Written By Unknown on Kamis, 25 Desember 2014 | 20.49
A cold weather alert has been issued - with a warning that more than four inches of snow could fall in some areas on Boxing Day.
The Met Office said the conditions could "increase the health risks to vulnerable patients and disrupt the delivery of services".
According to the alert, there is an 80% probability of "severe cold weather/icy conditions/heavy snow between 3pm on Friday and 12am on Wednesday in parts of England".
"Snow is likely in some northern and central areas, more especially on hills, with some significant accumulations possible," it said.
"There is also an increasing signal for snow to affect some southern areas. The areas currently at greatest risk are parts of the Midlands, and southern parts of northern England."
Sky News weather producer Rebecca Yussuf said the cold weather and snow may cause disruption to travel plans.
"There is a risk of several centimetres of snow falling even at low levels, with as much as 10cm possible in places," she said.
Video:Sky News UK Weather Forecast
"There is still quite a lot of uncertainty with the forecast, but much of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic are likely to see some very wet and windy weather.
"Heavy rain and strong winds will move eastwards across the Republic, southern England and Wales during Boxing Day morning, but may turn to sleet and snow over the Midlands and southern parts of northern England during the afternoon.
"It will turn notably colder after the rain and snow clears, with overnight frosts and temperatures struggling to get much above zero.
"The very young, the elderly and those with illnesses may be badly affected by these colder conditions, so if you know anybody who falls into these categories, take a moment to look in on them over the next few days."
The Archbishop of Canterbury has been forced to cancel his annual Christmas Day sermon after coming down with a heavy cold.
Lambeth Palace said the Most Rev Justin Welby has been suffering from a "severe cold" for several days and decided this morning that he was too unwell to speak at the annual Canterbury Cathedral service.
A Lambeth Palace spokesman said the Archbishop "is suffering from a severe cold and will, with great regret, no longer be preaching the sermon at Canterbury Cathedral this morning.
"The Dean of Canterbury, the Very Rev Robert Willis, will deliver a homily."
The Archbishop had been due to talk about how the true spirit of Christmas cannot be captured in fairytale endings, using the example of the First World War Christmas truce in 1914.
The Archbishop had been due to say: "The truce illustrates something of the heart of Christmas, whereby God sends his Son, that vulnerable sign of peace, to a weary war-torn world.
"The problem is that the way it is told now it seems to end with a 'happy ever after'.
"Of course we like Christmas stories with happy endings: singing carols, swapping photos, shaking hands, sharing chocolate, but the following day the war continued with the same severity.
"Nothing had changed; it was a one-day wonder.
"That is not the world in which we live, truces are rare."
A 13-year-old girl has said she was made to wear a bomb belt and taken to a market in Nigeria by Boko Haram extremists but refused to detonate the device.
Zahara'u Adam said her father gave her to the Islamist group, but she told her captors she did not want to be a suicide bomber.
She allowed them to strap the bomb on her because they threatened to bury her alive.
She was taken to a market in Kano, Nigeria's second largest city in the north, with two other girls, who detonated the bombs.
The bomb belt that the girl was forced to wear
Four people were killed in the explosion on 10 December.
Zahara'u said she was too scared to detonate the bomb when she saw the aftermath of what her counterparts had done.
Injured by the blasts, the girl found her way to a hospital where police arrested her while she was receiving treatment.
She was presented to journalists by police and instructed to recount how the militants allegedly forced her to take part in the attack - a move police hope will boost public awareness of the group's tactics.
"My father took us to the bush which was surrounded by gunmen, I was asked if I want to go to heaven, when I answered they said I have to go for a suicide mission and if I attempt to run, they will kill me," she recounted at a press conference.
"So from there we were sent to Kano. When we came to Kano market, one of us said we should go separately, but I refused.
"After my friend detonated her own I was wounded."
There was no way to independently verify her story and she had no lawyer present.
Boko Haram has been fighting for five years to establish an Islamist state in Nigeria's northeast.
The group has increasingly used female suicide bombers.
The Queen has marked Christmas Day by attending a traditional church service at Sandringham.
Well-wishers started gathering before dawn in the bitter cold to catch a glimpse of the royals - and by mid-morning thousands were present.
Queen Elizabeth was joined by the Duke of Edinburgh for the service at St Mary Magdalene's church on the Norfolk estate.
But the Duchess of Cornwall did not attend the service on advice from doctors after she "put her back out", Clarence House said.
Camilla "has been in pain and is receiving physiotherapy. The doctors have advised against any travel," a Clarence House spokeswoman said.
Also missing was Prince George, but he is likely to have spent the morning in the care of his nanny. His parents, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, attended.
