The latest trigger has prompted the Omen's creator, Jim Miekka, to exit the market. "I'm taking it seriously and I'm fully out of the market now," Miekka, a blind mathematician, said in a telephone interview from his home in Surry, Maine. "I would've probably stayed in until the beginning of September," depending on how the indicators varied. "That was my basic plan, until the Hindenburg came along."

The Omen has been behind every market crash since 1987, but significant stock-market declines have followed only 25% of the time. So there's a high likelihood that the Omen could be nothing more than a false signal. But that isn't stopping Miekka from taking any chances, especially as September, typically the market's worst-performing month, sits only one week away.

"It's sort of like a funnel cloud," he said. "It doesn't mean it's going to crash, but it's a high probability. You don't get a tornado without a funnel cloud." He added he's not currently shorting anything, although he may look to short Nasdaq stock index futures in the next few weeks, "depending on how the technicals go."

A study released yesterday by credit agency Moody's notes that although overall growth in the eurozone is up it "may fall short of preventing credit-rating agencies from downgrading some member countries if their economies begin to suffer in the face of tight austerity budgets". Spain could face a possible reduction in its credit rating in September, according to El Pais. Meanwhile, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced yesterday that it had again stepped up purchases of eurozone government bonds buying 338 million euros last week, up from just 10 million euros purchased a week earlier.

Writing in Les Echos, investment manager Alan Brown notes that "the German shock treatment will leave Southern European 'on the dole' for 10 years or more, while condemning the whole Eurozone and the PIIGS in particular to anaemic growth. It is very plausible that the euro breaks up through an exit of the most solid countries, thereby only leaving Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Greece in the euro". The front page of Handelsblatt warns that there are "concerns about the German recovery. As the local economy is growing, the cooling down in the US, fears of overheating in China and the debt crisis in Southern Europe threaten to endanger exports".

Meanwhile, German Professor Harald Uhlig, who is Chairman of the University of Chicago's Department of Economics, writes on his Handelsblatt blog "should Germany leave the Euro? Should the Neuro be introduced? Thereby bringing flexbility in the North-South Exchange rate?" He laments that "German politics has returned to the open cheque book policy of [former Chancellor Helmut] Kohl to solve Europe's problems. But maybe there will be a leading German female politician who has the courage, the backbone, to seriously discuss a Eurozone split up".

Protection of Chesney echoed action by the Catholic Church in Ireland to shield its priests from allegations of child sex abuse. Scandals surrounding the abuse and subsequent cover-ups have helped topple the Church from its once dominant position in Irish life. Today's report states detectives believed Father Chesney was the IRA's director of operations in south Derry and was a prime suspect in the July 31 attack as well as other terrorist incidents.

Chesney, who was a priest in a neighbouring parish, always denied any involvement, although a sniffer dog found traces of explosive in his car when he was stopped at a checkpoint two months later.

Soon after the attack he was transferred to a parish in County Donegal, outside the Northern Ireland jurisdiction, following secret talks between the then secretary of state William Whitelaw and the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal William Conway. The two men discussed the scandal after being approached by a senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer as the police were apparently reluctant to arrest the cleric for fear of inflaming the security situation.

As regards the role of Church and State officials, Mr Hutchinson said his investigation found no evidence of criminal intent on the part of any government minister or official or any official of the Catholic Church. But he added: "The morality or 'rightness' of the decision taken by the government and the Catholic Church in agreeing to the RUC request is another matter entirely and requires further public debate. Placing this information in the public domain in a transparent manner enables that debate to take place."

Moreover, the failures have not occurred for trivial reasons. They have occurred because of profound divergences in the interests and outlooks of each side. These particular talks are further flawed because of their origin. Neither side was eager for the talks. They are taking place because the United States wanted them. Indeed, in a certain sense, both sides are talking because they do not want to alienate the United States and because IT IS EASIER TO TALK AND FAIL THAN IT IS TO REFUSE TO TALK.

The problem is that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are sufficiently unsettled to make peace. Both Egypt and Israel were shocked and afraid after the 1973 war. Mutual fear is the foundation of peace among enemies. The uncertainty of the future sobers both sides. But the fact right now is that all of the players prefer the status quo to the risks of the future.

Hamas doesn't want to risk its support by negotiating and implicitly recognizing Israel. The PNA doesn't want to risk a Hamas uprising in the West Bank by making significant concessions. The Israelis don't want to gamble with unreliable negotiating partners on a settlement that wouldn't enjoy broad public support in a domestic political environment where even simple programs can get snarled in a morass of ideology. UNTIL REALITY OR SOME AS-YET-UNCOMMITTED FORCE SHIFTS THE GAME, IT IS EASIER FOR THEM - ALL OF THEM - TO DO NOTHING.

But the Americans want talks, and so the talks will begin.

"It is certainly disheartening news about the economy," said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International in New York. "It is not persuasive evidence that we have dipped into recession again but it's certainly suggestive of a more serious deterioration than we had factored into our forecasts." Financial markets were rattled by the data and investors sold stocks in favor of safe-haven government debt.

