Mitchell, who arrived in Israel Wednesday evening, made the comment after he met for the first time with Lieberman in his new role as foreign minister. Lieberman raised eyebrows earlier in the month when he stated that the Netanyahu government would not be bound by decisions made in Annapolis in November 2007, noting they had never been ratified by the government, nor had they been approved by the Knesset.

"The U.S. policy favours a two-state solution, which would have a Palestinian state living in peace alongside with the Jewish State of Israel," Mitchell told reporters following the meeting. Interior Minister Eli Yishai commented that regardless of what the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama might want, ISRAEL COULD NOT BE FORCED DOWN A PATH THAT MIGHT BE UNREALISTIC.

"The preferable course of diplomatic action at this time is two economies for two peoples, and not two states for two peoples," Yishai told reporters. "The American emissary also knows that forcing the region into virtual diplomatic discourse will only breed the opposite results."

Speaking during a ceremony on Iran's Army Day, Ahmadinejad said Iran was one of the strongest countries in the region and that "the gall to threaten the Iranian nation has been quashed forever. The Iranian nation is ready to become more involved in maintaining order and security based on justice in many regions of the world," Ahmadinejad said.

His speech on Saturday was much more toned down than Army Day speeches from previous years. In 2006 Ahmadinejad warned that Iran's army would "cut off the hand of whoever dares attack it." In 2007 he said "the resistance of the Iranian people will bring down world powers."

The powerful Kepler telescope was designed to search for unknown planets among more than 100,000 stars in the Milky Way. Kepler's first image reveals a vast star field in the Cygnus-Lyra region of our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Lia LaPiana, programme executive at the American space agency Nasa's headquarters in Washington DC, said: 'Kepler's first glimpse of the sky is awe-inspiring. To be able to see millions of stars in a single snapshot is simply breathtaking.' From a vantage point trailing the Earth round the Sun, it will spend three-and-a-half years focused on a patch of sky equivalent to the size of a human hand held at arm's length.

Dr William Borucki, the mission's chief scientist based at Nasa's Ames Research Center at Moffet Field, California, said: 'It's thrilling to see this treasure trove of stars. We expect to find hundreds of planets circling those stars, and for the first time, we can look for Earth-size planets in the habitable zones around other stars like the Sun.'

Advisers manning the "Frank" helpline are informing callers they believed to be children as young as 13 that alcohol is a "much more powerful drug than cannabis" and that using the illegal drug recreationally is not harmful because it "doesn't get you that high". Callers are also being told that taking ecstasy will not lead to long-term damage and that if they are in doubt, to "just take half a pill and if you are handling that OK, you can take the other half."

They are even being told that they would be able to smoke a cannabis joint, on top of ecstasy, with no ill-effects. The advice, given to reporters who rang the helpline posing as young people, has alarmed anti-drugs campaigners who branded it "scandalous" and "irresponsible." Health experts have condemned the advice given to children as "frankly appalling", "factually incorrect" and "worryingly cavalier".

The helpline, established by the Government in 2003 with £3 million funding, was described in a Home Office drugs strategy recently as "the key channel by which Government communicates the dangers of drugs, including cannabis, to young people". But in calls to its helpline, manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week, reporters posing as teenagers were told by different advisers that drug taking was not harmful. AT NO POINT IN THE CONVERSATIONS DID THE FRANK TEAM TRY TO DISSUADE THE CALLERS FROM TAKING DRUGS.

Two Federal Reserve policy-makers, Vice Chairman Donald Kohn and New York Fed chief William Dudley, both pointed to signs that measures taken by the US central bank are indeed working to help revive the economy. And Paul Volcker, a senior economic adviser to the Obama administration and a former Fed chairman himself, said the rate of the economy's decline is set to slow.

Volcker, who like the other officials spoke at a conference of policy-makers and academics at Vanderbilt University, said, however, that the economy faces a "long slog" towards recovery.

In an interview with the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, Geithner was quoted as saying US authorities were making sure there was steady funding and that banks were able to meet commitments. "So in some ways what we're saying is we're going to backstop the amount of capital-raising that's necessary," he was quoted as saying in an English text of the interview.

"And again, a lot of that will come from the market, ultimately. But where it doesn't we'll make sure we provide it." In an attempt to assess banks' capital needs, the US government is testing how they would fare under more adverse economic conditions than are expected. The results are due at the end of April.

"Israel wants to know that if its forces were given the green light they could strike at Iran in a matter of days, even hours. They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words," one senior defence official told The Times.

Officials believe that Israel could be required to hit more than a dozen targets, including moving convoys. The sites include Natanz, where thousands of centrifuges produce enriched uranium; Esfahan, where 250 tonnes of gas is stored in tunnels; and Arak, where a heavy water reactor produces plutonium.

The distance from Israel to at least one of the sites is more than 870 miles, a distance that the Israeli force practised covering in a training exercise last year that involved F15 and F16 jets, helicopters and refuelling tankers. The possible Israeli strike on Iran has drawn comparisons to its attack on the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981. That strike, which destroyed the facility in under 100 seconds, was completed without Israeli losses and checked Iraqi ambitions for a nuclear weapons programme.

