A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand. While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-term - perhaps permanent - reduction in the quality and quantity of its food.

Last week, as the prices of wheat and barley continued their relentless climb, the Japanese Government discovered it had exhausted its ¥230 billion ($A2.37 billion) budget for the grains with two months remaining. It was forced to call on an emergency ¥55 billion reserve to ensure it could continue feeding the nation. "This was the first time the Government has had to take such drastic action since the war," said Akio Shibata, an expert on food imports, who warned the Agriculture Ministry two years ago that Japan would have to cut back drastically on its sophisticated diet if it did not become more self-sufficient.

In view of recent predictions by Goldman Sachs analysts that commodities could experience "explosive rallies" in the next two years, many are wondering if Japan could become an example to other rich nations that have relied too much on foreign supplies to put food on their tables.

That's one of the reasons why Royal Bank of Scotland has decided to raise a record-breaking £12bn of new cash from its shareholders in a rights issue. Or to put it another way, the climate for banks has changed in a fundamental way. It seems only yesterday it was all about growth and opportunities.

Today bankers have remembered - some would say belatedly - that there are risks associated with lending. So Royal Bank has also announced that, on a permanent basis, it will retain more capital in its balance sheet to meet the risks of default by borrowers than it had been doing.

Speaking at a youth rally in New York, he said his teenage years had been "marred by a sinister regime". The Pope was a Hitler Youth member as a teen, usual for young Germans at the time, and was conscripted by the German army near the end of World War II. Earlier, during a Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan he again condemned paedophile Catholic priests. More than 4,000 US Catholic clergy have been accused of sexually abusing minors since 1950. The Church has paid out more than $2bn (£1bn) in compensation and legal fees, most of it since the scandal erupted in 2002.

Pope Benedict's tour of the US is his first visit to the country since being elected head of the Catholic Church - it was the third anniversary of his elevation to the papacy on Saturday and the event was formally commemorated with the Mass at St Patrick's. The Pope told the crowd his own years as a teenager had been "marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers".

"Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion, before it was fully recognised for the monster it was," he said. "It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good. Let us thank God that so many people of your generation are able to enjoy the liberties which have arisen from the extension of democracy and respect for human rights."

In a major speech to the U.N. General Assembly, the pope also said the international community sometimes had the duty to intervene when a country could not protect its own people from "grave and sustained violations of human rights." The pope, who arrived from Washington on the second leg of a six-day U.S. trip, was only the third pontiff in history to address the General Assembly.

Speaking in French and English from the Assembly's green marble podium, he gave a wide-ranging address on issues such as globalization, human rights and the environment. The international community must be "capable of responding to the demands of the human family through binding international rules," said the 81-year-old pope, who spoke after meeting privately with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

He said the notion of multilateral consensus was "in crisis because it is still subordinated to the decisions of a few, whereas the world's problems call for interventions in the form of collective action by the international community." While Benedict did not mention any country, this appeared to refer to the United States, which led the 2003 invasion of Iraq despite a Security Council refusal to approve it. The Vatican strongly opposed the recourse to war.

Over the weekend, protesters waving Chinese flags have rallied in front of the French Embassy in Beijing and at outlets of French retailer Carrefour in nine cities across the country. They have threatened boycotts of the retailer, whom they accuse of supporting the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader - a charge Carrefour denies. A front-page editorial in the People's Daily newspaper, the official mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, called for calm, urging people to cherish patriotism "while expressing it in a rational way."

"As citizens, we have the responsibility to express our patriotic enthusiasm calmly and rationally and express patriotic aspiration in an orderly and legal manner," the commentary said. The editorial seemed to reflect concern among China's leaders about a growing anti-Western backlash, fueled by anger over the demonstrations in Paris, London and San Francisco during the Olympic torch relay. The relay has become a magnet for protests against China's rule in Tibet and its human rights record.

Anger also has been channeled against Western media organizations, including CNN, for so-called "distorted" coverage of recent unrest in Tibet and neighboring provinces. Foreign journalists have received threatening phone calls and e-mails. Several thousand ethnic Chinese marched outside CNN's office in Hollywood Saturday to demand the firing of a commentator who recently compared China's leaders to a "bunch of goons and thugs." CNN insists its coverage has been impartial and has said it refutes allegations that it "distorts its coverage of the events in Tibet to portray either side in a more favorable light."