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Gallery: Royals Attends Church Service
The Queen attended the traditional Christmas service at Sandringham
She was joined by the Duke of Edinburgh and other members of the Royal Family
Written By Unknown on Senin, 22 Desember 2014 | 20.49
By Mark Stone, China Correspondent
The United Nations Security Council is to hold its first ever meeting to discuss "unspeakable atrocities" and "grave human rights violations" allegedly being carried out in North Korea.
The 15-member council, which includes the UK, the US, China and Russia, will discuss whether North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un should be referred to the International Criminal Court for "crimes against humanity".
The US Ambassador to the UN welcomed the meeting.
Samantha Power said: "The human rights violations in North Korea are among the worst in the world. They are widespread. They are systematic."
She added: "Given the threat they pose to peace and security, they have been going on outside the scrutiny of the UN Security Council for far too long."
The meeting was called following an unprecedented UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) report, published in February, catalogued a list of crimes which it said were "widespread and systematic" and "unparalleled in the modern world".
The COI, chaired by retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, sat through witnesses' testimony from scores of North Korean defectors who described their lives inside the country.
The report lists murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortion, sexual violence, forcible transfers and forced disappearances.
Signs warn people not to host defectors
Mr Kirby said there were "many parallels" between the evidence he heard and crimes committed by the Nazis in World War Two. He said the international community could not claim, as it did with the Nazis, that they were unaware of the crimes.
"Now the international community does know. There will be no excusing a failure of action because we didn't know. It's too long now. The suffering and the tears of the people of North Korea demand action," he said.
Video:Getting A Glimpse Of N Korea Life
It is not yet clear whether the Security Council will now also discuss the hacking of Sony Pictures following the announcement by US President Barack Obama that North Korea was responsible.
The UN meeting comes as Sky News has filmed rare pictures across the Chinese border into North Korea. The images demonstrate the poverty inside the country and the degree to which China cooperates with its old ally.
At the border town of Ji'an only a narrow river separates China with North Korea. Looking across, guard towers were visible every few hundred metres.
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Gallery: Sky News On China's North Korea Border
Sky News has filmed rare pictures across the Chinese border into North Korea. The images demonstrate the poverty inside the country and the degree to which China cooperates with its old ally
At the border town of Ji'an only a narrow river separates China with North Korea
From the outside America may seem to be a land of endless optimism and confidence. But could it be in danger of falling apart?
An increasing number of Americans seem to think so, and they're preparing for the end.
They call themselves preppers. Mainstream suburban Americans hoarding supplies and weapons while leading otherwise perfectly normal lives.
This old nuclear missile facility has been turned into an apocalypse refuge
It's a national phenomenon and it's supporting a doom boom industry worth many millions.
Braxton Southwick is a typical father-of-six in Salt Lake City, who believes the nice suburban neighbourhood he lives in could soon be swept away by some kind of modern day apocalypse.
Video:What Is Prepping?
Like other preppers, he's afraid of some impending catastrophe but also what that will do to American society.
"I think that is what I'm scared of the most," he told Sky News, "Not the actual events. I've already prepared for that. It's the aftermath, when there are no police, there are no military to protect us, we're going to be protecting ourselves."
The trigger could be a terrorist attack, a monetary collapse, cataclysmic failure in power generation, or a natural disaster. Preppers fear what comes next and have no faith in either their government or human nature.
"Once people use up all their resources, they're going to come after the people that prepared and had more resources. So basically we have to take care of ourselves."
Braxton and his wife Kara have a basement that will see them through Armageddon, literally. Enough dried and canned food to last six months. Enough guns and ammunition to turn their family into a small army.
And they have trained each of their six children, including the youngest aged 15, how to defend themselves with guns to see off the mobs of marauding looters they predict could come after them after their world collapses.
At the other end of America, another family are preparing in exactly the same way. In Virginia, Jay and Holly Blevins hoard food and weapons and run a network of like-minded families.
Video:Preppers Teach Kids To Shoot Guns
"We're not talking about folks walking around wearing tin foil on their heads," Jay tells Sky News. "We're not talking about conspiracy theorists.
"I'm talking about professionals: doctors and lawyers and law enforcement and military. Normal, everyday people. They can't necessarily put their finger on it. But there's something about the uncertainty of our times. They know something isn't quite right."
Jay is a celebrity in the strange but increasingly mainstream world of preppers, writing prepper books and touring America, speaking at prepper expos where a bewildering range of survival supplies and techniques are on offer.
Why is it happening? Partly, no doubt, because it allows Americans to indulge in some of their favourite pastimes: consuming, camping and buying lots and lots of guns.
And partly because fear sells, drives up numbers for cable news, and increases sales for everything from dried food to assault rifles.
But it's also arguably a sign of a country coping with economic decline. The end of the American Dream has left people more uncertain about their future, and their country's.
Katy Bryson is in Jay's prepper network. Prepping, she says, puts Americans back in charge of their destiny.
Video:Why Are Americans Prepping?
