In response, China blamed rich nations for problems in the currency markets that have hit many developing nations. The tension between the US and China over currency policy surfaced once again at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) talks. Mr Geithner renewed the pressure on China to allow its currency to rise. He named no names, but he was talking mainly about China.

The US has a long-standing grievance over China's currency policy, which limits the movement of the yuan against the dollar. The American complaint is that it gives Chinese exporters an unfair competitive advantage. There was a vigorous response from Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of China's central bank (The People's Bank of China), who blamed the rich countries for problems in the currency markets. Mr Zhou said extremely low interest rates in rich countries had created "stark challenges for emerging market countries".

China has stopped its currency rising much by buying foreign currency. If it were to refrain from that and allow the yuan to rise, it would probably help other developing countries that compete with China, as well as the US which is protesting the most. But there is another force behind the rising developing world currencies. Their economies are growing robustly, while the rich countries are not. That uneven global economic recovery is a problem that cannot be quickly fixed.

The move, along with another decision on foreclosures by PNC Financial Services Inc, adds to growing concerns that mortgage lenders have been evicting homeowners using flawed court papers, without verifying the information in them. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corp, the nation's largest bank, said Friday it would no longer complete foreclosures in all 50 states as it reviews documents used to process foreclosures. That applies to homes that the bank takes back itself and those that it transfers to investors such as mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The bank did so in reaction to mounting pressure from public officials inquiring about the accuracy of foreclosure documents. A document obtained last week by the Associated Press showed a Bank of America official acknowledging in a legal proceeding that she signed thousands of foreclosure documents a month and typically didn't read them. The official, Renee Hertzler, said in a February deposition that she signed up to 8,000 such documents a month.

"American families should not have to worry about losing their homes to sloppy bureaucratic mismanagement or fraud," Dodd said. "Regulators at the federal, state, and local levels have a responsibility to uphold the law and protect consumers from unfair foreclosure, and lenders have a duty to not cut corners around the law." Banking and housing analysts, meanwhile, fear the foreclosure document problems could prolong the housing bust, and hundreds of thousands of inevitable foreclosures will be pushed off into some legal limbo for years.

"If you are looking at the key in this country to economic stability, it's the housing industry," said banking analyst Nancy Bush of NAB Research. "This is a huge mess that helps nothing."

Washington's army of diplomats in Europe has been taking on one country at a time. Germany stood at the top of the list and, initially, surrendered without even a whimper to the American demands. In 2008, the federal government in Berlin signed an agreement pushed by Washington allowing American officials wide-ranging access to the databases of German security agencies. It was only after leaders in Hamburg raised their objections to the deal that it was, temporarily, stalled in the Bundesrat, Germany's upper legislative chamber, which represents the interests of the states. The city-state has since withdrawn its objections after securing minor concessions on data protection provisions in the document, and the treaty is now set to be approved.

Step by step, and largely unnoticed by the public, the US has been pushing through similar arrangements in a number of European capitals. Washington reported its latest success in Vienna last week: The Austrian government said it was ready to grant US security agencies with free access to its police computers, complete with DNA and finger print data and a criminal registry.

The proceedings were not entirely peaceful. One Austrian government official reported "massive pressure." American Ambassador William C Eacho, III was apparently "very charming and friendly," when he appeared in the Austrian Chancellery and offered his "help." President Barack Obama's emissary said the administration in Washington was considering discontinuing the visa-waiver program for Austrians traveling to the United States because Austria wasn't sufficiently cooperating in the fight against terrorism.

Last weekend, the US issued a travel warning for Europe on the basis of possible imminent terrorist attacks. Germany Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, however, has warned against scaremongering. There is apparently no concrete evidence of imminent attacks in Germany. But perhaps, speculates one European Union security expert, it was just a little "background music" for the real questions to be discussed in the trans-Atlantic talks: How deeply can American terrorism investigators peer into European computers, how extensively can they monitor European bank accounts, tap into Blackberrys or listen in on Skype calls?

At same time, a potential revival of US and UK asset-purchase plans may spark declines in their currencies. UBS AG says the "mega-trend" of interventions will roil the $4 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market for the next decade. While lower exchange rates can lift an economy by helping exports, the danger is that the moves escalate into devaluations and protectionist retaliation, impeding global growth. Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega, a delegate to the International Monetary Fund annual meetings in Washington this week, said September 27 that there's already a worldwide "currency war."

"There's a real danger of a more unilateral approach taking hold," said Mansoor Mohi-uddin, the Singapore-based head of global currency strategy at UBS, the world's second-biggest currency trader. "There will be more countries outright intervening and others inadvertently weakening their currencies." Having all but exhausted traditional monetary and fiscal policies, industrial nations are looking for new ways to spark growth amid subdued domestic demand, while emerging markets want to maintain the advantage in commerce that helped power them through the credit crisis.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday reiterated his view that a rapid increase of the yuan would hobble China's economy, dealing a fresh rebuke to US and European calls for a higher exchange rate. "If the yuan isn't stable, it will bring disaster to China and the world," Wen said. "If we increase the yuan by 20 percent to 40 percent as some people are calling for, many of our factories will shut down and society will be in turmoil."

