The country's own debt agency described the analysis as "flawed". It claimed that S&P's outlook was based on an "extreme and unrealistic" scenario of the cost of recapitalising the banks and questioned its calculations. S&P cut the rating one step from AA to AA-, its lowest since 1995.

This follows clearance earlier this month for an additional injection of 10 billion euros into Anglo Irish Bank. The agency now forecasts that net government debt - the sum of all borrowing - will rise to 113% of GDP in 2010. That would be a substantial increase on the 64% level recorded in 2009. It would also make it one of the highest in the eurozone and well above its projections for Spain (65%) and Belgium (98%).

The rating could be cut again if the costs of the bail-out rise or the economic recovery becomes more sluggish, S&P warned.

The jab is being offered to girls between 12 and 18 as part of a nationwide programme designed to protect them against the sexually transmitted HPV virus, which causes 70 per cent of cervical tumours. Opponents have argued that giving girls the jab and protecting them against a sexually transmitted infection before they are even teenagers is giving them the go-ahead to experiment sexually.

Norman Wells, director of Family and Youth Concern, said: 'Giving the vaccination to girls without the consent of their parents is unethical and a recipe for disaster. It is sending out the message that girls under 16 have a right to a private sex life and is treating parents with contempt.'

The Department of Health confirmed that parental consent was desirable but not essential.

While Beck billed his event as nonpolitical, conservative activists said their show of strength was a clear sign that they can swing elections because much of the country is angry with what many voters call an out-of-touch Washington.

Palin told the tens of thousands who stretched from the marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the grass of the Washington Monument that calls to transform the country weren't enough. "We must restore America and restore her honor," said the former Alaska governor, echoing the name of the rally, "Restoring Honor." Palin, the GOP vice presidential nominee in 2008 and a potential White House contender in 2012, and Beck repeatedly cited King and made references to the Founding Fathers. Beck put a heavy religious cast on nearly all his remarks, sounding at times like an evangelical preacher.

"Something beyond imagination is happening," he said. "America today begins to turn back to God." Beck exhorted the crowd to "recognize your place to the creator. Realize that he is our king. He is the one who guides and directs our life and protects us." He asked his audience to pray more. "I ask, not only if you would pray on your knees, but pray on your knees but with your door open for your children to see," he said.

His speech came in the wake of a string of disappointing US economic data in the past month that point to a sharp slowdown in the second half of the year. Earlier on Friday the US Commerce revised its estimate of second quarter GDP growth down to 1.6%, although this cut was much lower than most Wall Street analysts had expected. It stands in sharp contrast to a small upward revision of UK economic data, and very strong economic growth in Germany.

Mr Bernanke was keen to emphasise the apparent success of earlier quantitative easing - including the purchase of $1.25 trillion worth of mortgage debt - in lowering borrowing costs. The Fed already decided to extend this policy on 10 August, when it announced that any mortgage repayments it received on its investment would be reinvested in US government bonds. Other options included reducing to zero the interest paid on excess reserves held by banks with the Fed, and committing to maintain rates low for a longer period. He also discussed the option of raising the Fed's inflation target - something proposed by some economists - though he said it had no support at the Fed.

In his review of the US economy, Mr Bernanke expressed particular surprise at the rise in the savings rate of US consumers, and the sharp rise in the US trade deficit. He also noted that business investment in structures - such as commercial real estate - had failed to rebound. In order for the recovery to be sustained, he said, consumer spending and business investment needed to pick up more quickly.

Mount Sinabung, some 60km (40 miles) south-west of Sumatra's main city Medan, has not erupted for 400 years. The volcano had been pumping out smoke all day Saturday, but alert levels had not been raised, and local media reported that villagers had been taken by surprise. The Medan Tribune quoted one local resident as saying he panicked and ran when he saw lava coming towards him "like a ball of fire".

Priyadi Kardono from Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency told the BBC that more than 10,000 people were being evacuated from nearby villages. Surono, head of the nation's volcano disaster alert centre, told AFP news agency that the alert level had been raised to red because the situation was "clearly dangerous. Initially we thought the ash and smoke were triggered by rain but now we know the driving pressure was from magma," he said.

The Indonesian archipelago lies on the Pacific "Ring of Fire" and has at least 129 active volcanoes.

The posters include pictures of Islamic Movement leader Raad Salah and Hamas leader Mohammed Abu Tir, the red-bearded politician whom Israel has banned from Jerusalem several times. Salah recently was convicted for assaulting and spitting on a policeman during a Temple Mount protest. He was sentenced to nine months in prison, but an appeals court reduced the time in jail to five months.

The Muslim Waqf, the Islamic trust that is the Muslim authority at the holy site, is "exploiting the days of [the Muslim holy month of] Ramadan to desecrate the Temple Mount while no one dares open his mouth," the Jewish activists charged. Salah is former mayor of the Arab city of Umm el Fahm, located several miles east of Hadera and the Mediterranean Coast, and has been arrested several times for violent demonstrations at the Temple Mount.

