In less than three weeks, there have been 14 major water line breaks in Kemp, but the mayor says things weren't perfect before. "Some of the problem is we've just got some outdated water lines and we do. It's not a surprise to anybody here in the city." With all the pipe bursts, Kemp lost approximately 2,000,000 gallons of water. According to Mayor Kile, workers are busy making repairs and trying to refill the water towers. "We are in the process of getting the water back up and back going by 4 o'clock tomorrow [Tuesday] afternoon," he said.

The mayor went on to stress that getting the water on was the responsibility of the city, keeping it on would require help from residents. "When we get the water back up we are asking everybody to be very conservative with the water," urged Kile. "Don't be foolish with it, because if people are foolish with the water we're gonna be back in the same situation we are in right now and it's just gonna prolong the situation even more."

Chris Williamson, Labour MP for Derby North, suggested the Government's austerity drive was to blame. On Twitter, he said: 'The Tories are back alright. Why is it the Tories never take responsibility for the consequences of their party's disastrous policies. #tottenham' . Minutes earlier he had endorsed the comment of another Twitter user who said: 'Riots. Protests. Cuts. Unemployment. Disaffected Youth. Strikes. Recession. Police Brutality.'

Swift to jump on the bandwagon was Lee Jasper, a former adviser on policing to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He blamed the 'economic violence' of the government for the riots and expressed no sympathy for businesses that were smashed up. He claimed some were attacked because they do not help create projects for under-privileged youths and was quoted as asking: 'When did Curry's build a school?' In another interview, Mr Jasper appeared to blame the police for the violence, saying the authorities had failed to take account of the level of suspicion among people in Tottenham when it responded to the death of alleged drug dealer Mark Duggan.

Mr Livingstone and his acolytes came under fire from furious Tories, who pointed out that he of all people should know that vast investment has been piled into Tottenham, Hackney and Lewisham over the last three decades. Mike Freer, Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, said: 'It's complete nonsense. These riots are about vandalism. If Labour politicians want to ride on the back of the rioters in order to obtain some spurious political advantage they should be ashamed of themselves. To the best of my knowledge, we talked about cuts but most of them have not bitten yet. If Labour politicians really believe that, let's have a list of cuts that they think justified people turning to violence. Even the local MP David Lammy has rejected that approach.'

Mark Field, MP for the City and Westminster, added: This is opportunistic criminality. The events in Tottenham need investigating but these copycat riots in Lewisham and Brixton are nothing to do with the cuts. 'It is reprehensible to make any such parallel.'

Meltdown sees ANOTHER 46 billion pounds wiped off shares - and there may be worse to come

- FTSE 100 closes down 178 points or -3.4 per cent

- Total wiped off companies since Friday hits 210 billion pounds

- Dow Jones closes down 5.55 per cent in response to rating downgrade, the fifth-largest daily fall in its history

- Asian markets fall as global shares crisis deepens

- Chancellor Osborne calls France, Germany and America to act but remains on holiday in the US

- US warned it could be downgraded again if aggressive cuts are not made

- European Central Bank set to spend billions on buying Italian and Spanish bonds as it moves to stem sovereign debt

The FTSE sank 178 points to a 13-month low of 5068.95 on another day of panic selling as the bleak mood in the financial markets darkened. It was the seventh session of losses on the trot amid a crisis of confidence in the ability of world leaders to get to grips with the ballooning debt mountain in America and the eurozone. The scale of the catastrophe on global markets was underlined last night in New York where the Dow Jones dropped 635 points or 5.55 per cent in the fifth largest points fall in history.

The biggest drops came after President Obama went on TV to assure the American people that the US remains creditworthy despite the downgrade of its debt by ratings agency Standard & Poor's. 'Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America,' he said. 'No matter what some agency may say, we have always been and always will be a triple-A country.' The fall in share prices on Wall Street so far this month was the steepest August drop in stocks since 1896.

The latest market falls mean that the wealth of every family in Britain has been pillaged. Workers and pensioners have seen the value of their retirement pots plummet and millions of small investors are nursing heavy losses. Experts said the stock market turmoil will hit confidence among households and businesses - and could tip Britain back into recession. Fears are mounting that the global economy is on the verge of a new slump at a time when America and the eurozone are drowning under a tidal wave of debt.

