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.

"But the solution exists... we are equipped intellectually, politically, and economically to face this crisis scenario."

It goes on to report that "Later in the day a commission spokesperson referred to the balance of payments facility that has been used to support both Latvia and Hungary", which was set up in 2002 to allow the commission to make loans to non-euro area countries experiencing difficulties meeting debt obligations.
EurActiv reports that Almunia has said that it is "possible and reasonable" to issue joint EU bonds to raise money for troubled member states, but that "it is up to member states to decide, and many of them oppose the idea".

Writing in the Telegraph, Simon Heffer argues that GERMANY SHOULD REFUSE TO BAILOUT OTHER COUNTRIES saying, "why should they pay for the unregenerate behaviour of others? If Mrs Merkel wants to stay in power, and German workers wish to keep the fruits of their own labours, THEY MUST HARDEN THEIR HEARTS."

Clinton met with Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday. Both Netanyahu and Livni expressed satisfaction with the meetings, and said Clinton showed an understanding of Israel and America's "common goals." Clinton met with President Shimon Peres as well. The meetings were her first with Israeli officials since she was sworn in as Secretary of State.

Netanyahu did not reveal the content of his discussion with Clinton other than to say that the two had spoken about "the Iranian issue and the Palestinian issue" and had agreed to meet again once a new government has been formed. Netanyahu described the talks as "deep, important and good." Livni praised Clinton, saying the latter had "shown a deep understanding of the needs of Israel."

Israel's ties with America "transcend parties and governments," she added. The meeting between Clinton and Barak took place in a Jerusalem hotel and was attended by officials and advisors from both sides. However, at the end of the session Barak and Clinton also held a one-on-one talk with no one else present. Clinton arrived in Israel after visiting Egypt, where she attended a donor conference that raised funds for the Palestinian Authority and Gaza. Clinton confirmed that the US plans to give $900 million to the cause.

Preparations for the visit began this week with the first of a series of conferences to discuss activities to promote Christian tourism to Israel. Among the participants were incoming tour operators specializing in the Christian market, the Israel Hotel Association and representatives of the municipalities that will be included in the Catholic leader's itinerary. Three million tourists visited the State of Israel in 2008, noted the ministry in its statement to the media. Of those, two million were Christians, half of whom were pilgrims. Most of the tourists visited Christian and Jewish sites in Jerusalem, Galilee and Bethlehem.

Marketing activities are expected to include preparation of promotional material to be distributed to journalists accompanying the Pope, who is the spiritual leader of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. The ministry will also arrange tours and visits to tourist sites for the papal delegation and the media.

"The Pope's visit to the Holy Land is an important and very significant visit that represents a strategic anchor for pilgrimage tourism to Israel in the coming years," noted Tourism Minister Ruchama Avraham-Balila. She added that the visit would also strengthen Israel's image as a central point for pilgrimages and tourism, "especially in this period when the tourism industry is dealing with the ramifications of the global economic crisis."

In the world of American government, the trillion is the new billion. There was a time when only astro-physicists and accountants practising in Zimbabwe had any use for a word which - in the US at least - means a million millions.

Barack Obama is not the only extraordinary phenomenon to rise to prominence in this country in the last year or so - the trillion is right up with him. Suddenly it is popping up in newspaper headlines with extraordinary frequency, even though it is surely a number so far beyond our everyday conceptual grasp that it conveys practically nothing.

Take Mr Obama's stimulus package for example, which ended up at $787bn (or just over three-quarters of a trillion if you prefer). That is the equivalent of spending $1m a day every day starting from the birth of Christ and going on through the present day. Still, since we have only just started on the trillion scale a bit of a breathing space should now follow. IT IS THE QUADRILLION NEXT BY THE WAY.

Now that really IS a lot of money.

Mr Chavez said the mill, owned by a subsidiary of US food giant Cargill, was not distributing rice at government-set prices. He also threatened to nationalise the country's largest food processor and private company, Polar. Venezuela has already set quotas and prices for 12 basic foods. Under the measure, 80% of all rice produced must be basic white rice. The measure also includes 95% of all cooking oil, coffee and sugar. Producers of items such as powdered milk, cheese and tomato sauce are also affected. Last week President Chavez ordered troops to rice processing plants after accusing producers of sidestepping the law on controlled prices by producing a higher grade of rice.

Cargill, which operates one rice-processing plant in Venezuela, said the mill does not produce the plain rice that is under regulation. "Prepare the decree, we are going to expropriate Cargill. We are not going to tolerate this," Mr Chavez said. Mr Chavez is attempting to reduce the cost of the basic shopping basket of ordinary Venezuelans at a time of soaring inflation, says the BBC's Will Grant in Caracas.

But business leaders and food producers are furious at what they see as a further attack on their ability to turn a profit, our correspondent says. The move against Cargill is unlikely to be viewed favourably in Washington either, which angered Venezuela last month by criticising its human rights record, our correspondent adds.

The new idea is for the Bank to buy government debt, bringing down the cost of borrowing over the long term and also providing extra money for banks to lend on to consumers and stimulate economic growth. WE ARE IN NEW TERRITORY because as it approaches zero, the interest rate that the Bank normally uses to control monetary policy becomes useless.

Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to set out in a letter to Bank Governor Mervyn King the maximum amount of government debt the Bank will be allowed to buy, possibly as much as £100bn, although it could initially be as low as £25bn. Simply, no-one has any idea exactly what the Bank and the Treasury will do and how much it will cost, because IT'S NEVER BEEN DONE BEFORE.

"IT'S NOT KNOWABLE," says Goldman Sachs economist Ben Broadbent. "For it to work, at least very effectively, you need banks to lend the money on. AND THAT'S NOT ASSURED."