The first bomb, in a vehicle parked inside the gate of the local prosecutor's office, went off at about 9:15 am, according to local media reports. A second bomb detonated at 9:30 am at a district government office, and a third bomb, believed to be a car bomb like the first, went off at 9:45 am outside a local office of the State Food and Drug Administration.

Images from the scene in Jiangxi showed huge plumes of smoke rising above multi-storey buildings and crowds of bewildered people milling about outside. The initial suspect in the blasts is a farmer who was unsatisfied with the outcome of a legal case, according to a report from the state-run Xinhua news service.

Such bombings aren't unknown in China. Earlier this month a man lit a barrel filled with gasoline at a bank in the western province of Gansu, injuring 49. Police said the suspect was a disgruntled former employee who had been dismissed for attempted embezzlement.

But despite ruling he was involved in 'savage acts of extreme violence' - including smashing a man's jaw with a pair of pliers - immigration judges said he could not be deported. They said the 46-year-old, who is HIV positive, could himself face torture if he was returned home, having turned his back on Mugabe's Zanu PF regime.

Both he and his wife - who was granted asylum - can stay in Britain indefinitely. Machemedze worked as a bodyguard to a senior Zanu PF minister, as part of Mugabe's feared Central Intelligence Organisation. Court documents exposed the horrendous crimes he committed as a state-sponsored torturer. The tribunal heard he smashed one victim's jaw with a pair of pliers, before pulling out a tooth. Another victim, a farmer accused of supporting the rival Movement for Democratic Change, was shocked with electric cables, slapped, beaten and punched unconscious.

A Home Office spokesman said the Government was 'disappointed' with the ruling and would seek to appeal. He said: 'We consider all asylum applications on their individual merits, however it is the Government's policy that the UK should not be a refuge for war criminals or those who have committed crimes against humanity or genocide. Where someone has been found not to need protection, we expect them to leave voluntarily. For those who choose not to do so, we will seek to enforce their departure.'

And a damning report released at the G8 summit reveals that Britain spends more on aid as a percentage of national income than any other country in the world - while British taxpayers suffer through an age of austerity. Yesterday the Prime Minister announced plans to funnel 110 million pounds of taxpayers' cash to Egypt, Tunisia and Middle Eastern countries over the next four years to develop democracy.

The spending spree is an attempt to promote the so-called Arab Spring in North Africa.

Some 70 million pounds will come from the Department for International Development, which is enjoying budget rises while the rest of Whitehall makes swingeing cuts. The Foreign Office will provide another 40 million pounds. The money will be spent promoting democratic groups, charities and small businesses. Mr Cameron said the payments would protect Britain's national security interests. 'If we can secure greater democracy and freedom in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, that is good for us back at home,' he said at the G8 summit in Deauville, France.'That will mean less extremism, it will mean more peace and prosperity, and it will mean there won't be the pressures of immigration that we might otherwise face in our own country.'

Tory MP Philip Davies said: 'Once again we're the soft touch of the international community. We keep on spending money on foreign aid when we haven't got any money to spend on people at home. Every other country has accepted that spending money at home is better than spending money abroad. It wouldn't be so bad if it was actually the poorest countries we are giving to. But when we're giving hundreds of millions to India, which spends billions on defence and a space programme, it is beyond a joke. We must be stark raving mad.'

Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, said he identified more than $3 billion in mismanagement at NSF, ranging from questionable studies to exorbitant operating costs, and in some cases the agency duplicates the operations of other agencies. At a time when the government is struggling with record deficits, he said the agency is an example of the kinds of spending taxpayers should not tolerate.

"There is little, if any, obvious scientific benefit to some NSF projects, such as a YouTube rap video, a review of event ticket prices on stubhub.com, a 'robot hoedown and rodeo,' or a virtual recreation of the 1964/65 New York World's Fair," Mr Coburn wrote to taxpayers in introducing the 73-page report, which has more than 350 footnotes.

In one instance, he said NSF employees, in their spare time, engaged in a jello-wrestling contest at the agency's McMurdo research station in Antarctica. In another instance, the agency paid $559,681 to test sick shrimps' metabolism, which one researcher said was "the first time that shrimp have been exercised on a treadmill." Mr Coburn's report noted that the researchers found sick shrimp "did not perform as well and did not recover as well from exercise as healthy shrimp."

