"Poor children need more than just a $1,000 for their family, they need a war against poverty to make it a major priority in the way which we have a priority for Afghanistan, and a priority to bail out banks, and a priority to defend corporate interests when it comes to environmental issues," West said about more and new entitlements for the poor.

Professor West didn't just call for another war on poverty (the first war was fought by Lyndon B Johnson), but went on to say that the push for more entitlements "is going to be fought in the streets." West showered the Occupy movement with praise for making people aware of the issue. "It's a major question of priorities here. That's why the Occupy movement is so important because some of this is going to be fought in the streets. Civil disobedience does make a difference," he said.

"Corporate greed now is an issue everybody has got to talk about. Wealth inequality. Everybody must talk about it because of the Occupy movement," Mr West concluded.

The Paris-based thinktank slashed its forecast for growth among its 34 members from 2.3% half a year ago to 1.6%, with Europe dramatically downgraded from 2% to just 0.2% because of the unresolved sovereign debt crisis. Pier Carlo Padoan, OECD chief economist, made plain in the body's latest six-monthly economic outlook that the greatest threat to global economic health comes from the eurozone rather than from the tax-and-spend gridlock in the US Congress.

In his introduction to the report he said: "Recent contagion to countries thought to have relatively solid public finances could massively escalate economic disruption if not addressed." In a devastating critique of eurozone leaders' hesitancy and dilatoriness, he said: "The scenario so far is that Europe's leaders have been behind the curve. We believe this could be very serious."

His comments came amidst evidence that the 17 eurozone countries are even wider apart on the measures required to staunch the exit of global investors and prevent a credit crunch on an even worse scale than in 2008-09.

The extraordinary appeal by Radoslaw Sikorski, delivered in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate in the German capital, came as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on European leaders to provide "credible and large enough firepower" to halt the sell-off in the eurozone sovereign debt market, or risk a severe recession. The OECD's comments came as the organisation slashed its half-yearly forecasts for growth in the world's richest countries, warning that economic activity in Europe would grind to a near-halt.

Yet their calls were met by a stubborn insistence in Berlin that only EU treaty change to forge a "stability union" in the eurozone would revive confidence in the markets. Wolfgang Schauble, German finance minister, rejected calls for the European Central Bank to act as a "lender of last resort" in the eurozone, and for the introduction of jointly guaranteed eurozone bonds to relieve the pressure on the most debt-strapped members of the common currency such as Greece and Italy.

Germany was not big enough to support the rest of the eurozone on its own, Mr Schauble told foreign correspondents in Berlin. The way to win back the confidence of the markets was to complete monetary union with a "stability union" based on strict budget discipline enshrined in the treaties of the EU. In a startling comment for a senior Polish minister, Mr Sikorski declared that the biggest threat to his nation's security was not terrorism, or German tanks, or even Russian missiles, but "the collapse of the eurozone".

"I demand of Germany that, for your own sake and for ours, you help it survive and prosper," he said. "You know full well that nobody else can do it. I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity. You have become Europe's indispensable nation."

However, the negative outlook indicates a "slightly greater" than 50% chance that Fitch downgrades the US over the next two years. "Failure to reach agreement in 2013 on a credible deficit reduction plan and a worsening of the economic and fiscal outlook would likely result in a downgrade of the US sovereign rating," David Riley, a managing director at Fitch, said in the report. Fitch warned that its revised fiscal projections call for federal debt held by the public to exceed 90% of gross domestic product and debt interest payments making up more than 20% of total tax revenues by the end of the decade.

"In Fitch's opinion, such a level of government indebtedness would no longer be consistent with the US retaining its 'AAA' status despite its underlying strengths," Riley said. Despite the US national debt level surpassing the $15 trillion mark this month, the Supercommittee announced last week it failed to reach a bipartisan deal, triggering automatic cuts of $1 trillion split between defense and non-defense discretionary spending. However, Fitch warned that further deficit reduction efforts "will not be credible" if they solely rely on cutting discretionary spending. Economists have said Congress needs to quickly move to slash entitlement spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

To be sure, Fitch did recognize the positive characteristics that have allowed the US to become the world's largest economy, highlighted by the global benchmark role of the dollar and Treasuries that create deep markets and minimize risk. "What we have to do is recognize that Washington is out of touch and out of control; that it's been taken over by the extremes on the left and the right," David Walker, former US Comptroller General, told FOX Business.

