The Catholic Church is currently being shaken by a number of financial scandals, not only in Franconia but also in Augsburg, another Bavarian city, where Bishop Walter Mixa's dip into funds from a foundation that runs children's homes recently made headlines.

More than 40 million euros have gone missing in the Diocese of Magdeburg in eastern Germany, 5 million euros have disappeared in Limburg near Frankfurt, and it was recently discovered that a senior priest in the Diocese of Munster had 30 secret bank accounts. And while parishes throughout Germany are cutting jobs and funds for community work, many bishops are still living on the high horse.

Financially speaking, Germany's dioceses are in excellent shape. "The Catholic Church claims that it's poor, but the truth is that it hides its wealth," says Carsten Frerk, a Berlin political scientist who, after years of research, is publishing "Violettbuch Kirchenfinanzen" (The Violet Book of Church Finances) this fall. Frerk estimates the cash assets of the church's legal entities at about 50 billion euros. The Catholics, who are not releasing their own figures, accuse Frerk of being a prejudiced, atheistic critic of the church.

The assets, accumulated over the centuries, are invested in many areas, including real estate, church-owned banks, academies, breweries, vineyards, media companies and hospitals. The church also derives income from stock holdings, foundations and bequests. As a rule, all of this money flows into the accounts of the so-called bishop's see. Only a bishop and his closest associates are familiar with this shadow budget, which tax authorities are not required to review. The public budgets of dioceses consist of far less than their total finances.

This complicated web is handled with such secrecy that not even the financial department heads of all dioceses openly discuss their finances with one another. Seemingly baroque structures make these finances even more difficult to fathom. Of Germany's 27 Catholic dioceses, 25 refused to provide information in response to a Spiegel survey, noting that this information "is not made public."

Hundreds of people ran out of their homes, said Yan Pieter Yarangga, a resident from the coastal town of Biak. Fearing a tsunami, others ran from the beach. The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency registered the temblor at 7.1, and initially warned it had the potential to trigger a tsunami.

Indonesia sits above a series of fault lines that make the vast island nation one of the most earthquake-prone places in the world.

They were soon confronted by 100 people, some wearing English Defence League T-shirts, who shouted 'scum' and 'Muslim bombers off our streets'. Police, who had received intelligence warning of trouble at the march in Barking, Essex, separated the groups behind barriers on opposite sides of the road.

But violence flared after 200 soldiers from 1st Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment - who lost five men in a recent tour of Afghanistan and had been granted freedom of the borough - marched past thousands of well-wishers. MAC supporters shouted slogans such as 'murderers, murderers' and 'British troops go to hell', while the mainly white crowd opposite, some of whom are believed to have been BNP supporters, threw frozen pork sausages and chanted 'scum' and 'Allah, Allah, who the **** is Allah?'

The anti-MAC contingent then stormed the barriers and traded punches before around 100 officers, including some on horseback, broke up the mob. The clashes came little over a year after Muslim extremists screamed 'baby killers' and 'rapists' at soldiers from 2nd Battalion Royal Anglian Regiment parading through Luton after a tour of duty in Iraq. Members of the public who travelled to Barking yesterday to cheer the troops said they were 'disgusted' by what happened.

The leader of Barking and Dagenham Council recently wrote to Home Secretary Theresa May asking her to ban MAC because he feared its extremist propaganda could cause violence. Liam Smith acted after MAC posters about the protest, showing a bomber bursting through a flag of St George, appeared on the town's war memorial. Previous leaflets depicted British soldiers beside a bloody puddle in the shape of a skull. Mr Smith said: 'We don't want these people with their hate-filled agenda in our borough.'

Tourists expecting sunny skies in Cape Town were greeted by snow on Table Mountain, where the temperature never rose above 1C. In Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West people might also wake up to "snow" on Wednesday. In KwaZulu-Natal, people were reminded on Tuesday that winter had well and truly settled in. Light to medium snowfalls were experienced in some regions with very cold temperatures around the province.

Snow fell consistently on Tuesday morning in Kokstad, with light snow on Sani Pass, Nottingham Road and Matatiele. Freezing temperatures and snow were experienced at Sani Top Chalet on Tuesday said manager Roger Aldous. "We have had mean temperatures. We are attached to an outdoor weather station and it says it's -8C and with the wind chill it says -17C," Aldous said on Tuesday afternoon.

After nearly two years of lockstep economic policy moves, the regions are going their separate ways, with debt-wary Germany pressing for a swift clamp-down on public spending while the United States preaches patience. As G20 world leaders prepare for next week's summit in Toronto, disagreements are becoming more frequent and decades-old policy biases are resurfacing.

