The countries - Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Greece - were said to be discussing EU issues, including the financial situation of Portugal, Ireland and Greece. Greece denounced the Spiegel report about the possible exit of Greece from the Eurozone as "not only completely untrue but also written with incomprehensible flippancy despite repeated denials by the Greek Government as well as other EU Member States".

"Such articles are not only provocative but also highly irresponsible as they undermine Greece's efforts and those of the Eurozone and serve only the interests of speculators. Despite the denials, at 2230 GMT the euro was worth $1.44. After the talks the Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker issued a categorical denial that Greece's euro status was up for debate. "We have not been discussing the exit of Greece from the euro area, this is a stupid idea, it is in no way... an avenue we would never take," Reuters reported him as saying. "We don't want to have the euro area exploding without reason."

"We have ruled out any restructuring of Greek debt," Juncker underlined, saying the talks were about "discussing European problems in relation to G20 and Eurogroup meetings over the coming weeks." Despite dismissals from officials, the story "does seem to be having a market effect," said Ron Leven, a currency strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York. But he played down the significance of the report. "For [Greece] to leave the euro is very complicated. It's not like they can just wake up tomorrow and say we're not in the euro anymore."

Combined with the bailout of sibling company Freddie Mac, the government expects their rescue to cost taxpayers about $259 billion. That money will cover the mortgage giants' losses on soured loans made in the midst of the housing bubble. Home prices declined on average 1.8 percent across the country during the January-March quarter, Fannie Mae said. That led to more foreclosures and to homeowners abandoning houses that were worth less than they owed on their mortgages.

"We expect our credit-related losses to remain elevated in 2011 as we continue to be negatively impacted by the prolonged decline in home prices," President and CEO Michael Williams said in a statement. The losses incurred in the first three months of the year are related to loans that were extended before 2009, Fannie Mae said. The company expects to make money on home loans that it acquired since January 2010. The companies nearly toppled because of losses on risky mortgages that they purchased between 2005 and 2008. They tightened their lending standards after those loans started to go bad.

Fannie and Freddie buy home loans from banks and other lenders, package them into bonds with a guarantee against default and sell them to investors around the world. When property values drop, homeowners default - either because they are unable to afford the payments or because they owe more than the property is worth. Because of the guarantees, Fannie and Freddie must pay for the losses.

The statement, dated May 3, was the first by al-Qaeda since its founder was killed on Sunday by US special forces in a raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The message's authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on sites traditionally used by the group. If authenticated, the statement is likely to reduce calls on the US authorities to publish pictures of bin Laden's dead body in order to confirm the killing.

However, UN human rights investigators on Friday put fresh pressure on Washington to disclose the "supporting facts" around the raid on bin Laden's compound so that it could be assessed "in terms of international human rights law standards". The US said the al-Qaeda leader was unarmed when he was shot, but he was still a threat. "Initial reports suggest that two weapons were very close to bin Laden," said a US official, referring to reporting by the navy Seals team that stormed the Abbottabad compound.

Rather than making vehement cries of vengeance, al-Qaeda struck a tone of calm, underlining in its statement that the group would live on.

"Sheikh Osama didn't build an organisation to die when he dies," it read. "The university of faith, Koran and jihad from which bin Laden graduated will not close its doors." Al-Qaeda's response to its leader's death follows claims that the raid on bin Laden's hideout uncovered evidence that he was plotting an attack on the US railway network. A US official said the plot, which involved derailing a train on a bridge, was detailed in handwritten notes from February 2010 discovered among bin Laden's possessions.

The company only uses food that can't be sold, because the products are mis-shapen, past their sell by date or overcooked. The best ingredients are pies, pasties and crisps for their high fat content but other foodstuffs range from taramasalata to oil from fried fish containing breadcrumbs.

Greenergy is in a partnership with Brocklesby, a specialist in recycling edible oils that would previously have gone to landfill or compost, are now being converted for biofuel and energy production.

The fuel giant invested 50 million pounds in the biodiesel production facility at Immingham on the east coast to process used cooking oils, which are more complicated to process than "new" oils such as rapeseed. It uses more than 20 million litres a month of used cooking oil supplied from a range of food producers. However, extracting oil from foodstuffs is a new process.

The oils and fats are removed from the food through a process developed by Brocklesby and are then further purified by Greenergy.

The finished biodiesel is then blended into the diesel that Greenergy supplies to petrol stations nationally.

In a fiery speech Tuesday in the Iranian holy city of Qom, Mojtaba Zolnour, Khamenei's representative in the Revolutionary Guard, said he asked Ahmadinejad: "What do you see in this Mashaei, other than links to exorcists, soothsayers and fortune tellers? ...They come and gurgle on about his prophecies, and Mr Ahmadinejad thinks he has divine knowledge."

