"THE ONGOING FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRISIS COULD TIP EVEN MORE PEOPLE INTO HUNGER AND POVERTY," the FAO added. The Rome-based organisation said that a preliminary estimate showed the number of undernourished people rose this year by 40m to about 963m people, after rising 75m in 2007. Before the food crisis, there were about 848m chronically hungry people in 2003-05.

"HIGH FOOD PRICES ARE DRIVING MILLIONS OF PEOPLE INTO FOOD INSECURITY, worsening conditions for many who were already food-insecure, and threatening long-term global food security," the FAO said in its report The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2008. Prices of agricultural commodities such as wheat, corn and rice jumped to record levels earlier this year, TRIGGERING FOOD RIOTS in countries ranging from Haiti to Egypt to Bangladesh and prompting appeals for food aid for more than 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Although food commodity prices have fallen about 50 per cent from this summer's all-time highs, they remain well above pre-crisis levels. The cost of rice, for example, has halved since July, but it still trades at prices that are 95 per cent above 2005 levels. In addition, the weakening of some emerging countries' currencies against the US dollar has partially erased gains from the drop in commodity prices.

However, with leaders' attention firmly focused on the global financial crisis and its economic ramifications, MANY OBSERVERS NOW BELIEVE THAT THE HUNGER AND POVERTY REDUCTION TARGETS ARE NO LONGER ACHIEVABLE BY 2015. The vast majority of the world's undernourished people – more than 90m – live in developing countries, according to FAO estimates. Of these, 65 per cent live in only seven countries: India, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Ethiopia. In sub-Saharan Africa, one in three people – or almost 240m – are chronically hungry, the highest proportion of undernourished people in the total population.

STEINBRÜCK AND CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL HAVE TAKEN IT UPON THEMSELVES TO SHOW THE WORLD HOW TO SOLVE AN ECONOMIC CRISIS WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT SPENDING PROGRAMS - and by ignoring the experts' advice and going it alone. It is a bold experiment, and being given such an award was encouraging, even a partial victory.

Measures taken merely to do something, as seen in a number of EU member states, Steinbrück said, were "UNHELPFUL." The programs being established or requested everywhere are a "HUGE WASTE OF MONEY," the German finance minister railed, adding that he doesn't believe in programs aimed at boosting demand. Steinbrück and the rest of the GERMAN GOVERNMENT WILL TAKE A CLOSER LOOK IN THE FIRST QUARTER OF NEXT YEAR. Should it then become necessary, Steinbrück said in his speech last week, further action will then be taken. NOT BEFORE.

"We don't want government to run companies," Obama told Tom Brokaw on 'Meet the Press'. "Generally, government historically hasn't done that very well." But what Obama went on to describe was a long-term government bailout that would be conditioned on government oversight. IT COULD MEAN THAT THE GOVERNMENT WOULD MANDATE, OR AT LEAST HEAVILY INFLUENCE, WHAT KIND OF CARS COMPANIES MAKE, what mileage and environmental standards they must meet and what large investments they are permitted to make — to recreate an industry that Obama said "actually works, that actually functions."

It all sounds perilously close to a word that no one in Obama's camp wants to be caught uttering:- NATIONALIZATION. Yet so far, there is no talk of offering aid to Toyota, Honda, BMW or the other foreign automakers that have built factories on American soil, employed American workers and managed to make a profit doing so.

"IF JAPAN WAS DOING THIS, WE'D BE THREATENING BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN RETALIATION," said Jeffrey Garten, a professor at the Yale School of Management, who as under secretary of commerce in the 1990s was one of many government officials who tried in vain to get Detroit prepared for a world of international competition. "IN FACT, WHEN THEY DID SOMETHING A LOT MORE SUBTLE, WE THREATENED EXACTLY THAT," referring to calls for import restrictions.

India has said it is keeping all options open following last month's carnage by the Mumbai terrorists, who killed more than 170 people. "We do not want to impose war, but we are fully prepared in case war is imposed on us," said Mr Qureshi. "We are not oblivious to our responsibilities to defend our homeland. But it is our desire that there should be no war."

Indian officials say the hardline Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which is based in Pakistan despite being banned by the government, is behind the bloodshed, and Indian media have suggested there could be Indian strikes on militant camps. Mr Qureshi said he was sending "a very clear message" that his country did not want conflict with India. "We want friendship, we want peace and we want stability - but our desire for peace should not be considered Pakistan's weakness."

The minister also said that India's demands for the extradition of suspects in the Mumbai attacks were out of the question and that Pakistan, which has arrested 16 people since Saturday, would keep them on home soil. "The arrests are being made for our own investigations. Even if allegations are proved against any suspect, he will not be handed over to India," Qureshi said. "We will proceed against those arrested under Pakistani laws."

Earlier, the Food Standards Agency said the NI pork industry could resume operations after investigations into whether dioxins were present in meat. The agency said it was confident no pigs had been fed contaminated feed. "We are quite happy that Northern Ireland pigs are free from the contamination," said Maria Jennings of the Northern Ireland FSA.

