Two cases of virgin birth have been observed in wild snakes, the first time the phenomenon has ever been recorded among vertebrates living in their natural habitat.

Genetic analysis of the litters born to a sample of pregnant North American pit vipers revealed that two had reproduced without the help of a male – a feat which had only previously been observed in captivity.

The findings suggest that virgin births may be more common among animals which usually need to have sex to reproduce than previously thought, scientists said.

Although asexual reproduction is common among many species, such as bees and insects, it is rare among vertebrates – animals which have a backbone – like birds, mammals and lizards.

A small number of virgin births have been seen among domestic chickens and some species of shark, snake, lizard and bird but only among animals which were captive and isolated from the opposite sex.

Researchers from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, captured 22 copperhead and 37 cottonmouth pit vipers, all of which were already pregnant, from areas where males were also present.

After the snakes gave birth, the researchers studied the genes of their litters and found that one female of each species had offspring which bore only the mother's genetic material.

It meant the mothers must have reproduced through a process called parthenogenesis, or virgin birth, when a female's egg develops without having been fertilised.

Prof Warren Booth, who led the study published in the Biological Letters journal, told the BBC: "I think the frequency is what really shocked us.

"Between 2.5 and five per cent of litters produced in these populations may be resulting from parthenogenesis. That's quite remarkable for something that has been considered an evolutionary novelty."

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A new species of monkey has been identified in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The lesula, or Cercopithecus lomamiensis, described as shy and quiet, has excited conservationists because the identification of mammals new to science is rare.

Here are some more discovered in the past decade.

Goodmans' Mouse Lemur

 A Goodman's Mouse Lemur (Microcebus lehilahytsara) photographed in Masoala national park, Madagascar. The species was discovered in August 2005.

Three-Toed Pygmy Sloth

The three-toed pygmy sloth (Bradypus pygmaeus), is endemic to Isla Escudo de Veraguas, a small island off the coast of Panama, and was identified as a distinct species in 2001.

Callicebus Monkey

This previously unknown primate species was discovered during a WWF expedition into the rainforest in Mato Grosso in Brazil in 2010. The new species of the genus Callicebus monkey was found in an area of pristine Amazon rainforest.

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Xi Jinping, China's president-in-waiting, who has not been seen in public for two weeks, was under intense pressure from within the Communist party before he disappeared, the Daily Telegraph has been told.

Xi Jinping, 59, came under attack from party elders, who described him as "unreliable" and questioned whether he should be elevated to the pinnacle of Chinese power.

The attacks came at the beginning of August at a short and bad-tempered meeting in Beidaihe, a Chinese seaside resort, when senior party members gathered to negotiate and plan their once-in-a-decade leadership change.

Two critical issues were on the agenda: who should be on the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, and how to deal with Bo Xilai, the Politburo member whose wife has been convicted of murdering the British businessman Neil Heywood.

There was no agreement on either question, according to a well-connected former editor of a state media outlet.

As China begins to count down the weeks to the 18th party congress, factions are again vying for power in process is still clad in Soviet-era secrecy.

"At the Beidaihe meeting, no decisions were made but the old gang criticised Xi harshly, especially Qiao Shi and Song Ping," said the former editor, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic.

Both Mr Qiao, 87, and Mr Song, 95, are strong supporters of Hu Jintao, the outgoing president.

The elders allegedly accused Mr Xi of not sticking to the rules by meeting twice with members of the Central Military Commission, which controls the People's Liberation Army, while Mr Hu was visiting Hong Kong in early July.

One meeting occurred in Mr Xi's house and the other at the commission's compound.

"They called him unreliable and even brought up the idea of significantly delaying the party congress," said the source. "The fight was so harsh that Jiang Zemin [the former president] had to mediate."

With Hu Jintao preparing to step down from power, and hand over to Mr Xi, he faces the uncertainty of whether his successor will continue his legacy, or turn against him, a perennial fear for a Chinese politician.

A new rift appears to have emerged between the two main factions in the Communist Party: the "red" princelings, the up-and-coming children of Communist Party heroes, and the technocrats.

Mr Xi is a princeling, while Mr Hu is a technocrat, although Mr Xi has been successful at bridging the divide. "Song Ping and the other elders are suspicious of Mr Xi and the other princelings because they are not obedient. They saw these princelings grow up and know the difference between them and Mr Hu and Wen Jiabao [China's premier], who are more polite and less personally ambitious".

The pressure on Mr Xi, who is the focus of the world's attention as he tries to grasp his chance to be president, may explain his mysterious absence.

A number of sources have indicated that he suffered a mild heart attack, but is now "recovering well". He is expected to make a public appearance Saturday, according to one commentator. However, other sources have suggested that Mr Xi has been occupied with trying to consolidate his position as he prepares for power.

On Friday, when asked if the condolences that Mr Xi sent on the death of a former general was a sign of his good health, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said: "I am happy you have taken notice of the relevant information".

Zhang Ming, a professor of politics at Renmin university, said he had heard that Mr Xi was criticised by the party elders. However, he still expected him to take control. "No one would risk ruining the stability of the party at such a late point," he said. He added that physical illness was also no barrier to Mr Xi's ascendancy. "Who on the Politburo is not nursing some sort of chronic illness?"

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A fertility treatment which eliminates hereditary disease by engineering babies to carry healthy DNA from a third biological parent could be legalised next year.

Members of the public are being asked whether families with a genetic risk of incurable conditions like muscular dystrophy should be allowed to use the DNA of a third party to create healthy children.

Although the resulting babies would inherit a small fraction of their DNA from the donor and not their mother or father, the procedure would spare all future generations from a host of rare and debilitating conditions.

The technique is currently forbidden as a treatment, but a public consultation launched today will help inform a decision by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, on whether the clinical benefits outweigh any ethical concerns.

Experts accept the technique, which involves genetically modifying a human egg or embryo, enters "unchartered territory" and raises serious ethical questions.

As well as the moral implications of engineering embryos, there are questions over how the procedure would impact on a child's sense of identity and whether they should be allowed to contact the donor later in life.

Should Mr Hunt decide to give the treatment the green light the technique could be written into law as early as next year, making Britain the first country in the world to allow human trials.

Lisa Jardine, chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which is conducting the consultation, said the issue was of "enormous public interest", and not just to affected families.

