The British government will host the talks on March 24, ahead of an April summit of Group of 20 leaders, the Nikkei economic daily said, without naming sources. Invitations have been sent to the chiefs of leading institutions including US-based JPMorgan Chase and Co and British bank HSBC, it said.

From Japan, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group president Nobuo Kuroyanagi will attend the meeting, it said. No confirmation of the report was available from the Japanese bank on Saturday. Leaders of the Group of 20 developed and developing nations are to get together in London on April 2. Supervision of financial institutions is expected to be high on the agenda.

Taxpayers now own 65 per cent of the firm, up from 43 per cent after previous bailouts, and this rises to 77 per cent once non-voting shares are included. Lloyds pledged to lend an additional £28 billion over the next two years as part of the deal. The Treasury's confirmation came as taxpayers looked destined to end up covering the £3million pension pot of the bank's American boss of Lloyds.

Eric Daniels, 58, stands to draw retirement payments of more than £150,000 a year when he reaches 60. The deal will cause uproar because many hold him responsible for overseeing the near-collapse of Lloyds following its contentious merger with Halifax Bank of Scotland. Hopes of an imminent deal helped boost the bank's shares yesterday but, now that it is sealed, it could prompt Mr Daniels' early exit and that of his chairman, Sir Victor Blank.

Details of Mr Daniels' bumper pension package WILL FOCUS ATTENTION AGAIN ON 'REWARDS FOR FAILURE' for bankers forced to go cap in hand to the Government for taxpayer-funded bailouts.

Investigators will pay particular attention to spending on sport during Sir Fred's time as chief executive. RBS announced last week that it planned to cut its spending on sport sponsorship. The annual bill includes about £7 million in payments to seven RBS "global ambassadors" including Sir Jackie Stewart, the three-times Formula 1 champion, and the golfer Jack Nicklaus, both boyhood heroes of Sir Fred.

The fresh investigation raises the stakes in the battle of wills between the Government and the banker over his pension. Sir Fred declined to comment but a friend warned: "WHAT THE PRIME MINISTER MAY WANT TO CONSIDER IS THAT HE AND FRED WERE VERY CLOSE FOR A LONG TIME AND IN DAMAGING FRED IT MAY END UP DAMAGING THE PRIME MINISTER."

Sir Jackie spoke to The Times last night from his home in Switzerland and defended his contract with RBS, which started in 2004. "I have a large number of global activities such as product launches and corporate hospitality. It was a five-year contract, I think, and then it was extended. My contract finishes with the bank in 2011." He refused to reveal how much he is paid by the bailed-out bank, but it is understood that he receives between £3 million and £4 million a year. RBS also pays Sir Jackie, who retired from motor racing in 1973, travel expenses between his homes in Britain, Switzerland and grand prix races all over the world.

RBS later issued a statement saying that SIR JACKIE HAD AGREED TO SURRENDER A THIRD OF THE FEES DUE FOR THE REMAINDER OF HIS CONTRACT "in recognition of the changed financial and economic circumstances facing RBS". A Downing Street source said: "Now that Sir Jackie has done this, it is time for Sir Fred to do the decent thing."

The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a "higher" destiny and bring it out of "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world."

Chavez said that people are calling Obama a "socialist" for the measures of state intervention he is taking to counter the crisis, so it would not be too far-fetched to suggest that he might join the project of "21st century socialism" that the Venezuelan leader is heading. "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT IN THE 1980S THAT THE SOVIET UNION WOULD DISAPPEAR? No one," he said.

"That murderous, genocidal empire has to end, and some day there has to come a leader... who interprets the best of a people who also include human beings who suffer, endure, weep and laugh," the outspoken Chavez said.

Clinton told young Europeans at the European Parliament that global economic turmoil provided a fresh opening. "Never waste a good crisis… Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security," she said. Europe sees the United States as a crucial ally in global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, after President Barack Obama signaled a new urgency in tackling climate change, in stark contrast to his predecessor George W. Bush.

