A fanatical terrorist has escaped being thrown out of the UK because it would breach his human rights. Hate-filled Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, graded the highest possible risk to the public, was released after serving just half of his nine-year sentence for helping the July 21 bombers. He now mingles freely among the Londoners his co-plotters tried to kill six years ago.

Government officials are desperate to deport the Islamic fundamentalist back to his native Eritrea but have been told they cannot because he could face 'inhumane treatment or punishment'. Ali was convicted of helping a gang of five Al Qaeda suicide bombers in their bid to repeat the carnage of the attacks of July 7, 2005, two weeks later. Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed on July 7, said he was 'filled with despair'. He said: 'These people were plotting to commit mass murder - what about the human rights of victims and families? These people had no consideration for the women and children they were trying to kill. How can they claim we should look after and support them?'

The case is the latest to highlight how human rights laws have left the authorities powerless to remove some terrorists and convicted criminals. Imposed by unaccountable European judges, they place the rights of the most dangerous wrongdoers above the risks faced by ordinary people.

With music headphones plugged into his ears and a bag slung casually across his shoulder, he appeared to be caught on camera chatting on a mobile phone. It is understood that Ali is being monitored around the clock and must obey a curfew and other conditions, including a ban on using the internet. He is the second high-risk terrorist linked to the July 21 attacks to win the right to remain in the UK on human rights grounds in recent weeks.

Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani met with his top commanders on Sunday in a "special" meeting to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the United States escalated. That emergency meeting came against the backdrop of sharp US allegations that the Pakistani army's powerful spy agency supported the Haqqani militant group Washington blames for the recent attack on its embassy and other targets in Kabul.

The commanders agreed to resist US demands for a Pakistani army offensive in North Waziristan, where the United States believes the Haqqani network is based, the Express Tribune reported, quoting an unnamed military official. "We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done," the official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

The United States has long pressed its ally Pakistan to pursue the Haqqani network, one of the most lethal Taliban-allied Afghan groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies it supports the Haqqanis and says its army is too stretched battling its own Taliban insurgency to go after the network, which has an estimated 10,000-15,000 fighters.

In the most blunt remarks by a US official since Pakistan joined the US-led war on militancy in 2001, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, on Thursday testified before the US Senate that the Haqqani militant network is a "veritable arm" of the ISI. He also for the first time held Islamabad responsible for the Kabul attack, saying Pakistan provided support for that assault.

"Abbas came and made a speech, presented a piece of paper. The Palestinians woke up the next morning and realized nothing has changed," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman told Fox News. Abbas returned to a hero's welcome in Ramallah on Sunday. He told supporters that the "Palestinian Spring is here" while also cautioning that they face a "long path" ahead. "There are those who would put out obstacles... but with your presence they will fall and we will reach our end," he said.

The White House has insisted that the Palestinians seek statehood not through UN recognition but through direct talks with Israel. "We're going to continue to make the case that direct negotiation is the way that we can have a free and independent Palestinian state and a secure Jewish state of Israel," senior adviser David Plouffe told "Fox News Sunday."

But Abbas has refused to bow, and is insisting on a UN vote on statehood. If he fails - a certainty within the Security Council since the US has veto authority - it could create an uptick in violence in the West Bank, which may be difficult to check. Already on Friday, one Palestinian protester was killed in the euphoria of the moment. On Sunday, protesters provoked Israeli Defense Forces by throwing stones at checkpoints.

Failure at the UN to fulfill pent-up Palestinian dreams could also add to the levels of conflict with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said worse than actual violence within the West Bank is the overall message behind the PA's pursuit. "They're trying to get a state to continue the conflict with Israel rather than to end it," Netanyahu said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They are trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the UN"

"This is a very provocative, dangerous step by the Palestinians. It will not lead to peace, it will lead to instability. And it will push us back home in a bipartisan fashion to speak out," added Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican for South Carolina, who said that if the UN were to grant any kind of statehood to the Palestinians - conditional or otherwise - US aid would be jeopardized.

Commissioner Ray Kelly tells CBS' "60 Minutes" that after the September 11 attacks, he decided the city couldn't rely on the federal government alone. He set about creating the NYPD's own counter-terrorism unit. He says the department is prepared for multiple scenarios and could even take down a plane. Kelly didn't divulge details but said "obviously this would be in a very extreme situation."