She said: "We find ourselves in unchartered territory, balancing the desire to help families have healthy children with the possible impact on the children themselves and wider society."

Comparing the ethical debate with the birth of Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, in 1978, she added that many people had expected the child to be a "monster" and seen conception outside the womb as "absolutely appalling", but that IVF has since become commonplace.

She said: "Here, we are going that mile further which is a genetic modification of the egg. That is uncharted territory. I feel very strongly that once we have genetic modification we have to be damn sure that we are happy, because this is not about us.

"This is not about our children. It's not even about our grandchildren. It's about many generations down the line what the consequences might be."

An estimated one in 200 children born in Britain each year is thought to have some form of mitochondrial disease, with defects in anywhere between a handful and 90 per cent of their mitochondria.

In the vast majority of cases, where the number of defects is low, there are no symptoms and the condition is never even diagnosed.

But in about one in 6,500 people the level of damage causes the development of severe medical conditions including muscular dystrophy and ataxia, a neurological condition affecting balance, coordination and speech.

About 99.8 per cent of our DNA, including all our visible characteristics, is contained in the cell nucleus and is passed down from our father and mother in equal measure.

But a small fraction consisting of 37 genes is located in the mitochondria, the tiny structures which supply power to cells, and is inherited solely from the maternal side.

The new technique, being developed by researchers at Newcastle University, is designed to tackle a range of genetic conditions passed to children by their mothers through mutations in these genes.

The mutations can cause cells to malfunction or fail completely, resulting in complications which are especially severe in parts of the body which use the most energy - the brain, heart and muscles.

By removing the nucleus from a woman's egg before fertilisation and implanting it into a donor egg which has had the nucleus removed, and then using the egg in traditional IVF, doctors could cut damaged mitochondria out of the family line.

A similar technique could be used on an embryo by removing the nuclear DNA from the mother's egg and father's sperm and implanting them into a healthy donor embryo with its nuclear DNA removed.

The resulting child would inherit their identity from their mother and father, but they and all future generations would have the mitochondrial DNA of the donor.

A survey of 800 people by the Progress Educational Trust found that two thirds supported the use of the technique while a third opposed it, while a report by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics last year claimed the approach would be ethical.

The public consultation, being overseen by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, will run until December 7 with members of the public encouraged to register their views via a dedicated website.

There will also be two public events held in London and Manchester where people can learn about the technique and register their views. A report compiling the feedback will be published in March.

The panel appointed to oversee the consultation includes scientists as well as leading voices opposed to the treatment including Josephine Quintavalle, of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics campaign group.

She said: "This is not about curing disease in an existing human being, it is creating a new kind of embryo and the alterations you have made will pass on to future generations. You are playing around with the building blocks and restructuring how human life is created.

"Although IVF might be considered artificial it is just a way of repeating what happens biologically, but this is a considerable step in a completely different direction where you are changing those building blocks forever."

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act contains a window which would allow the current ban on techniques which alter inherited genetic material to be overturned by Parliament.

But the HFEA would have the final say on whether the treatment could be used in clinics, and it is likely that much more information on the safety and effectiveness of the technique would be needed before that was given.

Prof Mary Herbert, part of the team researching the technique at Newcastle University, said: "We want to make a difference to the lives of our patients who live with mitochondrial diseases.

"These can seriously affect the quality of life of both patients and their families and it often affects several generations. If we can stop that happening it will be a tremendous help for many hundreds of people who suffer with these diseases."

Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, said: “For women who have been dealt the heavy blow of living with mitochondrial disease, the prospect of bearing healthy children is of immeasurable value.

"We believe that this technique could open up the possibility of motherhood untainted by the fear of passing on a painful, debilitating condition to their future children."

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Police across Europe will "patrol" Facebook, Google and Twitter for postings supporting terrorism under an EU project detailed in a leaked report.

Internet firms also face an array of new obligations to monitor their services for extremist material, according to a document about the "Clean IT" initiative seen by The Telegraph.

“It must be legal for police officers to ‘patrol’ on social media. This includes having a profile, joining user groups, sending and receiving messages, on the platform," the document says.

Officials are also preparing proposals for “semi automated detection” systems and buttons to allow users to report suspicious activity on social networks and chatrooms to authorities.

“Users must be provided a way to flag/report terrorism and radicalising content as a separate, specific category to flag/report,” the report, produced last month, recommends.

“Providers of chat boxes, email services, messaging systems, social networks, retailing sites, voice over internet protocol ad web forums must have flagging systems."

The monitoring and flagging systems would be linked to law enforcement agencies, with data shared across Europe.

The plan is likely to spark alarm among internet companies, who have long argued it would be impractical and repressive to force them to police the web. The plans call for new legislation that would force internet companies to offer filtering software as a condition of trading in the EU.

Civil rights activists warned that Clean IT, funded by a 400,000 euro grant and led by Dutch counter-terrorism officials, could mandate "vigilantism" online and a clampdown on free speech.

Joe McNamee, chief executive of the civil rights organisation EDRi " warned that the project could have unintended consequences for web users.

"I’m not a terrorist, as long as a Greek or Estonian policeman doesn’t accidentally think I’m a terrorist," he said.

"The initiative has become little more than a protection racket (use filtering or be held liable for terrorist offences) for the online security industry.

"The initial meetings, with their directionless and ill-informed discussions about doing “something” to solve unidentified online 'terrorist' problems were mainly attended by filtering companies, who saw an interesting business opportunity.

"Their work has paid off, with numerous proposals for filtering by companies and governments, proposals for liability in case sufficiently intrusive filtering is not used."

British counter-terrorism officials have been involved in the discussions, which are due to result in final recommendations to be implemented by EU members over the next two years. They are understood to have concerns about the direction and competence of the Clean IT project.

The Office of Security and Counter Terrorism, a secretive Home Office unit, already maintains a blacklist of terrorist websites used in filtering software at universities, libraries and other public networks.

Among proposals yet "to be discussed" by the Clean IT project are measures to discourage anonymity online, under the label "real identity policies.

"Internet companies must only allow real, common names," the leaked document suggests.

"These must be entered when registering. On request of an internet company, a registrant must provide proof of the real or common name."

"Social media companies must only allow real pictures of users."

