The decision will see Mr O'Neal, 56, pay the price for the company's disastrous involvement in the US sub-prime mortgage sector and a bungled personal attempt to merge the bank with rival Wachovia. Mr O'Neal could walk away from Merrill with stock, options and retirement benefits worth about $160m.

The grandson of a former slave, Mr O'Neal is the first African-American to head a bulge bracket US investment bank. But his position has become increasingly unstable in recent weeks as the cost of writedowns due to the credit market's turmoil have mushroomed dramatically.

Three weeks ago, Merrill announced a $4.5bn writedown on the value of its securities and sub-prime assets. Last week it revealed a further $3.4bn of writedowns, taking the total to $7.9bn and leading the company to report a $3.5bn loss for the third quarter - the biggest quarterly loss in the company's 93-year history.

This year more than 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of GM maize was harvested. The biotech industry says this proves its products are appealing to farmers and are safe for the environment. The only genetically modified crop grown widely in Europe is maize which is resistant to the corn borer - a moth larva which eats the stem.

THE MAIZE IS CULTIVATED FOR ANIMAL FEED - NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. Planted in Spain for the last 10 years, the maize is now proving popular in France where the acreage has tripled in a year and also in Germany and the Czech Republic. Neither the pest nor the GM maize is found in Britain.

One thousand sq km (386 sq miles) is still a small fraction of the total farmed area of Europe and also tiny compared with the ONE MILLION SQ KM (0.38 MILLION SQ MILES) UNDER GM AROUND THE WORLD - an expanse four times the size of Britain.

Clare Oxborrow is a Friends of the Earth food campaigner. She told the BBC that the increase in the area planted with GM crops should not be viewed as beneficial. "The reality is, these crops have failed to deliver benefits, and more and more evidence is, in fact, coming to light showing that THERE ARE INCREASED CONCERNS ABOUT THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS," she said.

"GM crops, GM industry is not competitive, it is not creating jobs, it is not creating any new environmental benefits, it's not accepted by consumers, and I think we need to take a long, hard look. THESE FIGURES TODAY ARE MORE ABOUT THE INDUSTRY TRYING TO REASSURE ITS INVESTORS THAN ANY SIGNIFICANT SUCCESS."

We ought to be realistic about the future. And yes, scary things are happening. We read about an impending cyber-storm and the storm super-worm. Is someone taking over the world's computers for sinister purposes? It seems they are. Last June the Chinese military successfully hacked into Pentagon computers, demonstrating a capability to disable U.S. defense systems.

In Europe Russia is rearming and one of its new weapons is the world's most powerful fuel-air bomb, made specifically for destroying urban resistance. The news in the Middle East gets worse and worse. The United States has announced sanctions on Iran despite Russian and Chinese objections. Meanwhile, the U.S. government appears nervous about an impending terror attack. The American public is confused and the people are no longer united. The economic news is even more frightening.

The United States is headed into a crisis of unprecedented proportions. The dollar continues to lose its value versus other currencies. Look at the price of oil this week. Look at the price of gold. These are objective measurements that defy market optimism. Consider the following sources of trouble: (1) runway debt, (2) credit inflation, (3) the bursting real estate bubble, (4) government spending and (5) hidden monetary inflation. In Michael J. Panzner's book, Financial Armageddon, we learn how creaky America's retirement regime is, and how liable to collapse. We read about that great house of cards, the derivatives business.

In fact, it now appears that default is inevitable on many fronts. The U.S. government has made big promises related to financial and economic matters. Today's government takes care of millions of people; but this cannot continue indefinitely. And America's financial crisis isn't an exclusively American problem. The welfare state advances toward bankruptcy in Europe, North America and Japan.

Ancient political thinkers wrote about basic human corruption. When exposed to money and power for any length of time, people tended to become spoiled. The occasion of this spoiling heralded bloody upheavals and revolutions. In America and Europe we have already seen a social revolution. The attitudes of our grandparents have been disputed and set aside - in matters of church, state and family. New attitudes have taken their place. Our grandparents were strict in ways we are not strict. They were disciplined in ways we are no longer capable of discipline. They were frugal, and the Great Depression was real to them. Today we borrow money, and we borrow again. We are addicted to debt.

