The department's latest snapshot of the government's balance sheets, released Wednesday, shows that the deficit for the budget year that began Oct. 1 was up a whopping 62 percent from the red ink of $162.2 billion for the corresponding five-month period last year. The latest year-to-date budget deficit of $263.3 billion was an all-time high, the government said.

Spending totaled a record $1.23 trillion, while revenues totaled $967.2 billion, also an all-time high. For the month of February alone, the government ran a deficit of $175.6 billion, a record for any single month. That was larger than the shortfall of around $170 billion that economists were expecting. The White House predicts that the deficit this year will increase to $410 billion, as the economic slowdown cuts into tax revenues.

So far this budget year, the biggest spending categories are programs from the Health and Human Services Department, including Medicare and Medicaid, $292.9 billion; Social Security, $270.5 billion; military, $247.6 billion; and interest on the public debt, $198.5 billion.

The silent vigil in the huge, neo-classical Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square), climaxed a week of commemorations of the "Anschluss", or annexation, of Austria by Nazi Germany -- an early step towards World War Two and the Holocaust. "I think people here didn't want to passively let this anniversary go by, but rather send a signal countering the Nazi frenzy of 70 years ago in this very place," said Inge Langer, a middle-aged woman who came with her children.

The Anschluss anniversary revived debate about the extent to which Austrians were victims of Nazism or willing accomplices. Most Austrians now agree they were also deeply complicit in the Nazi machinery of war and genocide after decades of denial. Each candle symbolized one of the estimated 80,000 Austrians, including 65,000 Jews, killed by Nazis. Organisers planned to display the name of every known victim on a screen in the square that flanks the old Hofburg imperial palace.

Austrian Nazis grabbed power on March 12, 1938 as German columns began to cross the border and immediately began purging political foes and persecuting a long vibrant Jewish community. The Nazi dictator appeared on a Hofburg balcony three days later to formally proclaim the absorption of his homeland in his "Third Reich" before a rapturous crowd of hundreds of thousands.

LISBON TREATY WILL GIVE EUROPEANS "MILITARY MEANS COMMENSURATE WITH THEIR POLITICAL AMBITIONS."
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner argues that "THE EUROPEANS NEEDED MILITARY MEANS COMMENSURATE WITH THEIR POLITICAL AMBITIONS. HOW COULD WE HOPE TO INFLUENCE A CRISIS OR NEGOTIATIONS WITHOUT THE MEANS TO BACK UP OUR WORDS?" He notes that the revised EU Constitution will allow the Union to assume this capability:

CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYER: LISBON TREATY WEAKENS NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS' POWERS. Euobserver reports that the pending case against the Lisbon Treaty in Germany's Constitutional Court may mean that the document cannot enter into force before 1 January 2009 - the agreed deadline - as the country's President, Horst Kohler, may choose to follow the tradition and wait for the Court's decision before signing off the document. The complaint was launched by Peter Gauweiler of the Christian Social Union, WHO CLAIMS THE TREATY IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE GERMAN CONSTITUTION. Peter Gauweiler's lawyer is quoted as saying, "THIS TREATY WEAKENS DEMOCRACY IN EUROPEAN POLITICS, especially national parliaments' right to have a say."

GOVERNMENT TACTICS "WILL COME BACK TO HAUNT THEM IN THE LORDS."
In an article in the Nottingham Evening Post, Chairman of the East Midlands for a Referendum campaign, Neville Baxter said "Pushing the Treaty through Parliament without a referendum lacks all legitimacy. The Government has not convinced people that the Treaty is different to the rejected EU Constitution - on which all three parties promised a referendum - WITH POMPOUS TALK ABOUT HOW MPS KNOW BEST AND THE VOTERS CANNOT BE TRUSTED, THE GOVERNMENT HAVE BLUDGEONED THE BILL THROUGH THE COMMONS WITH AS LITTLE DISCUSSION AS POSSIBLE. This shabby tactic will come back to haunt them in the Lords."

