Addressing the powerful Central Military Commission, Hu said: "Our work must closely encircle the main theme of national defence and military building." His comments, which were posted in a statement on a government website, come as the United States and Beijing's neighbours have expressed concerns over its naval ambitions, particularly in the South China Sea.

Several Asian nations have competing claims over parts of the South China Sea, believed to encompass huge oil and gas reserves, while China claims it all. One-third of global seaborne trade passes through the region. Vietnam and the Philippines have accused Chinese forces of increasing aggression there. In a translation of Hu's comments, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the president as saying China's navy should "make extended preparations for warfare."

The intelligence was revealed in a classified Capitol Hill briefing last month. Its existence was made public in a letter to Defense Secretary Leon E Panetta from five House Republicans. "As members of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, we write out of concerns about new intelligence concerning foreign developments in long-range ballistic missile development, specifically ballistic missiles capable of attacking the United States," the November 17 letter said.

"We believe this new intelligence reiterates the need for the administration to correct its priorities regarding missile defenses, which should have, first and foremost, the missile defense of the homeland." Officials familiar with the intelligence said government analysts believe the missile could be a variant of North Korea's new Musudan intermediate-range missile, first disclosed publicly in October 2010. Other intelligence indicates that the new ICBM may be under development at a huge missile testing facility on North Korea's western coast. Prior to its mobile ICBM, North Korea's long-range missiles were the pad-launched Taepodong-1 prototype, and the Taepodong-2 (TD-2) dual-use ICBM and space launcher. The TD-2 was test-launched in April 2009.

Mobile missiles are difficult for tracking radar to locate, making them easier to hide. They also can be set up and launched much more quickly than missiles fired from silos or launchpads. China's military recently deployed two new mobile ICBMs, the DF-31 and DF-31A. It is not known whether North Korea's new mobile missile is based on Chinese technology. China in the past has provided missile technology to North Korea, a fraternal communist ally.

They claimed some were wounded, and were ferried away from the battle by Turkish military vehicles to Turkish army aid stations. "The border guards forces suffered no injuries or losses," the state news agency said. "They warned they would stop anyone who even thinks of touching Syria's security or its citizens." Turkey has provided a base and diplomatic cover to the Free Syrian Army, a growing band of defectors, and it is unlikely that an open attack with such a large group of men could have been planned without their awareness.

That alone is enough to draw the two former allies closer to open war, though both are likely to try to avoid it. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, has already admitted he considers that a buffer zone inside Syria for refugees from the fighting might have to be considered, with outside military intervention if necessary. A widening and increasingly dangerous rift is forming between the main strategic alliances in the region. Iran and its allied militia in Lebanon, Hizbollah, are remaining loyal to Mr Assad but Hamas, another Damascus-based militant group, is making its unease clear.

Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, made his first public appearance in three years, at a rally to mark the Shia Muslim festival of Ashura in Beirut. He said he stood by Mr Assad as a fellow struggler in the "resistance" and said that America, the Satan, was trying to overthrow him to make up for defeat in Iraq. "A message to all those who are conspiring against the resistance and banking on change: we will never let go of our arms," he said. "We are tens of thousands of trained fighters, who are all ready to die."

"There were huge net capital outflows," said Eric Dor from the IESEG School of Management in Lille. The effects of this capital flight are surfacing on the Bank of France's books under the European Central Bank's so-called "Target2" scheme, an ECB payment network that lets funds move automatically where needed. Liabilities jumped suddenly in late July, rising from 10 billion euros to 98 billion euros by September. Ireland's central bank owes 118 billion euros, Spain's 108 billion euros and Italy's 89 billion euros.

The triple-trigger appears to have been a sudden drop in Club Med manufacturing orders, an ECB rate rise, and the EU's July summit - which led to haircuts on Greek bondholders and battered faith in EMU sovereign debt. Mr Dor said there had been an exodus from distressed states into German, Dutch and Luxembourg banks. This shows up in the Target2 data.

While the liabilities can in theory keep rising for ever within EMU, they signal grave imbalances, such as the North-South trade gap so long ignored until it proved fatal. They ultimately leave debtor central banks deep under water if the eurozone breaks up. "We are in unknown territory in terms of monetary theory," said Mr Dor. On the creditor side, the Bundesbank is left holding 465 billion euros in IOUs, and the Dutch central bank 89 billion euros, stoking fears that these countries could suffer a big loss if EU leaders fail to contain the crisis. The national central banks are also on the hook for the ECB's other operations.

The EU treaty may be rewritten to achieve greater fiscal integration within the eurozone. But that would require the agreement of all 27 members, including the UK. Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has told BBC Radio 5 Live that the "hand on the clock is moving to the 59th minute" in the eurozone crisis. Germany and France are developing a plan for greater fiscal integration among the eurozone's 17 members ahead of a crucial meeting on Friday.

Mr Cameron said he would be there "to defend and promote British interests", but stressed that the most important thing for Britain right now was to resolve the eurozone crisis. "If they choose to use the European treaty to do that then obviously there will be British safeguards and British interests that I will want to insist on, and I won't sign a treaty that doesn't have those safeguards in it." He added: "As long as we get those then that treaty will go ahead. If we can't get those, it won't."