The dollar has been compromised in this process. And a new political situation will flow from this, both at home and abroad. The enemies of the United States are poised to take advantage of America's financial demise. Demagogues and troublemakers from within the country are also prepared. We have right wing fanatics and left wing fanatics eager to win followers. In a severe crisis the moderates of the political "center" tend to melt away. Discredited by the failure of the status quo, the moderate loses his voice. His truth no longer rings true. Instead, the unbalanced fanatic appears to be correct. People discover that the system is rotten after all. The system, in fact, is collapsing.

One might assume that this crisis is merely bad for Americans. The truth is that when the United States turns inward, global impoverishment and war must follow. Those who argue that the United States is the author of the world's miseries have misread their history. The period following World War II was a period of unprecedented progress and prosperity for mankind. The United States deserves the credit, not the blame, for the last sixty-two years of peace.

The decline of the United States unleashes the genie that was bottled up in the 1940s. Dictatorship and war will break free. Nuclear and biological weapons will be used to settle old scores. The use of these weapons will not be restrained. Billions of people will perish. Most will die of starvation.

Once a downward motion begins it is sustained by something akin to momentum. Civilization has climbed so high that any stumble must be fatal. Much of what unfolds will be made possible by false thinking and the spread of false ideas. We have the accumulated wisdom of great economists and political thinkers to fall back upon. But we have neglected their works. We have grown superficial and stupid in our prosperity, adopting policies that guarantee catastrophe.

It is madness, all madness. It continues, it unfolds and nobody can arrest its progress.

Just before Sir Isaac Newton died, he described how humbled he felt by the thought that he had glimpsed only a fraction of the potential of the great scientific revolution he had helped to launch: "I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."

Three centuries later, that great ocean of truth is not so mysterious. According to the theoretical physicist Professor Michio Kaku of the City College of New York, we are entering an empowered new era: "We have unlocked the secrets of matter. We have unravelled the molecule of life, DNA. And we have created a form of artificial intelligence, the computer. We are making the historic transition from the age of scientific discovery to the age of scientific mastery in which we will be able to manipulate and mould nature almost to our wishes."

Among the technologies he believes will change our lives in the coming decades are cars that drive themselves, lab-grown human organs, 3D television, robots that can perform household tasks, eye glasses that double as home-entertainment centres, the exploitation of genes that alter human ageing and the possibility of invisibility and forms of teleportation.

"We will have the power to animate the inanimate, the power to create life itself," says Prof Kaku. "WE WILL HAVE THE POWER OF GODS. BUT WILL WE ALSO HAVE THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON?"

CRUDE OIL prices appear increasingly likely to hit a record in real terms reached during the second oil crisis in 1979, as nominal prices on Monday continued rising well above $90 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude hit a fresh nominal all-time high of $93.20 a barrel on Monday on a combination of renewed geopolitical tension over Iran's nuclear programme, weakness of the US dollar and low inventories.

THE PRICE OF GOLD edged closer to 800 dollars an ounce on Monday, as it struck the highest level since the start of 1980 owing to the weak dollar and record high crude oil prices, traders said. On the London Bullion Market, gold prices surged as high as 794.70 dollars an ounce, which was last seen in January 1980. Gold prices have jumped by about a third in value over the past year. Gold's all-time record high price stands at exactly 850 dollars an ounce, which it reached on January 21, 1980.

THE DOLLAR slipped lower against the euro, reaching a record low, then continuing its slide in morning European trading on Monday, as markets looked for signals from the U.S. Federal Reserve about a likely rate cut this week. The 13-nation euro opened at $1.4428, besting its previous high of $1.4393 on Friday in New York and then proceeded to climb to $1.4438 in midmorning trading, before falling back to $1.4430 -- well above the $1.4385 it bought in late New York trading on Friday.

In trading Monday, one British pound bought $2.0566 compared with $2.0521 on Friday while the dollar was down against the yen, dipping to 114.19 yen from 114.22 yen on Friday.

Its rulers face the delicate task of responding to pressure for reform while combating a growing problem of extremist violence.

Named after the ruling Al Saud family, which came to power in the 18th century, the country includes the Hijaz region - the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the cradle of Islam. This fact, combined with the Al Sauds' espousal of a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, has led it to develop a strongly religious self-identity.

