Senior MPs and motoring groups said that oil companies were "mugging motorists on the forecourt" and urged Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, to delay next month's planned increase in petrol duty as well as investigate why drivers were paying so much. The average petrol price across the country is 115.9p for a litre of unleaded and 116.6p for a litre of diesel, according to Petrolprices.com. However, the Treasury is due to add a further 3p on April 1.

Even without this increase the price at forecourts is due to hit 120p very soon, according to the AA. This would overtake the previous high of 119.7p, which motorists suffered from in July 2008. At the time the high price of petrol was blamed on the surging price of crude oil, the key raw material in petrol, which within weeks of the record petrol price hit its own record of $147 a barrel. However, crude oil is now $78 a barrel and there are more than 250 petrol stations charging more than 120p a litre for unleaded and diesel.

Chris Hunt, at the UK Petrol Industry Association, which represents oil refiners, said that it was "nonsense" for anyone to blame oil companies for the high price of petrol. "Back in 1974 there were 16 refineries and 20,000 service stations in Britain. There are now 8 refineries and 9,000 petrol stations. If we were profiteering, why would all these be shutting down?" He said the weak pound was the main reason why prices had risen.

In definitely asserting that climate change would cause flooding and drought the adverts went beyond mainstream scientific consensus, the watchdog said. It noted that predictions about the potential global impact of global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) "involved uncertainties" that the adverts failed to reflect. The two posters created on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change juxtaposed adapted extracts from the nursery rhymes with prose warnings about the dangers of global warning.

One began: "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. There was none as extreme weather due to climate change had caused a drought" Beneath was written: "Extreme weather conditions such as flooding, heat waves and storms will become more frequent and intense."

The second advert read: "Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub - a necessary course of action due to flash flooding caused by climate change." It was captioned: "Climate change is happening. Temperature and sea levels are rising. Extreme weather events such as storms, floods and heat waves will become more frequent and intense. If we carry on at this rate, life in 25 years could be very different."

The watchdog found that the other elements of the campaign, including a television and cinema advert in which a father read his daughter a nightmarish bedtime story about a world blighted by climate change, did not breach its guidelines. Ed Miliband, the Environment Secretary, said that that his department had been "comprehensively vindicated" by the ASA but promised to better reflect scientific uncertainty about global warming in future campaigns.

Legislation unveiled Monday by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd falls shy of the ambitious restructuring of federal financial regulations envisioned by President Barack Obama or contained in legislation already passed in the House. But the 1,336-page bill, which includes provisions negotiated with Republicans, would still be the biggest overhaul of regulations since the New Deal. It comes 18 months after Wall Street's failures helped plunge the nation into a deep recession.

In its sweep, the bill would touch all corners of the financial sector, from small-town mortgage brokers to the highest penthouse office suites on Wall Street. Lobbyists were already mobilizing to change several of its features. "Americans are frustrated and angry, as we all know," Dodd, Democrat for Connecticut, said. "They've lost faith in our markets, and they wonder if anyone is looking out for them."

Dodd's proposal would create a mechanism to shut down large, failing firms, with shareholders and unsecured creditors bearing the losses. Management also would be removed. The costs of such a shutdown would be covered by a $50 billion fund financed by the largest financial firms.

The Federal Reserve, under Dodd's plan, emerges as a leaner institution with new powers to regulate the size and the activities of the nation's largest financial firms. The Fed, once threatened with the loss of all its regulatory powers, will now oversee all bank holding companies with assets of $50 billion or more. But it would also be given power to regulate and even break up large interconnected companies, such as the insurance conglomerate American International Group, whose failure could pose a risk to the economy.

Since the controversy erupted, a bipartisan parade of influential lawmakers and interest groups has taken aim at the administration's decision to publicly condemn Israel for its announcement of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting on Tuesday and then openly vent bitter frustration on Friday.

With diplomats from both countries referring to the situation as a crisis, the outpouring of anger in the United States, particularly from Capitol Hill, comes at a difficult time for the administration, which is now trying to win support from wary lawmakers - many of whom are up for re-election this year - for health care reform and other domestic issues.