This recession is likely to be "unusually long and severe, and the recovery sluggish," said the Fund, releasing two advance chapters from its World Economic Outlook. However, it warned there is a risk that it could spiral down into a full-blown slump unless further action is taken to stop "feedback effects" gathering force.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF, said millions of people risk being pushed back into poverty as the economic storm ravages the most vulnerable countries. "The human consequences could be absolutely devastating. THIS IS A TRULY GLOBAL CRISIS, AND NOBODY IS ESCAPING," he said. "The free-fall in the global economy may be starting to abate, with a recovery emerging in 2010, but this depends crucially on the right policies being adopted today."

Mr Strauss-Kahn called for a urgent action plan to "cleanse banks" of toxic assets and for further fiscal stimulus beyond the 2pc of global GDP already agreed. The snag is that high-debt countries may have hit the limits already. "The impact becomes negative for debt levels that exceed 60pc of GDP," said the Fund. While no countries were named, this would raise questions about Japan, Germany, France, Italy and ultimately Britain and the US after their bank rescues.

"Chinese penetrations of unclassified DoD networks have also been widely reported. Those are more sophisticated, though hardly state of the art," said National Counterintelligence Executive, Joel Brenner, at the Austin University Texas last week, according to a transcript made available on Wednesday.

Listing out some of the examples of Chinese cyber spy penetration, he said: "We're also seeing counterfeit routers and chips, and some of those chips have made their way into US military fighter aircraft. You don't sneak counterfeit chips into another nation's aircraft to steal data. When it's done intentionally, it's done to degrade systems, or to have the ability to do so at a time of one's choosing."

Referring to the Chinese networks penetrating the cyber grids, he said: "Do I worry about those grids, and about air traffic control systems, water supply systems, and so on? You bet I do. America's networks are being mapped. There has also been experience of both Chinese and criminal network operations in the networks of some of the banks".

That, however, is not enough. Following the Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread holiday, the IWA will launch another campaign urging Israelis to help save the Sea of Galilee from shrinking any further by making additional cuts to their private water usage.

The government is also gearing up to implement some direct measures to curb water use, including cutting agriculture quotas, heavily taxing farmers and private homes that use too much water, and fining anyone who waters their private lawn.

The German automaker, with its nine car and truck brands including Audi, Skoda, Seat and Skania, has set a goal of overtaking Toyota and General Motors Corp to be the world's No.1 seller by 2018 - a target that was initially met with skepticism.

But a deepening recession and credit crisis have crippled demand in Toyota's top markets, with US sales falling 38 percent and Japan sliding 24 percent in January-March.

Volkswagen, meanwhile, is benefiting from government stimulus plans that have boosted sales in China, Germany and Brazil, which together accounted for 44 percent of group sales last year, making it more likely that it beat Toyota or at least came close. Market research company R L Polk Germany predicted this month that Volkswagen would overtake GM as the world's second-largest automaker as the US giant suffers steep declines at home amid fears of bankruptcy.

Residents of the village of Mir Gadkhel said they thought dozens had been killed there. A Reuters cameraman also counted about 10 dead bodies in another nearby village, Sar Kot. "Three of my family members were killed and seven are injured. I think about 40 people have died. Hundreds of houses have been destroyed," Gul Mohammad said in Mir Gadkhel, about 45 km (30 miles) west of the Afghan city of Jalalabad.

The US Geological Survey said a 5.5 magnitude quake hit the area just before 2 am on Friday (5:30 pm EDT on Thursday), followed by a 5.1 magnitude aftershock two hours later.

"I'm less pessimistic than many of where the economy may be going," Tax cuts and lower interest rates, along with other initiatives, should by now have helped boost demand, he said. Mr Miles is due to join the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee in June.

"Economic history teaches us that a combination of tax cuts, running large fiscal deficits, substantial cuts in interest rates and more quantitative easing is likely, with a certain time lag, to have a substantial impact on demand in the economy," Mr Miles told the paper. "That's not a confident prediction but a judgment about what may be the case."

The agency's intelligence assessment, sent to law enforcement officials last week, warns that right-wing extremists could use the bad state of the U.S. economy and the election of the country's first black president to recruit members.

The assessment also said that returning military veterans who have difficulties assimilating back into their home communities could be susceptible to extremist recruiters or might engage in lone acts of violence. "To characterize men and women returning home after defending our country as potential terrorists is offensive and unacceptable," said Boehner, Representative for Ohio.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended the assessment and others issued by the agency. "Let me be very clear — we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States," Napolitano said in a statement. "We don't have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence."

China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB) has instead been buying copper and other industrial metals over recent months on a scale that appears to go beyond the usual rebuilding of stocks for commercial reasons. Nobu Su, head of Taiwan's TMT group, which ships commodities to China, said Beijing is trying to extricate itself from dollar dependency as fast as it can.

"China has woken up. The West is a black hole with all this money being printed. THE CHINESE ARE BUYING RAW MATERIALS BECAUSE IT IS A MUCH BETTER WAY TO USE THEIR $1.9 TRILLION OF RESERVES. They get ten times the impact, and can cover their infrastructure for 50 years. The next industrial revolution is going to be led by hybrid cars, and that needs copper. You can see the subtle way that China is moving into 30 or 40 countries with resources," he said.

The SRB has also been accumulating aluminium, zinc, nickel, and rarer metals such as titanium, indium (thin-film technology), rhodium (catalytic converters) and praseodymium (glass). While it makes sense for China to take advantage of last year's commodity crash to restock cheaply, there is clearly more behind the move. "THEY ARE DEFINITELY BUYING METALS TO DIVERSIFY OUT OF US TREASURIES AND DOLLAR HOLDINGS," said Jim Lennon, head of commodities at Macquarie Bank.