Two days after the bloc approved an 85 billion euro ($111.7 billion) emergency aid package for Ireland, worries about Portugal and Spain persisted and the borrowing costs of countries like Italy, BELGIUM AND FRANCE SHOT HIGHER. Markets are already discounting an eventual rescue of Portugal although, as Ireland did, it says it requires no outside help.

Should its much larger neighbor Spain require assistance, it would sorely test the resources of the bloc and raise questions about the integrity of the 12-year old single currency area. "Markets are very nervous and may even target situations that do not warrant such excessive worrying, hence no one can really predict," Tomasso Padoa-Schioppa, a former Italian finance minister and ECB member, told a Greek newspaper when asked whether the EU would be able to save Spain.

"In my opinion, conditions in Spain are such that there is absolutely no reason to expect that it will be targeted. I repeat, however, that markets are in a very nervous mood." Italy, which most analysts see as at lesser risk, is now being referred to as "TOO BIG TO FAIL" AND "TOO BIG TO BAIL."

The EU-IMF rescue for Ireland has failed to restore to confidence in the eurozone debt markets, leading instead to a dramatic surge in bond yields across half the currency bloc. The euro fell sharply to a two-month low of 1.3064 against the dollar, while bourses slid across the world. The FTSE 100 fell almost 118 points to 5,550, while the Dow was off 120 points in early trading.

"The crisis is intensifying and worsening," said Nick Matthews, a credit expert at RBS. "Bond purchases by the European Central Bank are the only anti-contagion weapon left. It needs to act much more aggressively." Yields on 10-year Italian bonds jumped 21 points to 4.61 per cent, threatening to shift the crisis to a new level. Italy's public debt is over 2 trillion euros, the world's third-largest after the US and Japan.

"The EU rescue fund cannot handle Spain, let alone Italy," said Charles Dumas, from Lombard Street Research. "We we may be nearing the point where Germany has to decide whether it is willing take on a burden six times the size of East Germany, or let some countries go."

But the cost to any country of leaving the euro zone would be so high, and the damage that an exit would inflict on the currency and the remaining members so great, that no government would rationally choose to secede, or to push another out. Argentina's 2001-2002 economic crisis and $100 billion bond default, which reduced millions of people to poverty, would pale in comparison with the likely chain reaction across Europe.

"There would be chain bankruptcies. A run on the banks would be certain. It would be far worse than Argentina," said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Brussels economic think-tank Bruegel. The "costs of the non-euro," as they are sometimes called by Brussels insiders, would be multiple: political, economic, social, reputational and strategic.

It is hard to imagine the EU's single market in goods, services, capital and labor - the foundation stone of European prosperity - remaining intact if countries quit the euro, triggering disorderly devaluations and chaotic financial flows. The exit of a state such as Greece, Ireland or Portugal, or the imagined departure of economic giant Germany, would cause immense bitterness and could revive national conflicts that European unification was meant to bury forever.

Germany, which sells more than 50 percent of its exports to the euro zone, would lose vital markets and likely end up with a overvalued currency that would impede its international economic competitiveness. "The political consequences would be dreadful. There would be almighty recriminations. A country that left the euro would no longer be friends with the others," Pisani-Ferry said.

The euro's respite rally was brief in the early hours of Monday's trading and European shares closed at a seven-week low, with banks among the losers as investor optimism over Ireland's debt bailout faded.

Yields on Irish government bonds were higher than Friday's close and off their lows seen in early trade after the agreement was sealed on Sunday. The spreads between Spanish and Italian bonds versus their German equivalent widened to euro-lifetime highs as optimism for the Irish deal waned.

Credit default swap costs on Portugal and Spain both hit record highs on Monday on fears they may be next in line to struggle with their debt. "The benefits to Portugal and Ireland can be seen, but they're marginal. On the other hand, there is concern about the rest, with the spreads for Belgium, Italy and Spain all widening," Monument Securities strategist Marc Ostwald said.

"It just goes to reinforce the point that the market says 'when is the next problem going to occur?' And that is not going away," he added.

The justices without comment Monday rejected a challenge from Charles Kerchner Jr, a Pennsylvania man who sought a trial in federal court forcing the president to produce documents regarding his birth and citizenship. Kerchner's attorney, Mario Apuzzo, had argued in a petition with the Supreme Court that Obama did not fit the definition of a "natural-born citizen" required for the nation's highest office, as defined by Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

That clause states, "No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."

Kerchner, a retired military officer who describes himself on his website as a "genetic genealogy pioneer," argues the framers of the 1789 document intended a "natural-born" citizen to mean someone born in the US to parents who were both American citizens. The high court and other courts had dismissed earlier, unrelated lawsuits from individuals questioning Obama's citizenship.

