In Britain the disease, officially known as phytophthora ramorum, spared oaks and jumped to rhododendrons and Japanese larch trees. In the last year it has taken hold along the west of the country in larch plantations, including more than 120 Forestry Commission sites, 20 National Trust properties and two Woodland Trust reserves. Already 4 million trees have been felled or marked for destruction.

More are expected to be chopped down in the coming years because the warmer, wetter conditions expected with climate change encourage the spread of the disease. In the latest cull, a landowner in the Quantock Hills in Somerset was forced to cut down 50,000 trees, while the National Trust chopped down 10,000 larch trees in the area. Landowners face crippling costs for felling sick trees, while walkers are urged to disinfect boots to stop P. ramorum, which is a fungal disease, spreading on their feet.

Philip Chambers, the owner of Milverton Sawmill, in Taunton, Somerset, said that landowners had been forced to pay to chop down larch trees even though the timber was worth very little because of oversupply. He compared the situation to the foot and mouth crisis when farmers were forced to cull their cows to stop the disease spreading. "It is for trees what foot and mouth was for cows, except there is no compensation for the landed gentry," he said.

Experts from the Forestry Commission are carrying out inspections across Britain and will order a cull wherever the disease is found.

It takes hold quickly, causing bleeding lesions, blackened or wilted leaves and, ultimately, death. It can also affect garden shrubs, such as rhododendron and camellia.

Among the organizations and persons Danon intends to invite to the committee, he lists:

• B'tselem - director, Jessica Montel

• The Center for Defense of the Individual - director, Dalia Kirstein

• Yesh Din - director, Roi Maor

• Ir Amim - director, Yehudit Oppenheimer

• The Public Committee against Torture in Israel - director, Yishai Blanc

• Adallah - director, Mahmoud Yazbek

• Peace Now - director, Yariv Oppenheimer

• Gisha - director, Kenneth Mann

• Association for Civil Rights ion Israel - President, Sami Michael

• Mousawa - Anwar Jamal, Tariq Bashir, Jafer Farah

• as well as: Breaking the Silence, Machsom Watch, The Israeli Committee against Home Demolitions and the Center for Alternative Information.

Danon said that "it is time to find out the sources of the monies for these groups that act without letup against the state of Israel." He added: "We will try to find out who are the ones who arrange the riots at the Bil'in checkpoint, who funded the legal motions in the matter of Highway 443. We will reveal the bodies that roam the Galilee and purchase private lands with Saudi money. The leftists seem afraid and they must have a reason for fearing this committee."

The committee does not have powers of subpoena and is no different from other Knesset committees as far as its powers. Danon is optimistic, however: "I hope we can stop these groups, which received 40 million shekels from the European Union in the last five years alone... We will try to discover the truth and in the end we will recommend changes in legislation as well."

A statement on the State Department website noted: "These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child's parents and in recognition of different types of families."

The State Department said the new passport applications, not yet available to the public, will be available online soon. Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness. "We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago," she said.

Gay rights groups are applauding the decision. "Changing the term 'mother' and 'father' to the more global term of parent allows many different types of families to be able to go and apply for a passport for their child without feeling like the government doesn't recognize their family," said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council. Her organization lobbied the government for several years to remove the words from passport applications.

Bank shares fell, weighing on broader stock indexes, on fears the decision could threaten lenders' ability to work through hundreds of thousands of pending foreclosures. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts' unanimous decision on Friday upheld a lower court ruling. It is among the earliest cases to address the validity of foreclosures done without proper documentation.

That issue, including the use of "robo-signers" who approved foreclosure documents without reviewing them, last year prompted an uproar that led lenders such as Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Ally Financial Inc to temporarily stop seizing homes. "A ruling like this will slow down the foreclosure process" for lenders, said Marty Mosby, an analyst at Guggenheim Securities in Memphis, Tennessee. "They're going to have to be really precise and get everything in order. It doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room."

Wells Fargo and US Bancorp lacked authority to foreclose after having "failed to make the required showing that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of foreclosure," Justice Ralph Gants wrote for the Massachusetts court. In a concurring opinion, Justice Robert Cordy lambasted "the utter carelessness" that the banks demonstrated in documenting their right to own the properties. Courts in other US states are considering similar cases, and all 50 state attorneys general are examining whether lenders are forcing people out of their homes improperly.

Analysts said the decision may also raise the specter that loans transferred improperly will need to be bought back. "What they were doing was peddling these mortgages and leaving the paperwork behind," said Michael Pill, a real estate partner at Green, Miles, Lipton & Fitz-Gibbon LLP in Northampton, Massachusetts who is not involved in the case. The Massachusetts court rejected a request by the banks to apply the decision only in future cases, leaving homeowners already foreclosed upon without a remedy. Gants chided the banks for ignoring settled rules in their "rush" to sell mortgage-backed securities.

Glenn Russell, a lawyer for the LaRaces, said in an interview. "The fact the decision applies retroactively could mean thousands of homeowners can seek recovery for homes wrongfully foreclosed upon."