City police have stepped up an effort to quell the movement since they occupied the building on 18 November, with the document stating: "It is likely that activists aspire to identify other locations to occupy, especially those they identify with capitalism. Intelligence suggests that urban explorers are holding a discussion at the Sun Street squat. This may lead to an increase in urban exploration activity at abandoned or high profile sites in the capital." The Occupy movement is listed alongside threats posed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), Al Qaeda and Belarusian terrorists.

"Just the words themselves are enough to deceive the public opinion and this is what we see at the moment," Occupy spokesman Spyro Van Leemnen told Yahoo! News. "We are clearly nothing to do with extremists or terrorists, we are a peaceful group and we do use direct action to raise our point but definitely not terrorism." Commenting on the document, City of London Police said: "[We] work with the community to deter and detect terrorist activity and crime in the City in a way that has been identified nationally as good practice."

"We've seen crime linked to protests in recent weeks, notably around groups entering office buildings, and with that in mind we continue to brief key trusted partners on activity linked to protests."

European share prices and the euro fell on Tuesday after ratings agency Standard Poor's warned it may downgrade 15 of the 17 euro-zone nations, including triple 'A' nations like GERMANY, as a result of the euro crisis. European policymakers criticized the timing of the announcement, just three days ahead of a make-or-break EU summit on Thursday and Friday, and said the agency hadn't taken into account proposals for far-reaching reforms of the euro zone's debt rules agreed by the leaders of France and Germany on Monday.

Standard & Poor's had warned late on Monday that it may carry out an unprecedented mass downgrade of euro-zone countries if EU leaders fail to reach an agreement on how to solve the debt crisis at this week's summit. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said the S&P announcement was "like a knockout blow" to countries that were cutting their budget deficits. "I FIND WHAT STANDARD & POOR IS SAYING COMPLETELY EXAGGERATED," Juncker said in an interview on Deutschlandfunk radio early on Tuesday. "I have to wonder that this news reaches us out of the clear blue sky at the time of the European summit; THIS CAN'T BE A COINCIDENCE."

Bank of France governor Christian Noyer, a member of the governing council of the European Central Bank, said on Tuesday that ratings agencies were in danger of themselves worsening the euro-zone debt crisis. "THE AGENCIES WERE ONE OF THE MOTORS OF THE CRISIS IN 2008. ARE THEY BECOMING A MOTOR IN THE CURRENT CRISIS? That's a real question we all need to think about," he told a conference on corporate finance in Paris.

Hans Michelbach, a member of parliament for the conservative Christian Social Union party, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, called the S&P warning "an arbitrary decision with no relation to reality." The aim of the announcement, he said, had evidently been to create additional nervousness ahead of the EU summit. HE CALLED ON THE EU TO CRACK DOWN ON THE "UNCONTROLLED GAMES" BEING PLAYED BY THE RATINGS AGENCIES.

Only one in six people in Britain think they live as part of a traditional family, according to claims by a new think-tank yesterday. Apparently, only a small minority come from 'traditional nuclear families' with married parents and two or more children, the Centre for the Modern Family said. Its report said the traditional family is out of date and that the Government should consider ways to support alternative family forms that are adopted by the majority.

But the group's research and findings were criticised by analysts who said that according to official statistics, six out of ten of all families with children are led by two married parents. Family researcher and author Jill Kirby said: 'A large majority of couples are still married. By painting the traditional family as a tiny minority this report is giving a false picture of life in Britain. It makes one wonder what their agenda is. Their data is absurdly fixed. It is at odds with the official data on the family.'

And one of the panel of experts that drew up the report, financed by the Scottish Widows insurance group, acknowledged that the low figure thrown up by its research was connected to the way the questions were framed. The report comes at a key moment for Government policy on the family, with a gap appearing to widen between supporters of ministers such as Iain Duncan Smith who would like to see the tax and benefit system changed to support married couples, and those who believe state support for marriage should take a low priority.

The report said: 'The majority of people feel their family is unrepresented by politicians, the media and advertising, with 52 per cent claiming the Government does not take their family set-up into account. The findings indicate family structures are becoming increasingly diverse. A quarter of all couples are childless, and one in five lives alone. As a result of this, half of the population believe society is out of date in its view of the family.'

Not on the evidence of Monday's press conference by Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, where any agreement that might have been reached was about as clear as mud. Nor was there anything in what they said to address the immediate crisis. To the contrary, they merely reaffirmed the old position - the European Central Bank must not act as lender of last resort to sovereigns and eurobonds are out of the question. The upswing in markets is being called a "relief rally", but relief about what?

There was no solution offered to the looming funding crisis faced by Italy and Spain - and perhaps others too - and there was no plan for growth. Still, no matter; markets are determined to believe that salvation is at hand. Now obviously, it is always a mistake to read too much into the short-term movement of stock markets, and particularly the relatively common phenomenon of the pre-Christmas rally.

