Higher revenue and accounting maneuvers have allowed the government to keep paying its bills in the interim. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner urged Congress to raise the limit and "avoid the catastrophic economic and market consequences of a default crisis." President Barack Obama and Congressional Republicans are engaged in tough negotiations over resolving the issue. Republicans are demanding deep spending cuts as a condition of increasing the limit. But Republicans will not support tax increases, which Democrats say must be part of any deal.

A Democratic official said Thursday that the real deadline for reaching agreement is mid-July. That's because congressional leaders need a week or two to finalize the details and line up votes. The US government will continue to take in revenue after the August 2 deadline passes. But it won't be enough to meet its obligations. The government borrows 40 cents for every dollar that it spends and that adds up to an average deficit of about $125 billion each month, the Treasury says. In May, the government took in $175 billion in revenue and spent almost $233 billion.

The government faces several payments in August that will necessitate a higher borrowing limit, Treasury officials say. About $23 billion in Social Security payments must be made on August 3. And a $30 billion interest payment is due August 15. A default would likely raise interest rates and threaten the economic recovery, analysts say. But some congressional Republicans are skeptical of such scenarios. Administration officials worry that it could take a financial calamity before Congress acts.

Throughout the months of lies and misinformation, one story has stuck: "The earthquake knocked out the plant's electric power, halting cooling to its reactors," as the government spokesman Yukio Edano said at a March 15 press conference in Tokyo. The story, which has been repeated again and again, boils down to this: "after the earthquake, the tsunami - a unique, unforeseeable [the Japanese word is soteigai] event - then washed out the plant's back-up generators, shutting down all cooling and starting the chain of events that would cause the world's first triple meltdown to occur."

But what if recirculation pipes and cooling pipes, burst, snapped, leaked, and broke completely after the earthquake - long before the tidal wave reached the facilities, long before the electricity went out? This would surprise few people familiar with the 40-year-old Unit 1, the grandfather of the nuclear reactors still operating in Japan.

The authors have spoken to several workers at the plant who recite the same story: Serious damage to piping and at least one of the reactors before the tsunami hit. One worker, a 27-year-old maintenance engineer who was at the Fukushima complex on March 11, recalls hissing and leaking pipes. "I personally saw pipes that came apart and I assume that there were many more that had been broken throughout the plant. There's no doubt that the earthquake did a lot of damage inside the plant," he said. "There were definitely leaking pipes, but we don't know which pipes - that has to be investigated. I also saw that part of the wall of the turbine building for Unit 1 had come away. That crack might have affected the reactor."

The reason for official reluctance to admit that the earthquake did direct structural damage to reactor one is obvious. Katsunobu Onda, author of 'TEPCO: The Dark Empire', who sounded the alarm about the firm in his 2007 book explains it this way: "If TEPCO and the government of Japan admit an earthquake can do direct damage to the reactor, this raises suspicions about the safety of every reactor they run. They are using a number of antiquated reactors that have the same systematic problems, the same wear and tear on the piping."

The 36-year-old man, identified as Sami, waited until the Muslims finished their evening prayers at the Grand Mosque in the western town of Makkah, mounted the podium and delivered his brief, fiery speech. "I am Al-Mehdi Al-Montathar... I am a prophet sent (by God) to save and guide you," he told the packed hall before was overpowered by police.

Okaz newspaper said the incident took place on Friday night and that Sami insisted during police interrogation that he was a prophet. It said police would subject him to a medical examination to check if he is suffering from mental illness. It was the latest in a series of incidents involving persons claiming to be Al-Mehdi Al-Montathar (the Chosen Imam Al-Mehdi) at Islamic holy sites in Makkah over the past few months.

All of them had been arrested and medically examined. Muslims believe Imam Al-Mehdi, dubbed "the ultimate saviour of mankind" will eventually reappear as a great reformer who will destroy the beliefs of injustice and ignorance and fill this earth with fairness after it has been filled with injustice and oppression.

Militant union leaders yesterday failed in their plans to bring Britain to a grinding halt. Only schools suffered serious disruption as hundreds of thousands of teachers walked out in strikes across the country. But the promised paralysis of the public sector machine failed to materialise.

