UK - Much as Britain is uncertain about its future relationship with Europe, so Europe is divided about what it wants from Britain. On a range of issues the UK has strong allies. Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark are just three countries who share many of the same instincts as London and would want to keep Britain in the EU.

USA - "All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The communist party must command all the guns, that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party" - Mao Tse Tung

"After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military" - William Burroughs

USA - What we are hearing from bloviating gun control advocates in America is nothing short of emotionally driven irrationality. According to statistics assembled from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Center for Disease Control and the Federal Government, firearms related homicides are minuscule in comparison to the other “big killers” in the United States.

USA - The White House is weighing a far broader and more comprehensive approach to curbing the nation’s gun violence than simply reinstating an expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, according to multiple people involved in the administration’s discussions.

ARGENTINA - Argentina's latest lunge for the Falklands is part of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s plan to run for an unprecedented third term in office, analysts said last night, writes Marco Giannangeli. Argentina published an advert last week in a UK newspaper demanding David Cameron agree to sovereignty talks. Services Institute think-tank, said it was a “distraction technique” to steer attention away from the failing economy towards foreign policy. He said Argentina’s constitution bars [Mrs] Kirchner from standing for a third term but it was “not unlikely” she was trying to change this.

USA - Unless the rice you buy is certified organic, or comes specifically from a farm that tests its rice crops for genetically modified (GM) traits, you could be eating rice tainted with actual human genes.

BERLIN, GERMANY - When Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a recent reception for military families, she greeted parents, wives and children whose loved ones were spending their holidays in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa. German deployments overseas, Ms Merkel said, “will soon encompass the entire globe.”

USA - In the past several years, people worldwide are slowly beginning to shed the web of deceit woven by the banking elite and learning that many topics that were mocked by the mainstream media as conspiracy theories of the tin-foil hat community have now been proven to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

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.