BEIJING, CHINA - China is experiencing unusual chills this winter with its national average temperature hitting the lowest in 28 years, and snow and ice have closed highways, cancelled flights, stranded tourists and knocked out power in several provinces. In some areas - north-eastern China, eastern Inner Mongolia, and north part of far-western Xinjiang province - the low has hit -40 degrees C (-40 degrees F), the administration said. The state-run, English-language China Daily reported Friday that about 1,000 ships were stuck in ice in Laizhou Bay in eastern China's Bohai Sea.

USA - The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is warning the flu season appears to be bad this year - spreading faster and earlier than usual. Officials with the CDC have said the South and Southeast sections of the country are getting hit hard. Even people who received the flu shot can still get sick, they said. There is one theory that the outbreak may be due in part to the possibility that the flu vaccine does not include the strain that is currently spreading across the country.

LONDON, UK - The Catholic Church will stop gay-friendly Masses in the central London church that has held them for the past six years, London's archbishop said on Wednesday. The 18th-century church in Soho, the heart of London's gay scene, has been hosting the twice-monthly Masses with the support of the local Church hierarchy, but Archbishop Vincent Nichols said in a statement that gay Catholics should attend Mass in their local parishes rather going to separate services. The Vatican teaches that gay sex is sinful but homosexuals deserve respect.

ALASKA - An earthquake of 7.5 magnitude struck in the Pacific Ocean off South Eastern Alaska on Saturday. The quake occurred about 60 miles southwest of Port Alexander at a depth of about 6 miles at 0858 GMT, according to the US Geological Survey, which downgraded the magnitude from an initial 7.7.

UK - The Conservatives will offer voters the prospect of "real change" in the UK's relationship with Europe at the next election, David Cameron has said. The prime minister said his party could "go further" in forging a new basis for co-operation if it was governing alone, rather than in a coalition as now. Mr Cameron is to make a long-awaited speech on Europe, with many of his MPs calling on him to pledge a referendum.

SWITZERLAND - Wegelin & Co, the oldest Swiss private bank, said on Thursday it would shut its doors permanently after more than 2 1/2 centuries, following its guilty plea to charges of helping wealthy Americans evade taxes through secret accounts. The plea, in the US District Court in Manhattan, marks the death knell for one of Switzerland's most storied banks, whose original European clients pre-date the American Revolution. It is also potentially a major turning point in a battle by US authorities against Swiss bank secrecy.

JAPAN - The eyes of the financial world are on Greece and other heavily indebted euro-zone countries. But Japan is in even worse shape. The country's debt load is immense and growing, to the point that a quarter of its budget goes to servicing it. The government in Tokyo has done little to change things. For years, the world's third-largest economy has been unapologetically living on borrowed cash, more so than any other country in the world. In recent decades, Japanese governments have piled up debts worth some €11 trillion ($14.6 trillion). This corresponds to 230 per cent of annual gross domestic product, a debt level that is far higher than Greece's 165 per cent.

EUROPE - The end of the year always prompts questions about what the most important issue of the next year may be. It's a simplistic question, since every year sees many things happen and for each of us a different one might be important.

LONDON, UK - The US, Japan, Britain, as well as the Swiss, Scandies, and a string of states around the world, are actively driving down their currencies or imposing caps. They are tearing up the script, embracing the new creed of nominal GDP targeting (NGDP), a licence for yet more radical action.

USA - While [Mr] Obama is perceived the victor in the fiscal deal passed by Congress earlier this week, he did not come close to getting the one thing he demanded that could have headed off the next potential crisis: Freedom from a fight over the federal government's debt ceiling, which is likely to occur in February when the Treasury Department must ask Congress to increase the government's borrowing limit beyond the current $16.4 trillion. At stake is not only the US government's ability to get its finances under control but whether it might default on its debts, and suffer further downgrades in the nation's credit rating.

BRUSSELS, EUROPE - Rather than a deal, the US fiscal cliff talks reflect still another delay. However, the time will run out in the next 4-8 weeks. The net effect will reverberate across Europe and the world economy. Today, the US debt burden exceeds $16.4 trillion, which translates to $143,000 debt per taxpayer and over $52,000 debt per citizen (over $15,000 more than in Greece). What Washington needs urgently is a credible, long-term fiscal adjustment program. The real problem is that Athens has such a program, Washington does not. In the absence of such an adjustment plan, increased volatility in America has great potential to spread to the Eurozone.

USA - The financial crisis had many causes — too much borrowing, foolish investments, misguided regulation — but at its core, the panic resulted from a lack of transparency. The reason no one wanted to lend to or trade with the banks during the fall of 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, was that no one could understand the banks’ risks.

USA - The drought-drained Mississippi River will rise slightly later this week between St Louis and Cairo, Illinois, but later continue its decline toward historic lows, according to a National Weather Service forecast. Low water, due to the worst US drought since 1956, has already impeded the flow of billions of dollars worth of grain, coal, fertilizer and other commodities between the central United States and shipping terminals at the Gulf of Mexico. A further drop in river levels could halt commercial shipping traffic entirely by this weekend, the American Waterways Operators and the Waterways Council Inc said in a statement on Wednesday.

BRUSSELS, EUROPE - Portugal's President has called into question the viability of his country's austerity programme. He also said "there are well-founded doubts over whether the distribution of sacrifice [in the bailout terms] is just." He blamed the bailout for creating a "recessionary cycle" and he dubbed the programme "socially unsustainable." Portugal was forced to request an EU-International-Monetary-Fund (IMF) bailout worth €78 billion in May 2011 after seeing its credit rating cut to junk status and finding itself unable to finance its debt. The country's debt, the third highest in the eurozone behind Greece and Italy, is expected to peak at 124 percent of GDP in 2013.

VATICAN - The Italian central bank has suspended all bank card payments in the Vatican, citing its failure to implement fully anti-money laundering legislation, Italian media report. The Holy See was required to meet in full European Union safeguards on finances by the start of 2013. Its failure means tourists will have to pay cash at its museums and shops. Pope Benedict has promised greater transparency in Vatican finances and the operations of its bank, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), which has in the past been implicated in major money-laundering scandals.