For many American officials, Germany's rush to retract is reminiscent of 1937 when the United States abruptly shifted into austerity mode, thinking the Great Depression was over. For Germany, the old scar is hyperinflation. "I think I should start by noting... that it's very important what Europe does and what Japan does too," Geithner said in response to Kerry's question at a congressional hearing on US-China relations on Thursday.

Like China, Germany and Japan typically export more than they import, so it makes sense for Geithner to mention all three when he talks about rebalancing world growth. Until Europe's debt troubles intensified last month, however, he rarely did.

Senator John McCain, who ran against Obama in the 2008 presidential election, voiced concern about slower-than-expected progress in southern Afghanistan and doubts about Afghan President Hamid Karzai's commitment. "I am deeply concerned about our campaign in Afghanistan. Many of the key trends seem to be heading in a bad direction, perhaps even signaling a mounting crisis," McCain said at a Senate hearing, where top Pentagon officials defended the Afghan strategy.

In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an 'apocalyptic' vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.

Mr Monks, now head of the European TUC, said: "I had a discussion with Barroso last Friday about what can be done for Greece, Spain, Portugal and the rest and his message was blunt: 'Look, if they do not carry out these austerity packages, these countries could virtually disappear in the way that we know them as democracies. They've got no choice, this is it.' He's very, very worried. He shocked us with an apocalyptic vision of democracies in Europe collapsing because of the state of indebtedness."

Mr Barroso's warning lays bare the concern at the highest level in Brussels that the economic crisis could lead to the collapse of not only the beleaguered euro, but the EU itself, along with a string of fragile democracies. But it risks infuriating governments in southern Europe which are already struggling to contain public anger as they drive through tax rises and spending cuts in a bid to avoid disaster.

Mr Monks yesterday warned that the new austerity measures themselves could take the continent 'back to the 1930s'.

In an interview with the Brussels-based magazine EU Observer he said: 'This is extremely dangerous. This is 1931, we're heading back to the 1930s, with the Great Depression and we ended up with a militarist dictatorship. I'm not saying we're there yet, but it's potentially very serious, not just economically, but politically as well.'

The looming bankruptcy of Spain, one of the foremost economies in Europe, poses far more of a threat to European unity and the euro project than Greece. Greece contributes 2.5 percent of GDP to Europe, Spain nearly 12 percent.

In that speech, Obama took aim at the "Christian Right" for "hijacking" religion and using it to divide the nation: "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who've been all too eager to exploit what divides us," he said.

Geller suggested perhaps other evidence should be considered as well, listing how Obama in early 2009 declared the "war on terror" over, suggested discussions with Hamas and recruited more Muslims for the White House staff.

He also created the Outreach to the Worldwide Muslim community in the State department, announced cuts in the US nuclear arsenal, offered funding to a Muslim technology fund, issued a special hajj message, had a "non-religious" Christmas, ordered NASA to work with Muslim nations and offered support for an anti-Israel resolution at the UN.

The quake follows a series of temblors that struck Southern California over the weekend, including a pair of moderate earthquakes that rattled a desert area east of San Diego. Residents in downtown San Diego could feel the ground rumbling during at least one of the Saturday quakes. At least 20 aftershocks were recorded within 30 minutes of Monday's earthquake, with the largest measuring at magnitude 4.1.

More than 1,000 people reported feeling the shaking, according to online citizen reports compiled by the USGS. The strongest shaking was felt in San Diego County. The latest quake struck just two months after the deadly Easter Sunday magnitude 7.2 quake that shook Baja California and Southern California. Monday's quake occurred in the aftershock zone of the Easter quake, said USGS geophysicist Rafael Abreu. "It's still too early to say, if it was an aftershock," Abreu said.

'Readiness' is made up of more than 150 retired generals and admirals. The group wants state and federal funding for pre-kindergarten programs that it says give children a solid foundation for academic and personal success. The report says 145,000 Philadelphians ages 18 to 24 cannot meet the military's medical, moral and mental standards. Nationally, the Department of Defense estimates that 75 percent of young adults are disqualified from military service.

He said that just as the events of September 11, 2001, had profoundly shaped 'our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy', so the oil disaster would shape thinking on the environment and energy for years to come. Those who lost loved ones when terrorists flew hijacked planes into the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Centre said Mr Obama's remarks were yet another attempt to slur the UK.