Official estimates suggest up to eight in ten civil servants heeded calls to keep the country moving by going to work despite industrial action over pension reforms. Downing Street insisted there had been 'minimal disruption' at border checkpoints, courts, driving test centres, coastguard stations, job centres and benefit call centres. At the Ordnance Survey, of 1,118 civil servants, only one went on strike, while 90 per cent of staff at the Department for Communities and Local Government crossed the picket line.

However, officers had to be taken off patrol in London to replace the 95 per cent of 999 call handlers who abandoned their posts.

Yesterday's strike, while negotiations are ongoing with the Government about how to reduce the huge cost of public sector pensions, split the union movement. It also cast doubt on the ability of unions to muster sufficient support for a wave of industrial action culminating in a general strike in the autumn. Christine Keates, head of the NASUWT - which did not join yesterday's action - said: 'It's important to keep the high moral ground. 'That means if there are negotiations, that you seek to exhaust all other avenues before resorting to industrial action.' One senior Government source said: 'The whole thing has been a complete damp squib.'

He says only immigrants with "something to offer" should be allowed into the country and that too often foreign workers purporting to be skilled take low-skilled jobs that could be occupied by British school leavers. He warns David Cameron that a "slack" attitude to immigration will result in the Coalition repeating the mistakes made under Labour, when the vast majority of new jobs generated before the recession were taken by immigrants.

His comments represent the strongest criticism of immigration since Downing Street strategists advised that the Government should be tougher on the issue. They will be seen as a warning to Mr Cameron not to allow the Liberal Democrats to dictate a softer policy on the issue. Mr Duncan Smith, who is in charge of a shake-up of the welfare system, will make his comments in a speech in Spain and they come as official figures show that the UK population is growing at its fastest rate for 50 years, driven by immigration.

The strike last week against senior members of al-Shabab comes amid growing concern within the US government that some leaders of the Islamist group are collaborating more closely with al-Qaeda to strike targets beyond Somalia, the military official said. The airstrike makes Somalia at least the sixth country where the United States is using drone aircraft to conduct lethal attacks, joining Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq and Yemen. And it comes as the CIA is expected to begin flying armed drones over Yemen in its hunt for al-Qaeda operatives.

Al-Shabab has battled Somalia's tenuous government for several years. In recent months, US officials have picked up intelligence that senior members of the group have expanded their ambitions beyond attacks in Somalia. "They have become somewhat emboldened of late, and, as a result, we have become more focused on inhibiting their activities," the official said."They were planning operations outside of Somalia."

EDF Energy said that they were unsure when the plant in East Lothian would re-open. It is the common jellyfish - known as Aurelia aurita - which had swam into the filters. The plant uses seawater to cool the reactors. Although they do not sting, they should not be handled without gloves.

A spokesman said the unit had been only shut down as a precautionary measure after 'high volumes' of jellyfish were found - and there was no danger to the public at any time. The seawater screens filter out debris in cooling water which enters the plant. An EDF spokesman said: 'Reduced cooling water flows due to ingress from jellyfish, seaweed and other marine debris are considered as part of the station's safety case and are not an unknown phenomenon.

'This was a precautionary action and the shutdown cooling systems performed in a satisfactory manner and both reactors were safely shut down. 'At no time was there any danger to the public. There are no radiological aspects associated with this event and there has been no impact to the environment.' The Office of Nuclear Regulation has been fully briefed about the incident. Torness power station began generating electricity in 1988.

In what Treasury officials viewed as one of the most outrageous power grabs in recent memory, they demanded the right to raise a Europe-wide sales tax. Brussels bosses also called for a new financial transaction tax, which critics say will hurt the City of London and leave consumers with higher borrowing costs. And they unveiled plans to let Brussels grab a chunk of green taxes which are already being levied on polluters. In total, the commission demanded nearly 100 billion pounds extra for the EU's budget between 2014 and 2020.