Bankers didn't mention that they took tens of billions of dollars in emergency loans at the same time they were assuring investors their firms were healthy. And no one calculated until now that banks reaped an estimated $13 billion of income by taking advantage of the Fed's below-market rates, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue. Saved by the bailout, bankers lobbied against government regulations, a job made easier by the Fed, which never disclosed the details of the rescue to lawmakers even as Congress doled out more money and debated new rules aimed at preventing the next collapse.

A fresh narrative of the financial crisis of 2007 to 2009 emerges from 29,000 pages of Fed documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and central bank records of more than 21,000 transactions. While Fed officials say that almost all of the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.

"When you see the dollars the banks got, it's hard to make the case these were successful institutions," says Sherrod Brown, a Democratic Senator from Ohio who in 2010 introduced an unsuccessful bill to limit bank size. "This is an issue that can unite the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street. There are lawmakers in both parties who would change their votes now."

The amount of money the central bank parceled out was surprising even to Gary H Stern, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis from 1985 to 2009, who says he "wasn't aware of the magnitude." It dwarfed the Treasury Department's better-known $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Add up guarantees and lending limits, and THE FED HAD COMMITTED $7.77 TRILLION AS OF MARCH 2009 TO RESCUING THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM, more than half the value of everything produced in the US that year.

Meanwhile, Ted Kaufman, (a former Democratic Senator from Delaware) says, "we're absolutely, totally, 100 percent not prepared for another financial crisis."

"I think next year's launch of the Year of Faith will be a really great event for the promotion of new evangelization," Archbishop Salvatore (Rino) Fisichella told CNA on November 22. "One whole year reflecting on faith, reflecting on our engagement in faith, of our choice of faith and also, I'd say, in our knowledge of the content of our faith." Archbishop Fisichella is the head of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization, a Vatican department created only last year by Pope Benedict.

"The mission of the new evangelization," Archbishop Fisichella said, "is to announce that Jesus Christ is the true answer to all the questions that men and woman have today trying to make sense of our lives." Over the past year, Archbishop Fisichella has firmly established the new department within the Roman curia while reaching out to dioceses around the world. He says it's also been a year of discerning what the "beautiful expression" of the term "new evangelization" actually means. Last month, the pontifical council brought 8000 people involved in various forms of evangelization to Rome to discuss the topic during a two-day conference.

Some of the pontifical council's tasks for 2012-13 are already set out in the Pope's Apostolic Letter titled "Porta Fidei," which was issued in October and announced the Year of Faith. "It is written in Porta Fidei that each bishop along with priests and laity should find a special solemn moment in which to profess in public their faith," the archbishop explained, "but we hope in Rome, here at the tombs of St Peter and St Paul, that we can organize several events to also publically profess that our faith is a sign for the world of today - a sign of hope and faith and love."

Meanwhile the Synod of Bishops, which will chart much of the future course for the pontifical council, will meet next October 7-28 under the title, "The New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith."

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president - and every future president - the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Representative Ron Paul (Republican for Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night's Republican debate. The power is so broad that even US citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Senators Carl Levin (Democrat for Michigan) and John McCain (Republican for Arizona) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn't anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

His interview with BBC's HardTalk this week covers a great deal of ground from modern debt jubilees (and how they should be structured), the Tea-Party and Occupy movements (and his growing fear of historically repeating the endgames of previous economic and social disenfranchisements), and the parasitic nature of our existing financial sector.

He is unequivocal on the outcome of the status quo, as he has been for many years, citing politicians as reactors not leaders with the view that the youth movements we are seeing will force change of leadership to enable non-orthodox solutions to our simple problem - too much private debt. "Write off the private debts, nationalize the banking system, and start all over again" is his starting point but his ideas on implementation warrant some attention as he attempts to promote creative instability and reduce the destructive instabilities of capitalism - recognizing that our world is not in equilibrium as every Keynesian economist would believe but inherently cyclical and unstable.

The Sunday Express has uncovered shocking cases of hunger and deprivation, even among the middle classes in areas once considered affluent. Diseases linked to poverty, such as rickets, could be making a comeback as Britons battle against the odds. One charity, The Trussell Trust, which operates 200 food banks across the country, says it is overwhelmed with increasing demand from Britain's "hidden hungry".

