A Labour minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an "Islamic social and political order" in Britain. Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.

"They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it's at local government level or national level," he said. "They are completely at odds with Labour's programme, with our support for secularism."

Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said the IFE had infiltrated and "corrupted" his party in east London in the same way that the far-Left Militant Tendency did in the 1980s. IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already "consolidated ... a lot of influence and power" over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a 1 billion pounds budget. We have established that the group and its allies were awarded more than 10 million pounds of taxpayers' money, much of it from government funds designed to "prevent violent extremism".

Moderate Muslims in London told how the IFE and its allies were enforcing their hardline views on the rest of the local community, curbing behaviour they deemed "un-Islamic". The owner of a dating agency received a threatening email from an IFE activist, warning her to close it.

The IFE has particularly close links to Tower Hamlets council. Seven serving and former councillors said Lutfur Rahman, the current council leader, gained his post with the group's help. This was despite a chequered employment record, a misleading CV and a negative report from the headhunters appointed to consider the candidates. The council's white chief executive was subsequently forced from his post.

Since Mr Rahman became leader, more council grants have been paid to a number of organisations which our investigation established are closely linked to the IFE. Schools in Tower Hamlets are told by the council they should close for the Muslim festival of Eid, even where most of their pupils are not Muslim. The group insisted it was not a fundamentalist or extremist organisation and did not support violence.

The 1,300-year-old fragments, which are among only a handful of Hebrew biblical manuscripts known to have survived the era in which they were written, existed separately and with their relationship unknown, until a news photograph of one's public unveiling in 2007 caught the attention of the scholars who would eventually link them.

Together, they make up the text of the Song of the Sea, sung by jubilant Israelites after fleeing slavery in Egypt and witnessing the destruction of the pharaoh's armies in the Red Sea."The enemy said: 'I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them,'" reads the song, which appears in the Book of Exodus. "Thou didst blow thy wind, the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters."

An exhibit at Israel's national museum dedicated to the Song of the Sea is now bringing together the two long-separated pieces. One page of the song, known as the Ashkar manuscript, was previously housed in a rare books library at Duke University in North Carolina and was first displayed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2007. That's when a photograph of the manuscript in a local newspaper caught the eye of two Israeli paleographers, Mordechay Mishor and Edna Engel, who noticed it resembled a different page of Hebrew writing known as the London manuscript, presently part of the private collection of Stephan Loewentheil of New York.

The museum arranged to have the London manuscript brought to Jerusalem. The new exhibit chronicles how the Song of the Sea was written through various ancient manuscripts, from the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls to the manuscript known as the Aleppo Codex, written nearly a millennium later.

The reunification of the two pieces adds an important link in the chain, showing how the writing of the Hebrew Bible evolved through the so-called "silent" period - between the third and 10th centuries - from which nearly no Biblical texts survived. While in the Dead Sea Scrolls the song is arranged like prose, for example, in the newly reunited manuscript it is written like a poem, the same way it appears in the Hebrew Bible today. The manuscripts are "filling the gap," said Israel Museum curator Adolfo Roitman. "We can see we are dealing with a tradition that is still alive."

While the Church's 10-page document, offering advice to the country's four million Catholics, is not explicitly partisan, it will be seen as critical of Labour and as supportive of the Tories who have put marriage at the centre of their campaigning.

In the report, seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the bishops argue for a "revitalising of politics", warn that religion should not be "reduced to devotional acts" and stress the need to protect the freedom to express belief.

It follows a series of high-profile clashes between Catholic leaders and the Government over the promotion of laws which critics say have threatened religious liberty in Britain. The paper's emphasis on marriage will echo David Cameron's expressed support for married couples and is in contrast to Labour's claims that parents need not be wed to create happy families.

A church source said last night: "The document is very much in line with Tory policy and it will be open to that interpretation, although it is not intended to be explicitly political in either direction." The advice could influence the outcome of the election in key marginal seats, particularly in north-west England where the Catholic Church is particularly strong.

On Tuesday, Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe - a prominent skeptic of global warming theory and the Republican leader of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee - issued a request for Gore to come testify on global warming. In an interview with FoxNews.com, Inhofe said he wants Gore to appear because "it will be interesting to ask him on what science he based his movie," a film the senator considers "science fiction."

The media, meanwhile, have started to ask why the world's most famous advocate of all things green remains mute on the growing chorus of opposition. "The godfather of climate hysteria is in hiding as another of his wild claims unravels - this one about global warming causing seas to swallow us up," the editors of Investors Business Daily wrote on Tuesday. "We've not seen or heard much of the former vice president, Oscar winner and Nobel Prize recipient recently as the case for disastrous man-made climate change collapses."

Inhofe says it's important that Gore testify before the Congress and tell the full story. "First Climate-gate happened, before Copenhagen, and everything unraveled on the global warming front," the senator said. "It appears that the scientific community has been deliberately falsifying science for years, whether it's the melting of the Himalayas or the melting of the polar ice. All of that was in his movie. So we tried to reach him. When his movie came out," Inhofe added, "parents of small children told me their kids had to go to the psychiatrist over bad dreams about global warming. We owe it to the public to find out where the science came from. This is the greatest scientific scandal of our generation."

Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank's annual meeting that "there could be contagion" if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. "Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country," said Mr Dimon. "We don't really foresee the European Union coming apart." The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.

California however poses more of a risk, given the state's $20 billion (13.1 billion pounds) budget deficit, which Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is desperately trying to reduce.

Earlier this week, the state's legislature passed bills that will cut the deficit by $2.8 billion through budget cuts and other measures. However the former Hollywood film star turned politician is looking for $8.9 billion of cuts over the next 16 months, and is also hoping for as much as $7 billion of handouts from the federal government.

A spokesman for Soros Fund Management said the legendary investor did not attend the dinner on February 8, but did not deny that his firm was represented. At the dinner, the speculators are said to have argued that the euro is likely to plunge in value to parity with the dollar. The single currency has been under enormous pressure because of Greece's debt crisis, plus financial worries in Portugal, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

But, it has also struggled because hedge funds have been placing huge bets on the currency's decline, which could make the speculators hundreds of millions of pounds. The euro traded at $1.51 in December, but has since fallen to $1.34. Details of the secretive dinner emerged days after Mr Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management, warned in a newspaper article that the euro could 'fall apart' even if the European Union can agree a deal to shore up support for stricken Greece.

Mr Soros, who made more than $1billion by currency speculation when the pound was ejected from the Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday in 1992, believes the structure of the euro is 'patently flawed'. He said: 'Makeshift assistance should be enough for Greece, but that leaves Spain, Italy, Portugal and Ireland. Together they constitute too large a portion of euroland to be helped in this way.' He believes that unless the European Commission is given sweeping powers over taxation and spending, the single currency will always be vulnerable to financial turbulence in individual states.

"That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now," he said in a speech on the future mandate of the 186-nation Washington-based lending organization. Strauss-Kahn said such an asset could be similar to but distinctly different from the IMF's special drawing rights, or SDRs, the accounting unit that countries use to hold funds within the IMF. It is based on a basket of major currencies.

He said having other alternatives to the dollar "would limit the extent to which the international monetary system as a whole depends on the policies and conditions of a single, albeit dominant, country. The challenge ahead is to find ways to limit the tension arising from the high demand for precautionary reserves on the one hand and the narrow supply of reserves on the other," he said.

Several countries, including China and Russia, have called for an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency and have suggested using the IMF's internal accounting unit.

He was then threatened with arrest after refusing to hand over his mobile phone containing the picture after a row with a policeman. Mr Geraghty-Shewan said: 'Ben saw a children's ride which had a train on it and wanted to have a go because he's obsessed with trains.' Moments later, he was apprehended by the security guard.

The father-of-one, who was in the North East visiting family, said: 'He said "you can't take pictures in here". I asked why and he told me it was because for all he knew I could be a paedophile. I told him Ben was my son. But he said I couldn't prove it. I couldn't believe it. I walked away and then I thought about making a complaint.' A few minutes later a police officer arrived at the Bridges Shopping Centre in Sunderland and threatened to delete the photograph. 'They took my details and said they had the right to remove the picture from my phone. I got annoyed and things got heated, then he threatened me with arrest for breach of the peace.'

A spokesman for the Bridges Shopping Centre said: 'We take the safety at all our shopping centres very seriously. We do ask our security guards across the estate to be diligent in implementing our security measures, which includes monitoring photography in our centres. Unfortunately on this occasion what should have been a simple polite conversation led to a misunderstanding and we apologise for any offence caused. It is always our aim to implement our security procedures with the minimum of fuss and disruption to our shoppers.'

President Michelle Bachelet confirmed 47 deaths and said more were possible. Telephone and power lines were down, making damage assessments difficult in the early morning darkness. "Never in my life have I experienced a quake like this, it's like the end of the world," one man told local television from the city of Temuco, where the quake damaged buildings and forced staff to evacuate the regional hospital.

Chilean television and radio stations said several buildings collapsed in the city of Curico and that there was damage to buildings in the historic center of the capital Santiago, about 200 miles north of the epicenter. The capital's international airport was forced to close, a highway bridge collapsed and chunks of buildings fell into the street.

Bachelet urged people to stay calm. "With a quake of this size we undoubtedly can't rule out more deaths and probably injuries," she said. An earthquake of magnitude 8 or over can cause "tremendous damage," the USGS says. The quake that devastated Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on January 12 was rated magnitude 7.0.

According to a 2002 census, Concepcion is one of the largest cities in Chile with a population of around 670,000. Chile's main copper producing region and some of the world's largest copper mines are in the far north of the country near its border with Peru, but there are also major copper deposits near Santiago. Officials said roads to the important Los Bronces mine near the capital were blocked. Chile produces about 34 percent of the world supply of copper, which is used in electronics, cars and refrigerators.

Saturday's quake shook buildings as far away as Argentina's Andean provinces of Mendoza and San Juan. A series of strong aftershocks rocked Chile's coastal region from Valdivia in southern to Valparaiso, about 500 miles to the north.

