Brian Coulton, head of global economics at ratings agency Fitch, condemned Labour's pledge to halve the deficit in four years as 'too slow'. The head of Marks & Spencer also added his voice to demands for a clear plan to cut the deficit. Sir Stuart Rose said people were 'not stupid', adding: 'They know effectively we are over-borrowed and there is medicine to be taken.'

The Office for National Statistics yesterday reported a 6.9 per cent fall in sales of British goods abroad in January, the largest monthly drop for more than three years. The slide came despite a steep plunge in sterling, which was trading as low as $1.4936 yesterday but rallied later in the day.

In theory, this fall should make British goods more competitive abroad.

But the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: 'These are deeply alarming figures which suggest that British exporters simply haven't been able to take advantage of the big devaluation.'

EADS, the owner of Airbus, and its American partner Northrop Grumman said on Monday night that they were pulling out of the race to build air refuelling tankers for the US Air Force. It is understood that the Business Secretary has written to the White House to articulate his concerns. Whitehall insiders told The Times last night that the handling of the tanker contract had sent the wrong signal.

One said: "It is inevitable that there will be pressure on European governments to retaliate, but that really can't be the way forward. The last thing we want is a tit-for-tat fight across the Atlantic." Lord Mandelson is also understood to be angry that EADS has been forced to throw in the towel as the UK would have been a big beneficiary had it won the contract. The deal could have been worth 4.6 billion pounds in export orders and helped to secure 5,000 jobs at the Airbus factory in Broughton, North Wales, which would have built the tanker's wings.

When the tanker contract was first opened for bidding in 2007, EADS-Northrop offered the Airbus A330 while Boeing offered the smaller 767. The European aircraft won but Boeing protested and, after intense lobbying by the American company's supporters in Congress, the deal was overturned on technicalities. When the Pentagon reissued the terms of the contract it had been changed to favour a smaller plane and EADS-Northrop felt that they could not compete.

The Pentagon's first attempt to buy new tankers ten years ago ended in scandal when its deal with Boeing was revealed to be corrupt. The company had hired Darleen Druyan, the Pentagon official in charge of the procurement project, after she inflated the price of the planes. She pleaded guilty to corruption and Boeing was fined $615 million.

In telephone calls and meetings, senior diplomats and specialists were forced to restate Britain's position on sovereignty over the islands and seek clarification of the US position after a State Department spokesman in February answered a question about the Falklands by saying: "Or the Malvinas, depending on how you see it."

British anger over the Obama Administration's apparent indifference to the issue mounted when Hillary Clinton endorsed President Fernandez de Kirchner's call for talks on sovereignty while she was in Buenos Aires last week, State Department sources said.

The new details of British complaints emerged as influential conservatives in Washington described the Administration's handling of the dispute as offensive, ignorant and a reflection of a lack of enthusiasm for the idea of a special relationship between the two countries.

For now, Greece may have managed to assuage doubts about its ability to remain solvent by passing yet another painful package of austerity measures last week. But the European Union remains concerned, and has launched an intensive search for mechanisms to ensure that such a risk to the European common currency is avoided in the future.

On Tuesday, one day after proposals for a European Monetary Fund (similar to the International Monetary Fund) grabbed headlines on the Continent, a German-French plan has emerged that would significantly limit speculation and the trading of so-called Credit Default Swaps. According to the business daily Handelsblatt, German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans to discuss measures to limit speculation with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker - who also chairs the round of euro zone finance ministers - on Tuesday.

According to the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy intend to write a letter to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso encouraging him to take action against damaging financial speculation. The paper also wrote that, should the EU not take action, Merkel, Sarkozy, Juncker and Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou would be prepared to take unilateral action against such speculation.

Berlin and Paris are particularly concerned with Credit Default Swaps (CDS), which allow investors to insure investments in, for example, Greek bonds. As demand for such swaps have risen, so too have their prices. But as such prices increase, bond investors become concerned about the viability of Greek debt, leading them to avoid Greek bonds. That, in turn, makes it harder - and much more expensive - for Athens to borrow and adds to the anxiety - which starts the cycle anew. Betting against Greece, in short, can be immensely profitable.

That, though, is something that the euro zone would like to avoid. Just last week, in reference to speculators, Juncker said "we have the instruments of torture in the basement."

That's a disappointment, but not really a surprise for fishing industry insiders who have negotiated for months with officials at the Council on Environmental Quality and bureaucrats on the task force. These angling advocates have come to suspect that public input into the process was a charade from the beginning.

