Germany needs Europe, and Europe needs Germany. This is still true today, but for different reasons than in the past. In the first few decades after World War II, our neighbors wanted to contain Germany so that they could tame the German demon. The Germans needed Europe so that they could play a role on the international stage once again. Even back then, it was about national interests, but it was also about emotions, because Germany's enemies in the war were called upon to forgive the Germans for many transgressions. The fact that they were able to do so sparked a deep feeling of gratitude among the political generations of Chancellors Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl, who had also experienced the war. The European Union is probably the biggest product of reconciliation in history.

Merkel, too, is familiar with this gratitude, but she doesn't perceive it as deeply as the members of the war generations. But it isn't even necessary that she does. Germany should not forget the magnanimity of its neighbors, but 60 years have now passed and there is nothing wrong with coolly pursuing interest-based policies. So what are Germany's interests?

In the past, the so-called Atlanticists were at odds with the Gaullists in Germany. The Atlanticists supported close ties with the United States. The Gaullists saw France as the more important partner, and they had a stronger European bent. Today there is hardly any basis left for the trans-Atlantic position, because the entity that was long called "the West" is in the process of dissolving.

Indeed, the rising superpower is cleverly capitalizing on the euro crisis to extend its long-term political and economic influence in Europe. Chinese offers of aid are mainly directed at the shakiest members of the euro zone, the heavily indebted so-called PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain). The People's Republic would like to win them over as long-term allies in the EU.

In the past, China had shown itself to be a "friend" of Greece, Spain and Italy, and it purchased their government bonds at a time when other investors had fled, Premier Wen Jiabao said during a trip to Europe in October. "We will continue to provide aid and help certain countries overcome their difficulties."

Speaking to the parliament in Athens, Wen made a promise to the Greeks. He said that China would purchase Greece's government bonds as soon as they were available again on the financial markets. These were only words, but the jittery markets saw them as a vote of confidence in the euro: They were spoken by the man who helps decide how China invests the largest currency reserves in the world.

By pledging to help the debt-stricken PIIGS countries, China is ultimately boosting its own industry. Beijing also expects the Europeans to be more compliant on the political front: At a summit of EU representatives in Brussels in October, Wen rejected demands to devalue the Chinese currency. China maintains an artificially low exchange rate for the yuan, also known as the renminbi. This allows the Chinese to keep their exports cheap - including to countries in the euro zone.

Blatter and South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, sitting alongside him at a press conference to discuss the legacy of the 2010 World Cup, both laughed awkwardly, as did several journalists present. But the Fifa president's response and that of the assembled audience provoked anger from John Amaechi, the former NBA basketball star who revealed he was gay in 2007. He accused Blatter of "epic ignorance".

Meanwhile, campaign groups said he risked undermining work to combat homophobia in football and called on him to apologise immediately or stand down. Lord Ouseley, chairman of the Kick It Out campaign, who today hosted a House of Lords reception to highlight its work in tackling racism and homophobia within football, said Blatter's comments were outrageous. "The whole thing is potentially calamitous," he said. "We've got some real dinosaurs right at the top end of these world bodies. Blatter talks a lot but doesn't deliver on these issues."

Chris Basiurski, chairman of the Gay Football Supporters' Network, said: "Many LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender] people live in countries where they would face execution or imprisonment if discovered. These people deserve our help, our respect and our support. They, like the rest of us, do not deserve to be laughed at. Mr Blatter should retract his remarks and apologise immediately. Otherwise, he should reconsider his position and resign."

Although China's business with Russia is only a sliver of what it does with the United States, there is room to grow: Russia is the world's largest energy exporting nation, and China a big consumer as the world's second-largest economy, behind the United States. And yet when a railroad tanker of Russian oil crosses the border into China, the transaction is settled in dollars.

The new currency exchange is meant to start changing that. The trading system will operate through the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange, or Micex, which is Russia's largest stock exchange and also handles foreign currency transactions. It will be the first trading in the Chinese currency outside mainland China and Hong Kong.

