Saudi Arabia pumps about 9 million barrels of crude oil a day, or one-ninth of world production. The kingdom is the only oil exporter with what is known as swing capacity, or the ability to single-handedly offset the loss of production in any other OPEC country, thereby temporarily stabilizing the oil price.

In addition, Saudi Arabia, a state that is a few years younger than its geriatric king, is on the verge of a major dynastic change. Until now, all of the men who have ruled the country since the death of its founder Ibn Saud in 1953 have been his sons. Even the youngest of those sons is now 65. It is only a question of time before the line of succession goes to the second generation - and a question of which of the roughly 20 sons still alive has enough power to turn his own sons into kings.

What, then, happens if the revolutionary virus infects Saudi Arabia? Is this even a realistic threat? Despite its pre-modern, antiquated system of government, the kingdom is considered to be one of the most stable countries in the Arab world. The overwhelming majority of the population is strongly influenced by tribal loyalties that have developed over centuries, and by a deeply conservative worldview derived from WAHHABISM, ONE OF THE STRICTEST SCHOOLS OF ISLAM. So far, the leadership has allowed no more modernization than the bare minimum that is required for the state to function. It is mainly the half of the population without rights that suffers as a result, namely women.

Jeddah and Riyadh are home to just as many young people who are keen to enjoy life as Tunis and Cairo. They are equally avid tweeters and share their experiences on Facebook just as enthusiastically as their Egyptian and Tunisian contemporaries. And, as in much of the Arab world, Saudi Arabia's leadership is remarkably old compared with its young population. The average age of a cabinet minister in Riyadh is 65.

Corruption among the elite is also rampant in Saudi Arabia. The excesses of the Saudi royal family, which has grown to include almost 7,000 members, are less visible under Abdullah's reign than under that of his flamboyant predecessor King Fahd. Nevertheless, no young, politically interested Saudi Arabian can fail to notice that every car dealership, every gas station and every five-star hotel is a source of income for at least one member of the royal family.

Some of the frustrations that led to the undoing of former Tunisian President Ben Ali and former Egyptian President Mubarak could have an even more drastic impact in Saudi Arabia's comparatively affluent society. It is precisely because young Saudis are relatively well educated, mobile and have widespread access to Western television and the Internet that MANY PERCEIVE UNEMPLOYMENT AND THE BIGOTRY AND NARROW FOCUS OF THE WAHHABI REGIME AS PARTICULARLY OPPRESSIVE.

Even in Saudi Arabia, blessed as it is with prosperity, the first signs of protest are now emerging. Last week, several hundred dissatisfied Shiites took to the streets near the city of Qatif, and in Riyadh 40 intellectuals presented the king with an open letter demanding political reforms. The first revolutionary Facebook pages have already appeared, with one of them openly calling for the overthrow of the regime and a "Revolution of Longing" to begin on March 11.

The figures came as the US government recalculated its data on foreign holdings of US securities from June 2010. Chinese-held Treasuries have fallen since hitting a high of $1.18 trillion in October, under the revised figures. Japan remained by far the second largest holder of US government debt, with $882 billion in December, around $1.3 billion less than original estimates. Britain was third at $272.1 billion.

AeroVironment has a history of developing such aircraft. Besides the hummingbird, engineers in the growing unmanned aircraft industry are working on drones that look like insects and the helicopter-like maple leaf seed. Researchers are even exploring ways to implant surveillance and other equipment into an insect as it is undergoing metamorphosis. They want to be able to control the creature.

The devices could end up being used by police officers and firefighters. Their potential use outside of battle zones, however, is raising questions about privacy and the dangers of the winged creatures buzzing around in the same skies as aircraft.

With a 6.5 inch wing span, the remote-controlled bird weighs less than a AA battery and can fly at speeds of up to 11 mph, propelled only by the flapping of its two wings. A tiny video camera sits in its belly. The bird can climb and descend vertically, fly sideways, forward and backward. It can rotate clockwise and counterclockwise. Most of all it can hover and perch on a window ledge while it gathers intelligence, unbeknownst to the enemy.

The Pentagon asked them to develop a pocket-sized aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance that mimicked biology. It could be anything, they said, from a dragonfly to a hummingbird. Five years and $4 million later, the company has developed what it calls the world's first hummingbird spy plane. "It was very daunting up front and remained that way for quite some time into the project," he said, after the drone flew by his head and landed on his hand during a media demonstration.

