In comparison, 27 percent of California's 6.2 million students identified themselves as white, 9 percent as Asian and 7 percent as black. Students calling themselves Filipino, Pacific Islander, Native American or other total almost 7 percent. While the result was no surprise to educators, experts say the shift underscores the huge impact Latinos already have on California's politics, economy and school system.

That influence will only grow as Latino parents - now in the majority - realize many of the schools their children attend are underfunded, said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley. "It turns upside down how we think about California students," he said.

"A lot depends on the extent to which Latino parents come together and organize," Fuller added. "These are parents who historically have not had much political power. But as they are coming together and feeling their oats, they may organize around education."

German union umbrella group DGB, which organized the demonstrations, said nearly 100,000 people had marched in Stuttgart, Dortmund, Nuremberg and Erfurt, voicing their displeasure with Merkel's coalition for offloading the costs of the financial crisis. "We don't want a republic in which powerful interest groups decide the guidelines of politics with their money, their power and their influence," Berthold Huber, head of IG Metall, Germany's largest trade union, told demonstrators in Stuttgart.

He demanded higher wages and the introduction of a mandatory minimum wage to give workers a share in Germany's economic upswing, which is outpacing those of its European partners.

In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five "responsibility deal" networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month.

The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises. Working alongside them are public interest health and consumer groups including Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health. The alcohol responsibility deal network is chaired by the head of the lobby group the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. The food network to tackle diet and health problems includes processed food manufacturers, fast food companies, and Compass, the catering company famously pilloried by Jamie Oliver for its school menus of turkey twizzlers. The food deal's sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, owner of Walkers crisps.

The leading supermarkets are an equally strong presence, while the responsibility deal's physical activity group is chaired by the Fitness Industry Association, which is the lobby group for private gyms and personal trainers.

Jeanette Longfield, head of the food campaign group Sustain, said: "This is the equivalent of putting the tobacco industry in charge of smoke-free spaces. We know this 'let's all get round the table approach' doesn't work, because we've all tried it before, including the last Conservative government. This isn't 'big society', it's big business."

Dublin says there are no talks on an application for emergency EU funding. A spokesman for Ireland's department of finance said the country was funded until the middle of 2011, the public-service RTE broadcaster reported. RTE had earlier said talks had been held on how a bail-out might happen in a theoretical worst-case scenario. The European Commission would not formally comment on the matter.

Eurozone officials told the Reuters news agency on Friday that discussions were under way, with one saying that it was "very likely" Ireland would receive financial assistance. The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, said on Saturday that it had not been asked for aid. "So far I have not had a request, and I think Ireland can manage well," he told reporters at the Apec summit in Yokohama.

The IMF and EU had to step in with a 110 billion euros bailout package for Greece in May, sparking a Europe-wide sovereign debt crisis.

The settlement row threatens to derail direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which resumed in the US in September after a break of almost 20 months. Israel and the US have not commented on the details of the plan. It was discussed when US secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on Thursday, BBC State Department correspondent Kim Ghattas says.

According to the diplomatic sources, the plan includes a US pledge not to seek any extension to the settlement building freeze beyond 90 days. In return, Washington reportedly offered Israel various security guarantees and commits itself to fighting international resolutions critical of Israel.

Last month, Mr Netanyahu offered to renew the freeze if the Palestinians recognised Israel as a Jewish state, but the Palestinian leadership dismissed the proposal as unfair. Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

The academics praised the Coalition for ditching ID cards and some state databases but they identified a string of threats including:

- Social networking sites that have 'exponentially' increased their holdings of personal data

- Body scanners at airports that invite 'voyeuristic opportunism'

- Automatic numberplate recognition cameras

- CCTV cameras in schools that measure teacher performance

- Aerial police drones that are 'more pervasive than CCTV'

- GPS devices that can track the movements of staff such as cleaners to within a few yards

- Software that allows users to track their friends but which could be hacked by outsiders

- Databases that sort individuals by their ethnicity or social class.

The network's last report - in 2006 - warned that Britain was sleepwalking into a surveillance society. Yesterday it raised the alarm over surreptitious and unaccountable surveillance practices and weak legal protections. 'Much surveillance also goes beyond the limits of what is tolerable in a society based on the rule of law and human rights, one of which is the right to privacy', the report said. 'Some technologies have gone from being a subject of speculation to being in mainstream use in many different areas'.

The Dorset women were last week hailed by the BBC as figureheads of 'a reinvented religion', as the corporation's news channel devoted considerable airtime to the festival. At the same time, it emerged that the Metropolitan Police has produced a diversity handbook offering advice on handling witches and pagans.

Officers are advised not to panic if they encounter a blindfolded person in the nude with their hands tied together. The book reassures them: 'This is in accordance with ritual and has the full consent of the participant. The police are also told to avoid touching a witch's Book of Shadows, or spellbook, and not to handle the ceremonial dagger known as an athame. But it's not only the BBC and the police getting clued up. Druidism has just been given official recognition as a religion by the Charity Commission - with the tax exemptions and other 'rights' that follow.