HOW THE EU AFFECTS EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE UK.
The Sunday Express had a double page spread based on Open Europe's recent report "The EU and You: How the EU affects everyday life in the UK", which shows that the EU is responsible for such diverse things as fortnightly bin collections, higher electricity bills, home information packs and rules on children of twelve having to sit in car booster seats. Lorraine Mullally is quoted as saying "The EU now has a powerful influence on our everyday lives. But as a result of the way EU legislation operates, IT IS OFTEN NOT CLEAR TO VOTERS WHEN A PARTICULAR DECISION OR POLICY ORIGINATES IN THE EU."

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT EXPENSES THEFT ROW CONTINUE.
The News of the World had a full page article on the recent report on widespread corruption in the European Parliament. Open Europe's Neil O'Brien is quoted as saying, "These people should all be going to jail. They are criminals and it's a disgrace this corruption has been covered up."

FAZ: BROWN HAS "STRETCHED HIS ARGUMENT" BY CLAIMING THE LISBON TREATY IS DIFFERENT TO THE CONSTITUTION.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes that Gordon Brown may have circumvented a referendum in the House of Commons - to the relief of his European partners - but he has nonetheless "stretched his argument" by maintaining that the Lisbon Treaty differs from the original Constitution. IT IS NOTED THAT PARTICULARLY THE "FATHERS OF THE CONSTITUTION" INSIST THE TWO TREATIES ARE SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME.

LISBON TREATY PASSED IN COMMONS.
The Lisbon Treaty bill last night cleared its final hurdle in the House of Commons. The bill now goes to the Lords where a successful referendum vote is much more likely. Speaking about the treaty, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "the reforms allow us to move on to the agenda of prosperity and development and climate change that we all agree are the essence of the EU's role." Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague argued that "EVERYTHING ABOUT THE RATIFICATION OF THIS RE-PACKAGED CONSTITUTION HAS BEEN MARKED BY CYNICISM AND CALCULATION."

REVIEW INTO 'WIDESPREAD FIDDLES' BY MEPS.
The Times reports that a review of expenses rules for MEPs was ordered yesterday after a secret report detailed widespread corruption in the European Parliament. MEPs may lose the right to manage their annual 190,000 euro (£145,000) staff budget after a number of scams were discovered, including paying large sums to political parties or to arm's-length companies with no employees.

Two sets of parents in Belgium were recently handed five month prison terms for failing to vaccinate their children against polio. Each parent was also fined 4,100 euros ($8,000). "It's a pretty extraordinary case," said Dr. Ross Upshur, director of the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. "The Belgians have a right to take some action against the parents, given the seriousness of polio, but the question is, is a prison sentence disproportionate?"

The parents can still avoid prison - their sentences were delayed to give them a chance to vaccinate their children. But if that deadline also passes without their children receiving the injections, the parents could be put behind bars. Because of privacy laws, Belgian officials would not talk specifically about the case, such as why the parents refused the vaccine or how much longer they have to vaccinate their children.

The polio vaccine is the only one required by Belgian law. Exceptions are granted only if parents can prove their children might have a bad physical reaction to the vaccine.

The family was stopped at Heathrow after they arrived on a British Airways flight from Mexico City on Tuesday. Customs officials found 15 kilos of the drug strapped to the legs of the woman's daughter, aged 11, and son, 13, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said.

"We never cease to be amazed at the lengths to which some people will go to hide drugs from us when they pass through our controls," Bob Gaiger, HMRC spokesman at Heathrow said.

Investors have raced into commodities over the past month to hedge against inflation and the slumping dollar, sending oil to fresh peaks despite concerns about the economic health of top oil consumer the United States and rising fuel stocks. U.S. crude settled up $1.17 at $109.92 after racing to an all-time high of $110.20 earlier. London Brent gained $1.02 to settle at $106.27 a barrel, off a record $106.41 hit earlier in the day.

Analysts said crude's rise despite swelling inventories highlights the disconnect between supply and demand fundamentals and the current, speculator-driven price. "It is a ridiculously bearish report," said Stephen Schork, editor of The Schork Report. "We have major concerns regarding the economy in the United States, rising supply, falling demand. Why is crude oil trading at over $100 per barrel? It makes no fundamental sense."