British taxpayers would have to pay 10 billion pounds more over the seven-year period - an increase of 1.4 billion pounds a year on the current British annual payment of 13.3 billion pounds. And, as the Mail predicted yesterday, the commission also outlined proposals for a new funding formula which would chisel away at Britain's 3 billion-pounds-a-year rebate negotiated by Margaret Thatcher. The fine details of the new taxes were not spelled out, but will be part of a year-long negotiation over the budget.

They come amid claims that two of the Prime Minister's closest aides want Britain to leave the EU. Senior government sources say that Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister who is David Cameron's policy chief, and Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's closest political friend and big ideas guru, have both come to the view that the UK should pull out of Europe altogether. The Spectator magazine reported: 'Both have been known to end meetings by saying, "Well, the only solution is to leave the EU". At least two Cabinet ministers share their view.'

In the 10 years since US troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion. Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study.

The White House says the total amount appropriated for war-related activities of the Department of Defense, intelligence and State Department since 2001 is about $1.3 trillion, and that would rise to nearly $1.4 trillion in 2012. Researchers with the Watson Institute say that type of accounting is common but too narrow to measure the real costs.

In human terms, 224,000 to 258,000 people have died directly from warfare, including 125,000 civilians in Iraq. Many more have died indirectly, from the loss of clean drinking water, healthcare, and nutrition. An additional 365,000 have been wounded and 7.8 million people - equal to the combined population of Connecticut and Kentucky - have been displaced.

The Shamsi base, about 300km from Quetta and close to the Afghan border, has been used to launch drone strikes on militants - part of a campaign the US says has wiped out about half of al-Qaeda's leadership. "No US flights are taking place from Shamsi any longer. If there have to be flights from this base, it will only be Pakistani flights," Mr Mukhtar told the Financial Times. "We have ended all US flights from the base."

Separately, a senior Pakistani government official said the US had been told to remove infrastructure from the airbase. But he claimed that drone attacks had not taken place since 2009. "The US has been told to remove all of its belongings [from Shamsi]," the official said. The White House, which refuses officially to acknowledge that it carries out drone strikes in Pakistan, declined to comment.

The US raid that killed bin Laden, launched from Afghanistan, is viewed as the Pakistan military's worst humiliation since the loss of East Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in a war in 1971. Pakistan's army has been wounded by its failure to detect the US helicopter-borne raid and Washington's decision not to share intelligence about bin Laden's whereabouts with Pakistani counterparts.

An investigation by the Bank of England, reported in its Financial Stability Report released on Friday, found widespread evidence that banks are extending loan forbearance to weakened borrowers. And because loans in forbearance often aren't classified as impaired, banks may be skimping on loan provisions, giving a deceptively flattering account of their capital position and health.

Forbearance, usually some form of break given to a borrower such as extending the term or making the loan interest-only, is offered to some borrowers when they miss a payment or violate part of the loan agreement. What's surprising about the BOE's findings is how widespread the practice is, not only in residential mortgages, but in commercial real estate lending and corporate lending. Commercial real estate, which has suffered deep and widespread declines in value, is the other shoe that never dropped for the British banking system. Perhaps this is because, as the BOE points out, around a third of all UK commercial property lending may have benefited from some form of forbearance.

The bank also said that as many as 12 percent of residential mortgages may be in receipt of some form of break on their loan. An earlier investigation by the Financial Services Authority found that 63 percent of all troubled home loans have been switched onto some form of forbearance. Some 3 percent of borrowers with mortgages totaling 60 billion pounds ($97 billion) have switched to interest-only mortgages, under which no principal is retired, since the onset of the financial crisis in 2007, according to the FSA.

So, there we have it; all significant parts of the British economy are being helped by loan repayment forbearance from a banking industry which is not sufficiently disclosing how it decides how it operates or if it is setting aside enough money for future losses. There are two ways to look at this. The cynical, and quite possibly correct, way to view the mass forbearance is that, of course, this is what banks do when faced with failure, and they mostly get away with it. US and international banking history are littered with banks that in retrospect would have failed if they had played things straight, but lived to lend again by extending and pretending, almost often with the witting participation of their regulators. It doesn't always work out too badly.

The second way is to look at this as not only a warning about the grave risks the UK banking system faces, but an indicator of exactly how weak the economy is and will be.

