Wildfires are common during the summer, and experts had warned that this year's fires could be particularly bad after one of the warmest winters on record. Some parts of the country have also been suffering from years of drought, making them more susceptible to fire damage.

Two major blazes broke out on Tuesday afternoon local time in a wheat- and sheep-farming district, forcing the evacuation of Toodyay, a township, and threatening a second town, Badgingarra, further north. The state Fire and Emergency Services Authority (Fesa) said at least 37 houses had been destroyed.

Australia is still recovering from "Black Saturday" in February, when 173 people died and more than 2,000 homes were lost in the state of Victoria in the country's worst natural disaster of modern times. In the aftermath of "Black Saturday", officials issued a new level of "catastrophic" fire warning. Parts of Western Australia were given this "catastrophic" rating earlier on Wednesday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam before changing planes for a flight to Detroit on which he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb. The Netherlands is to introduce body scanners on US flights within weeks.

Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst said Mr Abdulmutallab did not raise any concerns as he passed through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to board the flight. She said the airport would be able to use body scanners on all flights to the US from the airport in three weeks, adding that they would be a permanent fixture.

US President Barack Obama has said security failures were unacceptable. He has said a systemic failure allowed Mr Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, to fly to the US on 25 December despite family members warning officials in November that he had extremist views.

He was overpowered by some of the 278 passengers and 11 crew. Reports say he burnt his leg. Police in London are searching a house where the man is thought to have lived. The suspect is believed to have studied at a university in the city. President Barack Obama, on holiday in Hawaii, has ordered increased security for air travel. Nigeria has ordered its security agencies to investigate the incident and verify the suspect's identity and motives. It has also said they will "co-operate fully" with the US investigations.

Officials have described the device the suspect allegedly tried to ignite as a mixture of powder and liquid which failed to go off properly. One terrorism expert said it looked as though a new way of concealing explosives on the body was involved. The suspect's name was in a database indicating "a significant terrorist connection" although it did not appear on a "no-fly" list, said Mr King. Fellow passenger Melinda Dennis said the man had been severely burned on one leg, and a fire extinguisher and water were used to put out the fire.

The suspect later told the US authorities he had had explosive powder taped to his leg and used a syringe of chemicals to mix with the powder that was to cause an explosion, the ABC television network reports. Dr Sally Leivesley, an adviser on terrorism and public protection, told the BBC: "This has looked as though it's a first attempt of a new way to use the body to conceal explosives. They may be concealing the explosives on the human body - but on the inside upper leg, and we only know this by seeing a very badly burnt leg on the suspected perpetrator."

"The storm is spanning two thirds of the country," said Chris Vaccaro, a spokesman for the National Weather Service. "Its effects run the gamut from severe thunderstorms in the Gulf Coast to ice in New England to really what is a raging blizzard in the lower plains," he added.

Parts of at least 10 central states, stretching from North Dakota to Oklahoma in the south, are now under blizzard warnings. The storm knocked out power to more than 10,000 homes and businesses in the state, officials said. The capital, Oklahoma City was hit by 14in (35cm) of snow by Thursday night, eclipsing the record of 2.5in set in 1914.

Winds of up to 50mph (80kph) buffeted central Kansas, while gusts of up to 65mph in Texas left 5ft (1.5m) snow drifts in some areas. The storm began in the south-west on Tuesday before spreading to the east and north. The Midwest storm comes as the East Coast recovers from record snowfall last weekend, which brought much of the capital, Washington DC, to a standstill.

"We do not wish for war. We wish for calm and peace for our people," Abu Ubaida, spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said late on Wednesday from the cover of an orchard in the Gaza Strip. "But if any battle is imposed on us, we are ready with all our manpower and equipment to confront any Zionist war, any crime and any attack regardless of scale."

Israel has said the brigades, which some observers estimate have 25,000 fighters, have been seeking Syrian and Iranian help to upgrade their rocket capabilities and put the Israeli heartland and the commercial capital of Tel Aviv within range.

The Senate's rare Christmas Eve vote, 60-39, follows House passage last week and raises the debt ceiling by $290 billion. The vote split mainly down party lines, with Democrats voting to raise the limit and Republicans voting against doing so. There was one defection on each side, by senators whose seats will be on the ballot next year: GOP Senator George Voinovich of Ohio and Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.