Earlier, it emerged that 11 NI premises processed pork from the Republic and the meat was put on sale in Northern Ireland. Pork products from the Republic were recalled over fears that pig feed at an animal meal plant was tainted with oil containing potentially harmful dioxins. In the Republic, almost 1,400 pork processing workers have been laid off following the contamination scare.

However, Ms Jennings said: "We are absolutely certain at this point in time that Northern Ireland pork is safe to eat. We're quite happy for processors to start processing and filling our shelves with Northern Ireland pork and pork products." Meanwhile, all 36 Tesco stores are re-stocking their shelves with pork products, sourced from Northern Ireland.

The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed abruptly last week after Bank of America canceled the company's financing. Since then, about 200 of the 240 laid-off workers have taken turns occupying the factory, declaring that they will not leave until getting assurances they will receive severance and accrued vacation pay.

But the standoff has also come to embody MOUNTING ANGER OVER THE GOVERNMENT'S WILLINGNESS TO BAIL OUT DEEP-POCKETED CORPORATIONS BUT NOT AVERAGE PEOPLE.

"There's a simplicity and straightforwardness to this particular case that anybody can wrap their head around," said James Thindwa, executive director for the Chicago office of Jobs With Justice, a national coalition of unions, community groups and other organizations.

According to an investigative report published Monday by a state-owned newspaper, public security officials in Xintai city have been INSTITUTIONALIZING RESIDENTS WHO PERSIST IN THEIR PERSONAL CAMPAIGNS TO EXPOSE CORRUPTION OR TO PROTEST THE UNFAIR SEIZURE OF THEIR PROPERTY. Some people said they were committed up to two years, and several of those interviewed said they had been forced to consume psychiatric medication. The article, in The Beijing News, said MOST INMATES HAD BEEN RELEASED AFTER THEY AGREED TO GIVE UP THEIR CAUSES.

Sun Fawu, 57, a farmer seeking compensation for land spoiled by a coal mining operation, said he was seized by the local authorities on his way to petition the central government in Beijing and brought to the Xintai Mental Health Center in October. During a 20-day stay, he said he was tied to a bed, forced to take pills and given injections that made him numb and woozy. When he told the doctor he was a petitioner, not mentally ill, the doctor reportedly said, "I don't care if you're sick or not. As long as you are sent by the township government, I'll treat you as a mental patient."

In an interview with the paper, the hospital's director, Wu Yuzhu, acknowledged that some of the 18 patients brought there by the police in recent years were not deranged, but he had no choice but to take them in. "THE HOSPITAL ALSO HAD ITS MISGIVINGS," he said. Reached by phone on Monday, a hospital employee said Wu, THE HOSPITAL DIRECTOR WHO VOICED HIS MISGIVINGS TO THE BEIJING NEWS, WAS UNAVAILABLE. The employee, Hu Peng, said local government officials had taken him away FOR "A MEETING" earlier in the day and had also looked through patient records.

Organizers of "DAY WITHOUT A GAY" - scheduled to coincide with International Human Rights Day and modelled after similar work stoppages by Latino immigrants - also are encouraging people to perform volunteer work and refrain from spending money. "WE ARE ALL FOR A BOYCOTT IF THAT IS WHAT BRINGS ABOUT A SENSE OF COMMUNITY FOR PEOPLE," said Hetherington, 30, who plans to spend Wednesday volunteering at an inner-city school. "You can take away from the economy and give back in other ways."

Scott Craig, a fifth-grade teacher at Independence Charter School in Philadelphia, had no problem requesting and being granted the day off. So many of the school's 60 teachers were eager to show support for gay rights they had to make sure enough stayed behind to staff classrooms.

About 25 teachers plan to take Wednesday off and to have their work covered by substitutes while they discuss ways to introduce gay issues to their students and volunteer at the local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, Craig said. A letter telling parents why so many teachers would be out went home Monday. "WE WANT TO GET THE CONVERSATION GOING IN THE COMMUNITY THAT GAY IS NOT BAD," Craig said. "FOR KIDS TO HEAR THAT IN A POSITIVE LIGHT CAN BE LIFE-CHANGING."

The company said the jobs would be cut by April 2010 but did not say in which countries the staff would go. Sony said it had been trying to reduce production because of the downturn but warned it still had to do more. The news came as Japan drastically raised its estimate of the amount its economy shrank from July to September. The cuts are also risky because they mean Sony will be investing less in future growth.

The Cabinet Office said the economy had shrunk at an annual rate of 1.8% in the quarter, down from its previous estimate of 0.4%. Sony aims to generate cost savings of about 100bn yen ($1.1bn; £730m) by the end of the next financial year. It will cut its investment in electronic operations by 30% and shut down about 10% of its 57 production facilities.

"THE NUMBER SOUNDS BIG, BUT THIS STAFF REDUCTION WON'T BE ENOUGH," said Katsuhiko Mori, a fund manager at Daiwa SB Investments. "Sony doesn't have any core businesses that generate stable profits - the next thing we want to see is what is going to be the business that will drive the company." There has been an almost constant stream of bad news from Japanese companies over the past few weeks, so it does not come as a great surprise that the recession in Japan is deepening. WHAT IS ALARMING IS HOW QUICKLY THE SITUATION IS GETTING WORSE.