The dollar tumbled to a record low against the euro as doubts grew about the long-term impact of recent Federal Reserve efforts to pump money into credit markets. A day earlier, the greenback rallied after the Fed said it would lend primary dealers $200 billion in Treasury securities and accept a wider array of mortgage debt as collateral to ease tight credit conditions.

Airbus, struggling with cost overruns on its star A380 superjumbo project and delays with its A400M military plane, made an operating loss of 881 million euros (1.4 billion dollars), worse than the loss of 572 million euros in 2006. The 2006 results were the first time the company had made a loss in its history.

As well as the operational difficulties with the A380 and A400M -- a programme for the midsized A350 plane was also relaunched -- Airbus and EADS struggled with the strong euro in 2007, which makes their exports less competitive on international markets and reduces margins. Nevertheless, Airbus won 1,341 firm orders in 2007, slightly fewer than arch US rival Boeing, but higher than the European company's previous record set in 2005 of 1,055. Airbus delivered 453 planes to customers, including the first of its A380s to launch client Singapore Airlines.

Late last month the US Pentagon defence department awarded an aerial refuelling tanker contract worth 35 billion dollars to EADS and the US group Northrop Grumman, instead of to US group Boeing, which has said it may protest the decision. It was a stunning upset for Boeing, until now the sole supplier of air refueling planes to the US military.

Despite warnings, and the potentially harmful effects of their actions, believers are allegedly still flocking to a hotelier's house in Erumeli near where the divine image is said to have appeared. "All our patients have similar history and symptoms? They have developed photochemical, not thermal, burns after continuously gazing at the sun," Dr Annamma James Isaac, the hospital's ophthalmologist said.

Even churches in the area have disowned the miracle after health officers and doctors approached the clergy. The house where the miracle is said to have occurred has apparently been the subject of rumours for months.

The hotelier, who has since moved, had claimed that statues of the Virgin Mary in his house have been crying honey and bleeding oils and perfumes.

The Bank of England joined forces with the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to pledge an injection of cash into the struggling banking system in the wake of the global credit crunch.

The biggest move was by the Fed, which announced a loans programme of up to £100billion ($200billion). The Bank of England said it was willing to lend London banks £10billion on March 18, and also offered another undisclosed sum on April 15. The European Central Bank added that it will lend banks up to £7.5billion for 28 days. The latest injection of funds comes as new figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed that new loans for home buyers fell to 50,300 in January, the lowest level for nine years, and half the rate of August last year.

Abroad, top banks including Switzerland's UBS and America's Citigroup were forced to go cap-in-hand to foreign investors to ask them for extra cash to shore up their finances. The U.S. economy is feared to have now slumped into recession because of soaring mortgage defaults and slumping property values. Commentators say Britain is equally vulnerable to the credit crunch because the burden of consumer debt here is even greater than in the U.S.

But it can get worse: now the European Union's only directly elected institution is struggling to fend off accusations of widespread fraud among its members. Last week details were published on the Internet of a secret report by the Parliament's own internal auditors that revealed a catalogue of scams used by some MEPs to pocket portions of their annual grant of $295,000 per member to hire office staff.

The scandal has been exacerbated by parliamentary leaders' clumsy attempts to cover up the report. Even within the Parliament, only a handful of MEPs on the budgetary control committee were able to see the report ? and they were obliged to read it in a guarded room, on condition that they took no notes and signed a pledge saying they would keep its contents secret. Although the Parliament's vice presidents agreed on Monday to review the system of hiring office assistants, they spent two weeks insisting the report was either non-existent or confidential.

The EU's anti-fraud unit, OLAF, has already launched an investigation into the allegations. But since the Parliament's own guidelines on hiring staff are vague, and do not even require receipts for expense claims, MEPs can claim they have not broken any rules.

British Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies, who read the report under guard, said the actions of some of his colleagues had disgraced the Parliament. "Make no mistake, we are talking about very large sums of money," he says. Davies wants offenders named and shamed, and the worst ones to be thrown in jail. But he says the Parliament shot itself in the foot by trying to keep the report secret. "It was utterly pathetic, naïve and hypocritical. You wonder what planet they grew up on," he says. "The European Parliament is doing good work. But in terms of recognition and acceptance by the wide European public, these incidents can only harm it."

