It is hoped that the loans - £22.7billion of which will go to the UK - will help make lending between banks easier, avoiding any repeat of the Northern Rock crisis. The Rock ran into trouble because the current economic climate has encouraged banks to hoard their cash, rather than lend it to each other.

Northern Rock could therefore not borrow the money it needed from other banks, and was forced to go to the Bank of England as a "lender of last resort" at punitive rates. The central banks' decision is designed to stop other lenders getting into the same situation - and to avoid panic among both consumers and the City.

A Bank of England spokesman said: "This co-ordinated set of actions is a response to stresses in the inter-bank markets, which have increased in recent weeks, reflecting sentiment about the global financial sector. The actions demonstrate that central banks are working together to try to forestall any prospective sharp tightening in credit conditions."

They waved placards and banners, stamped, booed and chanted "referendum". Opponents called them "hooligans" who shamed Britain. The 50-article charter of fundamental rights will be attached to the EU's new Reform Treaty, to be signed in Portugal today. The protesters were demanding a public vote on the treaty. The ceremony marked the signing of the charter by the EU's three institutions, the Parliament, Commission and the European Council.

Wearing black t-shirts and holding placards demanding referendums on the treaty, the lawmakers from countries - including Britain, France, Poland and Italy - shouted down Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose country currently holds the European Union's rotating presidency, as he delivered his speech. "No matter how loud you heckle and yell, today is a day of fundamental importance for Europe," a defiant-looking Socrates told the assembly.

A police helicopter flew overhead as thousands of people ? some estimates put the number at 80,000 ? marched through central Athens in two separate demonstrations. In Thessaloniki, 30,000 people rallied, police said. Clashes broke out in one central Athens square, with riot police firing tear gas and charging a group of about 300-400 youths minutes after a car parked nearby was smashed and set on fire. No injuries were immediately reported.

The strike shut down hospitals, banks, schools, courts and all public services. Archaeological sites, including the Acropolis, were closed. Some private-run banks were open but public transport, including boats connecting mainland Greece with the islands, ground to a halt.

The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing unprecedented disasters are based on nothing more than scaremongering. The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns might be valid, it is vital that the international community bases its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement.

A broad consensus is developing among the world's scientific community that Man is the main cause of climate change. But there is also a substantial body of scientific opinion which continues to insist that industrial emissions are not to blame for the phenomenon. Such scientists point out that fluctuations in the Earth's temperature are normal.

He said that if no action was taken, the world would face impacts such as drought, famine and rising sea levels.

Delegates are hoping to agree a "Bali roadmap" leading to further cuts in greenhouse gas emissions when the Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012.

"We gather because the time for equivocation is over," said Mr Ban.

"Climate change is the defining challenge of our age. The science is clear; climate change is happening, the impact is real. The time to act is now."

Other rabbis have also called for the construction of a Jewish prayer site on the Temple Mount. Former Chief Sephardic Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu is among them, though he has not campaigned for this cause. Other members on the Chief Rabbinate committee are Be'er Sheva's Chief Rabbi Yehuda Deri and Tzfat's Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu.

Jewish Temple Mount supporters greeted Rabbi Cohen's announcement with enthusiasm. The Movement for the Establishment of the Temple declared, "The holiday of Chanukah, commemorating the liberation and purification of the Mount and the Temple, is the perfect time for the establishment of a prayer site for the Jewish People on the Mount. This will be a step towards full Jewish sovereignty over the holy site."

Rabbi Cohen took advantage of the opportunity to call upon the observant Jewish public to visit the site of the Holy Temple. He said this must be done only after taking the prescribed Halakhic [Jewish legal] precautions, such as immersing in a mikveh beforehand and others.

The Vatican press office confirmed that the Pope received the Palestinian diplomat in audience today, but did not offer any details of the meeting.

According to the French-language news agency I. Media, Armali delivered a message on behalf of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in which the leader requests an "active presence" on the part of the Holy See in the Middle East peace process.

According to the agency, the Palestinian diplomat recognized "the important role of the Vatican in the question of Jerusalem's status."

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Ramallah says it is the largest military incursion of Gaza for months, coming exactly two weeks after the Annapolis meeting that heralded a new round of peace negotiations. The incursion was launched not far from the Sufa crossing point into Gaza, an area regularly used by militants to launch rocket and mortar attacks at Israel.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC the operation was designed to protect Israel's civilian population. "We've had over the last few months some 4,000 rockets fired from Gaza into Israeli territory, trying to kill Israeli civilians.

