May-Welby emigrated to Australia at the age of seven after being born in Paisley, Renfrewshire. Officials there altered the Briton's birth certificate to include the new no-gender classification after doctors were apparently unable to determine the sex of the expat's body.

May-Welby said: "The concepts of man or woman don't fit me. The simplest solution is not to have any sex identification." The UK's Gender Trust welcomed the case. A spokesman said: "Many people like the idea of being genderless."

When it comes to arms exports, few will be surprised that the US tops the list, with 30 percent of global expenditures on arms going to weaponry from America. Second place is likewise hardly a shocker - 23 percent of the world's weapons originate in Russia.

Third place, though, is raising more eyebrows. According to the 2009 annual report put together by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Germany's weapons exports have more than doubled in the last five years, to 11 percent of the global total. German submarines and tanks, the report makes clear, have gained a number of loyal customers. Given Berlin's tentative forays into geopolitics in recent years - against a backdrop of deep domestic skepticism about German involvement in conflicts across the globe - it is perhaps not surprising that the opposition is up in arms at the SIPRI ranking.

The researchers found that the worldwide trade of rockets, fighter jets, weapons and munitions was up by 22 percent over the last five years. Expensive fighter jets have proven particularly attractive, with their sale making up 27 percent of total arms sold. China and India lead the pack of arms importers, but Singapore and Algeria made the top 10 for the first time. Indeed, Singapore arms imports increased by 146 percent during the period of 2005-2009 against the years 2000-2004. Malaysian arms purchases increased by 722 percent during the same period.

There are echoes of Anglo-German spats before the First World War, when Wilhelmine Berlin so badly misjudged the strategic balance of power and over-played its hand. Within a month the US Treasury must rule whether China is a "currency manipulator", triggering sanctions under US law. This has been finessed before, but we are in a new world now with America's U6 unemployment at 16.8pc. "It's going to be really hard for them yet again to fudge on the obvious fact that China is manipulating. Without a credible threat, we're not going to get anywhere," said Paul Krugman, this year's Nobel economist.

China's premier Wen Jiabao is defiant. "I don't think the yuan is undervalued. We oppose countries pointing fingers at each other and even forcing a country to appreciate its currency," he said yesterday. Once again he demanded that the US takes "concrete steps to reassure investors" over the safety of US assets. Michael Pettis from Beijing University argues that China's reserves of $2.4 trillion - arguably $3 trillion - are a sign of weakness, not strength. Only twice before in modern history has a country amassed such a stash equal to 5pc-6pc of global GDP: the US in the 1920s, and Japan in the 1980s. Each time preceeded depression.

The reserves cannot be used internally to support China's economy. They are dead weight, beyond any level needed for macro-credibility. Indeed, they are the ultimate indictment of China's dysfunctional strategy, which is to buy $30bn to $40bn of foreign bonds every month to hold down the yuan, refusing to let the economy adjust to trade realities. The result is over-investment in plant, flooding the world with goods at wafer-thin export margins. China's over-capacity in steel is now greater than Europe's output.

As America's creditor - owner of some $1.4 trillion of US Treasuries, agency bonds, and US instruments - China can exert leverage. But this is not what it seems. If the Politburo deploys its illusiory power, Washington can pull the plug on China's export economy instantly by shutting markets. Who holds whom to ransom? Any attempt to retaliate by triggering a US bond crisis would rebound against China, and could be stopped - in extremis - by capital controls. Roosevelt changed the rules in 1933. Such things happen. The China-US relationship is no doubt symbiotic, but a clash would not be "mutual assured destruction", as often claimed. Washington would win.

The comments attributed to Ambassador Michael Oren, a noted Middle East historian, clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's assurances that the row resulting from a settlement announcement deemed "insulting" by the Obama administration was under control.

"Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted Oren as telling other Israeli diplomats in a telephone briefing over the weekend.

The remarks, also carried by other Israeli media, appeared to refer to US pressure in 1975 for an Israeli redeployment in the Egyptian Sinai, occupied by Israel since the 1967 war and the site of renewed fighting in 1973.

Israel's Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment.

That in itself should give investors pause for thought. Does the extension of loose money allow for current investment patterns to continue, with money pouring out of cash into higher-yielding assets? Or does it mean, as some are beginning to believe, that markets have been floating on artificial liquidity and that the underlying global economy is not in true recovery mode after all?

It is likely to stick to its plan to end purchases of around $1.7 trillion in assets. But it could well leave the door open for a renewal of purchases at a later date should economic expansion fall back. The Bank of Japan, meanwhile, is under pressure to loosen policy at its meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, most likely in the form of increasing funds offered under its lending operation. Japan's economy grew less than initially estimated in the fourth quarter and a broad gauge of price trends posted the biggest negative reading on record.

