Fannie and Freddie are - childish names and all - by far the biggest financial institutions ever taken over by the US government. Their bailout amounts to A STUNNING RETURN TO GOVERNMENT CONTROL OVER THE US FINANCIAL SYSTEM, incongruously led by a former Wall Street boss (Paulson) working in what is purportedly a conservative Republican Administration.

It's also yet another episode in a now year-old financial crisis that shows no signs of abating. Paulson's announcement briefly rallied stock markets around the world. But jittery investors kept running for the exits at Seattle-based thrift Washington Mutual and the investment bank Lehman Bros.

Fannie's and Freddie have long included the disclaimer that they are "not guaranteed by the United States." But both firms were creations of Congress and had access to a Treasury line of credit. As a result, Paulson said when he announced the takeover, "central banks and investors throughout the United States and around the world... believe them to be virtually risk-free." AND BECAUSE THE US GOVERNMENT CREATED THIS PERCEPTION, PAULSON FELT HE HAD LITTLE CHOICE BUT TO MAKE PERCEPTION A REALITY.

Sinlaku made landfall in coastal Ilan County in northeast Taiwan at 1:30 a.m. local time, but quickly turned away and headed back out to sea, the Central Weather Bureau said. "It's hanging around at the ocean near our coasts," said meteorologist Lee Hsiang-yuan. "It may move north, but we will not rule out another landfall on Taiwan."

Domestic flights were canceled, trains stopped running and several mountain highways were blocked by landslides, according to the Disaster Relief Center. The center warned that 55 rivers are prone to flash flooding and warned people living nearby to take precautions.

Sinlaku, named for a Micronesian goddess, is expected to move northeast toward Japan later Sunday, the bureau said. Typhoons frequently hit Taiwan between July and September, often causing casualties in mountainous regions that are prone to landslides and flash floods.

The Department of Energy estimated that 2.6 million customers in Texas and southern Louisiana lost power overnight as Ike came ashore at Galveston Island, 50 miles from Houston. Even before utilities could get helicopters in the air to survey the damage to transmission lines, officials said damage exceeded that of recent hurricanes.

Immediately after the storm, utilities reported nearly all customers had lost power as Ike's far-reaching footprint and wind force knocked out more facilities than Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and Hurricane Rita in 2005. Houston-based CenterPoint Energy reported most of its 2.2 million customers lacked power, with the power on only in downtown Houston, the Houston Medical Centre and InterContinental Airport - all areas served by underground power lines.

LeBlanc said 25 to 30 percent of the utility's transmission lines were knocked out of service with the most outages seen in the eastern and southern areas of the city, an area including the Houston Ship Channel, which is lined with refineries and petrochemical plants. "We have a big restoration effort ahead of us," LeBlanc said.

Evoking Cold War memories, Russia said this week it would send the missile-laden, nuclear-powered cruiser Peter the Great and other hi-tech ships for joint naval exercises with Venezuela scheduled for November. THE MANOEUVRES SHOW A RESURGENT RUSSIA FLEXING ITS MILITARY MUSCLE at a time of diplomatic tension with the United States after the Georgia war and over Washington's plans for a missile defence shield hosted by several former Soviet states.

For Chavez, the Russian visit serves notice to the United States that it no longer rules the waves around South America.

"UP TO TOMORROW (SUNDAY) WE HAVE GUARANTEED FLIGHTS, BUT NOT ON MONDAY BECAUSE NO-ONE WILL SUPPLY US WITH KEROSENE," Fantozzi reportedly said after summoning the nine unions for last-ditch talks to save the airline. He also warned that with no agreement he would be obliged to start the procedure for dismissing the crews of aircraft currently not being used by the company.

Investors who were prepared to put up one billion euros (1.4 billion dollars) to rescue Alitalia said Friday they were pulling out of negotiations, blaming union intransigence.

Ike killed at least two people in Texas and Louisiana, flooding many areas, destroying houses and cutting power. It made landfall in Galveston early on Saturday with 110mph (175km/h) winds, but later weakened to a tropical storm. US President George W Bush later declared Texas a federal disaster zone, freeing up millions of dollars in federal aid to those affected by the storm.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said: "We pre-positioned the largest search and rescue operation in the history of the state of Texas in advance of this storm. "There are thousands of personnel and vehicles that were very close in to where the storm struck the coast." He said rescuers were moving into Galveston by air, by boat, and by ground. About 140,000 people in the town and other low-lying areas chose to stay despite warning they could die, officials say. The hurricane left Galveston flooded and without water or electricity.

