Hundreds of other scroungers are understood to have raked in similar sums to allow them to live in properties that most hard-working families could never dream of inhabiting. Britain's biggest Housing Benefit claims were laid bare in figures released by local councils following a Freedom of Information investigation. The record accommodation bills for the taxpayer were notched up in the final year before the Government imposed a 500-pounds-a-week cap on Housing Benefit claims.

The 2,050-pounds-a-week rental bill would pay for a lavish four-bedroom town house in St John's Wood, an area popular with multi-millionaires, celebrities and rock stars. Three other families had London rental bills of 2,000 pounds a week paid through Housing Benefit to allow them to live in Camden and Mayfair. Last night the figures ignited a new wave of anger at the 20 billion pounds a year cost of Housing Benefit.

Tory MP Anne Main said: "This is a staggering amount of money and it shows that the benefit system has been in desperate need of reform. These claimants are enjoying levels of luxury that most working people, even on fairly high salaries, cannot dream of." Gavin Barwell, another Tory backbencher, added: "It is absolutely outrageous that people on benefits should be able to live in housing that the vast majority of hard-working families cannot afford."

But Labour and some campaign groups claim the cap is forcing families onto the streets.

An Iranian blockade by means of mining, airstrikes or sabotage is logistically well within Tehran's military capabilities. But despite rising tensions with the West, including a tentative ban on European imports of Iranian oil announced Wednesday, Iran is unlikely to take such hostile action, according to most Middle East political experts.

United States officials say the Navy's Fifth Fleet, based in nearby Bahrain, stands ready to defend the shipping route and, if necessary, retaliate militarily against Iran. Iran's own shaky economy relies on exporting at least two million barrels of oil a day through the strait, which is the only sea route from the Persian Gulf and "the world's most important oil choke point," according to Energy Department analysts.

A blockade would also punish China, Iran's most important oil customer and a major recipient of Persian Gulf oil. China has invested heavily in Iranian oil fields and has opposed Western efforts to sanction Iran over its nuclear program. Despite such deterrents to armed confrontation, oil and foreign policy analysts say a miscalculation is possible that could cause an overreaction from one side or the other.

"I fear we may be blundering toward a crisis nobody wants," said Helima Croft, senior geopolitical strategist at Barclays Capital. "There is a peril of engaging in brinkmanship from all sides."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were yesterday edging towards a deal for a swingeing EU-wide financial transaction tax, despite fierce opposition from Britain. Sources in the French government said the two will discuss "rapid implementation" of the levy next Monday. Jean Leonetti, French minister for Europe, claimed it will be in force "by the end of the year".

The latest plotting triggered fury at Westminster amid fears the levy could penalise the City of London and lead to up to 500,000 job cuts in the UK. It will add to the growing support for the Daily Express crusade to get Britain out of the EU. Downing Street also warned that the Prime Minister could be forced to wield Britain's EU veto for a second time to block the plan. One senior source close to Mr Cameron said: "Our position hasn't changed. They cannot impose it on us, and we wouldn't accept it."

A refusal by EU leaders to guarantee protection for the City of London ignited a massive row at a Brussels summit on the euro crisis last month, culminating in Mr Cameron vetoing a proposed EU treaty shake-up. Chancellor Merkel has since been desperately seeking to mend fences with Britain. But the row erupted again yesterday when the French Government confirmed that the issue will be on the agenda for an informal EU summit in Brussels at the end of this month.

Mr Leonetti said: "This is on the programme for the next summit. Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel have decided on this and it will be put in place before the end of 2012." The tax had previously been earmarked for launch in 2013. He claimed that all EU member nations except Britain and Sweden had backed the plan for the levy - known as the Tobin Tax after the economist James Tobin who devised it in 1972. Euro-sceptics last night urged Mr Cameron not to surrender to the latest threat to British business.

On the Jewish calendar, this Thursday is the tenth day in the Hebrew month of Tevet - the anniversary of the date on which the Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar began his deadly siege of Jerusalem in the year 425 BCE. We mark the day by fasting from just before sunrise, until nightfall, and add the Selichot and other special supplements including a special Torah reading to the daily set of prayers. It is one of four fast days commemmorating the stages of the destruction of the First and Second Holy Temples.

Two other sad events were recorded by the Talmudic sages as having occurred on the tenth of Tevet, one the death of Ezra the Scribe who led the revival of Jewish adherence to the Torah when the Jews returned from Babylon to build the Second Temple. The other event is the translation of the Torah into Greek, known as the Septuagint, considered an event to mourn as well. Israel's Chief Rabbinate connected current Jewish mourning to the date and designated the Tenth of Tevet to serve as a "general Kaddish day" for victims of the Holocaust, many of whom were murdered on dates lost in time, and whose day of martyrdom is thus unknown.