"We must not tolerate this regime using military force against its own people," David Cameron, UK prime minister, said. "In that context I have asked the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Defence Staff to work with our allies on plans for a military no-fly zone." Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, at a UN meeting in Geneva, said: "Nothing is off the table so long as the Libyan government continues to threaten and kill Libyans." She added she had discussed a no-fly zone with other foreign ministers.

She insisted the naval deployments did not signal pending military action, emphasising instead that refugees might need to be rescued at sea amid a worsening humanitarian crisis. According to Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, US military planners are working on "various contingency plans... [and] repositioning forces to be able to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made".

Colonel Gaddafi's enemies fear his ability to dig in and threaten cities that have already fallen to rebel forces. There were reports Monday that the Libyan airforce had bombed an arms depot in territory held by anti-regime forces in the country's eastern region. In a defiant interview, Colonel Gaddafi told the BBC that "all my people love me" and are prepared to die for him.

Some western diplomats suggested a no fly-zone could be imposed by a coalition of nations outside the Nato remit. US officials emphasise that co-operation with Britain and France would be particularly important, but Germany has signalled deep reluctance about any military intervention

A report from the nonpartisan GAO, to be released Tuesday, compiles a list of redundant and potentially ineffective federal programs, and it could serve as a template for lawmakers in both parties as they move to cut federal spending and consolidate programs to reduce the deficit. Senator Tom Coburn (Repbulican for Oklahoma), who pushed for the report, estimated it identifies between $100 billion and $200 billion in duplicative spending. The GAO didn't put a specific figure on the spending overlap.

The agency found 82 federal programs to improve teacher quality; 80 to help disadvantaged people with transportation; 47 for job training and employment; and 56 to help people understand finances, according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The report says there are 18 federal programs that spent a combined $62.5 billion in 2008 on food and nutrition assistance, but little is known about the effectiveness of 11 of these programs because they haven't been well studied.

On teacher quality, the report identified 82 programs that often have similar descriptions and goals and are spread across 10 federal agencies, including the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Nine of these programs are linked to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Fifty-three of the programs are relatively small, receiving $50 million or less, "and many have their own separate administrative processes."

The GAO highlighted 80 different economic development programs at the Department of Commerce, HUD, Department of Agriculture and Small Business Administration, that spent a combined $6.5 billion last year and often overlapped. For example, the four agencies combined to have 52 different programs that fund "entrepreneurial efforts," 35 programs for infrastructure, and 26 programs for telecommunications. It said 60% of the programs fund only one or two activities, making them "the most likely to overlap because many of them can only fund the same limited types of activities."

The GAO study was required by a provision inserted by Senator Coburn into a law that raised the federal borrowing limit last year. This report is the first produced in response to the provision.

The magnitude 4.7 earthquake hit just after 11 pm Sunday, and was felt for hundreds of miles. This biggest one yet has everyone wondering what's next and what's causing all the quakes. Reports to the US Geological Survey show the 4.7 magnitude quake caused moderate to light shaking across the Natural State and parts of four others.

"You could feel it rumbling and then a real good jolt. It'll rumble again then another good jolt, and they were pretty firm jolts," said Arkansas resident Stephen Dunn. The phone calls and e-mail messages poured into the KY3 newsroom. "The faults themselves are really ancient there, so there's a potential for actually just having those faults being reactivated naturally," said MSU Associate Professor of Geology Kevin Evans.

Police fired rubber bullets at demonstrators, who then set on fire several government buildings, including a police station. In response, Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said ordered the creation of 50,000 jobs and a grant of nearly $400 a month for every person who seeks employment. However, violence has escalated as demonstrators demand government reform in the country, where political parties are banned. They torched an official government residence, homes and a supermarket.

Oman, located on the Arabian Peninsula, shares with Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, where nearly half of the world's oil tankers sail. Unrest is rare in Oman, which is considered one of the more tranquil Moslem countries. Journalist Jackie Spinner, who was in the city of Sohar where the protests broke out, told Al Jazeera, "Most of the Omanis that I've talked to have said they haven't seen anything like this in the last four decades ... they have not seen this level of anger, or any widespread demonstrations against the government, in the past 40 years."

Middle East observers - and investors - are keeping a sharp eye on Saudi Arabia, where "Day of Rage" protests are scheduled on March 11 and March 20 to demand reforms.

Instability in the already volatile oil-producing Middle East could produce a feedback loop where unrest pushes up energy prices, fuelling inflation and deepening discontent both in the region and around the world. In most countries, the so-called "misery index" - an aggregation of unemployment and inflation long seen as a warning of protest and instability - is pushing higher.

