Everyone aged 65 and over and younger people with certain health conditions are eligible for a free jab on the NHS, costing 115 million pounds. Every year more than 15 million people in England alone receive a free flu jab, with around three out of four aged 65 or over getting vaccinated.

Controversy has grown over the benefits of vaccinating those over 65, with at least two major studies in the past two years claiming they have been 'greatly exaggerated', and there are no figures to back up claims that lives are being saved. In a similar study in 2008, Dr Jefferson said there was little evidence to show the flu jab had any impact on the length of hospital stays, time off work and death rates in healthy adults.

The flu jab's co-inventor, biochemist Graeme Laver, told the Daily Mail in 2007 that the jab did not guarantee protection. Dr Laver, who died in 2008, said: 'I have never been very impressed with its efficacy. It is better than nothing and I wouldn't want to advise people not to take it, but you can't rely on it doing any good.'

The European Union has shown its righteous wrath by stripping Greece of its vote at a crucial meeting next month, the worst humiliation ever suffered by an EU member state. While the symbolic move to suspend Greece of its voting rights at one meeting makes no practical difference, it marks a constitutional watershed and represents a crushing loss of sovereignty.

"We certainly won't let them off the hook," said Austria's finance minister, Josef Proll, echoing views shared by colleagues in Northern Europe. Some German officials have called for Greece to be denied a vote in all EU matters until it emerges from "receivership". Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup, hinted that ministers have already agreed on a support mechanism, should it be necessary. It will most likely involve bilateral aid by eurozone states. He said proposals for an IMF bailout - backed by Britain - were "absurd" and would shatter the credibility of monetary union.

Many Germans disagree, including Otmar Issing, once the backbone of the European Central Bank. He said an EU rescue for Greece would be fatal, arguing that unflinching rigour is the only way to hold monetary union together without political union.

Commanders issued immediate apologies and renewed promises to try their utmost to avoid casualties among the population. However, Major General Nick Carter has now confirmed that the destroyed house was being used by the Taliban to launch attacks. "We know now that the missile arrived at the target that it was supposed to arrive at," he said via video link from Lashkar Gah, in the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

During a briefing on the progress of Operation Moshtarak, the largest offensive against the Taliban in the conflict so far, he added: "It wasn't a rogue missile. There was no technical fault in it." Use of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) has been reinstated.

Major General Carter said there had been "conflicting" reports in the first 24 hours, which he blamed on "the fog of war", but said investigations had revealed procedures governing the use of the HIMARS were "as they should be". He added that "we are being very careful, though, with any aerial delivered munitions" to avoid similar incidents.

The sudden pullout of three corporate giants from a leading alliance of businesses and environmental groups could be the death knell for climate change legislation languishing on Capitol Hill. ConocoPhillips, BP America and Caterpillar's announced Tuesday they will pull out of the US Climate Action Partnership, citing complaints that the bills now in Congress are unfair to American industry.

BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell said Tuesday's announcements are not a statement on the likelihood that climate change legislation will fail. "I would never speculate as to what would happen with a pending piece of legislation," Chappell said. But he said the bills on the table no longer "conform" with what USCAP envisioned for a climate change bill. He said the legislation - including one bill that passed the House but is stalled in the Senate - does not provide adequate protections to US refineries.

If any bills are passed, they will result in more oil imports, the closure of US refineries and the loss of US jobs. Plus he said it's too hard on the transportation sector. "We do not believe that the bills now pending in Congress conform to the USCAP blueprint, in that a disproportionate share of the emissions reductions and disproportionate share of the cost fall on the transportation sector and on transportation consumers and motorists," he said. Both BP America and Caterpillar were founding members of the group.

The embattled ex-head of the research center at the heart of the Climate-gate scandal dropped a bombshell over the weekend, admitting in an interview with the BBC that there has been no global warming over the past 15 years.

Fears of an anti-gay backlash across Africa are intensifying after the prosecution of the first gay couple to seek marriage in Malawi, and thousands of Ugandans demonstrated this week in support of a bill proposing the death penalty for some offences involving homosexual acts. Last week five men were arrested at an alleged gay wedding in Kenya.

Dave Chingwalu, a spokesman for police in Malawi, said a 60-year-old man was arrested yesterday and charged with sodomy. Chingwalu said he received a complaint from a young man that he had been asked to undress by the older man and was then sodomised. Police investigations had uncovered a network of high-profile people involved in homosexual acts, investigations were under way "and we will arrest them all", Chingwalu said.

The Ugandan parliament is considering a bill that would impose life imprisonment as the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex. If the accused person is HIV positive or a serial offender, or a "person of authority" over the other partner, or if the "victim" is under 18, a conviction will result in the death penalty. Members of the public are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police within 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail. "It is an offence, an unnatural offence, and also their behaviour is repugnant to the morality of the people," District Officer George Matandura said.