While Facebook already inists its members use their real names, Twitter has long advocated anonymity as a vital part of free speech online and resisted attempts to uncover its members' identities by American authorities investigating the Occupy protests.

Mr McNamee suggested that repressive regimes would "laugh till they choke when the EU next lectures them regarding free speech online".

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Spain has taken another confident stride to becoming the next Greece, a status long predicted for the country in some quarters.

When the economic situation is bad ( the country’s GDP estimates fell again on Wednesday) there’s nothing like a dose of political mismanagement to give things a good hard shove towards the same abyss that Athens disappeared into sometime in the middle of last year.

It’s only September but the scenes from Madrid in recent days prompted me to revisit the annual predictions in which we indulge every January. At the start of the year, as we looked forward to another 12 months of experimental eurozone economics, not to mention politics, with renewed austerity measures and another euro treaty, this column said: “None of this has been tested at the ballot box and I predict a year of popular political protest across the eurozone, some of which will turn violent, prompting shocking scenes as governments use force to regain order.”

You can’t let a gun off slowly, but Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has been openly flirting with the idea of seeking a bail-out from the European Central Bank in recent days but only if capital market investors forced Spain into it by sending yields on Spanish government debt higher.

In the land of bull fighting, he has waved the proverbial red rag. Lo and behold, Spanish bond yields duly shot up again on Wednesday to 6pc, pricing Spain out of the markets and forcing him closer to going cap in hand to Frankfurt, assuming the ECB bail-out is actually real as opposed to an empty promise. This, in turn, will undermine his political credibility at home which the riots in Madrid and secession fever in Catalonia reveal is already suffering.

It reminds me of John Major’s government in 1992 and a determined Norman Lamont giving George Soros any excuse to bet against the pound and test just how determined the Treasury really was about defending sterling.

The point about Mario Draghi’s ECB bail-out offer was to act as a back stop, an insurance policy to calm markets and reassure them into funding the Spanish state again.

Once the prime minister himself starts openly talking about using the bail-out backstop the equation changes as far as investors are concerned.

Any hint of a bail-out would normally send investors rushing for the exit. Playing chicken with the market first is simply asking for trouble.

The odds on Spain becoming the latest southern European country to appoint a technocratic government to try to manage the country out of its chaos have shortened dramatically.

And things are about to get worse for Spain and its prime minister with a triple witching hour on Friday. The results of a Spanish banking sector audit are published alongside Rajoy’s new Budget and reform programme plus the threat of a downgrade to junk status for its sovereign debt.

As Mike Ingram of BGC Partners pointed out on Wednesday, eurozone leaders should take heed, and quickly, of one of the United States’ founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, who said: “We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

RBS must not face the same fate as Barclays

More trouble for banks, and specifically RBS.

A wrongful dismissal case against RBS being heard in Singapore reveals that familiar voice of a mocking, arrogant trader who thinks he, and his organisation, are above the normal standards of decent behaviour expected of banks by society.

After Barclays put its hand up over Libor-rigging earlier in the summer, and was duly fined £290m with the chairman, chief executive and chief operating officer being forced out, other banks were bound to follow. The investigation is still going on into Libor-fixing at RBS but this employment tribunal gives a sneak preview of the evidence that the regulators will be sifting through.

“Our six-month fixing moved the entire fixing, hahahaha,” laughed the trader concerned in one recorded exchange.

But whatever happens to the investigation into RBS, the outcome should differ from that meted out to Barclays.

Stephen Hester, RBS chief executive, has already warned any settlement over Libor-rigging could be expensive. But it should not involve another witch-hunt by the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority to remove current management.

Hester came into RBS late in 2008 to rescue it on behalf of taxpayers who had been forced to bail out the lender after those self same regulators, not to mention the Treasury, had allowed it to balloon out of control.

While any US regulatory action against RBS might involve a fine, it would be wrong for the FSA to levy a financial penalty on RBS for Libor-rigging as it will be taxpayers footing the bill - again.

Instead, the FSA, and any other relevant agency, should take the opportunity to review the actions of individuals who were running the bank at the time. This has got to include the untouchable Fred Goodwin. While Hester has been denied by politicians pay contractually owed to him for doing the rescue job agreed with politicians, Goodwin continues to drain every possible penny he can from the RBS coffers in the form of his egregious, but no doubt contractually agreed, pension.

Osborne should be wary of the golden rules

Golden rules of fiscal policy have generally proved anything but. Gordon Brown became the master at shifting targets so as to hide his failures. George Osborne is facing the same problem over his ambitious and poorly drafted rule of having national debt falling as a percentage of GDP by 2015-16.

It was designed to put our fiscal credibility “beyond doubt”. But fiscal credibility these days is a relative concept and we’re doing OK versus most, so he may as well change it sooner rather than later and certainly as far ahead of the next election as possible.

damian.reece@telegraph.co.uk

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Researchers found that mice with a damaged copy of a particular gene produced sperm with tails which were 17 percent shorter, making them less able to swim.

The mice which had mutated versions of the gene, known as RABL2, also produced 50 percent fewer sperm on average than those with a normal copy.

Scientists leading the study said they hoped it could lead to better understanding of male infertility, which affects five percent of men, and lead to the development of a contraceptive pill.

Prof Moira O'Bryan of Monash University in Australia, who led the study, said: "The mutations in the RABL2 gene are very likely to cause infertility.

"Further, as motility is absolutely essential for fertility, insights into tail function may reveal options for urgently needed male-based contraception."

The study, published in the PLoS Genetics journal, was produced with colleagues from Cambridge University and other institutions in Australia.

Researchers demonstrated that the gene produces a protein which interacts with other molecules known as intraflagellar transport proteins, the vehicles responsible for carrying genetic information along the length of the sperm's tail.

Jennifer Lo, a PhD student who was lead author of the paper, said: "Intraflagellar transport proteins are like a train. Our data suggests that the reloading of the train is defective if RABL2 dysfunctions.

"The train is still running in sperm tails with dysfunctional RABL2, but it contains fewer passengers. The end result is that sperm formation and motility are abnormal."

Because mutations in the gene decrease sperm count and hamper their swimming ability scientists hope a contraceptive pill could be developed which would lower levels of the protein it produces.

But because the protein is found at lower concentrations in other parts of the body, including the brain, kidney and liver, any future drug would have to specifically affect the testes.

