The two-term Democratic president insisted he wasn't trying to restrict free speech, but in remarks Friday he said incendiary language can be taken the wrong way by some Americans. He drew parallels to words demonizing the government before Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995, an anti-government conspiracy led by Army veteran Timothy McVeigh exploded a truck bomb outside the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people.

"What we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or that we should reduce our passion for the positions we hold - but that the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike," he said.

"One of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have." Clinton made the remarks at events sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund on the upcoming anniversary of the bombing. He mentioned the rancorous fight over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Passage of the law elicited threats against some lawmakers.

"I'm glad they're fighting over health care and everything else. Let them have at it. But I think that all you have to do is read the paper every day to see how many people there are who are deeply, deeply troubled," he said. He also alluded to the anti-government tea party movement, which held protests in several states Thursday. At the Washington rally, Republican Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota railed against "gangster government."

Clinton argued that the Boston Tea Party was in response to taxation without representation. The current protesters, he said, are challenging taxation by elected officials, and the demonstrators have the power to vote them out of office. "By all means keep fighting, by all means, keep arguing," he said. "But remember, words have consequences as much as actions do, and what we advocate, commensurate with our position and responsibility, we have to take responsibility for. We owe that to Oklahoma City."

"The jet stream winds, which extend from 10,000 feet up to 40,000 feet, show no signs of change through Wednesday," Accuweather said in a statement. "Any ash plume that is released from the Eyjafjall volcano in Iceland will continue to threaten northern Europe and the British isles." No flights will operate out of the UK until at least 1 pm London time tomorrow, the National Air Traffic Service said today via email. German airports will remain closed until 2 pm Berlin time, the DFS air traffic control agency said. The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, or Eurocontrol, expects about 5,000 flights across Europe today, compared with 22,000 on a "normal" Saturday, it said today in a statement.

"Expect ongoing interruptions for the next four or five days," Teitur Atlason, at the Icelandic meteorological office, said in a telephone interview today. "The eruption is still in full swing, and the volcano is spewing pretty dark ashes as high into the air as 5 to 6 kilometers."

Volcanic eruptions may continue for months, curtailing European air traffic when the ash reaches the region, said Sigrun Hreinsdottir, a geophysicist at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. "From what we've seen, it could erupt, pause for a few weeks, and then possibly erupt again."

The last eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in December 1821 continued until January 1823. The current blast has sent ash to as high as 7 kilometers (4.5 miles), according to Gudrun Larsen, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland. The magma had to pierce 200 meters of ice before erupting, she said.

Athens was yesterday edging closer to activating a bailout from fellow European Union countries and the International Monetary Fund, which is due to send teams to the country on Monday. But Joachim Fels, co-chief global economist at investment bank Morgan Stanley in London, warned the Greek rescue proposal sets a 'bad precedent' for eurozone member states and makes it more likely that the euro area 'degenerates into a zone of fiscal profligacy, currency weakness and higher inflationary pressures'.

Mr Fels suggested Berlin may be 'better off with a harder but smaller currency union'. He added that 'recent developments significantly raise the long-term risk of a euro break-up' and that a 'scenario where a country or a group of countries want to leave to introduce a stronger currency is more likely than a scenario where a country, like Greece, wants to leave to devalue'.

Though Germany has not officially considered the proposal, Mr Fels' comments reflect the radical options being considered by EU member states as the situation in Greece worsens.

"The government is downplaying the number," said Ge Laidanzeng, a 20- year-old monk. He said that when all the bodies were retrieved from the wreckage of the town there would "definitely be more than 10,000 dead". Meanwhile, the first teams of rescue workers equipped with sniffer dogs and heartbeat detectors arrived in Jiegu, hampered by the 12-hour journey from the nearest major airport in Xining. As they clambered over the rubble, however, it was soon clear that hopes of any further survivors were fading fast.

Relief supplies continued to trickle into Jiegu, but with the entire town's population of 100,000 sleeping in the open, the supplies of tents, blankets and food were quickly snapped up, leaving thousands of people still in need.

It alleges that the bank marketed complex subprime mortgage packages but did not reveal that a major hedge fund had bet against the securities. Goldman's shares fell 7.4% on the news of the accusations against the firm and one of its Vice Presidents. The bank escaped relatively unscathed from the financial crisis.

