Mexico's tourism agency expects to draw 52 million visitors by next year only to the regions of Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche. All of Mexico usually lures about 22 million foreigners in a year. It's selling the date, the Winter Solstice in the coming year, as a time of renewal. Many archeologists argue that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar.

"The world will not end. It is an era," said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. "For us, it is a message of hope." Cities and towns in the Mayan region on Wednesday will start the yearlong countdown. In Chiapas the town of Tapachula on the Guatemalan border will start a countdown on an 8-foot digital clock in the main park exactly a year before the mysterious date.

In the nearby archaeological site of Izapa, Maya priests will burn incense, chant and offer prayers.

In the tropical jungle of Quintana Roo, between the resorts of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, people are putting messages and photos in a time capsule that will be buried for 50 years. Maya priests and Indian dancers will perform a ritual at the time capsule ceremony.

The Maya reputation for wisdom has people taking the alleged prediction seriously. The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 AD to 900 AD, had a talent for astronomy. Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 BC, marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on December 21, 2012. The doomsday theories stem from a stone tablet discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describes the return of a Mayan god at the end of a 13th period.

For some reason, Gronemeyer says, people have ignored evidence that dates beyond 2012 were recorded.

Lord West, the former the former First Sea Lord, said Britain should also undertake military exercises in response to the "aggressive" decision by the Mercosur bloc to close ports to ships flying the "illegal" flag. The Foreign Office also condemned the decision by the bloc, which includes Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, as tensions over the long-disputed territory erupted into the open on Wednesday.

Ministers warned Argentina that "no one should be in any doubt about the British Government's commitment to support" the area, which involves a vast swathe of potentially mineral-rich South Atlantic waters. Ambassadors throughout the region were ordered to raise the issue as a "matter of urgency" as anger mounted over the unjust decision to "intimidate the people of the Falkland Islands".

The South Atlantic islands are a powerful Argentine national symbol and the government often reiterates its sovereignty claim over the South Atlantic archipelago since the brief, but bloody war, in 1982. Britain has repeatedly said that its sovereignty over the three groups of islands, whose inhabitants are overwhelmingly of British descent, is not up for negotiation.

Central bankers tend to be diplomatic and cautious in their public statements, so the dramatic wording the European Central Bank (ECB) used this week to warn about an escalation of the euro crisis was indeed striking. Tensions in the financial markets had "intensified to take on systemic crisis proportions not witnessed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago," the ECB warned in its latest report issued on Monday.

ECB President Mario Draghi told a committee of the European Parliament that Europe's banks faced major dangers in the coming months. "The pressure that bond markets will be experiencing is really very, very significant if not unprecedented," Draghi said. It will be a tough year for banks. In 2012 overall they will have to pay back 725 billion euros ($953 billion) in debt, of which 280 billion euros will fall due in the first quarter alone. They will have to borrow fresh money to service this debt, but it's almost impossible for them to raise that money in the private market. Most of them have large holdings of European government bonds on their balance sheets, so they don't have the mutual trust necessary to lend each other large sums of money.

"The interbank market is pretty shut," said Dieter Hein, a finance expert at Fairesearch, an independent research company for institutional investors, banks and brokers. "Virtually no one outside is lending any money to euro-zone banks any more." That's why the ECB has become the lendor of last resort for many banks. Ever since the start of the 2008 financial crisis it has kept on supplying the banking sector with fresh cash, for up to one year in some cases. On Wednesday, it launched the biggest lending operation in its history, and banks responded by borrowing 489 billion euros in the ECB's first ever offering of three-year funding - at an interest rate of just one percent initially.

But critics are sounding the alarm. They say that by bailing out the banks, the ECB is financing governments through the back door. Bill Gross, head of the world's biggest bond investor Pimco, said Europe was simply shifting funds from one hand to the other.

Hugo Beck, economics professor at Pforzheim University in Germany, said the flood of money would eventually stoke inflation. "The ECB is hurling gigantic amounts of liquidity into the market," he said. "It can't control that, it's playing with fire."

Last night there were fears the decision could lead to a wave of copycat legal-aid funded appeals by prisoners convicted by juries that included a serving police officer. Police have been allowed to sit on juries in England and Wales since 2004 when the then Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett controversially relaxed the rules, despite warnings from the Police Federation that it would prove "unworkable".

Former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis last night said there was serious doubt over whether police officers should continue to sit on juries. He added: "I thought it was only in America that convictions were overruled on ridiculous technicalities, but thanks to Europe we are now seeing this happen in the UK too. I would think that no policeman or woman could ever again sit on a UK jury again following this decision - the risks are simply too great. You also have to wonder where this will ever stop. This is not some minor decision that has been made, it is very important and greatly affects how we run our justice system."

