Corn plants were damaged this week when temperatures soared to more than 34 degrees Celsius (93 degrees Fahrenheit) and humidity levels plunged, said Stella Maris Carballo of the National Institute of Agriculture Technology.

Some farmers may lose as much as 50 percent of their crops in eastern areas of the country because dry weather slashed potential yields, Carballo said. "Temperatures are very detrimental to yield prospects" in Argentina, said Mario Balletto, a grain analyst for Citigroup Global Markets in Chicago. Flowering corn crops are at the "most heat-sensitive stage," he said in an interview today.

Argentina will reap the smallest wheat harvest since 1989 after weather conditions curbed yields, the exchange said in a separate report today. The crop will be no more than 8.7 million tons, down at least 5.4 percent from a previous forecast, the exchange said. Wheat harvesting is almost 98 percent complete, the organization said. It predicted a harvest of 9.3 million tons last month.

Chavez said he knows a group of opposition leaders recently flew to Puerto Rico to meet with "U.S. advisers" to discuss strategies to defeat the president's proposal to eliminate his term limits in a referendum this year. Chavez said U.S. Embassy representatives may have been present. "If I can confirm this, I'll throw them out of the country," Chavez said at ceremony in Caracas commemorating the launch of Venezuela's first satellite.

The socialist Venezuelan leader expelled the U.S. ambassador in Caracas in September and has repeatedly accused President George W. Bush of supporting opposition groups in Venezuela. VENEZUELA IS THE FOURTH-BIGGEST SUPPLIER OF FOREIGN CRUDE OIL TO THE U.S.

There was a trip to Jerusalem last week undertaken by a bunch of British Christian evangelicals — by coincidence, just as the Israelis began lobbing rockets into Gaza. They hadn't planned it like that, although retrospectively they may claim to have seen it. The whole shebang was described as a 'New Year's Prophetic Summons' and the organisers were, in the main, American evangelical Christian Zionists, but there were plenty of Brits in attendance.

You may be familiar with this little by-way of religious fervour, this rather bizarre cul-de-sac of supernaturally imposed bigotry — partly because it has helped determine US government policy towards the Middle East for 30-odd years. THESE ARE THE MILITANT END-TIME CHRISTIANS WHO ARE, INDEED, YEARNING FOR THE END. It was all foreseen — a final conflagration between the Antichrist in the blue corner (that'll be the Muslims, then) and the forces of Christianity in the red, with the Jews looking a bit askance in the middle, unless they have returned to the fold, in which case they're OK. They also wish to build a new embassy in Jerusalem and indeed a 'third temple' to prepare for his coming. In the past these groups have been lauded and honoured by the Knesset for their unwavering support of Israel; however, of late, even the hawkish Israelis are beginning to find them ludicrous and dangerous.

Does any of this matter? THESE PEOPLE ARE CLEARLY MADDER THAN A BOX OF FROGS and cannot possibly be of any resonance, any real consequence, in the wider geopolitical scene, can they? And it is good news, surely, that even the Israelis have had enough of their ministrations, their letters of apology, their support for a form of Zionism which even the Israeli government considers racist and extreme. And not all Christian Zionists oppose peace settlements with the Palestinians and yearn, without cessation, for Armageddon.

WELL, THEY HAVE HAD A LOT OF INFLUENCE, both the extremists who returned home from their Jerusalem jaunt last week and the marginally more moderate of them. Evangelical Christianity, in its ever more fabulously literal and authoritarian marque, is Britain's fastest-growing repository for spiritual belief. And it follows that its mutant offshoot, CHRISTIAN ZIONISM, IS GROWING APACE TOO. THAT SHOULD WORRY ALL OF US, regardless of whether right now we're cheering on Hamas or Israel.

The Chairman of the Foreign Policy Committee of the German Bundestag, Ruprecht Polenz (CDU), is contemplating a Bundeswehr deployment in the Gaza Strip. This corresponds to a suggestion made by Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, who would like to establish a "monitoring system" in the war zone, for the verification of a cease-fire and the prohibition of "arms smuggling", meaning the disruption of the logistical routes, making Israel's hermetic sealing of the Palestinian territory even more impermeable.

