Police armed with batons and shields stormed the church to restore order, after Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests and monks came to blows during preparations for Orthodox Christmas celebrations.

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The president of Greece's SEV business federation, Dimitris Daskalopoulos, recently invited journalists to his imposing neoclassical headquarters in Athens. He straightened his tie, leaned forward and with a grim expression spoke into half a dozen microphones arrayed in front of him. "Now the issue is simply whether we remain in Europe or not. The governing parties have an obligation to work together honestly to finally banish the nightmare of a return to the drachma. If this government doesn't get it right, Greece will go hungry."

His dramatic appeal was ignored, once again. The Socialist PASOK party, the conservative-liberal New Democracy party and the far-right LAOS party formed a transitional government six weeks ago under non-partisan former central banker Lucas Papademos. They vowed to avert a looming state bankruptcy. But they remain as divided as ever.

Instead of getting down to business, they are absorbed in policy wrangling that seems absurdly trivial given the scale of the tasks they face. At a cabinet meeting last Thursday, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Transport Minister Makis Voridis of LAOS fell out over a draft law to accelerate amicable divorces. Marriage, Voridis argued, was "a central component of our value system" - therefore LAOS could not agree to the law. Papademos remained silent. This isn't the first time the LAOS minister has blocked a decision. Recently he resisted the complete liberalization of the issue of taxi licenses, and publicly threatened to resign.

To its credit, the Papademos government mastered two important challenges early on: it secured the payout of the sixth international loan tranche of more than 8 billion euros ($10.45 billion) from the 110 billion euros European Union and International Monetary Fund bailout package agreed in May 2010. And the parliament has passed the state budget for 2012.

But since then, Athens has failed to deliver on the binding reforms and spending cuts it had pledged in return for the cash. The top priority is the exchange of Greek government debt agreed at the EU summit on October 27. Under the deal, private creditors will voluntarily write down 50 percent of their loans. But under the terms of the summit agreement, the Greek government must reach an agreement with creditors before the end of 2011 so that the bonds can be swapped for new securities at the start of 2012. It is clear that Greece won't make that deadline. "The negotiations have run into major difficulties, we are working day and night to find a solution," Venizelos admitted.

The sticking points appear to be the levels of interest rates that Greece will have to pay for new bonds and the size of the voluntary debt cut. Even if an agreement is reached, there is doubt about whether all private creditors will stick to it. Spanish hedge fund Vega, for example, has already pulled out of the talks and threatened legal action if the losses amount to more than 50 percent. If the debt swap fails, the entire 2012 budget will be null and void because it depends on drastically reduced interest payments on Greece's government debt.

"The concept that G-d created a human being who is unable to find happiness in a loving relationship unless he violates a biblical prohibition is neither plausible nor acceptable," says the document, titled "Declaration on the Torah Approach to Homosexuality." It states that same-sex attractions can be modified and "healed," and condemns the "propaganda blitz" that has been launched "to persuade the public about the legitimacy of homosexuality."

"The media is rife with negative labels implying that one is 'hateful' or 'homophobic' if they do not accept the homosexual lifestyle as legitimate. This political coercion has silenced many into acquiescence. Unfortunately this attitude has seeped into the Torah community and many have become confused or have accepted the media's portrayal of this issue," the statement says. In fact, Obama, shortly after he took office in 2009, signed into law a "hate crimes" proposal that enhances penalties for crimes attributed to "hate" of homosexuality, providing special protections for "gays" that other victims of crime are not given.

"The Torah makes a clear statement that homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle or a genuine identity by severely prohibiting its conduct. Furthermore, the Torah, ever prescient about negative secular influences, warns us in Vayikra (Leviticus) 20:23 'Do not follow the traditions of the nations that I expel from before you...' Particularly the Torah writes this in regards to homosexuality and other forbidden sexual liaisons," the statement says.

The document has been signed by a coalition of more than 100 rabbis, community organizers, leaders and mental-health professionals. Among the signers who have chosen to go public with their endorsement of the position are psychologist and author Dr Miriam Adaham of Jerusalem; Rabbi Simcha Feuerman, president of the International Network of Orthodox Mental Health Professions; Los Angeles psychiatrist and author Dr Miriam Grossman; Dr Joseph Gelbfish of Brooklyn, New York; Rabbi Yaakov Salomon, psychotherapist and author; Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, a vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America and dozens more.