In a statement to lawmakers, Hague said: "Iran has also been carrying out covert ballistic missile tests and rocket launches, including testing missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in contravention of UN resolution 1929." He said Iran had also announced plans to triple its capacity to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, adding: "These are enrichment levels far greater than is needed for peaceful nuclear energy.

"We will maintain and continue to increase pressure on Iran to negotiate an agreement on their nuclear programme," including sanctions, he said. There was no immediate reaction from Tehran, which denies Western claims that it is pursuing nuclear weapons under the guise of its civil atomic programme. On Tuesday Iranian state media said the Revolutionary Guards fired nine Zelzal missiles, two Shahab-1s, two Shahab-2s and a single medium-range Ghadr on the second day of their Great Prophet-6 exercise.

On the first day of the exercise on Monday, the Guards unveiled an "underground missile silo" which they said was designed for launching their medium-range missiles, state television reported. The Guards' aerospace commander Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh insisted Iran's missile programme posed no threat to European nations but was intended to provide defence against "US targets in the region and the Zionist regime." Iran has said that its latest exercise is not aimed at any country but carries "a message of peace and friendship."

"Our facilities and nuclear material are protected and safe," Laboratory Director Dr Charles McMillan told ABC News. Fire crews have also began a series of targeted, preventative burns along the western edge of the property to remove any fuel from the fire's path. The Los Alamos facility - the birthplace of the atomic bomb - was shrouded in secrecy long before it was surrounded by smoke after the Las Conchas fire began Sunday.

"It contains approximately 20,000 barrels of nuclear waste," former top security official Glen Walp said. "It's not contained within a concrete, brick-and-mortar-type building, but rather in a sort of fabric-type building that a fire could easily consume. Potential is high for a major calamity if the fire would reach these areas," he added.

The flames from the 108-square-mile fire reportedly have reached as close as 50 feet from the grounds. With a wildfire so close, lab officials, along with government officials such as New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, are trying to reassure the public of the plant's safety. "I'm confident in saying that they are committed to making it safe," Martinez told ABC News.

After a mass evacuation, the city of Los Alamos remains a ghost town. Most of its 12,000 residents were evacuated Monday, with some leaving their sprinklers on to protect their homes.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia... to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences". He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.

"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," the official said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit." Officials in Riyadh said that Saudi Arabia would reluctantly push ahead with its own civilian nuclear programme. Peaceful use of nuclear power, Turki said, was the right of all nations.

Turki was speaking earlier this month at an unpublicised meeting at RAF Molesworth, the airbase in Cambridgeshire used by Nato as a centre for gathering and collating intelligence on the Middle East and the Mediterranean. According to a transcript of his speech obtained by the Guardian, Turki told his audience that Iran was a "paper tiger with steel claws" that was "meddling and destabilising" across the region.

Governments across the single currency bloc are pushing the banks, pension funds and insurance firms that hold Greek sovereign debt to play a role in a second rescue package for the heavily indebted euro zone nation. Josef Ackermann cautioned against any steps that could spread the crisis to other vulnerable countries in the 12-year old currency bloc.

"If it is Greece alone, that's already big. But if other countries are drawn in through contagion, it could be bigger than Lehman," the Deutsche Bank chief said at a Reuters banking event on Monday. The Swiss banker, who is also chairman of the Institute of International Finance, an international bank lobbying group set up to deal with international debt crisis, cautioned politicians against rushing a deal with the private sector.

European leaders have said they want precise figures on private creditor involvement by a July 3 meeting of euro zone finance ministers. "Political leaders expect a solution by the end of the week, but we should not rush it," Ackermann said. "It is important to have a good solution. The issues are complex and need to be discussed." At issue is how to share the burden of a new 110 billion euro ($155.8 billion) bailout for Greece being readied by euro zone politicians.

Athens also desperately needs to secure a 12 billion euro EU/IMF lifeline from its first rescue by next month to avoid an immediate default. While many economists believe some form of debt restructuring is inevitable, European banks are eager to avoid a disorderly process that could trigger a Lehman-style meltdown of inter-bank lending markets and undermine other euro zone debt. "We see the first signs of a stiffening of the money market," Ackermann said.