Joy Bennett, 66, a mother of two from Amersham in Buckinghamshire whose son Oli, a 29-year-old financial journalist, died, said: 'It is an unfair parallel and is really a cruel thing to say. I can see what he is trying to say but to compare a manmade deliberate terrorist attack to something that is an accident is absolutely wrong. Mr Obama seems intent on causing as much offence to Britain as possible. By saying this he is distracting from what his government is doing, or not doing enough of.'

With his relentless criticism of BP, Mr Obama has been accused of threatening British pensions - which are heavily invested in the company - and the UK economy. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne finally hit back yesterday, breaking days of public silence from the Government. He emphasised that a string of US firms were also heavily involved in the events leading up to the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig and said BP, which Mr Obama has pointedly referred to as British Petroleum, was 'effectively an Anglo-American company'. In a coded criticism of the president, he warned: 'I think we have seen what can happen if people attempt to flam up the rhetoric on this.'

Rival oil giant Chevron told the Wall Street Journal that the Gulf of Mexico explosion was a 'preventable' incident. Chief executive John Watson said his company had policies and procedures in place that could have avoided the explosion that triggered the spill.

Yet, to the frustration of all Europeans, international financial markets refuse to be reassured. Although the euro has stopped falling in value, banks are still refusing lending to one another, and the cost of insuring European debt against future defaults remains sky-high. Mr Axel Weber, the German who hopes to be elected as the next president of the European Central Bank, spoke for many recently when he dismissed the reaction of the markets as "simply incomprehensible."

But the explanation for this curious mismatch between the actions of European governments and the response of international markets is rather straightforward. For the continent's financial problems are only beginning, and resolving them will require far more than just vague pledges. The smaller and poorer EU nations which have unleashed the crisis - Greece, Spain and Portugal - have promised to put their houses in order. Bigger European nations have followed suit: Italy and Britain are preparing their people for the most painful spending cuts in generations, while Germany has just adopted the biggest austerity package since the country emerged from the ashes of World War II.

However, not all Europeans are following this prudent path. France, for instance, remains in self-denial, asking all others to improve their housekeeping without doing much itself. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is so irked by this behavior that she abruptly pulled out of a planned dinner with French President Nicolas Sarkozy last Monday. To make matters worse, a new European banking crisis may be looming.

When the global financial crisis erupted in 2008, the United States government started testing its banks, by looking at their assets and liabilities, with a view to determining whether they remained going concerns. But European governments preferred to conduct such tests away from public eyes, largely because they feared the outcome.

Rocked by the resignations of a pair of high-ranking officials from her party and a significant setback in elections last month, Mrs Merkel finds herself embroiled in possibly the worst political crisis since she became chancellor in 2005. The decision to push through Germany's share of a multibillion-dollar bailout for Greece and an even larger rescue package to defend the euro cost her dearly among parsimonious German voters, who are bitter at bailing out what they see as spendthrift neighbors.

Then last week the government proposed nearly $100 billion in belt-tightening measures by 2014, intended to slow the growth of the country's debts. Coming on the heels of the bailout votes, the budget cuts led thousands of Germans to take to the streets in protest over the weekend, leaving more than a dozen police officers injured here in the capital. The leading German newsweekly, Der Spiegel, called Mrs Merkel's teaming of conservative Christian Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats "a government in ruins," adding that "no one would bet on a long duration for this government, not even Merkel's faithful."

"New elections are now in the heads and hearts of everyone who thinks about political responsibility," said Renate Kunast, a chairwoman of the opposition Greens in Parliament.

Last week Germany banned naked short-selling at its 10 most important financial institutions. But the draft proposal from the Finance Ministry now suggests the ban will be extended to shares and derivatives in all companies. According to the Wall Street Journal, the proposal states: "Naked short-selling of stocks and the debt of eurozone states that are listed on a domestic exchange in a regulated marketplace will be forbidden." The proposals are expected to be discussed by the German cabinet next week.

G20 finance ministers had distanced themselves from bank taxes at a meeting earlier this month. A bank tax would protect taxpayers from having to bail-out banks in the future. Proceeds from the taxes would go into a fund that could be accessed during any future financial crises. A number of countries have been calling for taxes on banks since governments spent billions of dollars bailing out banks across the world following the financial crisis that began in 2008. However, so far there has been no agreement.

Many governments are concerned that if they unilaterally impose a tax, banks will simply move to countries that have not introduced such measures. According to the Reuters news agency, European Union leaders will agree in principle on Thursday to introduce a levy on financial institutions, after which the details will be worked out by the European Commission.

"The European Council agrees that a levy on financial institutions should be introduced to ensure that they contribute to the cost of crises," draft conclusions of a council meeting said, Reuters reported.