It devalues the currency to 4.3 and 2.6 against the dollar, from a rate of 2.15 per dollar in place since 2005, giving the better rate for basic goods in an attempt to limit the impact of the measure on consumer prices. The opposition seized on fears that prices for imported goods will double as shoppers formed lines of more than a hundred people outside some stores in the capital Caracas.

The new two-tiered exchange system offers the 2.6/dollar rate for goods deemed essential including food, medicine and industrial machinery. Other products, including cars and telephones, will be imported at the higher 4.3 rate. Economist Pavel Gomez of the IESA economic school said the new system will increase opportunities for graft in a country that already is corruption-ridden. "Multiple exchange schemes are incentives for corruption, more so if they are applied in the Venezuela way," he said. "Those who have good contacts can buy at 2.6 and sell at 4.3."

Forecasters warned up to eight inches of snow could settle today and tomorrow causing a fresh round of travel disruption. In Kent, for where the Met Office has issued a severe weather warning, police said the Army was ready to help out with the situation and warned people not to travel unless absolutely necessary. Other places facing a heavy fall today include Sussex, east and west Sussex, with the east of England, Wales, the East Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber and north-east England due to be hit into tomorrow as well.

The fresh deluge will increase the pressure on dwindling grit supplies across the country. Local authorities have already been forced to cut their use of grit salt by a quarter to help conserve supplies. As the coldest spell for more than 30 years dragged on with no firm end in sight, National Grid issued another gas supply alert last night - its third in a week. Also, as a result of the plunging temperatures, food prices are set to soar as farmers are unable to harvest vegetables and hauliers struggle to distribute fresh produce.

Anyone venturing out into the cold is being advised to wrap up in extra layers to protect against 50mph gusts - with temperatures set to plummet as low as -8C (18F) in the South. Drivers were also being warned to be especially cautious as councils were forced to stop gritting roads to conserve their dwindling salt rations. Priority is being given to keeping clear the major roads used for transporting food and fuel - but that will leave thousands of others untreated, including many commuter routes and motorway hard shoulders. Kent Police said the military was on stand-by to help the situation if the weather in the county worsens. Forecasters warn there is no significant early thaw in prospect.

Authorities in the nearby city of Eureka and other area communities said no major injuries have been reported. But several people received minor cuts and scrapes from broken glass at the Bayshore Mall in Eureka, fire spokesman Gary Bird said. "There are some frayed nerves, but I think we've come through this pretty well for the magnitude of earthquake we've had," he said.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co spokesman JD Guidi said power outages were widespread across most of Humboldt County, affecting about 25,000 customers. Several traffic lights fell and numerous residents reported water, gas and sewer leaks, Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services spokeswoman Jo Wattle said. "People have chimneys down, and we're hearing about minor property damage and lots of glassware broken," Wattle said. "People are really shaken up. It was shaking pretty good, then it had a big jolt to it at the end."

"I thought a tire had blown off my truck because it was so hard to keep control of the vehicle," Officer Lindsey Frank said. "Power lines were swaying, and I could see people in the fields trying to keep their balance." The quake was felt as far south as Capitola in central California, and as far north as central Oregon, USGS geophysicist Richard Buckmaster said.

The remarks come on the eve of his trip to Israel, aiming to bolster a peace process that failed to get back off the ground during the first year of the Obama administration. "We think that the negotiation should last no more than two years," Mitchell said in an interview on the PBS program 'Charlie Rose'. "We hope the parties agree. Personally I think it can be done in a shorter period of time."

Mitchell's comments also come days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signaled he may participate in a US-backed summit with Israeli and Egyptian leaders this year.

As far-fetched as that sounds, systems that aim to get inside an evildoer's head are among the proposals floated by security experts thinking beyond the X-ray machines and metal detectors used on millions of passengers and bags each year. On Thursday, in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt over Detroit, President Barack Obama called on Homeland Security and the Energy Department to develop better screening technology, warning: "In the never-ending race to protect our country, we have to stay one step ahead of a nimble adversary."

The ideas that have been offered by security experts for staying one step ahead include highly sophisticated sensors, more intensive interrogations of travelers by screeners trained in human behavior, and a lifting of the US prohibitions against profiling. Some of the more unusual ideas are already being tested. Many raise troubling questions about civil liberties. All are costly.

"Regulators need to accept that the current approach is outdated," said Philip Baum, editor of the London-based magazine Aviation Security International. "It may have responded to the threats of the 1960s, but it doesn't respond to the threats of the 21st century."