"If Germany is asked to participate in a multilateral deployment like the Unifil mission in Lebanon, then Germany should take part." This is how Polenz circumscribes the planned violation of Palestinian (factually nonexistent) sovereignty. SINCE 2002 GERMANY HAS SIGNIFICANTLY EXTENDED ITS PRESENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Germany is militarily participating in the UN's UNIFIL Mission in Lebanon and is using this participation to arm and train the Lebanese Army.

Under the direction and with the equipment of the German Navy, the Federal Police and the German customs service, Lebanon has been fortifying its terrestrial borders, also to reduce Syria's influence and thereby strengthen the Western positions in that country. With German participation, the EU is running a training program for police officers in the Palestinian Autonomous Territories

The programme, run by University College London (UCL), paves the way for a new approach to preventive medicine involving widespread screening. It will also prompt greater demand for screening of embryos by parents who carry a defective gene and want to avoid passing it to their children.

Embryo screening, which is licensed for certain serious conditions, such as Huntington's disease and cystic fibrosis, continues to attract controversy, with claims that it is paving the way for the creation of "designer babies". However, doctors' leaders argue that a technique that can prevent a child from developing a life-threatening illness should not be restricted.

Windows were smashed and policemen were injured - with one officer knocked unconscious in the running battles and two requiring treatment for facial injuries. The protesters - mainly young men - knocked down barriers threw missiles including eggs, red paint, sticks and shoes as 300 officers in full riot gear tried to maintain the peace.

The violence, which broke out in front of the Israeli Embassy, appeared to be led by a hard-core of masked and hooded youths. A national demonstration against Israel's attack marched from Speakers' Corner at Hyde Park today to the Israeli embassy in High Street Kensington. It was estimated there were around 100,000 protesters in total across London, including the Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park and Kensington protests.

Elsewhere in the world, some 20,000 people took to the streets in Berlin and other German cities. Protesters threw snowballs at two Israeli flags that hung from the windows of a house along the demonstration route, but otherwise no incidents were reported. In Amman, Jordan, more than 2,000 took to the streets and in Syria, another 2,000 marched in a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus shouting anti-Israeli slogans. There were also demonstrations in the U.S., France, Norway, Greece, Malaysia, Sweden, Bosnia, Lebanon, Thailand, South Korea and India.

"I was very surprised at the number of questions that we put to Treasury for which we received no response at all," said Elizabeth Warren of the Congressional Oversight Panel. She said she was "deeply surprised." Elizabeth Warren's Congressional Oversight Panel asked the Treasury Department 45 questions. But says Treasury "did not provide complete answers" and "failed to address a number of questions at all." THEREFORE, MORE THAN THREE MONTHS INTO THE BAILOUT, THE PANEL "STILL DOES NOT KNOW WHAT THE BANKS ARE DOING WITH TAXPAYER MONEY."

Called TARP for short (Troubled Asset Relief Program), the largest part of what was known as the $700 billion bailout package) was supposed to buy failed mortgage assets but morphed into an entirely different approach - invest the funds in big banks. The oversight panel said their initial concerns have grown due to Treasury's "shifting explanations."

Today a Treasury spokesman said they are trying to track the funds but that there will be no shift in strategy to make banks more accountable. The bailout was supposed to bolster faith in the economy, but the oversight panel says for the Treasury to have given the funds without more transparency erodes the very confidence they seek to restore.

The embryo was screened for the altered BRCA1 gene, which would have meant the girl had a 80% chance of developing breast cancer. Women in three generations of her husband's family have been diagnosed with the disease in their 20s. Paul Serhal, the fertility expert who treated the couple, said: "This little girl will not face the spectre of developing this genetic form of breast cancer or ovarian cancer in her adult life."