As the soft economic data piles up, some analysts also worry the domestic slowdown that started in the second quarter risks pushing the global economy close to renewed recession. "If the (US) economy is going down, there's no way the euro zone can withstand the slowdown," said Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York.

The burdens facing the economy were further underlined by a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which forecast the national budget deficit would hit $1.342 trillion this year, a touch below the $1.368 trillion it forecast in March. Even more disturbing in the claims report, the four-week average of new jobless claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market trends, rose to its highest since early December.

"There hasn't been any real improvement in the labor market. It seems companies are in a holding pattern when it comes to hiring and that has created a stagnant job market," said Stephen Bronars, senior economist at Welch Consulting in Washington. "It's not clear what it's going to take to turn the corner."

Called the Assault Intervention Device, it uses millimeter waves to heat the top layer of skin, causing an intense burning sensation that forces the person being targeted to move away immediately. The weapon being installed in the jail is a smaller version of a technology originally developed by the military for use on the battlefield. The military's weapon, called the Active Denial System, can be put on a Humvee or truck, and researchers are also working on a aircraft-mounted version.

The smaller version of the weapon being installed in the jail creates pain on a single part of the body, rather than all-over heat like the military version. A local news video showing the device being tested features a laughing test subject clutching a single part of the body where he has been hit, and then moving out of the way.

The device's use at the Pitchess Detention Center is part of a six-month evaluation being conducted by the National Institute of Justice to look at possible widespread use of the technology in jails.

The drivers have complained that locals were over-charging them for food and drink while they were stuck. The situation has now "basically returned to normal," state television said on Monday.

There has been a boom in road building in China in recent years but vehicle use has soared at the same time. The stalled traffic stretched between Jining in Inner Mongolia and Huai'an in Hebei province, north-west of Beijing, said the Global Times. The road works which were obstructing traffic are necessary to repair damage caused by an increase in cargo lorries using the highway, the state-run newspaper said.

They are not expected to be finished until mid-September. The motorway, part of the Beijing-Tibet expressway, is heavily used by lorries carrying coal from Inner Mongolia.

Oxfam says the situation is stretching resources to the limit as it also tries to respond to the food shortages. The agency urged donors to help Niger face what it calls a second emergency. Oxfam issued its warning as nearly eight million people, or half the population, are already facing hunger because of failed harvests.

Now more than 100,000 people have been left homeless after heavy rains washed away their homes earlier this month, according to the United Nations. Floods have destroyed crops, and thousands of animals have drowned. Oxfam warned that flooding is also hindering the delivery of aid in remote areas.

Floods will increase the risk of diseases, especially among young children suffering from acute malnutrition. The World Food Programme recently acknowledged that it was forced to limit its food distribution to only 40% of those in need because of a funding shortfall.

Palestinian leadership announced Saturday that it accepts the United States' invitation to enter into direct talks with Israel, however PA senior officials conditioned talks with a continued freeze in settlement construction. Meanwhile, Israeli state officials stressed that a freeze continuation was not an option.

Also on Saturday, Arab media reported that the Palestinians had set conditions for direct talks which the US accepted and provided guarantees for.

Palestinian sources told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted American guarantees since Washington "already knows where talks should proceed and how they should end." This suggests an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. The sources added that the US administration would push for a continuation of the freeze in settlement construction.

They mean that a suspect arrested in Britain who is wanted in another European country has no right to ask a British judge to test the merits of the case against them. But a series of worrying cases has led to concern that the warrants can lead to injustice for people wanted on spurious charges in countries with less sophisticated justice systems.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett, who was in charge of the Home Office when it brought in the warrants in 2004, admitted his own reservations yesterday. He said: 'I was right in the post 9/11 era to agree to the European Arrest Warrant, but I was insufficiently sensitive to how it might be used.' This month the warrants were used to deport five young men to Greece on flimsy-looking assault charges dating back to a holiday two years ago. The men faced up to 18 months in a Greek jail awaiting trial.

European Arrest Warrants have also added to the controversy in the case of Daniel Ubani, the German doctor who killed 70-year-old patient David Gray with a massive overdose of painkiller during a shift of out-of-hours cover in Britain. British authorities issued a warrant demanding Ubani's extradition to face trial for manslaughter. But, in contrast with the Greek case, a German court opted to deal with the case itself. Ubani was fined and put on probation for nine months.

Brooklyn plumber Steve Ayling says the people who want to build the project are the same ones who 'took down the twin towers.' Nearby, several hundred people who support the mosque chanted: 'Muslims are welcome here. We say no to racist fear. The proposed 70 million pounds mosque has ignited furious debate.

The growing movement against the building of the mosque gained another prominent supporter last week: the first Muslim Miss USA.