"I would not support raising the debt ceiling because Congress has not adopted a credible process to restrain spending and eliminate red ink," Bayh said in a statement after the vote. The bill permits the Treasury Department to issue enough bonds to fund the government's operations and programs until mid-February. The Senate will vote again on the issue January 20.

Obama must sign the measure into law to prevent a market-rattling, first-ever default on US obligations. The government piled up a record $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 to counter a meltdown in financial markets and help bring the nation out of its worst recession in seven decades.

The Vatican said the 82-year-old Benedict was unhurt in the fall and that his busy Christmas schedule would remain unchanged. French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, an 87-year-old Vatican diplomat, fractured his hip in the commotion and will be operated on at Rome's Gemelli hospital, Vatican spokesman the Reverend Federico Lombardi said.

Lombardi identified the woman who toppled Benedict as Susanna Maiolo, 25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems. He said Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary treatment.

She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year's Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said. In that case, Maiolo jumped the barricade but never managed to reach the pope and was quietly tackled by security. In both cases she wore a red sweatshirt.

The most expensive law is the Working Time Directive, passed in 1998, costing £3.5 billion annually. The law has been widely criticised for imposing expensive rules on working hours, rest periods, pay and holiday entitlements, and a Government-funded report published last month also partly blamed the regulation for an increase in hospital deaths by breaking the continuity in NHS patients' care and cutting the time available for training some operating theatre staff.

Other expensive legislation includes the noise at work regulations, seen as excessively intrusive, particularly for restricting the work of noisy orchestras. Its cost is forecast to hit £586m. Open Europe's Mats Persson was quoted in the Sunday Times saying, "Far too many [EU laws] are OVERLY PRESCRIPTIVE AND UNNECESSARILY BURDENSOME for business, the public sector and individuals."

"SEVENTY-TWO PER CENT OF THE COST OF REGULATION IN THIS COUNTRY STEMS FROM EU LAWS. An incoming government must take a radical new approach to EU over-regulation and must be much tougher and smarter when negotiating in Europe."

Most Americans do not hold a clue as to Islam's systematic incursion into the United States. In 1990, a total of 100,000 Muslims made less than a ripple within America. But, because of the late Senator Teddy Kennedy's corruption of immigration and aided by our US Congress, today, MUSLIMS NUMBER FROM EIGHT TO NINE MILLION.

They enclave as they push regular Americans out of cities and towns across America. Detroit, Michigan suffers 600,000 Middle Eastern immigrants. Notice it also suffers 50 percent illiteracy and a 76 percent dropout rate from their high schools. They find themselves better served by sticking together with their religion, language and customs. THEY WORK AGAINST EVERY ASPECT OF 'ASSIMILATING' INTO AMERICA.

For simple examples of their 'separating' themselves from host countries, you may look at France, United Kingdom, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Germany, Norway and other countries overtaken by Muslims. They literally create an antagonistic culture within the host country. As of December, 2009, THEY BOAST OF 1,209 MOSQUES in America; most built with Saudi Arabia oil money.

But as the US Senate prepares to vote on a health-care reform bill that would still leave 23 million people - or nearly 8% of the US population - uninsured, it's becoming clear that the coverage being proposed would be far from universal.

To be fair, both the Senate and House versions of health reform legislation would help many of the US's estimated 54 million uninsured get some form of health insurance. About 31 million would gain coverage under the Senate bill and 36 million under the more generous - and more expensive - House's, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But even the House bill, which passed on November 7, would still leave 6% of the country, or 18 million individuals (more than the entire population of the Netherlands, which incidentally, recently overhauled its health care system to offer universal coverage), without insurance.

The pregnant mother was stabbed to death as her husband and 3-year-old son looked on helplessly. After protests swept the Arab world, Wiens was sentenced to life in prison in November for what the court deemed a racially motivated murder.

Though shocking in its brutality, the attack was not an anomaly in Germany — authorities say the country has experienced a disturbing rise in extreme right-wing violence in recent years. The Federal Criminal Police Office (or BKA) said in a report released last week that politically and racially motivated crimes by the far right hit A RECORD HIGH OF MORE THAN 20,000 IN 2008. Figures for 2009 won't be released until early next year, but the BKA expects them also to be above normal.

