As G20 finance chiefs prepare to meet on October 22, they are no closer to resolution of the decade-old bugbear of global imbalances between export-driven economies - mostly developing nations such as China, but also Japan and Germany - and the big global consumers, the United States, Britain and elsewhere. While there have been loose agreements on rebalancing over time - where emerging powers allow currencies to rise gradually - the lack of an agreed blueprint to manage the transition is already prompting unilateral actions and tit-for-tat reactions in a febrile economic and political environment.

Faced with fiscal exhaustion, hostile electorates and booming China's refusal to allow a rapid rise of the yuan, the US, Japan and possibly Britain seem set on another bout of money printing to reboot their ailing economies and weaken their currencies. "What is called for here is a realignment of emerging countries' exchange rates vis-a-vis the developed countries - maybe 20-25 percent appreciation over the next year or two."

What emerging economies lose on export competitiveness, he reckons, they can recapture at least partially in cheaper imports for their growing middle class of consumers. The tricky bit is how to get everyone to move together and prevent market prices snowballing or governments overreacting. Left to their own devices markets are unlikely to deliver the gradualism desired by most governments and faith in efficient pricing is at a low ebb after the credit crisis.

And, reading the runes well, money managers already see the opportunity and are stacking bets to exploit rising pressures. "No one is sleeping on the job," Brazil's finance minister, Guido Mantega, said on Monday. "We risk having a trade war and that's the worry. (But) it is preferable that we take coordinated measures instead of isolated measures."

Afghan and Arab sources cited by the Post said they believe for the first time that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, according to the newspaper. The sources requested anonymity to discuss the development.

Omar's representatives have shunned negotiations in the past, insisting that all foreign troops withdraw first. However, the Post reported that its sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of US and NATO troops.

"They are very, very serious about finding a way out," one source close to the talks said of the Taliban, according to the Post. Karzai long has said he will talk to insurgents if they renounce violence, sever ties to terrorists and embrace the Afghan constitution. Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai, denied that President Barack Obama's stated goal of beginning to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan in July 2011, if conditions allow, spurred the Afghan government to set up the council or reach out to the Taliban.

They followed a report last week by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security that satellite images from September 29 showed new construction activity in the area surrounding North Korea's nuclear reactor. The South Korean security official's comments were quoted Wednesday in the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Kim confirmed to The Associated Press that he made the comments Tuesday at a forum on Northeast Asia.

"The North Korean nuclear threat has, in reality, been accelerating and has now reached an extremely dangerous level," Kim said. North Korea, which has active nuclear and missile programs, conducted underground atomic tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing tough international sanctions in response.

South Korea, along with the United States, China, Japan and Russia, have been negotiating with the impoverished country since 2003 to get it to dismantle its nuclear facilities, which they consider a threat to regional security. Pyongyang, however, pulled out of the so-called six-party talks, last year amid an international row over a suspected long-range missile test that North Korea said was a satellite launch. "Should North Korea miniaturize nuclear warheads and use them in actual battle, regardless of their accuracy, they will cause an unbelievable amount of damage," Kim said.

Today, as he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole, he defiantly warned the court: 'Brace yourself, the war with Muslims has just begun.' He added: 'The defeat of the US is imminent, inshallah.' During a five-munite outburst, the 31-year-old thanked the judge for the sentence and said he was 'happy with the deal that God has given me'.

Shahzad did not dispute the allegations while under interrogation and taking a guilty plea. In fact, 'he spoke with pride' about the scheme, in which he bragged that he wanted to kill at least 40 people, the government said in a sentencing memo. If he escaped arrest, he added, he hoped to set off another bomb two weeks later in a second, undisclosed location. Unless the US leaves Muslim lands alone, he warned, 'we will be attacking US, and I plead guilty to that'.

Shahzad has said the Pakistan Taliban provided him with more than $15,000 and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, months after he became a US citizen. A few days later, Pakistani authorities arrested three men on charges they helped him meet leaders of the Pakistan Taliban, a militant group based in the northwest of the country that has claimed responsibility for the plot.

They also are accused of sending him cash in the United States when he ran short of money.

1,000,389,000,000 pounds at the end of March - or 40,000 pounds per household - the Office for National Statistics said. The figure is so enormous, equivalent to more than one million million pounds, that the country must pay 40 billion pounds interest on it in this year alone - roughly what is spent on the entire defence budget.

Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: 'This puts into stark terms the scale of Britain's debt mountain and is a timely reminder of why we need to tackle the deficit. Right now we are paying 120 million pounds a day in debt interest alone.'

It follows unprecedented levels of spending under Labour which saw the Government borrow nearly 450 million pounds a day under Gordon Brown. But the 1 trillion pounds figure does not include items such as the cost of public sector pensions and private finance initiatives. Experts believe the true debt, including these hidden items, is between 4-5 trillion pounds.