While the students insisted it was a joke, Sadler noted they were arrested on the same day a suspended 17-year-old student in Omaha, Nebraska, fatally shot an assistant principal and wounded his principal before fleeing the campus and taking his own life. "School shootings really happen. That's why we took it seriously," Sadler told The Associated Press on Friday. "It's not OK, and it's not funny in this day and age if you're going to make a threat against a teacher."

The 12- and 13-year-old students were arrested after allegedly posting threatening statements against six teachers at the two schools. One student used the word "die" before a teacher's name, while others wrote that they would "attack" certain teachers, Sadler said. "Even if the six girls meant it as a joke, there's no way to know if the other students who accepted the invitation weren't going to carry out the attacks in some fashion," Rivera said. "The school shooting in Nebraska is just another thing that shows us you can't take this kind of situation lightly."

Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong said the case demonstrates the need for parents to monitor their children's online activities. "They made some pretty violent comments about some teachers, and this isn't even close to a joke," he said. "Children's stresses are so great that they can act out on their frustrations. Parents need to monitor what their kids are doing on communication devices."

Militant websites have posted a list of churches to be targeted. There are "how-to" manuals with tips on "destroying the cross". One site offered a reward to anyone who assassinated "a leading Church figure".

These incidents follow a recent trend of attacks on churches and Christians across the Middle East. In October in Baghdad nearly 60 people were killed when gunmen attacked the Syriac Catholic Cathedral. Only last week bombs were placed near the homes of 14 Christian families in the Iraqi capital.

Concern has been raised, but there has been an absence of international outrage. France is trying to change that. Its Foreign Minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, wants a European response. She has written to the EU's foreign affairs czar, Catherine Ashton, asking for the union to draw up a plan of action in response to what is happening to Christians in the Middle East. She is putting the defence of Christians on the agenda and specifically wants Europe's foreign ministers to respond. She said we had moved beyond the situation of being "simply sad and disturbed".

Her intervention has been followed up by President Sarkozy. He said Christian minorities are victims of "religious cleansing" in the Middle East. "We cannot accept," said the French president, "and thereby facilitate, what looks more and more like a particularly wicked programme of cleansing in the Middle East - religious cleansing". Even in Europe churches are having to be protected. In France, 19 were cordoned off by police during this period. Similar measures were taken in Germany. There were threats against St Mark's Church in Frankfurt.

Many are looking to the European Union to play a leading role. Yesterday the leader of the Copts in the UK, Dr Ibrahim Habib, was interviewed by the BBC and said "the EU has a duty to protect Coptic Christians". Others are calling on the EU to "defend religious freedom". In the weeks ahead Europe will be asked to act in defence of the rights of Christians.

The incident is the latest mass animal death to hit the headlines in the last two weeks.

These include:

• 450 red-winged blackbirds, brown-headed cowbirds, grackles and starlings found littering a highway in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

• 3,000 blackbirds on roofs and roads in the small town of Beebe, Arkansas

• Thousands of 'devil crabs' washed up along the Kent coast near Thanet

• Thousands of drum fish washed along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River

• Two million small fish in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland

• Thousands of dead fish found floating in warm Florida creek

• Hundreds of snapper fish found dead in New Zealand

• Scores of American Coots found dead on Texas highway bridge

Experts have speculated that New Year fireworks, thunderstorms, cold weather, parasites and even poisoning may be behind the deaths.

But conspiracy theorists have also speculated on the internet that secret government experiments could be behind them, with some even claiming it was a sign of a looming Armageddon at the end of the Mayan calendar next year.

"With the euro zone's three weakest issuers coming to market next week in the space of two days it ramps up the tension," said Orlando Green, strategist at Credit Agricole in London. "There has to be some repricing to get (the auctions) done, but will it be enough? That depends on investor appetite."

Greece and then Ireland were frozen out of debt markets and forced to seek bailouts from the European Union/IMF in 2010 as a result of large budget deficits and banking sector weakness. Consequently, debt supply from other struggling euro zone states is set to be a key driver of sentiment in the coming months, with Portugal seen as the next most likely to seek aid. "It's pretty concerning the way the periphery is trading at the moment, and we haven't even started supply yet... with Spain and Italy also selling (next week) it's going to be pretty difficult times," a trader said.

But the domino effect of the dispute - led by union firebrand 'Red' Len McCluskey - also threatens fuel supplies to industry, hospitals, schools and the homes of old and vulnerable people who use oil central heating. The strike action planned by Mr McCluskey's union Unite, Britain's biggest, is confirmed in internal documents seen by The Mail on Sunday.

Mr McCluskey, who likes quoting Communist guerilla leader Che Guevara, called out 'rubbish' when new Labour leader Ed Miliband condemned irresponsible industrial action in his speech to the party's conference last autumn. Soon after, Britain's most powerful union baron declared: 'There is no such thing as an irresponsible strike. Workers take strike action because they genuinely feel there is nothing else they can do.'

A ballot will take up to a month to conduct. The union must give seven days' notice of action. Unite's National Oil Trades Conference sub-group, which meets on Tuesday, is expected to agree to ballot for a strike. The union's larger National Oil Trades Conference is expected to rubber stamp the decision the next day.

