Nearly 27,000 homes in Texas and 14,000 in Ohio were without power, and storm alerts were issued in 19 states. Officials in the city of Chicago, which is expecting 24in (60cm) of snow, said its public schools would close on Wednesday for their first "snow day" in 12 years.

In Missouri, more than a foot (30cm) of snow had fallen by midday, the Associated Press (AP) news agency reported, with more continuing to blanket the state. Meteorologist Jeff Johnson of the National Weather Service in Iowa told AP the storm was sure to "cripple transportation for a couple of days".

The series of storms that has hit the US this winter is also wreaking havoc with government budgets. Clean-up costs are placing pressure on already tight public funds. "This storm is going to have a significant impact on airlines, particularly those with hubs in Chicago (United, American) and Newark (Continental)," the FlightAware website warned.

Last month, Queensland was hit by widespread deadly flooding. "Do not bother to pack bags. Just grab each other and get to a place of safety. Remember that people are irreplaceable," Ms Bligh said. Police on the streets of the northern city of Cairns were urging people to get out.

"Everyone's got to go now," one officer said. "The water is coming now." Residents across the state were frantically buying in supplies to last through a minimum of 24 hours of what they have been told will be a storm of unprecedented ferocity. Those staying at home were taping up windows, filling sandbags and trying to stay calm.

"There is still an opportunity for you to move to a place of safety," Ms Bligh said, after a disaster management meeting on Wednesday morning. "I cannot say in the strongest possible terms, you have to take this opportunity now." Soldiers were knocking on doors in Queensland's northern capital of Townsville to spur more people to get ready. Ms Bligh warned that Queenslanders faced a "frightening time".

Muhammad Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease "in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime." He added that "the people should be prepared for war against Israel," saying the world should understand that "the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime."

Ghannem praised Egyptian soldiers deployed by President Hosni Mubarak to Egyptian cities, saying they "would not kill their brothers." He added that Washington was forced to abandon plans to help Mubarak stay in power after "seeing millions head for the streets."

The protesters had demanded action on unemployment and rising prices and the right to elect the prime minister. They blamed former PM Samir Rifai for the country's economic problems and had called on him to stand down. The palace said the king had accepted his resignation earlier on Tuesday.

In a statement, it said Mr Bakhit's mission was "to take practical, quick and tangible steps to launch true political reforms, enhance Jordan's democratic drive and ensure safe and decent living for all Jordanians". Reform was a "necessity to provide a better life for our people, but we won't be able to attain that without real political reforms, which must increase popular participation in the decision-making", it said.

The country's powerful Islamist opposition movement, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), said it did not welcome Mr Bakhit's appointment. "With the choice of Bakhit, it's obvious that reforms have not started yet. We are against Bakhit because our experience with him is not encouraging," IAF head Hamzah Mansur told the AFP news agency. "There is no reason to stop the protests now," he said.

Jordan has a high unemployment rate among its population of six million, the majority of whom are under 25, and is suffering from the rising food and fuel prices which have affected many of its neighbours. The country has seen three weeks of largely peaceful protests, inspired by those in Tunisia which unseated President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali and the ongoing unrest in Egypt.

As part of his traditional meeting with the faithful today, the Holy Father marked the last Sunday of January, the month of peace. Two young people from Catholic Action - an adolescent girl and a boy - joined him at the window of his study from where he prays the Angelus and the trio released two doves. Today the International Day of Intercession for Peace in the Holy Land is also celebrated.

The Pope said that he was joining with the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Fouad Twal, and the Franciscan custodian of the Holy Land, Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, to ask "everyone to pray to the Lord that he bring minds and hearts together in concrete peace projects."

What's to come? Father Pizzaballa spoke to Vatican Radio about peace in the Middle East, and particularly the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt in recent weeks. He said he is following the news "with great surprise, mixed with expectation and concern: expectation for what might happen, because these are changes that we all recognize as epochal."

"None of us would have imagined such things a few months ago," the Franciscan reflected. "This means that there are forces, above all in the Arab world, that have now found an external visible expression."

Inspired by their peers in Tunisia and neighboring Egypt, Sudanese students took to the streets in the capital and other university towns across northern Sudan. The Arab government of strongman Omar Hassan al-Bashir, rattled by its role in the country's impending partition and facing a looming economic crisis because of the loss of the South's oil, deployed baton-wielding riot police who arrested suspected ringleaders, beat street protesters and surrounded universities.

