Speaking Saturday to journalists en route to Santiago de Compostela, Benedict said he had created a new Vatican office to fight such secular trends worldwide. He said Spain was a particular focus since it had played such an important role in reviving Christianity in centuries past.

"In Spain, a strong, aggressive laicity, an anti-clericalism, a secularization has been born as we experienced in the 1930's," Benedict said. "For the future of the faith, it is this meeting - not a confrontation but a meeting - between faith and laicity, which has a central point in Spanish culture." In his comments upon arrival in a fog-shrouded Santiago, the pope recalled that Pope John Paul II had issued a similar message to Spain and Europe to rediscover their Christian roots when he visited Santiago in 1982.

"A Spain and Europe concerned not only with people's material needs but also with their moral and social, spiritual and religious needs, since all these are genuine requirements of our common humanity," he said in Spanish. The Pontiff wraps his trip up on the other side of the country in Barcelona, where he will dedicate the famous albeit unfinished Sagrada Familia church. There, he'll also face a "kiss-in" staged by gays and lesbians expected to number in the thousands, evidence of the secular lifestyle that Benedict has identified as a threat to the faith.

With such palpable opposition to the pope, it's no surprise that Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will only see Benedict as he's leaving on Sunday night. Laws under Zapatero's watch have allowed gay marriage, fast-track divorce and easier abortions, deeply angering the Vatican. In Zapatero's place, Spain's royal family is taking care of the protocol during the pope's visit. Crown Prince Filipe greeted Benedict at Santiago's airport Saturday and welcomed him to the country.

The Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin) had filed suit against the Wakf on behalf of 150 Israeli citizens. Charges were filed over the Wakf's use of bulldozers to carry out unauthorized construction in the area, despite archaeologists' warnings that the machinery was demolishing ancient Jewish artifacts. Attorneys from the Israel Law Center accused the Wakf of deliberately destroying Jewish artifacts in order to eradicate evidence of the Jewish claim to the Temple Mount. By neglecting to take action to stop the demolition of ancient historical finds, the Israel government has been "abandoning the millenniums-long Jewish claim over the Temple Mount and allowing Islamic extremists to re-write Jerusalem's history," they said.

The attorney general's office had tried to get the Israel Law Center suit dismissed, arguing that private citizens should not be allowed to prosecute in a case that affects the general public. The Law Center responded by accusing the attorney general of caving in to political pressure. The Islamic Wakf has been carrying out illegal construction on the Temple Mount for more than a decade. The work has been allowed to continue despite archaeologists' protests that ancient artifacts are being crushed. The Wakf has denied that any First Temple-period artifacts are located on the Temple Mount.

The Israel Law Center released a statement saying, "It is absurd that while the Israeli government is mounting an international campaign against UNESCO to protest its labeling Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Machpelah [Tomb of the Patriarchs - ed.] in Hevron as Muslim mosques and denying their Jewish origins, it obstructs Shurat HaDin from acting to safeguard the status of the Jewish people's holiest site." Law Center head Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner said the High Court ruling in the case "gave the Islamic Wakf a free pass to continue its destruction of Israel's sacred heritage sites."

As Israel attempts to reduce tensions, Hamas, Fatah and the Israel-based Islamic Movement have each called on Muslims to "defend al-Aksa." Hamas declared Friday a "Day of Rage" and called on followers to protest, while Fatah called for a general strike on Friday on behalf of the al-Aksa mosque. Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, accused Israel of working with "Jewish extremists" by allowing them to enter the Temple Mount compound.

The Islamic Movement, an Israel-based Muslim organization that does not recognize Israel, has called for Israeli Muslims to arrive in Jerusalem for Friday prayers, and to ignore police limitations on the number or age of worshippers to be allowed in. The Palestinian Authority has called on the United Nations to intervene in Jerusalem in order to prevent Israel from taking action regarding the Al-Aksa Mosque on the Temple Mount. PA officials, along with senior members of Fatah and Hamas, have accused Israel of planning to allow religious Jews increased access to the Mount.

PA minister Riyad al-Maliki relayed the request to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday during a visit to New York. "I informed him of the escalation of Israel's policy against Palestinians and against the al-Aksa Mosque," he told AFP. The PA and Muslim leaders have accused Israel of sparking Muslim riots in and around Jerusalem by allowing religious Jews - described in PA media as "extremist settlers" - to visit the Temple Mount.