Professor Nicholas Wald, the director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London, says hi-tech screening services which promise to detect early signs of heart disease, cancer and other conditions are being promoted by commercial organisations as a dubious way of reducing health risks. Clinics offering body scans, virtual colonoscopies of the bowel, and mole assessments for skin cancer have sprung up around the country charging up to £1,000 per test. One firm advertises its scans as an "MOT for the body". The scans have become fashionable gifts for people reaching milestone birthdays of 40, 50 or 60.

But critics say the scans often reveal abnormalities without being able to distinguish those that indicate serious disease. Many patients then need further checks, causing them sleepless nights with anxiety before they are cleared. At the same time, the scans deliver a hefty dose of radiation. John Giles, the medical director of Lifescan, said: "The science is very much on the side of screening. This is more a political, than a clinical, debate."

In a report "Recession Coming" released today, the bank's US team said the credit crunch had started to inflict serious damage on US companies. "As delinquencies and defaults soar, lenders are tightening credit for commercial, credit card and auto lending, as well as for all mortgage borrowers," said the report, written by the bank's chief US economist Dick Berner. He said the foreclosure rate on residential mortgages had reached a 19-year high of 5.59pc in the third quarter while the glut of unsold properties would lead to a 40pc crash in housing construction.

"We think overall housing starts will run below one million units in each of the next two years -- a level not seen in the history of the modern data since 1959," he said. The partial freeze on subprime mortgage rates announced last week by US treasury secretary Hank Paulson may help cushion the blow for some banks, but it could equally backfire by adding a "risk premium" that drives even more lenders out of the mortgage market.

Morgan Stanley is the first major Wall Street bank to warn that it may now be too late to stop a recession, though most have shifted to an ultra-cautious stance in recent weeks.

Nathaniel Abraham, an Indian national who describes himself as a "Bible-believing Christian," said in the lawsuit filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court in Boston that he was fired in 2004 because he would not accept evolution as scientific fact.

Abraham, who was dismissed eight months after he was hired, said he was willing to do research using evolutionary concepts but that he had been required to accept Darwin's theory of evolution as scientific fact or lose his job.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination dismissed the case this year, saying Abraham's request not to work on evolutionary aspects of research would be difficult for Woods Hole because its work is based on evolutionary theories.

The law, passed late on Thursday, reflects concerns that rapid modernization and a growth in nuclear families is undermining a centuries-old social fabric of extended families."At least now the elderly can have a roof to live under and food to eat in their old age," Gyan Prakash Pilania, a Hindu nationalist MP, was quoted as saying in local news reports.

Under the law, Indians can face up to a month in jail if found guilty of parental neglect. The law also allows authorities to order children or relatives to pay a monthly maintenance allowance to the aged.

Welcome to the Qingping market in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where everything from turtles to insects are sold alongside fowl and freshly caught fish. An outbreak of the SARS virus in 2002 resulted in a local gourmet favorite -- the civet -- being banished to the black market. The raccoon-like animal was blamed for spreading SARS, which infected 8,000 people globally and killed 800.

But exotic wildlife and squalor have returned to the Qingping market, making health officials worried that another killer virus could emerge. "We face similar threats from other viruses and such epidemics can happen because we continue to have very crowded markets in China," said Lo Wing-lok, an infectious disease expert in Hong Kong.

The icy blast downed tree limbs and power lines, leaving more than 500,000 people without power in Oklahoma, where shelters opened throughout the region for those driven from cold and dark homes, and national guardsmen and volunteers were transporting food and water to hard-hit areas."This particular storm is now the worst in company history in terms of customers affected," said Brian Alford, spokesman for Oklahoma Gas and Electric.

Crews were sent from Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi to help repair power lines, which snapped seemingly as quickly as they could be repaired. The storm also shut down electricity service to more than 102,000 people in Missouri, more than 11,000 people in Illinois and about 5,000 in Kansas. In all, ice storm warnings were issued from Texas up through Oklahoma and Kansas and east across Missouri into Illinois, with up to an inch of ice accumulation possible in some areas. Iowa and Arkansas were also affected.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency, calling out the state National Guard to aid communities hit by the storm. "We are only just beginning to see the devastation from this series of storms," he said.

The ravenous creatures - which are capable of stripping vegetation in minutes - are laying eggs in remote areas in the north-east of the country. The Ministry of Agriculture says it is spraying affected areas from the ground and from aircraft. The insects can eat their own weight in food every day, which means a single swarm can consume as much food as several thousand people.

Locust swarms have been spotted in many areas in the Horn of Africa, but it is the first time since the early 1960s that large concentrations have moved into Kenya, our reporter says. Africa experienced devastating swarms in 2004 when they swept across northern and western Africa, leaving 60% of Mauritania's population - 400,000 people - needing food aid.