For the North's authoritarian regime, the Arab world's wave of discontent could not have come at a worse time. Even before Tunisia and Egypt erupted in popular revolt, the South's secession promised tough times for al-Bashir's regime. As the South goes, so go 80% of Sudan's oil reserves, the northern government's main revenue stream. Al-Bashir also has a list of other financial headaches: a mountain of foreign debt, now nearly $40 billion; an economy threatened by a lack of investment in agriculture; depleting foreign-currency reserves; and rapid inflation. In early January, Khartoum enacted a series of austerity measures to try to stabilize the economy, including slashing fuel and food subsidies.

Just as in Tunisia and Egypt, rising food prices - as well as official corruption and lack of jobs - became a central rallying cry for protesters in northern Sudan.

The fate of the Democratic president's signature domestic achievement, which extended health insurance to almost every American, will now almost certainly be decided by the Supreme Court later this year. Judge Roger Vinson, a district judge in Florida, accepted the argument presented by state attorneys general - all Republicans - that the new law violated people's rights by forcing them to buy health insurance by 2014 or face a penalty.

The ruling followed a similar earlier decision by a judge in Virginia, though two other federal judges have upheld the insurance requirement. Each judge who has ruled on the issue has so far followed the party line of the president that appointed him, and when the case is heard in the Supreme Court it too is also likely to divide along ideological lines.

The nine-member court is split between four liberals and four conservatives with Justice Anthony Kennedy regarded as the "swing voter". In his ruling, Judge Vinson, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, went further than the Virginia judge and declared the entire health care law unconstitutional, rather than just the compulsory insurance element. "Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the Act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution," he wrote in his 78-page ruling.

Cyclone Yasi was barreling toward the Queensland state coast as a strong Category 3 storm on Tuesday with winds up to 137 mph (220 kph). It was expected to hit the coast Wednesday as a violent Category 4 storm with wind gusts up to 155 mph (250 kph), dumping up to three feet (one meter) of rain on communities already saturated from months of flooding.

"This storm is huge and it is life-threatening," Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said. "I know many of us will feel that Queensland has already borne about as much as we can bear when it comes to disasters and storms, but more is being asked of us - and I am confident that we are able to rise to this next challenge."

Yasi would be the second storm to batter Queensland in a week. Cyclone Anthony weakened quickly after hitting land Monday morning, and damage was limited to uprooted trees and downed power lines. Queensland has already suffered flooding since heavy rains started in November. The floodwaters killed 35 people, damaged or destroyed 30,000 homes and businesses and left Brisbane, Australia's third-largest city, under water for days.

Deputy Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said residents should be prepared with flashlights, food and water. "Please make no mistake: this storm is a deadly event," Stewart said. "Now is the time to act. Prepare yourself. Relocate out of the high-risk zones."

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel's President Shimon Peres is not a minister.

"We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak," he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. "I don't say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East."

Newspaper columnists were far more blunt. One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled "A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam." It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.

Who is advising them, he asked, "to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president... an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East? The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations... is painfully naive."

Obama on Sunday called for an "orderly transition" to democracy in Egypt, stopping short of calling on Mubarak to step down, but signaling that his days may be numbered.

"You don't just have a government and a movement for democracy," former British Prime Minister Tony Blair cautioned on Monday. "You also have others, notably the Muslim Brotherhood, who would take this in a different direction. We need to be anxious to meet the aspirations of the people, but do it in a way that produces something better."

Former Israeli diplomat Eli Avidar argues that elections put the militant Islamist Hamas movement in power in Gaza. "President (George W) Bush and (Secretary of State) Condi Rice pressured the State of Israel to allow democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority and what happened was that Hamas took over and these were the first and last democratic elections," he said.

The Muslim Brotherhood could do the same thing in Egypt, he fears. "If they go and take the leadership because of democratic elections, I believe that democracy will not continue in Egypt because the fact is, the second that they take power, they will not leave it," he said.

"Everything is running out. I have three children, and I only have enough to feed them for maybe two more days. After that I do not know what we will do." school administrator Gamalat Gadalla told CNN. The unrest has paralyzed daily life in Egypt with many grocers closing shop and spotty food shipments.