The Arab world, including the Palestinian Authority, has increasingly accused Israel of the same charges over the past several years, and many Muslim and Arab leaders have told the Arab world that the Temples never existed. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu's statements were referencing to the Islamic Movement. The group's northern branch leader, Sheikh Raad Salah, was arrested last week for incitement, which police said was behind the Arab riots that wounded policemen and interrupted Jewish prayers at the Western Wall (Kotel).

Muslim clerics also have alleged that Jews are preparing to take over the Temple Mount, where the First and Second Temples stood, and Salah charged that Jews were preparing to build a synagogue on the site, although the Israeli Rabbinate has ruled that Jews may not ascend to the site. Several national religious and other rabbis allow Jews to ascend to certain parts of the Temple Mount but only if they have immersed in a ritual bath (mikveh). Muslim authorities, backed by Israeli police, do not allow Jews to pray or carry a prayer book when visiting.

At next week's meeting in Seoul of the G20's leaders, there will be no last rites - this hopelessly unwieldy exercise in global government wouldn't recognise a corpse if stood before it in a coffin - but it seems clear that this tragedy is already approaching its denouement. To understand why, you have to go back to the origins of the credit crunch, which lay in the giant trade and capital imbalances that have long ruled the world economy. Over the past 20 years, the globe has become divided in highly dangerous ways into surplus and deficit nations: those that produced a surplus of goods and savings, and those that borrowed the savings to buy the goods.

It's a strange, Alice in Wonderland world that sees one of the planet's richest economies borrowing from one of the poorest to pay for goods way beyond the reach of the people actually producing them. But that process, in effect, came to define the relationship between America and China. The resulting credit-fuelled glut in productive capacity was almost bound to end in a corrective global recession, even without the unsustainable real-estate bubble that the excess of savings also produced. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

The rest of the world is now openly questioning the merits of a global currency whose value is governed by America's perceived domestic needs, while the growth that once underpinned confidence in its ability to repay its debts has never looked more fragile. Already, there are calls for alternatives. Unwilling to wait for one, the world's central banks are beginning to diversify their currency reserves. This, in turn, will eventually exert its own form of market discipline on the US, whose ability to soak the rest of the world by issuing ever more greenbacks will be correspondingly harmed.

These are seismic changes, of a type not seen for a generation or more. I hate to end with a cliché, but we do indeed live in interesting times.

The Federal Reserve's words may have been anodyne. "We will adjust the programme as needed to best foster maximum employment and price stability," said the US central bank's Open Market Committee. But by announcing another round of "quantitative easing", America is rightfully incurring the wrath not only of the emerging giants of the East, but the eurozone too.

The US had hoped China would use the forthcoming G20 summit in Seoul to accept America's proposal that net exporters should limit their current account surpluses to 4 percent of GDP. Any prospect of that is now gone. In the aftermath of the Fed's QE2 announcement, rather than agreeing to measures that would ease pressure on the US economy, China gave the States a public tongue-lashing. Measures to cap trade surpluses would "hark back to the days of planned economies", said Cui Tiankai, who will be one of China's lead negotiators in Seoul.

Germany also waded in, using industrial-strength language to describe the Fed's latest move. "With all due respect, US policy is clueless," remarked the finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble. "It's not that the Americans haven't pumped enough liquidity into the market... for them now to pump even more is not going to solve their problems." The Fed's plan to expand QE by $600 billion (373 billion pounds), on top of the $1,700 billion already implemented, caused the diplomatic fur to fly - from Thailand to Australia. An official statement from South Africa, a key member of the G20's powerful emerging market bloc, said America had "undermined the spirit of multilateral co-operation that G20 leaders have fought so hard to maintain".

Up until now, the rest of the world has been willing to tolerate unprecedented money-printing by the US - and the UK for that matter. QE has been used to help various financial institutions avoid facing up to their losses, while covertly recapitalising Western banks that are, to all intents and purposes, insolvent. Money-printing has also pumped up equity prices. After the latest Fed-induced "sugar rush", the FTSE global all-share index hit a two-year high. But, in recent weeks, something has changed. Big players such as China, Brazil - and Germany too - think the US has gone far too far and are now saying so. This crazy money-printing is going to be seen as the primary cause of Western inflation, food riots and a commodity price spike.