It took Nebuchadnezzar 30 months to breach Jerusalem's thick stone walls, but he finally managed it on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, in the year 586 BCE. Only one month later, on Tisha B'Av - the ninth of Av - the Holy Temple was destroyed for the first time, and the Jewish People were sent out into exile to Babylonia for the next 70 years. The prophet Jeremiah wrote Lamentations to memorialize the tragedy. The Second Temple was built when the Jews were allowed to return by Cyrus the Great and destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, also on the 9th of Av. Remnants of the Holy Temples still remain - one outside retaining wall of the Second Temple is today referred to as the Western Wall, or the Kotel, or Wailing Wall - the place where Jews weep for its destruction.

The Islamic clerics who now inhabit the area, and deliver sermons in the Al Aqsa mosque built on the site, periodically express their intense fear of the day that a Third Holy Temple will rise from the site, and make enormous efforts to prevent at all costs the possibility that the Jews will help bring this about. Words of inspiration and arousal to repentance are delivered on fast days by prominent rabbis in Jewish communities around the world. They urge their followers to reflect on the tragic events of our history and to be motivated, encouraged and inspired to improve their ways in order to shape events to bring a better future and the rebuilding of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

The ECB also revealed that 15 billion euros had been used from its emergency lending facility overnight on Tuesday, following 14.8 billion euros borrowed the previous day. Bank stocks retreated from a stronger start to the new year after the Italian bank UniCredit attempted to entice investors to back a 7.5 billion euros cash call by offering a big discount on the existing price of its shares.

"Interbank funding markets are getting more credit crunched, not less," said Louise Cooper, markets analyst at BCG Partners. Referring to the deposits at the ECB, she said: "This shows how much fear there is still in the wholesale markets - that banks prefer to accept only 0.25% interest rate on their cash rather than lending it out at higher rates to other banks."

"Central banks are having to fund banks themselves because so many credit, wholesale and rates markets are not functioning normally and it is getting worse... Equity markets may have started 2012 with a strong start, but as far as the wholesale funding markets are concerned, the world is still a scary place."

The florint fell more than 1% to a record low against the euro and bond yields soared over 10%. The Hungarian government, which has defied Brussels by introducing a raft of radical constitutional reforms, called off its plans to swap old debt for new because it would be too expensive. Traders, already rattled by the advancing eurozone debt crisis, including a drastically discounted rights issue by UniCredit, were unnerved by the emergence of a new front in central Europe. France's CAC index fell 1.6%, while Germany's Dax and the FTSE 100 dropped 0.6% each.

Elsewhere, Spain's banks will be required to find an extra 50 billion euros in provisions against potential losses from devalued property, as reported in the Financial Times. "These events can have a habit of sparking up from being 'too local and too small' for major players to care about to sudden more unpredictable eruptions of risk contagion," 4Cast analysts said in a note.

Benoit Anne, of Societe Generale, said in a note: "We are very near boiling point in Hungary with a crisis that may escalate into something much more serious than a simple macroeconomic crisis... The EU is extremely concerned about the latest political developments and the potential EU response will - no doubt - be harmful to investor confidence." Hungary, which must roll over nearly 5 billion euros of external debt this year, is due in February to start repaying a loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that saved the country from financial collapse in 2008.

Borrowing costs rose in other central European countries today including Poland and Czech Republic. There are also fears about the exposure of European banks to Hungarian debt, particularly Austrian and Italian institutions.

Shortly before 8 am on Christmas Day, a gold-colored Toyota pulled up in front of St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madalla, near the Nigerian capital Abuja, just as hundreds of worshippers were coming out. The vehicle's driver ignored instructions from the guards at the gate. He simply kept driving and accelerated directly into the crowd. Moments later, the area was covered with blood, dead bodies and dismembered limbs. Trees were charred, and a deep crater had been gouged into the sand. Official sources say at least 27 people lost their lives during the Christmas Day attack. But eyewitnesses put the figure much, much higher.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, has suffered a huge setback in its efforts to reconcile its Christian and Muslim populations. President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, took a long time - longer, in fact, than the pope and the British government - to put his feelings into words. When he finally spoke, he called it "an ugly incident." The perpetrators swiftly issued their own statement. Boko Haram, a radical Muslim sect whose name means "Western education is sinful," claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing. It said the attack aimed to kill Christians and make the government look bad. This wasn't the only such attack carried out by Boko Haram. Indeed, in 2011 alone, the group killed up to 600 people.

Just a few years ago, the sect's fighters from the northeastern part of the country were still using poisoned darts and machetes to kill and maim police officers. Although they looked like a spent force by mid-2009, they have since reorganized, affiliating themselves with a global terrorist network that includes al-Shabab militias in Somalia, militant groups in Pakistan and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North Africa.

