"Outside forces should not interfere in internal processes in the countries of the region." Rather, the conflicts should be solved by "launching broad national dialogue about rebuilding stability and social order and the promotion of democratic and economic reforms," the statement said. The two presidents also expressed concern over the situation in Libya, calling for an end to hostilities between the forces of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the rebels.

Russia has said it opposes the UN Security Council adopting any resolution on Syria, risking a major dispute with the West over the response to the crackdown on Syrian protestors. China has backed Russia's cautious stance although, as is customary, it has allowed its fellow permanent UN Security Council member to do most of the public talking on the issue.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich confirmed in Moscow that Russia "as before" was opposed to a UN Security Council resolution on Syria.

Spanish government bond yields, which move inversely to prices, jumped to highs last seen in September 2000, while Greek yields surged to fresh euro-era highs on Thursday. Investors scrambled into the havens of US and German government bonds with yields on Treasuries and Bunds dropping to seven-month lows.

The threat of a Greek default within weeks receded as international leaders overcame a hurdle to ensure Athens received bail-out loans to repay maturing debt in July. A failure to repay this debt would trigger a default. Mr Papandreou defended his handling of the country's debt crisis in an attempt to persuade dissident socialist deputies to back the austerity package. In a live televised speech, the premier admitted his government had made mistakes but also criticised Greece's EU partners, saying they had "made wrong moves" over the crisis.

Neither the German government nor the IMF would be prepared to pay more money to Greece unless Athens can agree on its new programme, according to senior officials in Berlin. Spanish 10-year bond yields jumped to 5.73 per cent and two-year Greek yields rose above 30 per cent at one point

Hu said in a statement released upon his arrival at the airport that his visit intends to inject fresh impetus into the sustained, healthy and stable growth of the China-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation.

In the Russian capital, Hu will meet with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The two sides will exchange views on planning for the development of China-Russia relations in the next decade and on major regional and international issues. As the international situation is undergoing profound and complicated changes, the great cause of peace and development of the mankind now faces a number of challenges, Hu said in his statement.

Hu expressed China's willingness to work with Moscow to focus on deepening the China-Russia strategic partnership of cooperation in an all-round way. In the past decade, the development of China-Russia ties has made remarkable progress. Political and strategic mutual trust between the two nations have deepened continuously. The two countries have established mechanisms for high-level exchange of visits and all-round cooperation.

The euro lost more than 2 percent against the dollar in the past two days and the cost of protecting corporate bonds soared to the highest level since January, with credit-default swaps anticipating about a 78 percent chance that Greece won't pay its debts. Equities declined around the world, while a measure of fear in fixed-income markets jumped the most since November.

Market moves suggest heightened concern that authorities won't be able to keep Greece's debt troubles from spreading after Moody's Investors Service said it may downgrade BNP Paribas SA and two other big French banks because of their investments in the southern European nation. The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in September 2008 caused credit markets worldwide to freeze as investors fled all but the safest government debt.

"The probability of a eurozone Lehman moment is increasing," said Neil Mackinnon, an economist at VTB Capital in London and a former UK Treasury official. "The markets have moved from simply pricing in a high probability of a Greek debt default to looking at a scenario of it becoming disorderly and of contagion spreading to other economies like Portugal, like Ireland, and maybe Spain, Italy and Belgium."

Lehman's collapse contributed to $2 trillion in writedowns and losses at the world's biggest financial institutions, data compiled by Bloomberg show, and central banks cut interest rates to record lows as economies slipped into recession.

French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire warned this week that the warmest and driest spring in half a century could slash wheat yields and might even push up world prices despite the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's predicting a bumper global crop due to greater plantings. France has pledged hundreds of millions of euros in aid to its drought-stricken livestock farmers, who have watched feed supplies dwindle and prices rise. Water restrictions are in place in more than half of the country's administrative regions or departments.

"The situation is serious for French farmers. We wanted to act swiftly and on a large scale," Le Maire told reporters last week. And the French government has set up a committee to keep an eye on the country's electricity supply situation and monitor river levels, as 44 of the 58 nuclear reactors that supply 80 percent of France's electricity are cooled by river water. The problem appears to be not that the reactors might overheat because of the lack of water but that the depleted rivers might overheat, creating ecological havoc, when the water returns to them after cooling the reactors.

