The United States Federal Reserve Bank, or Fed, seems as much a part of America as Coca-Cola or Pizza Hut. But at least one difference has become apparent in recent days. While the pizza chain and soft-drink maker are likely to expand their scope of influence in the age of globalization, THE US CENTRAL BANK IS FINDING THAT ITS POWER IS SHRINKING.

Under its bylaws, the IMF is charged with the supervision of the international monetary system. Roughly two-thirds of IMF members - but never the United States - have already endured this painful procedure. FOR SEVEN YEARS, US PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH REFUSED TO ALLOW THE IMF TO CONDUCT ITS ASSESSMENT. Even now, he has only given the IMF board his consent under one important condition. The review can begin in Bush's last year in office, but it may not be completed until he has left the White House. This is bad news for the Fed chairman.

When the final report on the risks of the US financial system is released in 2010 - and it is likely to cause a stir internationally - only one of the people in positions of responsibility today will still be in office: Ben Bernanke.

In a historic ruling, the US Supreme Court on Thursday declared 5 to 4 that the Second Amendment's GUARANTEE OF A RIGHT TO "KEEP AND BEAR ARMS" means that the government cannot enact an outright ban on certain commonly held weapons or otherwise prevent citizens from having a gun at home for personal protection or other lawful uses.

The landmark constitutional pronouncement came as the nation's highest court struck down a 32-year ban on private possession of handguns in Washington, D.C. The court also invalidated two other strict gun-control measures in the district that required that rifles and shotguns at all times be kept disassembled or secured with a trigger lock. The case is District of Columbia v. Heller.

"We hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion. The majority justices said the District's strict gun regulations violated "the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home."

Worries about inflation grew after crude oil futures jumped above $140 Thursday after OPEC's president said prices could go past $150 a barrel this year and Libya said it may cut oil production. "WE'VE STILL GOT BAD NEWS ON THE CREDIT CRUNCH, WE'VE GOT BAD NEWS ABOUT CONSUMERS," said Garry Evans, pan-Asian equity strategist with HSBC in Hong Kong. "The macro environment is not a good one and people are very risk averse."

World stocks fell to a three-month low as a fast deteriorating global inflation picture intensified concerns over the outlook for corporate profits, HASTENING THE RUSH OF INVESTORS' FUNDS INTO COMMODITIES. "It has a lot to do with asset allocations. The equity markets are under serious pressure, breaking support levels. When equities are going nowhere, the money is parked into commodities," said Olivier Jakob at Petromatrix.

The MSCI main world equity index fell more than 0.6 percent to its lowest since March, with the index on track for the worst monthly performance in percentage terms since September 2002, according to Reuters data. By contrast, commodities were strong, with gold near a one-month record high while U.S. corn futures jumped to a fresh record high.

GOLD RALLIED to its highest level in a month as oil's rise, A WEAK DOLLAR and TUMBLING WORLD STOCK MARKETS boosted the metal's safe haven appeal.

Parts of northeast Missouri and west-central Illinois got as much as an inch of rainfall overnight Wednesday after powerful downpours the night before. Weather systems rolling across Iowa were expected to produce more rain Thursday and Friday, the National Weather Service said. The rain was bringing new river crests and fresh anxiety. As calls for sandbagging slowed in one community, they popped up in another.

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA - Hundreds of fire fighters worked Thursday to protect the scenic community of Big Sur from a lightning-sparked wildfire that inched closer to historic structures after burning 16 homes and threatening another 500 houses.

Californians were warned to protect themselves against choking smoke on Thursday as more than 1,000 wildfires blazed across the northern half of the state. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said residents in affected areas needed to keep windows and doors closed, urging people suffering from asthma and respiratory illness to take special care. "The whole state of California is filled with smoke, it's filled with smoke everywhere," Schwarzenegger told a press briefing in Butte County.

William Tanona, the Goldman analyst, added Citigroup to Goldman's "Americas conviction sell" list and cut his price target on the stock to $16 from $20. The analyst said Citigroup might take $8.9 billion of write-downs for the April-to-June period, leading to its third straight quarterly loss. He also said the bank might need to cut its quarterly dividend for a second time this year, after lowering it 41 percent to 32 cents per share in January.

On June 17, Goldman analysts led by Richard Ramsden said U.S. banks may need $65 billion more capital to cope with a global credit crisis that will not peak until 2009.

