Germany is marveling at a breath-taking shake up of political roles. For five years, Weidmann served as an economic adviser to Chancellor Angela Merkel. During that period, he was loyal to her, even seeming too keen at times. But now, in his new role as president of the Bundesbank, he has become one of her fiercest adversaries.

Weidmann has criticized decisions related to the euro bailout as "inconsistent" and "highly risky." He has called on politicians in Berlin to change their course, and he has been advocating "the Bundesbank's principles regarding stability." All of those things put him at odds with top officials at the European Central Bank (ECB).

Behind the glass facade of ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, a fierce battle over fundamental beliefs has been smoldering for months. ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet and the majority of his colleagues are willing to rush to the aid of embattled EU finance ministers and to make major purchases of the sovereign bonds of debt-ridden euro-zone countries, such as Greece, Portugal and Italy.

For his part, Weidmann is strictly opposed to these measures. He believes they amount to an unacceptable means of financing states through effectively printing money. In fact, he has come to assume the mantle of the last staunch defender of monetary stability.

Twice in the last decade Israeli leaders - Ehud Barak in 2000 and Ehud Olmert in 2008 - have accepted Palestinian statehood. Dozens of settlements would have been uprooted and others concentrated in blocs along the border, in exchange for which Palestine would have receive compensatory territory from within Israel proper. The result would have been a contiguous Palestinian state in the equivalent of the territory taken by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War, with Jerusalem as a shared capital.

Palestinian leaders effectively said no. That's because the deal would have required one significant reciprocal concession: confining the return of the descendants of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war to a Palestinian state. The main obstacle to an agreement, then, is not territory or settlements but the Palestinian insistence on the "right" to demographically destroy the Jewish state.

Absurdly, the Palestinian leadership is demanding that Palestinians immigrate not only to a Palestinian state but also to a neighbouring state, Israel. That demand, of course, would lead to the internal collapse of the Jewish state - which is precisely the goal. This is why Palestinian leaders have rejected President Barack Obama's call that they recognise Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.

Instead of encouraging Palestinian rejectionism and fantasies of a "right of return" to the Jewish state, the international community should be asking Palestinian leaders some hard questions: Why have you rejected every offer for statehood - going back decades? And do you really expect Israeli Jews to accept an agreement that would threaten the only state in the world in which the Jewish people is sovereign? The UN vote will only reinforce Israeli fears about a Palestinian state. The inevitable result will be to deepen the Palestinian-Israeli tragedy and distance us even further from a peaceful and mutually just solution.

Mr Abbas last week urged the council in New York to back a state with pre-1967 borders. Israel reiterated its call for peace talks without preconditions. The Security Council is expected to refer the Palestinian request to a special committee - which includes all 15 council members - which will examine it and make a recommendation. The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said two-thirds of the General Assembly members supported a Palestinian state.

"We hope the Security Council will synchronise itself with this moment of history and allow Palestine to become a member at the United Nations," he said. Direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled in September 2010. The Palestinians walked out in protest at the building of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In his speech at the UN, Mr Netanyahu said that the core of the conflict was not settlements, but the refusal of the Palestinians to recognise Israel as a Jewish state.

Barbara Plett, BBC UN correspondent writes, "The threat of confrontation has triggered a diplomatic scramble to neutralise the effects of a possible US veto. The Security Council has to decide whether to refer the Palestinian request to a committee or postpone consideration of it, given the threat of an American veto. Both would buy time for efforts by international powers to steer the diplomatic focus away from the membership application and onto peace talks.

But the Palestinians are not happy with proposals presented so far, and may use allies on the council to push their agenda. It is not clear how much support they have. Analysts say the council is moving into uncharted territory: it has received a membership bid from an entity that is not a state, which has both massive international support, and opposition from the world's most powerful nation.

Mr Bashar's government is accused of a violent crackdown that the UN says has killed more than 2,700 people. The president denies the allegations, saying he is tackling armed gangs of terrorists. In the latest violence, Syrian tanks bombarded a strategic town in the restive central province of Homs on Sunday night, injuring three people, activists and residents say.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, Mr Moulaem said foreign governments had sought to undermine the delicate balance between Syria's different religious groups. "How can we otherwise explain media provocations, financing and arming religious extremism?" he said. "What purpose could this serve other than total chaos that would dismember Syria?"

