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.

The preparations are being made only for a worst-case scenario and would run alongside similar limited capital controls across Europe, imposed to reduce the economic fall-out of a break-up and to ease the transition to new currencies. Officials fear that if one member state left the euro, investors in both that country and other vulnerable eurozone nations would transfer their funds to safe havens abroad.

Capital flight from weak euro nations to countries such as the UK would drive up sterling, dealing a devastating blow to the Government's plans to rebalance the economy towards exports. Earlier this year, Switzerland was forced to peg its currency to the euro to protect the economy after a massive appreciation in the Swiss franc due to spiralling fears over Europe. The plans emerged as Spain's new finance minister Luis de Guindos warned the country's economy was set for negative growth in the last quarter.

Speaking yesterday he warned the next two months "are not going to be easy". Britain's response to the possible break up of the euro would reflect measures taken by Argentina when it dropped the dollar peg in 2002, according to sources. In addition to the risk of an appreciating currency, dealing with potential UK corporate exposures to the euro poses a considerable challenge for the Treasury.

The Ministry of Defence has been consulted about organising a mass evacuation if Britons are trapped in countries which close their borders, prevent bank withdrawals and ground flights. Treasury officials would not comment on the specifics of any plans but said the Government always had contingency plans that cover a full range of eventualities.

The stench of death pervaded the region, a sign that many corpses still remained unrecovered on land, Ana Caneda, the regional civil defence chief said. Tropical storm Washi brought heavy rains, overflowing rivers and flash floods to the southern Philippines from December 16 to 18, sweeping away whole villages built on sandbars and riverbanks.

"There are still a lot of areas we have examined that are stinking of dead bodies. We don't know how many people are buried under that mud," Ms Caneda told AFP, adding the toll could reach 2,000. "There are so many bodies being found, floating in the bays. If not for the small islands in the bays, they would be in the Pacific already," she said.

More than 376,000 people were displaced by the storm and almost 55,000 are still huddled in crowded makeshift evacuation centres, the disaster council said.

The coordinated attacks struck a dozen mostly Shiite neighborhoods on Thursday in the first major bloodshed since US troops completed a full withdrawal this month after nearly nine years of war. They also coincided with a government crisis that has again strained ties between Iraq's Sunnis and Shiites to the breaking point, tearing at the same fault line that nearly pushed Iraq into all-out civil war several years ago.

The claim of responsibility made no mention of the US withdrawal. Instead, it focused its rage on the country's Shiite-dominated leadership, which Sunni insurgents have battled since it came to power as a result of the US led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. "The series of special invasions (was) launched... to support the weak Sunnis in the prisons of the apostates and to retaliate for the captives who were executed," said the statement in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq.

According to the SITE Intelligence Group, a US based organization that monitors jihadist Web traffic, the claim of responsibility was posted late Monday on militant websites. The group said the attacks were proof that they "know where and when to strike and the mujahedeen will never stand with their hands tied while the pernicious Iranian project shows its ugly face." The remark was in reference to accusations by Sunni militants that Iraq's Shiite-dominated government has allied itself too closely with neighboring Shiite power Iran, a bitter enemy of Iraq under the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The Baghdad military spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, said Al Qaeda in Iraq - no longer focused on fighting US forces - is hoping to take advantage of the current political tension to re-ignite sectarian warfare. "It has become a clear scheme to draw Iraq into a sectarian war again," al-Moussawi said. "Al Qaeda in Iraq played a major role in 2005 and 2006 in pushing the county into a civil war and they succeeded."

A senior Iranian lawmaker says the ongoing Velayat 90 naval drill aims to send a warning to the West that the Strait of Hormuz will be closed if Iran is threatened. The lawmaker stated that military drills also aim to increase Iran's deterrence power and prove its regional dominance. "The exercises send an important message to the whole world, especially the colonialist powers... and also show the power of [Iran's] armed forces, particularly [the country's] Navy," she noted.

Elahian added foreign media have admitted that Iran and its Navy are so powerful that if threatened, the country can take control of the Strait of Hormuz as the global economic and energy conduit. On Saturday, December 24, Iran's Navy launched a massive 10-day Velayat 90 naval exercise, covering an area stretching from the east of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Aden.

Different classes of submarines, including Tareq and Qadir, the newest ground-to-sea missile systems and torpedoes have been employed in the maneuvers. Over the past years, Iran has made important breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important military equipment and systems. The country has repeatedly clarified that its military might is merely based on the nation's defense doctrine of deterrence and poses no threat to other countries.