There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from either quake, but both prompted tsunami warnings, although Japan's Meteorological Agency predicted it would be small, about 50 centimeter (20 inches). The Indonesian quake occurred at exactly 9 a.m. (0000 GMT), the USGS said. Its epicenter was offshore, about 75 miles (120 km) north of Ternate in the province of Moluccas in eastern Indonesia. The quake was strongly felt in Ternate.

The Indonesian Meteorological and Geophysical Department issued a tsunami warning shortly afterward - standard procedure for a quake of magnitude 6.6 or higher with an epicenter offshore. Earthquakes between magnitude 6.0 and 6.9 are considered "strong" by the USGS.

UPDATE - '200 villages destroyed' as quake hits Iran A strong earthquake measuring 6.1 in magnitude struck southern Iran on Wednesday, according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Russian Air Force said the bombers would be based in Venezuela for several days and fly over neutral waters. Earlier this week Russia confirmed that it would send a Navy squadron and long-range patrol planes for joint exercises with Venezuela in November.

Mr Chavez has developed close relations with Moscow, including the purchase of Russian arms and co-operation on oil. Hugo Chavez announced that two Tu-160 bombers would carry out manoeuvres, saying that it was part of a move towards a "multi-polar world".

A Russian defence ministry spokesman confirmed that the planes had flown to Venezuela, adding that they were escorted by Nato fighters as they flew across the Atlantic. The planes are capable of carrying nuclear missiles, but the spokesman did not give any information about whether they were carrying arms during this mission.

Food prices in UK shops have risen by 8.3% since January, an index compiled for the BBC said last week. Farmers say this growing season started well but torrential rain means harvesting has been delayed, and in some areas only a tiny percentage of crops have been gathered.

BBC environment correspondent Sarah Mukherjee said farmers across Britain are reporting DAMAGE TO COMBINE HARVESTERS as they try to cut crops in waterlogged fields. Water can be wrung out of grain by hand as it is so wet, and thousands of pounds is being spent on fuel to dry sodden crops. SOME SAY NEXT YEAR'S PLANTING HAS ALREADY BEEN DISRUPTED.

"The citation of Jewish Law that is being spouted to prohibit Jewish entry to the Temple Mount is sometimes embarrassing," Rabbi Tendler told IsraelNationalRadio's Yishai Fleisher this week. He said the Chief Rabbinate must exercise its authority for the sake of the entire Nation of Israel.

"From my experience," Rabbi Tendler said, "when I started going up to the Temple Mount, Arab kids were playing soccer, and guards were eating sunflower seeds... You don't see that anymore. Now, there is more respect, because we have started visiting. So this is the contribution that we have already made for the sanctity of the Temple Mount..."

Show host Fleisher, explaining why he felt it was so important to publicize Rabbi Tendler's call, said, "First of all, as Jews, we seek out holiness, and THE TEMPLE MOUNT IS THE HOLIEST PLACE IN THE WORLD; it is where the world was created from, and where Abraham was ready to sacrifice Isaac, and where King Solomon erected the Holy Temple. Secondly, IT STRENGTHENS OUR SOVEREIGNTY IN OUR ETERNAL CAPITAL, Jerusalem. And thirdly, we see that many of our great leaders, such as Maimonides, made sure to visit this site - so let's do the same."

Even before the full cost of the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is calculated, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that the nation will add more than $2.3 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years. This updated CBO report, released Tuesday, is the latest sign that the next president will face tough fiscal choices early on in a new administration. But it's already prompted even tougher rhetoric in Congress – and on the campaign trail – over who is to blame for all the red ink.

What's driving deficits is "AN UNUSUAL AMOUNT OF TURBULENCE" in the US economy this year, including depressed housing markets, fragile financial markets, and soaring prices for energy and food, along with the cost of war, according to the CBO. But the biggest long-term threat is rising health care costs and the retirement of the "baby boom" generation.

"As we have said over and over in the past, THE NATION IS ON AN UNSUSTAINABLE LONG-TERM FISCAL COURSE DRIVEN primarily by rising health care costs," said CBO director Peter Orszag at a briefing on Tuesday. "AND THAT DOES NEED TO BE ADDRESSED BEFORE A CRISIS HITS," One of the first decisions a new president will have to make is whether or not to extend President Bush's tax cuts, now set to expire in 2010.

"The magnitude 7.9 quake on 12 May has brought several nearby faults closer to failure and could trigger another major earthquake in the region," the American Geophysical Union said in a statement. This happens because of a domino-like effect where the movement of one piece of Earth's crust forces another piece to move up, down and away, geophysicists reported.

