Buffett said AMERICANS ARE IN A CYCLE OF FEAR, "which leads to people not wanting to spend and not wanting to make investments, AND THAT LEADS TO MORE FEAR. We'll break out of it. It takes time." Buffett's interview centered on President-elect Barack Obama and the tough task he faces in fixing the US economy. "You couldn't have anybody better in charge," the Omaha resident said of Obama, who'll be sworn into office today.

AS ONE OF OBAMA'S ECONOMIC ADVISERS, BUFFETT said the president-elect listens to what his advisers say, but ultimately comes up with better ideas. He predicted that Obama will be able to convey the severity of the economic situation to the American people and explain their part in alleviating it. As to how long the crisis would continue, Buffett said he didn't know.

"It's never paid to bet against America," he said. "We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride."

The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside. The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. It trains Muslim fighters to kill British and US troops. Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

One security source said: "THIS IS THE DEADLIEST WEAPON YET IN THE WAR AGAINST TERROR. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease. It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda." Bubonic Plague is spread by bites from infected rat fleas. Symptoms include boils in the groin, neck and armpits. In Pneumonic Plague, airborne bacteria spread like flu.

It can be in the body for more than a week — highly contagious but not revealing tell-tale symptoms. The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.

Few see the government nationalizing the entire banking system the way Sweden did in the 1990s, but the US is growing more willing to put significant pressure on the largest banks. Over time, the government could exercise the same day-to-day control over major US banks as with IndyMac Bank, a failed California thrift that the US government operated for much of last year.

"We're nationalizing banks one at a time now. The real question is, will the biggest ones need to be nationalized?," said Roy Smith, professor at New York University's Stern School of Business. The US banking system desperately needs capital. Estimates of the shortfall range from $700 billion to more than $2 trillion.

In a video address on the last day of the World Meeting of Families here Sunday, the pontiff argued with more than 22,000 people on hand that, "due to its essential social function, the FAMILY HAS THE RIGHT TO BE RECOGNIZED with its own identity and not to be confused with other forms of cohabitation."

The pope said that personal freedom had been taken to capricious extremes, making it hard for the FAMILY TO DO ITS EDUCATING WORK. Mexico City was the first place in this majority Roman Catholic country to adopt after noisy debate same-sex unions, legal abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, assisted suicide and quick divorce.

The meeting is the first to take place without the pope's presence since it was created in 1994 by the late John Paul II, who visited Mexico five times during his papacy, gathering massive crowds. Current 81-year-old Pope Benedict XVI, who seldom travels abroad, was thought to have pulled out of the event due to the high altitude of the Mexican capital, at more than 2,200 meters (7,300 feet) above sea level.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in response: "We'll play this day by day. We'll see how this goes. We want to leave Gaza. We'll do so as soon as we can." Ayman Taha, a Hamas official in Cairo for talks with Egypt on the conflict, said the group and other factions were announcing a Gaza ceasefire "starting immediately" and Israel, which launched its offensive on December 27, had a week to withdraw.

Hamas, he said, was demanding the opening of all Gaza border crossings for the entry of "all materials, food, goods and basic needs." The Islamist group said previously it would not stop its attacks as long as Israeli soldiers remained in the Gaza Strip. A statement issued by Hamas in Syria, which also announced the week-long ceasefire, said Palestinian factions were willing to respond to efforts by Egypt and others to broker an agreement for the "final lifting" of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Israel tightened the blockade, deepening hardship in the Gaza Strip, after Hamas seized the territory from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007. Egypt has largely kept its Rafah crossing with the enclave closed.

He has not said where. Egypt and Pakistan are obvious possibilities, but there has been speculation that he could choose Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, where he spent part of his childhood. Obama will be sworn in as president with HIS FULL MUSLIM-SOUNDING NAME OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, in keeping with White House tradition.

"This Tuesday, we can reaffirm our own veneration and love for our country and our democracy," he said yesterday in a radio address. "We can once again provide an example to the world." His inauguration presents a "unique opportunity to reboot America's image in the world and also in the Muslim world in particular", he said in an interview.