But while other ministries are critical of Obama's pro-homosexual drive - he's put more homosexuals in positions of power than any other president, opened the US military to open homosexuality and signed into law a "hate crimes" plan that provides special protections for homosexuals - Boynes goes one step further. "The Bible says that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10)," she said. "It is his main objective to bring confusion and cause division within the church and he does this by altering God's truth in such a way that many Christians are deceived if they are not rooted and grounded in God's word."

WND recently reported on the policy of the Obama administration to be the new global sex cop and a recently signed executive order that some say is sure to promote "quotas" of LGBT hires for federal government jobs. WND also reported on the push by various administration officials to normalize LGBT behavior, including the designation of "gender identity" as a protected status for federal jobs. WND columnist Matt Barber wrote that liberals are "desperate" in their efforts "to dredge up some natural, biological rationalization - of which science has found none - to validate demonstrably unnatural behavior."

At least 32 people were killed as they poured out of the packed Christmas-morning Mass in St Theresa Catholic Church near Abuja, the capital, Interior Minister Abba Moro told TIME. Four other bombs elsewhere in the country took at least three lives. Boko Haram, a group whose aim is to impose a strict interpretation of Islamic Shari'a on Africa's most populous country, took credit for the attacks. One-third of Nigerian states already live under Shari'a.

Authorities are now battling to keep a lid on the bubbling threat of a sectarian civil conflict that would pitch one half of Nigeria's population of 155 million against the other. "The fact that Christian facilities were bombed was intended primarily to provoke Christians into attacking Muslims," Moro told TIME. "We have appealed to our Christian brothers for them not to do so."

But two days after the bombing, the area around St Theresa remained tense as angry young men loitered just beyond military cars patrolling the area. "If the government cannot protect us, we will take revenge by ourselves," said Josiah Agbo, 18, whose mother was killed in the blast. He left only after a priest from St Theresa took to the streets urging Christians not to attack Muslims. In a country where religious leaders wield enormous power, Muslim counterparts in the powerful Sokoto and Kano caliphates - the country's historic Islamic communities - denounced the bombings.

It will also offer civilian users positioning information which will be correct to the nearest 10 metres, be able to measure speeds within 0.2 metres per second and provide clock synchronisation signals accurate to 0.02 millionths of a second. China began working on the project in 2000 and designed it to be a rival to the US government run Global Positioning System (GPS).

It will also make China's military less dependent on foreign technology. Ten satellites have been sent into space and a further six will be sent by 2012, extending the system to most parts of Asia. Eventually the network will increase to a total of 35 satellites with global coverage by 2020. Having its own GPS system would also protect China against the risk of the US GPS turning off. It has also been suggested that Beidou could target cruise missiles against Taiwan if a war broke out over territory.

There have also been reports the network could be used to guide drones which could destroy foreign naval forces should China come under attack. But it's developers are keen to stress that Beidou has plenty of benefits for the mainstream public.

The new update will show friends your profile picture and the product you have 'endorsed' in much larger form in the main news feed - a move that the site admits is designed to bring in advertising revenue. Facebook say the scheme is a vital revenue booster, which will help it claw back some of the $1 billion a year it spends on developing the site. The site claims that because the stories are labelled 'Sponsored', they will be less intrusive.

If a user decides to 'like' a product, the endorsement will also remain on their new, open 'timeline' profile, enabling companies to pay Facebook to feature their adverts more visibly. But the announcement will infuriate users who feel that the social network is taking too much ownership over its 800 milllion members' personal information. Facebook users in the US have now launched a legal action against the company to contest the commercial use of the 'Like' button.

Western tensions with Iran have increased since a UN report claimed last month that Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb. Iran strongly denies this and insists it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The possibility of imposing sanctions on Iran has divided UN nations. Iran has defiantly expanded nuclear activity despite four rounds of UN sanctions meted out since 2006 over its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment.

Many diplomats believe only sanctions targeting Iran's lifeblood oil sector might be painful enough to make it change course, but Russia and China - big trade partners of Tehran - have blocked such a move at the United Nations. Iran this week repeated the warning it issued earlier this month, stating that should sanctions be imposed it will cut off oil access through the Strait of Hormuz - the world's fourth biggest oil shipping lane.

However, the US State Department has since dismissed Iran's threats by describing them as having 'an element of bluster'. According to official Iranian news agency IRNA, Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi warned this week: 'If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz.' But Mark Toner, spokesperson for the US State Department, responded: 'It's another attempt to distract attention away from the real issue, which is their continued non-compliance with their international nuclear obligations.'

Rahimi's remarks coincided with a 10-day Iranian naval exercise in the Strait and nearby waters, a show of military force that began on Saturday.

The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'. The DHS also watches for words such as 'illegal immigrant'.