After the latest attacks, some even believe that Nigeria could be ripped apart. Saidu Dogo, the secretary general of the northern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), has already called on Christians to defend themselves against further attacks. "We fear that the situation may degenerate to a religious war and Nigeria may not be able to survive one" Dogo said, adding, "Enough is enough!"

"We are determined to prevent a regional Cold War. Sectarian regional tensions would be suicide for the whole region," Davutoglu said, adding such effects would last for decades. "Turkey is against all polarizations, in the political sense of Iran-Arab tension or in the sense of forming an apparent axis. This will be one of the crucial messages that I will take to Tehran."

Majority Sunni Turkey, which borders Iran, Iraq and Syria, has attempted to play a moderating role as rivals Shi'ite Iran and Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia jockey for influence in a region undergoing sweeping changes brought on by "Arab Spring" popular uprisings. Davutoglu is expected to hold talks in Tehran later on Wednesday on Iran's nuclear program and developments in neighboring Iraq and Syria.

And Iran has threatened to take action if the US Navy moves an aircraft carrier into the Gulf, Tehran's most aggressive statement yet after weeks of saber-rattling as new US and EU financial sanctions take a toll on its economy. "Turkey is fiercely against new regional Shi'ite-Sunni tensions, or an anti-Iran or similar tensions arising like in the Gulf," Davutoglu said.

He singled out the case of neighboring Iraq, which is splitting up into sectarian and ethnic fiefdoms, with Kurds consolidating their autonomy in the north, Shi'ites dominant across the south and entrenched in Baghdad, and Sunnis exploring whether to set up their own autonomous region in the centre and west. "Our Iraq policy foresees close contact with all sides. No one should make a mistake here. No one should act with a conviction that one ideology, one sect, one ethnicity could dominate in any country as it was the case in the past. The societies in the region want a new political understanding."

Iran says the program is strictly non-military, but Western countries say a November UN report shows it has sought to build an atomic bomb. Talks between Tehran and major powers broke down a year ago. Diplomats said EU envoys held talks on Iran in the last days of December, and that any objections to an oil embargo had been dropped - notably from crisis-hit Greece which gets a third of its oil from Iran, relying on Tehran's lenient financing. Spain and Italy are also big buyers.

"A lot of progress has been made," one EU diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The principle of an oil embargo is agreed. It is not being debated any more." US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the EU moves "the kinds of steps that we would like to see not just from our close allies and partners in places like Europe but from countries around the world."

"We do believe that this is consistent with tightening the noose on Iran economically," she said. A US Treasury official said Tehran's oil revenues could be choked off without disrupting global oil markets.

The 131-year-old company is still making last-ditch efforts to sell off some of its patent portfolio and could avoid Chapter 11 if it succeeds, one of the people said. But the company has started making preparations for a filing in case those efforts fail, including talking to banks about some $1 billion in financing to keep it afloat during bankruptcy proceedings, the people said. A Kodak spokesman said the company "does not comment on market rumor or speculation."

A filing could come as soon as this month or early February, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Kodak would continue to pay its bills and operate normally while under bankruptcy protection, the people said. But the company's focus would then be the sale of some 1,100 patents through a court-supervised auction, the people said. That Kodak is even contemplating a bankruptcy filing represents a final reversal of fortune for a company that once dominated its industry, drawing engineering talent from around the country to its Rochester, New York, headquarters and plowing money into research that produced thousands of breakthroughs in imaging and other technologies.

None of the new pursuits generated the cash needed to fund the change in course and cover the company's big obligations to its retirees. A Chapter 11 filing could help Kodak shed some of those obligations, but the viability of the company's printer strategy has yet to be demonstrated, raising questions about the fate of the company's 19,000 employees. Such uncertainty was once unthinkable at Kodak, whose near-monopoly on film produced high margins that the company shared with its workers. On "wage dividend days," a tradition started by Kodak founder George Eastman, the company would pay out bonuses to all workers based on its results, and employees would use the checks to buy cars and celebrate at fancy restaurants.

Egyptians voted for a second day on Wednesday in the final stage of the lower-house election, the first free legislative vote since army officers overthrew the monarchy in 1952. The staggered election is part of the military's plan to hand power to civilians before July, ending its turbulent interregnum that began with the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February last year in a popular uprising.

Welcomed then as heroes who helped nudge the autocratic leader from office, the generals now face anger over their handling of protests that have left 59 dead since mid-November and an economic crisis that is worsening the plight of the poor. Meanwhile, the Brotherhood has surfed a wave of hostility to long-time foe Mubarak. For millions of poor Egyptians, its record of charitable work in areas ignored by his government suggests it would care for their needs if it won power.

In the working class suburb of Shubra al-Khaima on the northern limits of Cairo, citizens queued to vote in pot-holed streets littered with rubbish. "I've voted for the Muslim Brotherhood. They have experience in running politics and I am convinced they will start implementing serious reforms," said pensioner Fawzi Mohamed.