After a four-year campaign, the Commission says it accepts that the Druids worship nature and that they also believe in the spirits of places such as mountains and rivers, as well as in 'divine guides'. This, apparently, makes them qualify as a religion. Some might shrug this off. After all, the Druids don't do any harm to anyone. What skin is it off anyone else's nose how they are categorised?

Well, it actually matters rather a lot. Elevating them to the same status as Christianity is but the latest example of how the bedrock creed of this country is being undermined. More than that, it is an attack upon the very concept of religion itself. If the Druids qualify as a religion, can other cults such as the Scientologists be far behind?

Can it be long, indeed, before the wise and learned theologians of the Charity Commission similarly grant charitable status to sorcery, witchcraft or even the Jedi - the fictional Star Wars 'religion' which the 2001 census recorded as having no fewer than 390,127 adherents in England and Wales.

'I'm sure that we're paying many people who aren't worth it - maybe that's the issue,' he told a conference on restoring trust in the banking industry at London's Mansion House yesterday. His comments were echoed by Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, who added that 'unilateral action by any single bank (would) not provide a practical solution' to the problem of ever-rising pay for 'star' performers. Sir Philip's revelations lift the lid on the bonus arms race that is currently sweeping through the Square Mile.

Goldman Sachs recently handed tens of millions in bonuses to its 80 London-based partners to prevent more senior staff defecting to rivals. The declaration by the RBS boss is also likely to inflame public anger over the pay deals on offer at the bank, which has received more than 45 billion pounds in government cash since its implosion two years ago.

Charles Dallara, IIF managing director, said: "A core group of the world's leading economies need to come together and hammer out an understanding." Last week, Guido Mantega, Brazil's finance minister, warned of the dangers of a "currency war" as countries unilaterally intervened to prevent the appreciation of their currencies. The US has been pressing China to allow its exchange rate to rise faster, while several countries including Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland, have been intervening to hold their currencies down.

Releasing its policy statement and forecast ahead of this weekend's annual meeting of ministers at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, the IIF also urged international policymakers not to "gold plate" the Basel III capital accords. It advised countries to avoid creating a variety of national regulations on capital and competing "resolution" regimes.

Mr Dallara criticised the US for failing to adopt a more multilateral approach when it passed financial regulation reform earlier this year. "There was very little attempt by the US authorities to co-ordinate provisions globally," he said.

Besides the effect of the cold weather itself, the continued snowfall has not allowed snow on the ground to thaw, making it much harder for stock to feed. This makes ewes about to lamb particularly susceptible to metabolic illnesses from a lack of nutrients. Reportedly, lamb mortality in the area may be as high as 15% for some farmers. With average prices for lambs expected to be around NZ$80/head this season (NZ Herald), the financial loss to NZ producers will be significant, estimated to exceed NZ$50 million (NZ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry).

Polish scientists say that it means the stream will not be able to compensate for the cold from the Arctic winds. According to them, when the stream is completely stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe. So far, the results have been lower temperatures: for example, in Central Russia, they are a couple of degrees below the norm.

"Although the forecast for the next month is only 70 percent accurate, I find the cold winter scenario quite likely," Vadim Zavodchenkov, a leading specialist at the Fobos weather center, told RT. "We will be able to judge with more certainty come November. As for last summer's heat, the statistical models that meteorologists use to draw up long-term forecasts aren't able to predict an anomaly like that."

Fears of a double-dip downturn have boosted the appetite for physical bullion as well as for mining company shares and exchange-traded funds, UBS executive Josef Stadler told the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit. "They don't only buy ETFs or futures; they buy physical gold," said Stadler, who runs the Swiss bank's services for clients with assets of at least $50 million to invest.

UBS is recommending top-tier clients hold 7-10 percent of their assets in precious metals like gold, which is on course for its tenth consecutive yearly gain and traded at around $1,314.50 an ounce on Monday, near the record level reached last week.

Julius Baer's chief investment officer for Asia is also recommending that wealthy investors park some of their assets in gold as a defensive stance following a string of lackluster US data and amid concerns about currency weakness. "I see gold as an insurance," Van Anantha-Nageswaran said. "I recommend 10 percent as minimum in portfolios and anything more than that to be used for trading purposes, to respond to short-term over-bought or over-sold signals."

Big financial institutions, including commercial banks, are still making a lot of money. But given unease in the financial markets and the economy, brokerages and investment banks are not making nearly as much as their executives, employees and investors had hoped. Wall Street's Engines of Profit Are Slowing Down.

After an unusually sharp slowdown in trading this summer, analysts are rethinking their profit forecasts for 2010. The activities at the heart of what Wall Street does - selling and trading stocks and bonds, and advising on mergers - are running at levels well below where they were at this point last year, said Meredith Whitney, a bank analyst who was among the first to warn of the subprime mortgage disaster and its impact on big banks.