The DHS outlined plans to scan blogs, Twitter and Facebook for words such as 'illegal immigrant', 'outbreak', 'drill', 'strain', 'virus', 'recovery', 'deaths', 'collapse', 'human to animal' and 'trojan', according to an 'impact asssessment' document filed by the agency. When its search tools net an account using the phrases, they record personal information. It's still not clear how this information is used - and who the DHS shares it with.

The group says that the government has used scans of social media before to analyse specific events - such as the 2010 BP oil spill - but this general 'watching' of social media using fake profiles is new. 'The initiatives were designed to gather information from 'online forums, blogs, public websites, and message boards,' to store and analyze the information gathered, and then to 'disseminate relevant and appropriate de-identified information to federal, state, local, and foreign governments and private sector partners,' the group said in a court filing.

The group claims that a request under the Freedom of Information Act to access the documentation has gone unanswered.

The official analysis - made possible by a data sharing agreement between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice - found that 26 per cent of the country's 4.9 million benefit claimants have been cautioned or convicted in the past decade. Three-quarters of people convicted in 2008 have made a claim for out-of-work benefits at some point over the past two years, while almost half of those released from prison in 2008 were still claiming unemployment benefits two years later. The total annual cost to the taxpayer is about 8 billion pounds.

The analysis comes as a new study shows that job hunters face the toughest market in two decades with the number of people in work predicted to fall by 120,000 next year, according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. The jobless total will hit 2.85 million and continue to rise until mid-2013 when it peaks at 2.9 million.

Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer - "how things could work in Europe."

To stabilize the continent in crisis Fischer, an avid European, wants to see a resolute political body consisting of the leaders of euro-zone countries. They should, he believes, be outfitted with far-reaching authority and granted sufficient power by their parliaments back home. Fischer is thinking about a rescue plan. Not just a rescue plan for the banks, for Italy or the euro, but for everything. He envisions a fire brigade of European Union government officials, and sees it as an "avant-garde of the United States of Europe."

It is, in other words, time to stop complaining. Europe can only be saved if it is completely reinvented. The financial crisis is the turning point in the history of European unification.

The old EU is finished. The 27-member bloc has never been as unpopular as it is today. Citizens have taken note that the massive bureaucracy in Brussels clearly lacks the power to master the crisis spreading through the currency union. It has likewise become apparent that the national governments they have elected are in the process of dismantling the historic project of European unification. After all, it isn't the European Council, the European Commission or the European Parliament that the world is relying on to pull Europe out of crisis. It is Angela Merkel.

The German chancellor and French President Nicolas Sarkozy more or less singlehandedly implemented the bailout plan for Greece, brought down the government in Athens and placed ailing member state Italy under international supervision. The words "History is being made in Cannes" were emblazoned on posters in the city during the G-20 summit there in early November. But that's new history. Old Europe, that construct of unity housed in imposing buildings in Brussels, that visionary collection of ideas about peace, freedom and prosperity, the Europe of big words and impenetrable treaties, the Babylonian monster that spits out tons of paper in 23 languages every day, meddles in everything and tries to spoon-feed its citizen. That Europe no longer exists.

Citizens in Athens and Brussels, Madrid and Berlin are taking to the streets of the tottering continent to protest against their politicians. Has Europe turned into a nightmare? The experts seek to escape the current crisis by taking a significant step forward. For the first time in years, those government officials seeking an end to the crisis have begun thinking about "more Europe," a new Europe with expanded powers and a real government. The crisis, says Munich sociologist Ulrich Beck, is "an opportunity to do great things."

"Neither a Frankfurt group nor a troika, and certainly not the G-20, which answers to no one, should have the right to decide what Europe's citizens should pay for and how much they should save," says Ulrike Guerot, the fiery Berlin spokeswoman of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the international think tank to which Joschka Fischer also belongs. According to Guerot, such decisions ought to be made by a strong European executive branch, "supported by a parliament for the entire euro zone."

"We must invent and establish Europe a second time," says Sigmar Gabriel, the chairman of Germany's center-left Social Democrats (SPD).

Ever since she became the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last July, Christine Lagarde, 55, has been lamenting the state of the world economy. The Frenchwoman recently said that the outlook for the global economy was "quite gloomy" and that if the international community failed to act decisively to halt the downward trend it could lead to a great depression such as the one in the early 1930s. "There is no economy in the world... that will be immune to the crisis," she said.

