For February, the number of people getting jobseeker's allowance added a record 138,400 to reach 1.39 million. There are now 10 jobseekers for every vacancy advertised in UK jobcentres, the TUC claimed earlier this week. The ONS added that the unemployment rate jumped to 6.5% between November and January.

Unemployment is rising as the first recession in the UK since 1991 continues to bite. Many economists now predict it will go above three million next year. Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the Commons it was a "matter of personal regret" for him that people were losing their jobs. "That is why we'll do everything we can to help people get back to work," he said. Mr Brown added that rising unemployment was a global problem which remained higher in many other countries.

In contrast to earlier US administrations, including those of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the Obama administration is avowedly Euro-federalist in outlook, and is keen to help build a European Union defense identity as well as support THE FOUNDATIONS OF A EUROPEAN SUPERSTATE IN BRUSSELS.

This dangerous shift in US policy is a betrayal of both US and British interests that will threaten the long-term future of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, weaken the NATO alliance, and undermine the defence of British sovereignty in Europe. It will also undercut opposition across the EU to the Treaty of Lisbon, including countries such as Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic, AND MAY SET THE SCENE FOR A MAJOR CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE AND A FUTURE CONSERVATIVE ADMINISTRATION IN LONDON.

A Eurosceptic Conservative government led by David Cameron, committed to halting further European integration, will find itself increasingly at odds with a left-of-centre US administration that is actively working against the principle of national sovereignty in Europe. In light of this, the current enthusiasm of many British conservatives for the changing of the guard at the White House is hugely misplaced.

The new Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michèle Flournoy, who holds one of the most powerful positions in the Pentagon, is a leading supporter of US backing for an EU defence policy, and co-authored a major 2005 study STRONGLY ADVOCATING AMERICAN SUPPORT FOR A UNIFIED EUROPEAN DEFENCE STRUCTURE.

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Philip H. Gordon, who will be the most senior administration official on Europe, has written that America must "support the European project", and that "the challenge for US policy is to encourage Europe to develop the cohesion and capability to become a true transatlantic partner." HE IS ALSO A PROMINENT BACKER OF THE DEFEATED EU CONSTITUTION, and has pushed in the past for British membership of the Euro, warning the UK that "fully in Europe, Britain has every chance to remain America's preferred and privileged partner. MARGINALIZED FROM THE EU, BRITAIN COULD FIND ITSELF LESS INFLUENTIAL IN WASHINGTON AS WELL."

Significantly, while wooing both continental Europe and Russia, the new US administration has been largely indifferent to the Anglo-American alliance, with an appallingly handled reception for the British Prime Minister when he visited the White House earlier this month, and the recalibration of the special relationship as a "special partnership". Even a bust of Sir Winston Churchill has been unceremoniously thrown out of the Oval Office. A distinctly undiplomatic State Department official involved in the planning of the Obama-Brown meeting was quoted by The Sunday Telegraph as saying that "THERE'S NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT BRITAIN. YOU'RE JUST THE SAME AS THE OTHER 190 COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD."

As they approach the transatlantic alliance, President Obama and his aides should heed the advice of a former prime minister and great friend of the United States who fought to defend the Special Relationship and maintain British sovereignty in Europe. As Margaret Thatcher put it, "THAT SUCH AN UNNECESSARY AND IRRATIONAL PROJECT AS BUILDING A EUROPEAN SUPERSTATE WAS EVER EMBARKED UPON WILL SEEM IN FUTURE YEARS TO BE PERHAPS THE GREATEST FOLLY OF THE MODERN ERA."

The debt, which refers to the cumulative amount of money the government owes, hit $10.9 trillion on Friday. The whopping number has major ramifications for President Barack Obama, who is trying to push through a raft of big-ticket bills on health care, energy, education and climate change — while also attempting to stabilize the swooning economy.

Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Budget Committee, said Tuesday that the numbers COULD FORCE CONGRESS TO MAKE "ADJUSTMENTS" TO OBAMA'S $3.6 TRILLION BUDGET PLAN.

US Representative Ron Paul, R-Texas, introduced last month H.R. 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, a bill requiring that an audit of both the Fed's Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve Banks be completed and reported to Congress before the end of 2010. Paul was joined at the time of introduction by 11 other Republican and Democratic co-sponsors.