The abnormally low rainfall and high temperatures - similar in northern Europe to the major drought of 1976, but actually worse in France - have also hit hydroelectric power availability and output in France. The Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization said last week that between February and May of this year, rainfall over Europe as a whole ranged from 40 to 80 percent of the long-term average from 1951 to 2000, and in many parts of western and central Europe it was even below 40 percent. Between March and May, the outcome was even lower, with France, Germany and southeastern England the worst hit.

The lack of water made the region's forests super-dry, triggering wildfires in parts of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. In Germany, with vast tracts of forest, the Forest Fire Danger Index hit its highest possible level. WMO said the abnormal weather was caused by a persistent ridge of high pressure over western and central Europe, blocking more normal patterns of rainfall and temperature. "This situation is climatologically a very stable constellation, but it has persisted for an unusually long time," WMO said.

Teachers, civil servants and Tube drivers are all due to walk out as unions carry out their threat to 'unleash hell' on the Coalition. Yesterday the Public and Commercial Services union, which represents 300,000 civil servants, said it will stage a one-day strike on June 30 - timed to coincide with teachers walking out at primary and secondary schools.

On the same day, prison officers will hold a series of meetings designed to cause maximum disruption in the nation's jails. In all 750,000 workers, who include tax officials and immigration staff, are due to abandon their posts at the end of the month. Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, warned: 'A one-day strike is not going to sort out this dispute. We are in it for the long-term. We are looking at sustained industrial action.'

Last year it emerged that the unions had stockpiled a 25 million pounds 'war chest' in order to 'unleash hell' following the predicted Tory election victory. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude accused union barons of being 'hell-bent on pursuing disruptive industrial action' by calling damaging strikes which did not have the backing of the majority of their members. Yesterday ministers slammed the decision by the PCS, whose members also include JobCentre staff. Of the 300,000 members who were balloted about strike action, just 48,573 voted 'yes', which is less than one in five. The Prison Officers' Association, whose members are not allowed to strike, said yesterday it will hold 'protest meetings' on June 30 to show 'solidarity'.

To add to the chaos, Unison, the giant health union with 1.4 million members, said it is also on the brink of balloting.

It is furious about pension changes which it says will rob its members of tens of thousands of pounds in retirement. The average NHS worker receives a pension of 7,510 pounds a year.

Mr Maude said public sector workers enjoyed pensions which were 'no longer available' in the private sector. He said a typical public sector worker on 23,000 pounds a year would retire after 40 years with a pension pot worth an astonishing 500,000 pounds.

White bread lacks the protein that brown slices contain and too much of it harms the guts of fish. Anglers tend to throw bait onto the surface of the water to attract fish like carp to their 'peg' on the bank and bread is often a popular choice. White bread has also been commonly used as a hook-bait for centuries and is even referenced in the fisherman's Bible The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton in 1653.

But a fishery in Hampshire has become the first in the country to take the unusual step of banning it because of the poor dietary effects it has on the fish. In some cases, anglers are getting through up to eight loaves in one fishing trip. The move follows a sporadic trend across the country of members of the public being banned by local authorities from throwing white bread to ducks.

'The salt and sugar levels in white and brown loaves are similar but in a typical white sliced loaf there is 3.5 grams of protein per slice compared to the 5.6 grams in brown bread. There is not much nutritional content in the white bread compared to the brown. It's just like people, the fish tend to get lethargic and bloated if they consume too much white bread.'

"Iran launched a domestically built rocket and the Rasad 1 (satellite) has been put into orbit," al-Alam reported. In February 2009, Iran launched its first domestically-built satellite, the OMID (Hope) research and telecoms satellite, in what it described as a big step coinciding with the 30th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic revolution. Iran, which regards its space program as a matter of national pride, says its nuclear program is solely to generate electricity.

The Rasad 1 (Observation) satellite will be used for transmitting images and weather forecasts, TV reported. "The satellite was launched by a Safir rocket. It was put into orbit 260 km (163 miles) above the Earth," al-Alam reported. Iran gave no further description of the satellite's orbit. Western experts say Iran rarely gives enough detail for them to determine the extent of its technological advances, while much Iranian technology consists of modifications of equipment supplied by China, North Korea and others.

