Such pressure "will be particularly aimed at the those enterprises controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which we believe is in effect supplanting the government of Iran," she said. "We see the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship," Clinton told students at the Qatari branch of Carnegie-Mellon University.

She also told the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha: "I fear the rise of the influence and power of the Revolutionary Guard ... poses a very direct threat to everyone." The Revolutionary Guard has long been a pillar of Iran's regime as a force separate from the ordinary armed forces and now has a hand in every critical area including missile development, oil resources, dam building, road construction, telecommunications and nuclear technology.

It also has absorbed the paramilitary Basij as a full-fledged part of its command structure - giving the militia greater funding and a stronger presence in Iran's internal politics -and is widely blamed for supporting militants.

"The (CNI's) Economic Intelligence division... is investigating whether investors' attacks and the aggressiveness of some Anglo-Saxon media are driven by market forces and challenges facing the Spanish economy, or whether there is something more behind this campaign," El Pais said. Officials at the CNI were not available for comment. The report comes days after Public Works Minister Jose Blanco protested "somewhat murky manoeuvres" were behind financial market pressure on Spain.

"None of what is happening in the world, including the editorials of foreign newspapers, is coincidental or innocent," Blanco said. Economists have cast doubt on forecasts that Spain's economy will grow by some 3 percent by 2012, on which the government has based predictions it will cut back on its gaping budget deficit. Some economists have said Spain's deficit could be more of a threat than Greece to the euro, the common currency of 16 European countries.

Underscoring those doubts, the premium demanded by investors for buying Spanish rather than German government bonds has risen in recent weeks and the cost of insuring Spanish bonds against default by the government has also risen.

The Emnid poll for Bild am Sonntag newspaper showed 53 percent of Germans asked said the European Union should, if necessary, expel Greece from the euro zone. Athens has struggled to convince investors it is tackling its debt crisis and markets are nervous about a default. EU leaders discussed the issue last week and offered words of support but failed to outline concrete steps, further unsettling markets. Euro zone finance ministers are expected to discuss Greece again on Monday and Tuesday.

Merkel has adopted a cautious stance on support, saying while Greece will not be left on its own, it is up to Athens to sort out its own problems. The poll also showed 67 percent of Germans did not want Germany and other EU states to give billions of euros in credit to Greece.

"If we start now, where do we stop?" Michael Fuchs, deputy head of Merkel's conservatives in parliament, told Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "I can't explain to people on unemployment benefit that they won't get a cent more but Greeks can draw a pension at 63." In her first term, Merkel raised Germany's retirement age to 67 from 65 in an effort to rein in the deficit to meet EU goals. Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff even warned Germany could face similar problems to Greece. "Germany's public finances are not on a sustainable path," Rogoff told Welt am Sonntag. "There will come a time when Germany will have its own Greece problem ... it won't be as bad as in Greece, but it will be painful," said Rogoff.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is 'not as good as it should be'. The data is crucial to the famous 'hockey stick graph' used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now - suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon. And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming. The admissions will be seized on by sceptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Cambridge Climate Congress, an entity created in May 2009 to respond to the "climate emergency" plaguing the Massachusetts city.

Going green will not be optional in Cambridge, Massachusetts, if the Cambridge Climate Congress has its way. It will be mandatory. And the Massachusetts city, home of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will advocate vegetarianism and veganism, complete with "Meatless or Vegan Mondays." Once the Congress settles on its recommendations, they will submitted to the City Council.

"This emergency is created by the growth of local greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgent warnings of climate scientists that substantial reductions are needed in order to reduce the risk of disastrous changes to our climate," the Climate Congress reported in proposals issued on January 23. "This proposal is made in the belief that an effective local response is, if anything, made more urgent by so far inadequate global agreements and federal policies for emissions reductions. It is made in the belief that our City should lead by example."

The report said that the regime began to disrupt the transmissions on Thursday with the beginning of celebrations on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. The Islamic nation has also been blocking GMail since Thursday.

The current national debt is $12.3 trillion. Check out the National Debt Clock, which tells you your share of that - roughly $40,000 per citizen, $113,000 per taxpayer.

The bill also establishes a statutory Pay-As-You-Go procedure requiring that new non-emergency legislation affecting tax revenue or mandatory spending not increase the Federal deficit - in other words, that any new spending or tax cuts be paid for with new taxes or spending cuts.

In a televised address to his cabinet, he criticised EU members for sending "mixed messages about our country... that have created a psychology of looming collapse which could be self-fulfilling". Mr Papandreou blamed the European Commission for failing to crack down on the previous conservative government's "criminal record" in falsifying statistics. "This has undermined the responsibility of the European institutions with international markets," he said.

His outburst is likely to infuriate the very leaders whose help Mr Papandreou needs. It came as it emerged there would be no more talk of financial assistance until Athens had persuaded the EU that it had a sustainable austerity programme in place. Germany is insisting Athens bears initial responsibility for restoring confidence in Greece. Angela Merkel, German chancellor, resisted French efforts to come up with an explicit bail-out package at Thursday's summit of EU leaders in Brussels.

The stark warning came as the euro slipped further on the currency markets and dire growth figures raised the prospect of a 'double-dip' recession in the embattled zone. Claims that the euro could be headed for total collapse are particularly striking when they come from one of the oldest and largest banks in France - a core founder-member.

