The IFS, which has built a powerful reputation through its economic analyses of election proposals and the Budget, went on to suggest that its report "casts doubt" on the Government's aim of preventing family breakdown by promoting marriage.

Ellen Greaves, research economist at the IFS, said: "The evidence suggests that much of the difference in relationship stability between married and cohabiting parents is due to pre-existing differences between the kinds of people who get married before they have children, compared to those that cohabit."

It found that parents who are cohabiting when their baby is born are three times as likely to split up, by the time their child is five, than those who are married. But the IFS says couples who live together tend to be younger and less well off, with fewer educational qualifications, and are less likely to have planned their pregnancy.

It concludes: "While married couples have more stable relationships than couples who cohabit, this is not because they are married, but because of the other characteristics they have that lead to marriage."

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells - those characterized in federal government records as "temporarily abandoned."

Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s - even though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures.

As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP's Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation's history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data.

There's ample reason for worry about all permanently and temporarily abandoned wells - history shows that at least on land, they often leak. Wells are sealed underwater much as they are on land. And wells on land and in water face similar risk of failure. Plus, records reviewed by the AP show that some offshore wells have failed. And manager Wayne Gronlund says it's often impossible to tell leaking wells from natural seeps, where untold thousands of barrels of oil and untold millions of cubic feet of gas escape annually through cracks that permeate the sea floor.

Water levels in many reservoirs and lakes have plummeted to less than half their capacity due to the region's driest start to the year since 1929. The water shortage comes just months after hundreds of properties were flooded in Cumbria following severe storms. More than 1,300 properties were flooded across the county, with Cockermouth, Workington and Keswick worst affected.

Despite spells of rain over recent weeks, supply levels have failed to sufficiently increase. Anybody caught flouting the ban may face a fine of up to 1,000 pounds. John Sanders, from United Utilities, said: "Despite some recent rainfall in the north of the region, reservoir levels are still significantly lower than we would expect at this time of year and are now at a point where we need to impose some temporary restrictions on our customers. It is not a decision we have taken lightly, but a hosepipe can use as much water in an hour as a family of four would use in one day."

Lord Patten, invited by David Cameron to oversee the planning, said that the significance of the first-ever state visit by a Pope to Britain was greater than the potential costs. He told a press conference: "Even if we had known of the parlous state of the nation's finances, I'm sure that wouldn't have been a consideration because the importance of this visit makes its own claim upon modest public support."

The last governor of Hong Kong said Britain was not returning to the Middle Ages "or the days when we would have had to find a squirrel for the pot". He said he himself had never felt "second-class" as a Catholic in Britain but that if anyone has, the pope's visit will end that feeling. As The Daily Telegraph disclosed on Saturday, the cost to taxpayers of the event in September is now put at up to 12 million pounds, excluding undisclosed security costs, up from 8 million pounds.

The church claims it has now raised about 5 million pounds of its initial estimate of 7 million pounds for the pastoral parts including open-air masses in Glasgow and London and the beatification of Cardinal Newman at a park in Birmingham. But the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, insisted that these events are not just for Roman Catholics, even though parishes are organising tickets for the "pilgrim journey". He said: "These are events to which any person is welcome. All they need to do is contact their local Catholic parish."

The National Secular Society, which opposes the papal visit, estimates that the security costs of the trip will increase the burden on taxpayers tenfold. Its president, Terry Sanderson, said: "The NSS is outraged but not surprised by the news that the cost to the taxpayer of the Pope's visit is spiralling towards 100 million pounds. We predicted this would happen at the very beginning, although the previous Government denied it."

Brigadier General Mohammed Asif Jabarkhel sits with folded arms in his office, just a few steps away from the security checkpoint at Kabul International Airport. "Of course I know what's going on here," the 59-year-old head of the airport's customs police grumbles from beneath his thick moustache as a fan whirs in the background. "But, in this country, who's allowed to speak the truth?"

Jabarkhel is referring to the huge amounts of money regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases. According to some estimates, since 2007, at least $3 billion (2.4 billion euros) in cash has left the country in this way. The preferred destination for these funds is Dubai, the tax haven in the Persian Gulf. And, given the fact that Afghanistan's total GDP amounts to the equivalent of $13.5 billion, there is no way that the funds involved in this exodus are merely the proceeds of legal business transactions.

Jabarkhel complains that all of his many attempts to stop this hemorrhaging have failed. "The central bank has reached an agreement with the government that makes these kinds of transfers supposedly legal," he says. "And whenever we try to look into where the money is coming from, pressure comes from the very top."