"With the curfew, there are no restaurants, food or gas. Basic goods will soon be in shortage," Sandmonkey, an Egyptian blogger said via Twitter. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has ordered a curfew in Egypt to be extended from 3 pm to 8 am on Monday, further stifling normal life in the embattled nation.

Egyptian state-run Nile TV has set up a hotline for citizens to call in and report bread shortages. There has been no other indication of what the Egyptian government is doing to address the crisis.

Egypt's powerful army has vowed it will not use force against the protesters. Meanwhile, new Vice President Omar Suleiman says he will hold cross-party talks on constitutional reform. Mr Mubarak reshuffled his cabinet on Monday to try to head off the protests, replacing the widely despised Interior Minister Habib al-Adly.

But correspondents say that the army's statement has been a major blow for President Mubarak, and appears to have encouraged protesters. The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen, in Cairo, says that the feeling that change is coming in Egypt is getting stronger. Too much has happened too quickly to go back to the way things were before, he says.

On Monday, the Egyptian army said it respected the "legitimate rights of the people". In its statement, carried on Egyptian media, the military said: "To the great people of Egypt, your armed forces, acknowledging the legitimate rights of the people... have not and will not use force against the Egyptian people." Whatever happens next, this will change the Middle East, our correspondent adds.

Secondly it would see Greece use the EFSF to buy back bonds at between 65-75% of their nominal value from the ECB and private bondholders. Thirdly the plan would see the maturity of the bail-out loans extended by 30 years. In return, Greece would need to impose further austerity measures, specifically introducing a cap on its budget deficit into its constitution. If adopted the scheme is expected to re-profile two thirds of Greece's 330 billion euros debt by the end of the year. It has been compared to the Brady plan which rescued Latin America from bankruptcy in the 1980s.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday, Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou confirmed that informal talks are underway to find ways to reduce Greece's debt burden. The FT reports that some IMF and EU officials support Portugal being pushed into seeking a bail-out. Die Welt notes that the Italian government is holding up discussions on the new Stability Pact, as they do not agree on setting public debt limits at 60% of GDP.

Over the weekend Der Spiegel reported on the 'pact for competitiveness' which German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to propose to eurozone leaders at the Summit on Friday, including increase of retirement ages across Europe, harmonisation of corporate tax rates and the introduction of a debt brake into all eurozone members' national constitutions. Bloomberg suggests that Merkel will ask for this in return for an increase in the eurozone bail-out fund.

Handelsblatt quotes government sources saying that the plan still needs to be agreed upon with the coalition partner FDP. On his Coulisses de Bruxelles blog, Jean Quatremer argues "the French have already showed opposition to a pension age of 62 years; they will detest retiring at 67". FT Deutschland and Handelsblatt report that the ECB is keeping interest rates low for fear of harming the weaker eurozone members or destabilising their weak banking sectors, with inflation fear in Germany as a result.

A recent poll conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by RBC Capital Markets shows that more than four out of five senior executives, or 85%, believe that there is a chance of one or more countries leaving the eurozone in the next three years, while two in three, or 60%, said there was a chance the eurozone would break-up over the next three years.

The reception for Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Ennahda party, at Tunis airport was the biggest showing by the Islamists in two decades, during which thousands of them were jailed or exiled by president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Ghannouchi was exiled in 1989 by Ben Ali, who was toppled on January 14 by popular protests that have sent tremors through an Arab world where similarly autocratic leaders have long sought to suppress Islamist groups.

Protesters in Egypt demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule have been inspired by the example of Tunisia. Egypt's main opposition group is also Islamist, but played no part in organising the protests there. Ennahda is expected to contest future legislative but not presidential elections, dates for which have yet to be set.

Father Keith Newton has encouraged Anglicans to join the Ordinariate - a special branch of Catholicism established by the Pope - to welcome protestant defectors. Despite the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anglo Catholics have begun leaving following the conversion of three Anglican bishops in mid-January. The Church of England said that 1,000 of its 13,000 parishes were opposed to the ordination of women.

At St Barnabas church in Tunbridge Wells, southeastern England, the parish priest said that a majority of his parishioners want to defect - and he is considering going too. Father Ed Tomlinson believes that traditionalists who oppose the ordination of women have been badly let down by Church leaders.

The priest was told if he and his followers leave they will no longer be allowed to hold services, even on a shared basis, at St Barnabas. "The whole thing stinks to high heaven," he said.