Prof O'Bryan said: "Many of the basic processes of sperm development occur at lower levels in other organs of the body.

"As such, the presentation of a man for infertility treatment offers the opportunity not only to give him the children he desires but also to mitigate future disease."

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The mystery of why some people never forget a face while others struggle to recognise people they have already met could be explained by two small bundles of nerves in the brain, according to a new study.

For the first time, scientists demonstrated that two clusters in a brain region called the fusiform gyrus play a central role in the way we see faces, but not other objects.

Tests on a patient with prosopagnosia – a condition where sufferers cannot distinguish one face from another – showed that electrical stimulation of the nerves instantly caused his perception of a face to become warped, while other objects in his field of vision remained unchanged.

Researchers said the findings could lead to new treatments for the condition, and may also explain why some people have a better memory for faces than others. Up to two per cent of the population are though to suffer from some form of "face blindness".

The experiment on Ron Blackwell, a 47-year-old father-of-two, made use of electrodes already implanted in his brain around the fusiform gyrus as part of a separate epilepsy treatment.

In a video accompanying the new study in the Journal of Neuroscience, Mr Blackwell describes how the researcher's face appears to completely change as a mild electric current is applied to his brain.

He says: "You just turned into somebody else. Your face metamorphosed.

"You look almost like somebody I've seen before, but somebody different ... you were someone else.

"It's almost like the shape of your facial features drooped."

When the electric current was halted, the researcher's face immediately returned to how it had initially appeared, he reported.

Prosopagnosia can affect patients from birth or arise as a result of brain damage in later life. Sufferers cannot tell the difference between one face and another, but the rest of their vision is completely normal.

Dr Josef Parvizi of Stanford University, who led the study, said the findings demonstrate that the two clusters, which are half an inch apart near the base of the brain, are critical to facial recognition.

Previous studies had indicated that the clusters were more active when people viewed pictures of faces compared with images of hands, legs or other objects, but the new study was the first to provide experimental proof.

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It is a case of espionage involving top secret blueprints for the latest technology and an international trail that leads from a world-leading British company’s HQ to China, via Germany.

The alleged theft of the £100 million technology by an industrial “spy” did not involve laser-guided weapons or the latest tablet technology, but something much more prosaic — vacuum cleaners.

Dyson has filed papers at the High Court alleging that a worker at its Wiltshire base stole the blueprints and passed them to its rival, Bosch. It demands that the German manufacturer returns the details of the technology.

Dyson alleges that the unnamed employee was paid £11,650 by Bosch for passing on details of its “secret motor technology” over a two-year period.

The employee in question, who is thought to be Chinese and had a pre-existing relationship with Bosch, worked at Dyson’s head office in Malmesbury, Wilts, until earlier this year, when the alleged espionage was uncovered. The individual was one of a team of 100 engineers who developed high-speed brushless motors used to power Dyson’s vacuum cleaners and Airblade hand dryers.

According to a Dyson spokesman, the motors, which incorporate microchip technology, drive high volumes of air through the appliance and are not licensed to any other companies.

As well as passing on the information to Bosch, the mole is alleged to have passed on the information to Bosch’s Chinese motor manufacturer. Dyson claimed that the spy was paid the money via a “business” created for the purpose.

Mark Taylor, research and development director at Dyson, said: “Bosch’s vice-president for engineering employed a Dyson engineer and benefited from our confidential know-how and expertise. We have spent over 15 years and £100 million developing high-speed brushless motors. We are demanding the immediate return of our intellectual property.”

Dyson says its motors are key to its success. Using “digital impulse technology” pioneered by the company founder, Sir James Dyson, they spin at 104,000rpm. The company has fought hard against attempts to copy its products, with its Air Multiplier fan the subject of about 500 infringements in more than 30 countries over the past two years.

Dyson said that it has confronted Bosch with evidence of wrongdoing but said that the German company has “refused to return” the technology.

In a statement, Bosch said: “Dyson employed an individual with a pre-existing consultancy agreement with Bosch Lawn and Garden Limited in relation to garden products, and not vacuum cleaners or hand dryers as Dyson implies. Bosch has sought to establish the full details of what occurred, including attempting to establish from Dyson what, if any, confidential information supposedly passed between Bosch and Dyson.”

“Bosch regrets that Dyson has chosen to issue legal proceedings and a press statement at this stage, but will continue to act in the appropriate way.”

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The first feathers and wings in nature evolved for decoration rather than flying, according to a new study.

Today's birds inherit their wings and feathers from their dinosaur ancestors, which are thought to be the first animals to have grown them millions of years ago.

Now a study of new fossils discovered in Canada suggests that feathers and wing-like structures may have originally developed for the purpose of attracting mates and not flying or keeping warm.

Experts from Calgary University examined the fossils of one young dinosaur and two adults from the feathered species Ornithomimus edmontonicus, found in 75-million-year-old rock formations.

Marks on the remains showed that each of the animals was covered in small, downy feathers but one of the adults also had longer feathers with stiff central shafts protruding from its forelimbs.

The fact that the ostrich-like dinosaurs did not develop feathers until adulthood suggests that they were only used once they were sexually mature, perhaps for courtship rituals, to attract partners or for brooding.

The wing-like forelimbs and feathers most likely developed further for other purposes such as flying or keeping warm at a later stage of evolution, researchers wrote in the Science journal.

Dr Darla Zelenitsky, who led the study, said: "This dinosaur was covered in down-like feathers throughout life, but only older individuals developed larger feathers on the arms, forming wing-like structures.

"This pattern differs from that seen in birds, where the wings generally develop very young, soon after hatching."

Co-author François Therrien, of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, added: "The fact that wing-like forelimbs developed in more mature individuals suggests they were used only later in life, perhaps associated with reproductive behaviors like display or egg brooding."

The fossils marked the first discovery of ornithomimid specimens preserved with feathers, and suggest that all dinosaurs of the same family, would have been covered in feathers like many other types of dinosaur.

They were also the first of their kind to be found in the Western Hemisphere, with most other feathered dinosaur skeletons limited to sites in China and Germany.

While previous evidence of feathers had only been found in fine-grained rock, the new fossils were unearther in sandstone, suggesting that many more may be found in rocks deposited by ancient rivers across the world.