HE ARGUES THAT SOCIETY HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY INTOLERANT OF THE FREEDOM TO EXPRESS RELIGIOUS VIEWS. "You can't express views that were common currency 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "Arguably, the parameters of what you might call 'right thinking' are probably closing. Sadly, along with that has come the fact that it's almost socially unacceptable to say you believe in God."

His comments follow the claim from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, that Britain is an "unfriendly" place for religious people to live.

Ed Stourton, one of Mr Vine's colleagues at the BBC, said that he felt that the biggest problem for people of faith is being sidelined. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'Yes, that's fair enough,' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. YOU TALK ABOUT IT IN OUR SYSTEM AND, FRANKLY, PEOPLE DO THINK YOU'RE A NUTTER."

Dublin has nationalised Anglo Irish Bank with its half-built folly on North Wall Quay and €73bn (£65bn) of liabilities, moving a step nearer the line where markets probe the solvency of the Irish state. A great ring of EU states stretching from Eastern Europe down across Mare Nostrum to the Celtic fringe are either in a 1930s depression already or soon will be. Greece's social fabric is unravelling before the pain begins, which bodes ill.

Each is a victim of ill-judged economic policies foisted upon them by elites in thrall to Europe's monetary project – either in EMU or preparing to join – and each is trapped. As UKIP leader Nigel Farage put it in a rare voice of dissent at the euro's 10th birthday triumph in Strasbourg, EMU-land has become a Völker-Kerker – a "prison of nations", to borrow from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This week, Riga's cobbled streets became a war zone. Protesters armed with blocks of ice smashed up Latvia's finance ministry. Hundreds tried to force their way into the legislature, enraged by austerity cuts. "Trust in the state's authority and officials has fallen catastrophically," said President Valdis Zatlers, who called for the dissolution of parliament.

FIXED EXCHANGE SYSTEMS – AND EMU IS JUST A GLORIFIED VERSION – RUPTURE SUDDENLY. Things can seem eerily calm for a long time. Politicians swear by the parity. Remember John Major's "soft-option" defiance days before the ERM blew apart in 1992? Or Philip Snowden's defence of sterling before a Royal Navy mutiny forced Britain off the Gold Standard in 1931. Don't expect tremors before an earthquake – and there is no fault line of greater historic violence than the crunching plates where Latin Europe meets Teutonia.

Traders suspect that investors are dumping their Club Med and Irish debt immediately on the European Central Bank in "repo" actions. In other words, the ECB is already providing a stealth bail-out for Europe's governments – though secrecy veils all. An EU debt union is being created, in breach of EU law. LIABILITIES ARE BEING SHIFTED QUIETLY ON TO GERMAN TAXPAYERS. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN GERMANY'S HARD-WORKING CITIZENS FIND OUT?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has allowed shipments of Australian bees to resume despite concerns by some of its own scientists. Australia had been airfreighting the insects across the Pacific for four years to replace hives devastated by the perplexing colony collapse disorder. But six weeks ago the Australian government abruptly stopped the shipments, saying it could no longer be certain the hives were free of a smaller, aggressive bee that has infested areas near the Great Barrier Reef, U.S. officials said.

Early this month, the USDA decided to permit the bee shipments to resume with some precautions, and the first planeloads arrived in San Francisco last Monday. Beekeeper Ken Haff of Mandan, North Dakota, says he fears the foreign hives could kill off his apiary. Government officials said they do not know how many Australian bees have been imported, but hive importer Sullivan estimates that HE HAS SOLD 110,000 HIVES SINCE 2005.

"The last quarter of 2008 was catastrophic in every respect." It was unclear whether he was referring to the euro zone or the wider European economy. The European Commission is due to present its forecasts for the euro zone next week. The EU's executive arm forecast on November 3, the euro zone economy would still grow 0.1 percent in 2009 and 0.9 percent in 2010, but data since then has shown the forecasts were too optimistic and they will be revised on Monday.

