The drive by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, to rewrite the European Union's treaties to set up a new bail-out system for future Greek-like collapses - and her insistence that private investors bear more of the cost of such rescues - was quietly resented when she bulldozed it through last month's summit of EU leaders.

But as bond markets have reacted and plummeted in the weeks since, that resentment has begun to boil over, with increasing accusations that Ms Merkel has put many of her fellow eurozone leaders in untenable positions in order to reinforce her own standing with German taxpayers. "They're unprintable at times," said Daniel Gros, director of the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, of the angry remarks he has heard aimed towards Berlin.

German officials insist their campaign to get private bondholders to shoulder more bail-out costs is not just about domestic considerations. The government is more concerned that the current system - which condemns well-managed states to bailing out badly-managed ones - is unsustainable

Members such as the Republic of Ireland and Portugal are under fresh scrutiny. Questions have been raised over whether they can manage their debt without help from EU funds. Mr Van Rompuy said he was "very confident" the problems could be overcome. But he added: "We all have to work together in order to survive with the eurozone, because if we don't survive with the eurozone we will not survive with the European Union."

Robert Peston, Business editor, BBC News comments:-

"There would be a serious risk of a new credit crunch, and global recession, if the providers of that $1.5 trillion of credit to Ireland, Portugal and Greece were to lose confidence... and were to ask for their money back now"

In a another highly contentious move, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, also agreed to reopen the Lisbon Treaty, the EU's quasi-constitution, in order to force countries that find themselves in a crisis such as the one suffered by Greece to declare insolvency and to forfeit their voting rights in EU councils.

It could also spell trouble for David Cameron, the prime minister, who opposed the treaty and will come under pressure to hold a referendum in Britain if it is renegotiated. "If EU politicians want a new treaty, they must first give the people a referendum. Now is the chance for cast-iron Dave to make good on his reneged promise to hold an EU referendum. I'll believe that when I see it," said Marta Andreasen, the Ukip MEP.

Under the draft laws last month from Olli Rehn, commissioner for monetary affairs, countries would face fines of 0.2% of GDP for flouting the stability and growth pact, the euro rulebook which limits budget deficits to 3% of GDP and national debt levels to 60%. The penalties would come almost automatically, decided by the commission and could only be stopped subsequently by a qualified majority vote of EU governments.

The system was designed to try to avoid the kind of political trade-offs inevitable if the decisions were taken by EU governments. Germany, as the EU's fiscal disciplinarian, was the strongest supporter of the automatic fines and the commission. Sarkozy led the opposition, arguing for the primacy of politics and elected governments over national budgets.

Des Thurlby, human resources (HR) director at the international car maker, said he had held "pointed" discussions with up to five of the company's best employees urging them to consider moving "out of leafy Warwickshire" to China to help the company capitalise on emerging markets. Those who refused had less chance of being shortlisted for a future top job at the company, Mr Thurlby said.

The HR director is adopting the controversial stance because the luxury car manufacturer is struggling to convince its best workers to relocate on typically three-year assignments. Those with partners, or children in schools, were often put off the upheaval of moving abroad, he said.

China is now Jaguar Land Rover's third biggest market after the UK and USA. The company, owned by India's Tata Motors, is looking to set up a joint venture deal with a Chinese industrial plant to manufacture tens of thousands of cars a year. However, the plans could be dealt a blow if too few UK executives committed to running the overseas operations.

Last Tuesday Jaguar Land Rover reported profit after tax of 238.1 million pounds in the three months to September compared to a loss of 60.4 million pounds over the same period last year, according to Tata. Sales were up 43 percent on rising demand for the group's $72,000 (45,000 pounds) Jaguar XJ Sedans in China and the US.

Revelations that several big mortgage issuers sped through thousands of home foreclosures without properly checking paperwork already has raised alarm in Washington. If the irregularities are widespread, the consequences could be severe, the Congressional Oversight Panel said in a report issued Tuesday. The full impact is still is unclear, the report cautions.

Employees or contractors of several major banks have testified in court cases that they signed, and in some cases backdated, thousands of certifying documents for home seizures. Financial firms that service a total $6.4 trillion in mortgages are involved, according to the new report. Big banks including Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Ally Financial Inc's GMAC Mortgage have suspended foreclosures at some point because of flawed documents.

