Mr Lula da Silva, who is visiting Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China's president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.

An official at Brazil's central bank stressed that talks were at an early stage. He also said that what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil. "Currency swaps are not necessarily trade related," the official said. "The funds can be drawn down for any use. What we are talking about now is Brazil paying for Chinese goods with reals and China paying for Brazilian goods with renminbi."

Henrique Meirelles and Zhou Xiaochuan, governors of the two countries' central banks, were expected to meet soon to discuss the matter, the official said. In an essay posted on the People's Bank of China's website, Mr Zhou said THE GOAL WOULD BE TO CREATE A RESERVE CURRENCY "THAT IS DISCONNECTED FROM INDIVIDUAL NATIONS".

It found that the only offence that was heavily reduced by their presence was theft from vehicles in car parks. The findings are a further blow to Home Office officials and police chiefs who have turned to CCTV as their main weapon in preventing crime. ABOUT 4.2MILLION CAMERAS ARE THOUGHT TO BE OPERATING AND AT LEAST £500MILLION OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY HAS BEEN SPENT INSTALLING THEM.

But the report, by Cambridge University academic David Farrington for the Campbell Collaboration study group and funded by the Home Office, said cameras should only be used in specific target areas where they are known to be effective - rather than the 'current broad application'. Critics of CCTV say that improving police patrols or street lighting would be more effective, and that cameras can even increase crime by encouraging people to drop their guard.

Sidestepping calls to quit over his handling of the crisis, Martin said he would meet party leaders in the next two days to discuss reforms to a system which saw claims for everything from bathplugs and biscuits to cat food and tennis court repairs. "We must all accept blame and to the extent that I have contributed to the situation, I am profoundly sorry," said Martin, dressed in the Speaker's black robe.

Forcing Martin's resignation would be a constitutional landmark on a par with the abdication of a monarch or a U.S. president's impeachment, said John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, Scotland. "There is a reverence about the office… a kind of mythology about it," he said. "It is the equivalent of an abdication crisis. There is no doubt we are in a pretty old whirlwind. We are going to remember this one."

If ousted, he would be the first Speaker to be sacked since John Trevor lost his post for taking bribes in 1695. His departure would spark a by-election in his constituency in Glasgow and could add to calls for a national poll. The Speaker is the highest authority in the lower house and represents the chamber to the monarch. His duties include keeping order during debates, calling lawmakers to speak and making sure they follow the rules of parliament. Liberal Democrat lawmaker Norman Baker told Sky News: "Today's performance was terrible, frankly. I am afraid he signed his own political death warrant today."

His comments came after a meeting with President Barack Obama, WHO BLUNTLY TOLD THE ISRAELI LEADER IT WAS TIME TO GET BACK TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE. Netanyahu and President Barack Obama met for more than two hours at the White House and focused on Mideast peace talks, Iran's nuclear program and the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Obama said he expects a positive response from his diplomatic outreach to Iran on stopping its nuclear program by the end of the year. The president said the United States wanted to bring Iran into the world community, but declared "we're not going to have talks forever." At the same time, Obama said bluntly that it was important that Netanyahu, a hard-liner on peace negotiations with the Palestinians, to restart the stalled Mideast peace talks. While his language was gentle, Obama's words were notable nonetheless for being made in public.

Netanyahu said he was ready to resume peace talks with the Palestinians immediately BUT SAID ANY AGREEMENT DEPENDED ON THEIR ACCEPTANCE OF ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST. It was not immediately clear in the way he phrased the response whether Netanyahu was demanding that as a precondition for talks. "There's never been a time when Arabs and Israelis see a common threat the way we see it today," Netanyahu said, speaking of a sense of urgency felt throughout the Arab world about Iran's nuclear program.

The survey found that 41 percent of respondents say the Holocaust never happened, up from 28 percent who said so in 2006 when the question was first asked. Holocaust denial is rampant among Palestinians and in Arab countries neighboring Israel. But Arabs in Israel have frequent contact with Jews and learn about the Holocaust in school.

Smooha said the growing radicalization among Israeli Arabs is a result of the 2006 Lebanon War, the stalemate in peace negotiations with the Palestinians and the continued divide between Israel's Jewish and Arab populations. This has made it hard for Arabs to view Israeli Jews as victims. The survey also found that the portion of the Israeli Arab public that believes Israel has a right to exist as an independent country has fallen from 81 percent in 2003 when the study was first conducted to 54 percent today.

Inside the Obama administration, some officials say, Pakistan's drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents.