"The parents will have been spared the risk of inflicting this disease on their daughter. The lasting legacy is the eradication of the transmission of this form of cancer that has blighted these families for generations." Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) involves taking a cell from an embryo at the eight-cell stage of development, when it is around three-days old, and testing it. THIS IS BEFORE CONCEPTION - DEFINED AS WHEN THE EMBRYO IS IMPLANTED IN THE WOMB.

Doctors then select an embryo free from rogue genes to continue the pregnancy, and discard any whose genetic profile points to future problems. The couple, who wish to remain anonymous, wanted to eradicate the gene flaw from their family. The husband's grandmother, mother, sister and a cousin have been diagnosed with the disease. If the 27-year-old woman and her husband had had a son, he could have been a carrier and passed it on to any daughters.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: "This is nothing personal towards the girl, but I think we have gone too far. UNDERLYING ALL THIS IS EUGENICS." Mrs Quintavalle said the message was that "you are better off dead, than being born with this gene. I hope 20 years down the line we will have eradicated breast cancer - not eradicated the carriers."

The $17bn bail-out of General Motors and Chrysler last month was already a step across the Rubicon TOWARDS A PROTECTIONIST INDUSTRIAL POLICY, even if that was not the motive. The EU is exploring a World Trade Organisation complaint over "illegal state aid." But the latest Buy American move is much more explicit.

"This is quite dangerous," said Peter Sutherland, chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former director-general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). "The US is the key to keeping a one-world trading system, BUT THERE IS ALWAYS THE TENDENCY TO GO FOR PROTECTIONISM IN A RECESSION, and this is the worst one I've ever seen."

Hans Redeker, currency chief at BNP Paribas, says the US risks setting off a collapse in discipline across the world. "The US has a leading role so this could set off a huge response in other countries," he said. "THERE IS ALREADY TALK OF A €100BN (£91BN) FUND IN GERMANY to save its industry from being sold off cheap."

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, is worried enough to ditch a half-century of IMF orthodoxy, calling for a fiscal boost worth 2pc of world GDP to "prevent global depression". "If we are not able to do that, THEN SOCIAL UNREST MAY HAPPEN IN MANY COUNTRIES, INCLUDING ADVANCED ECONOMIES. We are facing an unprecedented decline in output. All around the planet, the people have reacted with feelings going FROM SURPRISE TO ANGER, AND FROM ANGER TO FEAR," he said.

RUSSIA HAS BEGUN TO SHUT DOWN TRADE as it adjusts to the shock of Urals oil below $40 a barrel. It has imposed import tariffs of 30pc on cars, 15pc on farm kit, and 95pc on poultry (above quota levels). "It is possible during the financial crisis to support domestic producers by raising customs duties," said Premier Vladimir Putin. Russia is not alone. India and Vietnam have imposed steel tariffs. Indonesia is resorting to special "licences" to choke off imports.

The Kremlin is alarmed by a 13pc fall in industrial output over the last five months. THERE HAVE BEEN STREET PROTESTS IN MOSCOW, ST PETERSBURG, KALININGRAD, VLADIVOSTOK AND BARNAUL. Police crushed "Dissent Marchers" holding copies of Russia's constitution above their heads in Moscow's Triumfalnaya Square. "Russia has not seen anything like these nationwide protests before," said Boris Kagarlitsky from Moscow's Globalization Institute.

The omens are not good in China either. Exports fell 2.2pc in November. Toy, textile, footwear, and furniture plants are being closed across Guangdong, now the riot hub of South China. Some 40m Chinese workers are expected to lose their jobs. PARTY OFFICIALS HAVE WARNED OF "MASS-SCALE SOCIAL TURMOIL".

This crisis has already brought us a monetary revolution as interest rates approach zero across the G10. It may overturn the "New World Order" as well, unless we move with great care in grim months ahead. THIS IS WHERE EVENTS TURN DANGEROUS. THE LAST GREAT ERA OF GLOBALISATION PEAKED JUST BEFORE 1914. YOU KNOW THE REST OF THE STORY.