Other measures include sending NYPD officers abroad, using radiation detectors and creating a network of surveillance cameras in Manhattan. The interview airs Sunday evening. It comes two weeks after the tenth anniversary of 9/11, when hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In a document distributed to the IMF steering committee at the weekend, Ms Lagarde said: "The fund's credibility, and hence effectiveness, rests on its perceived capacity to cope with worst-case scenarios. Our lending capacity of almost $400 billion looks comfortable today, but pales in comparison with the potential financing needs of vulnerable countries and crisis bystanders." The suggestion came after European officials revealed they were working on a radical plan to boost their own bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), from 440 billion euros (384 billion pounds) to around 3 trillion euros.

The plan to increase the EFSF firepower is the crucial part of a three-pronged strategy being designed by German and French authorities to stop the eurozone's debt crisis spiralling out of control. It also includes a large-scale recapitalisation of European banks and a plan for an "orderly" Greek default. Although Britain is not involved in the large-scale eurozone bail-out projects, it is liable for 4.5 per cent of IMF funding.

The governor of the Chinese central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, said that "the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area needs to be resolved promptly to stabilise market confidence". With Greece facing a debt deadline at the beginning of October, the first priority is to release an 8 billion euros tranche of bail-out money. Ms Lagarde said that the priority of international authorities this week must be "implementation, implementation, implementation" of the bail-out agreement of July 21.

The Chancellor set a deadline of six weeks - when leaders of the G20 group of leading countries will meet for crunch talks in France - for action. He said: 'Patience is running out in the international community. There is a sense from across the leading lights of the eurozone that time is running out for them. The eurozone has six weeks to resolve this political crisis.' Mr Osborne also signalled dramatic plans to prop up Britain's faltering economy, opening the door for a rescue plan that would see the Bank of England lend directly to struggling small businesses.

In other developments:

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the challenge facing the world 'could not be more urgent';

World markets remained dangerously volatile, with Britain's leading firms seeing 78billion pounds wiped off their value this week;

The G20 insisted it would take necessary steps to try to stop the eurozone crisis spreading;

Debt-laden Greece admitted for the first time that an 'orderly default' was an option;

Economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland predicted that Europe is falling back into recession.

There is a growing expectation in Whitehall that the Bank of England will authorise another emergency injection of cash into the economy with a second round of 'quantitative easing' - essentially, printing money. As much as 300 billion pounds is expected to be flooded into the economy despite the risk that it will push inflation still higher, increasing the cost of living. The IMF boss said, echoing Mr Osborne's refrain about the need for deficit reduction in Britain, 'We are all in this together. There are dark clouds over Europe and huge uncertainty in the US, and with that we could see collapse in global demand.'

As the financial markets fluctuate wildly, from Toronto to Tokyo, nobody could disagree with a syllable of these apocalyptic pronouncements. But how many businesses must go to the wall, how many livelihoods will be destroyed, before those with the power to act match deeds to their sonorous words?

By far the most frightening aspect of the crisis convulsing the West is the lack of urgency displayed by heads of government and the institutions set up to safeguard global financial stability. It's as if they believe that demanding forceful action is the same thing as actually taking it. In the eurozone, there have been endless summits to discuss the catastrophe gripping Greece - and now spreading to other, larger economies. Yet nothing ever comes of them, apart from sticking-plaster loans to delay the inevitable day of reckoning.

Everybody involved - whether Angela Merkel of Germany or Nicolas Sarkozy of France - can see the truth that Athens will never be able to repay its debts. But rather than act upon that fact by arranging for an orderly default, they go on feeding more heroin to the junkie, hoping that if they shut their eyes to the agony it will end of its own accord. Most depressing of all, even mighty America is lumbered with a president in denial, whose only answer to his country's stagnation is to spend yet more money.

Even with the disaster upon us, the political class behaves as if nothing untoward is happening. For proof, look at the pygmies strutting the stage at the Lib Dem conference, faffing on about carbon capture and parental leave while businesses are dying on their feet. What the West desperately needs is leadership with the courage to risk unpopularity - and the vision to see there can be no way out of this crisis while Britain, Europe and America remain saddled with overweight public sectors they can no longer afford.

The hour has come. But where are the men?

Again, they exhort their colleagues to take firm political action, to prevent what is already bad from getting worse. Christine Lagarde, the new IMF boss, says this is a "dangerous phase" and while there is a path to recovery, it is narrower than three years ago. She says the US must repair its broken finances and reduce debt, while balancing that with growth creation.

This feels like a critical moment. Not simply today, nor this week, but the next few months will be a test of political systems in Europe and the US. No one seems to doubt that what is needed is firm political action. "The two other clouds still over us are the European crisis and the deep concern that you can see across the world and around the country about whether the political system in the United States is up to the challenges we face," warned US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

But there is something false about the picture being painted of weak leaders who can't quite summon up the energy to do something. The problem isn't really the lack of political will, it is the lack of political agreement.