"One great earthquake seems to make the next one more likely, not less," said Ross Stein of the U.S. Geological Survey. "We tend to think of earthquakes as relieving stress on a fault. That may be true for the one that ruptured, but not for the adjacent faults."

For instance, 12% of bloodstream infections by E. coli in England, Wales and Northern Ireland now show some signs of not responding to drugs. The fight against drug resistance is an on-going battle because MANY BACTERIA CONSTANTLY MUTATE, GAINING RESISTANCE TO CURRENT ANTIBIOTICS IN THE PROCESS. This is what has been happening in recent years to the likes of E. coli.

HPA data show that there are about 20,000 bloodstream infections of E. coli each year - although the true level of infections would be much higher if urinary tract infections were taken into account. Of these, 12% show signs of resistance - up from about 4% at the turn of the century. The infections are mostly not yet resistant to all forms of antibiotics, just what doctors call the first-line. This means they are having to use back up drugs, which tend to have more side effects and raises the prospect of the widespread emergence of a new strain which is totally antibiotic resistant.

Dr David Livermore, an infections expert at the HPA, said, "GPs should not prescribe - nor patients expect - antibiotics for routine coughs and colds. Resistance has been accumulating. We have to use reserve antibiotics more than previously... that is worrying. THERE ARE SOME CRACKS IN THE SYSTEM, but they are not big ones yet."

If you or I were arrested tomorrow, in possession of a video in which we announced an intention to kill for Jesus and with a bomb-making kit in the living room at home, we would not expect to fare well in the dock by shrugging that we were not really serious. Yet the jury at Woolwich Crown Court on Monday failed to convict eight defendants of charges against them of conspiring to blow up airliners.

DESPITE THE DISCOVERY OF SEVEN 'MARTYRDOM VIDEOS', A BOMB-MAKING FACTORY AND DETAILED AIRLINE FLIGHT LISTS, the jury found only three men guilty of conspiracy to murder, and failed to agree on charges of conspiracy to detonate explosives on aircraft against any of those accused. Yesterday, the police and security authorities were stunned by the half-cock outcome of a prosecution for which they believed the evidence was overwhelming. It has important implications for the struggle against terrorism; for the credibility of Britain's anti-terrorist operations; for airline security; and maybe also for our faith in the jury system.

No responsible person wants innocents convicted of terrible crimes, nor an exaggerated climate of public fear. But if half the evidence produced against the defendants in the Walthamstow bomb plot was true, then we have reason to be deeply dismayed by the inconclusive outcome. The prosecuting authorities must demand a retrial. We have got to do better than this, if we are to protect ourselves from the real and present danger of Islamic terror.

UPDATE - The prosecuting authorities have requested a retrial.

The article also cites Open Europe, noting that the value of sterling against the euro could see Britain paying another £8 billion to the EU budget, possibly raising the UK's contribution to £47 billion under the current financial perspective.

"The former French president seems to need reminding that it wasn't the British who voted against his empire-building Constitution. It was the Irish, the Dutch and - sacre bleu! - his own fellow countrymen. THE SCANDAL IS THAT OUR GOVERNMENT SIGNED UP TO IT WITHOUT EVEN ASKING US."

Hilary Benn, the Rural Affairs Secretary, is expected to allow special exemption for farmers to salvage what is left of their crops by using heavy machinery on the wet fields. European Union machinery rules and prolonged rain mean the crops may rot in the wet fields before they can be collected. The EU rules ban farmers from using combine harvesters on wet land to protect soil quality, but Mr Benn's exemption is expected to last for about three weeks.

Guy Gagen, chief arable adviser at the National Farmers' Union, said: "THIS IS THE MOST DIFFICULT HARVEST FOR AT LEAST 40 YEARS. FARMERS SAY IT COMPARES TO 1968, which was very similar, with heavy rain throughout the summer. We just need a break in the weather. If we get that for five to seven days farmers can recover." There is also concern rising about next year's harvest, with fears FARMERS WILL BE UNABLE TO PREPARE THE GROUND AND PLANT SEED in time unless they can clear this year's crop within the next two weeks.

As recently as last winter, loan guarantees for carmakers had seemed like a piece of the Motor City's past (President Carter signed off on the Chrysler loan guarantees in 1980). But a combination of the economic slowdown and Presidential campaign politics, AS WELL AS THE PRECEDENT OF THE FEDERAL BAILOUT OF WALL STREET'S BANKS, have helped jump-start Detroit's campaign for loan guarantees.