The Telegraph reports that Employment Secretary General Maravillas Rojo said similar levels hadn't been seen since the recession of 1987 while a rise to 4 million this year cannot be ruled out. The article goes on to say that "ten years after it was launched, THE EURO IS PROPELLING SPAIN TOWARDS DISASTER. In giving up control of domestic interest rates to the European Central Bank, Madrid handed over a vital instrument of macroeconomic management. It is learning to regret that."

"The Spanish economy is weak; it needs lower interest rates and a softer currency. SUCH A PROSPECT, HOWEVER, DOESN'T SUIT GERMANY, THE EUROZONE'S DOMINANT FORCE, so Madrid has to sit and suffer while its people cry for help."

The Swiss bank decided in July last year to stop offering offshore accounts to U.S. citizens after it was targeted by a U.S. tax investigation which challenges Switzerland's famous banking secrecy laws. U.S. prosecutors have alleged UBS helped clients hide $18 billion of untaxed American money in undeclared accounts. This amounts to around $300 million of annual unpaid taxes, the newspaper said.

UBS spokesman Serge Steiner said the decision to close offshore accounts for U.S. domiciled clients was taken in November 2007. The bank started last year to close cash accounts of U.S. clients holding less than 50,000 Swiss francs ($45,660), he added. "This is an ongoing process. It started last year and accelerated since last summer," Steiner said, confirming a New York Times report.

The long-held assumption that US assets - particularly government bonds - are a safe haven will soon be overturned as investors lose their patience with the world's biggest economy, according to Willem Buiter. Professor Buiter, a former Monetary Policy Committee member who is now at the London School of Economics, said this increasing disenchantment would result in an exodus of foreign cash from the US.

The warning comes despite the dollar having strengthened significantly against other major currencies, including sterling and the euro, after hitting historic lows last year. It will reignite fears about the currency's prospects, as well as sparking fears about the sustainability of President-Elect Barack Obama's mooted plans for a Keynesian-style increase in public spending to pull the US out of recession.

Prof Buiter said: "There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be A GLOBAL DUMPING OF US DOLLAR ASSETS, INCLUDING US GOVERNMENT ASSETS. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place."

He said that the dollar had been kept elevated in recent years by what some called "dark matter" or "American alpha" - an assumption that the US could earn more on its overseas investments than foreign investors could make on their American assets. However, this notion had been gradually dismantled in recent years, before being dealt a fatal blow by the current financial crisis, he said.

"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally," he said. "Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in THE US MUST RECOGNISE THAT ITS FINANCIAL SYSTEM HAS COLLAPSED."

Economists expect a report due later today to show that the world's biggest economy is expected to have lost 525,000 jobs alone in December, bringing the total for the year to just under 2.4 million. That would eclipse the losses through every US recession since 1945.

The report comes as President-Elect Barack Obama vowed yesterday to reform America's "weak and outdated" system of financial regulation after hitting out at "Wall Street wrongdoers" who made "imprudent and dangerous decisions" in creating the financial crisis.

America's economy has been assailed by the near-collapse of its banking system triggered by the sharp falls in US house prices. The news from the labour market continues to deteriorate, with Walgreen, its second largest pharmacy chain, axing 1,000 staff. Oilfield services provider Schlumberger also said it was on the verge of trimming 1,000 jobs.

The black delta-wing craft, called Taranis, is understood to have been making test runs on the coastal bombing ranges at Donna Nook and North Coates, which are right next to the site of the wrecked wind turbine. Taranis is about the same size as the Hawk jet trainers used by the Red Arrows at nearby RAF Scrampton - it is being developed by Bae Systems to deliver bombs in battlefields.

Some witnesses have said an octopus-shaped UFO was seen flying through the air hours before the turbine was destroyed. One woman said she saw an object fly towards the wind farm, while others described the lights as being linked by "tentacles", leading locals to dub it the octopus UFO. A Ministry of Defence insider said: "We have to log all reports of UFOs. But in virtually all the cases there is a simple explanation - and test flights are a common one."