The change may have occurred already, not least because US markets are beset by credit woes, according to research by McKinsey Global Institute, a think-tank affiliated to the consultancy.

The surprise announcement Tuesday afternoon caps a high-stakes academic firefight between fiercely secular scholars and the former professor Pontiff. The Vatican released a statement saying it now viewed the visit as "inopportune" in light of protests they say could damage the pontiff's image. But by backing out under pressure from his secular foes, the 80-year-old Pope may yet have the last word in this battle over the meaning of "reason" in today's intellectual debate. For the whiff of censorship toward A FIGURE WHO IS WELCOMED IN MYRIAD SETTINGS ACROSS THE WORLD - both for his position and his intellect - MAY OFFER AMMUNITION FOR BENEDICT'S BELIEF THAT HE IS SOMETHING OF A "POPE UNDER SIEGE" IN THE FACE OF THE PREVAILING SECULAR WINDS OF HIS TIMES.

The letter, which was signed by several notable members of the Physics faculty, cites a 1990 speech made by Benedict, then the Vatican Cardinal in charge of Church doctrine, describing the Church's 17th century heresy trial against Galileo as "reasonable and fair." The famed Tuscan-born astronomer had been prosecuted for affirming that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but in fact orbited the Sun along with the other planets. Two years after the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's speech, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Church had treated Galileo, whose heliocentric theories have long since been proven correct. The future Pope's words, reads the text of the professors' letter, "OFFEND AND HUMILIATE US AS SCIENTISTS FAITHFUL TO REASON AND AS TEACHERS WHO DEDICATE OUR LIVES TO THE ADVANCEMENT AND SPREAD OF KNOWLEDGE."

The truth is that neither Benedict nor his secular critics in Rome are all that interested in revisiting the debates of the past; there is plenty of fresh intellectual manna now to tussle over. The public skirmishes occur on the now familiar terrain of bioethics, abortion, Darwin, and separation of church and state. But being a lifelong man of study and reflection, BENEDICT ALSO SEES THE SOURCE FOR MUCH OF THE CONFLICT IN HOW IDEAS GERMINATE AND SPREAD ON UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES.

Biographers say his experience as a professor during the student upheavals of the late 1960s - WHERE HE BELIEVED A GODLESS PURSUIT OF PERSONAL FREEDOM WAS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL - helped shape his view of contemporary secular culture and the current state of academia. FORTY YEARS LATER, HE APPEARS ONLY MORE CONVINCED THAT SOMETHING IS AWRY. In the same Regensberg lecture that criticized Islam for lacking a fundamental belief in reason, the Pope was also sending a warning to the West that reason itself was suffocating faith and destroying its historical identity. BY OFFERING HIMSELF UP AS VICTIM OF THE LA SAPIENZA PROFESSORS HE CAN CITE FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR THIS ARGUMENT RIGHT IN HIS OWN BACKYARD.

He said militant attacks and plots in Europe over recent years had made the US aware of the "real risk that Europe will become a platform for terrorists". Mr Chertoff said it was likely security checks on travellers from Europe would be increased.

He said it was important to increase security checks on passengers from Europe - most of whom are currently able to enter the United States without being screened first because of a visa waiver programme. But Mr Chertoff added that immigration checks should not affect travel and trade - an important part of the US economy. As the fifth anniversary of the creation of his Homeland Security department approaches, Mr Chertoff said the US was now a safer place because of the security strategies that had been adopted.

"This is a wonderful opportunity to examine the sun's North Pole at the onset of a new solar cycle," says Arik Posner, NASA Ulysses program scientist. "We've never done this before." Launched in Oct. 1990 from the space shuttle Discovery, Ulysses is a joint mission of the European Space Agency and NASA. Unlike other spacecraft, Ulysses is able to fly over the sun's poles, looking down on regions that are difficult to see from Earth.

Ulysses has flown over the sun's poles three times before in 1994-95, 2000-01 and 2007. Each flyby revealed something interesting and mysterious, but this one may be most interesting of all. "Just as Earth's poles are crucial to studies of terrestrial climate change, the sun's poles may be crucial to studies of the solar cycle," explains Ed Smith, Ulysses project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Many researchers believe the sun's poles are central to the ebb and flow of the solar cycle. Consider the following: When sunspots break up, their decaying magnetic fields are carried toward the poles by vast currents of plasma. This makes the poles a sort of "graveyard for sunspots." Old magnetic fields sink beneath the polar surface two hundred thousand kilometers deep, all the way down to the sun's inner magnetic dynamo. There, dynamo action amplifies the fields for use in future solar cycles.