Since its introduction, 17 additional US representatives have added their names as co-sponsors, bringing the total to 29 legislators seeking the audit. REPRESENTATIVE PAUL HAS BEEN A HARSH CRITIC OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE, EVEN SEEKING TO ABOLISH THE PRIVATE MONEY-CONTROL SYSTEM, arguing that Congress should "reassert its constitutional authority over monetary policy." THE CONSTITUTION, PAUL SAID, GIVES CONGRESS, NOT THE PRIVATE FEDERAL RESERVE, "THE AUTHORITY TO COIN MONEY AND REGULATE THE VALUE OF THE CURRENCY."

Paul explained his advocacy for the H.R. 1207 audit in the US House: "Throughout its nearly 100-year history, THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAS PRESIDED OVER THE NEAR-COMPLETE DESTRUCTION OF THE UNITED STATES DOLLAR," the Texas Republican said. "Since 1913 the dollar has lost over 95 percent of its purchasing power, aided and abetted by the Federal Reserve's loose monetary policy. "How long will we as a Congress stand idly by while hard-working Americans see their savings eaten away by inflation? ONLY BIG-SPENDING POLITICIANS AND POLITICALLY FAVORED BANKERS BENEFIT FROM INFLATION," he said.

Some 300 Latvian veterans of the Waffen SS and their supporters marched through Riga on Monday to commemorate their comrades who fought the Soviet Union in Adolf Hitler's fanatical combat unit during World War II. The demonstration went ahead in defiance of a ban by the city. Dozens of protestors jeered at the veterans as they carried flowers to the base of the Freedom Monument in the Latvian capital.

Supporters regard the Latvians who fought in the Waffen SS as liberators from the Soviet occupation in the war. Russia and many ethnic Russians in Latvia regard the annual commemorative marches AS A GLORIFICATION OF FASCISM.

President Barack Obama and Washington lawmakers have blasted AIG for paying more than $160 million in bonuses to employees of its Financial Products division, the unit primarily responsible for the meltdown that led to a federal bailout of the company, while the company has received billions in taxpayer bailout funds. Cuomo said AIG mailed the bonus checks Friday.

The company and some federal regulators have said it was obligated by contract to make the payments. Cuomo said the bonuses might have been fraudulent if AIG officials knew the company couldn't afford them. "YOU COULD ARGUE IF THE TAXPAYERS DIDN'T BAIL OUT AIG, THOSE CONTRACTS WOULDN'T BE WORTH THE PAPER IT'S PRINTED ON," he said Monday.

"THESE PAYMENTS WERE ALL MADE TO INDIVIDUALS IN THE SUBSIDIARY WHOSE PERFORMANCE LED TO CRUSHING LOSSES AND THE NEAR FAILURE OF AIG," Cuomo wrote. "Thus, last week, AIG made more than 73 millionaires in the unit which lost so much money that it brought the firm to its knees, forcing a taxpayer bailout. SOMETHING IS DEEPLY WRONG WITH THIS OUTCOME."

It said there were deficiencies at "virtually every stage" of emergency care and managers pursued targets to the detriment of patient care. One of the worst examples of care cited in the watchdog's report was the use of receptionists to carry out initial checks on patients. Its report cited low staffing levels, inadequate nursing, lack of equipment, lack of leadership, poor training and ineffective systems for identifying when things went wrong. It said that:

- Unqualified receptionists carried out initial checks on patients arriving at the accident and emergency department.
- Heart monitors were turned off in the emergency assessment unit because nurses did not know how to use them.
- There were not enough nurses to provide proper care.
- The trust's management board did not routinely discuss the quality of care.
- Patients were "dumped" into a ward near A&E without nursing care so the four-hour A&E waiting time could be met.
- There was often no experienced surgeon in the hospital during the night.

Politicians in both parties flocked to express outrage over $165 million in bonuses paid out to executives at the company, demanding answers from the president and swamping yesterday's rollout of his efforts to spark lending to small businesses. The populist anger at the executives who ran their firms into the ground is increasingly blowing back on Obama, whom aides yesterday described as having little recourse in the face of legal contracts that guaranteed those bonuses.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, peppered with questions about why the president had not done more to block the bonuses at a company that has received $170 billion in taxpayer funds, struggled for an answer yesterday afternoon. He explained that government lawyers are "looking through contracts to see what can be done to wrest these bonuses from their recipients."

