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.

Alistair Darling and senior figures in the US Treasury have been encouraging the Fund to issue hundreds of billions of dollars worth of so-called Special Drawing Rights in the coming months as part of its campaign to prevent the recession from turning into a global depression. Should the move, which is up for discussion by the summit of G20 finance ministers this weekend, be adopted, it will represent a global equivalent of the Bank of England's plan to pump extra cash into the UK economy.

However, economists warned that the scheme could cause A MAJOR SWELL OF INFLATION AROUND THE WORLD as the newly-created money filters through the system. The idea has been suggested by a number of key figures, including billionaire investor George Soros and US Treasury adviser Ted Truman.

Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, said: "The principle behind it is that everyone would get bonus dollars and instead of the Federal Reserve having to print them, everyone gets them. The objective is to create a windfall of cash. HOWEVER IF EVERYBODY GOES OUT AND SPENDS THE MONEY IT COULD BE VERY INFLATIONARY."

The scale of the crisis faced by Africa because of the economic downturn is only now becoming apparent. The head of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, called it an "emergency" at the meeting in London. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown heard tales of woe from across the continent - 500,000 thrown out of work in copper mines in Zambia, farmers losing jobs in Tanzania when the cotton price halved, foreign receipts down everywhere because of a cut in tourism and the reduction in remittances sent home by workers living abroad.

Prime Minister Brown wants a strong commitment from fellow leaders of the developed world at the G20 summit next month, but many are more concerned about their own economies than the state of Africa. Few have lived up to the commitments they made to increase aid at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, and some are talking about cutting aid budgets.

There is no agreed figure for what Africa needs, but Mr Kaberuka of the African Development Bank said that the impact was "deeper than anticipated at the beginning". All of the African leaders in London stressed the need to make finance for trade available again. For now it has completely dried up.

The prime minister will argue that Iran will be a litmus test of how nuclear nations can work together with non-nuclear states to equip them with new sources of energy, including nuclear power. "Like it or not", Mr Brown will say, A MASSIVE EXPANSION OF NUCLEAR POWER WILL BE NEEDED TO MEET CARBON REDUCTION TARGETS.

According to International Atomic Energy Agency forecasts, more than 30 nuclear reactors will have to built every year if the world is to meet its target of halving carbon emissions by 2050. "We have to create a new international system to help non-nuclear states acquire the new sources of energy they need," the prime minister will say.

He will reportedly receive a European Commission pension at the age of 65 of £31,000 a year but EU rules stipulate that if he speaks out against Europe as a former Commissioner he could be stripped of his pension altogether. Commissioners have to abide by certain obligations "both during and after their term of office" and one of these obligations as a staff member of the Commission is to maintain a "duty of loyalty to the Communities".

Saturday's Mail reported that the Conservatives have stepped up their campaign to oblige Lord Mandelson to make public the full details of his "golden goodbye" from the European Commission.

As late as November 2007, Barclays in Paris held a private account for Teodorin Obiang, the study says. A scion of the ruling family in Equitorial Guinea, Mr Obiang in the past 10 years spent €4.5 million on sports cars even as 20 percent of children die before their fifth birthday due to poverty in the oil-rich country. A €1.2 million Bugatti Veyron: Teodorin Obiang bought three. The cost of less than one of the cars could buy a mosquito net for every child in the malaria-prone country. Until March 2007, BNP Paribas was involved in billions of euros of syndicated loans to the Angola ruling elite-linked oil firm Sonangol, Global Witness writes.

Deutsche Bank has still not made clear to the NGO what happened to the €2 billion or so of Turkmenistan's natural gas income, which it was holding for the country's notoriously cruel dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov, when he died in January 2007. "THE INTERNATIONAL BANKING SYSTEM IS COMPLICIT IN HELPING TO PERPETUATE POVERTY, CORRUPTION, CONFLICT, HUMAN SUFFERING AND MISERY," the Global Witness paper says.

Coming ahead of the G20 finance summit in London on 2 April and in a climate of hostility to big bank secrecy caused by the financial crisis, the report calls for regulation of bank dealings with "PEPs" (politically-exposed persons) and a name-and-shame campaign by FATF (the Financial Action Task Force).

HSBC and Banco Santander are named in connection to the Obiang family. Credit Lyonnais allegedly helped Gabonese President Omar Bongo place funds abroad. Societe Generale is said to have done similar work for the ruling family of Congo-Brazzaville. Fortis bank is accused of helping the former ruler of Liberia, Charles Taylor, fund conflict in east Africa by processing payments for government-linked timber firms. The list of banks implicated in the Angola loans includes Commerzbank, KBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, ING and Standard Chartered.

