royal Navy has 15 times more commanding officers than active warships, it has been revealed.

Following crippling defence cuts, there are now 40 admirals and 260 captains but just 19 ships. The statistics were exposed by Tory MP James Clappison during a defence debate in the Commons yesterday.

He highlighted the plight of the Navy by revealing there are now 13 captains for every destroyer and frigate, and about two admirals – who each earn more than £100,000 a year – per warship. He said: ‘In the past the dream of a captain in the Navy might have been to command his own ship. Today, it might be that dream is simply to set foot on a ship.’

Mr Clappison acknowledged that the Navy’s warships had state-of-the-art capabilities, but he warned that other nations, including China, were increasing naval spending at the same time as the Ministry of Defence was making cutbacks.

To make £4.7 billion savings and help eliminate a £38 billion deficit in the equipment programme, the Navy is cutting its force by 5,000 sailors and four warships. The revelations come after the Mail revealed two years ago that the Army had more top brass than battle tanks. There were 256 brigadiers and generals but just 200 Challenger II tanks.

Last summer’s announcement of the bond-buying program, called “Outright Monetary Transactions,” and the subsequent message from ECB President Mario Draghi that the central bank would do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, are widely credited as the beginning of the end of the European financial crisis.

Most experts say a reversal by the German court is unlikely, but traders need to be aware of the possibility. Like the threat of a US default, a refutation of the bond-buying program would be devastating for the global economy and would wreak havoc on financial markets. The euro would go into free fall and European debt yields would climb to dizzying heights, tipping the euro zone back into crisis.

And all this could happen even though the ECB hasn’t ever made use of the OMT. The very existence of the program, in which the ECB is authorized to make purchases in the secondary market of bonds issued by its member countries, has increased investor confidence in the euro zone and its debts. A German court decision that throws the program in doubt could erase that confidence in a heartbeat.

It is important to keep in mind that the German court has no legal authority over the ECB and can’t restrict its actions, but it does have jurisdiction over Germany’s parliament, and it can limit the German government’s participation in either the OMT or the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the permanent firewall created to replace the two previous backstops, the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism.

Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said on Friday they detected 400,000 becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances - including strontium - at the site, a level 6,500 times higher than readings taken on Wednesday, NHK World reported.

The storage tank leaked over 300 tons of contaminated water in August, some of which is believed to have found its way into the sea through a ditch. The well in question is about 10 meters from the tank and was dug to gauge leakage.

TEPCO said the findings show that radioactive substances like strontium have reached the groundwater. High levels of tritium, which transfers much easier in water than strontium, had already been detected. Officials at TEPCO said they will remove any contaminated soil around the storage tank in an effort to monitor radioactivity levels of the water around the well.

The news comes after it has been reported a powerful typhoon which swept through Japan led to highly radioactive water near the crippled nuclear power plant being released into a nearby drainage ditch, increasing the risk of it flowing into the sea.

What JP Morgan is alleged to have done was sell the mortgage-backed assets knowing full well that many of the home loans were in fact very risky. The mortgage-backed assets are widely thought to have played a central role in the near collapse of the banking system when banks realised in 2007 that many of their assets were worth a fraction of their official book value.

A tentative deal is believed to have been reached in talks with senior US justice department officials. The sale of overvalued mortgage-backed securities was blamed for the near-collapse of the banking system in 2007. Last month, JP Morgan was fined almost $1 billion in a separate case over the "London Whale" trading debacle. The scandal arose from disastrous trades by former bank employee Bruno Iksil, who made big bets on the financial markets.

JP Morgan has found itself overwhelmed by mounting legal troubles lately. Once the darling of Washington and Wall Street, it reported a rare quarterly earnings loss last week, mostly due to legal costs totalling $9.2 billion. The bank lost $380 million during the quarter, compared with a profit of $5.7 billion in the same period last year. JP Morgan says it has set aside a fund of $23 billion to deal with mounting legal costs.

From their Los Angeles headquarters, the group slammed the court ruling as "an affront to justice and religious liberty," in a statement that accused the French government of "anti-religious extremism". "The Court failed to address the fundamental violations of the human rights of each of the defendants that infected every level of this case," said the Scientology church, vowing to pursue the matter "at the international level".

The group has previously indicated it will appeal the conviction to the European Court of Human Rights. The Church of Scientology said in its statement that the involvement in the trial of UNADFI, a French anti-cult association, "polluted the proceedings, transforming it into a heresy trial."

Founded in 1954 by US science fiction writer L Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology is recognised as a religion in the United States. It claims a worldwide membership of 12 million, including 45,000 followers in France.

On Thursday, the pope also met at the Vatican with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who invited him to visit Palestine as well. Israeli President Shimon Peres had already extended an invitation to the pope to visit the Holy Land shortly after the pontiff's election in March. Following the invitation from Mr Abbas, "we can now start thinking in a more concrete way regarding the planning of the visit," said Vatican spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi, adding that it could take place in 2014.

A papal trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories would follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis's predecessors, Benedict XVI and John Paul II. Both sought to promote Christian reconciliation with Judaism as emphasized in the key 1962-65 Second Vatican Council and do away with any vestiges of anti-Semitism after centuries of ambiguity within the church.

A visit by Pope Francis, who has so far made only one overseas trip since his appointment, could advance that dialogue. "We can see the steady and ongoing commitment of the Catholic Church on improving Catholic-Jewish relations," said Chad Pecknold, assistant professor of theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.