Giscard d'Estaing told the Irish Times that Ireland's referendum rejection would not kill the Treaty, despite a legal requirement of unanimity from all the EU's 27 member states. He said, "WE ARE EVOLVING TOWARDS MAJORITY VOTING because if we stay with unanimity, we will do nothing. It is impossible to function by unanimity with 27 members. This time it's Ireland; the next time it will be somebody else."

He also admitted that the Lisbon EU Treaty had been carefully crafted to confuse the public: "WHAT WAS DONE IN THE [LISBON] TREATY, AND DELIBERATELY, WAS TO MIX EVERYTHING UP. If you look for the passages on institutions, they're in different places, on different pages. Someone who wanted to understand how the thing worked could with the Constitutional Treaty, but not with this one."

In a letter to daily Kronen Zeitung he said: "WE THINK ANY FUTURE CHANGES TO THE TREATY THAT AFFECT AUSTRIAN INTERESTS MUST BE DECIDED IN AUSTRIA BY A REFERENDUM. A lot of people are under the impression that the EU is not concerned with their real problems but that it is interested above all in looking after itself? There is also in Austria widespread scepticism about the EU at the moment. After the vast majority of Austrians voted in favour of EU membership in 1994, today we see A MOOD OF UNCERTAINTY AND SOMETIMES ALSO REJECTION."

According to Hannes Swoboda, Vice-President of the Socialists in the EU Parliament, similar discussions are being had in Greece and the Netherlands and the Social Democrats' move would put other member states under pressure to make such a promise. Until now, among Austria's political parties, only the far-right FPOe and BZOe had called for a referendum.

In an interview with El Pais, Klaus said: "THE EU CANNOT IGNORE ITS OWN RULES. The Lisbon Treaty has been roundly and democratically rejected by Ireland, and it therefore cannot come into force. Any attempt to ignore this fact and make recourse to pressure and political manipulation to move the treaty forward would have disastrous consequences for Europe".

"Since the treaty must unanimously be ratified of all the member states of the EU and one of them has already rejected it, the final result of the ratification will be the same. With or without the Czech vote, the Treaty of Lisbon will not be ratified". However, separately Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek said he was "optimistic" over the prospect of a Czech ratification of the Treaty, which is now pending a ruling in the country's Constitutional Court.

Meanwhile, an article in Le Figaro looks at Nicolas Sarkozy's ambitions "TO GIVE EUROPE REAL MILITARY CREDIBILITY." It notes that the Head of the European Defence Agency Alexander Weis is counting on Sarkozy to be able to convince the British that the agency's 20 million euro operating budget must be increased. It notes that the ideas for a 'military Erasmus' and European defence college, "designed to encourage the emergence of a common culture," will require unanimity. France also intends to develop the idea of being able TO DEPLOY 60,000 TROOPS WITHIN A YEAR OUTSIDE THE EU'S BORDERS.

The paper notes that the Franco-British plan to create a fleet of European helicopters is in principle agreed, and that the negotiations are ongoing for an aero-naval group allowing a British or French aircraft carrier to be permanently at sea. Paris is also proposing the creation of a tactical European transport fleet with the future Airbus A-400M as well as a satellite observation system, which has also been agreed. The article notes that Britain is still wary about the French plan to create an independent military planning headquarters in Brussels, with around 50 officers.

Barclays said that the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) would spend £1.7 billion on a maximum 7.7 per cent stake as part of the bank's £4.5 billion capital raising. As part of the same open offer, Challenger, an offshore vehicle set up by Qatar's Prime Minister to invest family wealth, will spend £533 million on a 2.3 per cent stake in Barclays.

Meanwhile, shares in J Sainsbury surged by more than 4 per cent after it emerged that the QIA had made its first stock purchase since its failed takeover bid for the supermarket group last November. The shares closed at 328p. The QIA bought seven million shares at an undisclosed price in a move that took the Qatari shareholding in Sainsbury's from 25 per cent to just under 25.3 per cent. The QIA is nursing an estimated loss of more than £1 billion on its original investment in Sainsbury.

Analysts welcomed the capital raising, as did the bank's rivals. "It's good for the whole sector that this has been done," a banker said. Barclays' shares closed up 6.5 per cent at 331p. The bank was advised by JPMorgan Cazenove and Credit Suisse.

Some of the most crowded trains are already carrying 50 per cent more passengers than they were designed to and with demand for rail travel soaring, commuters' plight is set to get worse. On some crowded trains passengers have even found themselves having to stand in toilets.