Mr Moulaem also said that economic sanctions recently imposed by the US and the EU were hurting "the interests and the basic daily subsistence needs of the Syrian people". The UN Security Council has condemned the government crackdown on protests, which erupted in March. Events from Syria are hard to verify as international journalists have been largely prevented from reporting there, but the BBC's Lyse Doucet has just arrived in Damascus.

She says it is extremely hard to get people to talk about politics, except for those who still defend the president. Mr Assad still has some support, she adds, but the brutal crackdown against protests in the suburbs, and in cites and villages outside Damascus is diminishing that base.

At least two people were killed and another four were reported missing. As the storm approached, the authorities ordered the evacuation of more than 100,000 people in the central Albay province. The typhoon is expected to continue across the country, before blowing across the South China Sea towards southern China on Thursday. The storm - with wind gusts of up to 170km/h (105mph) - is now making its way across the island of Luzon, which is home to more than half the Philippine population, the BBC's Kate McGeown in the Philippines reports.

Four fishermen are missing, and more than 50 more have been rescued after their boats capsized in rough seas. There are fears that the death toll would rise further. Meteorologists also warn that huge - 12ft (4m) - waves are expected to slam the shoreline. "The damage is expected to be big," Richard Gordon, head of the Philippines National Red Cross, told the BBC. "Right now there are already power interruptions. Our agriculture will again be damaged here. And certainly in terms of infrastructure there are some bridges that are flooded right now."

The Philippines suffers frequent typhoons - but Nesat is thought to be the largest this year. "This typhoon is very wide in diameter, about 650km, and covers most of Luzon," Graciano Yumul, who supervises the country's weather bureau, told reporters. It comes almost exactly two years after Typhoon Ketsana killed more than 400 people.

The latest arrests include disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and assaulting a police officer, according to Browne. The protests started September 17 in lower Manhattan and are aimed at drawing attention to the role powerful financial interests played in America's spiraling economy. "We've got a whole bunch of people sitting in Washington that can't figure it out," said organizer Bill Csapo.

The mission is for " 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months," the official "Occupy Wall Street" website read. By Saturday, the site had a series of updates on arrests, including the exact location of a police van holding arrestees. One was described as having a "very bad concussion, possibly life threatening" and urged participants to demand medicare care for those affected.

"It's just letting people know that it's going on," Csapo said on the website. "We need to call the police and tell them to let these people go." CNN called police officials, but they declined to comment further on the extent of injuries or specific use of force. But descriptions by the website and some protesters present affirm the use of mace and Tasers.

A fanatical terrorist has escaped being thrown out of the UK because it would breach his human rights. Hate-filled Siraj Yassin Abdullah Ali, graded the highest possible risk to the public, was released after serving just half of his nine-year sentence for helping the July 21 bombers. He now mingles freely among the Londoners his co-plotters tried to kill six years ago.

Government officials are desperate to deport the Islamic fundamentalist back to his native Eritrea but have been told they cannot because he could face 'inhumane treatment or punishment'. Ali was convicted of helping a gang of five Al Qaeda suicide bombers in their bid to repeat the carnage of the attacks of July 7, 2005, two weeks later. Graham Foulkes, whose 22-year-old son David was killed on July 7, said he was 'filled with despair'. He said: 'These people were plotting to commit mass murder - what about the human rights of victims and families? These people had no consideration for the women and children they were trying to kill. How can they claim we should look after and support them?'

The case is the latest to highlight how human rights laws have left the authorities powerless to remove some terrorists and convicted criminals. Imposed by unaccountable European judges, they place the rights of the most dangerous wrongdoers above the risks faced by ordinary people.

With music headphones plugged into his ears and a bag slung casually across his shoulder, he appeared to be caught on camera chatting on a mobile phone. It is understood that Ali is being monitored around the clock and must obey a curfew and other conditions, including a ban on using the internet. He is the second high-risk terrorist linked to the July 21 attacks to win the right to remain in the UK on human rights grounds in recent weeks.

Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani met with his top commanders on Sunday in a "special" meeting to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the United States escalated. That emergency meeting came against the backdrop of sharp US allegations that the Pakistani army's powerful spy agency supported the Haqqani militant group Washington blames for the recent attack on its embassy and other targets in Kabul.