That was despite the fact that hundreds of youths, with no connection to events in Tottenham, had since run riot across the capital. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, and police have all condemned the youths as "criminals" whose behaviour is "utterly appalling". Yet senior BBC presenters and reporters on the ground yesterday continued to describe those behind the violence as "protesters".

The move sparked a wave of anger from members of the public on Twitter. Duncan Barkes wrote on the micro-blogging website: "Hello BBC. They are not protesters, are they? Rioters better description. I mean, what's the cause for the protest?" Dee Modha said: "This hackney BBC reporter needs to stop calling them protesters. Thugs, hooligans and opportunists are better words."

Jo Suherman added: "Wish the BBC would stop referring to rioters as 'protesters'. For BBC protest synonymous with violence and looting." User Soneni Nkomo accused the corporation of "political correctness", while a user called Craig added: "The BBC are still calling these thugs protesters! The liberal elite cannot see that it's pure criminality."

The BBC was criticised in 2005 when it emerged that an edict was sent around to staff in the wake of the 7/7 terror attacks ordering them not to use the word "terrorist". The guidelines on language said "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding". The memo was sent within hours of the atrocities, which left 52 innocent people dead, by Helen Boaden, the head of news.

Some local people told journalists of their resentment towards the police. One student said: "The police never talk to us, they ignore us, they don't think we're human in this area." A youth worker claimed: "The way the police treat black people is like we're nothing." And a retired accountant who has lived locally for 30 years reported that some of the police "behave in an arrogant manner that puts people's backs up".

Did the police inflame the initially peaceful crowd protesting about the shooting last Thursday of Mark Duggan? It will be impossible to answer that question until the independent inquiry is complete. But what should we make of another theory, that the police handled the rioters with kid gloves because they were paralysed by fear of being called racist?

Anyone in touch with police leaders will know that most are fully signed-up supporters of the doctrine that the police should use force only as a last resort. As one of the famous "nine principles of policing", published in 1829 at the very founding of the Metropolitan Police, puts it, the police should "use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient... and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion".

Since the Macpherson report of 1999 the police have been hyper-sensitive about race. This attitude has now become so paradoxical that they find themselves standing aside when members of ethnic minorities are being harmed. The people who ran shops, or who lived in the flats above, were not given the protection they deserved.

Being reluctant to use force can be admirable. But when events have got out of control, the fullest use of police powers is justified. The present generation of police leaders gained promotion by mastering the art of talking about "issues around" racism or bearing down on hate crime "going forward". Learning the management buzz words of the last few years has not produced leaders able to command men in a riot. The injuries sustained by officers show that we have plenty of men and women prepared to be brave when needed, but they are lions led by donkeys who listened a bit too intently to the sociology lectures about "hate crime" at Bramshill police college.

The fear is back, in the stock exchanges and in the capitals of the industrial nations. There are growing signs everywhere of a new financial crisis, and the political leaders of the West are looking helpless and out of their depth.

The United States is struggling with an enormous budget deficit. And the euro zone's central bankers and government leaders can't find a strategy to end the permanent malaise of their single currency. The White House has achieved little more than to buy some time with a new debt compromise reached after theatrical political squabbling between Democrats and Republicans. Last Friday night, rating agency Standard & Poor's lowered its rating for the US from AAA to AA+.

Muddling through, postponing, playing down - the motto of the crisis managers on both sides of the Atlantic has sent alarm bells ringing in stock markets. Britain's Economist magazine is warning of a double-dip recession in the US, a second downturn just three years after the last one. Many economists have been pointing out that last week's panic resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Then as now, banks stopped lending each other money. Then as now, banks' cash deposits at the central bank doubled within days. The European Central Bank reacted by assuring banks of unlimited liquidity in the coming months. It was an emergency measure that led to short-term relief but sparked anxious questions among bankers and stock market players. How long can the central bank keep up its market-soothing liquidity operations before it finally loses its credibility, the most important asset of a central bank? Is the financial crisis about to escalate? And will the world then be bankrupt?