"After an extended period of economic growth and political apathy across the developed and emerging worlds, we may have reached a new political cycle - one where populations take out their grievances on their leaders and their associates," wrote Citi political analyst Tina Fordham. "This won't be limited to the emerging world." In democracies, elections provide a release valve - Ireland has seen some of the worst post-crisis economic pain but minimal unrest in part because voters knew they could oust the government they blame for the crisis in elections this weekend.

But Greece, Britain and others have seen anger expressed in the streets as their governments push through austerity measures, arguing they have little choice but to rein in unsustainable deficits even if it means cutting services, pay and benefits. Most analysts agree North Africa's demographic "youth bulge", relatively high unemployment, long-serving leaders and recent Internet penetration made it particularly volatile. But strains are clearly visible elsewhere.

Almost without exception, authoritarian states around the world appear to have seen at least a modest uptick in protest following the ousting of presidents in Egypt and Tunisia. Even China, whose breakneck growth has long been seen as limiting discontent, has blocked terms such as "Egypt" on social networking sites and stepped-up arrests at small demonstrations. "Two crises are happening at the same time - which is unprecedented I think," said Joel Hirst, International affairs fellow at the US-based Council for Foreign Relations. "An economic disaster and 'readjustment' of the developed world while the developing world fights for their freedoms. Add in there the oil/energy price, which could be seen as the link between the two, and it makes for a perfect storm."

"This is indeed a Year of Living Dangerously," said Citi's Fordham.

The metal is being taken to feed a global market where demand in developing countries such as China and India has sent prices soaring to record levels. It is used in a vast number of areas, including telecoms, power generation, computers and household goods. The cost of the disruption to the UK economy has more than doubled to 770 million pounds in the past year.

A record 325 thefts were reported last month and even if this rate remained stable, there would be a total of 3,900 cable snatches in 2011 compared to 2,770 last year - an increase of more than 40 per cent. There has already been a 65 per cent increase from 2009 to 2010. Chief superintendent Eamonn Carroll, of British Transport Police, said: 'Cable theft is the next biggest priority after the terrorist threat. The disruption and the problems it can cause are immense.' The thefts are often carried out by organised gangs who use power tools to cut out sections of the valuable metal.

Copper prices have risen 41 per cent in the past 12 months and a ton now costs a record 6,328 pounds on the London Metal Exchange. It is expected to hit more than 6,800 pounds by the end of the year.

This is partly down to a steep rise in the cost of chicken feed. It is 70 per cent wheat and about 12.5 per cent soya and makes up 60 per cent of the cost of producing eggs. Prices rose by 70 per cent last year after Russia introduced an export ban on homegrown wheat after a series of droughts.

Poultry farmers are also being forced to end the practice of rearing hens in battery cages, ahead of an EU ban that comes into force in 2012, and are required to use only non-GM feed by supermarkets. These factors mean producing eggs costs more. Supermarkets are now passing the rising prices on to customers and many own-brand eggs cost 30p each.

The increased prices come at a time when consumers are facing the biggest squeeze on living standards in 90 years, caused in part by the VAT rise which was introduced last month. A study by the British Retail Consortium found that the rise in food prices between December 2010 and January this year was the biggest monthly increase in two years.

And the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has said that global food price rises are running at a record high, partly due to growing demand for meat from Asia and the Middle East.

Here in a nutshell are some of the reasons why people are beginning to wake up to the horrific downside of the wind business. And since I began writing about wind turbines nine years ago, I have come to see how the case for them rests on THREE GREAT LIES.

THE FIRST is the pretence that turbines are anything other than ludicrously inefficient. The most glaring dishonesty peddled by the wind industry - and echoed by gullible politicians - is vastly to exaggerate the output of turbines by deliberately talking about them only in terms of their 'capacity', as if this was what they actually produce. Rather, it is the total amount of power they have the capability of producing.The point about wind, of course, is that it is constantly varying in speed, so that the output of turbines averages out at barely a quarter of their capacity. This means that the 1,000 megawatts all those 3,500 turbines sited around the country feed on average into the grid is derisory: no more than the output of a single, medium-sized conventional power station.

THE SECOND GREAT LIE about wind power is the pretence that it is not a preposterously expensive way to produce electricity. No one would dream of building wind turbines unless they were guaranteed a huge government subsidy. What other industry gets a public subsidy equivalent to 100 or even 200 per cent of the value of what it produces?

THE THIRD GREAT LIE of the wind propagandists is that this industry is somehow making a vital contribution to 'saving the planet' by cutting our emissions of CO2. Even if you believe that curbing our use of fossil fuels could change the Earth's climate, the CO2 reduction achieved by wind turbines is so insignificant that one large windfarm saves considerably less in a year than is given off over the same period by a single jumbo jet flying daily between Britain and America.