The Guardian reports that THE TRANSATLANTIC RIFT is threatening the prospect of a deal to handle the economic crisis at the G20 in April. The Times reports that the rift has been emphasised in an admission by Britain's most senior civil servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, that it was proving "unbelievably difficult" to liaise with the Obama Administration to prepare for the meeting.

Tony Barber, writing in the FT argues that the number of recent EU summits on the financial crisis are "without precedent in the EU's 51-year history." He quotes EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia saying, "If new summits take place without precise decisions and results, confidence in the capacity of these summits to solve problems will clearly diminish."

The Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown has said that the G20 meeting must produce a substantive plan to rescue the world economy or there will be "disastrous" financial consequences because the stakes have been raised so high, according to the Telegraph.

The first in COPENHAGEN, billed as "an emergency summit on climate change" and attracting acres of worldwide media coverage, was EXPLICITLY DESIGNED TO STOKE UP THE FEAR OF GLOBAL WARMING to an unprecedented pitch. As one of the organisers put it, "THIS IS NOT A REGULAR SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE: THIS IS A DELIBERATE ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE POLICY".

Thus the name of the game last week, as we see from a sample of quotations, was to win headlines by claiming that everything is far worse than previously supposed. Sea level rises by 2100 could be "much greater than the 59cm predicted by the last IPCC report". Global warming could kill off 85 per cent of the Amazon rainforest, "much more than previously predicted". The ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica are melting "much faster than predicted". The number of people dying from heat could be "twice as many as previously predicted".

None of the GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCIENTISTS making these claims were particularly distinguished, but they succeeded in their object, as the media cheerfully recycled all this wild scaremongering without bothering to check the scientific facts.

What a striking contrast this was to the second conference, which I attended with 700 others in NEW YORK, organised by the Heartland Institute under the title Global Warming: Was It Ever Really A Crisis?. IN BRITAIN THIS RECEIVED NO COVERAGE AT ALL, apart from a sneering mention by the Guardian, although it was addressed by dozens of expert scientists, not a few of world rank, who for professional standing put those in Copenhagen in the shade. The message of this gathering was that THE SCARE OVER GLOBAL WARMING HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY STOKED UP FOR POLITICAL REASONS AND HAS LONG SINCE PARTED COMPANY WITH PROPER SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.

Nothing has more acutely demonstrated this than the reliance of the IPCC on COMPUTER MODELS to predict what is going to happen to global temperatures over the next 100 years. On these predictions, that temperatures are likely to rise by up to 5.3C, all their other predictions and recommendations depend, yet nearly 10 years into the 21st century it is already painfully clear that the computer forecasts are going hopelessly astray. Far from rising with CO2, as the models are programmed to predict they should, the satellite-measured temperature curve has flattened out and then dropped. If the present trend were to continue, the world in 2100 would not in fact be hotter but 1.1C cooler than the 1979-1998 average.

YET IT IS ON THIS FUNDAMENTAL INABILITY OF THE COMPUTER MODELS TO PREDICT WHAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED THAT ALL ELSE HANGS. Sea levels are not shooting up but only continuing their modest 3mm a year rise over the past 200 years. The vast Antarctic ice-sheet is not melting, except in one tiny corner, the Antarctic Peninsula. Tropical hurricane activity, far from increasing, is at its lowest level for 30 years. The best correlation for temperature fluctuations is not CO2 but the magnetic activity of the sun.

There seems little doubt that global warming is leading the world towards an unprecedented catastrophe. But it is not the Technicolor apocalypse promised by the likes of Al Gore. THE REAL DISASTER HANGING OVER US LIES IN ALL THOSE ASTRONOMICALLY COSTLY MEASURES PROPOSED BY POLITICIANS, TO MEET A CRISIS WHICH IN REALITY NEVER EXISTED.

The Bank is using its Quarterly Bulletin to highlight the threat posed to the economy by deflation – where prices fall each year rather than rise. Although inflation is currently in positive territory, it is expected to become negative in the coming months. The Bank is worried that this may combine with high levels of indebtedness to squeeze families further.

It says that families with high debts could fall prey to the debt deflation trap. This means that the cost of their debts, which are fixed, would rise compared to average prices throughout the economy. While inflation erodes debts, deflation makes them relatively higher. The Bank's paper suggests that Britain is particularly at risk because there is a high proportion of families with significant levels of debt, and many of them are on fixed mortgage rateS, which means they will not benefit from rate cuts.