Germany has been enjoying what many have described as a new economic miracle, with 3.6 percent growth in 2010. In the first quarter of 2011, growth even reached 5 percent year-on-year. But with the world economy facing a slowdown, Germany's enormous dependence on exports, the driving force behind its impressive recovery in the last two years, could now spell doom. The US and Italy are among Germany's top five trading partners - and neither country is likely to provide much impetus for German industry in the foreseeable future.

There is a further danger: the Swiss and Japanese central banks are intervening in markets to stop the appreciation of their currencies which has been putting their exports at risk. If the Americans follow suit, a global race to depreciate national currencies could ensue - a disastrous form of protectionism.

Trouble first flared on Saturday after a peaceful protest in Tottenham over the fatal shooting of a man by police. The prime minister is returning early from holiday to chair a meeting of the government's emergency committee Cobra. David Cameron, who is on holiday in Italy, was due to board a flight on Monday night ahead of a meeting with Home Secretary Theresa May and Acting Metropolitan Police Commissioner Tim Godwin on Tuesday.

A government spokesman said the prime minister has been monitoring the situation on "an hourly basis". Monday's violence started in Hackney after a man was stopped and searched by police but nothing was found. There were also fears trouble may spread further afield as police in riot gear were deployed in Birmingham city centre after scores of youths rampaged through the shopping area, smashing windows and looting from shops.

Meanwhile:

Cars were set on fire in Lewisham

A bus and shop were set alight in Peckham

Several fires broke out in Croydon, including one at a large furniture shop which spread to neighbouring buildings and tram lines

In Hackney 200 riot officers with dogs and mounted police were located around Mare Street where police cars were damaged

Looters raided a Debenhams store and a row of shops in Lavender Hill in Clapham

In Birmingham, police said officers had made 35 arrests, including six juveniles, on Monday evening

Buses were diverted as the violence spread to Bromley High Street

There were reports of looting of phone shops in Woolwich High Street, in south London, and a torched police car

Shops and restaurants were damaged in Ealing, west London, and there was a fire in Haven Green park opposite Ealing Broadway Tube

At least 215 people have been arrested and 25 charged following the riots across London over the last two days.

"What I think the S&P thing did was to hit a nerve that there's something basically bad going on, and it's hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche" said Greenspan

Austan Goolsbee, the chairman of the White House's council of economic advisors, hit out at S&P on the same show, insisting the credit ratings agency had got its math wrong. "Well, the basic case is they made a $2 trillion math error and forgot to check their work," he said. "So rating agencies that didn't make a $2 trillion math error reaffirmed the AAA status. You saw Warren Buffet say that, if they had a AAAA, he would put US Treasurys in AAAA status."

Following the decision to downgrade America's credit rating, the head of sovereign ratings at S&P, David Beers, said the Obama administrations analysis of the move was a complete "misrepresentation." Greenspan said the current sense of crisis that has unnerved investors is about the euro zone, not the US.

'The United States was actually doing relatively well, sluggish but going forward until Italy ran into trouble," he said. "That destabilized the European system, and the crisis re-emerged. Europe is very critical to the United States in the sense not only do we have a fourth of our experts there, but more importantly, significant proportion of the foreign affiliate profits, in fact half of US corporations, are in Europe."

"When Italy showed signs of significant weakness in selling its bonds - the yield is now over 6 percent, which is an unsustainable level - it created a massive problem within Europe because Italy is a very large country, cannot be easily bailed out and, indeed, cannot be bailed out," Greenspan added.

Far from loosening, the US is on track to tighten by 2 per cent of GDP next year, and Europe by 1 per cent to 2 per cent, into the slowdown. China has already pushed credit to 200 per cent of GDP. It cannot repeat the trick. The Anglo-Saxons can print more money, but the gains in asset prices for the rich are offset by losses from fuel and food inflation for the poor. This is a destructive trade-off. The decision to throw everything we had at the crisis after Lehman-AIG was a legitimate gamble at the time, given the near certainty of depression if shock therapy had been tried - as in 1931.

