News of the lavish rewards will sicken tens of millions of taxpayers in Britain and the U.S. who are bankrolling a bail-out of the industry. To add insult to injury, it emerged last night that bankers have released a record mocking taxpayers' plight. The single by the City Boyz, available from iTunes, is entitled Credit Crunch Christmas and features the chorus: 'Sorry we ****** up your Christmas, but really we don't give a ****.'

Banks justify their huge bonuses on the grounds that they have to pay their best performers top salaries, or risk seeing them defect to rivals. However, with the banking industry in crisis few major institutions are hiring staff on big wages. Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, nicknamed 'Goldmine Sachs', has set aside around £1.7billion for year-end bonuses, even though it plunged to a £1.4billion loss in the fourth quarter. The 5,400 bankers who work at its opulent Fleet Street office are likely to receive AVERAGE BONUSES OF OVER £50,000, with many taking home much more. In contrast, the average salary for a British worker is £25,000.

The two frontrunners in the race to become prime minister after a snap election in February both vowed to topple Hamas, which has run Gaza since violently seizing power there in June 2007. Militant rocket and mortar fire continued on Sunday, the Israeli army said, reporting that one person was slightly wounded. A Palestinian medic said a woman had been injured in northern Gaza by shrapnel from a tank shell but the military denied firing in the area.

"ISRAEL MUST TOPPLE THE HAMAS RULE IN GAZA and a government under my command will do just that," Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, leader of the governing Kadima party, was quoted as saying by Israeli media. "Israel must react when it is fired upon, must re-establish its force of dissuasion and stop the rockets."

Our forecasts are already very dark but they will be even darker if not enough fiscal stimulus is implemented," Dominique Strauss-Kahn told BBC radio. "WE SEE 2009 AS REALLY BEING A BAD YEAR, with recession for most advanced economies and growth decreasing for emerging economies."

The IMF has called for global fiscal stimulus of about two percent of GDP, equivalent to some 1.2 trillion dollars. He added that he feared recent initiatives, including that announced by the G20 in Washington last month, may not go far enough. "I can see that some measures have been announced, but I'm afraid it won't go far enough," he said.

Strauss-Kahn said he understood Germany's "reluctant" attitude to the steps announced by some countries including Britain but added it would be best if all countries act together to "face the recession". "I respect the traditional view of the Germans but nevertheless I think we are at a time when we should be a bit more imaginative than we have been in the past," the French former finance minister said.

"The inter-bank (lending) market is not functioning and this is generating vicious cycles: consumers are not consuming, businessmen are not taking on workers, investors are not investing and the banks are not lending. "THERE IS AN ALMOST TOTAL PARALYSIS from which no-one is escaping," he said, adding that any recovery - pencilled in by optimists for the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 - could be delayed if confidence is not restored.

Ordonez recognised that falling oil prices and lower taxes could kick-start a faster-than-anticipated recovery, but warned that a deepening cycle of falling consumer demand, rising unemployment and an ongoing lending squeeze could not be ruled out. "This is the WORST FINANCIAL CRISIS SINCE THE GREAT DEPRESSION" of 1929, he added.

The warning comes after a Christian registrar who claimed she was treated like a "pariah" for refusing to carry out civil partnership ceremonies for homosexual couples lost her case on appeal. A tribunal ruled that Islington Council had not discriminated against Lillian Ladele because of her faith, although it added that the town hall had not treated her sensitively. Christian groups fear the decision will send a message to other employers that THEY CAN GET RID OF STAFF WHOSE RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS PREVENT THEM FROM CARRYING OUT CERTAIN TASKS.

Mike Judge, a spokesman for the Christian Institute charity that funded Miss Ladele's case, said: "I think it will be a concern to all Christians, because it does fail to understand that religious liberty is the liberty not just to believe certain things in your head BUT ALSO TO ACT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THOSE BELIEFS."

"If this ruling is allowed to stand, it will endanger not just registrars but workers in other situations too. We are not saying that religious belief should trump everything, but where there is a reasonable religious belief it should be accommodated."

Dr Rowan Williams risks causing a new controversy by inviting A COMPARISON BETWEEN GORDON BROWN'S RESPONSE TO THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN AND THE THIRD REICH. In his article he warns of the dangers of "UNCONDITIONAL LOYALTY TO A SYSTEM" that turned into a "nightmare" in Germany under Hitler, in which only certain groups and ideas were valued, while others were deemed dispensable and suffering was ignored.