The summer surge of protests, which flared in the southern industrial hub of Zengcheng over the weekend, has been linked to a range of frustrations with modern China - furies that have drawn the government into crackdowns on activism and massive increases in the domestic security budget.

More than 1000 migrant workers went on the rampage in Zengcheng after a pregnant street vendor in her 20s was roughed up by security guards. Such incidents, while distressing, are not uncommon. Witnesses said that the centre of town was bedlam, with smashed windows, blazing police vehicles and tear gas explosions as rioters hurled missiles at an official building. One bank worker blogged that the Bank of China had ordered an immediate halt to all ATM transactions.

In central Hubei province armoured cars were used last week to quell a riot over the death of Ran Jianxin, an official who had led the fight against corruption in the town of Lichuan but died mysteriously in police custody. The protests followed bomb attacks on government facilities in two other cities in the past three weeks, and ethnic unrest in the northern region of Inner Mongolia last month.

Although few see China as a likely arena for uprisings in the style of the Arab Spring, Beijing remains terrified that the fast-rising tally of localised protests could be linked via mobile social networking and Twitter-style websites. Some Chinese academics believe that the true number of protests in the country last year was more than 180,000. After several big clashes in recent weeks the names of half a dozen big towns have been eradicated from the search engines of the country's most popular microblogging sites.

One of the "disappeared" cities, Dongguan, is the fourth-largest producer of exports in the country and has a population only slightly smaller than London's.

But Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, said that the current price of $120 per barrel could be the catalyst for a global economic crisis on the scale of the one experienced in 2008. "If you don't see any softening of the prices, there is a risk of derailing the economy, of a double-dip," Dr Birol told the Reuters Global Energy and Climate Change Summit. "We all know what happened in 2008. Are we going to see the same movie?"

Oil prices fell nearly $3 in London to $117.30 and more than $5 in New York to $94.84 on worries about the faltering global economy. However, economists believe the price is still at a level near to tipping the global economy back into a downturn.

Prime Minister George Papandreou faces the risk of a revolt in his Pasok party over the austerity package. He has proposed a unity government to pass the measures, state TV reports. He is seeking support for a new austerity programme of 28 billion euros (24.6 billion pounds; $40.5 billion) in cuts to take effect from 2012 to 2015.

Thousands are taking part in a general strike, the third in Greece this year. Ports, public transport and banks have been badly disrupted as the main public and private sector unions go out on strike. State-run companies have also joined the walkout, while hospitals are only offering emergency care. However, airports are operating normally after air traffic controllers called off their strike.

A top credit agency has cut Greece's rating, making it the least credit-worthy nation out of 131 countries it monitors. The Greek government said the downgrade by Standard & Poor's - from B to CCC - ignored its efforts to secure funding. In order for the next tranche of rescue loans to go through, parliament must adopt the new austerity plan by the end of June.

Some eastern counties have had only 5mm of rain since the end of February, with most regions seeing no more than 60% of average rainfall in the past four months, usually one of the wettest times of the year. "The next few weeks are critical," said National Farmers Union water adviser Jenny Bashford. "We had some rain last week but all it did was stop the situation worsening in some places. If we get a heatwave now, and the forecast is for above average temperatures and only sporadic showers in June, we are in a different situation. The north and north-west is largely ok but there are already significant problems in the south and east."

The meeting is at the request of the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, who asked the Environment Agency two weeks ago to report on how a drought might affect food production and prices, water and power supplies. Water companies, which have been upbeat so far about supplies, are likely to warn that some reservoirs in the south and east are beginning to empty but that no hosepipe bans will be needed for several months.

Farming leaders warned Spelman last week that production across much of southern Britain was likely to be down by 15% if normal rains resumed immediately and by much more if prolonged rains did not come soon. An increasing number of farmers predict that yields will be reduced by 50% or more, warning that the impact of a continuing dry summer could last well beyond the harvest into next year.

Food prices are expected to rise and a further prolonged spell of dry weather or a heatwave could result in restrictions on water use by the public, including hosepipe and sprinkler bans. The government could declare a drought within weeks. "At this point a whole range of powers could be invoked, from allowing farmers to take more water from rivers, to water restrictions on consumers," said Trevor Bishop, head of water resources at the Environment Agency.