But more bearish noises have been heard, some even suggesting that there could be a reversal to lows experienced a year ago in March 2009. Once such is Colin McLean, managing director of alternative investment house SVM Management. "Rallies within bear markets can be quite large and quite sharp. The best indicator is from financials... They're still a concern," he told a group of Reuters journalists recently

A similar picture can also be drawn from some technicals. Peter Beuttell, director of advisers MTS Research, follows Elliott Wave theory, which tracks patterns on markets to glean their next direction. "We could be approaching a junction," he said. "MARKETS ARE ABOUT TO ROLL OVER IN THE NEXT FEW MONTHS."

Israel's prime minister has tried to play down the unusually bitter diplomatic row between the two allies. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week issued her own stern rebuke. Mrs Clinton told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by telephone on Friday that the Israeli move was "deeply negative" for US-Israeli relations.

Under the Israeli plans, the new homes will be built in Ramat Shlomo in East Jerusalem. The international community considers East Jerusalem occupied territory and says Israel's building there is illegal under international law. But Israel regards East Jerusalem - which it annexed in 1967 - as its territory. The Palestinians are threatening to boycott newly agreed, indirect talks unless the Ramat Shlomo project is cancelled. "This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region," David Axelrod, one of President Obama's closest aides, told NBC television.

At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr Netanyahu began by giving a survey of media coverage of the spat with the Americans. "I propose not to be carried away and to calm down," he said. "We know how to handle these situations, calmly, responsibly and seriously." He went on to admit that the announcement of the project during the vice-president's visit had been offensive, but it had been an accident.

Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators - the US, Russia, the EU and the UN - has also condemned the Israeli housing announcement and said it would review the situation at its ministerial meeting scheduled for 19 March in Moscow.

The UN body came under attack earlier this year for suggesting that 40 per cent of the Amazonian rainforests - dubbed the "lungs of the planet" by some for their ability to turn CO2 into oxygen, and also seen as vital on biodiversity grounds - might disappear imminently. This disaster would be triggered, according to the IPCC's assessment, by a relatively slight drop in rainfall of the sort to be expected in a warming world.

Unfortunately it now appears that just such conditions have already occurred, and in fact the Amazonian jungles were unaffected. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the baseless IPCC projection originated in a study produced in 2000 by hard-green ecological campaigning group WWF, which was also implicated in the IPCC's equally invalid prediction that the glaciers of the Himalayas will all have melted within a generation from now. According to the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) report, which was not subject to scientific peer review - it was written by a freelance journalist and published by WWF itself - drying-up of forests will lead to runaway wildfires that will destroy the jungle and perhaps the entire planetary ecosystem. Even the IPCC itself now regrets listening to WWF.

"The way that the WWF report calculated this 40 per cent was totally wrong," according to IPCC member Jose Marengo, commenting on the new research. Which might beg the question of why his colleagues referenced the bogus WWF polemic in their 2007 report on what the world can expect: and why they still publish it today on the web as part of their considered opinion.

WWF - It's WWF's position, for instance, that economic growth is evil and will destroy the planet. We should actually be praying for a prolonged and massive recession with no recovery afterwards. The organisation started out as a fairly mainstream outfit intended to protect wildlife, but has nowadays widened its remit into protecting the entire planet from unsuitable human activities. The initials WWF no longer stand for anything in particular.

"It was fairly strong, but didn't knock over anything in the office," said Ken Yoshida, a town official in Naraha, one of the hardest hit areas. He said an earthen wall in town was partially toppled. The earthquake was centered about 50 miles off the eastern coast at a depth of about 25 miles, the meteorological agency said.

The government said there was no danger of a tsunami, although slight changes to ocean levels were a possibility in some areas. It was strong enough to gently sway large buildings in Tokyo and was felt across a broad stretch of Japan's main Honshu and northern Hokkaido islands. Japan's early warning system predicted the earthquake just before it hit, with public broadcaster NHK interrupting a sumo match to warn residents to take cover.

He said the FSA would be taking on an extra 460 members of staff. It is to expand its workforce to 3,700 people. "Our benchmark should seek to have a market that participants really believe to be clean and fair," said Mr Stants. "And, as a general test, I think that if you were to ask the market participants, they would share my view that there is too much market abuse."

It announced last week that it will start to investigate financial products to ensure they are suitable before they go on sale, rather than focusing in assisting consumers to get redress once problems emerge. Mr Sants comments come a week after a retired stockbroker was jailed for 21 months after being found guilty of insider dealing. Malcolm Calvert, a former employee of investment bank Cazenove, used his contacts to get inside information on business deals before getting a friend to buy shares which subsequently went up in value.

The proposals, which have been leaked to The Sunday Telegraph and which are expected to be announced soon, would sweep away centuries of tradition and set ministers on a collision course with the current 704-member House of Lords, which is resolutely opposed to having elected members.