It is too early to say the policy has failed, and failure is a false term when leaders confront cruel choices. Yet last week's drama has brought home the truth that suffocating debt has not gone away; it has merely hopped on to the shoulders of sovereign states, threatening just as much damage. Standard & Poor's downgrade of the United States to AA+ is a detail in this greater drama, albeit of poignant symbolism.

S&P should have acted six years ago when the rot was setting in. To do so now is fatuous. The US Treasury is right to disregard the verdict and keep risk weightings unchanged to avoid a cascade of forced debt sales. Note how quickly Japan, Korea, France, and even Russia, have closed ranks behind Washington.

As for China's bluster, it is chutzpah and self-delusion. We all agree that the US needs to "cure its addiction to debts", but so will China soon. China buys US debt in order to recycle $200 billion a quarter in foreign reserves, hold down the yuan, and continue its mercantilist export strategy. If China had not distorted world trade in this fashion, the US would not be in such a mess.

The search for a scapegoat has begun. German MEPs and officials have begun to blame Brussels for triggering this crisis, though all it did was admit that the 440 billion euros bail-out fund is too small to restore confidence, and that EMU is in systemic danger as contagion spreads to the core. Even Germany's most ardent pro-Europeans seem to have given up trying to find a solution. They are building an alibi for EMU break-up instead.

This is a dangerous moment for the world. It is still possible that the growth scare of recent months will prove a false alarm. Yet the Bank for International Settlements is surely right that we are pushing ever closer to the limits of a model that relies on artificial stimulus to keep stealing extra prosperity from the future. There is ever less to steal.

In comments emailed to CNBC, Guan Jianzhong, chairman of Dagong Global Credit Rating, said the currency is "gradually discarded by the world," and the "process will be irreversible." Dagong made headlines last week when it became the first rating agency to cut its US credit rating from "A+" to "A" after policymakers in Washington failed to act in a timely manner to lift its debt celing.

However, the announcement failed to register in the markets as investors have yet to decide whether to take the Beijing-based company seriously. "It has been around for quite a while, but I do not know of anyone assigning risk assessment to thir portfolio according to Dagong," said Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank. "However, clearly the rating industry could do with some competition and deviance from firm beliefs."

But Guan's observation - made just before S&P slashed its ratings on the world's biggest economy - now seems strangely prescient. "I think the most pressing issue facing the US at the moment is to reflect on the crisis which happened in relation with the debt ceiling," Guan said. "They should get a clear understanding that the continuous decline of the debt service capability will inevitably result in the outbreak of a sovereign debt crisis."

His sentiment is also reflected in a strongly worded editorial published by China's official Xinhua news agency on Saturday that is widely seen as a thinly-veiled criticism of US fiscal and economic policies from Beijing. The editorial called for "international supervision over the issue of US dollars" and the introduction of "a new, stable and secured global reserve currency." It also noted that as its largest creditor, Beijing has every right "to demand the United States to address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets."

It is by far the clearest and toughest regional position Syria has met, and it comes from one of the most influential Arab powers. Another major force in the region, Turkey, is stepping up the pressure too. Its foreign minister is due in Damascus on Tuesday with a tough message for President Assad. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has asked the Turkish minister to press the regime to pull its troops back to barracks. But so far, there is no sign of that happening.

Damascus has said its critics are ignoring the killings and destruction by what it calls "armed terrorist gangs", and also ignoring the reform programme that the regime has launched in a bid to defuse the crisis. It says it needs more time. But time seems to be running out, as the country slips daily closer to the spectre of a sectarian civil war that has set the regional alarm bells ringing.

It came hours after the Arab League issued its first official statement, strongly condemning the violence. On Sunday, more than 80 people died as the army launched assaults in eastern and central Syria, activists said. They said at least 50 died when soldiers, backed by scores of tanks and armoured vehicles, stormed Deir al-Zour during the dawn call to prayer.

A man living in the city told the BBC the tanks had been withdrawn from the eastern city, but that residents feared they would come back. Twenty-six others were killed in Hula, near the city of Homs, including a 10-year-old boy. Deaths were also reported in Idlib in the north-west.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, an activist group that documents and organises protests, said that after sunset, thousands of protesters poured onto the streets in towns and cities, including Damascus and its suburbs, Homs, Aleppo, and Latakia on the Mediterranean coast. Activists say at least 1,700 civilians have been killed and tens of thousands arrested since the uprising began in mid-March.