Federal and state regulators, including the Federal Reserve and attorneys general in all 50 states, are investigating whether mortgage companies cut corners on their own procedures when they moved to foreclose on people's homes. "Clear and uncontested property rights are the foundation of the housing market," the report says. "If these rights fall into question, that foundation could collapse."

It lays out the possible scenarios: Borrowers may not be able to ascertain if they're sending their mortgage payments to the right party. Judges may block all foreclosures. Prospective buyers and sellers could be in left in limbo. For major banks, if they discovered that they still owned millions of bad mortgage loans they assumed had been sold, the losses could reach billions.

His challenge is to reassure European partners that, despite political weakness at home and embarrassing setbacks abroad, he remains committed to better cooperation on issues ranging from the war in Afghanistan to the fight against trade protectionism.

But it will not be easy for Obama, whose Democratic Party suffered heavy losses in this month's congressional elections, to dispel the impression that his stature has been diminished on the world stage. He will attend back-to-back NATO and European Union summits in Lisbon on Friday and Saturday. "The tricky thing for Obama is to show the Europeans not only that he's still important to them but that they're still important to the US," said Sally McNamara, a European affairs expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Accustomed to being at the center of US foreign policy, Europe may be feeling jilted. The White House insists that Obama's engagement with economically dynamic Asia will not come at the expense of America's "enduring partnership" with less-vibrant Europe. But analysts believe sweeping Republican gains in the November 2 midterm elections, which could cause legislative gridlock, will make it harder for him to make progress on top European concerns like financial regulation, climate change and trade.

"Households also accessed additional assistance through USDA's 15 food and nutrition assistance programs," the article in the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) "Amber Waves" said. The USDA oversees the government's food stamp program, also known as SNAP or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, for low-income families and other domestic feeding programs like school lunches.

In the 2009 fiscal year, "15.2 million households participated in SNAP in an average month, up from 12.7 million in FY 2008," the article said. In a separate report, the ERS said the percentage of US households without food security - access to enough food for an active, healthy life - at some point during the year hit a record in 2009.

It said more than 50 million people, including at least 17 million children, lived in households uncertain of having or getting enough food at some point because of insufficient money or other material resources.

The communique also said China, India and Russia had deepened cooperation on international and regional issues during the talks, but stressed that such cooperation would not target "any other country". The foreign ministers said they supported a "multi-polar, equitable and democratic world order" and expressed their commitment to the use of "multilateral instruments" for finding solutions to global and regional issues.

China and Russia are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a grouping of mostly central Asian states that many view as a bid by China and Russia to counter global US influence. India is an observer country in the body. They also pledged to further explore potential cooperation in energy, high-tech sectors, innovation, aerospace, cultural exchanges and disaster relief, the communique said, without providing details.

Noting that the global recovery remained "uneven, fragile and unbalanced", the three ministers called for worldwide coordinated efforts to promote "strong, sustainable and balanced" growth and oppose "all forms of protectionism". Russia's entry to the World Trade Organisation also received backing at the foreign ministers' meeting from China and India, already members of the global trade body. WTO chief Pascal Lamy said last month that Russia's 17-year membership bid was accelerating after significant progress in recent weeks.

Addressing reporters in Paris, George Papandreou said the Germans' view - long-held, but recently reiterated - that private bondholders could suffer losses as part of a future bailout was intensifying government-debt woes. The German position "created a spiral of higher interest rates for countries that seemed to be in a difficult position, such as Ireland or Portugal," Mr Papandreou said. He added that the spiral could "break backs" and "force economies toward bankruptcy."

The sharp words reflect the severe difficulties the euro zone faces as it tries to shepherd its weaker members through an unstable period in which their access to borrowing from private markets is sharply curtailed.

Many in Europe - particularly in Germany - are wary of simply replacing that market financing with a blank check from other euro-zone taxpayers, hence the German insistence on finding others to take some of the losses. German leaders also believe that the tough-love approach will, in the long-term, give countries the incentive to live within their means. "Our task is to anchor a new culture of stability in Europe," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in prepared remarks for a party congress Monday.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, raised the spectre of the euro collapsing as she warned: "If the euro fails, then Europe fails." European finance ministers will meet in Brussels on Tuesday to begin discussions over a new European stability plan that is expected to result in billions of pounds being offered to Ireland, Portugal and possibly even Spain.