"What about the unique concerns and crises of the pensioner whose savings have disappeared, the Woolworth's employee, the hopeful young executive, let alone the helpless producer of goods in some Third-world environment where prices are determined thousands of miles away?" he asks.

The Prime Minister has pledged to spend his way out of the economic downturn, INCREASING PUBLIC BORROWING TO A RECORD £200M A DAY. The Government has pledged £500billion of taxpayers' money to bail out the banking system, and cut VAT by 2.5 per cent to get consumers spending again. But unemployment is predicted to top 2 million by the New Year as high street names such as Woolworths and MFI go under. Thousands have fallen into negative equity as the property market has fallen by 15 per cent. Millions of prudent savers are also suffering as interest rates have been cut to 2 per cent.

It shook buildings in the capital Tokyo, some 300km (186 miles) away. State broadcaster NHK said one person had been seriously hurt and 13 were slightly injured. Correspondents say Japan is extremely well prepared for earthquakes, and a similar magnitude quake elsewhere in the world would have proved deadly.

Bullet trains were suspended, three nuclear power station were shut down automatically for safety checks, and flights at Tokyo's Haneda airport were temporarily halted as a precaution. Some 17,000 households were reported to have lost power.

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries, situated on four tectonic plates. Tokyo was hit by a magnitude 6.0 earthquake last month, which injured at least 18 people. The country's deadliest quake in recent memory occurred in the city of Kobe in 1995, with a magnitude of 7.3, that killed more than 6,400 people. Before then, a 1923 quake, known as the Great Kanto Earthquake, killed more than 100,000 people.

Overall, 70 PER CENT WERE SCEPTICAL OF THE BABY'S BIRTH IN A MANGER TO A VIRGIN MOTHER, according to the poll of 1,000 people by the British Marketing Research Bureau. Almost a quarter of those questioned who described themselves as Christians admitted they did not believe certain aspects of the Bible's teaching about Jesus.

Simon Gathercole, a new testament scholar at Cambridge University, said people were sceptical because they were not aware the origins of Christianity were anchored in real history. He added: "Jesus was born while Augustus was emperor of Rome just before Herod died. We're talking about events that are anchored in real history not in ancient Greek myths."

A separate study by Mothers' Union, a Christian charity, showed that MORE PARENTS ENCOURAGE THEIR CHILDREN TO BELIEVE IN FATHER CHRISTMAS THAN IN THE NATIVITY.

About 1,900 people, some dressed in cloaks and robes, saw the sunrise at the prehistoric site. The Summer Solstice can attract more than 20,000. Rupert Irving, 28, from Cirencester, said Stonehenge was "spectacular" and that the "sky was beautiful".

"It was a shame the sun was not up but the sky was really nice with shades of blue and orange. It was a really nice backdrop to the stones," he said. "It's a religious festival for some people and it's great to be a part of it, and they don't mind, there's such a great atmosphere."

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) has agreed to scale down its calculation for the amount of harmful carbon dioxide emission that can be eliminated by using wind turbines to generate electricity instead of burning fossil fuels such as coal or gas. The move is a serious setback for the advocates of wind power, as it will be regarded as a concession that TWICE AS MANY WIND TURBINES AS PREVIOUSLY CALCULATED will be needed to provide the same degree of reduction in Britain's carbon emissions.

A wind farm industry source admitted: "It's not ideal for us. It's the result of pressure by the anti-wind farm lobby." For several years the BWEA – which lobbies on behalf of wind power firms – claimed that electricity from wind turbines 'displaces' 860 grams of carbon dioxide emission for every kilowatt hour of electricity generated. However it has now halved that figure to 430 grams, following discussions with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Hundreds of wind farms are being planned across the country, adding to the 198 onshore and offshore farms - a total of 2,389 turbines - already in operation. Another 40 farms are currently under construction. Experts have previously calculated that to help achieve the Government's aim of saving around 200 million tons of CO2 emissions by 2020 - through generating 15 per cent of the country's electricity from wind power - would require 50,000 wind turbines. But the new figure for carbon displacement means that twice as many turbines would now be needed to save the same amount of CO2 emissions.

David Cairns, a former Roman Catholic priest who resigned as a minister at the Scotland Office two months ago in protest at Gordon Brown's leadership, said the current position was "untenable". He said, "The vast majority of Labour MPs would support disestablishment. I would." Mr Cairns said a repeal of the Act of Settlement could trigger the process. "It is simply untenable in this day and age that should the heir to the throne want to marry a Roman Catholic he would have to renounce his rights. It's absurd."