Since invading Afghanistan in 2001, the United States alone has invested almost $300 billion in military and reconstruction efforts there. But far less progress has been made than what was either hoped for or expected. One major reason for this could be the fact that a significant portion of the millions meant for reconstructive efforts continue to be siphoned off. The people benefiting are often those who enjoy extremely close business ties with the donor countries.

It is clear that much more money is making its way out of Afghanistan through Kabul's airport than is being officially declared and logged.

"Home sales are down. Retail sales are down. Factory orders in May suffered their biggest tumble since March of last year. So what are we doing about it? Less than nothing," he said. California is tightening faster than Greece. State workers have seen a 14 percent fall in earnings this year due to forced furloughs. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is cutting pay for 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to cover his $19 billion (15 billion pounds) deficit.

Can Illinois be far behind? The state has a deficit of $12 billion and is $5 billion in arrears to schools, nursing homes, child care centres, and prisons. "It is getting worse every single day," said state comptroller Daniel Hynes. "We are not paying bills for absolutely essential services. That is obscene."

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high. Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10 percent of GDP.

The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s. "Legions of individuals have been left with stale skills, and little prospect of finding meaningful work, and benefits that are being exhausted. By our math the crop of people who are unemployed but not receiving a check amounts to 9.2 million."

Republicans on Capitol Hill are filibustering a bill to extend the dole for up to 1.2 million jobless facing an imminent cut-off. Dean Heller from Vermont called them "hobos". This really is starting to feel like 1932.

"Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it... there was a head and shoulders pattern that developed before the Depression in 1929, then with the recovery in 1930 we had another head and shoulders pattern that preceded a fall in the market, and in the current Dow situation we see an exact repeat of that environment,"

The Dow retreated 457.33 points, or 4.5 percent last week, to close at 9,686 Friday. Guppy said a Dow fall below 9,800 confirmed the head and shoulders pattern.

The Shanghai Composite is seeing a very rapid collapse, falling below 2,500, which suggests the major fall in the Dow, he added.

In the European markets, Guppy says Frankfurt's Dax is witnessing a different pattern to London's FTSE.

Guppy uses the broad trading band as measurement- giving the Dax a downsize target of 1,500. The same head and shoulders pattern seen in the Dow can also be seen in the FTSE, he added.

Watched by his devastated young children, the 38-year-old immediately chased after the intruder as it leapt over a 4ft high fence, and although he managed to wrest Princess from its grip, she was already dead. The attack came after a wild fox attacked twin baby girls as they slept in their cots in London and numerous other incidents of foxes entering people's homes.

Mr Khanna said today he had tried to warn the local authorities about the prowling urban fox long before it killed his dog. Describing the moment he chased after the wild animal, he said: 'We heard this yelp and suddenly the dog was gone - I couldn't believe how quickly it happened'. Mr Khanna continued: 'The fox is obviously getting braver. I presume it came into the garden looking for food'.

'My neighbour has a seven-month-old baby and is very worried'.

The Financial Times newspaper said oil major BP had stopped refueling Iranian jets. BP declined to confirm the report but said: "We fully comply with any international sanctions imposed in countries where we operate." Pressure is mounting on Iran over its nuclear program and the United States has stepped up its push to isolate Tehran economically. On Thursday, President Barack Obama signed into law far-reaching sanctions that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports and deepen its international isolation.

"Since last week, our planes have been refused fuel at airports in Britain, Germany and UAE because of the sanctions imposed by America," Mehdi Aliyari, secretary of the Iranian Airlines Union, told Iran's ISNA news agency. So far national carrier Iran Air and Mahan Airlines had been affected, he said. Washington has not spelled out whether its new sanctions are intended to require firms to refuse to fuel Iranian jets at airports in third countries, but US officials made clear they were pleased with reports sanctions had begun to bite.

"The costs of doing business with Iran, a country that is shirking its international obligations across the board and engaged in illicit activity, are rising," a senior Obama administration official said on Monday. "The international commercial sector is making the right choices. It's now time for Iran to make the right choice - to fulfil its international obligations - that remains our primary objective," the official said.

"When I became the NASA administrator - or before I became the NASA administrator - he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview.

The NASA administrator was in the Middle East last month marking the one-year anniversary since Obama delivered an address to Muslim nations in Cairo. Bolden spoke in June at the American University in Cairo - in his interview with Al Jazeera, he described space travel as an international collaboration of which Muslim nations must be a part.

"It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)," he said. He held up the International Space Station as a model, praising the contributions there from the Russians and the Chinese.