The administration's effort is complicated by the fact that Pakistan is producing an unknown amount of new bomb-grade uranium and, once a series of new reactors is completed, bomb-grade plutonium for a new generation of weapons. President Obama has called for passage of a treaty that would stop all nations from producing more fissile material — the hardest part of making a nuclear weapon — but so far has said nothing in public about Pakistan's activities.

Bruce Riedel, the Brookings Institution scholar who served as the co-author of Mr. Obama's review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, reflected the administration's concern in a recent interview, saying that PAKISTAN "HAS MORE TERRORISTS PER SQUARE MILE THAN ANYPLACE ELSE ON EARTH, and it has a nuclear weapons program that is growing faster than anyplace else on earth."

These figures showed that Germany has suffered the steepest economic collapse ever recorded in a major industrialised country; and that several of the countries in Central Europe and on the periphery of the eurozone are now in a state of economic and financial meltdown comparable with Argentina, Indonesia and Russia in the 1990s or with Iceland last year.

The 3.8 per cent decline in Germany's first-quarter GDP reported on Friday translates into AN ANNUALISED RATE OF 16 PER CENT. That was almost three times the rate of decline in the United States and Britain and steeper than most estimates of the economic collapse during the worst years of the Great Depression. And this was not just some temporary fluke or statistical exaggeration.

That continental Europe — and Germany, in particular — has suffered far worse from the credit crunch than the US or Britain should come as no surprise. I have described repeatedly the three interacting elements now hitting Europe in a "perfect storm".

THE FIRST ELEMENT is Germany's dependence on exports, especially of capital goods, cars and other consumer durables.

THE SECOND ELEMENT of the perfect storm has been the reckless lending to Central Europe and the Baltic States, especially by banks based in Austria, Sweden, Greece and Italy, which in turn have been large borrowers from German investors and banks.

THE THIRD COMPONENT of the economic hurricane is the euro itself. In its first decade of existence, the euro contributed to continental Europe's growth by allowing Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark to run enormous current account deficits and enjoy housing and mortgage booms far more extreme than anything seen in Britain or the US.

The quake was 8.4 miles deep and centered near the community of Lennox, about 10 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Residents across a wide area of Los Angeles felt a sharp rumbling that lasted 10 to 15 seconds at about 8:39 p.m. (11:39 p.m. EDT). A spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department said there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

Benedict called himself a "friend of the Israelis," as well as "a friend of the Palestinian people" and went on to say that no friend "can fail to weep at the suffering and loss of life that both peoples have endured over the last six decades." In the strongest language of his entire visit, Benedict made an impassioned appeal: "No more bloodshed! No more fighting! No more terrorism! No more war! Instead let us break the vicious circle of violence. Let there be lasting peace based on justice, let there be genuine reconciliation and healing."

Again, to leave no doubts what all this means in practical terms, Benedict declared his intentions in the clearest of terms. First, to those who still dispute Israel's right to exist as a state, Benedict stated: "LET IT BE UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED THAT THE STATE OF ISRAEL HAS THE RIGHT TO EXIST, and to enjoy peace and security within internationally agreed borders."

Moving on to the flip side of the relation, he said: "LET IT BE LIKEWISE ACKNOWLEDGED THAT THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO A SOVEREIGN INDEPENDENT HOMELAND, to live with dignity and to travel freely. Let the two-state solution become a reality, not remain a dream." If anyone still harbored doubts regarding Benedict XVI's political aspirations for the Holy Land, this clear statement should leave little room for doubt.

The Pope said this on the final day of his Holy Land pilgrimage, in the presence of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of the Holy City of Jerusalem and All Palestine, Theophilus III, in an ecumenical meeting at the patriarchate.

The Pontiff expressed the hope that the meeting will "give new impetus to the work of theological dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, adding to the recent fruits of study documents and other joint initiatives. Such ecumenical experience bears clear witness to the link between the unity of the Church and her mission," he noted.

After this meeting, the Pontiff went to visit the Holy Sepulcher nearby, and then went to the Armenian Apostolic patriarchal church of St. James. In the presence of Archbishop Torkom II Manoukian and members of the Armenian Church, the Pontiff affirmed that the meeting "IS ANOTHER STEP ALONG THE PATH TOWARDS THE UNITY WHICH THE LORD DESIRES FOR ALL HIS DISCIPLES."

Mr Obama will make clear that HE WILL NOT ALLOW HIS FOREIGN POLICY OBJECTIVES TO BE DICTATED BY THE JEWISH STATE'S INTERESTS, and that its leaders must resume working for peace with the Palestinians. The President has already fired warning shots across the bows of the Israeli government to signal that he will not be pushed around by Mr Netanyahu's newly elected right-wing coalition. Many within Israel's government are openly hostile to two key aspects of American policy on the Middle East: statehood for the Palestinians and engagement with Iran.

Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, said: "Netanyahu is caught between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the president's determination to achieve a two-state solution and the hard place being his political base which opposes it. He's inching toward the Obama position but trying to avoid saying the words, 'two-state solution.'"

Mr Netanyahu's political survival may depend on him sticking to his position. Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister whose right-wing party is essential to the survival of the Likud-led coalition, is forthrightly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Analysts say that while the Taliban has almost no chance of ever being in a position to launch a nuclear warhead, there is a real danger militants could exploit chaos in Pakistan to hijack or steal enough radioactive material to build the kind of device long feared by counterterrorist officials - a dirty bomb. U.S. and allied officials have expressed mounting concern over what would happen to Pakistan's warheads if the country lurched further into chaos and the Taliban came closer to seizing power.

"The collapse of Pakistan, al Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover - that would dwarf everything we've seen in the war on terror," David Kilcullen, an Australian anti-insurgency expert and adviser to U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus, warned earlier this year. But most analysts say the Taliban is nowhere near able to mount a serious power grab across Pakistan. And even if they seized an area where warheads were stored, the nuclear command system would make it almost impossible to launch one.

"I don't think there is any risk whatsoever of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of dangerous radical Islamic elements for the foreseeable future," said Alastair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura in London.

Writing in the News of the World today Gordon Brown said he was 'appalled and angered' by last week's expenses revelations. He also apologised, on behalf of all parties, to those 'striving hard in these difficult times' that the political system had let them and the public down. The Prime Minister said he was brought up to believe 'you did the right thing – and that trust, integrity and honesty are the most precious assets of all.'

He also said: 'I want to assure every citizen of my commitment to a complete clean-up of the system. Wherever and whenever immediate disciplinary action is required I will take it. The bottom line is that any MP who is found to have defied the rules will not be serving in my government.' His comments come as Labour's most generous donors are to withdraw financial support worth millions and called for the arrest of some MPs at the centre of the expenses revelations, according to the Observer.

Neither Buckingham Palace nor Downing Street would comment on the conversation between Mr Brown and the Queen, insisting that it remain confidential. However, well-placed sources say the Queen is 'deeply troubled' by the scandal and had made it clear that she feared it could inflict 'long-lasting damage' to the Commons.

Protests and vigils have been held on and around campus, with several people arrested before Mr Obama's speech. Mr Obama, who received an honorary degree, defended the right to abortion but said the procedure should be rare.

After entering the White House in January the president also quickly moved to reverse a Bush-era ban on embryonic stem-cell research, angering many social conservatives. There are approximately 60 MILLION ROMAN CATHOLICS IN THE US, with almost half of them supporting abortion rights, research suggests. Some 42% BELIEVE ABORTION SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

The decision to invite Mr Obama to Notre Dame, the largest Catholic university in the US, has been fiercely criticised. Many activists and Church leaders have directed their ire at the university authorities they accuse of betraying Catholic principles. Bishop John D'Arcy, of the diocese where Notre Dame is located, said he would boycott the graduation for the first time in his 24 years as bishop, the Chicago Tribune reported.

"The Holy Sepulcher is the place of the resurrection of Jesus Christ," noted Father Atuire. "This place marks the renaissance in the history of humanity. I believe that the visit of Benedict XVI here to the Holy Land has been a moment for THE RENAISSANCE OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS AND JEWS." The priest cited as an example the comments of Israel's President Shimon Peres when he told the Pontiff that never in the history of 2,000 years have the relations between Jews and Christians been better.

"The Pope has washed away the fears and worries that were there before the visit, and he has cleared away the environment to establish a new era in the relations between Christians and Jews," said Father Atuire. "And the same has happened with the Muslims," he continued. It is enough to listen to the address from Thursday in Nazareth, of the Muslim representative, to see that a new era is opening."

"In the four years of the pontificate of Benedict XVI there have been tensions with Jews and Muslims, and the media has made it look that interreligious relations have gotten worse under this Pope," added the pilgrimage director. "But this trip shows that these accusations don't have any basis."

The priest said that as another fruit of the trip, "it can be hoped that the peace process, that goes forward on square wheels, begins to gain speed. There are many convergent elements that are seeking peace in this land and the Pope's visit has given a lot of encouragement to those who seek peace. The Pope confirmed to Mahmud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, THE NEED TO CREATE TWO STATES THAT LIVE IN SECURITY AND COLLABORATION, guaranteeing the right to free movement, in which its citizens can live in dignity with their families. In this sense, it is not just a political peace, but one that comes from the heart of each person."