Jailed druids are now allowed to take twigs, or 'magic wands', into their prison cells, and are being given official days off prison work to worship the sun. Critics say that this growing acceptance of primitive beliefs as a new faith undermines our social values. Mike Judge, spokesman for the Christian Institute, says: 'The BBC down-plays Christianity and up-plays paganism which is unreflective of British society. It creates an atmosphere where it's OK to marginalise Christians.'

He adds: 'When it comes to granting pagans rights, this is surely a case of political correctness gone mad.'

Full story - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1328968/Pagans-march--harmless-eccentrics-dangerous-cult.html

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble castigated investors who fear that Ireland may become the first euro zone country to default, saying they had failed to understand European Union support mechanisms that a country could call on. "It is up to every EU country to apply for help, if they need it," he told a press conference on Friday in Seoul. So far Ireland has not requested financial aid, the European Union said on Thursday.

Europe's latest round of sovereign debt jitters has forced its way onto the agenda of leaders and policymakers gathered in South Korea for the summit, which wraps up later on Friday. "I spent a bunch of time, and I'm sure other ministers did, talking about developments in Europe. But that's what you'd expect," a senior US official said, in response to a question about Ireland.

Dublin's fiscal woes have been triggered by concerns that it will need to spend more to rescue its stricken banking system in a move that has already driven its budget deficit to 32 percent of gross domestic product.

Hopes had been high that the Group of 20, which includes wealthy nations like Germany and the US and rising giants like China, could be a forum to forge a lasting global economic recovery. Yet so far, G-20 countries haven't agreed on an agenda, let alone solutions to the problems that divide them. G-20 leaders were expected to issue a communique detailing results of the summit on Friday.

The delegates have clashed in particular over the value of their currencies. Some countries, like the United States, want China to let the value of its currency, the yuan, rise. That would make Chinese exports costlier abroad and make US imports cheaper for the Chinese to buy. It would shrink the United States' trade deficit with China, which is on track this year to match its 2008 record of $268 billion.

But other countries are irate over the Federal Reserve's plans to pump $600 billion into the sluggish American economy. They see that move as a reckless and selfish scheme to flood markets with dollars, driving down the value of the US currency and giving American exporters an advantage. Richard Portes, president of the Center for Economic Policy Research in London, said the dim prospect for a substantive agreement "is very dangerous for the world economy." Portes said he fears "the possibility that currency wars and global imbalances might lead to severe trade protectionism over the next year or so."

Ministers will then be able to make the change by passing an act of parliament. The measure is likely to be fiercely opposed by Conservative eurosceptics. Under the terms of the bill, published on Thursday, ministers will only be able to avoid a referendum by saying a change is insignificant where EU institutions are given powers to impose fresh obligations or sanctions on the UK.

Broader changes will have to be put to a public vote. The minister's ruling could be challenged in the courts, and the government says it has no plans to transfer sovereignty or powers to the EU in this parliament. The measure is likely to cause alarm among Conservative eurosceptics, who will point to the commitment in the coalition agreement to subject any future transfers of power to a "referendum lock".

The Conservative chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee Bill Cash has opened an inquiry. Mr Cash said: "This bill is of historic significance and is the most important constitutional bill affecting the relationship between the UK parliament and the EU since the European Communities Act 1972."

Last November in a speech on Europe made while leader of the opposition David Cameron said: "Never again should it be possible for a British government to transfer power to the EU without the say of the British people."

MPs will get an opportunity to raise their concerns when the bill has its second reading in the House of Commons.

CHINA VERSUS THE US - There are several main elements, two of them fairly new, but the first is a long-standing one. It has been through several phases and during the financial crisis, China went back to keeping the yuan from rising. Why the Chinese reluctance to allow the yuan to rise much? A fear of job losses among export industries that would be made less competitive. The rise against the dollar has not been enough to satisfy the US, where there is a long standing complaint that China manipulates its currency to gain an unfair advantage. The cry is: "It costs American jobs."

US ECONOMIC POLICY - Many in the US complain about China, but are their hands entirely clean? Some in the rest of the world say not. The dollar has fallen sharply in recent months, because interest rates are low, so investors have been seeking higher returns in emerging economies. They need to buy the currency of the country concerned to make those investments. That tends to push its value up, while the dollar, which they are selling, tends to fall.

The weak dollar has an advantage for the US - it's that competitiveness issue again. It should help American exporters. The US has a large trade deficit, so more exports could help fix that. Some even argue that the Fed's policies are actually intended to weaken the dollar and help the US economy recover by exporting more.