Those named include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and an Icelandic MP. The US is examining possible charges against Mr Assange over the leaking of 250,000 classified diplomatic cables. Reports indicate the Department of Justice may seek to indict him on charges of conspiring to steal documents with Private First Class Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst.

The subpoena requested the details of Mr Assange, Pfc Manning and Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir, as well as Dutch hacker Rop Gonggrijp and US programmer Jacob Appelbaum, both of whom have previously worked with Wikileaks. The information sought includes mailing addresses and billing information, connection records and session times, IP addresses used to access Twitter, email accounts, as well as the "means and source of payment".

Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology correspondent, BBC News, comments: "As the Wikileaks saga has unfolded, Twitter has been one of the main forums where supporters and opponents of the whistle-blowing site have debated the issues. Now the social network has been dragged into the affair, as the US authorities pursue a case against Wikileaks."

"This leaves Twitter executives in a very difficult position. Like all social networks, they have been keen to stress that they comply with local laws, especially when it comes to tracking down criminals. But they have also been eager to promote Twitter's role as a forum for free expression in countries like Iran. If confidential details of overseas Twitter users are disclosed to the US authorities, how keen will an international audience be to trust this or other American social networks in future?"

Transport police were ordered to cancel their leave so extra officers could be deployed across the Tube and busy airports, including Luton and Heathrow. Security is likely to be ramped up, with potential extra restrictions for travellers. There has not been a successful attack on the London transport system since 52 were killed on July 7, 2005.

It also emerged the emergency services have been briefed about how to respond to a copy of the 2008 Mumbai machine gun attacks. Terrorists spread out across the Indian city - slaughtering more than 160 people at a string of busy locations, including a train station. The increased terror alert, confirmed in a memo sent to staff at airports and Transport for London yesterday, follows a string of warnings that Britain could face a new Al Qaeda-inspired attack.

Last month, the police and security services disrupted an alleged plot for a Christmas bomb blitz in London. Potential targets included the London Eye tourist attraction, the Stock Exchange and Mayor Boris Johnson, it was claimed.

Nine suspects appeared in court over Christmas in connection with the allegations. In October, an attempt was made to bring down at least two cargo jets with devices packed with the powerful explosive hidden inside printer cartridges. One of the cartridges, which was timed to explode in a Lockerbie-style atrocity, was discovered after the plane landed at East Midlands Airport.

The Old Bailey heard that they chased Nicholas Pearton and plunged a knife five inches through his back and into his heart.

As they made off on a bus, the killers were apparently seen bragging and laughing about the attack, with one holding a knife high above his head as he chanted the name of their gang.

In a sickening gesture of congratulations, two of the alleged killers are captured on CCTV shaking hands as they sat on the bus. Others shouted foul-mouthed abuse about their victim, yelling: 'I wish the ****er would die.' As the gang fled, Nicholas's parents rushed from their nearby home to cradle their dying son who lay slumped on the ground.

His death was the result of rivalry between two gangs, the Black Mafia and the Shanks and Guns, prosecutor Edward Brown QC told the court. Nicholas went to help his friends in the Black Mafia gang in nearby Home Park after hearing they were embroiled in a fight with the rival gang. But when he arrived his gang 'evaporated'. Nicholas, the only white boy involved, was left alone in the park, making him an easy target, Mr Brown said.

The 52 men and women meeting in a conference room at the Hotel Maritim in Berlin's Tiergarten district were determined to remain undisturbed. No one else was privy to the location and time of the meeting, in a deliberate attempt to prevent protestors and journalists from showing up at the scene. The only outsider present was Daniel Pipes, an American author, critic of Islam and advisor to former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who happened to be in the city.

The Hotel Maritim is on Stauffenbergstrasse, near the Memorial to the German Resistance. It is an historic point of reference that the 52 attendees would likely have drawn encouragement from. Like would-be Hitler assassin Claus von Stauffenberg, after whom the street is named, they too hope to protect Germany against what they perceive to be pending disaster. The group drafted a set of bylaws and discussed a 77-page party platform, which includes such statements as: "We will do everything in our power to oppose the Islamization of our country."

They gave their party a grand name, a name worth fighting for: "Die Freiheit" (Freedom). "If we don't get things right demographically, we'll have Algeria in Berlin before long. Islam has always been a religion of conquest," Stadtkewitz says.

In a letter the Senate's top legislator, Geithner asked for permission to increase the national debt from the 14.29 trillion dollar limit set last year. Geithner warned that ceiling would be reached as early as this March, and called on Congress to act to avoid the threat of default.

Birthers accuse Obama of not having been born in the US, despite the release of his birth certificate showing that he was born in Hawaii. Capitol Police arrested Theresa Cao, 48, and charged her with unlawful conduct and disrupting Congress. Cao has been released from police custody, according to a department spokeswoman.

Update, 3:51 pm: In an interview to air this evening on NBC Nightly News, House Speaker John Boehner (Republican for Ohio) reacted to the outburst and said he believed Obama is a US citizen. "The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there," Boehner said. "That's good enough for me."