There was a "high chance" it will become the second named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season before it makes landfall in the Terrebonne Parish area near Caillou Bay early Monday evening, the Miami-based hurricane center said. Forecasters at the hurricane center were also keeping close watch over an area of disturbed weather in the southeastern Gulf that could strengthen into a tropical depression later this week, potentially hampering oil spill clean-up efforts.

In its latest advisory, the Miami-based hurricane center said the broad area of low pressure, which was moving northwestward at about 15 miles (24 km) per hour had a "medium chance" of becoming a tropical storm over the next 48 hours.

But it said items including weapons and materials that could have a military use would be barred or limited. Hamas, which has been controlling Gaza since 2007, dismissed the concessions as of no use and said the blockade should be fully lifted. Israel says its blockade of the Palestinian territory is needed to prevent the supply of weapons to Hamas.

Israel came under international pressure to ease its four-year blockade of Gaza after nine Turkish activists were killed in a 31 May Israeli raid on a flotilla that was trying to carry aid to the Palestinian territory. The international Middle East envoy, Tony Blair, told the BBC he believed the international outcry which followed that raid persuaded it to accelerate the easing of the Gaza blockade.

"It is true to say that the Israeli government, I think, were moving towards a different policy anyway, but of course what happened has hugely accelerated the idea," he said. The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen says that Mr Obama and Mr Netanyahu will have plenty to talk about: what comes next in the gathering storm over Iran's nuclear programme; the changing strategic picture in the Middle East, epitomised by Turkey's public falling out with the Israelis; and how to establish a credible peace process with the Palestinians.

"The stock market at this point, which used to be a reflection of the future value of actual businesses in this country, has been turned by our government and our banks into little more than a paper shredding facility [about which] we can make up reasons why it goes up and down," Ratigan said. "But when the computers... at the banks are controlling the action, most everything else is kind of silly."

Ratigan concluded that it's time to create an "alternative investment structure" that would allow people to invest their money without putting it "into the obviously corrupt stock market in this country." Ratigan was referring to the relatively new phenomenon known as high-frequency trading: High-speed computer programs that are able to "peek" at stock trades less than a second before the trades are made. If the computer sees that a trade about to be made will raise the price of a particular stock, it can purchase the stock in the split-second before that trade is made.

Many market observers say this "games" the entire stock market in favor of the large banks that practice high-frequency trading. Indeed, there is evidence that HFT has made the large investment banks much more profitable. As Ratigan mentioned, HFT is estimated to account for 70 percent of all the trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

He expressed deep concerns that previously staunch Catholic countries in Europe and North America were facing "the eclipse of a sense of God". Tens of thousands of worshippers are deserting the Church over issues such as clerical sex abuse and the ban on married priests. "I have decided to create a new body with the aim of promoting a renewed evangelism," in countries that are going through "progressive secularisation of society", the 83-year-old Pope said.

The new department, to be called The Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation, will try to reinvigorate belief among Catholics in rich, developed countries - or, in the pontiff's words, "find the right means to re-propose the perennial truth of the Gospel." It is expected to be led by an Italian archbishop, Rino Fisichella, who as head of the Pontifical Academy for Life is the Vatican's top bioethics official.

Congregations in the West have fallen dramatically and faith in the Church has been hard hit by a series of high-profile scandals involving the sexual abuse of children by paedophile priests.

In Britain there are about six million Catholics - one in ten of the population - but only around a million say they go to Mass every Sunday.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the President of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said he looked forward to co-operating with the new body. "This initiative identifies a challenge with which many in the Catholic Church, and many in other Christian communities, are familiar," he said.

The Foreign Office will today reveal further details about the trip, which has already encountered difficulties with funding and hostility from campaigners, who plan to protest against the pope, and was the subject of an embarrassing gaffe by civil servants.

The latest problem arises over the pope's historic address at Westminster Hall on 17 September, which is the same date as Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, a solemn occasion marked by 25 hours of fasting and prayer. Lady Hayman, Speaker of the House of Lords, is one of a number of people who have pressed for the speech to be brought forward to avoid excluding Jewish luminaries, such as the chief rabbi, from the audience, according to Foreign Office sources.

Sunset is at 6.56 pm that day, so a late afternoon start would still impinge on preparations for the holy day. To some, attendance at Westminster Hall could infer a person was not preparing properly for Yom Kippur.

The Foreign Office has already come under fire for its handling of the papal visit. Last April, it apologised for an internal memo, resulting from a brainstorm among civil servants, which included suggestions the pope could bless a gay marriage or open an abortion clinic. The resulting furore led to the disbanding of the planning team and the appointment of Catholic peer Chris Patten as David Cameron's personal representative to lead arrangements for the visit.