EMERGING ECONOMIES - The Fed's policies have led to a wave of money-seeking opportunities in the emerging economies. That tends to push their currencies up, undermining their competitiveness. There is also the risk of bubbles in financial and property markets. And capital inflows can go into reverse - as they did in the Asian crisis in the 1990s. So the third element in the currency "war" is the resistance of emerging economies, and some developed ones too. Brazil and Thailand have used tax measures to slow the inflows. Japan, South Korea and others have intervened in the currency markets, buying foreign currency in an attempt to interrupt the rise of their own.

ECONOMIC IMBALANCES - The currency war is closely linked with another theme that has been troubling many economists for several years, that of global economic imbalances. In international terms, it is trade that is unbalanced. Actually, the thing that is most often the focus is the "current account balance", which means trade in goods and services plus some financial items, including remittances that migrant workers send home.

Usually, though, trade is responsible for most of the current account imbalance.

Some countries have large trade surpluses, notably China, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Russia. The big deficit country is the United States. Some countries at the eye of the European storm have hefty deficits too - Greece, Portugal and Spain. Britain also has a deficit, although as a share of national income, it is not all that large. The other side of international imbalances is high savings at home with a surplus country such as China, and relatively low savings in a deficit country such as the US.

Household savings have risen in the US, the UK and other deficit countries, because consumers are borrowing less in the wake of the financial crisis. But international imbalances also reflect how much governments borrow and in many deficit countries that has risen, partly offsetting the increase in private savings. Why does all this matter? Those countries where saving has risen desperately want to export more. They want to sell more abroad to make up for consumers at home drawing in their horns.

That is true of the US, Britain and many others. They could do that more easily if consumers in China and the other surplus countries were willing to buy more imported goods.

Earlier this year, then German President Horst Kohler provoked a storm of controversy when he said that MILITARY DEPLOYMENTS WERE NECESSARY TO PROTECT GERMAN ECONOMIC INTERESTS. His remarks, made during a trip to Afghanistan, triggered consternation and sharp criticism in the media. Ultimately, he resigned as a result. Now German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has echoed those sentiments.

Speaking at a security conference in Berlin on Tuesday, Guttenberg said that GERMANY SHOULD BE PREPARED TO USE ITS MILITARY TO SECURE TRADE ROUTES, for example against piracy. "We in our country must really do something to articulate the relationship between regional security and economic interests without coming to deadlock," Guttenberg said. COMMENTING ON KOHLER'S DECISION TO STEP DOWN IN MAY, THE MINISTER SAID: "I ASK MYSELF TO THIS DAY WHAT WAS SO AUDACIOUS ABOUT HIS COMMENTS."

Piracy around the Horn of Africa has posed a threat to the commercial interests of many nations, including Germany. Guttenberg described this as "not just a side note, but a serious challenge to our economic performance, one to be taken seriously."

The plan concocted by South Korean organizers of the G-20 summit is cunning. Anything negotiators fail to agree on before the start of the actual G-20 summit on Thursday night in Seoul will be left off the table when the world leaders assemble. Anything! But please don't be upset. This summit, after all, is the first of its kind in an Asian country, and from a South Korean perspective it needs to be a major success. For now, though, success looks very far off.

The global leaders are expected to finally pave the way for new equity capital rules for banks through the Basel III proposal and the reform of the International Monetary Fund. But the progress in the financial market regulations and the staged harmony won't be able to cover over the fact that a shadow is hanging over this summit.

At the height of the financial crisis, this club of the most powerful industrialized nations presented itself as a body that would close ranks and react swiftly to distortions in world markets. Now that the economy has recovered in many areas, though, the pressure to cooperate is sinking and egoism seems on the rise. Instead of unity and resolve, the order of the day is distrust and bickering. Disputes over issues like global disparities in trade balances, or alleged currency manipulation, or unfair competitive advantages have marked this year's summit, and at the heart of the conflict are the United States, China and Germany.

"If they don't consume, and they just bet on exports, the world will go into bankruptcy," he told reporters as leaders at the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations headed into a two-day summit in the South Korean capital.

He also called for continued dialogue between Christians and Muslims and said this should be accompanied by mutual recognition of "the freedom to practice one's religion in private and in public." The 83-year-old pontiff also praised Christians who stood up to their persecutors. "I express my gratitude to all the Christian Churches who do not capitulate before obstacles and persecutions because of the Gospel," he said.

The comments, contained in Benedict's written conclusions to a 2008 Synod of bishops in Rome, follow the recent targeting of Christians in attacks in Baghdad. Forty-four Christian worshippers and two priests were killed in an attack on a church service in Baghdad by Islamist gunmen on October 31 and the ensuing shootout when it was stormed by troops, while bombings killed six people and wounded 33 this week.

"All religions should encourage the correct use of reason and promote ethical values to build civil coexistence," Benedict said. "Religions can never justify intolerance and war." He called on political leaders to "guarantee to all the freedom of conscience and religion, and of being able to bear public witness to their own faith."