That is true. Nevertheless, there are countries that are doing better than others despite all the current global difficulties - and this includes Germany, the core of the ailing euro zone, which Lagarde has pointed to as the cause of the current problems. Most leading indicators and economic statistics in Germany point toward an improvement for the coming year. Wages and salaries are expected to rise in 2012, as is the number of jobs. Exports are predicted to continue to grow along with domestic demand.

Over the past year, the German economy has already shown itself to be astonishingly resilient amid the global economic turmoil sparked by the euro crisis, the sluggish recovery in America and a weakening of economic growth in China. Germany's gross domestic product (GDP) rose this year by approximately 3 percent, much more than in neighboring countries and in the US and, more importantly, far more than in the crisis-stricken peripheral countries of the euro zone.

There have always been risks and dangers to the world economy looming everywhere, but the combination of the euro crisis and flagging growth in Asia makes it difficult for economists to predict future developments. In their scenarios they still only concede a slight possibility that the European monetary union could collapse, but if the euro actually does implode in 2012, all their predictions will be obsolete.

The debt is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current cap by December 30, when the United States has $82 billion in interest on its debt and payments such as Social Security coming due. President Barack Obama is expected to ask for authority to increase the borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion, part of the spending authority that was negotiated between Congress and the White House this summer.

Under the agreement struck in August during the showdown over the government's debt limit, the cap is automatically raised unless Congress votes to block the debt-ceiling extension. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote, which is largely symbolic because the president can veto it and Congress would be unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority to override it. Moreover, the US House of Representatives also is in recess until January 17.

The deal called for raising the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion to serve the nation's borrowing needs into 2013 and also included mandatory cuts to the federal budget deficit. Since then, the extension has been increased twice by a total of $900 billion. The debt limit currently stands at $15.194 trillion and would increase to $16.394 trillion with the request.

It is estimated that the payments for the whole of 2011 could amount to 9.9 million pounds for firms to disconnect their wind farms from the National Grid. The huge sums mean some renewable energy companies were paid more to switch off their turbines than they would have earned with them left on. Payments are made when too much electricity floods the grid, leaving the network unable to absorb any excess power generated. The cost is ultimately paid for by consumers through energy bills.

Sir Bernard Ingham, of Supporters of Nuclear Energy said: "What a total and utter farce. There has not been a single wind turbine built in this country without a subsidy and now we are subsidising them to be shut down." Energy Minister Charles Hendry said the National Grid is reviewing the way it calculates payments.

The record amount was deposited just a week after the ECB lent 523 eurozone banks a total of 489 billion euros in cheap loans in an attempt to keep credit flowing through the economy and prevent a full-scale credit crunch. Banks borrowed the money at the ECB's benchmark rate of 1 per cent, but receive an overnight rate of just 0.25 per cent, well below what they could earn in wholesale markets.

This means lenders are depositing any new cash back with the ECB at a loss in order to guarantee safety. Banks will also be searching for safe havens in an attempt to reduce their risk profile for end-of-year accounts, as was seen during the end of 2008. The ECB data came as a leading think tank warned that the ongoing eurozone crisis could send Britain into a double-dip recession.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that Britain faced a "bleak" start to 2012, although it added that a fall in inflation, forecast by the Bank of England next year, would boost consumer spending power. "As we enter 2012, it seems the word that best describes the outlook for the UK economy is 'bleak'," the think-tank's chief economist Tony Dolphin said. Mr Dolphin also warned that the "extreme austerity measures" adopted by several eurozone countries meant the eurozone economy as a whole was already back in recession.

The rule adopted in 1967 banned sales to communist countries, and those involved in international conflicts or subject to United Nations sanctions. It later became a blanket ban on exports and on the development and production of weapons with countries other than the United States, making it impossible for manufacturers to participate in multinational projects.

The government's security council agreed to the relaxing of the ban to allow Japan to take part in the joint development and production of arms with other countries and to supply military equipment for humanitarian missions, chief cabinet secretary Osamu Fujimura said.

"The new standards [on weapons exports] are a result of the government considering measures that required attention amid recent changes to the environment surrounding international defence equipment," Fujimura said, referring to rising arms costs that could put strain on the government, with public debt twice the size of its economy.

The relaxing of the rules does not mean Japan will begin openly selling its military products to the world. Exports will be limited to strategic allies like the US. It could still allow companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy to join the development of Lockheed Martin's F-35, which Tokyo picked last week as its next frontline fighter, planning to buy 42 machines at an estimated cost of more than US$7 billion. "The regulations on weapons exports are based on the concept that as a pacifist country Japan should aim to avoid fanning international conflicts, and we will keep a close watch on exports," Fujimura said.