"We have one related to a bank coming up, that's a megaleak. It's not as big a scale as the Iraq material, but it's either tens or hundreds of thousands of documents depending on how you define it," Assange said in the interview posted on the Forbes website. He declined to identify the bank, describing it only as a major US bank that is still in existence.

Asked what he wanted to be the result of the disclosure, he replied: "I'm not sure. It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume." He compared this release to emails that were unveiled as a result of the collapse of disgraced energy company Enron Corp.

"This will be like that. Yes, there will be some flagrant violations, unethical practices that will be revealed, but it will also be all the supporting decision-making structures and the internal executive ethos... and that's tremendously valuable," Assange said. "You could call it the ecosystem of corruption. But it's also all the regular decision making that turns a blind eye to and supports unethical practices: the oversight that's not done, the priorities of executives, how they think they're fulfilling their own self-interest," he said.

Julian Assange, the Australian who heads the secret-sharing Web site, told ABC News today he believes his safety and freedom are in danger. He responded to questions by email from a clandestine hideout. He was undaunted by vows from the US and Australia to prosecute him and said the forthcoming diplomatic cables are aimed at "lying, corrupt and murderous leadership from Bahrain to Brazil."

"We're only one thousandth of the way in and look at what has so far being revealed. There will be many more," he wrote defiantly. Assange also dismissed a warning today by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who said the dump of secret documents "puts peoples lives in danger," particularly those sources who provided the US with information about abuses in foreign countries.

"US officials have for 50 years trotted out this line when they are afraid the public is going to see how they really behave," Assange said in his email. "The facts are that we wrote to the State Department asking for a list of any specific concerns that they might have. They refused to assist, and said they demanded everything, including those documents that revealed abuses, be destroyed."

News of the Chinese shift comes at a crucial juncture after the North's artillery bombardment of a South Korean island last week that killed four people and led both sides to threaten war. China has refused to condemn the North Korean action. But today Beijing appeared to bow to US pressure to help bring about a diplomatic solution, calling for "emergency consultations" and inviting a senior North Korean official to Beijing.

China is sharply critical of US pressure tactics towards North Korea and wants a resumption of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. But the Guardian can reveal Beijing's frustration with Pyongyang has grown since its missile and nuclear tests last year, worries about the economic impact of regional instability, and fears that the death of the dictator, Kim Jong-il, could spark a succession struggle.

China's moves to distance itself from Kim are revealed in the latest tranche of leaked US embassy cables published by the Guardian and four international newspapers. Tonight, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said the US "deeply regrets" the release of the material by WikiLeaks. They were an "attack on the international community", she said. "It puts people's lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems," she told reporters at the state department.

King wrote in a letter to Clinton, which has been seen by the website. "WikiLeaks presents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States." Senator Joseph Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has likewise called for WikiLeaks to be shut down. "By disseminating these materials, WikiLeaks is putting at risk the lives and the freedom of countless Americans and non-Americans around the world. It is an outrageous, reckless and despicable action."

Over 1,700 of the newly released documents originated in the US Embassy in Berlin, and many of them are no less complimentary of German politicians than they are of Berlusconi. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is referred to as "risk averse and rarely creative." She also, one of the Berlin dispatches makes clear, "seems uncertain at times" in her relations with Obama. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is described in a September 18, 2009 cable as being short on substance, lacking in "gravitas," vain, arrogant, critical of America and "too opportunistic to be trusted as foreign minister." He is, one of the dispatches says, an "enigma" who faces a "steep learning curve" on foreign policy issues.

Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union, the sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, is seen as having "only shallow foreign policy expertise" and is "uninformed about basic things." A cable notes that he has "natural instincts to utter populist pronouncements."

"The missiles appear to be targeting our fighter jets that fly near the Northern Limit Line (NLL)," the source said on customary condition of anonymity, referring to the Yellow Sea border. South Korea and the US on Sunday launched large-scale naval drills off the Korean Peninsula's west coast, far south of the border where four people were killed and 18 others wounded in Tuesday's surprise attack on Yeonpyeong Island.

The Soviet-designed SA-2 missile has a range of between 13 and 30 kilometers. Other missiles on the North's west coast, such as the Samlet and Silkworm with ranges of up to 95km, have also been put onto launch pads, the source said. "The military is preparing for the possibility of further provocations as the North Korean military has deployed firepower near the NLL and is preparing to fire," the source said.

After years of development, the US Army has unleashed a new weapon in Afghanistan - the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System, a high-tech rifle that can be programmed so that its 25-mm. ammunition does not necessarily explode on impact. Instead, it can be set to detonate either in front of or behind a target, meaning it literally will go through a wall before it explodes and kills the enemy.