One big puzzle revealed by previous flybys is the temperature of the sun's poles. In the previous solar cycle, the magnetic north pole was about 80,000 degrees or 8% cooler than the south. Why should there be a difference? No one knows. Ulysses also discovered the sun's high-speed polar wind. "At the sun's poles, the magnetic field opens up and allows solar atmosphere to stream out at a million miles per hour," says Smith.

By flying around the sun, covering all latitudes in a way that no other spacecraft can, Ulysses has been able to monitor this polar wind throughout the solar cycle--and it is acting a bit odd. Posner explains: "Eleven years ago, during a similar 'sea change' between solar cycles, the polar wind spilled down almost all the way to the sun's equator. But this time it is not. The polar wind is bottled up, confined to latitudes above 45 degrees.

Is this a detail of little importance or a major anomaly, signaling new things to come? Again, no one knows, and that's why now is a good time to visit the sun's North Pole. "We'll be monitoring the magnetic field above the north pole to see what it's like during the change of solar cycles."

The flyby is underway. Stay tuned to Science@NASA for results.

While it has only killed some 100 to 200 people annually over the past 20 years, plague has appeared in new countries in recent decades and is now shifting into Africa, Michael Begon, an ecologist at the University of Liverpool and colleagues said. A bacterium known as Yersinia pestis causes bubonic plague, known in medieval times as the Black Death when it was spread by infected fleas, and the more dangerous pneumonic plague, spread from one person to another through coughing or sneezing.

"Although the number of human cases of plague is relatively low, it would be a mistake to overlook its threat to humanity, because of the disease's inherent communicability, rapid spread, rapid clinical course, and high mortality if left untreated," they wrote in the journal Public Library of Science journal PloS Medicine. Rodents carry plague, which is virtually impossible to wipe out and moves through the animal world as a constant threat to humans, Begon said. Both forms can kill within days if not treated with antibiotics.

"You can't realistically get rid of all the rodents in the world," he said in a telephone interview. "Plague appears to be on the increase, and for the first time there have been major outbreaks in Africa." Bubonic plague, called the Black Death because of black bumps that sometimes develop on victims' bodies, causes severe vomiting and high fever. Victims of pneumonic plague have similar symptoms but not the black bumps.

Begon and his colleagues called for more research into better ways to prevent plague from striking areas where people lack access to life-saving drugs and to defend against the disease if used as a weapon. "We should not overlook the fact that plague has been weaponized throughout history, from catapulting corpses over city walls, to dropping infected fleas from airplanes, to refined modern aerosol formulation," the researchers wrote.

1. The leaderships of the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties have been taken over by pro-Europeans. These leaderships implement the EU's policy, and ignore the wishes of their voters. That's why YOUR VOTE DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

2. THE EUROPEAN UNION HAS THE CONSTITUTION OF A DICTATORSHIP, and the laws of a police state. Dictatorships lead to oppression and poverty. The EU Constitution is similar to the old Soviet Union's.

3. Once the Queen has signed the sixth and final EU Treaty in June 2008, the very much alive EU CONSTITUTION MAKES IT CLEAR THE EU WILL COMPLETELY ABOLISH THE NATIONS OF BRITAIN AND ENGLAND (and our Lib, Lab and Con parties, clause I-46-4).

4. THE EU IS ILLEGAL UNDER BRITISH LAW. Four Prime Ministers and the Queen have committed five acts of Treason by signing five EU treaties which will abolish our nation and replace it with the EU; THEY HAD TO REPEAL THE LAWS OF TREASON IN THE 1998 CRIME AND DISORDER ACT (S36.3) TO ESCAPE PROSECUTION.

5. The police state growing around you, and reported on by some national newspapers, is the EU police state. WE'VE BEEN IN THE EU FOR 34 YEARS, WE ARE HARMONISING OUR LAWS WITH THE EU, the emerging police state is the result.

6. Political correctness, the undermining of parents, the family and teachers, the teaching of sex and homosexuality to under tens, the promotion of single parent families etc. is subversion by the EU or its Common Purpose organisation over the last 34 years, using the plans of the German Frankfurt School.

7. THE EU WILL BE AN ECONOMIC DISASTER. We now lose £30 billion a year trading with Europe; before we joined we broke even. The EU's 111,000 regulations cost us £100 billion a year (Better Regulation Commission Annual Report 2005); they will bring us a soviet style command economy and poverty. Our politicians lied to us.

8. If you have voted Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem over the last 34 years you have voted for the EU police state, and for the abolition of your own party.

9. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made our government agree to sign the final "Reform Treaty;" WHICH WILL ENFORCE THE EU CONSTITUTION FROM 1ST JANUARY 2009. The EU constitution makes no allowance for a British General Election, which isn't due until 5th May 2010, so it is unlikely another will be permitted. You will by then be imprisoned inside the EU police state, where you will be ruled by unelected EU dictators, who will control the nuclear weapons of what used to be Britain and France.

10. Britain is the fifth largest economy amongst the world's 200 nations. Forget elections and parties, whose leaderships are controlled by the EU. Fight the direct anti EU campaigns on eutruth to get Britain back before its too late. Start by visiting your MP in his local surgery and warn him he will lose his £240,000 salary and expenses WHEN THE EU CLOSES WESTMINSTER ON 5TH MAY 2010.

According to a report by Omedia, an Iranian organization is demanding that the International Criminal Court take action against those responsible. The Iranian ayatollahs are planning on destroying the tomb as part of a general campaign to sever the Persian people from their non-Islamic heritage; Cyrus was thought to be a Zoroastrian and was one of the first rulers to enforce a policy of religious tolerance on his huge kingdom. Journalist Ran Porat quoted a young Iranian who said that the measures being taken by the Islamic Republic's regime include the destruction of archaeological sites significant to this heritage.

"The government is in the final stages of constructing a dam in southern Iran that will submerge the archaeological sites of Pasargad and Persopolis - the ancient capital of the Persian Empire," the report states. "The site, which is considered exceptional in terms of its archaeological wealth and historical importance, houses the tomb of the Persian King Cyrus."

Cyrus, who lived from 576-530 BCE, liberated Babylonian Jewry from their exile in the famous Declaration of Cyrus (mentioned in the book of Ezra in both Hebrew and Aramaic). Though the city of Pasargad is a ruin, Cyrus's Tomb has remained largely intact and it has been partially restored to counter its natural deterioration over the years.

Cyrus was praised in the Tanach (Isaiah 45:1-6), though he was also criticized for believing the false report of the Cuthites, who wanted to halt the building of the Second Temple. They accused the Jews of conspiring to rebel, so Cyrus in turn stopped the construction of the temple, which would not be completed until 516 BCE, during the reign of Darius the Great, the grandson of Queen Esther.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone affirmed this Sunday when he celebrated a day of peace organized in Rome by the military ordinariate of Italy. The cardinal presided over the celebration in the Church of St. Catherine of Siena, and offered the military chaplains the Pope's message for the World Day of Peace. Cardinal Bertone expressed his appreciation for "those who have paid with the price of their lives" in their service to peace, "assuring prayers for their souls and a renewed spiritual closeness to their families."

"In the enormous field of world peace, armed forces have a specific role: to be at the service of peace, as public opinion more and more perceives, and as is shown by so many humanitarian missions," the secretary of state said. He emphasized how "the peace we desire for humanity" is "the peace that we do not tire to beseech with prayer and to build with incessant effort -- the peace that is born above all in ourselves when we manage to snuff out in our hearts the violent fire of hate, envy, egotism and indifference."

Bush's talks with Saudi King Abdullah, which began over dinner and were continuing with late-night meetings, also were expected to cover peace between Israelis and Palestinians and democracy in the Middle East.

Coinciding with Bush's trip, the Bush administration in Washington notified Congress on Monday that it would offer Saudi Arabia the chance to buy sophisticated Joint Direct Attack Munitions - or "smart bomb" - technology and related equipment, the State Department said. The administration envisions the transfer of 900 of the precision-guided bomb kits, worth US$123 million, that would give the kingdom's armed forces highly accurate targeting abilities.

The proposed deal follows notification of five other packages to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, bringing to US$11.5 billion the amount of advanced US weaponry, including Patriot missiles, that the administration has announced it will provide to friendly Arab nations, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Administration officials say the total amount of eventual sales as part of the Gulf Security Dialogue is estimated at $20 billion, a figure subject to actual purchases.

Gold surged to an all-time high of $914 an ounce in New York on bets that the authorities will flood the global system with further liquidity to stave off a mounting debt crisis. Fed chair Ben Bernanke prepared the way for drastic cuts with a speech on Thursday saying the authorities were "exceptionally alert" to the risks as the housing slump triggers the first wave of jobs losses. US unemployment jumped from 4.7pc to 5pc in December, the sharpest jump in a quarter century.

Lorenzo Bini-Smaghi, a member of the European Central Bank's executive council, warned that the tumbling dollar may now start to foreclose the option of US rate cuts and force the Fed to keep monetary policy tighter than it would like. "I would not be so sure about the movements of the Fed. There is a serious problem with the dollar in America. We will see what margins they have for further rate cuts," he told Italy's La Repubblica newspaper.