Earlier this month an Army veteran and his wife committed suicide after struggling to live "hand to mouth" on food handouts from a soup kitchen they walked 10 miles to get to. In other distressing cases a family of four was eating roadkill after the father lost his IT job, a mother burned her furniture so she could save on fuel and pay for food, another ate paper towels to curb her appetite so she could feed her daughter and a 10-year-old boy was arrested for stealing food for his younger sisters.

In the wake of these tragic stories, The Trust, which provides dried and tinned food parcels to tens of thousands of people across the country, will next week begin a special collection to provide treats, such as chocolate and crackers, for children on Christmas Day. Mark Ward, food bank manager, said: "Food banks are replacing the workhouses of 100 years ago. "There will always be people who need support, but now we are seeing poverty affecting people who never dreamed it would hit them, including young people and middle England."

Professor Philip James, former government advisor on nutrition, said: "The rate of malnutrition is reaching astonishing levels. Children are being denied fresh foods because families cannot afford to buy them. By early adolescence they will be affected by premature diabetes and signs of underlying heart disease." He said doctors are seeing a resurgence of rickets, a condition caused by a lack of vitamin D and thought to have been all but wiped out in countries like Britain.

Similar to the beliefs expressed by fundamentalist Christians, Muslim opponents to Darwinism maintain that Allah created the world, mankind and all known species in a single act. Steve Jones emeritus professor of human genetics at university college London has questioned why such students would want to study biology at all when it obviously conflicts with their beliefs. He told the Sunday Times: 'I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches, now it is Islamic overwhelmingly.

'They don't come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or emails saying they shouldn't have to learn this stuff. What they object to - and I don't really understand it, I am not religious - they object to the idea that there is a random process out there which is not directed by God.' Earlier this year Usama Hasan, iman of the Masjid al-Tawhid mosque in Leyton, received death threats for suggesting that Darwinism and Islam might be compatible.

Sources within the group Muslims4UK partly blame the growing popularity of creationist beliefs within Islam on Turkish author Harun Yahya who, influenced by the success of Christian creationists in America, has written several books denouncing Darwinist theory. Yahya associates Dawinism with Nazism and his books and videos are available at many Islamic bookshops in the UK and regularly feature on Islamic television channels.

Hoping to gain a sizeable slice of seats in parliament, the group has cautiously avoided friction with the ruling military council, refusing to support this week's protests in Tahrir Square demanding the army immediately hand power to civilians. This has strengthened perceptions that its main concern is to ensure that nothing disrupts its election chances, fuelling anger among protesters. A top Brotherhood leader was forced out of Tahrir on Monday when he tried to visit the square.

"Their eye is on the elections and nothing else. They just want political gains," said one protester, shouting at another demonstrator who said he belonged to the Brotherhood's newly formed political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). The Brotherhood helped organize an initial anti-army protest in Tahrir on November 18, but stayed out of subsequent demonstrations in which 41 people were killed and 2,000 wounded.

In post-Mubarak Egypt, the group faces competition from newly formed liberal parties and rival Islamists who could suck away some support, but senior Brotherhood officials remain confident they will emerge as the biggest bloc in parliament. "We want to win, but not alone. We want the whole country to win in this democratic game," said Essam el-Erian, the FJP's deputy head, who spent years in and out of jail under Mubarak. He walked out of prison in February when police lost control.

What comes next? Most likely, Congress will make the national debt even worse. Republicans want to extend the George W Bush top-rate tax cuts. Democrats want to extend the Barack Obama payroll tax cut, and enact yet another bonus extension of unemployment benefits. One or all may happen by Christmas as both parties switch to full-blown pandering mode. If the costs in the December 2010 stimulus bill are any guide, a package of extended tax cuts for the well-off, payroll tax cuts for everyone and bonus payments to the unemployed will add around $700 billion to the national debt.

Bear in mind, last December's stimulus bill (the third, following a 2008 stimulus under Bush and a 2009 stimulus under Obama) entailed $860 billion in borrowing. If another $700 billion or so is borrowed for lead items on the parties' wish lists, during the very 12 months that Washington has refused to take action to reduce the national debt by $1.2 trillion over many years, an extra $1.5 trillion will be added to the debt in the here and now.

If tax-cut and unemployment-benefit extensions pass, Congress will already have spent every penny of the $1.2 trillion the deficit commission was supposed to save. Though no money has actually been saved yet - the "mandatory" spending reductions triggered by super committee inaction don't start until 2013, which leaves plenty of time for Congress to cancel them. As Oprah viewers know, when people finally toss out the clutter from their closets, often the next step is a wild shopping spree. In the case of Congress, the shopping spree looms without the first step of throwing stuff away.