In a landmark report, Sir Denis O'Connor, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, also said police should be prepared to use plastic bullets and water cannon to tackle rioters who use weapons such as petrol bombs and rocks to attack emergency services.

Sir Denis said: "If we don't raise some of these awkward issues, then we're not giving people the chance to prepare for a future where we're slightly more assured as to what will happen."

"Some new rules of engagement are necessary so the police can protect the public in confidence. People were burned out of their houses. We can all remember the woman leaping from the burning building in Croydon."

The recommendations were made in a far-reaching report on the handling of rioting in London and several other major cities in August.

Over 500 banks raced to borrow from the scheme, which was far beyond market expectations. The euro rose sharply on the news, but then fell back later. When the plan was announced, French President Nicholas Sarkozy said banks could use the money to invest in eurozone sovereign debt. However, analysts were uncertain if banks will use the money in this way.

"The very heavy take-up of the ECB's three-year, long-term refinancing operation provides some encouragement that banks' liquidity needs are being amply met," said Jonathan Loynes at Capital Economics. "But while this might help to address recent signs of renewed tensions in credit markets and support bank lending, we remain sceptical of the idea that the operation will ease the sovereign debt crisis too as banks use the funds to purchase large volumes of peripheral government bonds."

This was the European Central Bank's first offer of three-year loans and was the largest amount of money the central bank has injected into the financial system, beating the 450 billion euros it put in with its 2009 one-year loans offer. Although the offer was seen as a success, its impact on the eurozone economy is still uncertain.

Although the ECB has ruled out lending directly to countries, banks taking the three-year loans at 1% are being encouraged to invest in sovereign debt at 6% to 7%. This not only provides a lucrative return for the banks, but increases demand for sovereign debt, helping countries such as Italy and Spain that need to raise money.

Dempsey, speaking to CNN during a worldwide tour, spoke one day after Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned that the American government will not allow Iran to produce a nuclear weapon. He said that if Iran continues to enrich high-grade uranium, it could produce a nuclear weapon within a year, an estimate formerly given by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

"My biggest worry is they [Iran] will miscalculate our resolve," Dempsey said in Afghanistan. "Any miscalculation could mean that we are drawn into conflict, and that would be a tragedy for the region and the world." Besides repeating the often-used phrase" all options are on the table," General Dempsey went one step further and declared, "I am satisfied that the options that we are developing are evolving to a point that they would be executable if necessary."

It was the most blatant warning made regarding Iran's growing nuclear threat.

Yields on Spain's three-month notes plummeted to 1.74% on Tuesday from 5.11% last month, leading euphoric moves across the eurozone periphery. Spanish 10-year yields fell below 5% for the first time in two months, with credit rallies in Italy, Belgium, and Ireland. Exuberance lifted Germany's DAX index by 3%, the French CAC by 2.7%, and FTSE 100 by 1%, with ripple effects through commodities and risky assets worldwide.

The buying spree comes as markets wait for the ECB to turn on the monetary spigot. Funds are betting that an offer of unlimited bank credit for three years - long-term repo operations (LTROs) - will transform the underlying dynamic of Europe's debt crisis. Banks will be able to borrow at 1% to buy Spanish and Italian bonds at 5% or 6%. It allows the ECB to prop up sovereign states without violating EU treaty law.

Lenders call it the "Sarko trade" after French leader Nicolas Sarkozy said the liquidity will allow each state to "turn to its banks" for finance. Markets have seized on the idea, hoovering up distressed debt in advance to lock in gains. The ECB move is part of a string of fresh measures by the bank's new president Mario Draghi to head off a dangerous escalation of the crisis. "We are trying to avoid a credit crunch," he told Euro MPs on Monday, warning that EMU banks and states must together to raise 720 billion euros (602 billion pounds) over the first quarter of 2012.

"Draghi's been smart," said Simon Ward, of Henderson Global Investors. "The spread available to banks is going to prove attractive. He has outmanoeuvred the Bundesbank by drawing it in deeper." Yet it is unclear whether liquidity alone can stop investor flight from Club Med. European banks have already cut holdings of EMU bonds by 65 billion euros this year, and are slashing loan books to meet the EU's core Tier 1 capital ratio of 9%. The Basel-based Global Stability Board fears that deleveraging could reach 2.5 trillion euros over coming months, risking a shock to the system.

Although the Obama administration has not publicly threatened to retaliate with military force, the allegations have underscored the real and growing risk that the two sides could go to war sometime soon - particularly over Iran's advancing nuclear program. For several years now, starting long before this episode, American pundits and policymakers have been debating whether the United States should attack Iran and attempt to eliminate its nuclear facilities.

