Clashes have intensified in the north, with the territory cut in two and Gaza City surrounded. Both sides have reported casualties in the fighting. The UN secretary general has called for an immediate halt to operations. But an emergency Security Council meeting failed to agree a united approach to the Gaza conflict. An Israeli military source told the BBC it was unrealistic to stop all the rocket fire, but the army believes it can be decreased and made less accurate.

The objective, he said, was not to recapture the Gaza strip, but plans had been drawn up to unseat Hamas and if the order was given it could be done, although it would be a long campaign. "Our aim is to force Hamas to stop its hostile activities against Israel and Israelis from Gaza, and to bring about a significant change in the situation in the southern part of Israel," Mr Barak told a news conference.

The BBC's Jeremy Bowen on the Gaza border says it is also clear that Israel is sending a message to its other enemies, especially Hezbollah, whose capacity was not reduced by Israel's incursion in southern Lebanon in 2006.

Police said at least 10,000 people packed London's Trafalgar Square - organisers claimed at least six times that number - in the biggest of a series of rallies at home and abroad demanding an end to the military action. Hundreds of shoes were thrown at the gates of Downing Street during the march there, led by singer Annie Lennox, with demonstrators chanting "Shame on you, have my shoe" and "Brown terrorist". The main protest in the capital passed off peacefully but there was a more heated atmosphere later when several thousand protesters descended on the Israeli embassy in Kensington.

Police wearing body armour and armed with truncheons and gas canisters apprehended several individuals as they attempted to hurdle barriers - set up to keep them away from the building - and threw fireworks. Number 10 said the Prime Minister had spoken to his Israeli counterpart Ehud Olmert again to call for a halt to the action to stem the death toll and allow humanitarian supplies in. But the protests came amid an escalation of the action, with heavy artillery reported to be in use by Israeli forces for the first time and a ground invasion still considered possible.

More than 400 Gazans have been killed and some 1,700 have been wounded since Israel began its aerial campaign a week ago, Gaza health officials said.

These plans include:
- Adding more costs onto business
- More EU control over financial services
- The EU and the nuclear industry
- More EU control over energy policy
- EU control over asylum and immigration
- An EU threat to consumer rights
- More EU control over transport
- More EU control over justice and home affairs
- More EU involvement in health and education

Surveillance systems no longer just watch. High-definition CCTV is combined with face-recognition software; motorway cameras can read car licence plates and track selected cars; a new generation of satellite-based surveillance tools are being developed; computer programs can monitor, screen and analyse billions of calls and emails simultaneously, in real time; and new software can supposedly identify "suspicious behaviour" or "hostile intent". The security services have developed virtually undetectable bugs, tracing technologies and "spy ware" that can be surreptitiously installed on a suspect's personal computer.

Last month, the lower house in the German parliament approved draft legislation giving the police the power to conduct "remote searches" of personal computers. Last week, the EU adopted a new strategy on "cyber crime" that proposes "remote searches" and "cyber patrols". The coming years will see the mandatory fingerprinting of all EU passport holders, the creation of sprawling central government databases and new data-matching systems that link the fingerprint and DNA databases to EU border control and police information systems.

A new generation of biometric identity documents and handheld fingerprint scanners linked to these information systems has the potential to transform policing on the streets as well as security checks at airports. It is becoming more and more difficult to identify the line between the individual right to privacy on the one hand and the right of state agents to access highly personal information on the other. As Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, wisely commented recently, we need to think carefully about THE TYPE OF BRAVE NEW WORLD WE ARE BUILDING FOR OURSELVES.

Tony Bunyan, Statewatch editor, comments:

"It is to be welcomed that the European Parliament has insisted on a "provisional" limit of 12 years old for the taking of fingerprints from children. However, the taking of children's fingerprints is not just a "technical" question IT IS A MORAL AND POLITICAL ONE. Children do not have the right of "informed consent" and their fingerprints will be kept for the rest of their lives."

Indeed, Yellowstone National Park contains the floor of a gigantic volcanic cauldron, one that rises and sinks with the forces that lie beneath — hence the picturesque geysers and steam holes. But a wave of recent earthquake activity is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago — when a Yellowstone "supervolcano" exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself.