Obama himself sought to channel the public's sense of disbelief yesterday. "HOW DO THEY JUSTIFY THIS OUTRAGE TO THE TAXPAYERS WHO ARE KEEPING THE COMPANY AFLOAT?" he said, declaring the bonuses an "outrage" that violate "fundamental values."

Inside, death threats and angry letters flooded e-mail inboxes. Irate callers lit up the phone lines. Senior managers submitted their resignations. SOME EMPLOYEES DIDN'T SHOW UP AT ALL. "It's a mob effect," one senior executive said. "IT'S PUTTING PEOPLE'S LIVES IN DANGER."

Politicians and the public spent yesterday demanding that AIG rescind payouts that they said rewarded recklessness and greed at a company being bailed out with $170 billion in taxpayer funds. But company officials contend that the uproar is scaring away the very employees who understand AIG Financial Products' complex trades and who are trying to dismantle the division before it further endangers the world's economy. "IT'S GOING TO BLOW UP," said a senior Financial Products manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak for the company. "I HAVE A HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FEELING THAT THIS IS GOING TO END BADLY."

President Obama yesterday vowed to "pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses." But that pledge might have come too late. About $165 million in retention payments started to go out Friday to employees at Financial Products, after numerous discussions with the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. Law professors agreed with the Fed's assessment but said AIG employees could still agree to reduce their own bonuses. And the outrage expressed by the president and lawmakers was designed to put pressure on these officers to do just that, the legal experts said.

Bolton said that President Barack Obama and his advisors have adopted the theory that the "OVERWHELMING BULK OF OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN GRIEVANCES, WHOLLY OR PARTLY, STEM FROM ISRAEL'S FOUNDING AND CONTINUED EXISTENCE." He based his argument on the appointment of George C. Mitchell as the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East and statements by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that THE "TWO-STATE SOLUTION" SHOULD BE PUT INTO PLACE "SOONER RATHER THAN LATER."

Naming Mitchell as the representative of the president and not of the secretary of state "underlines both the issue's priority in the president's eyes and the implicit idea it can be solved in the foreseeable future," according to Bolton. He questioned Mitchell and President Obama's desire to force an Israeli-PA agreement as a "basis for further 'progress.'" Bolton charged Secretary Clinton with taking a "very European view" in a statement that a new Arab country within Israel's current borders is "inescapable."

"Accordingly, the Obama administration has created a negotiating dynamic that puts increasing pressure on Israel, Palestinians, Syria and others." Bolton wrote. "ALMOST INVARIABLY, ISRAEL IS THE LOSER - BECAUSE ISRAEL IS THE PARTY MOST DEPENDENT ON THE UNITED STATES, most subject to U.S. pressure and most susceptible to the inevitable chorus of received wisdom from Western diplomats, media and the intelligentsia demanding concessions. When pressure must be applied to make compromises, it is always easier to pressure the more reasonable side."

Morton A. Klein, President of the Zionist Organization of America, is just one of many supporters of Israel who say that HILLARY CLINTON, an outspoken supporter of a Palestinian state, HAS MADE AN ANTI-ISRAEL SWITCH OF LATE. Klein writes that the U.S. Secretary of State, once a "reliable and vocal supporter of Israel," has now taken many positions that are not in Israel's interest.

For instance, Klein writes in an op-ed for JTA, she has stopped speaking out against Palestinian incitement to hatred and murder, choosing to concentrate on building a PA state instead. Klein wrote:

"When [Secretary Clinton was] interviewed this week on a PA teen television show and asked, 'What would you do if your daughter was unfortunate enough to have been born under occupation, born deprived of freedom and liberty?' [she] legitimized the question's false premise and actually helped incite hatred against Israel by not refuting it and ignoring the fact that 98 percent of Palestinians actually live under the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, not Israeli control. [She] responded, 'Well, I would do what so many parents here in the West Bank and in Gaza do. I would love her… I would get the best education I could for her… I would never give up on the dream of a Palestinian state.' THAT AN ALARMING NUMBER OF PALESTINIAN PARENTS HAVE ENCOURAGED THEIR CHILDREN TO BECOME SUICIDE BOMBERS WAS SOMEHOW LOST FROM SECRETARY CLINTON'S RESPONSE."