"When the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) completed their successful campaign to convince the Ontario government to end one of the best scientifically managed big game hunts in North America (spring bear), the results of their agenda had severe economic impacts on small family businesses and the tourism economy of communities across northern and central Ontario," said Phil Morlock, director of environmental affairs for Shimano.

"Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current US direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

About 21 percent of women were infected with genital herpes, compared to only 11.5 percent of men, while 39 percent of blacks were infected compared to about 12 percent for whites, the CDC said. There is no cure for genital herpes, or herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which can cause recurrent and painful genital sores and also increases the likelihood of acquiring and transmitting the AIDS virus. It is related to herpes simplex virus 1, or oral herpes, which causes cold sores.

"The message is herpes is quite common. The symptoms can be often very innocuous," Dr John Douglas of the CDC said in a teleconference. Douglas said the increased rate of infection in blacks is not do to with increased risk behavior but likely due to biological factors that make women more susceptible as well as the higher rate of infection within black communities.

The CDC estimates that there are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease infections every year in the United States, costing the health care system about $16 billion annually.

Operating on a scale never before attempted in this country, the city would demolish houses in some of the most desolate sections of Detroit and move residents into stronger neighborhoods. Roughly a quarter of the 139-square-mile city could go from urban to semi-rural. Near downtown, fruit trees and vegetable farms would replace neighborhoods that are an eerie landscape of empty buildings and vacant lots. Suburban commuters heading into the city center might pass through what looks like the countryside to get there. Surviving neighborhoods in the birthplace of the auto industry would become pockets in expanses of green.

Detroit officials first raised the idea in the 1990s, when blight was spreading. Now, with the recession plunging the city deeper into ruin, a decision on how to move forward is approaching. Mayor Dave Bing, who took office last year, is expected to unveil some details in his state-of-the-city address this month.

"Things that were unthinkable are now becoming thinkable," said James W Hughes, dean of the School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, who is among the urban experts watching the experiment with interest. "There is now a realization that past glories are never going to be recaptured. Some people probably don't accept that, but that is the reality."

Several other declining industrial cities, such as Youngstown, Ohio, have also accepted downsizing. Since 2005, Youngstown has been tearing down a few hundred houses a year. But Detroit's plans dwarf that effort. The approximately 40 square miles of vacant property in Detroit is larger than the entire city of Youngstown.

The organisation, which has millions of followers worldwide, insists that it is a peaceful, apolitical revivalist movement that promotes Islamic consciousness among individual Muslims. However, intelligence agencies have cautioned that the group's ability to fire young men with a zeal for Islam acts as a staging post, for some, along a path that leads to jihadist terrorism.

Kafeel Ahmed, the Indian doctor who died from burns last month after trying to set off a car bomb at Glasgow Airport, is the latest in a line of terrorists for whose initial radicalisation Tablighi Jamaat has been blamed. The group (literally, the preaching party) belongs to the ultra-conservative Deobandi school of thought within Sunni Islam, whose adherents run more than 600 of Britain's 1,350 mosques.

In recent days The Times has exposed the virulently anti-Western creed of some British Deobandis who preach that non-Muslims are an evil and corrupting influence. Their defensive, isolationist approach to life in Britain is shared by many British supporters of Tablighi Jamaat. "The mega-mosque complex would become a flagship for Tablighi Jamaat's mission to indoctrinate Muslims with a hatred of the West and the kuffar [non-Mulims]." Tabligh Jamaat is expected to submit a formal planning application for the West Ham mosque before the end of the year.

Austrian leaders and the press already fear for the country's image abroad. Under the 1947 Verbotsgesetz law, anyone who seeks to set up a Nazi organisation, propagates Nazi ideology or denies Nazi crimes can be jailed for up to 20 years. But Rosenkranz, a mother of 10 and the wife of an outspoken figure in Austria's far-Right scene, insists the law constitutes "an unnecessary restriction" and that, on the contrary, people should be allowed freedom of opinion.

In 2003, the European Court of Human Rights already allowed a journalist's description of her as a "closet-Nazi", noting that her attitude towards Nazism was ambiguous. Such comments from a woman running for the country's highest office prompted scorching criticism from politicians of all colours, civil groups and the Catholic church. "Somebody like this is not eligible for election," said Vienna's Archbishop Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, while the Jewish community described her as "an embarrassment for Austria".