"We are pioneers," a Micex spokesman, Nikita N Bekasov, said in a telephone interview. In the long term, if other nations moved in the same direction, trading in renminbi outside China could diminish demand for the dollar. Chinese companies exporting to Russia or other countries could instead buy local currency directly, without the need for dollars as a common currency to conduct their business.

Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Lakin, an 18-year Army veteran from Greeley, disobeyed orders to report earlier this year to Fort Campbell in Kentucky to prepare for deployment, saying he believed the orders were illegal. In videos posted on YouTube, Lakin aligned himself with so-called "birthers" who question whether Obama is a natural-born citizen as the US Constitution requires for presidents.

Lakin said in the videos that any reasonable person looking at available evidence would have questions about Obama's eligibility to be president and that he had "no choice" but to disobey orders. Lakin said he would "gladly deploy" if Obama's original birth certificate were released and proved authentic.

Officials in Hawaii say they have seen and verified Obama's original 1961 birth certificate, which is on record with that state. But birthers have not been satisfied with that assurance or the "Certification of Live Birth" Obama has released, a digital document that is a record of a person's birth in the state but that does not list the name of the hospital where his mother gave birth or the physician who delivered him.

Air China is twice the size of either Delta in the US or Germany's Lufthansa. But despite emerging markets' strength and a broad earnings rebound this year, weak economic conditions in Europe and low margins are acting as a drag on profits, the group warned. "The world is changing in aviation, and it's changing very, very quickly," IATA Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani told a news conference in Geneva. "Rapidly developing markets are shifting the industry's center of gravity to the East." Air China has a market capitalization of $20 billion, followed by Singapore airlines with $14 billion and Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific with $12 billion.

China Southern has a market cap of $11 billion, as does LATAM, the Latin American airline recently created from the merger of Chile's LAN and TAM of Brazil. US carrier Delta and Germany's Lufthansa follow with market capitalizations of $10 billion each. IATA said strong growth in developing countries and a rebound in North America are largely responsible for the industry's recovery this year.

Airlines will see net profits of $15.1 billion in 2010, IATA said. This marks a massive turnaround from the $10 billion industry loss in 2009 and $16 billion loss in 2008. Recently introduced air travel taxes in Britain, Germany and Austria, and efforts to introduce a regional carbon emissions trading market harm Europe's competitiveness, he said, noting that these further squeeze profit margins for the continent's carriers.

"One says that we may now have an ecumenical winter," he reflected. "And as a Norwegian I ask back: What's so terrible in the winter? We know that winter can be beautiful... In the winter we have a time to think, to reflect on what we have been through and what we can expect from the future and prepare well."

Part of this future is a newly established annual meeting with the Vatican, set up as a fruit of Tveit's visit to the Pope and members of the Curia. The objective of the annual event is to "define a methodology of common witness and proclamation of the Gospel, to speak to the world with one voice, above all on ethical and theological topics," L'Osservatore Romano explained in a report Wednesday.

The annual meetings will be more intimate than the current workings on relations between the Church and the council. The current commission was created in 1965 and has 36 members, 18 from each side. Tveit and the Pope met privately on December 4 for about 15 minutes, and the pastor reported that the Holy Father offered his support and encouragement. Moreover, Benedict XVI urged putting "the Bible at the center of the theological talks and reflections, to reinforce the visible unity of Christians."

The report quoted one of the Jordanian heads of the project, Zia Madani, as saying that the search would begin in late December. The Russian company that was chosen as a partner for the search has special underwater exploration equipment that can stand up to the extreme salinity of the Dead Sea, the reports said.

Biblical archaeologists have several theories as to where the Sodom and its associated cities were located. According to the Torah, G-d overturned Sodom, Gomorrah, and three other cities because of their degeneration, sin and iniquity, turning a once fertile plain into a stark wasteland. Abraham, who prayed for the cities, was unable to prevent G-d from mandating their destruction. Archaeologists and geologists have suggested that a major earthquake or meteor storm might have been the means by which it occurred. Research has centered on the area around the Dead Sea, and the modern city of Sodom, and nearby Mount Sodom, which is made almost completely of rock salt, is considered the most likely site of the ancient cities.