Trade tensions are already brewing. The US House of Representatives last month passed a measure that would let domestic companies petition for duties on Chinese imports. Historians blame a trade war during the Great Depression, starting with the US passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in 1930, for deepening the worldwide economic slump. "The esprit-de-corps is dissipating and each economy is pursuing policies that are in their own interest," said Adams, now managing director at the Fairfax, Virginia-based Lindsey Group, an economic advisory firm.

Fed Chairman Ben S Bernanke and his fellow policy makers are debating whether to increase Treasury purchases to spur the US economy by keeping borrowing costs low. The "fairly bad" outlook for slow growth and rising unemployment without a recession will probably be the one that occurs, the email said.

Hatzius' note reiterated comments he made yesterday at a forum in Washington, when he placed the odds of a renewed recession at 25 percent to 30 percent. He told reporters that was up from 15 percent to 20 percent at the start of the year. Another $1 trillion of asset purchases by the Fed would probably lower long-term interest rates by about 0.25 percentage point, adding a "few tenths of additional GDP growth," he said yesterday. The Fed bought $1.7 trillion worth of Treasury and mortgage debt in a program that ended in March. The purchases helped push mortgage rates to historic lows.

Participation has set records for 20 straight months. Unemployment in September may have reached 9.7 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts in advance of the release of last month's rate on October 8. Unemployment was 9.6 percent in July, near levels last seen in 1983. An average of 43.3 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began October 1, according to White House estimates.

Earlier EU finance ministers joined the United States in calling for China to let the value of its currency rise. They argue that a cheap yuan is unfairly helping Chinese exporters. Mr Wen said China was still planning to proceed with reforms aimed at "increasing flexibility" in the exchange rate, but suggested it would not be rushed.

A sharp rise in the yuan could have disastrous consequences, he said. "Many of our exporting companies would have to close down, migrant workers would have to return to their villages," Mr Wen warned. "If China saw social and economic turbulence, then it would be a disaster for the world."

On Tuesday Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the Euro Group committee of eurozone finance ministers, called for a "significant and broad-based appreciation" of the yuan. Earlier, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warned against the use of currency exchange rates as "policy weapons". "There is clearly the idea beginning to circulate that currencies can be used as a policy weapon," he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

"Translated into action, such an idea would represent a very serious risk to the global recovery. Any such approach would have a negative and very damaging longer-run impact."

As G20 finance chiefs prepare to meet on October 22, they are no closer to resolution of the decade-old bugbear of global imbalances between export-driven economies - mostly developing nations such as China, but also Japan and Germany - and the big global consumers, the United States, Britain and elsewhere. While there have been loose agreements on rebalancing over time - where emerging powers allow currencies to rise gradually - the lack of an agreed blueprint to manage the transition is already prompting unilateral actions and tit-for-tat reactions in a febrile economic and political environment.

Faced with fiscal exhaustion, hostile electorates and booming China's refusal to allow a rapid rise of the yuan, the US, Japan and possibly Britain seem set on another bout of money printing to reboot their ailing economies and weaken their currencies. "What is called for here is a realignment of emerging countries' exchange rates vis-a-vis the developed countries - maybe 20-25 percent appreciation over the next year or two."

What emerging economies lose on export competitiveness, he reckons, they can recapture at least partially in cheaper imports for their growing middle class of consumers. The tricky bit is how to get everyone to move together and prevent market prices snowballing or governments overreacting. Left to their own devices markets are unlikely to deliver the gradualism desired by most governments and faith in efficient pricing is at a low ebb after the credit crisis.

And, reading the runes well, money managers already see the opportunity and are stacking bets to exploit rising pressures. "No one is sleeping on the job," Brazil's finance minister, Guido Mantega, said on Monday. "We risk having a trade war and that's the worry. (But) it is preferable that we take coordinated measures instead of isolated measures."

Afghan and Arab sources cited by the Post said they believe for the first time that Taliban representatives are fully authorized to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organization based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, according to the newspaper. The sources requested anonymity to discuss the development.

Omar's representatives have shunned negotiations in the past, insisting that all foreign troops withdraw first. However, the Post reported that its sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of US and NATO troops.

"They are very, very serious about finding a way out," one source close to the talks said of the Taliban, according to the Post. Karzai long has said he will talk to insurgents if they renounce violence, sever ties to terrorists and embrace the Afghan constitution. Waheed Omar, a spokesman for Karzai, denied that President Barack Obama's stated goal of beginning to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan in July 2011, if conditions allow, spurred the Afghan government to set up the council or reach out to the Taliban.

They followed a report last week by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security that satellite images from September 29 showed new construction activity in the area surrounding North Korea's nuclear reactor. The South Korean security official's comments were quoted Wednesday in the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Kim confirmed to The Associated Press that he made the comments Tuesday at a forum on Northeast Asia.