Those dangerous, destabilising global imbalances would be addressed, they pledged. "Deficit" countries, such as the UK and US, would save and export more.

"Surplus" countries, such as China and Germany, would export less and get their consumers spending. Every country would do their bit, pull together, and all the bountiful progress would be chronicled the following year at the G20 summit in Seoul. Unfortunately, relationships formed under intense circumstances rarely last. This week, with most countries a year out of recession, G20 leaders reconvene in Seoul to discuss their efforts. Twelve months on, nationalism has replaced globalism. Peace and love have given way to currency wars. The imbalances are as entrenched as ever. And, most frightening, the battle drums are beating for protectionism and trade barriers.

At last month's International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting, the mood was sombre. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, spoke of "a new kind of economic co-operation at the global level which never had existed in the past [that] was very strong [at the G20] in London, very strong in Pittsburgh. I think it is fair to say that the momentum is decreasing." The European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, also warned that while "we have a consensus on imbalances, the problem is implementation - as always".

Geithner last week sought to "reach a common understanding" with proposals that are likely be at the centre of discussions in Seoul. He raised the prospect of using current account targets as a way of reducing the imbalances, suggesting a 4 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) benchmark. Under his plan, countries with persistent deficits would have to boost savings and those with lasting surpluses would have to cut export reliance. Unsurprisingly, both China, with a 4.5 percent surplus, and Germany, with a 5.1 percent surplus, would have to take immediate action. In a damning riposte, Cui Tiankai, a Chinese deputy foreign minister, said the US plan harked back "to the days of planned economies".

Germany is not impressed. One day after the United States Federal Reserve announced that it would pump $600 billion (423 billion euros) into America's banking system over the next eight months, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble sharply criticized the decision. "I don't think they are going to solve their problems that way," Schauble told German public broadcaster ZDF in a Thursday evening interview. "They have already pumped an endless amount of money into the economy via taking on extremely high public debt and through a Fed policy that has already pumped a lot of money into the economy. The results are horrendous."

In a separate interview on public broadcaster ARD, Schauble said that the move by Fed Chair Ben Bernanke would "create additional problems for the world." He promised to bring up the issue in talks with the US and said that, by following such a monetary path, the US was violating a pledge that all industrialized countries agreed to at the last G-20 summit in Toronto in June.

Bernanke acted just a day after the Democrats of President Barack Obama took a beating in Tuesday's mid-term elections - a vote which cost the party its majority in the House of Representatives. One of the Republicans' main complaints during the campaign focused on high deficits as a result of Obama's economic stimulus program. Despite recent hints from the White House that further stimulus measures might be in the offing, Tuesday's likely eliminates the possibility that Obama can push through further legislation to stimulate the economy.

The Fed, for its part, has very few levers left to stimulate investment and growth.

The research, published yesterday by the Council of Mortgage Lenders, warns around 50 per cent of Britain's 11.4 million people who have a mortgage could be affected. Of the total, around 20 per cent, equal to around 2.2 million people, will be 'shut out' from the mortgage market - this means the loan that they currently have would not have been handed out under new rules currently being proposed by the Financial Services Authority.

To make matters worse, a further 30 per cent of people with a mortgage, equal to around 3.4 million, will be able to borrow less than they need. The changes pose a worry for millions of homeowners whose loan is coming up for renewal, such as a three-year fixed deal which is about to end. The CML fears that homeowners will not be able to remortgage to a rival bank or building society due to the new rules proposed by the FSA.

The proposals could signal the death of interest-only and self-certification mortgages, according to the study. Michael Coogan of the CML said the new rules are 'an over-reaction to past problems', warning: 'As a consequence, they will not lend to as broad a range of potential customers.'

All coconuts around the city's Gandhi museum, one of Mr Obama's stops in the city, are being taken down. Mani Bhavan, where Mahatma Gandhi stayed during his freedom struggle against the British, is among five places the US president is visiting in Mumbai. "We told the authorities to remove the dry coconuts from trees near the building. Why take a chance?" Mani Bhavan's executive secretary, Meghshyam Ajgaonkar, told the BBC.

Every year in India people are injured or even killed by falling coconuts. Mr Obama, still smarting from heavy losses in the midterm elections, will visit India, Indonesia, South Korea, Japan and China on the 10-day tour.