Argentina claims sovereignty over the British Overseas Territory, and it invaded the islands in 1982. The UK sent a taskforce which seized back control over the Falklands. Although that conflict was 28 years ago, tensions remain over the islands - which Argentina calls the Islas Malvinas.

Earlier this month, Argentina protested to the UK about the start of the oil drilling work, which is expected to begin in the first half of this year. The announcement on the tougher rules on ship movements was made by the Argentine government's Cabinet Chief Anibal Fernandez.

The Argentine decree seeks to achieve "not only a defence of Argentine sovereignty but also of all the resources" in the area, Mr Fernandez said.

In all existing life forms, the four "letters" of the genetic code, called nucleotides, are read in triplets, so that every three nucleotides encode a single amino acid. Not any more. Jason Chin at the University of Cambridge and his colleagues have now redesigned the cell's machinery so that it reads the genetic code in quadruplets.

In the genetic code that life has used up to now, there are 64 possible triplet combinations of the four nucleotide letters; these genetic "words" are called codons. Each codon either codes for an amino acid or tells the cell to stop making a protein chain. Now Chin's team have created 256 blank four-letter codons that can be assigned to amino acids that don't even exist yet.

"It's a very impressive advance that opens up new theoretical horizons in synthetic biology," says genomics pioneer Craig Venter, who heads his own institute in Rockville, Maryland, and is currently trying to create a synthetic organism from scratch.

Participants discussed a book published last October, "Harvesting the Fruits: Basic Aspects of Christian Faith in Ecumenical Dialogue." The book is a compilation of the results of forty years of bilateral dialogues between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Lutheran Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Anglican Communion and the World Methodist Council. The council noted that it also "raises important questions for the future direction and content of ecumenical discussion."

The symposium aimed not only "to take account of the many elements of agreement produced by forty years of official dialogue, but to consider ways of communicating this remarkable achievement to the members of all the various Christian communities," the council stated. The theologians made a "detailed examination of the question of reception of joint statements and agreements, the need for the common witness of Christians at every level, and the changed context in which Christianity must undertake its mission."

They also discussed how ecumenical dialogue should take place in the future, and what steps should be made toward the goal of "full and visible communion. The many positive suggestions that it produced will be taken forward to the plenary of the Pontifical Council in November 2010," the communique noted. It added that the participants "affirmed that the ability to call together meetings of this nature is a particular potential of Rome, indicating the wider service that the Petrine ministry can offer to ecumenism."

The so-called 'swap' deal, while permitted under EU rules, helped Greece meet eurozone limits on government borrowing. Greece's vast deficits caused it to fail the criteria for joining the single European currency in 1999, but it succeeded in 2001. Member nations had to reduce their budget deficit to less than 3 per cent of gross domestic product and trim national debt to less than 60 per cent of GDP. The Greek deficit stands at nearly 13 per cent of GDP and public debt is almost twice the official ceiling at 113 per cent of GDP.

Under the deal between Goldman and Greece, the country's government effectively obtained a 640 million pounds loan without adding to its public debt burden. This was achieved because the arrangement was treated as a 'currency trade'. The allegations prompted uproar in Europe, where ministers are meeting to discuss a possible Greek bailout. EU authorities demanded that Athens come clean over its financial engineering.

Yesterday he tabled a Parliamentary question asking the Chancellor whether Britain was party to similar dealings with investment banks. A Treasury spokesman said: 'The UK does not use swaps of any type for debt management purposes and has not done so under the current arrangements for debt management.' However, Britain is known to have moved billions of pounds of liabilities off the government books through mechanisms such as the public finance initiative.

Today Barclays is expected to announce record profits of 11 billion pounds and a bonus pot of 4.5 billion pounds. Other banks are set to follow with results over the next fortnight, and it is predicted that 10,000 City workers will walk away with pay and bonuses topping 1 million pounds each. Today's survey by the Institute of Directors makes a mockery of boasts by Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling that the Government ordered the banks to start lending again as payback for pumping 850 billion pounds into the economy.

IoD director general Miles Templeman said: 'The fact that more than half of all businesses seeking finance last year were turned away by their banks is totally incompatible with the banking sector's position on the state of lending in the UK. What is even more concerning is that having been rejected, 83 per cent of businesses are not receiving information about alternatives available to them, including the Government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee. It seems that more businesses are turning to forms of unsecured finance, such as credit cards, to get them through their short-term spending needs.'

The IoD survey of 1,000 businesses is particularly significant because the Institute represents company directors who employ an average of 20 to 30 people - the very entrepreneurs whose desire to expand will be critical to creating jobs and dragging Britain out of recession.

The currency's surge is throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of corporations and investors who were betting on a weak dollar. The euro extended recent declines Monday, slipping to $1.36 from $1.3618. That came on the heels of last week's fifth-straight weekly gain by the US currency. The dollar is up more than 5% against the euro this year.