Moody's also noted the political impetus to implement an effective resolution plan may only emerge after a series of shocks, which may lead to more countries losing access to market funding and requiring a support program. "This would very likely cause those countries' ratings to be moved into speculative grade in view of the solvency tests that would likely be required and the burden-sharing that might be imposed if (as is likely) support were to be needed for a sustained period."

Economist Tim Condon, head of research for Asia at ING, said the Moody's statement was unlikely to surprise markets. "It's basically common knowledge that everything in Europe is at risk," he said. "Quite a few people are contemplating a euro zone breakup scenario." Financial markets have put Italy, Spain and now France under increasing pressure on skepticism of the ability of European leaders to resolve the debt crisis, that has already sparked financial bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti aims to shore up the country's strained public finances this week by unveiling measures that could include a revamped housing tax. Contacts between the International Monetary Fund and Rome have intensified as concern has grown about a financial backstop for Italy, should the country need it. "The probability of multiple defaults by euro area countries is no longer negligible. In Moody's view, the "longer the liquidity crisis continues, the more rapidly the probability of defaults will continue to rise," it said. Such defaults would increase the chances that one or more members of the bloc would leave the euro area.

Americans spent more, too: The average holiday shopper spent $398.62 over the weekend, up from $365.34 a year ago. The results for the first holiday shopping weekend show that retailers' efforts to lure shoppers during the weak economy are working. Some like Wal-Mart Stores Inc and JC Penney have been making a stronger push online to better compete with the likes of rival Amazon.com. And major chains like Macy's, Target, Best Buy extended the traditional start to the shopping season by opening their doors at midnight on Thanksgiving evening instead of the pre-dawn Friday hours of years past.

But the question remains whether retailers' will be able to hold shoppers' attention throughout the remainder of the season, which can account for 25 to 40 percent of a merchant's annual revenue. After all, Americans are still very driven by deep discounting and they're more conscious of their spending budgets. Overall, holiday spending is expected to grow by a modest 2.8 percent to about $466 billion, according to the NRF. A fuller picture on spending will come Thursday when major retailers report their November sales figures. But for now, experts agree that retailers will likely have to continue to discount to get shoppers to spend.

Overall, Black Friday sales were $11.4 billion, up 7 percent, or nearly $1 billion from the same day last year, according to a report by ShopperTrak, which gathers data from 25,000 outlets across the country. It was the largest amount ever spent on that day and the biggest year-over-year increase since 2007. Additionally, customer counts climbed 5.1 percent that day compared with a year ago.

Union leaders have declared there is nothing the Government can do to avert the biggest strikes in a generation this week. As the Army is put on standby to secure Britain's borders, millions of public sector workers are being warned that a 'hugely generous' pensions offer from ministers will be withdrawn if a deal is not agreed by the end of the year. But the head of the Trades Union Congress, Brendan Barber, said it was 'unlikely' there was anything the Government could say to persuade him to call off Wednesday's action.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said Mr Barber had 'let the cat out of the bag' and demonstrated the unions are hell-bent on confrontation with the Government. He also claimed the head of the biggest civil service union, Public and Commercial Services union leader Mark Serwotka, had refused even to attend talks in person. Mr Maude warned the 'irresponsible' strikes would inflict huge damage on Britain's economy. Ministers are seeking to increase pressure on Labour to urge its union paymasters to call off the action, though Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls said yesterday that he had 'huge sympathy' for those taking part.

Wednesday's strike, by as many as two million public sector workers, has been triggered by Government proposals to limit the 1 trillion pounds future cost of their generous pension schemes. Though workers within ten years of retirement and the low-paid are being shielded from the changes, others are being told that they must work longer and contribute more to enjoy decent retirement benefits. The day of action - the biggest in 30 years - is expected to cause widespread disruption. As David Cameron prepared for emergency meetings today on contingency plans to try to limit the impact, Mr Maude confirmed troops would be on standby at ports and airports when immigration staff join the walk out.

He said the UK Border Agency was considering using the Armed Forces to 'make sure that our borders are secure and that inconvenience to travellers is minimised'. It is predicted that airports, such as Heathrow, will be hit by queues of as long as 12 hours and mass cancellations.

And ministers expect at least two thirds of all schools to close as the main teaching unions urge their members to walk out.