The latest annual report covers the period from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010, the PPFA's fiscal year. The report states that the organization received "government health services grants and reimbursements" totaling $487.4 million. Previous Planned Parenthood annual reports showed total funding from "government grants and contracts" (which were $363.2 million in 2009), while this year's report also accounts for payments from Medicaid managed care plans among the payments the group receives from government.

When compared with previous annual reports, the latest one shows an almost steady increase in the number of abortions performed at its clinics: In 2006, Planned Parenthood did 289,750 abortions; in 2007, it did 305,310; in 2009, it did 331,796; and, in 2010, it did 329,445 - a small decrease from the previous year. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B Anthony List, a pro-life organization that lobbies Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, called the organization an "abortion giant."

"With over a billion in net assets and a business model centered on abortion and government subsidies, it is time for Planned Parenthood to end its reliance on taxpayer dollars," Dannenfelser said in a statement. "Despite an unprecedented effort by statewide and federal leaders to defund them, a wave of former employees willing to testify against them, and uniform agreement amongst Republican presidential candidates that they should be defunded, Planned Parenthood continues full-steam ahead."

"They are unwilling to answer to the pro-life American majority that wants out of this business," Dannenfelser said.

Kashya Hildebrand's dealings have sparked questions about Switzerland's cherished banking secrecy laws, as she appeared to profit from the decisions of the Swiss National Bank (SNB). Bank Sarasin yesterday fired the employee who broke the rules by handing Mrs Hildebrand's information to an opposition politician, while the SNB swung behind its chairman, who will make his first public statement on the affair tomorrow. The disclosures reportedly showed that Mrs Hildebrand made a Sfr75,000 profit by transferring Sfr400,000 into US dollars in August last year, shortly before the SNB effectively pegged the currency to the euro.

Two months later, after the Swiss franc had fallen in value, she converted the dollars back - making a 19 per cent return in just two months. Following the revelation, the SNB investigated Mrs Hildebrand's trade and ruled it did not infringe internal rules. However, facing calls for greater transparency, the central bank was yesterday forced to release its guidelines on financial dealings for members of the governing board as well as a report on the trade by auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The report concluded that the trade was "delicate" but did not breach any guidelines. It also said Mr Hildebrand first learned of the deal the day after his wife completed it. He then apparently disclosed her position to the SNB board and instructed Bank Sarasin only to act on his orders in future. Mrs Hildebrand went on Swiss television yesterday to say she "felt good" about the deal. She added: "What motivated me to buy dollars was the fact that it was at a record low and was almost ridiculously cheap. As I have worked in the financial and banking industry for over 15 years and always observe the markets, I felt at ease with this transaction."

He will also raise concerns about the ability and willingness of Britain's debt-stricken European allies to support military operations in Afghanistan and warn Iran against interfering with the oil trade. On his first visit to Washington in the role, Mr Hammond will say that British and US defence cuts are necessary to balance the public finances. Without that balance, military forces will be dangerously undermined, he will argue.

The US is about to follow Britain into a painful round of defence cuts, reducing its military spending by around 8 per cent over the next decade. Britain is making a similar reduction in half that time. Mr Hammond said that such cuts should be seen as a military necessity, because unless governments reduce their deficits, they will ultimately be unable to fund their armed forces.

"Without strong economies and stable public finances it is impossible to build and sustain, in the long-term, the military capability required to project power and maintain defence," Mr Hammond will say. "That is why today the debt crisis should be considered the greatest strategic threat to the future security of our nations."

Seyyed Mahmoud Moussavi, Iranian Military Drills Spokesman, stated "Both missiles hit the intended targets successfully." It turned out the missiles weren't that long range after all. The Qhader missile, introduced in September, has a range of just 124 miles. The US Navy's fifth fleet in Bahrain is 150 miles from Iran. Israel is four times farther.

"We've seen that they've photoshopped, for example, photographs of missile tests before to make it look more impressive than it actually is, so I would take all this with a grain of salt. I think this is mainly posturing. It's gamesmanship. And it's again meant to send a message that the Iranians aren't simply going to sit back while their oil is sanctioned," said Michael Singh, Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Their leaders backed away from threats to close the strait as President Obama signed a defense spending bill on Saturday, which includes the new sanctions. It also has a national security waiver, allowing the president to withhold the sanctions if they are deemed to cause the price of oil to rise.

Iran reacted to the threatened sanctions Sunday announcing another alleged breakthrough: the manufacture of a nuclear fuel rod that is made from Iran's own Uranium ore deposits. The rod is needed at the Bushehr Nuclear Plant and the advance could allow them to skirt restrictions on its nuclear program. US officials have not been able to assess whether the fuel rod advance is real. Just the threat of tighter sanctions targeting Iran's crude oil sales has sent Iran's currency into a freefall. It lost twelve percent of its value Tuesday and many Iranians are now buying gold.