Commentators already fear the "horror scenario" of a far-Right presidential win - especially if turnout remains low as expected - while anti-Semitic comments have already appeared in her support in online forums. "Is that a foretaste of the elections campaign?" asked the Austrian weekly News.

Gary Locke, US commerce secretary, and Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, are due to arrive in Brazil on Tuesday. The cotton dispute is expected to be raised in meetings with government officials. Under the Brazilian plan, duties would rise most steeply on cotton products. Many that are currently taxed at between 6 per cent and 35 per cent would be taxed at 100 per cent. The tariffs on beauty products would double, from 18 per cent to 36 per cent. Duties on household goods such as cookers, refrigerators, TVs and video cameras would also double, from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. Duties on cars would rise from 35 per cent to 50 per cent.

Brazil is allowed to impose the tariff increases - worth $560m - after winning a case at the WTO last year. Brazil challenged the legality of direct subsidies to US cotton farmers to protect them against fluctuations in global prices and a loan guarantee programme for international buyers of US cotton. Brazil could also impose further penalties - known as "cross-retaliation" - on US intellectual property rights, potentially breaking patents in the pharmaceuticals, technology and media industries.

"Brazil's latest actions are imposing unwarranted harm on Brazilian and American interests in times of economic hardship for all," the National Cotton Council said. "Historically, dispute settlement is frequently made more difficult, not easier by the application of retaliatory trade measures."

The government said some 200,000 people living in the west, near the Ruwenzori mountains, would be among those who should be relocated. A minister said the deadly mudslides were a "wake-up call. The total population at risk of landslides and floods is estimated to be 500,000," said Musa Ecweru, minister for disaster preparedness. He said he was convinced that much of the area in the east of the country, on the slopes of Mount Elgon about 275km (170 miles) north-east of the capital Kampala, was too dangerous to live in.

So far, a total of 83 bodies have been recovered from last week's mudslide in the Bududa district, though it is feared as many as 300 may have died when their homes, schools and villages were swallowed by fast-moving walls of mud. Uganda has one of the highest population growth rates in the world but, as more people settle on the mountains, the trees have been felled to make way for agriculture - making mudslides and flooding more common.

The descent of Barack Obama's regime, characterised now by factionalism in the Democratic Party and talk of his being set to emulate Jimmy Carter as a one-term president, has been swift and precipitate. It was just 16 months ago that weeping men and women celebrated his victory over John McCain in the American presidential election. If they weep now, a year and six weeks into his rule, it is for different reasons.

Despite the efforts of some sections of opinion to talk the place up, America is mired in unhappiness, all the worse for the height from which Obamania has fallen. The economy remains troublesome. There is growth - a good last quarter suggested an annual rate of as high as six per cent, but that figure is probably not reliable - and the latest unemployment figures, last Friday, showed a levelling off. Yet 15 million Americans, or 9.7 per cent of the workforce, have no job. Many millions more are reduced to working part-time. Whole areas of the country, notably in the north and on the eastern seaboard, are industrial wastelands.

The once mighty motor city of Detroit appears slowly to be being abandoned, becoming a Jurassic Park of the mid-20th century; unemployment among black people in Mr Obama's own city of Chicago is estimated at between 20 and 25 per cent. One senior black politician - a Democrat and a supporter of the President - told me of the wrath in his community that a black president appeared to be unable to solve the economic problem among his own people. Cities in the east such as Newark and Baltimore now have drug-dealing as their principal commercial activity: The Wire is only just fictional.

There are lessons from the stumbling of Mr Obama for our own country as we approach a general election. Vacuous promises of change are hostages to fortune if they cannot be delivered upon to improve the living conditions of a people. The slickness of campaigning that comes from a combination of heavy funding and public relations expertise does not inevitably translate into an ability to govern. There is no point a nation's having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not.

She was criticized for arriving in Haiti too late - more than six weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has since been to Chile to survey the damage from a subsequent earthquake that struck there; for being tardy in Cordoba, after having missed a meeting with the EU defense ministers and the NATO secretary general on Mallorca a week earlier; and because, in the view of some of the attendees, she came to Cordoba equipped with shoddy material on the development of the European diplomatic service.

Her predecessor Javier Solana, known for his busy schedule, flew an average of about 6,000 kilometers (3,750 miles) a week. Ashton has recently been traveling three times as much, and yet, according to the BBC, the flying EU ambassador's reward for her efforts has been nothing but "flak" from the member states. As one top European diplomat said, a battle is underway "between political pygmies," one that is symptomatic of the EU's loss of significance on the global stage.