Worldwide, the number of stock offerings is down 15 percent from this time last year, while bond issuance is off 25 percent, according to Capital IQ, a research firm. Based on these trends, Ms Whitney predicts that annual revenue from Wall Street's main businesses will drop 25 percent, to around $42 billion in 2010, from $56 billion last year. While the numbers will not be known until after the third quarter ends and financial companies begin reporting earnings in October, the pace of trading this summer was slow even by normal summer standards

To make matters worse, he said, many Wall Street firms increased their work forces in the first half of the year, before the mood shifted and worries of a double-dip recession arose. If activity remains anemic, firms could soon begin cutting jobs again.

"I think the summer was horrible for everyone, and no one expected it to be as bad as it was," he said. "It's coming back a little bit in September but nowhere near enough to make up for what happened in July and August."

In a letter to the newspaper, Esnard wrote that although he includes himself in the population earning more than $250,000 a year:

My family isn't wealthy. I have no funded retirement plan save Social Security, if it is there when I need it. I have no guarantee of permanent health care. I am paying off school loans for our three children. A meaningful number of my friends have lost their jobs, and all who are still employed, including my family, have taken significant pay reductions... This is a classless recession, at least in my experience. It is hitting everyone.

Yet those of us who make $250,000 or more are vilified and held accountable for solving our government's penchant for spending more than it takes in so that politicians can buy votes. We already pay more in taxes than 98% of the population, particularly the nearly 50% of eligible voters who pay no federal income tax. The president wants us to pay more, and he frames it in a way that casts us as not yet carrying our fair share of the burden.

He then goes on to say that the $250K+ class might just vote with their feet:

Apparently our president thinks that living in America is so wonderful that we will never leave, despite being directly attacked and held responsible for the political class's inability to constrain its desire to buy votes with our money. He should think again.

Questions, which are described as a 'twist' on those routinely asked of homosexuals, include 'What do you think caused your heterosexuality?', 'Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?', and 'If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?' The course, which encourages staff to 'have a better understanding' of the challenges faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender colleagues, includes a film which follows the experience of four fictitious employees.

The film is said to 'build in intensity' and can provoke a variety of reactions. Trainers' notes state: 'Initial reactions to the stories vary widely, with heterosexual (straight) people often dismissing the stories as exaggerated or rare and homosexual (gay people) immediately recognising the issues and emotions explored here as honest and relevant.' The Buckinghamshire council course is just one of a series of publicly funded equality and diversity sessions uncovered in a series of Freedom of Information requests by The Mail on Sunday.

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers Alliance, said: 'With huge pressure on the public finances, and council tax nearly doubled over the last decade, it is vital that councils show they can start cutting back on waste to keep down taxes and avoid unnecessary pressure on services. To see councils wasting money on such a ludicrous, politically-correct exercise in that environment is disgusting. Ensuring that councils don't discriminate doesn't require such insane attempts at a superficial understanding of different communities.'

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that managers at Brighton and Hove City Council had taken part in a diversity seminar called 'Adventures in Lesbian-and-gayland' which invited them to imagine they had now woken up in a world where homosexuality was dominant.

Speaking at the British Science Festival in Birmingham, Dr Consolmagno also dismissed Creationism and claimed that the revival of 'intelligent design' - the controversial theory that only God can explain gaps in the theory of evolution - was 'bad theology'.

Dr Consolmagno, one of a team of 12 astronomers working for the Vatican, said the Catholic Church had been supporting and funding science for centuries. A self-confessed science fiction fan, he said he was 'comfortable' with the idea of alien life. Asked if he would baptise an alien, he replied: 'Only if they asked.'

He added: 'I'd be delighted if we found life elsewhere and delighted if we found intelligent life elsewhere. But the odds of us finding it, of it being intelligent and us being able to communicate with it - when you add them up it's probably not a practical question. God is bigger than just humanity. God is also the god of angels.' In the middle ages, the definition of a soul was to have intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions, he said. Those characteristics may not be unique to humans. 'Any entity - no matter how many tentacles it has - has a soul,' he added. In practice, machines were unlikely to be smart or human enough to have souls.

Dr Consolmagno, 57, the curator of the Pope's meteorite collection, is a trained astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican's observatory. On 'intelligent design', which claims that Darwin's theory of evolution cannot explain the complexity of life, he said: 'The word has been hijacked by a narrow group of Creationist fundamentalists in America to mean something it didn't originally mean at all. It's another form of the God of the gaps. It's bad theology in that it turns God once again into the pagan god of thunder and lightning.' The phrase 'intelligent design' was centuries old and described the idea that God could be discovered in the laws of space and time and the existence of human reason.