Such an explosion — 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980 — today would not only COVER MOST OF THE UNITED STATES WITH ASH but throw so much dust into the atmosphere that THE WORLD'S CLIMATE COULD CHANGE. The Yellowstone Caldera spread airborne debris all the way to the Gulf of Mexico — it is nowhere close to being extinct. Areas of the park's topography inflate like a bellows because of magma infusing into volcanic chambers about six miles below the surface.

About 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year — mostly small — have been recorded since 2004, when interpretation of satellite imagery with GPS readings indicated the caldera has been rising as much as three inches a year. The past week's number of tremors — about 400 — is considered unusual.

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the euro - and every eurocrat in existence is hailing the single currency as an exquisite success. According to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, the euro has helped create 16 million jobs. The French finance minister Christine Lagarde hails it as 'a zone of security and stability'. Indeed, far from being the staggering success its supporters claim, the euro-zone is already inflicting huge damage on the nations within it. Many currency market experts believe that some of these struggling members may be forced to peel away from the euro - with devastating consequences for the rest of the world.

The greatest problems, in the short term at least, are in the four Mediterranean economies known as the PIGS - PORTUGAL, ITALY, GREECE AND SPAIN. For each of these countries, the euro has already proved a disaster. Put simply, most of the PIGS are so heavily indebted that the market no longer believes they will be able to repay their borrowings. Normally, if a country falls into too much debt, it can devalue its currency, essentially devaluing its debt burden - this is exactly what Britain has done over the past few months. In the euro-zone, however, the currency's value is set centrally.

This means THE ONLY WAY OUT FOR THE STRUGGLING PIGS IS TO CRASH OUT OF THE EURO, default on their debt and start again. At the start of 2009, this prospect is beginning to cast a huge shadow over the global economy, for the sums involved are huge. That is why, as the euro celebrates its tenth anniversary, I predict two things.

First, it WILL NEVER REACH ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY. The drachma, the lira, the peseta and the Portuguese escudo (and the Irish punt - Ireland can be regarded as an honorary PIG) will all make a return as the PIGS plunge for the exit.

Second, THE COLLAPSE OF THE EURO-ZONE WILL NOT BE A PEACEFUL PROCESS. Expect the European political elites to fight to save their beloved single currency. Eventually, however, their citizens will take to the streets and force their hands. In Britain we can thank our lucky stars we do not have to go through the same painful and bloody crisis.

Ambulance control centres reported receiving 999 calls as often as once every seven seconds - the second highest volume of calls since the Millennium - as binge drinkers turned nasty in the freezing temperatures. Many of the calls related either to alcohol-fuelled assaults or excessive drunkenness.

Booze contributed to time-wasting calls to 999 operators too, with one man calling to ask if New York was in America, and what time it was there. Elsewhere, while large numbers were ferried to hospitals, in some areas injuries were treated by paramedics in 'booze buses' to leave ambulances free for more serious emergencies.

In Essex, so many drunk people were arrested that all 200 of the constabulary's cells were filled, and overflow revellers had to be shipped to neighbouring Kent to be held for the night. In one of the most disturbing incidents an ambulance was wrecked by callous thugs while parked outside the home of a sick baby boy in Tilehurst, Reading. He eventually had to be sped to hospital in his family's own car.

Rocket attacks from Gaza have forced Israelis to flee in ever greater numbers and military chiefs have been shaken by the size and sophistication of the militant group's arsenal. In Beersheba, until a few days ago a sleepy desert town in southern Israel, there is little sign of the 186,000 inhabitants. Schools are closed and the streets of shuttered shops echo with the howl of sirens warning of incoming rockets.

Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry IT IS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE THE NUCLEAR INSTALLATION AT DIMONA, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel's only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where nuclear warheads are stored.

Israel's worst nightmare is that soon ALL ITS CITIES WILL BE WITHIN RANGE either of the Hezbollah Katyushas arrayed on the Lebanese border to the north or the increasingly sophisticated missiles stockpiled by Hamas to the south. Both groups have links to Israel's archenemy Iran.