And those criticizing the administration's unusually blunt response to Israel say they fear it may have distracted from and done damage to efforts to relaunch long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "It might be well if our friends in the administration and other places in the United States could start refocusing our efforts on the peace process," Senator John McCain, Republican for Arizona, said Monday. "Now we've had our spat. We've had our family fight, and it's time for us now to stop and get our eye back on the goal, which is the commencement of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks," he said.

Reaction to the administration was particularly intense from pro-Israel groups. Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said he was "shocked and stunned at the administration's tone and public dressing down of Israel on the issue of future building in Jerusalem. We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States," Foxman said.

Those rules say deficits must be below 3% of GDP, but the UK's is expected to hit 178 billion pounds - 12.6% of GDP - this year. Ministers insist their plans to halve the deficit in four years are less likely to halt the economic recovery. Those plans, announced in the pre-Budget report, would see the UK's deficit reduced to 4.7% by 2015 - missing the EU target outlined by finance ministers last year.

But in the run-up to next week's Budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling, defended the government's approach to the deficit, arguing that cutting it too quickly by reducing government spending would risk harming the UK's emergence from recession. "The chancellor's judgement on the pace of this adjustment takes into account the need to support the economy through the early stages of the recovery," a Treasury spokesman said. "To withdraw support earlier and at the wrong pace risks wrecking the recovery - a judgement supported by the Commission."

BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins said the European Commission had walked "slap bang into the middle of an enormous political row". He said the issue of whether to cut "sooner or deeper" would play "at the heart" of the forthcoming election as each parties' plans were scrutinised. The timing meant the topic had far greater impact than it would otherwise, he added.

The depictions of Mary's sorrow in works of art such as the Pieta by Michelangelo have suggested a profound emotional truth: When any believer is confronted with great sorrow or suffering, we can turn to Mary, our spiritual mother, for consolation, because she experienced such great suffering.

The great Marian apparitions, especially at Lourdes in 1858 and at Fatima in 1917, suggest to thoughtful observers of the mystical life that Mary continues to "draw near" to the "little ones," to children, to encourage them and to share with them a message of maternal comfort and exhortation. Over the centuries, the theological reflection of the Church has come to grant special and particular titles to Mary, to make clearer who she is, and why she is worthy of our filial devotion.

Presently, the Church has proclaimed four dogmas regarding the Mother of Jesus: (1) her maternal role in the birth of Christ, the Son of God, making her truly Mother of God ("Theotokos," Council of Ephesus, 431); (2) her Perpetual Virginity (First Lateran Council, 649); (3) her Immaculate Conception (Pius IX, "ex cathedra" proclamation, 1854); and (4) her Assumption into heaven (Pius XII, "ex cathedra" proclamation, 1950). For almost a century now, there has been a small but growing movement in the Church in favor of the proclamation of a fifth Marian dogma regarding the role of the Blessed Virgin as THE SPIRITUAL MOTHER OF ALL HUMANITY.

'My favourite food is sushi, but unlike others I can sit and eat 70 big pieces of sushi in one go,' she said. 'I do love cakes and sweet things, doughnuts are my favourite.' Donna, who wears XXXXXXXL dresses, eats mounds of junk food and tries to move as little as possible. Yet although she can only move 20ft before needing to sit down, she wants to be even bigger. 'I'd love to be 1,000lb,' she said.

To achieve her goal, Donna says she will need to eat up to 12,000 calories a day (the average woman should consume only 2,000.) To fund the massive $750 weekly food shop, she runs a website where men pay her to watch her eat fast food.

May-Welby emigrated to Australia at the age of seven after being born in Paisley, Renfrewshire. Officials there altered the Briton's birth certificate to include the new no-gender classification after doctors were apparently unable to determine the sex of the expat's body.

May-Welby said: "The concepts of man or woman don't fit me. The simplest solution is not to have any sex identification." The UK's Gender Trust welcomed the case. A spokesman said: "Many people like the idea of being genderless."

