The Prime Minister said the two countries' historic "partnership of purpose" should be directed at fighting the downturn as well as terrorism, poverty and disease. Mr Brown, who will be the first European leader to meet with Mr Obama since he came to office, said: "I believe there is no challenge so great or so difficult that it cannot be overcome by America, Britain and the world working together."

"That is why President Obama and I will discuss this week a global new deal, whose impact can stretch from the villages of Africa to reforming the financial institutions of London and New York - and giving security to the hard-working families in every country. IT WOULD REQUIRE ALL CONTINENTS TO MAKE CASH INJECTIONS TO BOOST ECONOMIES, ALL COUNTRIES TO ADOPT GREEN POLICIES, UNIVERSAL BANKING REFORMS AND CHANGES TO INTERNATIONAL BODIES," he suggested.

Amid fears that the new US president may downgrade the importance of the "special relationship" between the two nations, Mr Brown stressed his fondness for America in an article in the Sunday Times. "I have always been an Atlanticist and a great admirer of the American spirit of enterprise and national purpose. I have visited America many times and have many friends there, and as Prime Minister I want to do more to strengthen even further our relationship with America."

The aim for Software Defined Radio (SDR) is to be able to translate and understand any kind of radio wave signal, such as 3G or wi-fi. Researchers say SDR gadgets could become commonplace in five to 10 years.

Dr David Ndzi from the University of Portsmouth, where the International Conference on Telecommunications and Computers is being held, said: "SDR is what one could call a Tower of Babel-type technology, in that wireless devices that previously understood only one or a few languages, or standards, will suddenly be able to talk to each other freely regardless of frequency or conflicting protocols."

Conditions in the region are pushing Riyadh and Cairo toward cooperation. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce his plan for removing U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, while keeping a residual force of 30,000-50,000 support troops there. This force will serve a tactical purpose — advising Iraq's military and security apparatus and performing other security operations — but it also will serve a larger, more strategic purpose. Its presence will signal to Tehran that the United States will not simply abandon Iraq and allow Iran to fill the power vacuum.

Nevertheless, the Arab states are getting worried. With a diluted U.S. military presence in Iraq, and with the Shia now in control in Baghdad, THE ARABS FEAR THAT IRAN WILL EXPLOIT REGIONAL AND SECTARIAN DYNAMICS TO CONSOLIDATE IRANIAN AND SHIITE INFLUENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, at the expense of the wider Sunni community.

But of all the Arab states, SAUDI ARABIA HAS THE MOST TO FEAR FROM IRAN. The kingdom's Eastern Province is where MOST OF ITS OIL RESERVES ARE FOUND — and as luck would have it, it is also where Saudi Arabia's minority Shiite population is concentrated. On Wednesday, extremely rare Shiite protests spread to Eastern Province after violent clashes erupted Monday between Shiite pilgrims and the Saudi religious police in Medina, one of Islam's holy cities.

The unrest itself is unusual — and given the wider events in the region, so is the timing. Though there is no clear sign that Iran is instigating the protests, the situation does give Tehran a perfect opportunity to unnerve the Saudi royals.

The leading Arab states are now taking a shot at banding together, but history and geography have demonstrated that the Arabs of the Middle East simply do not work well together, even when faced with a common threat. But even if the Arabs cannot work together, they might accomplish much by working separately toward the common goal of containing their Persian rivals.

Figures released Friday show that 79,300 jobs were lost in the state last month, bringing the total number of unemployed to 1,863,000, or 10.1% of the workforce. That's the highest since the rate touched 10.4% in 1983. Conditions are even worse in Los Angeles County, which saw its unemployment rate jump to 10.5% in January from 9.2% the month before.

The deep job losses follow a sharp drop in the gross domestic product - the value of all goods and services produced - in the waning months of 2008. Nationwide, GDP shrank at an annual rate of 6.2% in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. That was far worse than the 3.8% drop the agency had estimated, and the biggest decrease since 1982.

Los Angeles County lost a net 41,900 jobs last year and nearly all of them - about 41,000 - were in retail, manufacturing and construction, in that order. In January, retail shed 15,100 jobs, manufacturing lost 6,800, and construction, 4,800. The three sectors were caught in the collapse of the housing boom and recession. To make matters worse, another key California industry - the film business - lost 22,300 jobs in January, leading Los Angeles County layoffs for the month.

The French move raised fears that national protectionism could scupper hopes of recovery within the EU. Leaders of badly-hit European nations will also meet prior to the summit. Many of the newer EU members of Central and Eastern Europe have seen their financial institutions and economies battered by the developing recession.