In a note to investors, SocGen strategist Albert Edwards said: 'My own view is that there is little "help" that can be offered by the other eurozone nations other than temporary, confidence-giving "sticking plasters" before the ultimate denouement: the break-up of the eurozone.' He added: 'Any "help" given to Greece merely delays the inevitable break-up of the eurozone.'

The alarming claim came a day after European Union leaders promised 'determined and co-ordinated' action to shore up Greece's tattered public finances, but disappointed traders by failing to provide specifics. Further details are expected early next week, but markets were in high anxiety yesterday amid fears political divisions among rich eurozone members could derail any rescue.

Earlier this week Business Secretary Lord Mandelson's claimed that the single currency had been a 'remarkable success' and that it remained in Britain's interests to join.

A background note by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said a 2007 report wrongly stated that 55 percent of the country was below sea level since the figure included areas above sea level, prone to flooding along rivers. The United Nations has said errors in the 2007 report of about 3,000 pages do not affect the core conclusions that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, are warming the globe.

"The sea level statistic was used for background information only, and the updated information remains consistent with the overall conclusions," the IPCC note dated February 12 said. Skeptics say errors have exposed sloppiness and over-reliance on "grey literature" outside leading scientific journals. The panel's reports are a main guide for governments seeking to work out costly policies to combat global warming.

The 2007 report included the sentence: "The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea level rise and river flooding because 55 percent of its territory is below sea level." The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the original source of the incorrect data, said on February 5 that just 26 percent of the country is below sea level and 29 percent susceptible to river flooding.

The panel expressed regret last month after admitting that the 2007 report exaggerated the pace of melt of the Himalayan glaciers, which feed rivers from China to India in dry seasons, in a sentence that said they could all vanish by 2035. The 2035 figure did not come from a scientific journal.

From Ardmore all the way to Dallas and even in Louisiana, the south is snowed in. For many, it's a winter wonderland in places that rarely see such weather. But none of it comes close to the mess up north where two blizzards have blown through in a week. Weather like this is why Marsh is studying to be a meteorologist.

Even as the snow fell outside the National Weather Center in Norman, inside Marsh was tracking what could be a rare winter weather phenomenon. Marsh, a student employee at the NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, is currently trying to collect photos of snow on the ground in all 50 states. Marsh said Florida is the only state without snow on the ground at this point, but he said two to four inches of snow is forecasted on Friday in some parts of the state. There is currently even snow on some of the mountain tops in Hawaii.

"Since the beginning of my pontificate, I have been encouraged that relations between Catholics and Lutherans have continued to grow, especially at the level of practical collaboration in the service of the Gospel," the Holy Father said. He expressed hopes that "continuing Lutheran-Catholic dialogue both in the United States of America and at the international level will help to build upon the agreements reached so far."

The Pontiff noted dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans "so promisingly started after the Second Vatican Council," and he said an "important remaining task will be to harvest the results. To build on what has been achieved together since that time," Benedict XVI proposed "a spiritual ecumenism should be grounded in ardent prayer and in conversion to Christ, the source of grace and truth. May the Lord help us to treasure what has been accomplished so far, to guard it with care, and to foster its development."

The Bishop of Rome concluded citing words from Pope John Paul II, "during whose pontificate so much was accomplished ON THE ROAD TO FULL VISIBLE UNITY AMONG CHRISTIANS."

The 27 leaders never even discussed how they might shore up Greece or the rest of Club Med. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was not willing to broach the subject at all. The only relevant topic was whether Greece was complying with Treaty obligations, and how the country would slash its budget deficit from 12.7pc to 8.7pc this year - in a slump.

"They offered nothing," said Jochen Felsenheimer, a credit expert at Assenagon in Frankfurt. "It was just words without any concrete measures, hoping to buy time." Whether the EU has time is an open question. Credit Suisse says Greece must raise 30 billion euros (26 billion pounds) in debt by mid-year, mostly in April and May. Greek banks have been shut out of Europe's inter-dealer markets, forcing them to raise money at killer rates. They are suffering an erosion of deposits as rich Greeks shift money abroad. This could come to a head long before April.

"Economically, we are in a very risky situation. Greece is close to default. We face systemic risk like the Lehman collapse and unless there is a bail-out for Greece, there will have to be a bail-out for the whole European banking system within two or three months," he said. Yet they are damned if they don't, and damned if they do. "A Greek bail-out increases the risk of EMU break-up, because monetary union can only work if everybody sticks to the rules," Mr Felsenheimer said.

But priests in the Birmingham Oratory have a similar epistle from Pius IX, in 1847, accompanying what was purported to be Valentine's entire body. Meanwhile, the Blessed John Duns Scotus Church in Glasgow's Gorbals offers Valentine's 'genuine remains' in a gold casket marked 'Corpus Valentini Martyris'. Time to call in CSI Miami!

In some towns and cities a quarter of shops lie vacant as the recession has exacerbated the effect of other problems, such as rising rents and the growth of out-of-town shopping centres. The report, from retail research firm the Local Data Company, comes at the same time as shopping experts warned that the high street will never be the same again.

Matthew Hopkinson, from the Local Data Company, said the recession is not the main reason why there has been such a huge wave of closures in high streets. He blamed a toxic combination of 'upward-only' rent reviews, parking restrictions, soaring business rates and out-of-town developments taking customers from town centres. Another major reason is the internet-retailing boom, with millions doing most of their shopping online. Mr Hopkinson said: 'The recession was just the straw which broke the camel's back.'