"They're not in control of whether they lose their job or not but they are in control of whether they are prepared. So I feel like that's why the industry is just booming right now for preparedness," Katy added.
It is also a fundamentally American phenomenon. In a country built on the radical individualism of its founding fathers, people have an inbuilt mistrust in their government's ability to protect them.
Sociologist Barry Glastner wrote The Culture of Fear. He told Sky News: "Americans are fairly unique as world citizens in that we tend to believe that we control our own destiny as individuals to a much greater extent than we really do."
Ironically, he points out preppers may actually be reacting to their fears in the least effective way. Dangerous weather, terrorist attacks and economic collapses are all best dealt with by higher authorities, he said.
"Where there are real dangers, to take an individualistic approach is usually exactly the wrong thing to do. So the kinds of things that the preppers are preparing to protect themselves from are much better handled on a community-wide basis than they are in your own home."
:: Dominic Waghorn meets the preppers in The Doom Boom, this Tuesday at 9.30pm on Sky News.
The North Korean government has threatened to "stand in confrontation with the US in all war spaces" as the diplomatic row over a Sony film continues to escalate.
In a strongly-worded statement, officials branded America as "an ill-famed cesspool of injustice and terrorism".
And it warned that "tough counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole US mainland".
Despite being accused by the US of being behind the recent Sony hacking, the secretive state continues to insist it had no involvement.
But Pyongyang praised the "surprisingly sophisticated, destructive and threatening cyber warfare" inflicted on the company, as the movie "dared to hurt the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK".
Meanwhile, South Korea has claimed one of its nuclear power plants fell victim to hacking, but stressed no reactors were affected. The developed country has not implicated North Korea in the attack.
The Interview, which included the fictional assassination of leader Kim Jong-Un, was pulled from cinemas before its release after hackers threatened to target those who went to see the film.
Video:Obama: 'We Believe In Free Speech'
A story from the Korean Central News Agency said: "The Interview is undesirable and reactionary. It should not be allowed in any country or any region. The movie has a story agitating a vicious and dastardly method of assassinating a legitimate head of state.
"DPRK is praising the 'guardians of peace' for their righteous deed which prevented in advance the evil cycle of retaliation – terrorism sparks terrorism."
The Pyongyang government claims it is taking a stand "on the US gangster-like behaviour against it" – and alleges it has clear evidence that American authorities were deeply involved in the movie's production, as it would be "effective propaganda against North Korea".
Video:Sony: 'We had no choice'
Its statement said: "The facts glaringly show that the US is the chief culprit of terrorism as it has loudly called for combating terrorism everywhere in the world, but schemed behind the scenes to produce and distribute movies inciting it.
"Nothing is a more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is involved. Our target is all the citadels of the US imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of Koreans.
"The US should reflect on its evil doings that put itself in such a trouble, apologise to the Koreans and other people of the world, and should not dare pull up others."
Video:Screenings Of Team America Scrapped
North Korea's only significant ally, China, condemned the use of cyber-attacks and cyber-terrorism early on Monday – but stopped short of criticising the state.
President Obama, along with his advisers, is weighing up how to punish North Korea. The FBI concluded that Pyongyang was behind the Sony hacking – the first time that the US has accused another country of orchestrating such a significant cyber-attack.
David Boies, Sony's lawyer, has insisted the embattled entertainment company still plans to release its controversial film - but warned the hack was "a national security problem" and the US government needed to take the lead.
Video:North Korea: Propaganda
"How it's going to be distributed, I don't think anybody knows quite yet. But it's going to be distributed," he told NBC.
Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants after the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases.
It comes after Taliban gunmen killed 149 people, including 133 children, in a school massacre in the northwestern city of Peshawar last week.
Six militants have been hanged since Friday amid rising public anger over the slaughter.
Around nine gunmen stormed the army-run school on 16 December taking teachers and students hostage and killing them in classrooms.
After the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.
"Interior ministry has finalised the cases of 500 convicts who have exhausted all the appeals, their mercy petitions have been turned down by the president and their executions will take place in coming weeks," a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Of the six hanged so far, five were involved in a failed attempt to assassinate the then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2003, while one was involved in a 2009 attack on army headquarters.
Police, troops and paramilitary Rangers have been deployed across the country and airports and prisons put on red alert as the executions take place and troops intensify operations against Taliban militants in northwestern tribal areas.
Mr Sharif has ordered the attorney general's office to "actively pursue" capital cases currently in the courts, a government spokesman said.
The decision to reinstate executions has been condemned by human rights groups, with the United Nations also calling for it to reconsider.
Human Rights Watch described the executions "a craven politicised reaction to the Peshawar killings" and demanded that no further hangings be carried out.
Pakistan began its de facto moratorium on civilian executions in 2008, but hanging remains on the statute books and judges continue to pass death sentences.
Before Friday's resumption, only one person had been executed since then - a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.