The commanders agreed to resist US demands for a Pakistani army offensive in North Waziristan, where the United States believes the Haqqani network is based, the Express Tribune reported, quoting an unnamed military official. "We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done," the official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

The United States has long pressed its ally Pakistan to pursue the Haqqani network, one of the most lethal Taliban-allied Afghan groups fighting Western forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan denies it supports the Haqqanis and says its army is too stretched battling its own Taliban insurgency to go after the network, which has an estimated 10,000-15,000 fighters.

In the most blunt remarks by a US official since Pakistan joined the US-led war on militancy in 2001, the outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, on Thursday testified before the US Senate that the Haqqani militant network is a "veritable arm" of the ISI. He also for the first time held Islamabad responsible for the Kabul attack, saying Pakistan provided support for that assault.

"Abbas came and made a speech, presented a piece of paper. The Palestinians woke up the next morning and realized nothing has changed," Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman told Fox News. Abbas returned to a hero's welcome in Ramallah on Sunday. He told supporters that the "Palestinian Spring is here" while also cautioning that they face a "long path" ahead. "There are those who would put out obstacles... but with your presence they will fall and we will reach our end," he said.

The White House has insisted that the Palestinians seek statehood not through UN recognition but through direct talks with Israel. "We're going to continue to make the case that direct negotiation is the way that we can have a free and independent Palestinian state and a secure Jewish state of Israel," senior adviser David Plouffe told "Fox News Sunday."

But Abbas has refused to bow, and is insisting on a UN vote on statehood. If he fails - a certainty within the Security Council since the US has veto authority - it could create an uptick in violence in the West Bank, which may be difficult to check. Already on Friday, one Palestinian protester was killed in the euphoria of the moment. On Sunday, protesters provoked Israeli Defense Forces by throwing stones at checkpoints.

Failure at the UN to fulfill pent-up Palestinian dreams could also add to the levels of conflict with Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said worse than actual violence within the West Bank is the overall message behind the PA's pursuit. "They're trying to get a state to continue the conflict with Israel rather than to end it," Netanyahu said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "They are trying to basically detour around peace negotiations by going to the UN"

"This is a very provocative, dangerous step by the Palestinians. It will not lead to peace, it will lead to instability. And it will push us back home in a bipartisan fashion to speak out," added Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican for South Carolina, who said that if the UN were to grant any kind of statehood to the Palestinians - conditional or otherwise - US aid would be jeopardized.

Commissioner Ray Kelly tells CBS' "60 Minutes" that after the September 11 attacks, he decided the city couldn't rely on the federal government alone. He set about creating the NYPD's own counter-terrorism unit. He says the department is prepared for multiple scenarios and could even take down a plane. Kelly didn't divulge details but said "obviously this would be in a very extreme situation."

Other measures include sending NYPD officers abroad, using radiation detectors and creating a network of surveillance cameras in Manhattan. The interview airs Sunday evening. It comes two weeks after the tenth anniversary of 9/11, when hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In a document distributed to the IMF steering committee at the weekend, Ms Lagarde said: "The fund's credibility, and hence effectiveness, rests on its perceived capacity to cope with worst-case scenarios. Our lending capacity of almost $400 billion looks comfortable today, but pales in comparison with the potential financing needs of vulnerable countries and crisis bystanders." The suggestion came after European officials revealed they were working on a radical plan to boost their own bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), from 440 billion euros (384 billion pounds) to around 3 trillion euros.

The plan to increase the EFSF firepower is the crucial part of a three-pronged strategy being designed by German and French authorities to stop the eurozone's debt crisis spiralling out of control. It also includes a large-scale recapitalisation of European banks and a plan for an "orderly" Greek default. Although Britain is not involved in the large-scale eurozone bail-out projects, it is liable for 4.5 per cent of IMF funding.

The governor of the Chinese central bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, said that "the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area needs to be resolved promptly to stabilise market confidence". With Greece facing a debt deadline at the beginning of October, the first priority is to release an 8 billion euros tranche of bail-out money. Ms Lagarde said that the priority of international authorities this week must be "implementation, implementation, implementation" of the bail-out agreement of July 21.

The Chancellor set a deadline of six weeks - when leaders of the G20 group of leading countries will meet for crunch talks in France - for action. He said: 'Patience is running out in the international community. There is a sense from across the leading lights of the eurozone that time is running out for them. The eurozone has six weeks to resolve this political crisis.' Mr Osborne also signalled dramatic plans to prop up Britain's faltering economy, opening the door for a rescue plan that would see the Bank of England lend directly to struggling small businesses.

