Other concerns include the security of Pakistani nuclear material that could be used to make an atomic weapon. The widespread use of computer hacking by China's government is also reported. The US government condemned the release of the documents, which number in the hundreds of thousands, saying they put the lives of diplomats and others at risk. The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, countered by saying the US authorities were afraid of being held to account.

Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor comments, "The fact that the Saudis, Jordanians and others are deeply suspicious about Iran's intentions is well known. What has not been known until now is how strongly they have been pressing for American military action. The leaks do not tell the Iranians anything they did not suspect, or perhaps have already picked up themselves. But they will sharpen the debate over Iran's nuclear plans, and about the chances of military action by the Americans - or the Israelis. The leaks are deeply embarrassing for the Americans, and will infuriate Arab leaders whose remarks have been quoted."

Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

Martin Schulz, a German social democrat previously taunted by the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as being 'perfect' for the role of Nazi concentration camp guard, was criticising the EU's attempts to bail out Ireland when a British MEP interrupted to call him a 'Euro nationalist'. 'Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer,' [one people, one nation, one leader] yelled Godfrey Bloom, the UK Independence party's MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, using one of the slogans of Nazi Germany to insult the leader of the European socialists in the Strasbourg chamber.

The Ukip member's anger was apparently stirred by Schultz's call for greater EU solidarity in the financial crisis that is hitting Ireland and Portugal and threatening the euro single currency. "My father, as a Spitfire pilot, fought for freedom against Nazi domination of Europe," Bloom said afterwards. "As an MEP, I will fight against the destruction of democracy across Europe. Schulz is an unrepentant Euro nationalist and a socialist. He wants one currency, one EU state, one EU people. These Euro nationalists are a danger to democracy. These people are fanatics."

Some 20 MEPs walked out of the chamber in support of Bloom. Bruno Gollnisch, of Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front, said Bloom's expulsion was illegal. "This was the week that the European Commission has taken control of the economy of a second country, this time Ireland. The EU is clearly intent on expanding its powers."

There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added. "There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first."

The document issued by the notary public declares Duran to be the "owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers." Duran, who lives in the town of Salvaterra do Mino, said she now wants to slap a fee on everyone who uses the sun and give half of the proceeds to the Spanish government and 20 percent to the nation's pension fund.

She would dedicate another 10 percent to research, another 10 percent to ending world hunger - and would keep the remaining 10 percent herself. "It is time to start doing things the right way, if there is an idea for how to generate income and improve the economy and people's wellbeing, why not do it?" she asked.

Prime Minister Brian Cowen saw his own hold on power slip another notch, as his ruling Fianna Fail party lost a special election for a long-empty seat in parliament. The winner vowed to force Cowen from office before he can pass an emergency 2011 budget being demanded as part of the international rescue.

The New York-based Standard & Poor's credit ratings agency said it was lowering Anglo Irish Bank six notches to a junk-bond B grade. It also cut the ratings on Bank of Ireland one notch to BBB+, and downgraded both Allied Irish Banks and Irish Life & Permanent one notch to BBB.

"People are already joking on Twitter that Anglo's move is really an upgrade," said Constantin Gurdgiev, finance lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, reflecting widespread surprise that S&P's ratings on Irish banks had been so benign until now. "There really is a serious question as to whether Anglo Irish Bank should even have a banking license."

"Germany cannot keep paying for bail-outs without going bankrupt itself," said Professor Wilhelm Hankel, of Frankfurt University. "This is frightening people. You cannot find a bank safe deposit box in Germany because every single one has already been taken and stuffed with gold and silver. It is like an underground Switzerland within our borders. People have terrible memories of 1948 and 1923 when they lost their savings."

The refrain was picked up this week by German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble. "We're not swimming in money, we're drowning in debts," he told the Bundestag. While Germany's public and private debt is not extreme, it is very high for a country on the cusp of an acute ageing crisis. Adjusted for demographics, Germany is already one of the most indebted nations in the world.

The great question is at what point Germany concludes that it cannot bear the mounting burden any longer. "I am worried that Germany's authorities are slowly losing sight of the European common good," said Jean-Claude Juncker, chair of Eurogroup finance ministers. Europe's fate may be decided soon by the German constitutional court as it rules on a clutch of cases challenging the legality of the Greek bail-out, the EFSF machinery, and ECB bond purchases.

"There has been a clear violation of the law and no judge can ignore that," said Professor Hankel, a co-author of one of the complaints. "I am convinced the court will forbid future payments." If he is right - we may learn in February - the EU debt crisis will take a dramatic new turn.