Production was suspended at 14 oil refineries and 28 natural gas processing plants that were in the storm's path. However, US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff later said that overall "the impact... was not quite as bad as the worst-case scenario, it was still substantial". Ike was downgraded to a tropical storm by the US National Hurricane Center at 1900 GMT, as it moved inland with top sustained winds of nearly 60mph (95km/h).

In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage. Jurors accepted defence arguments that THE SIX HAD A "LAWFUL EXCUSE" TO DAMAGE PROPERTY AT KINGSNORTH POWER STATION IN KENT TO PREVENT EVEN GREATER DAMAGE CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE.

The defence of "lawful excuse" under the Criminal Damage Act 1971 allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage – such as breaking down the door of a burning house to tackle a fire. The not-guilty verdict, delivered after two days and greeted with cheers in the courtroom, raises the stakes for the most pressing issue on Britain's green agenda and could encourage further direct action.

During the eight-day trial, the world's leading climate scientist, Professor James Hansen of Nasa, who had flown from America to give evidence, appealed to the Prime Minister personally to "take a leadership role" in cancelling the plan and scrapping the idea of a coal-fired future for Britain. Last December he wrote to Mr Brown with a similar appeal. At the trial, he called for an moratorium on all coal-fired power stations, and his hour-long testimony about the gravity of the climate danger, which painted a bleak picture, was listened to intently by the jury of nine women and three men.

Mr Stewart said: "THIS VERDICT MARKS A TIPPING POINT FOR THE CLIMATE CHANGE MOVEMENT. When a jury of normal people say it is legitimate for a direct action group to shut down a coal-fired power station because of the harm it does to our planet, then WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE GOVERNMENT ENERGY POLICY? We have the clean technologies at hand to power our economy. It's time we turned to them instead of coal."

Syria was Moscow's strongest Middle East ally during the Cold War. The alliance largely waned after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, though Russia has continued some weapons sales to Damascus. Syrian President Bashar Assad has increasingly reached out to Russia recently, including seeking weapons and offering broader military cooperation.

Friday's announcement was the first tangible sign of any new cooperation. The Itar-Tass news agency said Friday that A VESSEL FROM RUSSIA'S BLACK SEA FLEET HAD BEGUN RESTORING FACILITIES AT SYRIA'S MEDITERRANEAN PORT OF TARTUS FOR USE BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY. The two countries' naval chiefs also met in Moscow on Friday and discussed "further strengthening mutual trust and mutual understanding between the two states' fleets," a Russian naval official, Igor Dygalo, told Itar-Tass.

The Tartus renovations could signal an intention to have a long-term Russian naval presence there. In late August, Russia's ambassador to Damascus, Igor Belyev, said that Russian ships already patrol the area, but "A NEW DEVELOPMENT IS THAT THE RUSSIAN PRESENCE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN WILL BECOME PERMANENT."

NOW LEHMAN BROTHERS IS TOTTERING – raising the prospect of another US salvage operation. And the Big Three automakers are in Washington this week with hats in hand, asking for loans to finance development of more fuel-efficient vehicles. To some economists, actions taken so far have redefined the criteria for the type of firm the government considers "too big to fail." That's particularly true, they say, because the bailouts have occurred under a supposedly pro-free-market Republican administration.

In the case of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, company size was just one factor in the government's calculations about whether to throw them a taxpayer-funded lifeline. The nature of their connections with the rest of the economy was far more important. If Bear Stearns went under, it could have dragged down a web of firms with which it did financial business. Fannie and Freddie together own or guarantee half the nation's mortgages. Their failure could have caused the flow of mortgage money in the US to freeze up.

But if these firms qualify for help, so might Lehman, as well as other financial institutions battered by the housing crisis, such as Washington Mutual, the nation's largest savings and loan. Lehman got itself into trouble by making bad bets in the market, say critics of government intervention. And Washington shouldn't be helping it out. "I don't buy the 'too big to fail' argument," says Chris Edwards, director of tax policy at the Cato Institute. "Failure is a normal happening in the marketplace. About 10 percent of all US businesses fail every year."