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Sir Ian McKellen said there are many gay actors at the top of the profession because "we spent so long pretending to be straight, to be someone else, that eventually we became very good at it".

Sir Ian McKellen has said that being gay helped him to hone his talents as an actor because he spent so many years "pretending to be someone else".

The 73-year-old claimed the same was true for other British actors of his generation.

Although aware of his sexuality at a young age, Sir Ian did not officially ‘come out’ until his 40s. The star of stage and screen now tours secondary schools educating children about equality and promoting a campaign by the Stonewall charity aimed at tackling homophobic bullying.

Speaking to pupils at Acland Burleigh school in north London, Sir Ian said he “always knew” that he was gay but did not feel able to speak about it.

“There was no Graham Norton on the television at that time, no gay MPs, no-one talking about gay rights on the radio. So I dealt with it my trying to cut that part of myself off, to hide myself, to choke a part of me,” he said.

“When you are made to feel you are so wrong for being who you are, that’s what you do.

“I think that’s why so many great British actors are gay - we spent so long pretending to be straight, to be someone else, that eventually we became very good at it.”

Sir Ian, familiar to younger filmgoers as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Magneto in the X-Men films, asked the pupils not to use the word “gay” as a term of abuse.

The actor told pupils he “wished that every child, every teacher, every person in this room can be free to be who they are, whatever their sexual orientation”.

Sir Ian ‘came out’ publicly in 1988 during a BBC radio interview about Section 28 of the Local Government Act, which forbade the “promotion” of homosexuality by local authorities.

He later wrote: “I learned that coming out was crucial to self-esteem. And I accepted the argument that people who thrived in society’s mainstream and had access to the media could, by telling the truth, help others in the backwaters whose views were never sought and whom society either ignored or abused.

“An actor is more protected than most. These days I daily make this point to anyone who will listen because, when I eventually accepted it on the BBC, it changed my life forever for the better.”

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BDO's annual 'global opportunities' survey found that the eurozone debt crisis remained one of their key concerns.

Almost half (44pc) of the 1,000 CFOs surveyed by the global business consultancy reported that the crisis had affected their expansion plans, with 16pc reporting a "large impact".

Only Iran and Iraq were considered more risky than Greece, while Spain, the eurozone's fourth largest economy, also made the top ten.

Nearly one in five finance directors (18pc) said that they would be less likely to invest in Spain or Greece, and 14pc would be less likely to invest in Italy.

“Because of the financial state of [Greece] there is a chance they may have to pull out of the eurozone. It is a bad debt risk and it is not a place we would look to for sustainable growth," one CFO commented.

The survey found that CFOs in the manufacturing and technology, media and telecoms industries were most reluctant to invest in these countries.

"CFOs are becoming increasingly wary of Southern Europe, parts of which they now see as risky as the politically unstable countries of the Middle East," said BDO chief executive Martin Van Roekel.

Brazil and China were the most wary about investing in Europe's indebted countries in the wake of the debt crisis, while China was considered the most attractive country for expansion, closely followed by the US. Britain was considered the seventh most attractive country for expansion.

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A rare wartime book documenting the ingenious James Bond-style gadgets invented by British 'spooks' to help prisoners of war escape has been discovered.

The 1942 classified catalogue contains the designs for the covert equipment including tiny compasses concealed in gold teeth and coat buttons.

Many of the inventions were the brainchild of Christopher Hutton - a real-life 'Q' from the James Bond movies - who worked for the government's little-known MI9 agency.

Less than 100 of the instruction manuals were printed and given to US intelligence officers who were lagging behind the British in espionage design after entering the war late.

The 76 page book details what the gadgets were and how they were made and concealed in innocuous domestic items.

The gadgets were placed in food parcels and sent to British PoWs in camps like Colditz or the 'Great Escape' prison, Stalag Luft III.

Some of the fascinating gadgets include maps of Germany printed on silk so that they didn't rustle and crammed inside pencils, vinyl records, cigars and pipes.

Another map was hidden under the surface of 54 playing cards that, when pieced together, formed a large map of Germany and Europe.

Small hacksaws were secreted in dart boards while a tiny camera was hidden inside a cigarette lighter and small radio receivers in cigar boxes.

The extremely rare copy of the book called 'Per Ardua Libertas' - Liberty Through Adversity - that has come to light was a dummy version retained by the London printing company.

It is now being sold at auction by a Devon man who inherited it from one of the executives of the company.

The page that contains the playing cards shows a corner of the surface of the Queen of Clubs peeled back to expose part of a map.

The instructions read: "Each pack is one map. 48 cards covered a map. The 4 Aces are a small map of Europe. The Joker is the key. The outside card contains the instructions."

For the compass concealed in a gold tooth, the instructions reads: "Tooth - Gold Fitting made to measure.

"Small medium luminous compass fits in jaws on left and thin gold tube holding message or map slides on the two prongs at the bottom. They are concealed through being in between the cheek and the gum."

Lionel Willis, a specialist at auctioneers Bonhams which is selling the book, said it was an exceptionally rare find.

He said: "The MI9 department was set up in 1939 to aid escapees and resistance fighters.

"They very quickly realised that two things were vital if you were going to escape in a foreign country and they were a map and a compass.

"They produced maps on pieces of silk that could be rolled up and secreted in extremely small spaces inside innocuous domestic items and this books show how they were concealed in things like pencils and cigars.

"Food parcels and rations packs were sent to prisoners of war and every sixth parcel contained some of these inventions that helped them escape.

"The British were way ahead of the US and in 1942, after America had entered the war, the US intelligence service sent a group of people to London to see what we were up to and how we were doing it.

"MI9 produced this book to give to the Americans, probably less than 100 were printed.

"Very few of these catalogues are known to have survived. I believe the Australian War Museum has a copy.

"It gives a fascinating insight into the ingenuity employed to assist the war effort."

As well as PoWs, Allied spies and resistance fighters were also sent the gadgets to help them either escape or outsmart the Nazis

The book is being sold by Bonhams next January with a pre-sale estimate of £800.

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China should immediately end its one-child policy and instead adopt a two-child scheme, a foundation with close links to the highest levels of the Communist party has said.

The report from the China Development Research Foundation set a three-year deadline to phase in the reform.