The heads of nine of those nations - among them Hungary and Latvia, both facing serious liquidity problems - will gather before the full summit begins. They are then expected to highlight their concerns about protectionism and call for more help from richer EU nations, reports the BBC's Oana Lungescu, in Brussels. However, officials have played down chances of EU leaders taking any decision on Hungary's call for a 180bn-euro (£160bn) aid package for Central and Eastern Europe.

Ahead of the latest meeting, France's President Sarkozy denied accusations of protectionism levied at his three billion euro bail-out plan, which aims to keep French carmakers manufacturing in France. However, he said that if the US defended its own industries, perhaps Europe should do the same. The French move has been criticised by the Central Europeans, who argue that the French bail-out plan should not be implemented at their expense.

THAT SUMMIT IS PART OF THE BUILD-UP TO A G20 MEETING of world leaders which UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown will host IN LONDON ON 2 APRIL.

Peter Cummings, who masterminded many of the stricken bank's high-profile deals, has left with a pension pot estimated at £10million-plus. The one-time tea boy was sacked last month following the merger with profitable Lloyds TSB but details of his extraordinary golden goodbye emerged only last night. Cummings, 53, was in charge of the ill-fated HBOS corporate lending division which is now being blamed for piling up a mountain of toxic debts.

HIS RECKLESS PRACTICES HAVE RETURNED TO HAUNT HBOS'S NEW OWNER LLOYDS. Losses on its corporate loans rose tenfold to £6.7billion after a raft of its deals with property and construction companies blew up. The latest 'fat cat failure' row echoes the furore generated by former RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin - who is insisting that he will take a £693,000-a-year pension deal after his exit in October.

Last night, government officials asked Lloyds Banking Group - created as a result of a rushed merger between Lloyds TSB and HBOS last autumn and 43 per cent state owned - to review pay-offs to Cummings and other executives.

"This is a product that we use for less than three seconds and the ecological consequences of manufacturing it from trees is enormous," said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council. "Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution." Making toilet paper has a significant impact because of chemicals used in pulp manufacture and cutting down forests.

Longer fibres in virgin wood are easier to lay out and fluff up for a softer tissue. Dixon said the company used products from sustainbly farmed forests in Canada. Americans already consume vastly more paper than any other country — about three times more per person than the average European, and 100 times more than the average person in China.

Barely a third of the paper products sold in America are from recycled sources — most of it comes from virgin forests. "I really do think it is overwhelmingly an American phenomenom," said Hershkowitz. "People just don't understand that softness equals ecological destruction."

In a letter to the White House, ABA CEO Edward Yingling says bankers across the country were "disappointed and concerned" with rhetoric like that. "Mr. President, of the over 8,000 banks in this country, VERY FEW EVER MADE A SINGLE SUBPRIME LOAN, AND THEY DID NOT ENGAGE IN THE HIGHLY LEVERAGED ACTIVITIES THAT BROUGHT DOWN WALL STREET FIRMS," Yingling said.

Yingling referred the president to statements made by Representative Barney Frank (Democrat), the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, in which he said that the toxic mortgage lending that sparked the current crisis was done by mortgage brokers and others not subject to the strict rules that govern commercial banks.

"Mr. President, the failure to distinguish between Wall Street and the thousands of FDIC-insured banks across the country undermines the confidence in our banking industry, the industry which is the foundation on which our economic recovery must be built," Yingling said. "We stand ready to work with your administration to promote policies that will clear the way to do what banks do best: finance business and families that are ready to move the economy forward. But these efforts will only be inhibited by misperceptions about our industry."

President Obama has announced that the war in Iraq will end in 18 months. Formally announcing a withdrawal date for most U.S. troops he said: "Let me say this as plainly as I can, by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end." He added: "WE CANNOT SUSTAIN INDEFINITELY A COMBAT THAT IS PUTTING A STRAIN ON THE AMERICAN MILITARY AND HAS COST NEARLY A TRILLION DOLLARS."

The confirmation of his election campaign pledge to draw the conflict to a close came as Britain's Foreign Secretary claimed the Iraqis were "impatient" to take control over their own affairs. While visiting British troops in Basra yesterday, David Miliband said conditions in Iraq are improving every week and the country is "yearning" to make its way after almost six years of occupation.

But while just a few hundred UK troops will remain after Britain pulls out of Iraq for good in July, Mr Obama was criticised by leaders in his Democrat party last night for planning to leave a U.S. force of between 30,000 and 50,000 in the country until the end of 2011. The President said the troops were needed to train and equip the Iraqi army, protect civilian reconstruction projects and conduct limited counterterrorism operations.

"This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment, making today's action absolutely necessary," the Republican governor said in his statement. Mandatory rationing is an option if the declaration and other measures are insufficient. The drought has forced farmers to fallow their fields, put thousands of agricultural workers out of work and led to conservation measures in cities throughout THE STATE, WHICH IS THE NATION'S TOP AGRICULTURAL PRODUCER. Agriculture losses could reach $2.8 billion this year and cost 95,000 jobs, said Lester Snow, the state water director.