According to Madani, further evidence that the cities remains are located on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea came after recent NASA photographs of the area indicated that the bottom of the sea is littered with debris and objects not found in other bodies of water. According to the Jordanian, Israel recently sent a submarine down into the Dead Sea in an attempt to explore the bottom of the sea, but discovered that the objects in the NASA photos were on the Jordanian side of the sea. Jordan prevented the Israelis from searching over the border, and now Jordan is seeking to discover what it believes are the remains of the cities by itself.

Landau pointed out that six years ago, then National Infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman presented a plan to desalinate water. That year was also a particularly dry year, said Landau, but several days after Lieberman presented his plan, heavy rains fell in Israel, causing the Finance Ministry to reject the plans and thus leaving the water situation to continue to deteriorate.

"Right now we are concerned with not dropping below the 'black lines'," said Landau and added that after years of a drought, the parched land is having difficulty absorbing the little amounts of rain which do fall.

Landau said that he presented worrying statistics prepared by experts on Israel's water crisis, during a meeting of the Knesset's ministers on Sunday which was aimed at discussing the crisis and how to resolve it before it is too late. "We presented general ideas for solving the crisis, and in three weeks' time we will offer practical solutions," said Landau, who emphasized the need for several government offices to work together to solve the crisis under the leadership of the prime minister.

But after he began attending Bedfordshire University in Luton "everything changed" as he became a strict Muslim with increasingly extremist views, even naming his baby son Osama in honour of the al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden. On Saturday he blew himself up in a street full of Christmas shoppers in Sweden's first suicide attack, after recording a message which promised to kill "your children, daughters, brothers and sisters" partly in revenge for the country's support role in Afghanistan.

Abdulwahab's radicalisation during his time in Luton once again raised questions over whether British universities are doing enough to stamp out the recruiting of extremists on campus. A close friend said the family had been shocked by his transformation from an ordinary teenager to a religious fanatic after he left for Britain.

"There is no doubt that Taimur changed when he went to Britain," said the friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He would drink beer with his friends and go to nightclubs. He didn't care about politics or religion. He even had an Israeli girlfriend. He had many girlfriends, he enjoyed life. His parents were even a little worried that he was having too much fun. But then he went to England to study in 2001 and everything changed."

"When he came back he had grown a beard and he was very serious. He talked about Afghanistan and religion and did not want to hang out with his friends. His parents were worried about him but they thought he was just going through a phase. No-one ever imagined anything like this. Everyone who knew him is devastated. His parents are heartbroken."

Minnesota and Wisconsin were hardest-hit by the blizzard, with more than 20 inches of snow piling up east of the Twin Cities and into western parts of Wisconsin Friday night into Saturday night. Snowfall totals reached 23.0 inches near Osceola, Wisconsin, 22.0 inches in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and 21.5 inches in New Market and Shakopee, Minnesota.

While Minnesota and Wisconsin bore the brunt of the blizzard, daily snowfall records were set all across the Midwest. Other major cities where records were set include Detroit with 6.3 inches, Indianapolis with 4.1 inches and St Louis with 4.4 inches. In each of these cities, this was the highest daily snowfall on December 12 in more than 100 years. The previous records were 4.0 inches for Detroit in 1893, 3.5 inches for Indianapolis in 1898 and 2.5 inches for St Louis in 1903.

For the United States, a loss of the top AAA rating, reduce the appeal of US Treasuries, which currently rank as among the world's safest investments. "From a credit perspective, the negative effects on government finance are likely to outweigh the positive effects of higher economic growth," Moody's analyst Steven Hess said in a report sent late on Sunday.