An NSF spokeswoman said they have a "gold-standard approach to peer review" for the projects they spend money on. "We believe that no other funding agency in the world comes close to NSF for giving taxpayers the best return on their investment."

Air Force Lieutenant General Herbert J Carlisle, deputy chief of staff for operations, said China's rollout earlier this year of a new J-20 stealth fighter, which has made two or three test flights, is very troubling, along with another joint Russian-Indian stealth jet. Both aircraft could be sold to Iran and affect a future US intervention there against Tehran's nuclear program. "Those are discouraging in that they rolled out in a time that we thought there was maybe a little bit more time, although we weren't sure of that," General Carlisle said.

The three-star general's comments echoed earlier comments by Navy Vice Admiral David J Dorsett, a senior intelligence official, who said of the J-20 in January that "we have been pretty consistent in underestimating the delivery of Chinese technology and weapons systems." US military fighters will remain a pace ahead technologically of both the Chinese and Russian stealth jets. But if there are further F-35 delays, "then that pacing is in jeopardy," General Carlisle said.

In unusually candid comments on China's growing military power, General Carlisle said: "You need only look across the Pacific and see what [China] is doing, not just their air force capability, but their surface-to-air [missile] capability, their ballistic missile capability, their anti-ship ballistic missiles," and new missiles that can reach US bases in Guam and Japan. "All of those things are incredibly disturbing to us for the future," General Carlisle said. "And again ...we not only have to be able to defeat those, we have to hold those targets at risk, and that's where these fifth-generation aircraft come in."

In terms of total population, people that reported being of Hispanic origin was 50.5 million people, or 16.3 per cent of the total population of 308 million. The census counts all US residents, whether they are citizens, and if not, whether they are documented or not. "A lot of this population growth is US citizens that were born in the US or are documented," Patricia Foxen, associate director of research at the National Council of La Raza, said. "There is a misunderstanding that the majority of Latinos are undocumented immigrants." More than 73 per cent of Latinos are US citizens, she said.

In spite of the fact that more than half of the Hispanic population is concentrated in three states - California, Florida and Texas - there is newer, significant growth in other areas around the country. "Change is happening on the ground all over the US, in some ways in the less concentrated areas is where the impact - social, economic and every day life impact - is happening," Audrey Singer, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said. One of the key issues about the rapid Hispanic population growth is that it is overwhelmingly young, with more than 17 per cent in the US under 18, according to 2009 data released by the Pew Hispanic Center.

The median age of Hispanics is 27, compared to 41 in the white population, according to the same study.

"OUR NATIONS HAVE ARRIVED AT A PIVOTAL MOMENT ONCE MORE," HE SAID.

Despite the decline of conflict in Iraq, the "reversal of the Taliban's momentum" in Afghanistan and the stabilisation of the global economy there were fresh challenges that required strong British and American leadership, he said. Decrying the "fashionable" view that as countries such as China, India and Brazil rise, the established powers must inevitably suffer, he said: "As more nations take on the responsibilities of global leadership, our alliance will remain indispensable to the goal of a century that is more peaceful, more prosperous and more just."

Demand to hear the first black US president and his famous oratorical skills meant that precedent at Westminster was cast aside. The venue of Parliament's Royal Gallery, used for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, was considered too small. Mr Obama's arrival before an estimated audience of 1,500 in the cavernous hall was heralded by the State Trumpeters. To his left was the current Government, with past prime ministers Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major sharing the front row with David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The president was escorted by the Speaker and Lord Speaker with a degree of ceremony that served as a reminder of a difference between the two countries.

But he called British and American shared leadership "the greatest catalyst for global action", drawing an historical arc from the "beaches of Normandy, to the Balkans to Benghazi" along which both countries had united to protect liberty. "If we fail to meet that responsibility, who would take our place?" Mr Obama asked. "Our action - our leadership - is essential to the cause of human dignity."

Fitch Ratings' downgraded Greece's credit rating on Friday and Standard & Poor's cut its outlook for Italy to "negative" from "stable" on Saturday. S&P's main concern was that any possible restructuring of Greek debt could have contagion effects for other euro zone peripheral countries.

"Spain is back in focus in relation to debt and that is really a concern for the markets - it's weighing on the euro, on risk sentiment in general and on commodities," Danske Bank analyst Christin Tuxen said. The euro fell to a two-month low versus the dollar and a record low against the Swiss franc. The nation's attempts to strengthen its finances through harsh austerity measures in order to appease financial markets has angered voters who are paying the price. Spanish unemployment is 21.3 per cent, the highest in the eurozone.