Saudi Arabia was established in 1932 by King Abd-al-Aziz - known as the Lion of Najd - who took over Hijaz from the Hashemite family and united the country under his family's rule. Since his death in 1953, he has been succeeded by various sons. The Al Saud dynasty's monopoly of power meant that during the 20th century successive kings were able to concentrate on modernisation and on developing the country's role as a regional power.

The Al Saud dynasty holds a monopoly of power; political parties are banned and the opposition is organised from abroad; militant Islamists have launched several deadly attacks. It has always been in the ruling family's interests to preserve stability in the region and to clamp down on extremist elements. To this end, it welcomed the stationing of US troops in the country after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. But the leadership's refusal to tolerate any kind of opposition may have encouraged the growth of dissident groups such as Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda, which benefited from popular resentment against the role of the US in the Middle East.

After the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington of 11 September 2001 - carried out mainly by Saudi nationals - the Saudi authorities were further torn between their natural instincts to step up internal security and pressure to allow a greater degree of democracy. In 2003 suicide bombers suspected of having links with al-Qaeda killed 35 people - including a number of foreigners - in the capital Riyadh. Some Saudis referred to the attacks as their own 9/11.

Since then, demands for political reform have increased, as has the frequency of militant attacks, some of them targeted at foreign workers. The security forces have made thousands of arrests. Municipal elections in 2005 were a first, limited exercise in democracy. But political parties are banned - the opposition is organised from outside the country - and activists who publicly broach the subject of reform risk being jailed.

Saudi Arabia sits on more than 25% of the world's known oil reserves. It is capable of producing more than 10 million barrels per day; that figure is set to rise. Saudi Arabia is one of the main players in the Arab and Muslim worlds; its stature is built on its geographic size, its prestige as the custodian of the birthplace of Islam and status as major oil producer

Full name: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Population: 25.6 million (UN, 2005)
Capital: Riyadh
Area: 2.24 million sq km (864,869 sq miles)
Major language: Arabic
Major religion: Islam
Life expectancy: 70 years (men), 74 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: 1 Riyal = 100 halalah
Main exports: Oil, gas, cereals
GNI per capita: US $11,770 (World Bank, 2006)

He also said Britain failed to act on information passed by the Saudis which might have averted terrorist attacks. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says Whitehall officials have strenuously denied this.

Speaking through an interpreter, the Saudi monarch said he believed most countries were not taking the issue seriously, "including, unfortunately, Great Britain".

"We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain but unfortunately no action was taken. And it may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy." The Saudi leadership maintains that it passed the UK information that might have averted the London bombings of 2005 if it had been acted on. An investigation by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) found no evidence of any intelligence passed on by the Saudis that could have prevented the 7 July 2005 bombings, the BBC's Frank Gardner said.

The king's visit has provoked controversy over Britain's relationship with Saudi Arabia. Acting Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable has announced he is boycotting the visit, citing the corruption scandal over Al Yamamah arms deal, and the Saudis' human rights record. "I think it's quite wrong that as a country we should give the leader of Saudi Arabia this honour," he said.

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, urged Prime Minister Gordon Brown to tell the Saudis that their human rights record was "totally unacceptable". She added: "Mr Brown's message should be - reforms need to come, and they need to come quickly." A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said that the decision to invite King Abdullah was a reflection of the "long-standing friendship" between the two nations.

As Iraq has collapsed in bloodshed and chaos, in recent months a "blame game" between London and Washington has been opening up. At issue is the failure to plan properly for what would follow the invasion. There was looting and anarchy almost as soon as the statue of Saddam was toppled back in April 2003.

The Americans hadn't prepared for this - even though a power vacuum always follows the overthrow of a regime almost as night follows day. The insurgents soon filled it. The truth is both governments got just about everything wrong in their assumptions as to what would follow the fall of Saddam.

The reconstruction of Iraq was the biggest project of its kind since the American General George C Marshall planned for the reconstruction of Germany after World War II. Marshall got three and a half years to do it. Both London and Washington only put their planning units in place about eight weeks before the invasion.

The evidence suggests that in the rush to war, planning for what came afterwards was not a first order priority in either Washington - or London.

In the southeastern United States, farmers are struggling with failing crops, environmentalists warn of impending disaster and three states are locked in battle over the use of a rapidly dwindling manmade lake.