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls - nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

Douglas said screening tests are underused in part because many teens don't think they're at risk, but also, some doctors mistakenly think, 'Sexually transmitted diseases don't happen to the kinds of patients I see.'

Blythe said some doctors also are reluctant to discuss STDs with teen patients or offer screening because of confidentiality concerns, knowing parents would have to be told of the results. The American Academy of Pediatrics supports confidential teen screening, she said.

A Reuters witness saw at least 300 people escaping the area, where helicopters have strafed the foothills and hundreds of heavily-armed soldiers have poured into the forest since Monday, to flush out the little-known Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF). The Mount Elgon violence preceded a wave of ethnic killings around Kenya over President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election in December -- but it shares some of the root causes like tribal tensions and resentment over land distribution.

Mount Elgon member of parliament (MP) Fred Kapondi said."What the government is doing to people here is inhuman. They are pounding on traumatised children and mothers. The March planting has been disrupted so now there will be no food ... This operation must be stopped," Kapondi told Reuters.

Allocation of government land in mid-2006 unleashed fighting between the Ndorobo and Soy clans of the Sabaot ethnic group. Opponents say the land was divided corruptly and favoured the Ndorobos and government supporters, at the expense of the more numerous Soy, some of whom were evicted from areas they had farmed for 30 years. The SLDF group is mainly Soy.

The Ferrari P4 - of which only three were made, in 1967 - was made in a back street factory in Thailand and is powered by a Subaru engine. The Authentics Foundation has used the car to warn against the growing tide of counterfeit goods. It says pirated medicines and food pose a real threat to human health.

Authentics Foundation president Timothy P Trainer said: "It has got more complicated because now counterfeiters are into everything. Twenty years ago they were more into luxury brands and so on. Today, they are into electronics, they are into medicine, they are into food."

The foundation said as much as 80% of the pharmaceuticals sold in Nigeria are fake.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1,938 years the linen garments of the lay priests are being produced in preparation for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple and the renewal of the Divine service. The last priestly garments to have been worn were those worn by the priests who were martyred by the Roman legions who brutally invaded and destroyed the Holy Temple on the ninth day of the month of Av, in the year 70 CE.

THE TEMPLE INSTITUTE HAS SPARED NO EFFORT in procuring the necessary materials for the performing of this Torah commandment, and once again has enlisted 21st century technology in order to do so in a manner befitting the Torah injunction that these priestly garments be "both dignified and beautiful". (Exodus 28:40)

To see photographs

HIS STATED REASON IS THAT JEWISH PRAYER ON THE TEMPLE MOUT IS AKIN TO INCITEMENT TO MOSLEM VIOLENCE. The Olmert government and Israeli police took no action to stop the recent Hamas radio broadcasts from the Mount calling for death to Jews and the destruction of the state of Israel. The New Jewish Congress has issued the following response.

"Minister Dichter's comments regarding Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount demonstrates HIS - AND THIS GOVERNMENT'S - TOTAL DISCONNECT FROM THE REALITY OF THE TEMPLE MOUNT, from the Jewish people, and from the government's obligations towards both. THIS STATEMENT IS YET ANOTHER INDICATION THAT THE GOVERNMENT OF EHUD OLMERT HAS CEASED TO BE A JEWISH GOVERNMENT ALTOGETHER, HAVING NOT THE SLIGHTEST CONNECTION WITH THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

"The irony of his statement is even more blatant in light of the fact that this same government encourages and enables THE ARCH-TERRORIST HAMAS ORGANIZATION TO BROADCAST FROM THE TEMPLE MOUNT. In reality, the Jewish people enjoy freedom of religious expression, including prayer and Torah study, throughout every location - except on THE TEMPLE MOUNT, THEIR ONLY HOLY SITE.

"Minister Dichter's comments convey hatred and discrimination towards the Jewish people. In due time this government will be held accountable for its actions and will stand trial in a Jewish court of justice that will be established by the Jewish people."