The explanation for how a Labour politician whose most distinctive traits are - in the words of former BBC editor Rod Liddle - "Stalinist political correctness" and the "charisma of a caravan site on the Isle of Sheppey" captured the top spot in EU diplomacy is as simple as it is grotesque. The appointment of the inexperienced Briton seemed to guarantee that no one would interfere with the national foreign policies of individual EU member states, particularly the powerful nations of France, Germany and Great Britain.

But now there are growing fears, even in Paris and Berlin, that Europe may have missed an historic opportunity by choosing Ashton.

"If we continue to borrow at very high rates ... twice, for example, the rates of Germany, that would be unsustainable within a common currency," he said, referring to the 16 nations that share the euro as a currency. Papandreou blamed speculators for Greece's woes, and warned that a fresh financial crisis could be triggered if their activities were not reined in. "An ongoing euro crisis could cause a domino effect, driving up borrowing costs for other countries with large deficits and causing volatility in bond and currency rates across the world," he said.

Greece's borrowing costs have skyrocketed in recent months, forcing the government to take tough measures to tighten its budget and pushing Papandreou to look to neighbors for help. "We're not asking for money. We're not asking for bailouts," Papandreou stressed on the first day of a four-day US visit. "What we're simply saying is we want to be equal partners as we've taken these measures ... to be able to get what others also can get, which is basically normal rates of borrowing." The Greek prime minister will take his case to President Barack Obama when the two meet on Tuesday.

In a speech earlier on Monday, Papandreou called for tougher rules for credit default swaps and said the G20 rich and emerging nations should take the lead in keeping speculators in line. Credit default swaps are sold to investors to protect them from the risks of a debt default; they are also used to bet on whether a company will default on its bonds. "We need clear rules on shorts, naked shorts and credit default swaps. I hope there will be a positive response from this side of the Atlantic to bring this initiative to the G20," Papandreou said.

Critics of credit default swaps charge that speculators use the contracts to bet against countries for profit, which can lead bond yields higher and make it prohibitively expensive for debt-strapped countries like Greece to refinance their debt. Hedge funds have been accused of aggravating the Greek debt crisis with "naked short selling" - betting on a default without owning the underlying bonds. Under current US law, regulators do not have authority to regulate the $31 trillion credit default swaps market or prohibit investors from using the swaps as a speculative tool.

The IMF's managing director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who is traveling this week in Africa, played down fears that Greece's problems would trigger crisis in other heavily indebted euro zone countries like Portugal, Ireland and Spain. "The euro zone has to deal with the Greek problem. They are doing this," Strauss-Kahn said. "No one knows what's going to happen tomorrow morning, but there's no reason why the spillover to Portugal or to Spain will take place," he said in an interview in Nairobi.

This week, the Arab emirate is hoping the world takes another look. The city-state, best known of late for bailing out its flashier neighbor Dubai, is bringing together some of the industry's biggest names for a summit that will temporarily shift much of the world's media and entertainment elite to a luxury hotel on the Persian Gulf. Headliners at the event starting Tuesday include News Corp's Rupert Murdoch and Google Inc chief Eric Schmidt.

The idea is to entice "the best and the brightest media minds," said Edward Borgerding, a former Walt Disney Co executive who is now CEO of the state-owned Abu Dhabi Media Co, the event's host. But the gathering is also a coming-out party for Abu Dhabi, which has seen its own star rise as nearby Dubai's fades, serving as a reflection of the emirate's growing weight in the media industry. Increasingly, though, the United Arab Emirates capital has been using its immense petroleum wealth to extend its media reach overseas, even as it shows little sign of easing restrictions on journalists or Internet users at home.

Neighboring Dubai built its reputation on being a carefree business haven. Despite its well-publicized economic slump, the port city continues to host regional offices for hundreds of media companies, ranging from small ad agencies to international broadcasters such as CNBC and Showtime. And Doha, the capital of nearby Qatar, is home to the best-known group of Arabic satellite TV channels, al-Jazeera.

It is difficult to gauge how much of its oil wealth Abu Dhabi is willing to lavish on the media business, which must compete with the government's plans to grow other sectors, such as technology, manufacturing, energy and tourism. Few details about the government's finances are made public, and none of the executives who agreed to speak with The Associated Press would discuss their companies' financial resources. Davidson estimates the state will spend at least $2 billion to $3 billion over five years just on physical infrastructure and seed money for the media sector. But there is always more should things really take off. "This is small change for Abu Dhabi," he said. "They can throw such massive resources at this."