"Nearly half of the Southeast is in extreme drought and water supplies have reached critical levels in some cities," says Michael Halpert, head of forecast operations at the official Climate Prediction Center.

In California, a week of infernos destroyed hundreds of houses and businesses, forced over 500,000 people to flee their homes. Many parts of the state have experienced record low rainfalls this year as temperatures shot to all-time highs, leaving vast swaths of parched countryside at the mercy of fires propelled by powerful winds.

Los Angeles recorded just 8.15 centimeters (3.21 inches) of rain in the year to June 30, making it the driest year on record since 1877. The city draws half its water from the Sierra Nevada mountains, which have provided only around 20 percent of normal levels. Meteorologists fear a dry winter will prolong the drought in many of the affected regions.

Mendy was arrested in the Canary Islands in November 2003 on suspicion of counterfeiting 50 euro notes despite the fact he was never found in possession of a counterfeited note. He and his friends were released and heard nothing more from the Spanish authorities until March this year when he was served with a European Arrest Warrant. Mendy appealed the extradition but as Dobson stressed, "this involves the UK courts doing nothing more than going through the motions, BECAUSE THERE ARE VIRTUALLY NO GROUNDS ON WHICH TO CHALLENGE A EUROPEAN EXTRADITION WARRANT."

Dobson continued, "At the subsequent court appearance in Madrid, Joe Mendy was denied bail on the bizarre grounds that he was a flight risk. By this time, the Spanish judicial holidays were commencing, so my innocent constituent of exemplary good character was held in the Spanish jail over the summer."

"After spending almost two months on remand in the Spanish jail, Joe appeared before a Spanish judge on 15 September. His Spanish lawyer advised him that if he continued to plead not guilty, he was likely to be held in jail for at least a further year before his case came to trial. If, however, he pleaded guilty, he would, because of his exemplary record in Britain, get a suspended sentence and a small fine. Understandably in such dreadful circumstances, he pleaded guilty and got a two-year suspended sentence and a 600 euro fine."

"The treatment of Joe Mendy is a disgrace; it is exactly the sort of incident that brings European institutions into disrepute. What happened to the warrant between June 2004 and March 2007? Was it mislaid? Sadly, the law that we passed does not require the authorities to use their common sense or to have a sense of proportion.

Having being passed by the House on the argument that it would speed up extradition, our law does not demand that the authorities proceed expeditiously. INSTEAD, IT DEMONSTRABLY PERMITS THEM TO TAKE NEARLY FOUR YEARS TO CRANK UP THIS DRACONIAN MACHINERY."

Home Office Minister Meg Hillier responded saying "We have to have faith in our European partners, and there are safeguards in place to ensure that each European country has a proper legal and judicial process to take such decisions. We have heard that Mr Mendy's case has been concluded and that he is back in the UK having received a suspended sentence. I am pleased to hear that he can now start at Liverpool University next year and begin to get his life back on track."

According to the Laeken declaration of 2001, this process was supposed to simplify the EU's legal architecture, hand some powers back to member states and make the project intelligible to the voters. It has ended up doing the opposite - and its obfuscation will come back to hurt the EU in the long term, especially in Britain."

It continues, "Reducing the rejected constitution to a simple package of internal reforms would have been a fine response to the voters' rebuffs in France and the Netherlands. But it is hard to claim the union is in chaos without these improvements (revealingly, the proposed voting changes will not take full effect until 2017). And the treaty still includes the worst part of the constitution - a sweeping list of misguided good intentions and alleged social rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is an open invitation for EU judges to meddle."

The article concludes, "the British government promised a referendum - and yes, despite Gordon Brown's denials, it is basically the same constitution. THE REAL DANGER IS OF BRITAIN SLEEPWALKING TOWARDS THE EXIT - EITHER BY REJECTING THE TREATY AFTER EVERY OTHER COUNTRY HAS ACCEPTED IT; OR NOT HAVING A VOTE AND WATCHING THE RESENTMENT FEED INTO A MOVEMENT TO GET OUT OF THE EU. Better to have a vote now."

In an article in Le Monde, Valery Giscard d'Estaing writes, "IN THE LISBON TREATY, DRAWN UP EXCLUSIVELY FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY, THE TOOLS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. ONLY THE ORDER HAS BEEN CHANGED IN THE TOOL BOX.