At the conference, "Mecca, the Center of the Earth, Theory and Practice," Muslim scientists and clerics called for the change, arguing that the holy city in Saudi Arabia is the center of the Earth and should be the reference point for world time, not Greenwich, England. One geologist at the Qatar conference said Mecca's longitude is perfectly aligned with magnetic north and should therefore replace the English city, which has been measuring time zones since 1884.

Attendees of the conference also reviewed the "Mecca Watch," an invention by a French Muslim which reportedly rotates counter-clockwise and displays Mecca's direction from any point in the world, the BBC said. The conference is part of a trend called "Ijaz al-Koran" or "miraculous nature of the holy text," which tries to find precedents for modern science from passages in the Koran. But its critics say Ijaz al-Koran confuses spiritual truth - which depends on constant faith - with empirical truth, which depends on ever-changing science, the BBC said.

As baby boomers retire, the same pattern will emerge across the country, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. Demographers estimate that by 2025 most of the growth in the workforce will be from immigrants. Ernesto Cortes Jr., Southwest regional director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, said Los Angeles is at a crossroads.

"The question is: Are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and the majority at poverty or near poverty wages?" he asked. "Right now we're headed toward becoming a Third World city.

At its peak, the storm dumped 2.5 cm of snow at the Vancouver International Airport, with 8 cm at Lynn Valley and 30 cm at Mount Seymour. Vancouver Island recorded 6.4 cm of snow at Victoria International Airport by 11am Saturday - more than any on an April day since 1940. But the big record dump came in Nanaimo, where the city hadn't seen measurable snow on April 19 since 1947. As of 11am, 24 cm covered the ground at the airport.

In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky. "We cannot afford it," said a corn buyer at Kato Kagaku, a Japanese maker of corn starch and corn syrup.

In the United States, wheat growers and marketers, once hesitant about adopting biotechnology because they feared losing export sales, are now warming to it as a way to bolster supplies. Genetically modified crops contain genes from other organisms to make the plants resistant to insects, herbicides or disease. Opponents continue to worry that such crops have not been studied enough and that they might pose risks to health and the environment.

"I think it's pretty clear that price and supply concerns have people thinking a little bit differently today," said Steve Mercer, a spokesman for U.S. Wheat Associates, a federally supported cooperative that promotes American wheat abroad. Biotechnology still certainly faces obstacles. Polls in Europe do not yet show a decisive shift in consumer sentiment, and the industry has had some recent setbacks. Since the beginning of the year France has banned the planting of genetically modified corn while Germany has enacted a law allowing for foods to be labeled as "GM free."

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks. At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, California, yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.

"Where's the rice?" an engineer from Palo Alto, said. "You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous." The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.

An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled.

The curbs and shortages are being tracked with concern by survivalists who view the phenomenon as a harbinger of more serious trouble to come.

"It's sporadic. It's not every store, but it's becoming more commonplace," the editor of SurvivalBlog.com, James Rawles, said. "The number of reports I've been getting from readers who have seen signs posted with limits has increased almost exponentially, I'd say in the last three to five weeks."

After meeting Hamas leaders last week in Syria, he said it was a problem that the US and Israel would not meet them. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has challenged Hamas to prove its goodwill by renouncing violence. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused to see Mr Carter, who was ending his regional visit in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army has launched a formal investigation into the death of a Reuters cameraman killed in the Gaza Strip last week. Two Palestinians died in Israeli air strikes in the territory on Monday: one person in the southern city of Rafah and a Hamas militant at Beit Hanoun, a border town from where rockets are often fired at Israel.

Speaking in Manama on a tour of the Middle East, Ms Rice said Hamas should show their willingness to make peace by releasing Corp Shalit and halting rocket attacks on Israel. She also called on the group to recognise the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority, whom they ousted from Gaza last summer.