Rima Fakih, 24, the daughter of Lebanese immigrants and a Muslim, criticised the location of the planned mosque. 'It shouldn't be so close to the World Trade Center,' Fakih, 24, told Inside Edition during a break from the Miss Universe pageant preparations in Las Vegas. 'We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.'

Meanwhile growing numbers of New York construction workers are vowing not to work on the mosque planned near Ground Zero, according to the New York Daily News. 'It's a very touchy thing because they want to do this on sacred ground,' said Dave Kaiser, 38, a blaster who is working to rebuild the World Trade Center site. Construction is due to begin on September 11 next year - the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack.

Andrew Lilico, of the Policy Exchange think tank, said: 'To keep inflation (as measured by the retail prices index) down to only 10 per cent for one year, the economy will have to be able to tolerate interest rates of perhaps 8 per cent.' His warning echoes that of former Bank of England deputy governor Sir John Gieve, who last month said he expects rates to start rising 'faster than the market currently expects'.

Sir John believes the base rate will rise to 2.5 per cent within a year, from its current historic low of 0.5 per cent. This would mean a huge rise in the monthly mortgage payments of most ordinary Britons, forcing many families into financial difficulties.

But Mr Lilico is predicting an even more alarming scenario than that. The current historically low average mortgage rates of around 4 per cent mean millions of households have so far been shielded from the full effects of the economic downturn. But if base rates rose to 8 per cent, and lenders keep their current mark-up of 3.5 per cent on the deals they offer, then householders could face mortgage rates of 11.5 per cent, compared with the current 4 per cent average.

At that 4 per cent rate, the interest payable on an average 150,000 pounds home loan is around 6,000 pounds a year, or 500 pounds a month. But, if the base rate leaps to 8 per cent, the cost could soar to 17,250 pounds a year, or more than 1,400 pounds a month. And as that is just the interest part of the mortgage, once actual repayments are added in, many households could find their mortgage an insupportable burden on their income.

It said four people died, including a couple in their 70s and a mother and son, after their homes in Dandong were swept away by flash floods. Xinhua said 253,500 residents have been evacuated after the Yalu rose to its highest level in a decade. An official with the Water Resources Department in Liaoning province, where Dandong is located, confirmed that four people had died though he was unable to provide details. He refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said torrential rain and water from the overflowing Yalu - or Amnok as it is known in Korean - swamped houses, public buildings and farmland in more than five villages near Sinuiju, the city opposite Dandong. The report described Sinuiju and the surrounding area as having been "severely affected" by the flooding and said officials, the military and ordinary civilians were involved in rescue work. It said at least 5,150 people had been evacuated and residents were clambering on rooftops or taking shelter on hilltops.

Much of North Korea's trade with the world passes through the city, forming a vital lifeline for the isolated, economically struggling country. Flooding in previous years has destroyed crops and pushed North Korea deeper into poverty, increasing its dependence on international food aid.

Food and Drug Administration investigators have yet to determine the cause of the salmonella outbreaks at Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The FDA investigation could take months, and sources of contamination are often difficult to find. The number of illnesses, which can be life-threatening, especially to those with weakened immune systems, is expected to increase. The most common symptoms are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever eight to 72 hours after eating a contaminated product.

The company Quality Egg supplies young chickens and feed to both Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms. The two share other suppliers, said Jewanna Porter, a spokeswoman for the egg industry, but she did not name them. The egg industry has consolidated over recent years, placing fewer, larger businesses in control over much of the nation's egg supply to consumers. The salmonella outbreak has raised questions about federal inspections of egg farms. The FDA oversees inspections of shell eggs, while the Agriculture Department is in charge of inspecting other egg products.

William D Marler, a Seattle attorney for a person who filed suit alleging illness from tainted eggs in a salad at a restaurant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said Sunday his firm has been retained by two dozen families and was representing a woman who was hospitalized in California. "The history of ignoring the law makes the sickening of 1,300 and THE FORCED RECALL OF 550 MILLION EGGS shockingly understandable," Marler said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "You have to wonder where the USDA and FDA inspectors were."

In Damascus, Syrian prime minister Naji al-Otari gathered his ministers and heads of security and emergency services Thursday and ordered them to place all their services on immediate war readiness. And sources close to the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas quoted him as saying that direct talks with Israel were not in the offing because "a big military surprise awaits the Middle East."

On Thursday, too, Tehran pitched its threat level high by warning that any attack on Iran's nuclear sites would be met by the IRGC "targeting the interests of the enemies in any part of the world." In the United States, respected commentators this week talked and wrote openly about a possible war over Iran's progress toward a nuclear bomb capability.

Former US ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, who has excellent connections in Washington and Jerusalem, wrote, "The United States is more likely than Israel to launch an attack on Iran." Lawrence Eagleburger, former US Secretary of State, had this to say about the activation of Iran's first reactor at Bushehr Saturday, August 21, "The world's going to war over this. If Iran gets the weapon it's going to use it." He urged an attack on Iran before it obtained a bomb.