Palin's decision to have a Down syndrome child, WHEN 90 PERCENT OF THESE CHILDREN ARE BEING ABORTED in the womb, has proven in dramatic terms not only that there are articulate pro-life women in America but that there are women who will take a leadership role on "culture of life" issues of concern to millions. And this one could be vice-president of the United States.

The feminists and their allies in the media, WHO TREAT ABORTION AS A HUMAN RIGHT, when abortion destroys basic human rights, are on the defensive. Their vicious attacks have already generated a backlash in her favor. But the controversy goes far beyond Palin and the fate of those, now some 40 million, who have lost their lives through abortion.

"This intragender war marks the official unmasking of fascist feminism," Marc Rudov writes in his insightful article on the NewsWithViews.com website. Palin "rose from hockey mom to state governor without affirmative action," he notes, and has "proved publicly that women can succeed without being victims." What's more, notes Rudov, "SARAH PALIN HAS ACHIEVED SUCCESS WHILE EXPRESSING LOVE AND ADMIRATION FOR HER HUSBAND, anathema to the misandrist underpinning of fascistic feminism." Palin can never be forgiven for this. THAT IS WHY SHE MUST BE DESTROYED.

ABOUT 19 PERCENT OF US REFINING CAPACITY IS BEING SHUT before Ike makes landfall today. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, started shutting down its Port Arthur, Texas, refinery because "of shifts in Hurricane Ike's track," the company said on its Web site.

"IKE IS HEADED INTO THE HEART OF THE REFINING INDUSTRY," Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said in an interview. "The damage is likely to come in flooding, a lack of power for an extended period of time."

A hurricane warning was issued from Morgan City, Louisiana, to Baffin Bay, Texas, after Ike strengthened to a Category 2 storm, the center said. The storm has sustained winds of 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour) and "strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours." The Houston area's eight refineries have a processing capacity of 2.22 million barrels a day, which represents 13 percent of the US total, according to their owners and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

The tunnel is closed after the fire broke out about seven miles from Calais on Thursday afternoon. Firefighters say the 16-hour blaze has now been put out. Thirty-two people on board the freight train were led to safety, and 14 passengers suffered minor injuries. Eurostar said it "did not expect" to operate any services on Friday.

Passengers were still arriving at St Pancras International in London on Friday hoping services to the Continent would resume. A spokeswoman said about 30,000 passengers were due to travel on 50 Eurostar services on Friday and they would be offered a full refund or exchange.

The closure has caused huge tailbacks on roads near the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone as dozens of lorries have been forced to park on the M20 and other surrounding roads. Kent Police say sections of the motorway - between junctions eight and nine - are still being used to queue lorries as part of Operation Stack and are advising motorists to avoid the area.

The decision to place XL Leisure Group into administration has also left thousands of staff facing the axe. Chairman Phil Wyatt said he was "totally devastated" by the failure which has grounded XL's 21 planes. The company flies to about 50 destinations. There are 67,000 stranded who booked directly with XL, and another 23,000 who booked via other companies.The Civil Aviation Authority(CAA) also said the firm had 200,000 advance bookings.

The original EU target that 10% of all road transport fuel should come from renewable sources by 2020 did not set limits for crop biofuels. A committee of the European Parliament has now voted to limit such fuels to 6% of the 10% target. At least 4% of the total will have to be achieved using electricity or hydrogen from renewable sources, or from second-generation biofuels from waste or non-food crops.

Green MEP Claude Turmes, of Luxembourg, welcomed the decision. "While the maintenance of a binding target for biofuels is a bitter pill to swallow, the committee has at least strengthened the safeguards against the damaging impact of agri-fuels in this directive," he said.

The panel also approved a mid-term goal of 5% of road transport fuel from renewable sources by 2015, of which one fifth should not be food crop-based biofuels.

An Iranian official said 10 aftershocks were registered following the quake, each of a magnitude of 4.7 or less. All the casualties were in Iran. Across the Persian Gulf waters, residents in Dubai and neighbouring emirates - home to millions of British expats - reported feeling shaking that lasted a minute.

The tremors sent office workers rushing out of some of the high-rise towers that dot the skyline in the city-state's commercial centre. A Dubai Civil Defence official said he received several calls from panicked residents saying their beds were shaking and their furniture was collapsing.