Airports across Britian were deserted today after an unprecedented lockdown of airspace prompted by the threat from a deadly cloud of volcanic ash. The National Air Traffic Service (NATs) has now grounded flights in and out of the UK until at least 1am tomorrow. But with the source of the ash - a volcano 700 miles away in Iceland - still spewing smoke into the atmosphere, there are already fears the chaos could go on for days if not weeks.

Some experts said there could be disruption for six months as a result of contaminated air drifting over northern Europe. NATs will review the situation at 1pm today and put out a statement about services tomorrow at 2.30pm. No jet planes can fly except in an emergency because the dust causes their engines to fail. Health officials have told those with conditions such as asthma to stay indoors.

The cancellations have already caused the greatest mayhem to air travel since the Second World War. This morning there were few passengers at UK airports - which usually cater for 500,000 people a day - with most chosing to stay home. The Health Protection Agency said the ash will cause itchy eyes, a runny nose, sore throat or dry mouth when the particles land.

Those with bronchitis, emphysema and asthma were advised to stay inside because the ash could seriously inflame their conditions. The ash, which will drift down from the north of the country, was predicted to appear as a dusty haze and may smell of sulphur or rotten eggs, or strongly acidic.

The volcanic eruption in Iceland, which began on Wednesday, is just such a reminder. As ash spews out across northern Europe, grounding all flights across Scandinavia and the UK, we begin to realise how powerless we humans are. But as volcanic eruptions go, the current fireworks on Iceland are small fry.

Scientists rank volcanoes according to how explosive they are, using the volcanic explosivity index (VEI), which goes from zero to eight. The measurement is based on how much material is thrown out of the volcano, how high the eruption goes and how long it lasts. Like the scale used to measure earthquake size, the VEI is logarithmic - meaning that a volcano with a VEI of five is 10 times more powerful than one with a VEI of four.

To volcanologists, Iceland is heaven. There are 30 active volcanic systems on the island and very frequent firework displays. Geologists believe that the reason for Iceland's explosive nature is because it sits over a "mantle plume" - a rising column of abnormally hot molten rock, originating at the edge of the Earth's core.

To make matters even more spectacular, this particular mantle plume has positioned itself under the mid-Atlantic ridge: the crack that runs down the middle of the Atlantic, where the ocean floor divides and continuously spews out fresh lava.

The US, however, is not happy with the Syrian transfer of missiles to Lebanon - and an expert says Israel will have to take action.

Profssor Eyal Zisser, head of the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Tel Aviv University, told Arutz-7 that the news requires Israel to make some difficult decisions. "There's no question that the transfer of [these missiles] is an escalation," Zisser said. "These Scuds are more precise than those that Saddam Hussein launched at us in the Gulf War of 1991, and they have a longer range as well."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the US has relayed its concern to the Syrian government, Senator John McCain raised the issue at the hearing on Iran on Wednesday, and Under Secretary of Defense Flournoy said the US is "very concerned" by these reports.

His comment drew a stern rebuke from his former rival in the presidential campaign. Obama was responding to a question Tuesday about how the summit would play into peace-making efforts in the Middle East when he addressed the downsides of - by virtue of America's world stature - being obligated to intervene in international conflicts.

"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them," Obama said. "And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

The remark got little attention in mainstream coverage of the summit, but was picked up on several conservative blogs, which panned the president for suggesting Americans had grown weary of superpower status.

"I understand that many may disagree with that conclusion and some may even view it as a criticism of prayer or those who pray," Crabb said in her opinion. "That is unfortunate. A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant or undeserving of dissemination."

The opinion comes in a case filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based group of self-described "atheists" and "agnostics." Crabb said her ruling is based on "relevant case law," and it does not prevent religious groups from organizing prayer services or prevent the President from discussing his views on prayer. "The only issue decided in this case is that the federal government may not endorse prayer in a statute," Crabb said.

On the holiday last year, President Obama issued a statement saying Americans have always "come together in moments of great challenge and uncertainty to humble themselves in prayer."