It has led to complaints that they are being forced to travel "cattle class". Now these allegations have been confirmed by figures released in a Commons written reply. According to the Government's rail White Paper, published in July, commuters should be allocated 0.45 square metres of space - whether they are seated or standing. With the average human being weighing 73.5 kg this is equivalent to allocating 0.0062 square metres per kg. This is less than half the space allocated under European Union regulations for transporting farm animals to a chicken weighing up to 1.6 kg, who the EU guarantee 0.02 square metres per kg. Goats, Brussels insists, should get at least 0.0086 square metres and calves 0.008.

This leaves people with a stark choice over the way they travel - you can either put up with sub-cattle class overcrowding and rocketing fares, or drive your car at the risk of higher fuel prices, soaring car tax and national road pricing.

But the increase in child protection measures is so great it is "poisoning" relationships between the generations, according to respected sociologist Professor Frank Furedi. In a report for think tank Civitas, he said the use of criminal records bureau checks to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults has created an atmosphere of suspicion. As a result ordinary parents - many of whom are volunteers at sports and social clubs - now find themselves regarded "potential child abusers".

Professor Furedi said most adults now think twice before telling off children who were misbehaving, or helping children in distress for fear of the consequences. He said that the need for the checks had transformed parents "in the regulatory and public imagination into potential child abusers, barred from any contact with children until the database gives them the green light".

He said: "When parents feel in need of official reassurance that other parents have passed the paedophile test before they even start on the pleasantries, something has gone badly wrong in our communities. We should question whether there is anything healthy in a response where communities look at children's own fathers with suspicion, but would balk at helping a lost child find their way home."

Martin Narey, chief executive of children's charity Barnado's, said "We need urgently to expose the nonsense of 'stranger danger' and convince parents that, although the risk of a child of theirs being abused at all is small, THAT RISK COMES NOT FROM LURKING STRANGERS, BUT FROM PEOPLE KNOWN BY THEIR CHILDREN - OFTEN RELATIVES - WHO ARE ABLE TO EXPLOIT A CHILD'S TRUST."

The damage could rise or contract, depending on weather conditions for the rest of the growing season in the United States, the world's top exporter of corn, soybeans and wheat, the American Farm Bureau Federation said. The flood damage in the Midwest over the past two weeks has lifted prices for U.S. corn, used for food, renewable fuel ethanol and animal feed, to a record high above $7 a bushel, up about 85 percent since the end of 2006 as of Wednesday.

"Wet weather and flooding create issues, as farmers are unable to plant their crops," said AFBF senior economist Terry Francl. "The crops they do plant do not sprout and grow, resulting in few acres harvest. Additionally, the difficult growing conditions greatly reduce the yield of the crop that is harvested," he added.

The AFBF said some states were experiencing dry weather, with drought taking a toll in several Western and South Eastern states. It said northern California battled the driest spring in its history, and as a whole the state suffered $500 million in estimated damage. AFBF said the damage estimate is based on the assumption that weather conditions will be normal for the remainder of the growing season.

UPDATE - A new round of storms dumped a half foot or more of rain across parts of the U.S. Midwest on Wednesday, dealing fresh trouble to a region already struggling with billions of dollars in flood damage.

Rice prices have more than doubled in Iran since March but farmers working from sunrise to sunset in the rice-growing northern region around Chalus, a city on the Caspian Sea, say little of that money goes into their pockets. "TRADERS BOUGHT OUR RICE VERY CHEAP. They have put it in storage and now capital investors are selling it for a high price. WE DID NOT MAKE A PROFIT BUT TRADERS DID," Baqer Kefayati said at his farm in Dasht-e Nesha.

Capital investors are rich traders who buy rice wholesale from farmers. Dealers buy rice in small amounts from capital investors and sell it to shops. They act as brokers and tend not to make large sums of money. Some brokers also blame the Islamic Republic's government, saying its tardiness in importing rice this year helped fuel the price rise by creating a vacuum that could be exploited.

Iran is at once a beneficiary of the oil boom, that has seen prices rise to nearly $140 a barrel, and a victim - high oil prices are one factor behind rising inflation that is punishing the country's poor. Economists blame profligate spending of windfall oil revenues by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government for stoking inflation, which rose to 25.3 percent year-on-year in May. World food prices - which have risen on supply fears and export restrictions - have also contributed.