The African country's government claimed human sacrifice was on the increase. According to officials trying to tackle it, the crime is directly linked to rising levels of development and prosperity - and an increasing belief that witchcraft can help people get rich quickly. During its investigation, to be broadcast on Thursday on Radio 4 and Newsnight, the BBC team witnessed anti-sacrifice campaigners torching the shrine of a witch-doctor in northern Uganda, who agreed to give up the practice.

He said clients came to him in search of wealth. "They go and capture other people's children. They bring the heart and the blood directly here to take to the spirits," he said. "They bring them in small tins and they place these objects under the tree from which the voices of the spirits are coming."

The witch doctor, who said he was paid 500,000 Ugandan shillings (around 160 pounds) for a consultation, denied any direct involvement in murder or incitement to murder, saying his spirits spoke directly to clients.

Neil Woodford, head of investment at Invesco Perpetual said that there was a "high probability" of Britain losing its AAA credit rating, something which has never happened since a rating was first put on UK debt more than three decades ago. The downgrade would be likely to send the pound plunging, and could send Britain towards a debt spiral, as the Treasury is forced to pay greater interest rates on its debt, which in turn pushes the deficit still higher.

In a call with analysts from around the City, Mr Woodford compared Britain today with the mid-1970s, when it was bailed out by the International Monetary Fund, but pointed out that "the rating agencies did not really exist at that time."

"I would argue that there is a high probability... a decent chance that we will be downgraded, and it is a near certainty if we do not, in the wake of the next election, properly deal with the deficit. There are some major challenges here. If we do not take the medicine, there will inevitably be a downgrade. I do not believe we have the ingredients for a sustainable economic recovery. The bank-crisis resolution period is likely to be very long and drawn-out," Mr Woodford said.

A House of Lords committee said the new technology could have very real benefits to consumers, improving the flavour, nutritional value and durability of food. But a reluctance by the manufacturers to disclose their work was likely create a public backlash to the additives, claims a new inquiry. Now the influential Science and Technology Committee wants an official register set up by the Food Standards Agency to keep a check on research into the controversial additives.

Nanotechnology, the science of tiny particles so small 300 million would fit on a pinhead, is a rapidly developing branch of research with benefits for everything from engineering to medicine. For food it is thought the tiny additives could be used to reduce salt and fat contents, increase flavours and nutritional values, and prolong shelf lives. They could also be used to develop so-called "smart packaging" that could detect exactly when food has gone off.

He said that the food industry had been reluctant to co-operate with the Nanotechnologies and Food report. "The food industry was reluctant to say what kind of research was going on to develop nanotechnologies in food," he said. "It got its fingers burned with GM. Their attitude is to keep a very low profile. We think this a wrong approach. We think being secretive will make more a of backlash."

"Europe has denied its Christian roots from which it has risen and which could give it the strength to fend off the danger that it will be conquered by Muslims, which is actually happening gradually," he said. "At the end of the Middle Ages and in the early modern age, Islam failed to conquer Europe with arms. The Christians beat them then."

"Today, when the fighting is done with spiritual weapons which Europe lacks while Muslims are perfectly armed, the fall of Europe is looming." He called on Christians to respond to the threat of Islamisation by living their own religious faith more observantly. Last year Cardinal Jose Policarpo, the Patriarch of Lisbon, warned Catholic women against marrying Muslims.

Italian Cardinal Giacomo Biffi also urged the Italian government to give priority to Catholic migrants over Muslims in order to protect his country's religious identity.

The Vatican has also opposed Turkey joining the European Union partly because the Muslim country does not share the continent's Christian heritage.

Astonishingly in a country that two years ago was self-sufficient in milk, Britain now imports 1.5 million litres a day - despite the fact that we are blessed with one of the most temperate climates in the world and our most successful crop is grass. It is an appalling situation. Those dairy farmers struggling to create a living are now having to farm so intensively that their farms have become wildlife deserts and serious animal welfare issues are developing. Some cows now never see a grass field - they are housed indoors night and day and have simply become milk-producing machines, fed on grass brought to them from the fields along with concentrates to boost milk yields.

In England over the past 20 years, pig numbers have tumbled from 6.8million to 3.9million; cows from 7.3million to 5.6million; sheep from 18.2million to 15.4million; and the area of sugar beet has been reduced from 195,000 hectares to 125,000 hectares. At the same time, the number of farmers and farmworkers has fallen from 477,000 to 353,000. It has been estimated that the increase in immigrants we face over the next 25 years is the equivalent of the entire population of London or seven cities the size of Birmingham. They will need millions of houses, which will mean even less land on which to grow food.