After Obama announced his plan, Treasury prices fell sharply in volatile trade last week and yields have hit a six-month high, in part due to concerns over the effect the package will have on government debt levels. If the bill becomes law, it will "adversely affect the federal government budget deficit and debt level," Moody's said.

On Monday, the Democratic-led US Congress moved toward grudging approval of President Obama's deal with Republicans to extend expiring tax cuts, even for the wealthiest Americans, Last week, Moody's and Fitch Ratings both expressed concerns about the US's rating longer term, with Moody's fearing the impact if the tax cuts become permanent. In a market obsessed with the euro sovereign debt crisis, the Moody's note reminded foreign exchange investors about their worries of growing US debt and was a factor pressuring the dollar on Monday.

Requiring Americans to buy insurance "would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers," wrote Judge Hudson, a George W. Bush appointee in the Eastern District of Virginia. "At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance - or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage - it's about an individual's right to choose to participate."

The Obama administration said it was confident higher courts would rule the law constitutional, and said it was weighing an appeal. "Challenges like this are nothing new," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday. "I don't think the decision today and how he decided it was a surprise to anybody here."

The lawsuit, brought by Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, is the first court ruling against the law since President Barack Obama signed it in March. More than 20 federal lawsuits have been filed against the overhaul, and judges in two of those cases ruled in favor of the Obama administration. The battle is expected to end up at the Supreme Court, though probably not until the 2011-12 term at the earliest.

"We've won the first round of this particular fight, but we know there are others to come," Mr Cuccinelli said. "This lawsuit is not about health care. It's about liberty."

"The August 1st event really opened our eyes," says Karel Schrijver of Lockheed Martin's Solar and Astrophysics Lab in Palo Alto, California. "We see that solar storms can be global events, playing out on scales we scarcely imagined before." For the past three months, Schrijver has been working with fellow Lockheed-Martin solar physicist Alan Title to understand what happened during the "Great Eruption." They had plenty of data: The event was recorded in unprecedented detail by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and twin STEREO spacecraft. With several colleagues present to offer commentary, they outlined their findings at a press conference today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Explosions on the sun are not localized or isolated events, they announced. Instead, solar activity is interconnected by magnetism over breathtaking distances. Solar flares, tsunamis, coronal mass ejections - they can go off all at once, hundreds of thousands of miles apart, in a dizzyingly-complex concert of mayhem. "To predict eruptions we can no longer focus on the magnetic fields of isolated active regions," says Title, "we have to know the surface magnetic field of practically the entire sun."

This revelation increases the work load for space weather forecasters, but it also increases the potential accuracy of their forecasts. "The whole-sun approach could lead to breakthroughs in predicting solar activity," commented Rodney Viereck of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. "This in turn would provide improved forecasts to our customers such as electric power grid operators and commercial airlines, who could take action to protect their systems and ensure the safety of passengers and crew."

In a paper they prepared for the Journal of Geophysical Research (JGR), Schrijver and Title broke down the Great Eruption into more than a dozen significant shock waves, flares, filament eruptions, and CMEs spanning 180 degrees of solar longitude and 28 hours of time. At first it seemed to be a cacophony of disorder until they plotted the events on a map of the sun's magnetic field. Title describes the Eureka! moment: "We saw that all the events of substantial coronal activity were connected by a wide-ranging system of separatrices, separators, and quasi-separatrix layers." A "separatrix" is a magnetic fault zone where small changes in surrounding plasma currents can set off big electromagnetic storms.

A deep divide runs through Europe, and Merkel is more isolated than ever within the circle of the EU's 27 heads of state and government. The chancellor sees herself confronted with the charge that she has focused exclusively on national interests in the euro crisis. Last week, in the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit, Juncker accused Merkel of "un-European behavior" and "simplistic thinking."

The premier of the Grand Duchy is not alone in his criticism. Many European leaders resent Merkel for the fact that Germany has recently been less flexible and not as enthusiastic about the EU as it used to be. Germany's understandable desire to not become Europe's paymaster doesn't give it the right to be its taskmaster, say critics from Lisbon to Helsinki.