Concern is growing across Europe that the drought will be disastrous for economies, affecting tourism, electricity supplies and food prices. And last week brought more bad news for the agricultuaral sectors of countries such as Spain and Holland as the E.coli outbreak saw shipments of fruit and vegetables hit hard. The Dutch industry association Productschap Tuinbouw said it estimated the cost of the infection scare to farmers at 50 million euros per week.

A decrease in global warming might result in the years after 2020, the approximate time when sunspots are expected to disappear for years, maybe even decades. While the effects of a calmer sun are mostly good - there'd be fewer disruptions of satellites and power systems - it could see a sharp turnaround in global warming.

An absence of sunspots is not an unprecedented situation. It has happened before, but not since the early 18th century. Lead researcher Frank Hill, of the National Solar Observatory, said: 'The solar cycle is maybe going into hiatus, sort of like a summertime TV show.' While scientists don't know why the sun is going quiet, all the signs are that it will. Dr Hill and his team have based their prediction on three changes in the sun spotted by scientific teams - weakening sunspots; fewer streams spewing from the poles of the sun's corona; and a disappearing solar jet stream.

Dr Richard Altrock, the study's co-author and an astrophysicist at the Air Force Research Laboratory, said these three cues show that 'there's a good possibility that the sun could be going into some sort of state from which it takes a long time to recover'.

Their prediction is specifically aimed at the solar cycle starting in 2020.

Experts say the sun has already been unusually quiet for about four years with few sunspots - higher magnetic areas that appear as dark spots. The enormous magnetic field of the sun dictates the solar cycle, which includes sunspots, solar wind and ejection of fast-moving particles that sometimes hit Earth.

Things don't look good. So exactly what is going on here? Well, it is undeniable that the recent mini-bubble in stocks has been too good to be true. The S&P 500 had surged nearly 30 percent since last September. Much of this has been fueled by the Federal Reserve's latest round of quantitative easing, but now that is coming to an end in a few weeks and investors are a bit spooked. Meanwhile, wars and revolutions are sweeping the Middle East, Japan is dealing with the damage caused by the tsunami and by Fukushima, Europe is trying to figure out how to bail out Greece again and the US debt crisis is continually getting worse.

In addition, wave after wave of bad economic news is certainly not helping the mood on Wall Street. In many ways, a "perfect storm" is developing and many are now extremely concerned about what the rest of 2011 is going to bring for Wall Street. QE2 is slated to conclude at the end of June, and many investors are deeply disappointed that it does not appear that we are not going to see QE3 right away. Many fear that the end of quantitative easing will pop the current mini-bubble in stocks and commodities. At the moment, financial markets are more jittery than they have been in a long time.

Frank Davis, director of sales and trading with LEK Securities, says that there is a lot of pessimism on Wall Street right now... "There's a lot of emotion in this market at the moment, and the conversations among traders are nearly all leaning toward the bear side" So what are some of the signs that this downturn on Wall Street may turn into a full-blown crash?

Well, according to the Wall Street Journal, junk bonds are being sold off at an alarming rate right now. Does the following quote from the Journal remind anyone of 2008 at least a little bit?... "A steep decline in prices of bonds backed by subprime mortgages has spread through the riskiest segments of the credit markets, ending rallies in high-yield corporate bonds and commercial real-estate debt."

If we see another collapse in 2011 or 2012 there is not going to be much of a safety net available. The entire world financial system is simply swamped with way too much debt. The world has never seen anything even remotely close to the gigantic mountains of debt that have been accumulated around the world today. The current global financial system is not sustainable. More crashes are inevitable. A lot of people are going to get steamrolled.

Traders say there are substantial options barriers around that level, a break of which would accelerate gains. If the franc goes much higher, investor concern about whether it is overbought will increase, potentially driving some into, for example, the Swedish and Norwegian crowns. They, like the franc, are backed by sound economies.

"All the forces that have been driving euro/Swiss franc lower remain in place. Until the market is comfortable with the idea that Europe is containing the second phase of the debt crisis, euro/Swiss will probably be a sell on rallies," said Audrey Childe-Freeman, strategist at JP Morgan Private Bank.

Franc gains have been exacerbated as investors have sought to limit exposure to the euro just as concerns about fiscal stress and weak economies have dented the appeal of more liquid alternatives - the US dollar, Japanese yen and sterling.