It was only two years ago that Britain's senior civil servants in Defra were actually claiming that Britain could buy all its food on the world market far cheaper than it could be produced at home. In 2008, Jonathan Farr, a senior civil servant at Defra, actually told me: 'Food security is about ensuring consumers have access to a stable and adequate supply of food. It is not about maximising domestic production.'

He writes, "What a strange thing, this two-headed presidency!" He continues, "Put ourselves in the place of European citizens, who were sold the idea that the Lisbon Treaty would simplify things... The idea was that this simplification would make Europe more dynamic and more efficient. And yet, in this New Year, one feels a rush of vertigo: nobody had really realised that the rotating presidency would continue."

"Now we realise that Europe will be run by a complex mechanism with at least four axes: the president and the European foreign minister; the country holding the rotating presidency; the president of the Commission and his team and finally the national heads of state and government."

The Economist's Charlemagne blog argues that the potential for this problem has been obvious since the Lisbon Treaty negotiations started, and writes: "Did none of them read the Lisbon Treaty?"

"Staggering numbers of Americans are still unemployed and nearly a quarter of all homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Forget the false hope of modestly improving monthly job numbers. The real story right now is the entrenched suffering (with no end in sight) that has been inflicted on scores of millions of working Americans by the Great Recession and the misguided economic policies that preceded it."

"As The Washington Post reported over the weekend, the entire past decade 'was the worst for the US economy in modern times.' There was no net job creation - none - between December 1999 and now. None! One in eight Americans, and one in four children, are on food stamps. Some six million Americans, according to an article in The Times on Sunday, have said that food stamps were their only income."

"If America can't change, then the current state of decline is bound to continue. You can't have a healthy economy with so many millions of people out of work, and there is no plan now that would result in the creation of millions of new jobs any time soon. Now we're escalating in Afghanistan, falling back into panic mode over an attempted act of terror and squandering a golden opportunity to build a better society."

"Nobody is on the same page. Larry Summers says the economy is growing. Christina Romer says it is not. Janet Napolitano claims the TSA/Intel system worked flawlessly, then says it failed completely. What we need in the Oval Office is a leader, and we are getting everything but. Even his ardent supporters are turning against Mr Obama. They are waking up to the sobering reality that they were duped."

"Iran is coming apart at the seams and is pursuing nuclear weapons. Seven CIA operatives and five Canadians lie dead in Afghanistan. Terrorists are plotting to take down our airplanes. The economy is hanging by a thread. Americans are concerned with the forced health-care bill. Isn't it about time the president returns the nine iron to the bag, hangs up the surfboard, puts down the Mai Tai and focuses on leading the nation at a time where leadership is our only hope?"

"The only upside to this presidency will be the exposure of the true nature of liberalism, which, to quote Michael Savage, is a "mental disorder." If you think George Bush ruined the Republican Party, just wait until you see what Mr Obama does to the Democratic Party. The 2010 election is going to be a bloodbath."

The newspaper has seen the party's draft EU policy programme which reads: "not every problem in Europe is a problem for Europe. All problems which can be solved by the member states should be solved there." The policy paper also rejects a unified European social policy and the extension of EU discrimination regulations. In justice and home affairs, it argues that national policies must be given priority, warning that the European Commission should "not put into question national best practices".

The document also warns the European Commission against pursuing the introduction of an EU-wide tax and states that, even if the Lisbon Treaty gives the EU new competences, "no additional resources should be made available", arguing that increased spending should be financed by savings elsewhere. The text also calls for the EU to end its enlargement negotiations with Turkey.

The year beginning today is also expected to bring forward causes that the German Pope has made a priority: advances in Christian unity, and unity with other religions, particularly Islam and Judaism. In fact, one of the most symbolic events of the year will be his January 17 visit to the Synagogue of Rome. The synod on Africa in Rome and the Pope's first trip to the continent as Pontiff marked 2009. In this regard, 2010 will be a year in the light of the Middle East, given that the synod to discuss that region is scheduled for October 10-24.

The Pope will officially present the working document for the synod during his visit to Cyprus from June 4 to 6. That trip is symbolic for other reasons because it will bring to light certain central themes of the pontificate, such as dialogue with the local Orthodox Church. That Church, since the 2006 election of Chrysostomos II, has become a leader in ecumenical efforts, as well as a promoter of interreligious dialogue with Islam, due to Turkish presence on the divided island.

Though the dates have not been officially announced, it is expected that he will be in England between the 17th and 19th of September. While there, it is expected that the Pontiff will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), an intellectual Anglican convert. That visit will obviously have decisive ecumenical repercussions in light of last year's October 20 announcement that paves the way for Anglicans to come to full communion with the Holy See in groups.