Then, in between songs and prayers, Spain’s bishops lined up to attack the center-left Socialist government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. They spoke of a “great social menace” created by a secular administration and its support for abortion as well as gay marriage and “express divorce”.

The Poverty Olympics were a fun-filled afternoon featuring a torch relay, opening ceremony, and Poverty Olympics "events". These included the Welfare Hurdles, Poverty Line High Jump, and Long Jump over a Bedbug-Infested Mattress. The highlight of the opening ceremony was the lighting of a 15-foot high End Poverty Torch.

The start of the new year has seen environmental campaigners from around Manchester taking action to raise awareness of the threat to global ecosystems posed by plans for increased bio-fuel production.

The police continue their run of good fortune, with yet another blow to civil liberties announced by the government yesterday. Home secretary Jacqui Smith raised concerns over gang related violence as justification for added powers given to officers to undertake ‘stop and searches’.

It has been described as the world's largest rubbish dump, or the Pacific plastic soup, and it is starting to alarm scientists. It is a vast area of plastic debris and other flotsam drifting in the northern Pacific Ocean, held there by swirling ocean currents.

As Mule goes to print, Liverpool’s long-awaited year of cultural celebrations will have begun amid huge debts, political in-fighting, corruption, funding cuts and anger from the cities inhabitants and grassroots organisations.

Could you give us a brief reflection on the past six months?

Mass media does not mean total information blackout. But when you read the news, it has travelled through a series of filters before it gets to you.

Early-morning demonstrators blocked the exits of immigration depots to prevent raids on the homes of asylum seekers across the UK in the lead up to Christmas.