Ahmadinejad has also frequently raised concerns with what some see as his obsession over the concept of the "12th Imam," a belief among some Muslims that a leader who has been in hiding since 869 will return and unite the world under the banner of Islam. Believers say the 12th Imam will only appear during a time of worldwide chaos, however, LEADING SOME TO FEAR AHMADINEJAD WOULD DELIBERATELY ACT TO DESTABILIZE THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION IN THE HOPES OF SPARKING THE IMAM'S RETURN. Ahmadinejad has reportedly stabilized a rift with Kahmenei, following a nearly two-week sustained sulk that kept him out of his office.

But the same apparently can't be said for those arrested. Superstition and mysticism are to an extent vestiges of pre-Islamic Iranian culture. And while the Islamic system officially shuns them, a significant number of Iranians may share some of these unorthodox beliefs. Nor do many Iranians think such beliefs exist only within the their own culture.

"The reality of conjuring 'jinn' is not exclusive to our society," said Morteza Nabavi, a member of the Expediency Council, which mediates between the Iranian parliament and the Guardian Council and who is also managing director of Resalat newspaper. "In other places too, catching jinn and eliciting their help is also relevant." But that doesn't mean the proponents of such beliefs should be running a government, according to Nabavi. "The deviant group that have recently been mentioned have reached out to others ...and they have even influenced the president and gained his support." Despite the fact that Ahmadinejad is at the center of this controversy, there are limits to how seriously others in the regime are willing to damage him.

Radicals carrying placards proclaiming 'Islam will dominate the world' branded US leaders 'murderers' and warned vengeance attacks were 'guaranteed'. For many, it was a shock that the protest was allowed to go ahead in the first place as it came shortly after the verdict into the 7/7 inquest was released by Lady Justice Heather Hallett.

She recorded that the 52 victims had been 'unlawfully' killed when four terrorists attacked three London Underground trains and a bus in 2005. Lady Justice Hallett made a string of recommendations to both MI5 to prevent further atrocities and to 999 workers to react more effectively to major events. Relatives of the victims wept openly as the judge announced her verdict and she paid tribute to their 'quiet dignity' before reading the name of each person who died.

However just three miles from the Royal Court of Justice, Muslim protester Abu Muaz, 28, from east London claimed 'it is only a matter of time' before another attack and that the 'West is the enemy'. The capital has seen heightened security in recent days over fears of a revenge attacks by Al-Qaeda members. The protest against Bin Laden's death was organised by controversial preacher Anjem Choudary - who praised both 7/7 and the September 11 attacks. The former UK leader of the outlawed al-Muhajiroun and member of the 'poppy-burning' Muslims Against Crusades extremist group called on the US to return bin Laden's body to relatives.

Downing Street denied there had been any instruction from the prime minister to departments to end the tradition. However, Number 10 did hoist the flag last year. The UK's relationship with Europe is a potential source of tension between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition partners. The government's own published guidance still does suggest that departments should mark the day by flying the EU flag.

A spokesperson from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills told the BBC their permanent secretary had taken the decision to fly the flag as in previous years. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, led by another Liberal Democrat, Chris Huhne, told the BBC it did not have a flagpole.

1. Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, has put further rate rises on hold until at least July and dropped the phrase "strong vigilance" from the ECB's news conference to explain the ECB's policy decision.

2. Contrary to expectations as little as a month ago that the Bank of England would by now be taking the first tentative steps towards a policy tightening, the UK Monetary Policy Committee has again left rates on hold in the face of weak economic data. No-one now expects a rate rise until the Autumn at the earliest.

3. The Markit/CIPS headline services PMI index for the UK eased to 54.3 in April from 57.1, suggesting that the UK economy failed to pick up speed in April following its lack lustre performance in the first quarter.

4. German industrial orders fell unexpectedly in March, reflecting an unusually low number of large orders and suggesting that the country's remarkable economic rebound may be past its peak.

5. World stock markets and the crude oil price took big hits on Thursday amid growing worries about the sustainability of the economic rebound.

6. The number of Americans filing for jobless aid rose to an eight month high last week. US productivity growth also slowed in the first quarter, backing up suggestions of a loss of momentum in US job creation.

7. US 10 year Treasury yields are down a further 4 basis points to 3.18 per cent, a five month low, despite Bernanke's insistence that quantitative easing will cease in June. Anyone for QE3?

8. The price of silver fell a further 6.6 per cent on Thursday, taking its five day decline to nearly a quarter as investors continued to lose their appetite for risk.

9. Most other commodity prices are also under the cosh on fears that the boom has run its course, and the cycle is about to turn down again. Glencore seems to have got the timing of its IPO spot on, or perhaps just a tad too late.

10. Reflecting its traditional safe haven status, the yen has been the major gainer in currency markets, despite rumours that the Japanese authorities might soon take further action to halt its rise.

And that's just for today! Is this just "sell in May" syndrome, or something more ominous? I guess we are about to find out.

The mass transit walkout was set to last for four hours at morning or evening rush hours. Flight personnel were set to strike from 10am to 2pm (0800-1200 GMT), and railway workers from 2pm to 6pm (1200-1600 GMT). Alitalia changed departure times to ensure intercontinental service and reduced domestic and European flights. Union leaders want the government to ease taxes on salaried workers in a country where the self-employed often evade taxes. They also demand more investment to create jobs.