The Tibet Daily newspaper said the campaign was to "unify the thinking? of officials and the masses". The initiative follows violent clashes last month between police and monks in Tibet, and pro-Tibetan demonstrations around the world. Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of inciting unrest - claims he has denied.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, who lives in exile in India, insists he has no political role and played no part in the protests by Tibetan Buddhist monks that erupted into rioting in the main city Lhasa. He condemned the Chinese crackdown that followed, and accused Beijing of committing "cultural genocide" in Tibet. Tibetan sympathisers and human rights activists have since used the worldwide tour of the Olympic torch to protest against Beijing's hosting of the Olympic Games this August.

China's Communist Party has long used what it calls "patriotic education campaigns" to impose discipline and reinforce its authority, says the BBC's Daniel Griffiths in Beijing. The Tibet Daily says the latest drive will include television programmes and a series of sessions in which the Dalai Lama will be denounced by Communist Party members, other officials and local people. Campaigns requiring monks in Tibetan monasteries to denounce the Dalai Lama and declare their loyalty to Beijing have also been stepped up.

China has poured troops into Tibet and tightened its borders ahead of the passage of the Olympic flame through the territory, on its way to Mount Everest in early May. It accuses the Dalai Lama of wanting to divide Tibet from China and sabotage the Olympics.

The first minister urged bosses and unions to reopen negotiations and also outlined the government's contingency plans for a total shut-down. If no deal can be struck between operators Ineos and the Unite union, up to 1,200 workers will walk out. Ineos says the refinery will shut down totally on Friday prior to the strike.

Production is expected to be hit from Monday as the first of the crude oil units is closed in a phased shutdown of the refinery, one of only nine in the UK. If the strike does go ahead, he said the government is taking measures to secure fuel supplies and has asked emergency services, local authorities and key agencies to get together and discuss needs at a local level over the next two days. Drivers have been urged not to panic buy at the forecourts.

However, national officer Phil McNulty accused the company of "scaremongering" about possible petrol shortages in Scotland and the north of England in the next few days. He said: "The company appears to be inundating the press with stories about imminent petrol shortages, but the fact is that the refinery is still in full production and there is no industrial action going on. Indeed, there is no need for any shortages if the company simply withdraws its outlandish attempt to grab money back from the pension fund."

Banks will be able to swap potentially risky mortgage debts for £50bn of secure government bonds to enable them to operate during the credit squeeze. The Bank's governor, Mervyn King, said the scheme aimed to improve liquidity in the banking system. It should also increase confidence in financial markets, he added. Under the scheme, banks will be allowed to swap their "high quality" mortgage debts for government securities.

The swap will be for a period of one year and may be renewed for a total of three years. It will only apply to mortgage debts on banks' books at the end of 2007 and the swaps cannot be used to finance new lending. British banks have become increasingly unwilling to lend to one another as a result of the credit crisis, which was triggered by massive losses for banks involved in the US sub-prime mortgage market. Many investors, concerned at what happened to sub-prime mortgages in the US, no longer want UK mortgage-based assets. The disappearance of this market has deprived banks of tens of billions of pounds of finance for mortgage lending.

However, the BBC's business editor Robert Peston said the move could be seen as a major U-turn by the Bank. Until now, the Bank of England has been more conservative in its financial support for banks than the Federal Reserve in the US and the European Central Bank. In the US, the Federal Reserve took similar action with a $200bn programme to boost liquidity in financial markets last month.

More than 234,000 properties were in some stage of foreclosure, or one in every 538 U.S. households, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac Inc., a seller of default data, said today in a statement. Nevada, California and Florida had the highest foreclosure rates. Filings rose 5 percent from February. About $460 billion of adjustable-rate loans are scheduled to reset this year, according to New York-based analysts at Citigroup Inc. Auction notices rose 32 percent from a year ago, a sign that more defaulting homeowners are "simply walking away and deeding their properties back to the foreclosing lender" rather than letting the home be auctioned, RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James Saccacio said in the statement.

"We're not near the bottom of this at all," said Kenneth Rosen, chairman of Rosen Real Estate Securities LLC, a hedge fund in Berkeley, California and chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate at the University of California at Berkeley. "The foreclosure process will accelerate throughout the year." Rising foreclosures will add more inventory to an already glutted market, keep home prices down through at least next year and thwart efforts by Congress and President George W. Bush to help homeowners avoid default, Rosen said in an interview.