Sentiment over the eurozone has been hit by recent figures from China showing growth slowing and a lacklustre recovery in the US. Fears of slowing demand has hit commodity prices with oil, copper, silver and gold prices sliding and dragging down mining stocks. "We are slightly cautious on the market over the next three to six months over a lack of clarity over the bigger macro issues such as the European sovereign debt," said Neil Tong, head of UK equities at Alliance Trust.

Youth unemployment is 43 % in Spain. The protestors are demanding a radical overhaul of Spanish politics and society. They've been camping for over a week now and say they have no plans to disperse. As polls closed last night, thousands of people gathered in Barcelona's main square, Plaza Catalunya, erupted in cheers and banged on pots and pans. But they weren't celebrating the election results. They were vowing to continue their protest against a two-party electoral system they believe has allowed corruption to flourish, even as jobs disappear. The protest camp in Barcelona is still standing on Monday.

Last week at a protest camp in front of city hall in Valencia, a 21 year old electrician named Ramon said he'd been looking for work but couldn't find any. "I'm unemployed like most of Spain," he joked. Then he turned serious. "The politicians all use the same slogan: change. But what change? Politicians come and go. We do need a change. Personally I don't know what it should be, but we need it now."

To be sure, these protests are more about venting frustration than proposing solutions. But an out of work construction worker named Antonio said that's because Spain is dominated by two political parties, and young people haven't had a platform for protest until now. "Sometimes," he said, "I ask myself how it is that the people haven't just started looting the stores for food. With the level of unemployment that we have? The hunger? What's going on with us? Have we really been that afraid?" If fear was holding Spain's young people back until now, it is clearly gone.

On a recent night in Madrid's Puerto del Sol square, tens of thousands of protestors drove the point home by chanting, "We're not afraid!" So far the government of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has refused to have police clear the squares… despite a court order to do so. But he may have to take some action soon. Because protestors insist they're not going away.

Shanghai's government promised Thursday that the city's 23 million residents would not face shortages at home, after the city's electricity utility warned that some stores and factories may have to close in the hottest days of summer to limit demand. China's commercial center is scrambling to protect its drinking water from being overly tainted by salinity due to higher tides as the flow of the Yangtze River weakens. Upstream, conditions are worse, as crops wither and both people and livestock run short of drinking water.

The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric complex, has been releasing larger-than-usual flows downstream in an effort to raise water levels brought so low by the lack of rain that inland shipping is being obstructed. As farmers in much of central China's Hubei and Hunan provinces find themselves unable to plant summer crops or keep fish ponds stocked, and with little rain forecast until at least next month, many are abandoning their fields and heading to the cities to seek work, the newspaper China Business News reported Thursday.

More than 3.2 million acres (1.3 million hectares) of farmland have been affected in seven provinces that form China's "rice basket," state media have reported. The government has pledged to boost spending on irrigation and other water works by billions of dollars, but in the long term much of the country is facing chronic water shortages.

Like many other cities, Shanghai often faces power shortages in summer and winter, when demand is high. The supply gap this summer is forecast to hit 1.1 gigawatts. But authorities have warned that in the Yangtze region, the gap could be as high as 40 gigawatts overall. Shanghai is purchasing power from other provinces to help meet demand, but the shortages in those regions are limiting the amount of power available, said a statement posted on the city government website.

Either the richer countries carry on bailing out the poorer ones more or less indefinitely, rather in the manner that Germany subsidises its formerly communist East, or membership of the euro has to be reconstituted on a smaller and more sustainable basis. There's really nothing in between. The longer European policymakers remain in denial about this choice, the worse the situation will become.

So it's with a sense of weary familiarity we approach the latest impasse. The European Central Bank is implacably opposed to debt restructuring, but the eurozone's solvent Northern states have reached the limit of their appetite for further bail-outs. This leaves Greece in an impossible position; it can neither reduce its debt burden through restructuring, nor will anyone lend it more money.