Europe has already laid out plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions to about a fifth below 1990 levels in the next decade, while Obama has proposed a major shift toward renewable energy and a cap and trade system for CO2 emissions. But with many countries in the grip of a punishing recession, SOME QUESTION WHETHER BUSINESSES CAN MUSTER THE HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS NEEDED TO CUT CARBON EMISSIONS.

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced the president's itinerary at a news conference following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers Thursday in Brussels. The White House confirmed other details of the trip later in the day. THE TRIP WILL BE MARCH 31 THROUGH APRIL 5.

President Obama will begin in Britain for a G-20 summit on the global financial crisis, to be held in London. He will then take part in a NATO meeting in France and Germany while also meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The president will cap the trip in Prague for a US-European Union conference.

The rally cries of labor unions, community groups and families outside City Hall could be heard throughout lower Manhattan. Desperation for an economic lifeline brought out more than 50,000 people along several blocks of Broadway in a self-described "Rally For New York." Their message for Governor David Paterson came in the form of booming chants: "No more cuts! No more cuts!"

Everyday New Yorkers had their own personal messages for the governor as well. "Governor Paterson, I wish you could have an open heart that we are going to suffer if this budget cut goes through," said China Lankford of Jamaica. Paterson has proposed closing a $15 billion state budget gap by making cuts across the board, including $2.5 billion in education, $3.2 billion in health care and billions more in cuts to vital programs such as senior services, disability services, housing assistance and crisis intervention programs.

Protestors insisted Thursday that there's a better way. They're asking for what they call "fair tax reform" - raising state taxes for New Yorkers making $250,000 or more on top of the president's proposed hikes.

The private meeting is highly unusual because Mr Obama will not be on a State visit. But advisers believe it is important the Queen — who opened an interchange in Hull yesterday — meets him before any official trip. A source said: "There is a wish to do these things as discreetly as possible in the first instance."

President Obama, famed for his Yes We Can slogan, will fly with wife Michelle on Air Force One to Stansted, Essex. The private talks will be held the next day at Buckingham Palace.

Mr Obama will then join the G20 leaders for a Downing Street dinner on the eve of the summit on April 2. Last night it emerged he gave Gordon Brown 25 top US movies as a gift after talks in the US. Mr Brown's wife Sarah gave Mr Obama's two daughters Topshop outfits. And the First Lady gave Mr Brown's two boys toy helicopters.

Markets were hit by disappointment that China did not unveil new stimulus measures on Thursday and fears that General Motors might not survive. Investors are also anxious ahead of the publication of unemployment figures in the US later on Friday. "The unemployment data is not going to be beautiful. Things are not going to improve quickly," Lucinda Chan, at Macquarie Private Wealth in Sydney, told Reuters.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 281.40 points or 4.09% at 6,594.44 on Thursday.

The former England opener, now an ICC match referee, returned home yesterday after being hailed a hero for his actions when gunmen opened fire on a convey of cars before day three of the second Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. At a hastily arranged press conference in Manchester, Broad said: "We were promised high-level security and IN OUR HOUR OF NEED THAT SECURITY VANISHED AND THEY LEFT US TO BE SITTING DUCKS."

His shock allegation came as it was revealed the hero driver of the Sri Lanka cricketeers' bus had a jihadist brother. Mehar Mohammed Khalil averted a massacre by driving the team to safety under a hail of bullets. But his younger brother Shakil was an extremist who died fighting for a jihadist militant group in Indian-controlled Kashmir in 1995.

Yesterday the top American diplomat in Kabul warned that Pakistan is now a bigger threat than Afghanistan. "It is certainly one of those nuclear-armed countries the instability of which is a bigger problem for the globe. Pakistan is a bigger place, has a larger population, it's nuclear-armed. IT HAS CERTAINLY MADE RADICAL ISLAM A PART OF ITS POLITICAL LIFE, and it now seems to be a deeply ingrained element of its political culture. It makes things there very hard."

GM had warned last month that its auditors, Deloitte & Touche, could raise those concerns, but the announcement underscored the stakes for the company, the No. 1 US automaker, as it sought up to $30 billion in US government aid to restructure without resorting to bankruptcy.