The box itself has been redecorated, using an old model, which has three compartments in which you have to rifle around to find what you are looking for." He takes two examples - the appointment of a permanent EU President, and the election of the European Parliament - comparing their article numbers in the two different texts and showing that the words are the same in both.

He describes the few changes there are - the disappearance of the word Constitution and the flag and the anthem as "ridiculous" and "thankfully destined to remain unapplied." HE NOTES THAT THE NEW TREATY "IS UNREADABLE FOR CITIZENS", and asks, "What is the point of this subtle manoeuvre? First and foremost to avoid the constraint of referendums."

He continues, "Let's lift up the cover, and look in the box: the tools really are there, such as they were carefully elaborated by the European convention", citing the EU President, the EU Foreign Minister and "the most advanced Charter of Fundamental Rights on the planet."

The study released Wednesday by the Asia Foundation said that the peace process in Mindanao, the region in the southern Philippines where Islamic separatists have been fighting for self-determination since the 1970s, would have a better chance of succeeding if clan violence - called "rido" by Filipino Muslims - were addressed.

The study said "rido" is a "type of conflict characterized by sporadic outbursts of retaliatory violence between families and kinship groups as well as between communities. It can occur in areas where government or a central authority is weak and in areas where there is a perceived lack of justice and security." Two common causes of this type of conflict are political disputes and quarrels over land.

The project's researchers, which included Islamic scholars and anthropologists, found that, from the 1930s to 2005, there had been 1,266 cases of clan violence in Mindanao, in which 5,500 people were killed and thousands were displaced. Of these cases, 64 percent have not been solved, the perpetrators never identified nor brought to justice.

While clan conflict is common in many societies around the world, "rido" is unique in that it has, according to the study, "wider implications for conflict in Mindanao, primarily because it tends to interact in unfortunate ways with separatist conflict and other forms of armed violence."

The government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the main Islamic separatist group, have been engaged in peace negotiations since 1997 but no substantial agreement has been reached.

The British newspaper reported that in the past nine months about 60 Iranians had been admitted to study postgraduate courses considered "proliferation-sensitive" by the British security services. The courses ranged from nuclear physics to some areas of electrical and chemical engineering and microbiology.

Additionally, the newspaper continued, figures obtained by David Willetts, shadow secretary for innovation, universities and skills, showed that in 2005-06, 30 Iranians were doing postgraduate degrees in subjects covering nuclear physics and nuclear engineering.

The Sunday Times quoted Willetts as saying: "Given that we need to have tougher sanctions against Iran, it does seem extraordinary that the government is not yet stopping Iranians coming here to study nuclear physics. There is legitimate concern about what some students have been studying."

The evidence from the £12m four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice.

THE STUDY FOUND THAT ORGANIC FRUIT AND VEGETABLES CONTAINED AS MUCH AS 40% MORE ANTIOXIDANTS, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain's biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.

Professor Carlo Leifert, the co-ordinator of THE EUROPEAN UNION-FUNDED PROJECT, said the differences were so marked that organic produce would help to increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables. "If you have just 20% more antioxidants and you can't get your kids to do five a day, then you might just be okay with four a day," he said.

This weekend the Food Standards Agency confirmed that it was reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to change its advice. MINISTERS AND THE AGENCY HAVE SAID THERE ARE NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ORGANIC AND ORDINARY PRODUCE.

Researchers grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on adjacent organic and nonorganic sites on a 725-acre farm attached to Newcastle University, and at other sites in Europe. THEY FOUND THAT LEVELS OF ANTIOXIDANTS IN MILK FROM ORGANIC HERDS WERE UP TO 90% HIGHER THAN IN MILK FROM CONVENTIONAL HERDS.

As well as finding up to 40% more antioxidants in organic vegetables, they also found that organic tomatoes from Greece had significantly higher levels of antioxidants, including flavo-noids thought to reduce coronary heart disease.

Leifert said the government was wrong about there being no difference between organic and conventional produce. "THERE IS ENOUGH EVIDENCE NOW THAT THE LEVEL OF GOOD THINGS IS HIGHER IN ORGANICS," he said.