China, Brazil and Germany on Thursday criticised the Fed's action a day earlier, and a string of east Asian central banks said they were preparing measures to defend their economies against large capital inflows. Guido Mantega, the Brazilian finance minister who was the first to warn of a "currency war", said: "Everybody wants the US economy to recover, but it does no good at all to just throw dollars from a helicopter."

Mr Mantega added: "You have to combine that with fiscal policy. You have to stimulate consumption." Germany also expressed concern. An adviser to the Chinese central bank called unbridled printing of dollars the biggest risk to the global economy and said China should use currency policy and capital controls to cushion itself from external shocks.

"As long as the world exercises no restraint in issuing global currencies such as the dollar - and this is not easy - then the occurrence of another crisis is inevitable, as quite a few wise Westerners lament," Xia Bin wrote in a newspaper under the Chinese central bank

The price of oil also jumped, while the dollar fell against major currencies. Although the Fed's move was widely expected, most analysts had predicted a lower figure of $500 billion to be injected. The FTSE 100 closed up 114 points at 5863, while the Dow gained 220 points to close at 11435. In Paris, the Cac 40 climbed 74 points to 3,917, while Germany's Dax was up 117 points at 6,735.

Rob Carnell, chief international economist at the banking group ING, said the action was unusual because the economy is in a completely different shape to how it was before. "[During the first round of QE], you had massive financial market disruptions - really serious problems, mortgage yields and rates were shooting through the roof, no one could borrow. That's clearly not the case right now," he told BBC World Service. "The justification for it seems to have utterly changed... It's really policy on the hoof, trying to justify it as they go along."

The Church said some members of the sect were carrying out "activities that disturb the ecclesiastical community". The BBC's David Willey in Rome says Opus Angelorum first attracted the attention of the Vatican 30 years ago, after the death of its founder, a woman from the Austrian Tyrol called Gabriele Bitterlich.

Bitterlich claimed to have been in contact with an archangel and to have written down the names of hundreds of angels and demons, our correspondent says. "The Congregation has learned that very discreet propaganda in favour of this wayward movement... is taking place." The sect - which operates mainly in German-speaking Europe, Brazil and India - claims that women who have had abortions are possessed by the devil. The activities of Bitterlich's followers, including dozens of Catholic priests and nuns, eventually attracted the attention of the Vatican which ordered an investigation, our correspondent adds.

Our correspondent says Opus Angelorum has no known connection with the best-selling novel, Angels and Demons, written by Dan Browne, who has been criticised by the Vatican for his fictional works involving superstition in the Catholic Church.

Almost 100 people are now said to have been killed. An estimated 75,000 residents have been evacuated from the area. Mount Merapi, one of the world's most active volcanoes, is located in a densely populated area in central Java. The latest eruption began late on Thursday, sending residents streaming down the mountain with ash-covered faces. Rescue workers said villages in the area were in flames.

Rescuer Utha told AFP news agency: "I found three bodies - a child, mother and father, still on their bed. They must have been sleeping when the hot ash struck their house... We also found a dead man with a phone still on his hand." Volcanologists Surono told AFP: "This is the biggest eruption so far. The heatclouds went down the slopes as far as 13km (eight miles) and the explosion was heard as far as 20 kilometres away." The authorities have decided to widen the "danger zone" around the crater from 15 km (9 miles) to 20km (12 miles). Scientists are warning of further eruptions in the coming weeks.

"We hope the US economy gets back up stronger on its feet," he said. Bruederle also said there was some truth to the criticism that the United States was influencing the dollar's exchange rate with monetary policy and voiced concern about increased protectionism in different forms around the world. The US Federal Reserve committed on Wednesday to buy $600 billion of bonds with new money over the next eight months, after what it called "disappointingly slow" progress towards its economic targets.

He said a currency war would be a "disaster" which must be prevented and also said US midterm election results made him more concerned about protectionism. "I fear that there could be a trend in that direction," said the minister. Bruederle dismissed criticism from some countries that Germany had not done enough to fight economic imbalances. He said Germany has already done its homework to fight imbalances.

He said trade imbalances could not be evened out with planned economy methods and many of Germany's neighbours were benefiting from Germany's strong economic growth. "A large number of our European neighbours are living off Germany at the moment," he said. He was also concerned about increased protectionism in different forms around the world.