The European Central bank last week cut rates by half a percentage point to 2 percent in response to the deepening euro zone recession, and governments have launched stimulus packages worth billions of euros to offset the crisis.

The study, commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said some ethnic groups may get swallowed up by the intermingling of race. It found that the number of people who defined themselves as purely Caribbean was most likely to decline with nearly half of all black Caribbean men in mixed race relationships.

The report, entitled Ethnicity and Family: Relationships Within and Between Ethnic Groups, was written by Lucinda Platt, from the University of Essex. She said: "There is clear evidence that across groups INTER-ETHNIC PARTNERSHIPS TEND TO BE INCREASING. There has been a dramatic shift over the last 10 years and what we mean when we talk about minority groups is changing."

A spokeswoman for the Equality and Human Rights Commission said the results of the study were "remarkable. The old, polarising debate about black and white is changing and the next generation will not see race in the same way we see it," she said. "This is hugely positive and we can afford a moment to celebrate: BRITAIN'S DIVERSE CULTURE IS BECOMING ALL THE MORE FASCINATING AND INTER-CONNECTED."

"Every time the picture of this woman is shown, I really wish that somebody would expend a bullet on her," he said according to a recording of the sermon obtained by the Associated Press. A copy of the speech was also translated and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Middle Eastern press monitoring service.

Jannati is the head of the powerful hardline Iranian Council of Guardians which ensures the government remains true to the principles of the Islamic revolution. He was hand-picked by Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for the position and is seen by the reformist camp as one of the biggest opponents of democratic reforms in Iran. His council disqualified thousands of reformist candidates during parliamentary elections.

Jannati also criticized US President-elect Barack Obama during his sermon. "The world is on a slope of collapse. One is shocked when a president (Obama) sits, smiles and says 'my concern is to find a dog for my daughter.' Shame on you and those who voted for you," he said.

And interest in racist ideology was so high right after the election that computer servers for two White supremacist Web sites crashed, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. But the violence and interest soon subsided. Leaders within the white supremacist movement are now seeking to capitalize on Obama's presidency by using his election to help grow their organizations.

"President-elect Obama is going to be the spark that arouses the 'white movement,'" reads a posting on the National Socialist Movement Web site. "Obama's win is our win. We should all be happy of this event." In an interview posted on his Web site on election night, former Louisiana state Rep. David Duke said Obama's election "is good in one sense - THAT IT IS MAKING WHITE PEOPLE CLEAR OF THE FACT THAT THAT GOVERNMENT IN WASHINGTON DC, IS NOT OUR GOVERNMENT."

"We are beginning to learn and realize our positioning," Duke, a prominent white supremacist, later said in the election night recording. "AND OUR POSITION IS THAT WE HAVE GOT TO STAND UP AND FIGHT NOW."

Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added. Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future. "We cannot afford to put off change any longer," said Hansen. "We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead."

Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists. Hansen said feedbacks in the climate system are already accelerating ice melt and are threatening to lead to the collapse of ice sheets.

Sea-level rises will therefore be far greater - a claim backed last week by a group of British, Danish and Finnish scientists who said studies of past variations in climate indicate that a far more likely figure for sea-level rise will be about 1.4 metres, enough to cause devastating flooding of many of the world's major cities and of low-lying areas of Holland, Bangladesh and other nations.

Earlier, a Hamas spokesman said it would fight until its demands were met, including an Israeli withdrawal. Nearly 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since the violence began on 27 December. Thirteen Israelis have died. Minutes before Mr Olmert was due to speak, a rocket was fired from Gaza, a BBC producer in Gaza said. The Israeli prime minister's announcement came in a televised address following a late-night cabinet meeting.

Israel's operation in Gaza had fully achieved its aims, Mr Olmert said, with Hamas badly damaged both militarily and in terms of infrastructure. But the success of the ceasefire depended on Hamas, he said. If militant rocket fire into Israel continued, Israel would respond with force, he said.