This guidance, intended for all doctors, nurses and counsellors advising women contemplating having an abortion, said such women should be told that terminating a pregnancy was safer than having a baby. To which one can only ask: safer for whom, precisely? NOT FOR THE BABY, CERTAINLY.

This is not meant to be a flip comment. For the point is that these doctors seemed to have totally lost sight of some basic humanity here. It is dismaying indeed - even if not altogether surprising - that even doctors specialising in bringing babies into the world have succumbed to this savage reductionism.

Abortion is - or should be seen as - at best, a necessary evil. Some religious people, of course, do not accept even that. They regard abortion simply as the killing of the unborn and a crime against humanity and the Almighty. This is by no stretch of the imagination a medical agenda but an ideological one - and a terrifyingly inhuman one at that. It appears that, taken aback by the ferocity of the reaction to this guidance, the Royal College is now having second thoughts about the wording.

But the question remains how doctors can have lost their ethical compass so badly that they dehumanise life in this way, and dress up as 'treatment' the manipulation of fragile patients. The answer is that medicine itself has been progressively brutalised under the impact of abortion.

In 1948, in the wake of the atrocities of the Nazi period, doctors subscribed to a professional oath enshrined in the Declaration of Geneva which contained this clause: 'I will have the utmost respect for human life, FROM THE TIME OF CONCEPTION. By 1984, however, the last five words had been altered to read 'FROM ITS BEGINNING' - and, in 2005, THEY WERE DELETED ALTOGETHER. The beginning of life had been written out of the world's medical ethical script as just too inconvenient.

Should policymakers focus on headline inflation rates or strip out volatile food and energy prices? Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke can expect questions on both topics when he delivers his twice-yearly testimony to Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A day later, the ECB holds its policy-setting meeting and will have to judge whether oil prices pose an immediate threat when year-over-year inflation is already above its target. Economists widely expect the ECB to hold rates steady, but they will be hanging on President Jean-Claude Trichet's every word for clues on whether he is leaning toward a hike soon.

Nigel Gault, chief US economist with IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, said persistently high oil prices would curb consumer spending and drive up the still-lofty jobless rate - which would make the Fed less inclined to raise interest rates. "The inflation-phobic European Central Bank might react differently, which may explain why the euro has been rising in recent days," Gault said. Indeed, back in mid-2008, when oil prices briefly approached $150 a barrel, the ECB raised rates while the Fed held steady.

In his testimony, Bernanke will probably give Congress an economic assessment that sticks closely to his recent comments that the recovery is strengthening but still not enough to bring about a significant improvement in the job market. If the parties cannot agree on a spending bill by Friday, the federal government will run out of money for nonessential operations and be forced to close.

Farrakhan also called on President Barack Obama to allow protesters to march, urging the president not to attack innocent people when they do. The controversial minster spoke to a packed house at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont as part of the 81st annual celebration of Saviours' Day, which marks the birth of the faith's founder, W. Fard Muhammad.

The keynote address, titled "God will send saviours," capped a weekend of workshops focused on health, preparing for natural disasters and unidentified flying objects. The Nation of Islam believes in a UFO called "the wheel" or "the Mother Plane." Farrakhan has described a 1985 religious experience in which he ascended into a flying saucer and heard the voice of Elijah Muhammad predicting historical events that came to pass.

For about four hours, Farrakhan spoke and jumped from topic to topic, citing religious texts. He praised Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard.

However, on Sunday, the Saudi stock market fell 5% after 119 academics, activists and businessmen wrote an open letter to the king demanding reform. The Tadawul all-share index has fallen a cumulative 10% in the last two weeks to its lowest level in six months, prompting some Saudi investors to call on the government to intervene to steady the market, or even to close it.

The news comes as the Egyptian stock exchange is set to reopen on Tuesday after a month-long closure due to the popular uprising there, although protestors continued to gather outside the stock exchange building intent on forcing another delay. The letter to the Saudi king complained about the prevalence of corruption and nepotism and a widening gap between state and society. Meanwhile a Facebook site calling for a "day of rage" in Saudi Arabia on 11 March has seen its number of subscribers increase from 400 to 12,000 in recent days.

Analysts fear the kingdom may face the same volatile generational schism that has affected Egypt and elsewhere. Two-thirds of the Saudi population is aged under 30. Youth unemployment is about three times the national average and there is an 18-year waiting list for government-provided housing. The threat of protests has already wrung concessions from the 87-year-old King Abdullah, who only recently returned from three months of medical treatment in the US.