A chilling new Islamic State video starring homegrown terrorist Jihadi John shows a Western hostage being gruesomely detained without charge.

The terrifying tape shows in graphic detail how the hostage’s mind gradually turns to mush after spending just one hour outside his cell each day for over a decade.

A group of storytellers who believe in a particular version of events, some concerning characters with magical powers, are killing groups who like to tell slightly different stories about similar characters.

None of the storytelling groups have been able to conclusively prove that their narratives are correct, largely because the key events took place several hundred years ago and the protagonists have long since died, but this has not stopped them using violence to try and enforce their claims.

Benjamin Netanyahu has slain a litter of kittens after being scratched on the arm by their mother.

The Israeli prime minister said he acted in “self-defence” after the four-year-old moggy, called Mimi, lashed out as he took her food bowl away.

I’d love nothing more than to review an album for you right now, tell you about how some band or solo artist is going to make it big, or be doomed to a perpetual cycle of reality TV show auditions.

But I can’t do that. I’m so distraught I can’t even bear to listen to Radiohead.

The Saudi government has launched a new crackdown on female drivers by arming its traffic police with ‘penilisers’.

The waist-hi-tech device will automatically detect drivers who do not possess a valid penis – a sex organ required in Saudi Arabia for health and sexism reasons.

Millions of homeless and starving Filipinos whose homes and livelihoods were wiped out by a Category 5, 235mph super-typhoon have thanked world governments and their negotiating teams for finally agreeing to make an agreement next year to start solving man-made climate change in 2020.

The manifestly grateful victims of Typhoon Haiyan – the strongest recorded storm to make landfall – said their endless search for food, water and shelter would “soon be over” because the 19th-annual United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Warsaw had made a partial deal to possibly do something to save the world at a distant future date.

Everybody’s talking about diplomacy, amnesty, treaty, democracy, unity, harmony, tea, coffee and the plight of the honeybee.

All I’m saying is give war a chance.