He has expanded his activities to raise millions of dollars for the Hamas terrorist organization and has revealed a strategy to work for a global movement against Jewish association with the Temple Mount and to "expose the false claims of the Zionist discourse." Salah repeatedly has declared in sermons that Jews have fabricated their connection with the Western Wall, which he claims is part of the Al Aksa mosque.

"Equity investors are in for a rude shock. The global economy is sliding back into recession and they are still not even aware that these events will trigger another leg down in valuations, the third major bear market since the equity valuation bubble burst," he said. Government bonds, which are considered lower risk assets compared with equities, have remained in demand during the crisis and yields are at a low level by historical standards - where low yields indicate strong demand.

The yield on UK benchmark 10-year bonds was 2.88 percent yesterday, and Mr Edwards forecast a further fall to below 2 percent. He predicted that "global cyclical failure" would push US 10-year yields down to 1.5 percent-2 percent, and German bunds to below 1.5 percent. "So far the equity market has shrugged off much of the weaker data that abounds, and has not joined the bond market in a perceptive move.

"The equity market will though crumble like the house of cards it is, when the nationwide [US] manufacturing ISM slides below 50 into recession territory in coming months." The ISM index fell to 55.5 in July from 56.2 in June. Mr Edwards forecast a return to the "valuation nadir last seen in 1982", with the S&P bottoming at around 450.

Another northeast Washington wildfire was burning at Fish Hatchery Road, about four miles north of Republic, in Ferry County. Kassel said that "fire burned more than 350 acres and threatened 50 homes but firefighters were making progress. A fast-moving fire northwest of the Klickitat County town of Lyle had grown to 2,000 acres, or 3 square miles, some homes were threatened and one outbuilding had burned."

In southeast Washington, Kassel said a fire east of Dayton had burned about 300 acres of grassland. The wildfires also led to numerous intermittent road closures in the region

That's a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it's a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn't expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent. Such slow growth won't feel much like an economic recovery and won't lead to much hiring. The unemployment rate, now at 9.5 percent, could even rise by the end of the year.

"The economy is going to limp along for the next few months," said Gus Faucher, an economist at Moody's Analytics. There's even a one in three chance it could slip back into recession, he said. Many temporary factors that boosted the economy earlier this year are fading. Companies built up their inventories after cutting them sharply in the recession to match slower sales. The increase provided a boost to manufacturers, but now many companies' stockpiles are in line with sales and don't need to grow as much. In addition, the impact of the government's $862 billion fiscal stimulus program is lessening.

High unemployment is making it harder for people to make their mortgage payments and stay in their homes. About 9.9 percent of homeowners had missed at least one mortgage payment as of June 30, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Thursday.

Local residents said settlers tried to reach a spring, which religious Jews view as a biblical site, by crossing through a mosque courtyard. Israeli police said Palestinians then took to the streets in violent demonstrations, throwing rocks and firebombs at police and vehicles, burning six cars. Israel captured East Jerusalem along with the West Bank in a 1967 war and regards all of Jerusalem as its capital, a claim that is not recognised internationally. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of the state they intend to establish in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"We're now capable of doing renminbi settlement in many parts of the world," said Chris Lewis, HSBC's head of trade for greater China. "All the other major international banks are frantically trying to do the same thing." HSBC and StanChart are among a slew of global banks - including Citigroup and JPMorgan - holding roadshows across Asia, Europe and the US to promote the renminbi to companies.

The move aligns the banks favourably with Beijing's policy priorities and positions them to profit from what is expected to be a rapidly growing line of business in the future. The phenomenon will accelerate Beijing's drive to transform the renminbi from a domestic currency into a global medium of exchange like the dollar and euro.

China has taken several steps in recent months to boost the international use of its currency and to establish Hong Kong, the special administrative region, as the global centre for offshore renminbi business. McDonald's, the US burger chain and icon of globalisation, took advantage of the new rules this month when it became the first foreign multinational to issue renminbi-denominated bonds in Hong Kong.

Global wheat production has been under threat in recent years from increasing demand and climate change. Wheat is regarded as one of the most important crops for human consumption. The results of the study, led by Neil Hall from the University of Liverpool, are available for public use.

They are meant to enable other scientists and breeders worldwide to "analyse the sequence and use it in a new breeding method called macro-assisted selection that could dramatically increase the speed and efficiency of plant breeding," said Mike Bevan, the director of the John Innes centre, who took part in the research. "This is very important these days because we could be racing against the clock of decreasing food security," he added.