The cynical view of such rallies is that they are largely driven by the upcoming bonus season. With the annual scramble for bonuses already well under way, fund managers tend to plunge in for fear of getting left behind and underperforming their benchmarks. Quantitative easing in the UK and the US is also helping; investors are being driven out of low-yielding government bonds into higher risk securities. Recession in Britain this quarter and next, already pretty much pre-cooked, may soon prompt the Bank of England to increase the present programme of QE still further to something approaching the 200 billion pounds spent in the last round a couple of years back.

So far, talks seem to have concentrated almost entirely on putting in place an effective framework for controlling the fiscally ill-disciplined. It's being called "fiscal union", but as my colleague, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, has already pointed out, this is not fiscal union at all, but merely a toughened-up version of the old stability and growth pact. It offers no prospect of support for countries that get themselves into difficulty, only punishment.

Whether any of this is enough to justify the optimism of equity markets remains to be seen. Either way, it doesn't look like good news for Britain, whose primary interest is the immediate problem of preventing a recession, not getting bogged down in the politics of treaty change. A toxic mix of the two - recession in Europe and politically explosive treaty change - still looks all too possible.

The Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, as expected, emerged with the largest share with 36.6 per cent of the vote. Defying expectations, the far more funadamentalist al-eNour - the "Party of Light" - emerged in second place with 24.4 per cent. It is backed by Egypt's growing community of Salafists, adherents of one of the most puritanical strains of Islam.

With the moderately Islamist al-Wesat winning 4.3 per cent of the vote, religious parties are just shy of a two-thirds majority that would give them the power to draft a new constitution without reference to secular rivals, which made a poor showing. The rise of al-Nour has caused particular alarm among liberals. Their leaders openly espouse the introduction of the harshest interpretation of Islamic law. They call for women to be segregated and veiled, the ban of alcohol, the stoning of adulterers and the amputation of the hands of thieves.

Eurozone states should face greater checks on their budgets and sanctions if they run up deficits, they said. Mr Sarkozy said talks on a new treaty should be completed by March, to ensure such a crisis never happened again. The Paris talks come ahead of an EU summit on Friday that is being seen as crucial for the future of the single currency.

The announcement, and austerity measures unveiled in Rome over the weekend, led to Italy's long-term borrowing rate falling below 6% on Monday afternoon - the lowest it has been since October. Mr Sarkozy said things in Europe "cannot continue as they are" and that the Franco-German wish was for "a forced march toward re-establishing confidence in the eurozone".

"We are conscious of the gravity of the situation and of the responsibility that rests on our shoulders," he said. Mrs Merkel said France and Germany were "absolutely determined" to maintain a stable euro and wanted to see "structural changes which go beyond agreements".

"Both Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy have made concessions - the Germans have accepted that the European Court of Justice will not be able to veto budgets, but President Sarkozy has had to accept automatic sanctions for those who break the rules. As for Britain, the PM will face a tough decision over whether he tries to win back powers from Europe in exchange for British support for treaty change. The biggest doubt that hangs over all of this is firstly time - the negotiations will go on for months. And then there is the underlying reality - none of these measures explains how the huge debt mountains will be brought time at a time of almost zero growth."

That designation means there is a 50% chance of a downgrade from the firm. The move would come as a surprise to markets which had seen strong gains earlier in the day. S&P refused to comment on the reports. The French, German and UK stock exchanges ended the day between 0.3 and 1.1% up. However following the reports of a possible downgrade, the Dow Jones lost some of its early gains.

"I felt like I was invaded," she told CBS 2's Dave Carlin. Sherman says a week-long Thanksgiving holiday with family in New York ended with an ordeal that started when the screeners wanted to check the bulge from Sherman's colostomy bag. "This is private for me. It's bad enough that I have it," she said. "I had to pull it from my sweatpants and I had to pull my underwear, my underwear down. You don't do that to anybody," she added. "I felt like I was invaded."

The TSA released a statement Sunday, apologizing to Zimmerman but disputing her story. "TSA contacted the passenger to apologize that she feels she had an unpleasant screening experience; however, TSA does not include strip searches in its protocols and a strip search did not occur in this case," the statement read. State Senator Michael Gianaris of Queens wonders how the TSA can be so sure. He says with no cameras in the private screening rooms, it is a screener's word against the passenger's.

"It's outrageous," he said. "What they need to find out is exactly what happened and if someone crossed the line they need to be penalized."

"I missed my flight and I had to wait two and a half hours for the next one," Zimmerman said.

After meeting in Paris, they announced that an unprecedented bilateral agreement between the two countries will be sent to the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, on Wednesday. It will then be discussed at an EU-wide summit on Friday, with a view to officials drafting the new treaty and putting it to all the nations of Europe. But although both Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy said they wanted all 27 European Union countries - including Britain - to sign up, they made clear the 17 eurozone members would simply go ahead on their own anyway.

Mrs Merkel said: "It's a historic choice - we both believe that the most important thing is friendship between France and Germany."

"We had decades of terrible war and 70 years of peace - we need to understand each other and accept our differences. This is proof of our absolute determination that the stability of the euro is preserved. We have come to a close agreement; there is close cooperation between France and Germany."