It also has a range of roughly 2,300 feet - nearly the length of eight football fields - making it possible to fire at targets well past the range of the rifles and carbines that most soldiers carry today. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Lehner, project manager for the semi-automatic, shoulder-fired weapon system for the US Army's Program Executive Office Soldier, said that the XM25's capability alone is such a "game-changer" that it'll lead to new ways of fighting on the battlefield, beginning this month in Afghanistan.

A potential battlefield scenario, according to Army officials, might go something like this:

-- A patrol encounters an enemy combatant in a walled Afghan village who fires an AK-47 intermittently from behind cover, exposing himself only for a brief second to fire.

-- The patrol's leader calls for the XM25 gunman, who uses the weapon's laser range finder to calculate the distance to the target.

-- He then uses an incremental button located near the trigger to add 1 meter to the round's distance, since the enemy is hiding behind a wall.

-- The round is fired, and it explodes with a blast comparable to a hand grenade past the wall and above the enemy.

The military isn't overly concerned that the weapon might be captured by the enemy, because they would be unable to obtain its highly specialized ammunition, batteries and other components

"The people at WikiLeaks could have blood on their hands," he said, before admitting he wasn't sure how the dump would affect the country's strategic negotiations abroad. "I don't know what the cables may say, but we're at war," Graham said. "The world is getting dangerous by the day. People who do this are low on the food chain as far as I'm concerned. If you can prosecute them, let's try."

McCaskill agreed, saying "the people who do these document leaks need to do a gut check about their patriotism. I hope we can find out where this is coming from and go after them with the force of law," McCaskill said.

Other concerns include the security of Pakistani nuclear material that could be used to make an atomic weapon. The widespread use of computer hacking by China's government is also reported. The US government condemned the release of the documents, which number in the hundreds of thousands, saying they put the lives of diplomats and others at risk. The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, countered by saying the US authorities were afraid of being held to account.

Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor comments, "The fact that the Saudis, Jordanians and others are deeply suspicious about Iran's intentions is well known. What has not been known until now is how strongly they have been pressing for American military action. The leaks do not tell the Iranians anything they did not suspect, or perhaps have already picked up themselves. But they will sharpen the debate over Iran's nuclear plans, and about the chances of military action by the Americans - or the Israelis. The leaks are deeply embarrassing for the Americans, and will infuriate Arab leaders whose remarks have been quoted."

Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain. The documents will give people around the world an unprecedented insight into US Government foreign activities.

Martin Schulz, a German social democrat previously taunted by the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, as being 'perfect' for the role of Nazi concentration camp guard, was criticising the EU's attempts to bail out Ireland when a British MEP interrupted to call him a 'Euro nationalist'. 'Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer,' [one people, one nation, one leader] yelled Godfrey Bloom, the UK Independence party's MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, using one of the slogans of Nazi Germany to insult the leader of the European socialists in the Strasbourg chamber.

The Ukip member's anger was apparently stirred by Schultz's call for greater EU solidarity in the financial crisis that is hitting Ireland and Portugal and threatening the euro single currency. "My father, as a Spitfire pilot, fought for freedom against Nazi domination of Europe," Bloom said afterwards. "As an MEP, I will fight against the destruction of democracy across Europe. Schulz is an unrepentant Euro nationalist and a socialist. He wants one currency, one EU state, one EU people. These Euro nationalists are a danger to democracy. These people are fanatics."

Some 20 MEPs walked out of the chamber in support of Bloom. Bruno Gollnisch, of Jean Marie Le Pen's National Front, said Bloom's expulsion was illegal. "This was the week that the European Commission has taken control of the economy of a second country, this time Ireland. The EU is clearly intent on expanding its powers."

There is an international agreement which states that no country may claim ownership of a planet or star, but it says nothing about individuals, she added. "There was no snag, I backed my claim legally, I am not stupid, I know the law. I did it but anyone else could have done it, it simply occurred to me first."

The document issued by the notary public declares Duran to be the "owner of the Sun, a star of spectral type G2, located in the centre of the solar system, located at an average distance from Earth of about 149,600,000 kilometers." Duran, who lives in the town of Salvaterra do Mino, said she now wants to slap a fee on everyone who uses the sun and give half of the proceeds to the Spanish government and 20 percent to the nation's pension fund.

She would dedicate another 10 percent to research, another 10 percent to ending world hunger - and would keep the remaining 10 percent herself. "It is time to start doing things the right way, if there is an idea for how to generate income and improve the economy and people's wellbeing, why not do it?" she asked.