"It's not enough, as Jesus said, to put patches on an old suit," Benedict said in his New Year's Day blessing to thousands of people huddled under umbrellas in a rain-soaked St. Peter's Square. Echoing a similar theme in his New Year's Day homily, Benedict said the crisis should be seen as a test-case about the future of globalization.

"Are we ready to read it in its complexity as a way for the future and not just an emergency to respond to with short-term answers?" he asked. "Are we ready to make a profound revision in the dominant development model, to correct it in a farsighted and concerted way?" He said the health of the planet required such a correction, as well as what he called the "cultural and moral crisis" in which the world finds itself.

Benedict has spoken out frequently about the financial crisis, and he used the Roman Catholic Church's World Day of Peace, celebrated every Jan. 1, to emphasize his belief that the meltdown showed the need for greater solidarity with the poor.

The EU urged Russia and Ukraine to resume negotiations and not to let the dispute disrupt supplies to Europe. A similar row between Gazprom and Ukraine at the beginning of 2006 led to gas shortages in several EU countries. Pipes across Ukraine carry about a fifth of the EU's gas needs.

"Usually we supply 390 million cubic metres per day, of which 300 million is transit gas for Europe. Today supplies are running at 300 million cubic metres. We continue supplying Europe in full."

This week the euro climbed to a record high of 98p against the pound, leaving tourists receiving less than a euro given for each pound once commission charges are taken into account. It comes as William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, reiterated that a Tory government would never adopt the euro.

There are fears that the pound may fall further amid speculation that the Bank of England may deliver another cut in interest rates next week to stave off a prolonged recession. Sterling is less attractive to foreign investors if rates are coming down as they will typically get a lower return on their money.

When the euro was launched 10 years ago it became the official currency for 11 member states of the EU, marking an end to Germany's Deutschmark and the French franc. It began trading on January 4 1999, at just 71p against the pound and has since traded at an average of 67p against the pound. The euro hit an all-time low against the pound of 57p in May 2000 but recovered to reach this week's record high.

In the last two years, the number of Floridians on food stamps has increased more than 40 percent to 1.7 million. That increase is the highest in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And it's the second-largest jump in the state's history, surpassed only during the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, said an analyst at the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based think tank.

Almost one in 10 Floridians is now on food stamps, and state managers say many more qualify. Evidence of the unprecedented rise was on display at the Florida Department of Children & Families office in Miami recently, where the line of people waiting for help snaked out the door and around the corner.

Of the 1.7 million now on food stamps, about 356,000 of them live in Miami-Dade County, more than 127,000 in Broward. A person living on their own who earns $1,127 or less a month can qualify for food stamps, as can a family of four making $2,297 or less monthly. The dollar requirement changes depending on the number of people in the household.

Calls to GPs outside surgery hours have soared by 60 per cent in some places. But doctors said most flu sufferers do not need professional treatment. Dr Mark Reynolds, a GP and medical director of South East Health, which treats more than 2.2million patients, said phone lines had been 'red hot', with calls 'every few seconds'.

He said: "People who are usually fit and healthy are coming down with the flu virus and feeling very ill indeed. There's little we can do for them, we are much more concerned about the elderly and very young getting ill."

Accident and emergency departments are also feeling the strain. Doctors at Gloucestershire Royal and Cheltenham General hospitals reported 30 per cent more arrivals than last year. Dr Phillip Fielding, a GP and member of the local medical committee, said: "We get a run of viruses each year but this year we have been knocked for six."

The Russian Gazprom monopoly announced that its engineers had started preparations to turn off gas to Ukraine at 10am today, claiming that the Government in Kiev had refused to sign a new contract by the midnight deadline.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, could barely conceal his fury that Moscow was once again being made to appear in Western eyes as an unreliable energy supplier in the depth of winter. Reporting to President Medvedev, Mr Putin said that despite Russia's offer of a below-market price for gas in 2009, Kiev had not only rebuffed Moscow but also threatened to disrupt onward supplies to Western Europe.

"Our Ukrainian partners have officially notified us that, in case no contract is signed on gas supplies for Ukraine itself, it will block the transit of our product to principal consumers in Western Europe," Mr Putin said. "We believe that this is an absolutely improper position both from the economic and from the legal point of view. If transit agreements were breached there would be serious consequences for Ukraine and consumers in European Union countries", he added.