It is the first time that a top central banker has openly aired concerns that dollar weakness could constrain US economic policy. Until now Washington has largely been able to ignore the currency, treating the slide as a headache for the rest of the world. The euro briefly touched $1.49 today, just shy of its all-time high.

US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said the administration is rushing to craft a fiscal stimulus package to boost spending. "Time is of the essence," he said. HSBC said the Fed had now raised expectations so far that it risks setting off fresh "financial stresses" if it fails to deliver a serious shot in the arm.

Nationalising Northern Rock could raise the prospect of a legal challenge and years of shareholder claims, Gordon Brown was warned yesterday. Insiders at the bank expressed concerns over whether the Prime Minister's contingency plan to rescue it will pass EU rules governing illegal state aid. Legal experts on European competition law expressed similar fears.

The Government is thought to have an army of lawyers trying to find a way through the minefield. It would have to pass an Act of Parliament in order to take the Rock into Government control. But Stephen Hamilton, competition lawyer at Mills & Reeve, believes it may be able to achieve similar results by forcing the bank into administration. That could be followed by a sell-off of the business and its assets, with any proceeds being returned to the state's coffers.

He added: 'The Government would have to tread very carefully should it decide to take any steps towards nationalisation because an incorrectly managed process could be in breach of European law and could lead to litigation and significant shareholder activism.'

NO EASY SOLUTION BUT PLENTY OF RISK

NATIONALISATION - the compulsory sale to the Government of the bank's shares - would require primary legislation and would hold ministers directly responsible for the company. The biggest headache might be lawsuits from shareholders, but the Treasury believes investors would have no case because owning shares is always risky.

ADMINISTRATION is an alternative that would see a quick "pre-packaged" sale of the business and assets with the proceeds going to meet the debt to the taxpayer. But administration would mean a fire sale of assets and its mortgage book and heavy job losses in the North-East.

They said methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is beginning to appear outside hospitals in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. "Once this reaches the general population, it will be truly unstoppable," said Binh Diep, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco who led the study. "That's why we're trying to spread the message of prevention."

According to chemical analyses, bacteria are spreading among the gay communities of San Francisco and Boston, the researchers said. This superbug can cause life-threatening and disfiguring infections and can often only be treated with expensive, intravenous antibiotics. It killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The plans will be unveiled Tuesday by Citigroup's new CEO, Vikram S. Pandit, after the banking giant reports fourth-quarter earnings. At the same time, Citigroup could also announce that it is cutting its dividend payment.
Citigroup is likely to cut between 17,000 and 24,000 positions over the course of the year through a combination of layoffs, attrition and selling off businesses as part of Pandit's cost-cutting plan, sources said. Previously, it was estimated that the layoffs could reach 20,000.

Pandit is looking to avoid taking a charge to earnings that's usually associated with large-scale layoffs, which is one reason he's considering a number of staff-cutting initiatives besides outright firings. It's unclear if he'll announce a specific number of job cuts on Tuesday. A Citigroup spokesman had no immediate comment.

Though he made no overt comments about a bid to become the E.U.'s first president next January, Blair's repeated references to Europe, globalization, and bipartisan efforts to reform and modernize made his aspirations evident. So, too, did Blair's role as guest speaker at the Saturday meeting of 2,500 leaders from the rightist Union for a Popular Majority party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The assembled conservatives applauded the former U.K. premier's calls to "take the future by the horns" and resist "retreating to comfort zones of out-dated slogans and old remedies".

"Today, one thing is as important between the distinctions between left and right: the difference between policies turned towards the future, and those stuck in the past," Blair told his enthralled audience in French. "Like a rising tide, globalization can not be rejected. In a world of change, woe is he who stagnates."

The government has blamed hoarders and smugglers for the problem. Wheat is a staple food in Pakistan and shortages have led to large scale rioting in the past. Flour shortfalls initially pushed up market prices. Later flour ran out on the open market when officials fixed prices and warned against violations. Now Pakistan's national disaster management authority has deployed thousands of paramilitary troops at wheat stores.

The head of the authority said the aim was to ensure that store owners did not sell more than allowed by the government. The move comes after nearly a month of wheat shortages. President Pervez Musharraf said there was enough grain to feed everyone and the crisis had been engineered. He and other leaders have pointed the finger at "hoarders" and "profiteers".

Officials accuse suppliers of smuggling wheat intended for domestic use to Afghanistan and Central Asia, where prices are higher.