The plans would see all members of the new-look assembly being directly elected - ending the system of party patronage - with polling under some form of proportional representation system taking place at the same time as general elections. One third of the new chamber would be elected on each occasion - with members serving three terms, up to 15 years, once elected in a similar system to the one in use to choose members of the US Senate.

There would be a "consultation" on the name of the new chamber - almost certainly putting paid to any chances of retaining the designation "House of Lords", which has been in use since the 14th century. The favourite for the new name would be likely to be The Senate. The remaining 92 hereditary peers - the relic of a deal done under Tony Blair's premiership in 1999 - would also be swept away under the proposed reforms.

The quake struck at 9:57 am local time (7:57 pm ET Saturday). The epicenter was 285 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of Ternate, on Indonesia's Moluccas island group, and 2,415 kilometers (1,500 miles) east of Jakarta, the nation's capital. The quake struck at a depth of 52.4 kilometers (32.6 miles). No tsunami warning was issued following the quake.

That is the central question to emerge from the examiner's report, released late on Thursday by the bankruptcy court in Manhattan, which details examples of Lehman concealing assets and liabilities through accounting techniques. Thomas Baxter, general counsel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one of the main banking regulators, told the examiner, Anton Valukas, that he was generally aware of firms using "balance-sheet window dressing," but had no specific information on Lehman.

Banks have wrestled with this issue for years. The old Bankers Trust, for instance, struggled to fend off bank clients that wanted to use BT to help conceal assets, said Ray Soifer, a consultant who previously worked at BT and sat on a task force designed to reduce that business. "Reducing leverage is something that banks do. It's cosmetic," Soifer said.

In 2003, an internal review into accounting irregularities at Freddie Mac (FRE.N) found the government-sponsored mortgage finance firm had periodically rented out its balance sheet to a Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN.VX) mortgage trader. The review found that Freddie Mac entered into a series of deals with Credit Suisse that allowed the investment bank's trading desk to "park" some $8 billion in mortgage-backed securities on the mortgage firm's balance sheet.

Over the years, one common trick has been to borrow money at the beginning of the quarter and invest it in short-term bonds that mature before the end of the quarter. When the bonds mature, the bank pays back its debt and it has fewer assets and liabilities. The upshot is that the bank generates more profit off what appears to be fewer assets, giving it a better return on assets, a commonly watched measure of profitability.

US defence contractor Northrop Grumman and its European partner EADS withdrew on Monday from a renewed competition to supply tankers to the US Air Force, saying the rules favoured rival bidder Boeing, the top US exporter. Boeing is now the sole known bidder for the contract.

Asked what he thought of the issue during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Sarkozy delivered a scathing attack on how the United States had handled the tender. "I did not appreciate this decision ... This is not the right way to behave," Sarkozy said. "Such methods by the United States are not good for its European allies, and such methods are not good for the United States, a great, leading nation with which we are on close and friendly terms," he said.

"If they want to be heard in the fight against protectionism, they should not set the example of protectionism." Northrop and EADS won the last competition in February 2008, but the Pentagon cancelled that deal after government auditors upheld a protest by Boeing.

When the tool is activated, tweets will link to a Google map of the area the user is in. The growing trend for web services to broadcast people's whereabouts - already picked up by Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt - is expected to be followed by Facebook soon too.

Avid Twitter users have been warned to be careful about how and when they harness the power of the new technology, which works by shadowing people through their web browsers. The brains behind the microblogging mecca reckon the tool will make Twitter more useful for anyone looking for real-time information.

The Vatican's campaign to defend the Pope's reputation and resolve in combatting clergy abuse of minors followed acknowledgment by the Munich archdiocese that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there. Benedict is also under fire for a 2001 church directive he wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential.

Germany's Justice Minister has blamed the directive for what she called a "wall of silence" preventing prosecution. Skeptical about the Vatican's handling of abuse, a US-based advocacy group for abuse victims, Survivors Network of those Abused for Priests, urged faithful to bring candles and childhood photos to vigils outside churches, cathedrals and German consulates across the US this weekend to remind people to "call police, not bishops" in cases of suspected abuse.

But the Holy See's so-called prosecutor for clergy sex abuse cases, providing some of the first statistics about his office's handling of allegations, decried what he called "false and defamatory" contentions that Benedict had promoted a "policy of cover up." At the Vatican, rules on handling sexual abuse were "never understood as a ban on making a complaint to civil authorities," Monsignor Charles Scicluna told Italian bishops conference daily Avvenire.

But Irish bishops have said the document was widely taken to mean they shouldn't go to police. And victims' lawyers in the US say the document shows the church tried to obstruct justice. Shortly before becoming Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger denounced what he called "filth" in the priesthood, but so far hasn't directly commented on the cases in his homeland.