"On average, two to three far-right motivated violent crimes are committed in Germany each day. And there are around three to four anti-Semitic violent crimes each month," says Jörg Ziercke, the president of the BKA. "There's a real danger to people's lives because FAR-RIGHT ATTACKS TEND TO BE VERY SPONTANEOUS, BRUTAL AND VIOLENT." Right-wing radicals have become increasingly brazen, too, carrying out attacks in public places, such as train stations, bus stops and outside bars and restaurants. In addition to el-Sherbini's murder, Ziercke says there were five politically or racially motivated attempted murders by the far right in 2009.

Ziercke says that in light of the new statistics, police surveillance of extremists should be stepped up dramatically in the New Year. Sadly, for a country that has long tried to live down its Nazi past, THE WAVE OF RIGHT-WING VIOLENCE SHOWS LITTLE SIGN OF RELENTING.

The US military invented the Internet 40 years ago. WHY CAN'T IT SIMPLY HUNT DOWN AND DESTROY THE WEBSITES THAT INSPIRE MURDEROUS FANATICS? "Most jihad cyber domains initiate very little, if any, original discussion, primarily reposting material from popular jihad forums," said a report earlier this month from MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, an organization that monitors and translates much jihadist material. "HENCE, DISABLING THE FEW PROMINENT DOMAINS COULD SERIOUSLY CRIPPLE ISLAMISTS' ABILITY TO CONDUCT MASS ONLINE DISCUSSIONS, and could also hamper the rapid spread of jihad material in cyberspace."

Last week the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing into the topic just as Arquilla was arguing in a post on Foreign Affairs magazine's website that the time had come to view al-Qaeda's cyberspace as a battlefield. "Instead of thinking of cyberspace principally as a place to gather intelligence, WE NEED TO ELEVATE IT TO THE STATUS OF 'BATTLESPACE,'" he argued. "This means that we either want to exploit terrorists' use of the Web and Net unbeknownst to them, or we want to drive them from it."

Arquilla tells TIME that al-Qaeda doesn't "put people on planes anymore because they know we're good at spotting them, and IF WE TAKE AWAY CYBERSPACE WE WOULD ACHIEVE A CRIPPLING EFFECT ON THE GLOBAL TERROR NETWORK."

A loose reformist opposition movement that swelled after a disputed presidential election in June is exploiting the rhythms of the Islamic Republic's political-religious calendar to stage rolling protests and sustain the momentum of its struggle. On Wednesday, security forces fought with protesters marking the third day after the death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the reformists' spiritual patron, in the cities of Isfahan and Najafabad, his birthplace, a reformist website said.

The outcome of Iran's internal upheaval is uncertain - and restrictions on independent reporting hamper any assessment of what is unfolding in a complex society - but it may have set a new clock ticking, alongside the nuclear one that drives Western urgency in dealings with the world's fifth biggest oil exporter. "It is going to get messier," said Ali Ansari, a professor at Scotland's St Andrews University. "It's wishful thinking when people say nothing is going to happen or there is going to be a smooth 'velvet revolution'. It is going to get very violent."

Two senior al-Qaeda commanders in the Arabian peninsula could be among the dead, he said. Al-Qaeda has carried out frequent attacks in Yemen in recent months. The Saudi government has recently expressed its concern about the resurgence of the movement in the region.

Last week, Yemeni officials said they had killed 34 suspected al-Qaeda militants and arrested 17 in operations in Abyan province in the south and in Arhab, north of Sanaa. Officials said the militants had allegedly been planning multiple suicide attacks, with eight of them preparing explosive vests at the time of the raids. Analysts say Yemen has long been an ideal base for jihadists.

With its rugged mountains and traditionally weak central authority, it is terrain well suited to militant groups looking for hiding places and training camps.

But the revelation in the book "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers. The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.

"Owning a dog really is quite an extravagance, mainly because of the carbon footprint of meat," Barrett said. Other animals aren't much better for the environment, the Vales say. Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones

Sylvie Comont, proud owner of seven cats and two dogs - the environmental equivalent of a small fleet of cars - says defiantly, "Our animals give us so much that I don't feel like a polluter at all. I think the love we have for our animals and what they contribute to our lives outweighs the environmental considerations."