In a major escalation in international pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, King Abdullah declared on Sunday evening that his country had taken an historic decision despite all the support it had given Syria in the past. "Any sane Arab, Muslim or anyone else knows that this has nothing to do with religion, or ethics or morals; spilling the blood of the innocent for any reasons or pretext leads to no path to... hope," he said in a statement broadcast by the Saudi-owned satellite channel, al-Arabiya. "What is happening in Syria is not acceptable for Saudi Arabia," he added. "There are only two options for Syria's future: either it chooses wisdom on its own, or it will be pulled down into the depths of chaos and loss."

Gang members used Blackberry smart-phones designed as a communications tool for high-flying executives to organise the mayhem. The Blackberry phone, one of the first devices to offer mobile email, was once the preserve of business leaders and political aides but has become increasingly popular with members of urban gangs and teenagers. This is largely due to the Blackberry Messenger service - known popularly as BBM - which allows owners of the devices to communicate with each other for free and almost instantaneously.

Crucially, in order to communicate users have to exchange their phones' PINs, meaning their messages are private - unlike Twitter or Facebook. Conversations can be held between multiple people simultaneously in 'group chat' sessions. On Saturday night, rioters and spectators filmed the mayhem using mobile phones and camcorders and quickly posted the footage on Youtube. Some looters photographed each other in front of wrecked and burning shops as "trophy" snaps.

A terrified woman who had become trapped in a shop on Tottenham High Road posted footage of dozens of riot officers charging from their line of vans towards flaming barricades. As the orgy of violence reached a crescendo, a BBC crew were attacked while delivering a live broadcast, forcing the channel and Sky News to withdraw their satellite trucks. In their absence, many turned to Twitter for a stream of eyewitness reports and photographs posted by local residents.

Riot police were called to the town centre, part of a usually quiet commuter suburb, at around 6:30pm after hooded youths, including dozens of teenage girls, attacked police cars. Bricks and slabs of concrete were thrown at buildings. Running battles between the youths and police continued through the evening, as bricks were hurled at police vans attempting to lock down the area.

Stella Creasy MP for nearby Walthamstow called for people to steer clear of the town centre, fearing the looting would spread, while sources confirmed a group of masked youths were throwing stones at vehicles and at Westfield Shopping Centre in White City, west London before moving on to the BBC television centre. In Edmonton there were reports of a stabbing outside a working men's club while in south London, police in Brixton came under a missile attack after they tried to stop an altercation between youths as tension remained high following Saturday's riots. Stones and bottles were also thrown at officers in separate attacks.

Nick de Bois, Conservative MP for Enfield North, said the disorder was encouraged on social media websites and had become a "self-fulfilling prophesy": "There seems to have been a very well organised campaign over social media to try to engineer trouble here in Enfield." he said. "There is no element of injustice that they are here for. They are here quite simply to cause trouble, to hurt local businesses and shops. This is nothing more than illegal criminal behaviour and I just hope that if the police conclude their investigation, that they do make arrests and those that are guilty receive a serious punishment from the courts."

Twenty-four people were arrested inside the fairgrounds after fights broke out, State Fair officials said. The violence continued after closing time outside the park. State Fair Park CEO Rick Frenette said seven park police officers were injured, including two who were taken to the hospital. Milwaukee Police said just after 11 pm they responded to complaints of an unruly mob attacking cars, people and leaving damage in its path.

Hundreds of young people left the fairgrounds and made their way down to the surrounding neighborhoods, smashing car windows, throwing rocks and beating people who were leaving the fair. Several people were punched in the face, a child was pushed to the ground, one woman required stitches and another will need surgery for her injuries. Police are continuing to search for suspects involved in the incident.

Witnesses described the mobs as young African American teens. Milwaukee Aldermen Bob Donovan and Joe Dudzik released a bold statement on Friday about what they called a "deteriorating African American culture in our city," Fox 6 News reported.