"It's absolutely, completely false," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said, echoing assurances from Berlin, Lisbon and Madrid that officials hadn't already moved on to Portugal or its much larger neighbor. "It has neither been asked for and neither have we suggested it," he said.

A Spanish government spokesman said, "The EU isn't asking Portugal to take money, and Spain of course is not either."

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero added there is "absolutely" no chance Spain will seek a bailout. Portugal's parliament on Friday passed a budget for 2011 that aims to reduce the country's deficit from 9.3% of gross domestic product in 2009 to below 3% by 2013, and Prime Minister Jose Socrates said he hoped it would help calm markets.

"We must put Portugal out of the focus of the crisis. This budget will defend the country against the eurozone crisis," Mr Socrates said. That wasn't enough to reassure investors. The euro tumbled against the dollar to $1.3248 in New York Friday.

So far the march has passed off peacefully although there is a huge Garda presence with up to 700 officers on duty working alongside 250 security guards for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Among the marchers there is deep anger that most of the more than 80 billion euros (67 billion pounds) from the EU and the International Monetary Fund will be given to shore up Ireland's ailing banks.

Marching in the rally was Irish builder Mick Wallace who has had to lay off 100 workers due to the crash in the construction industry. Wallace said it was time the Irish became more militant. "We should be more like the French and get onto the streets more often. Because our politicians go over to Europe and tell the EU that our people do not demonstrate, they don't take to the streets. It's time we changed that and openly opposed what is going on," he said.

Placards carried by the marchers reflect the mood of anger and humiliation at having to be bailed out by the EU and IMF. One was designed to look like an estate agent's billboard and read: "3,599 square miles For Sale. Full Planning Permission Granted".

The law was passed in 1942. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had provoked fear of a foreign invasion of US soil, and Congress responded by giving President Franklin Roosevelt broad power to commandeer or shutter telephone and telegraph networks.

Nearly 70 years later, telegraph networks have disappeared, and the telephone is only one of many means of communication.

But although the 1942 law makes no mention of the internet - merely of "any facility or station for wire communication" - the Obama administration in June told Congress it would cite it in an emergency.

It has not been tested in court, but experts say section 706(d) of the Communications Act could give the president wide-ranging authority to shut down key computer systems. With typical Washington hyperbole, the law has become known as the presidential "internet kill switch".

Nominet said the idea was only a proposal and invited people to join the debate on the form of the final policy. IT lawyers said the proposal would be "worrying" if it led to websites going offline without judicial oversight. "It's not policy at this stage," said Eleanor Bradley, director of operations at Nominet.

She said SOCA's proposal emerged from changes made to Nominet's policy development process earlier in 2010, as well as experiences with closing down a series of criminal sites in the last 12 months. In the proposal, SOCA pointed out that Nominet currently has no obligation to close down criminal websites. SOCA wants this changed so domains can be cancelled if law enforcement agencies deem them to be engaged in criminal activities, and inform Nominet of their conclusion.

Nick Lockett, a lawyer at DLL specialising in computer law, said he was "deeply concerned" about SOCA's proposal if it meant it could act before a conviction had been secured. "In a world of online retailing, the ability for a police officer to seize any business, whether that is blocking a domain or seizing the servers - pre-conviction or certainly pre-warrant - would be a dramatic change in the relationship between the police and the internet community," he told BBC News.

North Korea also responded angrily. "The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," the state controlled Korean Central News Agency responded Friday to the maneuvers, which are set to take place in the Yellow Sea between the Koreas and northeastern China.

The strong talk was the latest fallout from North Korea's hour-long artillery attack of a South Korean island on Tuesday that killed four people. The next day, the US and South Korea said planned joint exercises would go ahead over the weekend, heightening fears in some quarters that already-tense relations between North and South Korea - and their respective international protectors, China and the US - could be heading for a showdown.

Yet China's outwardly defiant response belies a more delicate political reality: Beijing's continued support of North Korea's erratic, martial regime is beginning to extract real costs. China's statement Friday included a face-saving formulation that appeared to open the door for a scenario China has long sought to avert - a US aircraft carrier, a potent symbol of US military might, plying the edge of Chinese waters.

China's Foreign Ministry suggested it wouldn't escalate its protests against the naval exercises as long as they took place outside China's "exclusive economic zone," a term of international maritime law for an area where countries enjoy mineral and fishing rights, generally 200 nautical miles from a country's coast.