When it comes to arms exports, few will be surprised that the US tops the list, with 30 percent of global expenditures on arms going to weaponry from America. Second place is likewise hardly a shocker - 23 percent of the world's weapons originate in Russia.

Third place, though, is raising more eyebrows. According to the 2009 annual report put together by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Germany's weapons exports have more than doubled in the last five years, to 11 percent of the global total. German submarines and tanks, the report makes clear, have gained a number of loyal customers. Given Berlin's tentative forays into geopolitics in recent years - against a backdrop of deep domestic skepticism about German involvement in conflicts across the globe - it is perhaps not surprising that the opposition is up in arms at the SIPRI ranking.

The researchers found that the worldwide trade of rockets, fighter jets, weapons and munitions was up by 22 percent over the last five years. Expensive fighter jets have proven particularly attractive, with their sale making up 27 percent of total arms sold. China and India lead the pack of arms importers, but Singapore and Algeria made the top 10 for the first time. Indeed, Singapore arms imports increased by 146 percent during the period of 2005-2009 against the years 2000-2004. Malaysian arms purchases increased by 722 percent during the same period.

There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been finessed before, but we are in a new world now with America's U6 unemployment at 16.8pc. "It's going to be really hard for them yet again to fudge on the obvious fact that China is manipulating. Without a credible threat, we're not going to get anywhere," said Paul Krugman, this year's Nobel economist.

China's premier Wen Jiabao is defiant. "I don't think the yuan is undervalued. We oppose countries pointing fingers at each other and even forcing a country to appreciate its currency," he said yesterday. Once again he demanded that the US takes "concrete steps to reassure investors" over the safety of US assets. Michael Pettis from Beijing University argues that China's reserves of $2.4 trillion - arguably $3 trillion - are a sign of weakness, not strength. Only twice before in modern history has a country amassed such a stash equal to 5pc-6pc of global GDP: the US in the 1920s, and Japan in the 1980s. Each time preceeded depression.

The reserves cannot be used internally to support China's economy. They are dead weight, beyond any level needed for macro-credibility. Indeed, they are the ultimate indictment of China's dysfunctional strategy, which is to buy $30bn to $40bn of foreign bonds every month to hold down the yuan, refusing to let the economy adjust to trade realities. The result is over-investment in plant, flooding the world with goods at wafer-thin export margins. China's over-capacity in steel is now greater than Europe's output.

As America's creditor - owner of some $1.4 trillion of US Treasuries, agency bonds, and US instruments - China can exert leverage. But this is not what it seems. If the Politburo deploys its illusiory power, Washington can pull the plug on China's export economy instantly by shutting markets. Who holds whom to ransom? Any attempt to retaliate by triggering a US bond crisis would rebound against China, and could be stopped - in extremis - by capital controls. Roosevelt changed the rules in 1933. Such things happen. The China-US relationship is no doubt symbiotic, but a clash would not be "mutual assured destruction", as often claimed. Washington would win.

The comments attributed to Ambassador Michael Oren, a noted Middle East historian, clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assurances that the row resulting from a settlement announcement deemed "insulting" by the Obama administration was under control.

"Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted Oren as telling other Israeli diplomats in a telephone briefing over the weekend.

The remarks, also carried by other Israeli media, appeared to refer to US pressure in 1975 for an Israeli redeployment in the Egyptian Sinai, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war and the site of renewed fighting in 1973.

Israel's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.

That in itself should give investors pause for thought. Does the extension of loose money allow for current investment patterns to continue, with money pouring out of cash into higher-yielding assets? Or does it mean, as some are beginning to believe, that markets have been floating on artificial liquidity and that the underlying global economy is not in true recovery mode after all?

It is likely to stick to its plan to end purchases of around $1.7 trillion in assets. But it could well leave the door open for a renewal of purchases at a later date should economic expansion fall back. The Bank of Japan, meanwhile, is under pressure to loosen policy at its meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, most likely in the form of increasing funds offered under its lending operation. Japan's economy grew less than initially estimated in the fourth quarter and a broad gauge of price trends posted the biggest negative reading on record.