"In 1775, as the Continental Congress began the task of forging a new Nation, colonists were asked to observe a day of quiet humiliation and prayer," the statement said. "Almost a century later, as the flames of the Civil War burned from north to south, President Lincoln and the Congress once again asked the American people to pray as the fate of their Nation hung in the balance."

When Mr Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a "vital national security interest of the United States," he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests.

This shift, described by administration officials who did not want to be quoted by name when discussing internal discussions, is driving the White House's urgency to help broker a Middle East peace deal. It increases the likelihood that Mr Obama, frustrated by the inability of the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to terms, will offer his own proposed parameters for an eventual Palestinian state.

Mr Obama said conflicts like the one in the Middle East ended up "costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure" - drawing an explicit link between the Israeli-Palestinian strife and the safety of American soldiers as they battle Islamic extremism and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Mr Obama's words reverberated through diplomatic circles in large part because they echoed those of General David H Petraeus, the military commander overseeing America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent Congressional testimony, the general said that the lack of progress in the Middle East created a hostile environment for the United States. He has denied reports that he was suggesting that soldiers were being put in harm's way by American support for Israel.

The king, in Washington for President Barack Obama's nuclear summit, gave his warning after Israel claimed that Syria had handed over Scud missiles in its armoury to the Lebanon-based Hizbollah. His comments, which were made to a private meeting of the US Congressional Friends of Jordan caucus were said to be "sobering".

Syria yesterday denied the allegation that it has provided Hizbollah with long-range Scud missiles, which would allow them to target Israel's cities. The country's foreign ministry said the claims would be used as a pretext by Israel to raise tension prior to a possible attack on Hizbollah.

"For some time now, Israel has been running a campaign claiming that Syria has been supplying Hizbollah with Scud missiles in Lebanon," a foreign ministry statement released yesterday said. "Syria strongly denies these allegations which are an attempt by Israel to raise tensions in the region."

However, the statement did not appear to rule out an alternative possibility being raised by defence sources, that Damascus has allowed Hizbollah control of or access to Scud missiles still currently in Syria. Officials in Syria have warned that it would join in any war involving Israel, Lebanon and Hizbollah.

After a series of crushing earthquakes in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the largest being recorded by the Chinese Earthquake Administration at magnitude 7.1, a four-storey shopping centrecomplex collapsed and caught fire, incinerating most of its occupants.

Elsewhere in Jiegu, the death toll had reached 617 on Thursday, with a further 9,110 injured, 1,000 seriously. Among the dead were 66 children from three local schools. Makeshift hospitals had been set up, but medicine was still in transit on Thursday and doctors told the Chinese state media there was little they could do other than amputate.

Jiegu lies on the Tibetan plateau, more than 12 hours from the nearest major airport, but China immediately mobilised the full might of its resources, summoning rescue workers from across the country.

President Obama told delegates from 47 nations at the Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday that it would be a "catastrophe for the world" if al-Qaeda or another terrorist group got a nuclear device, because so many lives would be lost and it would be so hard to mitigate damage from the blast.

A 10-kiloton nuclear explosion would level buildings within half a mile of ground zero, generate 900-mph winds, bathe the landscape with radiation and produce a plume of fallout that would drift for hundreds of miles, the guide says. It was posted on the Internet and sent to local officials.

The document is designed to help local officials craft plans for responding to a nuclear blast. The prospect is anything but far-fetched, says Rick Nelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Do I think in my lifetime I'll see the detonation of a nuclear device? I do."

The man who 'broke' the Bank of England (and who is still able to earn a cool $3.3 billion in a year) said the same strategy of borrowing and spending that had got us out of the Asian crisis could shunt us towards another crisis unless tough lessons are learned.

Soros, who worked as a porter to pay for his studies at the London School of Economics after emigrating from Hungary, warned us to heed the lesson that modern economics had got it wrong and that markets are not inherently stable.

"The success in bailing out the system on the previous occasion led to a superbubble, except that in 2008 we used the same methods," he told a meeting hosted by The Economist at the City of London's modern and impressive Haberdashers' Hall. "Unless we learn the lessons, that markets are inherently unstable and that stability needs to the objective of public policy, we are facing a yet larger bubble."

"We have added to the leverage by replacing private credit with sovereign credit and increasing national debt by a significant amount."