China has long frustrated US efforts to bring its nuclear-armed neighbor to heel, fearing any radical change could sow chaos in the region and potentially lead to a unified Korea with a US military presence directly on its border. Beijing refused this week to blame North Korea for Tuesday's attack. Privately, its officials maintain, the weekend's exercises could be a grave mistake that risk further provoking the North.

ICE appears to be targeting sites that help Internet users download copyrighted music, as well as sites that sell bootleg goods, such as fake designer handbags. The sites are replaced with a note from the government: "This domain named has been seized by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations."

For instance, borntrade.com, 51607.com, and amoyhy.com have each been seized. One of the site owners told TorrentFreak that his site was shut down without any notice or warning. The effort comes as Congress considers the Combatting Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA). Critics, including Senator Ron Wyden (Democrat for Oregon) say it is too heavy-handed. He has vowed to put a formal hold on the bill.

As the German chancellor announced in her address to the "Integration Summit" yesterday, immigrants, who do not take advantage of the integration offers, will have to expect sanctions, which increases the pressure, particularly on the immigrant lower classes, who are, momentarily, the focus of a racist campaign ("the Sarrazin Debate"). Several more far-reaching demands are being raised. For some in the Berlin establishment, none of these steps explicitly directed at alleged unproductive groups in the population, have gone far enough.

A high-ranking advisor to the German Council on Foreign Affairs (DGAP), for example, is quoted saying that "drastic measures," that "will be unacceptable to the current generation of politicians," must be taken against the immigrants. The considerations aimed at promoting Germany's domestic restructuring are flanking a debate on a possible end of the European Union, and on Berlin's eventual unilateral attempt for global power. For months there has been talk of reverting to dictatorial methods.

His comments paved the way for milk and meat to be made available in British shops and was the clearest indication yet that the controversial farming practice could be accepted officially. Mr Wadge's statement was in response to a study by the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, an independent body that examines all new food products for the FSA to assess whether they are safe to go on sale.

After an examination of all the evidence, its panel of experts concluded that there was no material difference between meat and milk from standard animals and products from cloned specimens. Studies of possible issues over allergies, toxins and possible side-effects of eating cloned meat "did not highlight any issues of concern", said its report.

Mr Wadge said: "The ACNFP has confirmed that meat and milk from cloned cattle and their offspring shows no substantial difference to conventionally produced meat and milk and therefore is unlikely to present a food safety risk." The FSA will discuss the issue at a board meeting next month. Insiders said previous "safe" rulings by the advisory committee nearly always led to licenses being granted. The committee's study was prompted by a scare in the summer when it emerged that meat from the offspring of a cloned cow had been sold unwittingly in butchers' shops without a licence being obtained.

Unthinkable only a few weeks ago, a small but growing number of experts now believe some version of this nightmare scenario could become a reality for the euro zone if policymakers fail to unite behind a more forceful strategy for saving the euro and address investor concerns about fiscal and economic imbalances. Some, like Financial Times commentator Gideon Rachman, say Germany could bolt if public frustration with bailouts mounts or if Berlin is unable to convince its euro partners to back its controversial plan for a new permanent rescue mechanism.

Dissident academics have challenged the legality of German participation in the Greek rescue in the Federal Constitutional Court. If they won, the impact on the euro could be devastating. Others see a risk that economic divergence between Europe's stable core and debt-saddled periphery could end up splintering the bloc into a two-tier "Euro-North" and "Euro-South."

Still others believe Germany could engineer the expulsion of euro weaklings like Greece that it feels should never have been allowed in. "I don't think we'll see a breakup of the euro and Germany returning to the deutschemark, but what we could see is a more homogeneous euro area purged of its low performers," said Domenico Lombardi, a former executive board member at the IMF who is president of the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy.

"If Kim Jong-il and his son visited the artillery unit and were briefed on the South Korean naval exercises, they are likely to have given final approval on the bombardment two days later," said Yu Ho-yeol, professor of North Korean studies at Korea University.

"The North must have propagandized the deadly artillery firing as Jong-un's achievement to help him gain a stronger grip on the military and bolster its solidarity."

US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen also linked North Korea's attack on Tuesday to the Kims' power succession. "It's a worrisome leadership in North Korea. He (Kim Jong-il) is a very unpredictable guy, a very dangerous guy," Mullen said in an interview with ABC News. "(The attack) is also tied, we think, to the succession of this young 27-year-old who is going to take over at some point, and he continues to generate these kinds of events."