"But you can't just unpick that one thing. You have to think through the consequences. If Prince William married a Catholic what happens if their children are Catholic? You can't have a Roman Catholic head of the Church of England. So you have to have some way of resolving the issue of the head of state being the titular head of the established Church. If the Archbishop himself is raising the prospect of disestablishment why not do something about it?"

Nick Herbert, the shadow justice secretary, said: "The Government are pulling blindly at the wires of the constitution without having a clue about what they might disconnect. You would think they would have something better to do at this time than indulge themselves in another round of constitutional vandalism."

When he was asked by the BBC yesterday to expand on his thoughts, Dr Williams said he was not in favour of disestablishment "at the moment". He added: "I certainly don't think that the Church would be destroyed by disestablishment. I believe the Church exists because of God, not because of the state."

In Beijing's neighboring city of Tianjin, all flights were canceled at the Binhai International Airport due to heavy snow, which also sealed off road and rail links, state television said. In parts of northeastern China the temperature plummeted to minus 26 degrees Celsius

The national weather forecaster said steep temperature falls, snow and sleet would continue to hit parts of central, eastern and southern China for the next two days. Unseasonably cold weather and ice storms across central and southern China earlier this year killed at least 129, caused transport chaos and cut off power and water for millions as people struggled to get home for Chinese New Year.

THERE CAN BE NO DOUBT THAT THE DOLLAR PRINTING PRESSES ARE AND HAVE BEEN RUNNING and will pump out as much currency as is needed to avoid deflation and make credit available at a stimulative rate. There is no question of the Fed not being able to re-ignite inflation in the U.S. economy; if they print money fast enough, prices will go up. The issue is more about the collateral damage possible when a major debtor nation takes these steps, even if it is doing it for all the right reasons in support of the best possible cause.

In the short term the risk is that foreign holders of the dollar and Treasuries are spooked by the whirring of the presses, and, reasoning that the Fed cannot fail in its quest to re-ignite inflation, decide to hold something less, well, risky. But the risk is higher now than last week, and much higher than earlier this year. The value of a dollar against a trade-weighted basket of currencies fell sharply after the Fed's announcement and is down about 10 percent in the past month.

"THE RISKS FOR THE DOLLAR ARE PRETTY CLEAR," said Michael Hart, a foreign exchange strategist at Citigroup in London. "It is going one way and the only question is how uni-directional it is going to be and how many starts and stops we are going to see."

Reader comment - The system is made up of smoke and mirrors. Gold is about the only option I can see. And at that, in your hand! or it might get confiscated. Paper money might just turn out to be, well, paper! There is serious trouble on the way, and few will survive with their savings intact.

INSOLVENCY EXPERTS EXPECT SEVERAL LEADING RETAILERS TO FAIL to pay basic costs over the next two weeks and to collapse at the start of January. As families are eating their dinner on Christmas Day, landlords will demand three months rent in advance – multi-million pound bills that some well-known chains will not be able to pay.

In the past week, the discounting together with the Chancellor's emergency cut in VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent, have tempted more shoppers back on to the high street. For some, however, the upturn will not be enough to survive. LANDLORDS WILL SEND BAILIFFS INTO THE SHOPS AT THE START OF JANUARY TO SEIZE GOODS on the shelves in payment rather than wait for the banks to seize the companies.

Looking forward to 2009, Dan Knowles, the director of selling operations at John Lewis, said: "Fasten your seatbelts. No doubt there will be more businesses finding life very tough and I think we will see more closures in January. Those businesses that do not have a strong brand or are not financially sound will struggle." Julia Reynolds, chief executive of the internet retailer Figleaves, said: "JANUARY AND FEBRUARY WILL BE A BLOODBATH, IT WILL BE VERY TOUGH." The corporate rescue specialist Begbies Traynor has put 323 UK RETAILERS ON A "CRITICAL LIST", suggesting they have a 70 per cent chance or more of failing.

BRITAIN NO LONGER HAS ANY STAKE IN THE PRODUCTION OF ITS NUCLEAR WARHEADS after the Government secretly sold off its shares in the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston. Ministers agreed to sell the remaining one-third ownership to a Californian engineering company. The announcement, which means that Americans will now produce and maintain Britain's independent nuclear deterrent, was slipped out on the eve of the parliamentary Christmas holiday. Officials refused to say how much the deal raised.

Opposition MPs last night expressed concern that the stake may have been sold off below market value to raise much-needed money for the Treasury. They accused the Government of trying to conceal the sale of the stake in AWE Management Limited by failing to make an announcement in Parliament. There was also anger that Britain would no longer directly control the site where Britain's nuclear warheads are produced and maintained.