During her visit to Israel last week, Clinton demanded that Israel take no action against illegally-built Arab homes in eastern Jerusalem – and that Israel disallow legally-built Jewish homes in eastern Jerusalem.

"Even if Iron Dome works perfectly, it is never going to have the firepower in interceptors to credibly intercept most, let alone all," of the rockets, according to the UPI report. Hizbullah has amassed far more rockets than it possessed before the Second Lebanon War in 2006, despite Israel's agreeing to a ceasefire on the condition that United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL) would prevent arms smuggling into Lebanon.

In the south, Hamas continues to smuggle weapons into Gaza despite a similar ceasefire ageement, supposedly conditioned on a cessation of arms smuggling, that the Olmert administration announced when concluding Operation Cast Lead in mid-January. Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised two years ago that the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, along with other systems, would protect Israel from 90 percent of missile attacks, although mortar shells would continue to explode in Israel without interception.

Barak announced in October 2007 that the Iron Dome was near completion and would be in place by 2010. He also has stated that its deployment is a precondition for handing over part of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Authority. Last year, officials admitted that the Iron Dome system would not be effective against Kassam rockets fired from less than two miles, meaning that it had no solution for tens of thousands of residents in the Gaza Belt communities, including Sderot.

Since last September some 100 militants and an unknown number of civilians have been killed by Predator and more heavily armed MQ-9 Reaper 'drones' operating from bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, such as the Shamsi airfield near Quetta. Only last Friday, on March 13, a drone strike killed 21 militants at a training camp in Kurram, a remote tribal area of northwestern Pakistan.

Equipped with laser-guided bombs and air-to-ground missiles and able to remain in the sky at altitudes of up to 26,000 feet for 24 hours at a time, the 'unmanned aerial vehicle' (UAV) has increasingly become the weapon of choice for the US military in its escalating war across the Afghan border. Pakistani intelligence reports suggest that these attacks have brought dozens of recruits into the ranks of the Taliban, seeking revenge for those killed by America's 'eyes in the sky'.

Robot weapons are also seen as particularly useful in the complicated and far-flung battlezones of the 'War on Terror', allowing the US military to strike their enemies almost anywhere in the world without risking its own soldiers. Such weapons are also part of the megalomaniac US military doctrine of 'Full Spectrum Dominance' – and the fantasy of absolute domination through technological supremacy that goes with it.

His critics accuse him of being an ARAB-HATING RACIST but he is hailed by supporters as a strongman who will deal harshly with the state's enemies, in particular Iran, which he has threatened to bomb. The appointment appeared to be on track though after Mr Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, which came third in February's elections, cut a deal with Likud to form a coalition.

Mr Lieberman has proven a divisive figure in Israeli politics, storming to power on the back of his anti-Arab rhetoric. He has called for the bombing of Palestinian commercial centres in revenge for terror attacks inside Israel and suggested that hundreds of thousands of Israeli Arabs should forfeit their citizenship in a land swap, trading West Bank Jewish settlements for Arab areas inside the Jewish state.

Many observers expect Mr Lieberman to tone down his rhetoric once in office, citing his collaboration with the outgoing Government of Ehud Olmert, which he walked out of a year before it collapsed.

The Roman Catholic Church, which also faces fierce competition from resurgent Islam, has felt the heat. With one of the world's largest Catholic populations, estimated at 158 million, though, Africa can still pack them in. More than 500,000 are expected to attend Mass in the Angolan capital, Luanda, celebrated by the Pope.

The Vatican's uncompromising messages on HIV/Aids, the role of priests and nuns in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and its apparent inability to deliver millions from squalor and poverty has, however, dented its image on a continent that saw its fastest growth during the past century. "The Catholic Church lacks passion. It's really not a very exciting place," Jaoa, a worshipper at Luanda's "Universal Church of the Kingdom of God", said on Sunday as he held out his arms to the sky and begged God to expel his demons.

The Pope said he hoped that the six-day trip to Cameroon and Angola would bring hope to Africa. He will begin the visit in Yaoundé, the capital of Cameroon, before moving on to Angola, but many will ask why it took him four years to visit a continent his predecessor came to 16 times.