David Cameron said he was thankful that Britain had not joined the euro, but indicated his displeasure that taxpayers in this country face a 7 billion pounds liability in any bail-out package. The veteran Conservative MP Peter Tapsell warned that the "potential knock-on effect" of the Irish crisis "could pose as great a threat to the world economy as did Lehman Brothers, AIG and Goldman Sachs in September 2008".

Ireland has resisted growing international pressure to accept EU financial assistance amid concerns that this would lead to a surrender of political and economic sovereignty. However, the German government is expected to signal that Ireland may have to accept a 77 billion pounds bail-out, along with a loss of economic and political independence, as the price of preserving the euro.

Mrs Merkel said that the single currency was "the glue that holds Europe together".

Spain's central bank governor, Miguel Angel Ordonez, lashed out at Dublin on Monday, calling on the Irish government to halt the panic and take the "proper decision" of activating the EU-IMF bail-out mechanism. "The situation in the markets has been very negative due to the lack of a final decision by Ireland. It is up to Ireland to take that decision, and I hope it does," he said.

The outburst reflected suspicion at the European Central Bank that Dublin is holding the eurozone to ransom, allowing the crisis to fester until it extracts a pledge from EU officials that it will not suffer a loss of economic sovereignty or be forced to give up its 12.5 percent corporate tax rate under any deal. Confused reports continued to swirl as Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan prepared to meet eurozone colleagues over dinner in Brussels on Tuesday night. Dublin has so far admitted to holding talks over "market conditions" with EU partners but insists that it is fully-funded until June and hopes to calm nerves with 6 billion euros (5.1 billion pounds) of budget cuts in early December.

Simon Derrick from the Bank of New York Mellon said the negotiations over Ireland's bail-out have been astonishing. "The creditors say please take the money, and the debtor says 'we don't want it'. It's very odd. Still, the EU is doing the right thing to try to create a fire-wall as quickly as possible. They learned from Greece that once bond yields reach this level they have 10 trading days left to avoid a self-feeding crisis. They cannot allow this to spread to a large country because at that point contagion would become uncontainable," he said.

The video, in which software engineer John Tyner refuses an X-ray scan at the San Diego, California, airport, has sparked a debate over screening procedures. Tyner told CNN on Sunday that he was surprised to see so many people take an interest in his refusal and the dispute with airport screeners that followed it. But he said he hoped the video will focus attention on what he calls a government invasion of privacy.

"Obviously, everybody has their own perspective about their personal screening," TSA administrator John Pistole told CNN. "The question is, how do we best address those issues... while providing the best possible security?" Tyner, 31, said his hunting trip to South Dakota was cut short before it even started Saturday morning - when TSA agents asked him to go through an X-ray machine."I don't think that the government has any business seeing me naked as a condition of traveling about the country," Tyner said. Pistole said the agency is "trying to be sensitive to individuals issues and concerns," but added, "the bottom line is, everybody who gets on that flight has been properly screened."

The dispute that followed, Tyner said, included police escorting him from the screening area and a supervisor saying he could face a civil lawsuit for leaving the airport before security had finished screening him.

In fact, Tyner could face a civil penalty as high as $11,000, according to Michael Aguilar, the TSA's federal security director in San Diego, who defended the behavior of his officers during the confrontation. "He's violated federal law and federal regulations, which states once you enter and start the process you have to complete it," he said.

Tyner called the whole incident ridiculous and said he will not fly "until these machines go away."

Industry leaders are worried about the backlash. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano met with leaders of travel industry groups to discuss the concerns. "We certainly understand the challenges that DHS confronts, but the question remains, where do we draw the line? Our country desperately needs a long-term vision for aviation security screening, rather than an endless reaction to yesterday's threat," the US Travel Association said in a statement after the meeting. "At the same time, fundamental American values must be protected."