The authors of the report are perhaps the most significant voices yet in the growing chorus for China to rethink its one-child policy.

“We have been discussing the one-child policy since 2000,” said Li Jiamin, a specialist in population studies at Nankai university, and one of the co-authors of the study. “It is just a matter of finding the right solution. Making the jump to two children is only a matter of time now.”

He added: “If China sticks to the one-child policy, we are looking at a situation as bad as the one in southern Europe. Old people will make up a third of the population by 2050.”

Another co-author, Cui Fang, is an economist who heads the Population and Development department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Mr Cui has lectured several members of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee.

Prof Cui said he was unable to comment because the report had leaked out ahead of the 18th Communist Party Congress, the highly sensitive moment when China will unveil a new set of leaders for the first time in a decade.

He said discussion of family planning at such a time is frowned upon, and that the report was supposed to emerge in ten days time.

However, in March, he argued that the government should keep the promise it made to the public three decades ago, when it introduced the one-child policy.

“They said if the circumstances changed, so would the policy. We should stay consistent to that and realize this promise,” he said.

“In the past, family planning was important for our national development, but now the country has changed and the decision about how many children to have should be given back to families,” he added.

The sacrifices made by Chinese families under the one-child policy have had an enormous impact, not only on China’s resources but on the world. The Chinese population has been reduced by between 100 million and 400 million, according to various estimates.

However, the new study argues that bringing the policy to an end will not unleash a huge population boom.

It pointed to four experimental areas in northern and central China which had their family planning controls lifted in 1985.

“All these areas had low population growth, and the birth rate has been shrinking since 2000. But the gender balance in these areas is better, and so is the age distribution. These areas also have less conflict between the government and the people.”

The report admitted, however, that some other experimental areas had seen births spiral “out of control” and had family planning policies reapplied.

Prof Li also said many families who have the right to have a second child under the current policies are choosing not to, perhaps because of the expense. “The effect of making a change will not be significant. This is not a bold policy [that we are suggesting],” he said.

However, he added that the report had not yet generated any feedback from the National Family Planning Commission in Beijing. “They basically feel that it will take more time to change the policy,” said Prof Li.

Additional reporting by Valentina Luo

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The Communist Party is under pressure, and it is determined that nothing can be allowed to spoil a smoothly running 18th Party Congress in Beijing.

With its terrifying traffic and choking pollution, Beijing is never an easy city for taxi drivers. With the 18th Party Congress about to get underway, the Chinese Communist Party's biggest and most high-stakes gathering in ten years, life behind the steering wheel has just got a lot more difficult.

To guard against protest, cabbies are in the front line of a gigantic, and sometimes eccentric, security crackdown. They have been ordered to remove the handles of their car windows in case passengers wind them down in order to throw out seditious leaflets or ping-pong balls with slogans critical of the party. In the same spirit, they have been warned them against taking passengers with too many bags.

Tiananmen Square, the spiritual heart of the Communist Party, where protesters were bloodily crushed in 1989, is currently a particularly sensitive destination for Beijing's cabbies. Customers wanting to go near it have to sign a "travelling agreement", promising they will not cause any disruption.

"The handles to open the windows have been confiscated until after the Congress," said one grumbling taxi driver, who fell silent when his name was asked. "They are scared people will distribute tracts or put themselves on fire as in the past. We are asked even to report people carrying big Coca Cola bottles."

Party Congresses are always times of tension, but rarely have party officials been so nervous as ahead of the start of this Thursday's week-long event. There have never been as many riots across China as in 2012, inequality is rising, demand for change is growing, and most observers think the regime is much weaker than it was 10 years ago when the last Congress was held.

To ensure nothing spoils this, the list of security threats is exhaustive, and sometimes slightly baffling. Warnings have been issued about knives, ping-pong balls, and, for reasons nobody seems clear on, pencil sharpeners. Purchases of toy aircraft and pigeons are also currently under restriction, for fear that they might be used to fly seditious messages in the sky, despite the apparent difficulty of getting one big enough to be seen from a distance.

The internet is under scrutiny as never before, with searches blocked and China's version of Twitter constantly monitored. China's censors have also erased all possible references to recent foreign media reports about thje alleged $1.7 billion fortune of the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao. Connections have been running particularly slowly, email boxes have been hacked and sites that allow users to access banned content have been blocked.

In Beijing, unlicensed merchants, dissidents and unregistered migrant workers have been asked to leave town, and some 1.4 million security volunteers have also been recruited to patrol the capital's streets and subways. They have been given yellow flags to carry, and are tasked with reporting any "suspicious people".

"I do rounds in the neighbourhood. Everyone has to be mobilised. It's my duty", said Mrs Wang, 77, a retired teacher.

"We can't just rely solely on the police."

The measures illustrate the extreme paranoia of the regime as it prepares to annoint Xi Jinping as the new Secretary-General at the congress, before he becomes president of China next year.

"The stakes are huge. The transition has to go smoothly", said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Professor of Political Science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

Unfortunately, the transition has been everything but calm. A series of scandals including the murder of Englishman Neil Heywood, and the disgrace which followed of star-politician Bo Xilai have plunged the Chinese political world into disarray. One of President Hu Jintao's closest aides was demoted, apparently after his son was killed alongside two partially dressed women in an accident in his Ferrari. Meanwhile, protests over pollution, land seizures and local corruption continue across the country.

Beijing has been hoping the Congress will spur nationalist sentiment among its population, resorting to propaganda campaigns reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. Children sing songs wishing a long life to the Party, while red banners sprawled around Beijing remind the population to "speed up socialism with Chinese characteristics".

But as security checks multiply in airports, subways and in the street, there are signs that ordinary Chinese are increasingly aware of the party's jitters. "It is as though they have something to hide" said the Beijing taxi driver.

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As America goes to the polls tomorrow, the gaze of the world’s media will be focused squarely on Washington. But on the other side of the world, a leadership change of potentially greater significance is also getting under way. For the first time in a decade – and only the second time in history – the men at the top of the Chinese Communist Party will step down, voluntarily, and hand over power to a new generation.

But while American voters have a pretty good idea by now of who their candidates are and what they represent, the Chinese public remains utterly cut off from the political process. Not only do politicians here all sport identical dyed-black haircuts, but they all make identical, impenetrable and interminable speeches. In modern Beijing, the Soviet art of Kremlinology, which involved scholars searching for hidden messages in reams of official jargon, or counting the use of certain phrases in the party newspaper, remains alive and well.