Who knows, maybe this time, the Greek sub-plot really will bring the euro's wider crisis to a head. Greece is apparently unable to agree additional austerity measures so the International Monetary Fund is refusing to release its share of the next 12 billion euros tranche of bail-out funding, or at least not until - and please don't laugh - its eurozone partners commit to more aid for Athens to plug next year's funding gap.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, Greek newspaper reports have it that Prime Minister George Papandreou has threatened to call a referendum on the austerity measures if he cannot secure political agreement. The story has been denied, but it demonstrates how desperate the situation has become. Mr Papandreou is in such a fix that he was thinking of relying on the idea that turkeys really would vote for Christmas.

The nub of the problem is this. The eurozone periphery has in essence been borrowing money from the core to buy the core's goods and services. In order to reduce this external indebtedness, the periphery must now rapidly close both its current account and fiscal deficits. Only then will things come back into balance.

The challenge is not dissimilar to the one faced by the UK, which has also borrowed to spend. Only in the UK, devaluation provides a relatively painless way back to current account surplus and again paying our way in the world. There's no such get out of jail card for the GIPS.

The United States is providing Pakistan about $3 billion a year - 10 times more aid than in Yemen - for an alliance that at best appears half-hearted. President Barack Obama acknowledged imperfect alliances in the Middle East during a speech on Wednesday before the British parliament. "We must squarely acknowledge that, yes, we have enduring interests in the region - to fight terror, sometimes with partners who may not be perfect," Obama said.

Earlier in the day he called on Saleh to "move immediately on his commitment to transfer power. But Saleh, in a Reuters interview on Wednesday, said he would not bow to international "dictates" to step down. Saleh, in power for three decades, was until recently seen as a crucial US ally who allowed US forces to conduct clandestine operations, including unmanned aerial drone strikes, against al Qaeda's local offshoot - al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.

Continued violence Wednesday in Sanaa reinforced fears that Yemen could become a failed state like Somalia, and on the doorstep of Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter. More than 40 percent of Yemenis live on less than $2 a day, while a third face chronic hunger.

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde announced she was standing for the post on the eve of the G8 summit, after securing the unanimous backing of the 27-nation European Union and, diplomats said, support from the United States and China.

"I think on the sidelines the G8 leaders will debate this question, even if Madame Lagarde will probably be the best candidate," Russia's envoy to France told Reuters, adding he did not believe his country would have any objections to her. "But the question," ambassador Alexander Orlov added, "is whether western Europe should always be heading up this institution and why can't other countries, notably the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), have their own candidate?"

The IMF has promised a meritocratic process to replace Strauss-Kahn, a Socialist ex-finance minister who was favourite to defeat Sarkozy in a French presidential election next year. It has set a June 30 deadline to pick a successor to the post, which has been held by a European since 1945.

Overnight violence in Yemen, one of several Arab states where veteran rulers have faced unprecedented popular uprisings, may also get attention - the United States, a key sponsor of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, ordered all but essential diplomatic staff to leave the country as clashes intensified.

Officials from the G8 - the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia - had held preparatory talks on Wednesday in the seaside resort of Deauville to hammer out common positions on issues ranging from the world economy to Libya's civil war, Iran's nuclear goals and unrest in Syria.

Hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the summit runs until Friday. It is expected to approve a multi-billion-dollar aid package for Tunisia and Egypt, after "Arab Spring" uprisings deposed their autocratic leaders, and to seal an agreement to back others in the region who want democracy. Protests against other allies of the West, notably in the oil-rich Gulf, are, however, unlikely to win clear assistance.

"We share a compelling interest in seeing the transitions in Egypt and Tunisia succeed and become models for the region," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote in a letter to the G8 on Wednesday. "Otherwise, we risk losing this moment of opportunity."

Wednesday's storms followed a deadly outbreak Tuesday in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas that killed at least 15 people. The nation's deadliest single tornado since 1950 killed 125 on Sunday in the southwest Missouri city of Joplin. Heavy rain, hail and lightning pounded Memphis on Wednesday night as a tornado warning sounded. Menacing clouds showed some rotation, but there were no confirmed reports of tornadoes touching down.

A violent storm system on Tuesday killed at least 14 people in Oklahoma and Arkansas as rescue crews in Missouri continued to find survivors left in the rubble after a fierce tornado ripped through the city of Joplin on Sunday, killing at least 122 people and injuring 750 others. The National Weather Service said the tornado appeared to have more than one vortex and gave the tornado an EF5 rating, the strongest assigned to tornadoes, with winds of more than 200 mph.