If mishandled, Ireland could all too easily become a sovereign version of Credit Anstalt - the Austrian bank that brought down the central European financial system in 1931, sent tremors through London and New York, and set off the second deeper phase of the Great Depression, the phase when politics turned ugly.

"Does the ECB understand the concept of contagion?" asked Jacques Cailloux, chief Europe economist at RBS. Three EMU countries have already been shut out of the capital markets, and footloose foreign creditors hold 2 trillion euors of debt securities issued by Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece.

"If that is not enough to worry about financial contagion, what is? The ECB's lack of action begs the question as to whether it is fulfilling its financial stability mandate," he said. That is a polite way of putting it.

EU leaders have since made a clumsy attempt to undo the damage, insisting that the policy shift would have "no impact whatsoever" on existing bonds. It would come into force only after mid-2013 under the new bail-out mechanism. Nobody is fooled by such a distinction. "This is a breath-taking mixture of suicidal irresponsibility and farcical incoherence," said Marco Annunziata from Unicredit.

"If by 2013 countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal are still in a shaky position, any new debt issued will carry exorbitant yields. The EU would then have to choose between a full-fledged, open-ended bail-out, and reneging on the promise that existing debt would not be restructured. Will German voters then accept higher taxes to save their profligate neighbours?" he said.

Bundesbank chief Axel Weber might fairly conclude that it is impossible at this stage to reconcile the needs of Germany and the big debtors. If the ECB prints money on the scale required to underpin the South, it would set off German inflation, destroy German faith in monetary union, and perhaps run afoul of Germany's constitutional court. If EMU must split in two, it might as well be done on Teutonic terms.

All this is understandable, but is Chancellor Merkel really going to let subordinate officials at the ECB destroy Germany's half-century investment in the post-war order of Europe, and risk Gotterdammerung [war of the gods]?

Now, the domestic story appears to have spiraled into a regional flash point. Deadly bombings targeted Christians across Baghdad on Wednesday, killing five and injuring 20. The attacks came a little over a week after the killing of dozens of Christians in an assault on a church in Baghdad. An al-Qaida affiliate organization known as the Islamic State of Iraq claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were retribution for the "imprisonment" of Muslims in Egypt.

The group issued a warning to Egypt's Christian population, threatening to target the community and churches unless the women were released, turning the spotlight once again on the festering Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt. Whether or not the two women are really being detained against their will is as elusive as the facts surrounding their disappearance. What is known is that both Coptic women fled their husbands and were returned to the church by state security forces.

Camilia Shehata was missing for days in July, while Wafaa Constantine took off in 2004. The Coptic Church denies either converted; both are in monasteries. Neither woman has spoken to the press, setting off rounds of fervent speculation on TV talk shows that struck a nerve with both religious sects in the predominantly Sunni Muslim country. Demonstrations against the Coptic Church continue to rock the northern port city of Alexandria, a stronghold of Islamist groups.

Deep in the narrow alleyways of the cliff-side slum where Egyptian Coptic Christians have carved out a livelihood recycling Cairo's trash, residents, who are vehement that Shehata never converted, are quick to say sectarian tensions in Egypt have escalated. As the putrid smell of waste wafts through streets plastered with Christian insignia, there is anxiety about the future.

With the Republicans coming to power, Paul, who would like to abolish the Fed and the nation's current monetary system, will become the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. If you've never heard of the committee before, you're not alone. But Paul promises you'll be hearing a lot more from it. "It's basically been a committee that's dealt with commemorative coins. I'm going to deal with monetary policy," he said.

Paul doesn't think he'll be able to move his proposal to eliminate the Fed, or to allow Americans to use gold instead of paper money as currency. But he said he does intend to use his new position as "a mini-bully pulpit" to criticize Fed policy and call more attention to what he sees as its negative consequences. And he's confident that American voters are ready to delve into those monetary policy questions.

"Five years ago they wouldn't have listened. Now they will," he said. "We've gained a lot of credibility in making the Federal Reserve an issue since the market collapse." Paul argues the Fed is making a serious mistake by pumping more money into the economy to try to spur more spending and growth. He predicts it will only lead to further declines in value of the dollar, inflation and higher interest rates rather than the lower rates the Fed is shooting for.