The governor, farmers and lawmakers have argued for years that California must upgrade its decades-old water supply and delivery system and build new reservoirs. "THE SITUATION IS EXTREMELY DIRE," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, adding that the governor's action Friday "underscores the urgency of serving the long-term structural problems." The state delivers water to more than 25 million Californians and more than 750,000 acres of farmland.

Almond farmer Shawn Coburn of Mendota said the move comes too late for many growers who already are halfway through the season. Some farmers didn't bring in bees to pollinate, while others sprayed their orchards with chemicals that keep nuts from forming. "It's too late," he said. "It's going to sound horrible coming from a farmer because you never turn down help, but come on, this thing is over with."

But the ex-RBS boss rejected this in a letter to the Treasury in which he says ministers agreed to the pension deal. The BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson said any failure to persuade Sir Fred Goodwin to alter the terms of his pension payout would be politically damaging given the government pledge to crack down on City excesses.

The pension row intensified after RBS revealed it had made a £24bn loss last year, the single largest in British corporate history, and would receive a further £13bn from the government. Mr Darling has asked Sir Fred, who has been widely blamed for helping to drive the bank to the brink of ruin and who stepped down as chief executive in November, to hand back some of the pension money.

Earlier Prime Minister Gordon Brown "demanded action" on the issue, saying pension payments on such a scale could not be justified when the company was losing so much money and cutting thousands of jobs. Shadow chancellor George Osborne described the pension agreement as "obscene" and said it would be "wrong" for Sir Fred to take the money.

Commenting on the problems that the EU's new member states are facing, a leader in Handelsblatt argues that the unlimited capital streams in the monetary union provide for excesses, whereby the strict monetary framework makes it harder in difficult times to adapt wages to more competitive levels.

In an interview with Frankfurter Rundshau German Economics Professor Wilhelm Hankel has said that "the euro hampers the fight against the crisis", adding that "financial markets reckon that the eurozone will break up" and "IT WOULD BE WISER TO ABANDON THE EURO AND TO INTRODUCE THE GERMAN MARK AGAIN".

French President Sarkozy has called on the EU to protect its industry in the face of US protectionism, saying "if the United States defends its farmers as it does, maybe we can do the same in Europe. If the United States defends its industry, as it does - and they are right - maybe in Europe we can do the same". He also said that France and Italy would insist on this at a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Sunday.

It is noted that the reaction from the German bakers has been so intense that EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou yesterday postponed making a decision on new regulations.

Matthias Wiemers, Chairman of the Central Association of German Bakeries, a lobby for 12,000 of the country's 15,000 bakeries, is quoted saying "What the EU is doing amounts to stupid interference. The EU is trying to change the way we bake our bread, change the way we market it - and of all things, change the taste of our bread. And all this is taking place just months before we go to the polls to elect a new European Parliament. THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF INTERFERENCE AND OVERREGULATION BY BRUSSELS THAT ANNOYS CITIZENS AND EVEN MAKES THE EU UNPOPULAR."

The article notes that "The anger of the bakers seems to reflect a rising backlash against the EU from a country that has long been among the most supportive of European integration."

To the contrary, his every remark and THE CONSTANT PREOCCUPATION OF HIS CABINET IS TO HEIGHTEN THE SENSE OF CRISIS AND TO ESCALATE THE PREDICTIONS OF DOOM if we do not do as they tell us and raise spending now and taxes later. Instead of being a firewall, reassuring Main Street even as Wall Street crashed, he has become a conduit of panic, spreading the mood of desperation from the stock exchange floor to kitchen tables across the world.

Previous panics have been global in impact, but local in focus. The world panicked because of developments in Mexico or Argentina or Thailand or South Korea. Now, with Collateralized Debt Obligations spreading the poison of a bunch of bad loans all over the world, infecting every portfolio, the panic is not only global in impact but in focus as well. Modern communications have HASTENED THE SPREAD OF THE VIRUS OF PANIC THROUGHOUT THE GLOBAL BLOODSTREAM.

In addressing this panic, the president of the United States must truly be the leader of the world — showing the way back to confidence. But the jig will be up soon. The crash of the stock market in the days since he took power (indeed, from the moment he won the election) can increasingly be attributed to his own failure to lead us in the right direction, his failed policies in addressing the recession and his own spreading of panic and fear. THE MARKET COLLAPSE MAKES IT EVIDENT THAT IT IS OBAMA WHO IS THE PROBLEM, WHERE HE SHOULD, INSTEAD, BE THE SOLUTION.