Riots broke out in several Greek cities after police shot dead a teenager in the capital Athens. It is premature to see the troubles as Greece's reprise of the Paris uprising of 1968. One of the wisest observations has come from Nikos Konstandaras, the managing editor of Kathimerini, one of Greece's more sober and respected newspapers.

In an editorial entitled "Anger's teen martyr", Mr Konstandaras wrote that Mr Grioropoulos' blood would be "used to bind together every disparate protest and complaint into a platform of righteous rage against all the ills of our society. It will quickly become a flag of convenience for anyone who has a grudge against the state, the government, the economic system, foreign powers, capitalism and so on. If Greece had already appeared difficult to govern, it will now be out of control."

Police issued a statement after the shooting, saying a patrol car with two officers inside was attacked by about 30 youths throwing stones. They were attacked again and responded, with one firing a stun grenade and the other shooting and fatally wounding the boy, AP quoted the statement as saying.

A "world government" would involve much more than co-operation between nations. IT WOULD BE AN ENTITY WITH STATE-LIKE CHARACTERISTICS, BACKED BY A BODY OF LAWS. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force. So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

FIRST, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is GLOBAL WARMING, a GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS and a "GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR".

SECOND, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: "For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible." MR BLAINEY FORESEES AN ATTEMPT TO FORM A WORLD GOVERNMENT AT SOME POINT IN THE NEXT TWO CENTURIES, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – THE THIRD POINT – A CHANGE IN THE POLITICAL ATMOSPHERE suggests that "global governance" could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Some European thinkers think that they recognise what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argues that: "GLOBAL GOVERNANCE IS JUST A EUPHEMISM FOR GLOBAL GOVERNMENT." As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the "CORE OF THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CRISIS IS THAT WE HAVE GLOBAL FINANCIAL MARKETS AND NO GLOBAL RULE OF LAW".

The world's most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but THE AVERAGE CITIZEN'S POLITICAL IDENTITY REMAINS STUBBORNLY LOCAL. Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.

"WITHOUT SEEKING TO BECOME A POLITICAL PLAYER she aspires, with THE INDEPENDENCE OF HER MORAL AUTHORITY, to co-operate faithfully and openly with all leaders of the temporal world in the noble goal of achieving a civilization of justice, peace, reconciliation, solidarity, and of those other ideals that can never be rescinded or left at the mercy of party consensus, as they are engraved in the human heart and correspond to truth."

The current century, the Pope said, continually shows us the need "to forge personal, family and social life in keeping with these elemental values, which exalt the individual and the entire community."

"Among these we must highlight support for the family based on marriage between a man and a woman, ... defense of human life from conception to natural end, eradication of poverty, ... the struggle against corruption, adopting means to assist parents in their inalienable right to educate their children in their own ethical and religious convictions, and promoting young people THAT THEY MAY BECOME MEN AND WOMEN OF PEACE AND RECONCILIATION."

The Pope said this today upon receiving members of the International Theological Commission in audience, who in their assembly this week took definitive steps toward elaborating a document on the topic.

In his address, Benedict XVI insisted on "the need and urgency, in the present context, to create in culture and in civil and political society the indispensable conditions for full awareness of the inalienable value of the NATURAL MORAL LAW. Thanks also to the study you have undertaken on this fundamental argument, it will be clear that the NATURAL LAW constitutes the true guarantee offered each one to live freely and in respect of his dignity of person, and to feel PROTECTED FROM ANY IDEOLOGICAL MANIPULATION and from all abuse perpetrated in virtue of the law of the strongest," said the [Pontiff].

According to the Pontiff, "in a world shaped by the natural sciences, the metaphysical concept of the natural law is almost absent, incomprehensible. Seeing this fundamental importance for our societies, for human life," he added, "it is necessary to pose again and to understand this concept in the context of our thought: Being itself bears in itself a moral message and an indication for the paths of law."

She is quoted as saying: "THE EU SUMMIT WILL NOT TAKE DECISIONS ON CLIMATE PROTECTION THAT WILL ENDANGER JOBS OR INVESTMENTS IN GERMANY. I WILL PROVIDE FOR THAT".

The IHT notes that Germany is concerned that the provision requiring steel, paper, cement, glass and chemical makers to buy their pollution permits at auction will put local industry at a disadvantage and cause them to move their factories overseas. Berlin is proposing that heavy industry continue to get 80% of its permits for free. "It would be a miracle if we got an agreement at this point," a French diplomat told the paper.

Italy is also resisting the package in its current form. "Some people claim environmental measures are a way to re-launch industry, but let's be realistic," said Stefania Prestigiacomo, Italy's Environment Minister, according to the IHT. "Resources are limited, and they will be even more so because of the economic crisis." She added, "We have to set priorities. It's useless to lay down objectives that won't be respected."

The Palestinians oppose any EU effort to widen relations with Israel in political, economic, scientific, security, health and other spheres. They say Israel should do more to ease the humanitarian crisis in their areas. Schwarzenberg says increasing relations were "not only in the interest of Israel but also very much in the interest of the Palestinian people." The Czechs hold the EU presidency in the first half of 2009.