"We think we have some real momentum," says one General Motor official, who has been close to the quiet campaign for federal aid. "Times have changed." The interest rates offered for industrial companies with shabby credit ratings have soared over the summer, making the federal option even more crucial. ALL THREE OF DETROIT'S CARMAKERS HAVE HAD THEIR CREDIT RATINGS DOWNGRADED.

Apart from America's Big Three, one third of U.S. automotive suppliers are now in danger of bankruptcy because of production cuts by Detroit according to a recent study. Even foreign carmakers operating in the U.S. could qualify for the loans, noted Bozzella. "There are no restrictions in the language on which companies are in and which companies are out," he says. However, NONE OF THE FOREIGN AUTOMAKERS WITH MANUFACTURING PLANTS (SUCH AS NISSAN) IN THE U.S. HAVE EXPRESSED A DIRECT INTEREST.

United briefly saw the value of its stock vanish in a matter of seconds on Monday. The company was the victim of a headline crossing over Wall Street's trading screens that claimed the airline was filing for bankruptcy. But wait, you might think - hadn't the airline already been in bankruptcy not too long ago? The headline was from a story that was six years old.

"I think everybody in the business was extremely disturbed by what happened, however it happened," said Michael James, a trader with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles. United spokeswoman Jean Medina called the posting of the story and headline "irresponsible. This is what happens when you're careless and don't check facts," she said. Bloomberg LP, the news and financial company whose terminals sit on thousands of trading desks at investment banks throughout the world, was the financial media company that ran the headline.

It's never going to be a perfect system, traders and journalists admit. There are two forces working against accuracy: the Internet, where anyone can post anything at any time, and the quick-acting nature of Wall Street. "The digital age requires safeguards built into our news gathering and dissemination process," Cunningham said. "What's so troubling is nobody thought of picking up a phone. AS AN INDUSTRY, WE SHOULD REALLY THINK ABOUT SLOWING DOWN A BIT."

Barclaycard, owned by Barclays Plc, introduced its first contactless credit card as the OnePulse product one year ago, in which a microchip allows customers to pay for goods by touching the card against a reader without having to remove it from their wallet or purse. THE GROUP NOW PLANS TO ISSUE OVER ONE MILLION CONTACTLESS CARDS BY THE END OF THIS YEAR. Barclaycard then plans to make it possible to put the chip into a mobile phone or key fob, meaning the need to carry a plastic credit card will disappear.

"In time you won't have to carry a plastic credit card around with you if you don't want to, although some people will chose to for nostalgic reasons," Barclaycard Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins said in a statement on Monday.

"If I had said to you 10 years ago that you couldn't pay with a cheque at the supermarket, you wouldn't have believed me. That is now the reality, and we see plastic cards going the same way eventually," Jenkins added.

Most analysts had expected the producer cartel to maintain formal targets at its meeting in Vienna, although some had suggested they could tighten compliance in order to help stem a near 30 percent slump in oil prices since July.

U.S. crude for October delivery was up 52 cents at $103.78 a barrel by 10:30 p.m. EDT, reversing earlier losses of more than $1 a barrel after the OPEC decision. Prices slumped to their lowest in five months a day ago. London Brent crude rose 63 cents to $100.97, after falling below $100 on Tuesday for the first time since April.

"Since the market is over-supplied, the conference agreed to abide by September 2007 production allocations (adjusted to include new members Angola and Ecuador and excluding Indonesia and Iraq), totaling 28.8 million bpd," the group said in a communique after a nearly five-hour meeting. Analysts said the group had sent a clear message to markets. "IT CERTAINLY SHOWS THAT OPEC IS NOT AFRAID TO DEFEND A $100 PRICE LEVEL," said Jonathan Kornafel, Asia director at U.S.-based options trader Hudson Capital Energy.

The forced-sale of the Bear Stearns brokerage in March and the pre-emptive seizure Sunday of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac HAS SET A TEMPLATE THAT U.S. FINANCIAL AUTHORITIES MIGHT FIND HARD TO AVOID. Lehman, left as the smallest major U.S. independent investment bank after Bear Stearns' takeover by JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), has a prominent role in many of the same markets that Bear Stearns had: interest rate swaps, credit default swaps and equity derivatives.

While the government would be very reluctant to intervene yet again, especially if it required taxpayers' money, several experts say there may be no alternative to avoid a systemic financial crisis. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke may be forced to act to preserve stability in the rest of the financial system.

"There is a risk that you could get THE EQUIVALENT OF A FINANCIAL BLACK HOLE and more people getting sucked in," said Robert Litan, a senior fellow in the economic studies program at the Brookings Institution in Washington.