"Our recurring losses from operations, stockholders' deficit and inability to generate sufficient cash flow to meet our obligations and sustain our operations RAISE SUBSTANTIAL DOUBT ABOUT OUR ABILITY TO CONTINUE AS A GOING CONCERN," GM said in the report, which was filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

GM shares had plunged almost 18 percent by Thursday afternoon, helping to drag down the broader market. GM said it could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection in a number of situations, including failure to receive more government aid, failure to exact concessions from bondholders and the United Automobile Workers union, and further deterioration of an already dismal new-vehicle market in the United States.

An additional 2.2 million borrowers will be underwater if home prices decline another 5 percent, First American, a Santa Ana, California-based seller of mortgage and economic data, said in a report today. Households with negative equity or near it account for a quarter of all mortgage holders.

"We have way too much supply and not enough demand," Sam Khater, senior economist for First American, said in an interview. "People aren't going to purchase a home as long as prices keep falling, and someone who is worried about their job isn't going to purchase a home either."

US foreclosure filings exceeded 250,000 for the 10th straight month in January, RealtyTrac Inc reported, and payrolls plunged by 598,000, pushing the unemployment rate to the highest since 1992, according to the Labor Department.

The report also says Israel's time frame for action is growing shorter, not only because of Iranian advances, but because Teheran might soon acquire upgraded air defenses and disperse its nuclear program to additional locations.

The report, "Preventing a Cascade of Instability," was put out by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). It also argues that international sanctions against Iran need to be intensified urgently for the engagement the Obama administration is planning with Teheran to be effective.

"Even without testing a nuclear weapon or declaring the ability to do so, Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons capability is already having a substantial impact on the Middle East," the report says. "Time is short if diplomatic engagement is to have a chance of success."

The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, ALLEGING THAT IT WOULD CAST "A STIGMA" ON RECIPIENTS of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from US taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Fed secrecy was the focus of a Senate Banking Committee hearing today in which the panel's top two members said the central bank's reluctance to identify companies benefiting from the American International Group Inc bailout risks undermining public confidence in the government.

"If the American taxpayer's money is at stake, and it is, big time, I believe the American taxpayers, the people, and this committee, need to know who benefited, where this money went," said Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee's top Republican. "There is no transparency here. We are going to find out." Shelby told the Fed vice chairman that "YOUR ANSWER HERE IS VERY DISTURBING. PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE WITH THIS MONEY."

He said the approach would "eventually work" but ADMITTED IT WAS UNKNOWN HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE to have an effect. The approach, untried in the UK, was unveiled as the Bank cut interest rates from 1% to 0.5% - a fresh all-time low. Interest rates have now been reduced six times since October, and the latest cut was expected.

Mr King insisted that increasing the amount of money in circulation was not an "experiment". "Nothing in life is ever certain, but THESE MEASURES WE THINK WILL WORK IN THE LONG-TERM," Mr King said. "I don't know how long it will take, much depends on the situation in the rest of the world. But if countries work together, these measures will I believe eventually work."

Chancellor Alistair Darling said that increasing the supply of money was "absolutely essential" in order for the UK to recover from the recession. He acknowledged that the latest rate cut would be a blow to savers who faced another drop in the return on their money but said "the key thing for each and every one of us is to ensure we get the economy moving to help people and to help businesses grow".

The Daily Telegraph reports:- Mr King said the Bank will create up to £150 billion of cash to spend on the scheme, with the first £75 billion to be spent in the next three months, starting next Wednesday. The total is equivalent to just under £5,800 for every household in Britain. However, should the scheme fail to spark any growth in the economy, the amount it will spend is likely to soar even higher.

Some fear that this extra infusion of cash will GENERATE A TIDAL WAVE OF INFLATION some years in the future, consigning Britain to many years of either high inflation or perhaps even ZIMBABWE-STYLE HYPERINFLATION IF LEFT UNCHECKED.