Recently, Russia, one of the biggest producers of wheat, banned all export of wheat after severe drought and wildfires charred crops around the country. The move raised worldwide concerns about possible wheat shortages and has sent wheat prices soaring. Major floods in Pakistan and mudslides in China made wheat prices spike even further. Canada and several other countries also expect their wheat harvest to be much lower than last year due to weather conditions.

Polish daily Rzeczpospolita notes that France and the UK - permanent members of the UN Security Council - were initially reluctant, but eventually gave the go-ahead to a compromise whereby Lady Ashton will have the right to speak on the EU's behalf in the General Assembly but not in the Security Council.

Meanwhile, Open Europe's Sian Herbert is quoted in the Mail and on page 2 of the Express commenting on the prospective 8 million pounds that the EU is considering to spend per year to lease the new European External Action Service (EEAS) headquarters in Brussels. "The ballooning costs of the EU's new foreign service are becoming an increasing burden on British taxpayers and stand in sad contrast to the cuts facing the UK's Foreign Office, which does a much better job of representing UK citizens' interests throughout the world", she said.

When will the world finally begin to understand that we have reached the point of no return and that "the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries" (Shakespeare, Julius Caesar). Sadly, we are probably not very far from that point. It is already starting to happen in many countries.

The latest EU and IMF package of $1 TRILLION (750 billion euros) is yet another futile attempt by governments to abolish poverty by printing paper. Let's be absolutely clear, this money does not exist and the EU governments are hoping by declaring such a large amount that they can con the Wolfpack speculators. At this point the EU has just picked a large round figure out of the air. But when their bluff is called by the Wolfpack and the next attack happens, EU governments will after initial huffing and puffing start printing unlimited amounts of paper.

So the world is now on its road to ruin and there is no action, no leader and no new amount of printed money that can save the world or prevent a hyperinflationary depression. Never in history has the world been in a situation when virtually all industrialised countries are bankrupt. Therefore there is no precedent for what will happen in the next few years. What we can be quite certain about is that events will happen in a seemingly random pattern and that it will be impossible to forecast where the next crises will start.

For several years we have predicted that hyperinflation is the most likely outcome of the economic predicament that the world is in. But it is unlikely to be a straightforward hyperinflationary period. Precious metals will be the primary beneficiaries of hyperinflation. Certain commodities, especially food and energy, will also go up in price. But most assets that have been financed by the credit boom will go down in real terms. This includes property, stocks and bonds. In hyperinflationary money these assets could still go up in price.

If someone who earned $50,000 per annum in real money now earns $5 million in newly printed money, his house will probably also go up in nominal terms. But in real terms property prices will decline massively. There will be no credit available and interest rates will be very high, probably at least 15-20% so very few people will be able to buy a house. Hyperinflation will destroy many currencies so paper money will definitely reach its intrinsic value which is zero. Where will it end? It will end when the dollar and many other currencies reach their intrinsic value of ZERO. That time is not far away.

The political environment is utterly incapable of governance without melodrama. The GOP doesn't listen, and the Democrats apparently don't learn. The ultra-constipated movement of legislation regularly brings actual government to an actual standstill, it just carries on by inertia until someone condescends to pass an appropriation. Economically the nation's a disaster area, and the only notable growth in employment is for press release writers who don't particularly care what they write or why they write it.

Nothing gets done well. Wars, budgets, policies, whatever, they all stagger along in a dysfunctional daze until some new crisis emerges. This is exactly the same story as many fallen civilizations.

The rule the Romans could have taught the US is simple: "Don't go broke." Economic chaos was more common than not in the Roman Empire, and the disasters multiplied as the financial tangles and lack of money progressively beggared everything but the military.

The Chinese could have taught the US another basic lesson: "Insularity destroys countries." The Chinese went from being the most advanced nation on Earth to a primitive, closed society incapable of dealing with Western and Japanese expansion. That wasn't ancient China, by the way. It was the story of China up to 1911. Nearly a half a century of unrestrained bloodbaths did the rest.

The Russians can provide a lesson that "A monomaniacal approach to spending is fatal." The crash of the Soviet Union was a hideous event inside Russia, resulting in the life expectancy dropping by a few decades for a while. The end result was a totally different nation, much amended geographically and politically.

The British Empire has another lesson: "However big you are, ignorance and hidebound policies will wipe you out." A few wars, a lot of social and economic mismanagement, and where's the British Empire?

The US, through a truly insane, self-inflicted mix of these factors, has managed to achieve a condition which would have been unthinkable a generation ago. A complete misconception of itself has helped a lot. The US is a super power, not because of its nukes, but because of its economic clout. That clout has been reduced to a paper fan by the recession, unprecedented loss of real capital, and the shutdown of America's truly global range secret weapon, credit, now well and truly disarmed by its own operators. Trade, internal and external, is now a twitching mess of signals, with all indicators looking every way but up.

The definition of a failed state is "Can't get anything done and things keep getting worse". How close is that, would you say?