"I'm not satisfied with the term 'evil'," says the Cambridge University psychology and psychiatry professor, one of the world's top experts in autism and developmental psychopathology. "We've inherited this word... and we use it to express our abhorrence when people do awful things, usually acts of cruelty, but I don't think it's anything more than another word for doing something bad. And as a scientist that doesn't seem to me to be much of an explanation. So I've been looking for an alternative - we need a new theory of human cruelty."

Baron-Cohen, who is also director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, has just written a book in which he calls for a kind of rebranding of evil to offer a more scientific explanation for why people kill and torture, or have such great difficulty understanding the feelings of others. His proposal is that evil be understood as a lack of empathy - a condition he argues can be measured and monitored and is susceptible to education and treatment.

Such a chronic breakdown in the operation of the world's largest stock market sparked an investigation by regulators, scrutiny from Washington and a flurry of new rules. Yet one year later, unease lingers that in spite of new safeguards, stock prices are vulnerable to bouts of sudden selling. For all the talk and action, the big concern remains that the Dow could suffer a repeat of last May's crash.

"We will have another flash crash, yes without question," says James Angel, associate professor of finance at Georgetown university. "The combination of human nature, markets and technology means that at some point, something will misfire." After the flash crash, the Securities and Exchange Commission moved quickly to introduce circuit-breakers, designed to impose a "time-out" whenever trading in a stock causes prices to swing too wildly. It also plans to introduce a "limit-up, limit-down" mechanism to prevent trades outside a certain price band.

Egypt is due to hold parliamentary elections in September and the group is likely to emerge with the largest bloc in the assembly. It said this week that its candidates would compete for half the seats in parliament. The Brotherhood, banned for most of its 80-year history, has begun to set up a political party to be named the Freedom and Justice party.

"We should now raise our voice to ask for: an end to normalisation [with Israel] which has given our enemy stability; an end to [Egyptian] efforts to secure from infiltrators the borders of the Zionists; the abolition of all [joint] economic interests such as the Qualified Industrial Zones agreement and the export of Egyptian gas to Israel," said Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood's leader.

The QIZ agreement allows Egypt to export manufactured goods to the US duty-free as long as they have Israeli inputs to a value of 10 per cent. Egypt has just mediated a reconciliation between Fatah, the Palestinian faction headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza. Attempts to broker the same agreement under Mr Mubarak had failed, largely because Egypt was seen to be partial to Fatah and biased against Hamas, which shares the same Islamist credentials of the Brotherhood.

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits). Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".

The arrests come amid a growing rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei which has prompted several MPs to call for the president to be impeached. On Sunday, Ahmadinejad returned to his office after an 11-day walkout in an apparent protest over Khamenei's reinstatement of the intelligence minister, who the president had initially asked to resign.

Ahmadinejad's unprecedented disobedience prompted harsh criticism from conservatives who warned that he might face the fate of Abdulhassan Banisadr, Iran's first post-revolution president who was impeached and exiled for allegedly attempting to undermine clerical power. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a hardline cleric close to Khamenei, warned that disobeying the supreme leader - who has the ultimate power in Iran - is equivalent to "apostasy from God".

Emergency officials in Millington near Memphis were "going door-to-door, asking people to leave," according to the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency. Large amounts of rain and melt from the winter snow has caused a chain reaction of flooding from Canada and the Dakotas through Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee. It is expected to soon hit Mississippi and Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

"The flood is rolling down, it is breaking records as it moves down and it is one of those wait-and-see type of things as to how massive it is going to be when it's all said and done," said Charles Camillo, historian for the Mississippi River Commission and the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project. In Arkansas, westbound traffic on a section of one of the nation's major trucking arteries, Interstate 40, was closed for a second day due to flooding.

The White River was expected to crest at its highest ever level of 40 feet at Des Arc, Arkansas on Thursday night, breaking a 1949 record. A levee overflowed near the White River, forcing a mandatory evacuation of the town of Cotton Plant, the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management said. Officials at the Shelby County Office of Preparedness, that includes Memphis, predicted that the flood could affect 2,832 properties if it crests at 48 feet this coming weekend.

A crest of 48 feet would be the river's highest level since 1937, according to the National Weather Service.

Until now, vets had assumed animals could be infectious while they carried the virus that causes foot-and-mouth, which may be for between four and eight days. However, by exposing calves to infected cattle and closely monitoring them, researchers from the Institute for Animal Health in Surrey and Edinburgh University discovered that the period of infection was less than two days.

Perhaps more importantly, the researchers also discovered that animals were not infectious until they showed symptoms of the disease. Scientists had previously thought animals were infectious for hours or even days before manifesting any symptoms. These results suggest that any future outbreak could be brought under control by closely monitoring animals and slaughtering them as soon as they become ill. This approach is in contrast to the policy adopted to bring the 2001 epidemic under control.