Indeed, while we know that the leadership change will happen at the 18th Party Congress, which opens on Thursday, we do not know exactly when the new leaders will be unveiled or when the congress will end. Those in China cannot even search for the phrase “18th party congress” on the internet: it has been removed by the censors.

All we can be sure of is that, at some point in the near future, a group of men – and they are all likely to be men – will walk on to a dais in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. These will be the seven members of the politburo standing committee, the Chinese equivalent of the Cabinet, selected (by an essentially mysterious process) from among the 25 politburo members originally elected by the party’s 300-strong central committee.

Despite this democratic veneer, history suggests that the process will be overseen by a small group of current and former leaders, after several rounds of horse-trading. Speculation about who will get the nod is rife, and lists of possible names have been circulating around Beijing for months.

As the party is assiduous in scrubbing the personal histories of its top leaders, more is known about many of the candidates’ wives than about their own views: for example, Xi Jinping, the presumed next president, is married to a 49-year-old celebrity singer called Peng Liyuan who often appears on China’s spring festival television gala, while Cheng Hong, the wife of Li Keqiang, another leading politician, is an English and American literature professor who has specialised in the works of Henry David Thoreau, the American naturalist and writer (suggesting to some that Mr Li may be more sympathetic to the West).

“Six of the seven names on the committee are now pencilled in,” confided one well-connected businessman, over the starched tablecloths of the five-star China World Hotel. “I was so depressed when I heard that Zhang Gaoli [the powerful party secretary of the city of Tianjin] had made it in,” he added, with a groan. Mr Zhang is thought to be a pawn of Jiang Zemin, the former president, who, at 86, still has a tentacular grip on the levers of power.

Across town, in the back room of a dingy restaurant, a small group of liberal dissidents also had a view. “There will be three and a half reformers on the committee,” said one. The half, he explained, was Yu Zhengsheng, the Shanghai city boss. “So it is balanced. But the reformers are in the key positions!”

This is the question on everybody’s lips: will the new leaders bring change? If the country has any guiding ideology these days, it lies in the belief that reform is the key to progress. “We need deep political reform and reform in all fields: the military, the media, education and medicine,” says Yan Xuetong, an academic at Tsinghua university. “Reform is the only engine to drive China to superpower status. Without it, the country will stop. Any country that stops will go down – just look at Japan.”

Of course, when Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao came to power 10 years ago, hopes were equally high. Instead, Mr Hu and Mr Wen chose to focus on the economy and on keeping China stable. While some easy fixes were pushed through, the real commitment to political and legal reforms, and to breaking down the commanding power of national monopolies, is as distant as ever.

Indeed, the longer the party maintains its absolute authority over all three branches of the state, the deeper the corruption of its officials will grow and the harder it will be to break down their networks of power.

This year, some of the rot has surfaced spectacularly. “There has never been so much public disgust at the Communist Party,” said the businessman at the China World Hotel, explaining that the Chinese are outraged not just that their political system has become a vast kleptocracy but that officials are so brazen about it that they buy Ferraris for their children.

Since March, the party has lurched from one scandal to the next like a punch-drunk boxer. The fall of Bo Xilai, the politburo member who was wrapped up in the murder of the British businessman Neil Heywood, is still rumbling on: yesterday Bo was formally expelled from the party.

But there was also the case of Ling Jihua, a close aide of President Hu Jintao, who tried but failed to suppress the news that his son had died in March when his Ferrari crashed, with two young Tibetan women in the car. In the late summer, Xi Jinping, who will succeed Mr Hu as president, disappeared for 17 days without explanation, setting off a frenzy of speculation about his health and his future.

Now a year-long investigation by The New York Times has revealed that even “Grandpa” Wen Jiabao, the kindly 70-year-old premier who often casts himself as a man of the people, has family wealth of at least £1.67 billion. Meanwhile, Mr Wen’s wife, Zhang Beili, has been revealed to have significant control over China’s precious gems industry: for years she has been nicknamed “the Diamond Queen”.

Lawyers claiming to act for Mr Wen’s family members denied that they had “hidden riches” but the damage was done – and blanket censorship did not prevent the news from seeping out into the general consciousness. The story is clear proof that it is not just low-level government officials who have become intoxicated by power and greed, but those at the very top of the party too.

So much turbulence would be remarkable in any year, but in this year it presents a serious challenge to the new leaders. There are signs, however, that Mr Xi is moving to make changes. One important decision has already reportedly been taken. The number of people in the politburo standing committee is to shrink from nine to seven, a more decisive collective. Mr Xi is also thought to have commissioned a “roadmap for reform” from the Party School, the elite academy in Beijing where future policy is debated.

Finally, he made a well-publicised visit to Hu Deping, the son of a former leader who has been an outspoken advocate for change. “Reforms cannot be wasted, promises cannot be abandoned,” Mr Hu wrote in the Economic Observer, a Beijing-based newspaper, last week, calling for change in China’s political and judicial systems and arguing that private companies should be allowed to compete with state-owned monopolies.

The best that reformers hope for is that China adopts the model of Singapore: Mr Xi visited the island last year and teams have been sent there to study how its government runs such a predictable democracy. But it is hard to see how lessons from a tiny island of five million obedient citizens can be applied to a country of 1.3 billion.

In any event, the reformists may simply be looking at the parts of the picture that appeal to them. In a recent speech, Mr Xi invoked the ideology of Chairman Mao and of Hu Jintao as guides for the party’s future.

And even assuming broad agreement within the party on the need for reform, the obstacles have grown so large that many Chinese believe the situation is intractable. As Mr Wen’s case shows, the families of leading party members have seized the strategic economic heights and are busy growing obscenely wealthy.

As the nephew of one politburo member explained to American diplomats in 2009, party elites have carved up China’s “economic pie” between them, grabbing hold of state-owned banks, power companies, oilfields and other monopolies. Li Keqiang, the incoming premier, has controlled China’s public health policy for years – while his younger brother, Li Keming, is the deputy head of China’s tobacco monopoly, the world’s largest cigarette producer.