But more bearish noises have been heard, some even suggesting that there could be a reversal to lows experienced a year ago in March 2009. Once such is Colin McLean, managing director of alternative investment house SVM Management. "Rallies within bear markets can be quite large and quite sharp. The best indicator is from financials... They're still a concern," he told a group of Reuters journalists recently

A similar picture can also be drawn from some technicals. Peter Beuttell, director of advisers MTS Research, follows Elliott Wave theory, which tracks patterns on markets to glean their next direction. "We could be approaching a junction," he said. "MARKETS ARE ABOUT TO ROLL OVER IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS."

Israel's prime minister has tried to play down the unusually bitter diplomatic row between the two allies. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week issued her own stern rebuke. Mrs Clinton told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone on Friday that the Israeli move was "deeply negative" for US-Israeli relations.

Under the Israeli plans, the new homes will be built in Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem. The international community considers East Jerusalem occupied territory and says Israel's building there is illegal under international law. But Israel regards East Jerusalem - which it annexed in 1967 - as its territory. The Palestinians are threatening to boycott newly agreed, indirect talks unless the Ramat Shlomo project is cancelled. "This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region," David Axelrod, one of President Obama's closest aides, told NBC television.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu began by giving a survey of media coverage of the spat with the Americans. "I propose not to be carried away and to calm down," he said. "We know how to handle these situations, calmly, responsibly and seriously." He went on to admit that the announcement of the project during the vice-president's visit had been offensive, but it had been an accident.

Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the US, Russia, the EU and the UN - has also condemned the Israeli housing announcement and said it would review the situation at its ministerial meeting scheduled for 19 March in Moscow.

The UN body came under attack earlier this year for suggesting that 40 per cent of the Amazonian rainforests - dubbed the "lungs of the planet" by some for their ability to turn CO2 into oxygen, and also seen as vital on biodiversity grounds - might disappear imminently. This disaster would be triggered, according to the IPCC's assessment, by a relatively slight drop in rainfall of the sort to be expected in a warming world.

Unfortunately it now appears that just such conditions have already occurred, and in fact the Amazonian jungles were unaffected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the baseless IPCC projection originated in a study produced in 2000 by hard-green ecological campaigning group WWF, which was also implicated in the IPCC's equally invalid prediction that the glaciers of the Himalayas will all have melted within a generation from now. According to the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) report, which was not subject to scientific peer review - it was written by a freelance journalist and published by WWF itself - drying-up of forests will lead to runaway wildfires that will destroy the jungle and perhaps the entire planetary ecosystem. Even the IPCC itself now regrets listening to WWF.

"The way that the WWF report calculated this 40 per cent was totally wrong," according to IPCC member Jose Marengo, commenting on the new research. Which might beg the question of why his colleagues referenced the bogus WWF polemic in their 2007 report on what the world can expect: and why they still publish it today on the web as part of their considered opinion.

WWF - It's WWF's position, for instance, that economic growth is evil and will destroy the planet. We should actually be praying for a prolonged and massive recession with no recovery afterwards. The organisation started out as a fairly mainstream outfit intended to protect wildlife, but has nowadays widened its remit into protecting the entire planet from unsuitable human activities. The initials WWF no longer stand for anything in particular.

"It was fairly strong, but didn't knock over anything in the office," said Ken Yoshida, a town official in Naraha, one of the hardest hit areas. He said an earthen wall in town was partially toppled. The earthquake was centered about 50 miles off the eastern coast at a depth of about 25 miles, the meteorological agency said.

The government said there was no danger of a tsunami, although slight changes to ocean levels were a possibility in some areas. It was strong enough to gently sway large buildings in Tokyo and was felt across a broad stretch of Japan's main Honshu and northern Hokkaido islands. Japan's early warning system predicted the earthquake just before it hit, with public broadcaster NHK interrupting a sumo match to warn residents to take cover.