The tsunami warning center said there was a possibility the US state of Hawaii could be elevated to watch or warning status.

The US issued an initial tsunami warning for Chile, Peru and Ecuador. That was later extended to Colombia, Antarctica, Panama and Costa Rica. There is no information yet on any casualties. The US Geological Survey (USGS) said the earthquake struck at a depth of about 35km. Telephone lines and internet connections appear to have been damaged. The USGS said: "An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicentre within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours."

The Star Bulletin in Honolulu reports:- 'Hawaii under tsunami advisory '

Hawaii is under a tsunami advisory and a warning has been issued for two South American countries after a massive earthquake off the coast of Chile. Officials at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Ewa Beach are monitoring water level gauges. If a tsunami was generated, it would take 14 and a half hours to get to Hawaii.

Vindell Hsu, a geophysict at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, said it's still too early to tell if a tsunami is coming to Hawaii. "This is a big one," he added. "At this magnitude it's very likely a tsunami will be generated, but we are waiting for the water level data."

An earthquake off Chile in 1960 generated a tsunami in Hilo that killed 61 people. The earthquake, the largest ever recorded at a magnitude 9.6, sent waves of up to 30 feet to Hilo about 15 hours after the temblor, according to an online account by Pacific Tsunami Warning Center scientist Gerard Fryer. The tsunami caused about 2,000 deaths in Chile. The waves also flooded the coastline of Japan where 10-foot waves caused 200 deaths. Tsunami damage was also reported in the Marquesas, Samoa, and New Zealand.

The new trade war came as Angela Merkel admitted the euro is in 'a difficult situation' for the first time. She spoke as German magazine Focus ran a cover image of the armless Venus de Milo somehow raising her middle finger under the headline 'Cheats in the euro family' to suggest that Greece deliberately misled EU peers to swindle its way into the euro.

The cover sparked outrage in Greece, prompting the demands for a boycott. A Greek newspaper has also hit back, running an image showing the statue of the goddess Victoria atop the Siegessaeule in Berlin holding a swastika. European leaders have offered verbal support to Greece but agreed no concrete steps. Germany, Europe's biggest economy and traditionally a rock of stability in the euro zone, is a crucial player.

Mrs Merkel has been reluctant to offer aid to Athens, well aware that public opinion and her Free Democrat (FDP) coalition partners are hostile to anything that would look as if German taxpayers were bailing out Greece.

In a robust and at times testy video interview for the Financial Times's View from DC series, Mr Gregg also complimented China for showing rising alarm about the US's mounting levels of public debt.

"We have had China say that they are looking for other places to put their reserves and that is probably a smart decision on their part," said Mr Gregg, who will not seek re-election in November. "So the warning signs are pretty clear and the path is unsustainable and, at this point, unless we take different actions, unavoidable."

Executives tried desperately to defuse the row about the enormous sums handed out by the bank, which is 84 per cent owned by taxpayers. They insisted only a tiny minority of its 160,000 global workforce enjoy bumper bonuses and salaries.

And chairman Philip Hampton said the 'majority' of its 90,000 UK workers earn 'less than a bus driver'.

Official figures by the Office for National Statistics show the average bus driver earns 21,083 pounds raising doubts about the statement. For many taxpayers whose funds helped prop up the ailing bank, such generous bonuses are an outrage.

The bank handed out 1.3 billion pounds to its 16,800 investment bankers last year, equal to around 77,400 pounds each. In reality, some took away nothing, but others received 1 million pounds or more.

It comes as the bank revealed losses of 3.6 billion pounds last year - a huge figure but far less than the record-breaking 24.3 billion pounds plunge into the red in 2008. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne yesterday said the bonuses were something 'people will find very difficult to understand'. He said: 'It is totally disproportionate to what doctors are paid, people working in industry are paid, teachers are paid and the like.'

The beleaguered euro initially fell in the wake of her comments and fresh speculation that Greece's international credit rating may be downgraded. On a dramatic day which also saw money markets around the world fall:

- The head of Germany's leading debt management agency warned the euro would collapse if any member defaulted on its debt.

- US regulators said they would investigate whether investment bank Goldman Sachs helped Athens disguise its budget deficit.

- EU inspectors visiting Athens told authorities they see a deeper than expected recession.

The developments came as Greece was recovering from a day of rioting which accompanied a second national strike over plans to curb the country's huge budget deficit. The violent clashes between antigovernment protesters and riot police in Athens on Wednesday followed a strike by more than two million workers in protest at plans to freeze public sector pay, raise the pension age and hike taxes on fuel, tobacco, alcohol and property.

Yesterday, while Mrs Merkel insisted the single currency would survive the crisis, she acknowledged that soaring debt levels in Greece and other southern European countries had put the euro at risk 'for the first time since its introduction'.

The devil was in the details, and by the end of the full-day session, a significant breakthrough still seemed beyond reach. Republicans appeared just as steadfastly opposed to the Democrats' sweeping vision of remaking the nation's health care system as they were at the beginning. Democrats refused to cede any ground to the Republican argument that they should start from scratch and take an incremental approach to health care reform.