Any attempt by the new leaders to break up these fiefdoms could spark a war between the ruling families. That alone would steer any new leaders away from serious changes. “They know they have to do something about it,” said the businessman, as the lunch came to a close. But, he added, “it will not be easy”.

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Some 10,000 bottles of Chateau Lafite Rothschild red wine has been found in a derelict house in China.

Police are yet to determine whether the wine - one of the most expensive reds in the world - is fake or genuine but if they are the real they could be worth up to £10 million ($16 million).

The home owner, who goes by the name of Zou, told police his house has been empty for nine years and he knew nothing about the potentially valuable find.

However, as there are only 50,000 bottles of genuine Chateau Lafite Rothschild imported into China each year, police believe it may be a fake stash and are now searching for the illicit workshop where it may have been produced.

As of March, Chateau Lafite Rothschild has won six lawsuits against Chinese companies over fake wine and was awarded at least £80,000 in compensation.

Chateau Lafite Rothschild is a wine estate in France, owned by members of the Rothschild family since the 19th century.

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Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has moved to deny speculation that Dmitry Medvedev may step in to replace the Russian president at a summit with EU leaders in December due to a bad back.

The Russian daily newspaper Nezavisimaya cited an unnamed EU source as having been informed that Prime Minister Medvedev would be attending the summit in place of Mr Putin.

Mr Peskov denied rumors that Mr Putin is suffering from a serious back injury from guiding Siberian Cranes, hatched in captivity, along a migration route in a motorized hang glider in September.

The PR stunt failed when it was revealed by the Rosprirodnadzor environmental agency that the birds he had guided on the way to Siberia's far northern Yamal region failed to fly on further south.

They were subsequently put on a plane and flown back home to the sanctuary in the Ryazan region of central Russia where they had been raised.

"The claims made by Nezavisimaya don't correspond to reality" the spokesman said, but admitted that Mr Putin has had minor ongoing back problems rooted in old sporting injuries, adding that this had been revealed at a summit in the Russian Far East in September.

"Nothing was aggravated by the flight with the cranes," he said in a radio interview. "There was an old injury, let's say, we talked about that in Vladivostok."

He then corrected himself, adding: "It's not old, just an ordinary sporting injury, Putin strained a muscle then."

However, Mr Putin's absence at key recent political events has led to speculation that his injury is more serious than his spokesman has suggested.

An international Arctic Forum in October was cancelled, a summit of former Soviet states in Turkmenistan has been indefinitely postponed and Mr Putin has cancelled his annual television call-in show held in December.

Mr Peskov said the televised call-in show had been put off until a warmer time when people's "ears and feet would not freeze", and that it may be replaced with a press conference.

According to Nezavisimaya, the EU official stated Mr Putin's absence may damage the summit. "Imagine what it would look like if all the European countries are represented by their leaders and Putin is not there," he reportedly said.

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The oldest son of Kim Jong-il, the late leader of North Korea, has reappeared in Singapore nearly one year after fleeing his home in Macau.

Kim Jong-nam, 41, had been living a life of luxury in the former Portuguese enclave, but disappeared in January after celebrating the arrival of the New Year with his family.

South Korean sources told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper that Kim Jong-nam fled Macau in fear of his life after his younger half-brother, Kim Jong-un, took over as head of North Korea. The father of the two men, Kim Jong-il, died in December of last year.

Kim Jong-nam had been groomed by his father to take over the leadership of North Korea until an error of judgment saw him fall from grace.

Arrested in Tokyo in 2001 as he tried to enter Japan on a fake Dominican Republic passport, accompanied by a woman and a child, Kim Jong-nam told the Japanese authorities that he had wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

His father exiled Kim Jong-nam to Macau and the dynasty was left in the hands of his 29-year-old half-brother.

Interviewed by Japanese journalist Yoji Gomi for a book that was released in January, Kim Jong-nam said North Korea is being run by an inexperienced young man who is likely to be acting at the behest of other forces, and that without economic reforms similar to those carried out in China, he could fall from power.

In the book, "My Father, Kim Jong-il, and I: Kim Jong-nam's Exclusive Confession," he also voiced strong opposition to the hereditary transfer of power to his half-brother – and claims his father had been equally against the idea until shortly before his death as it runs completely counter to socialist philosophy.

Kim Jong-nam also said he was a strong advocate of a "people-first" policy, instead of the North's present "military-first" ideal.

In October, South Korean authorities indicted a North Korean agent for violating the National Security Law. Prosecutors said Kim Yong-su had been ordered by the North Korean regime to travel to China in July 2010 to kidnap Kim Jong-nam.

Kim Yong-su has reportedly confessed to planning to bribe a Chinese taxi driver to drive into Kim Jong-nam and disguise it as an accident and claim diplomatic immunity to get him back to North Korea.

Kim Yong-su, who was arrested on a subsequent mission to Seoul, has admitted that the outright assassination of Kim Jong-nam would have been too blatant an act for the rest of the world to dismiss.

The Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Jong-nam moved to Singapore because his apartments in Macau were known to the media and North Korean agents. He opted to settle in Singapore as it is easy for him to travel to Europe, where his 17-year-old son is a student at an international college in Bosnia. His wife, Lee Hye-kyong and his daughter, 13, are believed to still be living in Macau.

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Soldiers deploy along Gaza's border after Israel's cabinet authorised the mobilisation of up to 75,000 reservists, preparing the ground for a possible ground invasion, as air force strikes continue to bombard the coastal enclave.

Israel bombarded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with more than 180 air strikes early Saturday, the military said, widening a blistering assault on militant operations to include the prime minister's headquarters, a police compound and a vast network of smuggling tunnels.

Six people, including five militants, were killed and dozens were wounded in the various attacks Saturday, a Gaza health official said.

In all, 35 Palestinians, including 13 civilians, and three Israeli civilians have been killed since the Israeli operation began.

The Israeli military moved tanks and armoured vehicles to positions along the border with Gaza, signalling a ground invasion could be imminent.

The Israeli Cabinet met on Friday and approved the drafting of 75-thousand reservists.

Militants in Gaza, undaunted by the heavy damage sustained from Israeli air strikes, have unleashed some 500 rockets against the Jewish state, including new, longer-range weapons turned for the first time this week against Jerusalem and Israel's Tel Aviv heartland.

Contains video from Reuters

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