"The North Korean nuclear threat has, in reality, been accelerating and has now reached an extremely dangerous level," Kim said. North Korea, which has active nuclear and missile programs, conducted underground atomic tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing tough international sanctions in response.

South Korea, along with the United States, China, Japan and Russia, have been negotiating with the impoverished country since 2003 to get it to dismantle its nuclear facilities, which they consider a threat to regional security. Pyongyang, however, pulled out of the so-called six-party talks, last year amid an international row over a suspected long-range missile test that North Korea said was a satellite launch. "Should North Korea miniaturize nuclear warheads and use them in actual battle, regardless of their accuracy, they will cause an unbelievable amount of damage," Kim said.

Today, as he was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole, he defiantly warned the court: 'Brace yourself, the war with Muslims has just begun.' He added: 'The defeat of the US is imminent, inshallah.' During a five-munite outburst, the 31-year-old thanked the judge for the sentence and said he was 'happy with the deal that God has given me'.

Shahzad did not dispute the allegations while under interrogation and taking a guilty plea. In fact, 'he spoke with pride' about the scheme, in which he bragged that he wanted to kill at least 40 people, the government said in a sentencing memo. If he escaped arrest, he added, he hoped to set off another bomb two weeks later in a second, undisclosed location. Unless the US leaves Muslim lands alone, he warned, 'we will be attacking US, and I plead guilty to that'.

Shahzad has said the Pakistan Taliban provided him with more than $15,000 and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, months after he became a US citizen. A few days later, Pakistani authorities arrested three men on charges they helped him meet leaders of the Pakistan Taliban, a militant group based in the northwest of the country that has claimed responsibility for the plot.

They also are accused of sending him cash in the United States when he ran short of money.

1,000,389,000,000 pounds at the end of March - or 40,000 pounds per household - the Office for National Statistics said. The figure is so enormous, equivalent to more than one million million pounds, that the country must pay 40 billion pounds interest on it in this year alone - roughly what is spent on the entire defence budget.

Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: 'This puts into stark terms the scale of Britain's debt mountain and is a timely reminder of why we need to tackle the deficit. Right now we are paying 120 million pounds a day in debt interest alone.'

It follows unprecedented levels of spending under Labour which saw the Government borrow nearly 450 million pounds a day under Gordon Brown. But the 1 trillion pounds figure does not include items such as the cost of public sector pensions and private finance initiatives. Experts believe the true debt, including these hidden items, is between 4-5 trillion pounds.

After a four-year campaign, the Commission says it accepts that the Druids worship nature and that they also believe in the spirits of places such as mountains and rivers, as well as in 'divine guides'. This, apparently, makes them qualify as a religion. Some might shrug this off. After all, the Druids don't do any harm to anyone. What skin is it off anyone else's nose how they are categorised?

Well, it actually matters rather a lot. Elevating them to the same status as Christianity is but the latest example of how the bedrock creed of this country is being undermined. More than that, it is an attack upon the very concept of religion itself. If the Druids qualify as a religion, can other cults such as the Scientologists be far behind?

Can it be long, indeed, before the wise and learned theologians of the Charity Commission similarly grant charitable status to sorcery, witchcraft or even the Jedi - the fictional Star Wars 'religion' which the 2001 census recorded as having no fewer than 390,127 adherents in England and Wales.

'I'm sure that we're paying many people who aren't worth it - maybe that's the issue,' he told a conference on restoring trust in the banking industry at London's Mansion House yesterday. His comments were echoed by Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, who added that 'unilateral action by any single bank (would) not provide a practical solution' to the problem of ever-rising pay for 'star' performers. Sir Philip's revelations lift the lid on the bonus arms race that is currently sweeping through the Square Mile.

Goldman Sachs recently handed tens of millions in bonuses to its 80 London-based partners to prevent more senior staff defecting to rivals. The declaration by the RBS boss is also likely to inflame public anger over the pay deals on offer at the bank, which has received more than 45 billion pounds in government cash since its implosion two years ago.

Charles Dallara, IIF managing director, said: "A core group of the world's leading economies need to come together and hammer out an understanding." Last week, Guido Mantega, Brazil's finance minister, warned of the dangers of a "currency war" as countries unilaterally intervened to prevent the appreciation of their currencies. The US has been pressing China to allow its exchange rate to rise faster, while several countries including Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Switzerland, have been intervening to hold their currencies down.

Releasing its policy statement and forecast ahead of this weekend's annual meeting of ministers at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, the IIF also urged international policymakers not to "gold plate" the Basel III capital accords. It advised countries to avoid creating a variety of national regulations on capital and competing "resolution" regimes.

Mr Dallara criticised the US for failing to adopt a more multilateral approach when it passed financial regulation reform earlier this year. "There was very little attempt by the US authorities to co-ordinate provisions globally," he said.