In other developments:

IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the challenge facing the world 'could not be more urgent';

World markets remained dangerously volatile, with Britain's leading firms seeing 78billion pounds wiped off their value this week;

The G20 insisted it would take necessary steps to try to stop the eurozone crisis spreading;

Debt-laden Greece admitted for the first time that an 'orderly default' was an option;

Economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland predicted that Europe is falling back into recession.

There is a growing expectation in Whitehall that the Bank of England will authorise another emergency injection of cash into the economy with a second round of 'quantitative easing' - essentially, printing money. As much as 300 billion pounds is expected to be flooded into the economy despite the risk that it will push inflation still higher, increasing the cost of living. The IMF boss said, echoing Mr Osborne's refrain about the need for deficit reduction in Britain, 'We are all in this together. There are dark clouds over Europe and huge uncertainty in the US, and with that we could see collapse in global demand.'

As the financial markets fluctuate wildly, from Toronto to Tokyo, nobody could disagree with a syllable of these apocalyptic pronouncements. But how many businesses must go to the wall, how many livelihoods will be destroyed, before those with the power to act match deeds to their sonorous words?

By far the most frightening aspect of the crisis convulsing the West is the lack of urgency displayed by heads of government and the institutions set up to safeguard global financial stability. It's as if they believe that demanding forceful action is the same thing as actually taking it. In the eurozone, there have been endless summits to discuss the catastrophe gripping Greece - and now spreading to other, larger economies. Yet nothing ever comes of them, apart from sticking-plaster loans to delay the inevitable day of reckoning.

Everybody involved - whether Angela Merkel of Germany or Nicolas Sarkozy of France - can see the truth that Athens will never be able to repay its debts. But rather than act upon that fact by arranging for an orderly default, they go on feeding more heroin to the junkie, hoping that if they shut their eyes to the agony it will end of its own accord. Most depressing of all, even mighty America is lumbered with a president in denial, whose only answer to his country's stagnation is to spend yet more money.

Even with the disaster upon us, the political class behaves as if nothing untoward is happening. For proof, look at the pygmies strutting the stage at the Lib Dem conference, faffing on about carbon capture and parental leave while businesses are dying on their feet. What the West desperately needs is leadership with the courage to risk unpopularity - and the vision to see there can be no way out of this crisis while Britain, Europe and America remain saddled with overweight public sectors they can no longer afford.

The hour has come. But where are the men?

Again, they exhort their colleagues to take firm political action, to prevent what is already bad from getting worse. Christine Lagarde, the new IMF boss, says this is a "dangerous phase" and while there is a path to recovery, it is narrower than three years ago. She says the US must repair its broken finances and reduce debt, while balancing that with growth creation.

This feels like a critical moment. Not simply today, nor this week, but the next few months will be a test of political systems in Europe and the US. No one seems to doubt that what is needed is firm political action. "The two other clouds still over us are the European crisis and the deep concern that you can see across the world and around the country about whether the political system in the United States is up to the challenges we face," warned US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

But there is something false about the picture being painted of weak leaders who can't quite summon up the energy to do something. The problem isn't really the lack of political will, it is the lack of political agreement.

The Americans believe that if the world were to tumble back into recession or a prolonged depression, as looks increasingly likely, it would be the euro area to blame. All the hard work done in the US, Britain and other countries in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse three years ago - including the regime of record low interest rates and pumping hundreds of billions of taxpayer pounds into the banks and the economy - will have been wasted.

George Osborne has made clear that he believes the euro is in the last-chance saloon. The crisis which began in Greece in early 2010 has been allowed to fester for too long. What is plain is that at an overnight emergency session of the G20 advanced and leading emerging markets economies here in Washington, the euroland leaders were read the riot act.

They were made to recognise that the falls in share markets around the world, which have impoverished tens of millions of savers and pensioners, are fed by fear for future global prosperity and are not the result of some Anglo-Saxon plot to bring down the single currency. The reality is that months of appalling indecision, driven by some of the mini-countries within the monetary union, had in fact underlined the need for Germany and France to seize the political opportunity to bring the crisis to an end. The final deadline set by the G20 for sorting out the mess is the Cannes G20 summit on the first weekend of November.

Britain cannot divorce itself from events given that up to 80 per cent of our trade is with euro-area nations.

Without a eurowide rescue, the prospects of heading off a prolonged slump - which will devastate every British household and business - will be remote.