The Americans believe that if the world were to tumble back into recession or a prolonged depression, as looks increasingly likely, it would be the euro area to blame. All the hard work done in the US, Britain and other countries in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse three years ago - including the regime of record low interest rates and pumping hundreds of billions of taxpayer pounds into the banks and the economy - will have been wasted.

George Osborne has made clear that he believes the euro is in the last-chance saloon. The crisis which began in Greece in early 2010 has been allowed to fester for too long. What is plain is that at an overnight emergency session of the G20 advanced and leading emerging markets economies here in Washington, the euroland leaders were read the riot act.

They were made to recognise that the falls in share markets around the world, which have impoverished tens of millions of savers and pensioners, are fed by fear for future global prosperity and are not the result of some Anglo-Saxon plot to bring down the single currency. The reality is that months of appalling indecision, driven by some of the mini-countries within the monetary union, had in fact underlined the need for Germany and France to seize the political opportunity to bring the crisis to an end. The final deadline set by the G20 for sorting out the mess is the Cannes G20 summit on the first weekend of November.

Britain cannot divorce itself from events given that up to 80 per cent of our trade is with euro-area nations.

Without a eurowide rescue, the prospects of heading off a prolonged slump - which will devastate every British household and business - will be remote.

Financial markets experienced another day of intense volatility as investors struggled to interpret an emergency statement from the Group of 20 leading economies, which met on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington.

Investors were initially unimpressed by the G20's message of support for the global economy, but several said they did not want to get caught out should policymakers unexpectedly decide on a radical policy response.

Gold continued to slide sharply and US oil prices traded below $80 a barrel, their lowest in more than a year. Shares rallied modestly in Europe and the US, accompanied by selling in government bonds and the dollar.

Many finance ministers reported a greater sense of urgency in discussions on the eurozone overnight on Thursday. Eurozone governments have pledged to pass legislation by mid-October to make their rescue fund, the European financial stability facility, more flexible and are discussing ways to "maximise its impact in order to address contagion".

European Union officials are warming to the idea that the EFSF could be "leveraged" to increase its strength, perhaps by guaranteeing larger European Central Bank purchases of Spanish and Italian sovereign debt, in an effort to isolate the two countries from the more intractable Greek debt crisis. Francois Baroin, French finance minister, said policymakers "need the right firewall to prevent contagion" and can discuss giving the EFSF "the necessary strength".

G20 sources said that up to 50% was likely to be wiped from the face value of Greece's 350 billion euros debt - but not until Europe had put into place a war chest to prevent the contagion spreading. More money will be disbursed by the International Monetary Fund and the EU next month to keep the Greek government afloat, but this is seen as a short-term fix while Europe's leaders beef up the eurozone bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

Europe came under ferocious pressure at this weekend's IMF meeting in Washington to contain the spiralling crisis, which is blamed for dragging the global economy to the brink of a double-dip recession. The IMF is reportedly willing to continue bailing out Greece in the short-term, provided that Europe uses the time to tackle the issue of debt once and for all. The Washington-based lender believes the 18-month delay since Greece was first bailed out last spring has exacerbated the crisis.

Tim Geithner, the US treasury secretary, said: "The threat of cascading default, bank runs and catastrophic risk must be taken off the table, otherwise it will undermine all other efforts, both within Europe and globally. Decisions as to how to conclusively address the region's problems cannot wait until the crisis gets more severe."

German and French officials came up with the strategy which aims to end the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis before it spirals completely out of control, plunging the world back into recession. The likely deal came ahead of a major new setback for the British economy - with BAe Systems, Britain's biggest manufacturer, poised to cut 3,000 jobs.

Whitehall officials believe the job losses could be announced as early as this week and are likely to affect the company's military aircraft division in Warton, Lancashire, and Brough, Yorkshire. The eurozone deal, being brokered by the G20 group of nations, would seek to "ring fence" the crisis around Greece, Portugal and Ireland - preventing it from spreading to major EU economies such as Italy and Spain.

It would involve the bailing out of those European banks - mostly French - most at risk from their massive lendings to tottering economies. Greece, crucially, would be able to default on at least some of its more than 300 billion pounds debts but remain inside the eurozone. The Greek government's private creditors would bear most of the increased costs. At this stage, a new bail-out programme would be devised for Greece - with cash coming at least in part from the International Monetary Fund, in which Britain holds a 4.5 per cent stake. This could mean British taxpayers paying out more than the 1 billion pounds they are already slated to have to contribute under the terms of the first Greek bailout fund.

Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, has said: "There are dark clouds over Europe and there is huge uncertainty in the US. And with that we could risk a collapse in global demand. Let's remove the clouds and remove the uncertainty. Easier said than done, and it requires clearly a collective action."

And on March 1, Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, his 32-year reign threatened by the popular uprising sweeping across the Middle East, accused... No, you'd best hear this in his own words. "There is an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilizing the Arab world," he said in a speech at Sana'a University. The operations room in question, he added, is "run by the White House."

For the Obama Administration, which is struggling with the consequences of the toppling of other Arab dictators, Saleh's predicament is especially worrisome. Impoverished Yemen (population 24 million) may be at the fringes of the world economy and Arab politics, but it punches well above its weight in global terrorism, as both a supplier of jihadists to holy wars abroad and a home for al-Qaeda's most ambitious franchise.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was behind many major terrorist plots uncovered in the US over the past two years, including last fall's effort to use the global airfreight network to detonate bombs on board a Chicago-bound plane and the attempt to blow up a passenger jet over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. The group also shelters the American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been in Yemen since 2004 and has been linked to several of these plots.

The Obama Administration doubled counterterrorism aid to $150 million in 2010, and US special forces are helping train Yemeni troops. Regime change in Sana'a could jeopardize that cooperation and potentially take pressure off AQAP - a point that Saleh's officials have been keen to make since the protesters began to press for his ouster. "If we go, this country will be wide open," one official tells TIME, asking not to be named. "People who want to support these so-called revolutionaries should stop and ask themselves if these kids can protect the world from al-Qaeda."

Some of the BBC's most popular programmes including University Challenge, presented by Jeremy Paxman, and Radio 4's In Our Time, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, are among the growing number of shows using the new descriptions. The BBC's religious and ethics department says the changes are necessary to avoid offending non-Christians.

It states: 'As the BBC is committed to impartiality it is appropriate that we use terms that do not offend or alienate non-Christians. In line with modern practice, BCE/CE (Before Common Era/Common Era) are used as a religiously neutral alternative to BC/AD.'

But the move has angered Christians, mystified other faith leaders and been branded unnecessary by the Plain English Campaign. Critics say the new terms are meaningless because, just like AD and BC, they still denote years in relation to the life of Christ.

Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said: 'I think this amounts to the dumbing down of the Christian basis of our culture, language and history. These changes are unnecessary and they don't achieve what the BBC wants them to achieve.'

'Whether you use Common Era or Anno Domini, the date is actually still the same and the reference point is still the birth of Christ.'

Marie Clair of the Plain English Campaign said: 'As with most politically correct innovations, I am sure this was done with the best of intentions. But it is difficult to see what the point of the changes are if people do not understand the new terms. It sounds like change just for the sake of change.' The website for BBC Religion and Ethics, headed by commissioning editor Aaqil Ahmed, who is a Muslim, is littered with references to Common Era and Before Common Era.

The Reverend Peter Mullen, Anglican chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, said: 'This is absurd political correctness and these new terms do not mean anything to anyone. I think it's an example of the BBC trying to undermine Christianity by pushing an aggressive secularism. I would be very surprised if any other faith had complained about the use of Anno Domini and Before Christ.'

It was, however, his speech to the German Bundestag which has been the most parsed since his arrival. Even before he got to Berlin, Vatican observers, studying the speech on the plane on the way to Berlin, were astounded at what they read. It was as if the old Joseph Ratzinger had returned, the theology professor who never really wanted to become pope. He did not mince words. He spoke about nature and reason and demanded from the parliamentarians an increased sense of moral responsibility for ecology and equality. It was a very political speech. It was courageous. And it was unique.

A politician's "fundamental criterion and the motivation for his work as a politician must not be success, and certainly not material gain," the pope said. "Politics must be a striving for justice, and hence it has to establish the fundamental preconditions for peace." A politician's success, he continued, should be "subordinated to the criterion of justice, to the will to do what is right, and to the understanding of what is right." Pointedly, he added "we Germans... have seen how power became divorced from right, how power opposed right and crushed it."

The pope flew to Erfurt on Friday morning, where he visited the monastery where Martin Luther lived before he turned his back on Catholicism. It is a stop which is being seen as a gesture of reconciliation. But judging from his first day in Germany, one can expect that Pope Benedict XVI will make sure that the message of the visit is clear. In all its bluntness.