Sentiment has flipped on the world's two major currencies. Greece's woes amid a soaring deficit have exposed the fragility of the 16-nation euro zone's government finances and the Continent's recovery, overshadowing any nervousness about the American economy and the massive US budget deficit.

The European Central Bank is now seen as having to delay interest-rate increases in order to prop up growth, while the Federal Reserve appears on track to begin tightening credit sooner rather than later. Higher rates tend to draw investment into a currency, all things being equal, thus boosting the dollar's prospects over the euro's. Suddenly, the US, with its 5.7% economic growth rate in the fourth quarter, is shaping up as a safe haven once again.

Four bishops criticised for failing to address concerns about abuse have already resigned. But victims say more must be done to restore public trust. Last year, a report was highly critical of the Dublin Archdiocese's handling of priests who were suspected sex abusers. The Murphy Commission laid bare a culture of concealment where Church leaders prioritised the protection of their own institution above that of vulnerable children in their care, and often failed to pass on details to the police.

The Pope has said he is "disturbed and distressed" by the report and shares the "outrage, betrayal and shame" felt by Irish people. He said the scandal was "humiliating" but that the Church must face the challenge. "Every kind of challenge can become a reason for purification and sanctification as long as it is illuminated by faith," he said.

BBC religious affairs correspondent Christopher Landau says bishops from a particular country normally visit the Vatican around once every five years. But the Pope has summoned Ireland's bishops for a special two-day meeting, specifically to address the issue that has severely undermined Catholicism's standing there, our correspondent says. The Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin - the Murphy report - published in November, found the Church had "obsessively" hidden child abuse from 1975 to 2004, and operated a policy of "don't ask, don't tell".

"The UK jobs market is still on the ropes," the CIPD said. Unemployment currently stands at 2.46 million. The number of people out of work had been steadily rising since the summer of 2008, but saw a surprise fall in the three months to November. The latest unemployment figures will be announced on Wednesday.

John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the CIPD, said that although the number of people in public sector jobs had actually risen during the recession, the tide was already turning. "Despite the jobs market proving resilient in recent months, this represents a mere pause for breath with the number of redundancies easing in the private sector and spending cuts yet to be felt by large swathes of the public sector," he said.

"Unfortunately, there are more testing rounds ahead. Alongside the spectre of deep public spending cuts, the private sector will be dealing with ongoing concerns about productivity, wage costs and inflation." The CIPD's survey of more than 700 employers found that firms in all sectors plan to cut 6.2% of their workforce in the first three months of 2010, compared with 3.8% in the previous quarter. In the public sector, defence and public administration look set to be hit particularly hard.

A rift in the fragile power-sharing government developed after PM Raila Odinga announced the suspension of two ministers after corruption scandals. President Mwai Kibaki annulled the suspensions, saying the Mr Odinga did not have the power to take the action. The head of Transparency International in Kenya, Job Ogonda, said the political dispute in Kenya's coalition government was sending out a very dangerous message.

It was showing that the struggle for power was more important than the fight against corruption and this, he said, would have dire consequences come the next election. "In 2012 it's very likely we're going to have a meltdown," said Mr Ogonda. "We have the significant risk that Kenya will be generating to a failed state."

"This is how in Sierra Leone and indeed Liberia were fomented: the executive being eliminated and oblivious for the failed state risks that corruption causes especially where the population is young, educated and unemployed".

The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Oasis are among the British artists featured in the chart in the the Holy See's newspaper. L'Osservatore Romano, said the 10 albums were the perfect listening material for anyone who found themselves marooned on a desert island. The paper said its "semi-serious" list including the likes of Michael Jackson, U2 and Carlos Santana was offered as an alternative to the cheesy tunes that feature at the San Remo festival in Liguria, in north-eastern Italy, which starts tomorrow.

Aside from British and American artists, the only other nationality to be represented in the list was Ireland, with U2's Achtung Baby, released in 1991. No Italian groups or singers appeared in the top ten. L'Osservatore Romano wrote in an editorial yesterday (Sunday): "A little handbook of musical resistance could be useful during this time of the year in which, in addition to having put up with the rigours of winter, we have to endure a rising tide of musical festivals."

"So as not to be totally overwhelmed, and to remember that an alternative exists, our modest guide can point you on the road to good music."

THE TOP TEN (In order of release)

1. Revolver by the Beatles

2. If I could Only Remember My Name by David Crosby

3. The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

4. Rumours by Fleetwood Mac

5. The Nightfly by Donald Fagen

6. Thriller by Michael Jackson

7. Graceland by Paul Simon

8. Achtung Baby by U2

9. (What's the story) Morning Glory by Oasis

10. Supernatural by Carlos Santana