Proponents of a strike have argued that the only thing worse than military action against Iran would be an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Critics, meanwhile, have warned that such a raid would likely fail and, even if it succeeded, would spark a full-fledged war and a global economic crisis.

But skeptics of military action fail to appreciate the true danger that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to US interests in the Middle East and beyond. And their grim forecasts assume that the cure would be worse than the disease - that is, that the consequences of a US assault on Iran would be as bad as or worse than those of Iran achieving its nuclear ambitions. But that is a faulty assumption. The truth is that a military strike intended to destroy Iran's nuclear program, if managed carefully, could spare the region and the world a very real threat and dramatically improve the long-term national security of the United States.

The source added that the military, which is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, has pledged allegiance to the untested Kim Jong-un, who takes over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since it was founded after World War Two. The source declined to be identified but has correctly predicted events in the past, telling Reuters about the North's first nuclear test in 2006 before it took place.

The comments are the first signal that North Korea is following a course that many analysts have anticipated - it will be governed by a group of people for the first time since it was founded in 1948. Both Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung were all-powerful, authoritarian rulers of the isolated state.

The situation in North Korea appeared stable after the military gave its backing to Kim Jong-un, the source said. "It's very unlikely," the source said when asked about the possibility of a military coup. "The military has pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-un." North Korea's collective leadership will include Kim Jong-un, his uncle and the military, the source said.

The break-in at the US Chamber of Commerce is one of the boldest known infiltrations in what has become a regular confrontation between US companies and Chinese hackers. The complex operation, which involved at least 300 internet addresses, was discovered and quietly shut down in May 2010.

It isn't clear how much of the compromised data was viewed by the hackers. Chamber officials say internal investigators found evidence that hackers had focused on four Chamber employees who worked on Asia policy, and that six weeks of their email had been stolen. It is possible the hackers had access to the network for more than a year before the breach was uncovered, according to two people familiar with the Chamber's internal investigation.

One of these people said the group behind the break-in is one that US officials suspect of having ties to the Chinese government. The Chamber learned of the break-in when the FBI told the group that servers in China were stealing its information, this person said. The FBI declined to comment on the matter.

"It is very clear that the Chinese leaders recognize that military force will play a bigger role to safeguard China's overseas interests," Jonathan Holslag, of the Brussels Institute of Chinese Contemporary Studies told AFP. "There is a willingness, and even a consensus, in China, that this process will take place." The Indian Ocean is strategic, Holslag said, noting that 85 percent of China's oil imports and 60 percent of its exports are routed via the Gulf of Aden.

Beijing does not so far have any military base in the region: its military presence consists of three vessels in the Gulf of Aden to fight Somali pirates. But the deployment of those ships in 2009, the first of its kind for the Chinese navy, was already highly symbolic. For the moment, cooperation between China and the islands of the Indian Ocean is still limited to "low profile military-to-military exchanges, but it is getting broader and more structured," Holslag told AFP.

"The mere fact that China has a multi-year naval presence in the Gulf of Aden has great symbolic and diplomatic significance," said Frans-Paul van der Putten, senior research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael. "Symbolic because it shows other countries that China is an emerging naval power in the region, and diplomatic because China uses its navy ships for occasional visits to ports along the Indian Ocean rim, which helps it strengthen its diplomatic ties with countries in the region," he added.

Secretary Panetta spoke with us at the end of an overseas trip during which he reviewed strategy in Afghanistan and formally ended the war in Iraq. CBS News anchor Scott Pelley caught up with Secretary Panetta on his tour last week of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. On the way home, he boarded the jet nicknamed "The Doomsday Plane." This is the command post where he and the president would direct a nuclear war. In an interview for "60 Minutes," we sat down in the compartment where he would execute the commander-in-chief's orders. Panetta told CBS News that Iran needs only one year to build a nuclear weapon.

The report blames official bodies, including the military and the Interior Ministry, for "serious lapses" in wartime readiness. It says some government bodies are shirking their responsibilities and not investing needed funds in preparedness plans. The report says there are not enough bomb shelters in schools and public places, leaving hundreds of thousands of Israelis unprotected in case of attack.

Ratings agencies have warned that France is exposed to the sovereign debt crisis gripping southern Europe and have threatened to downgrade its hitherto perfect rating. The government has protested that it has embarked on an austerity programme backed by a pact with fellow eurozone members to guarantee deficit reduction. "I find it wholly regrettable that we are accepting the loss of our triple-A with a kind of fatalism. This loss is not banal, because it will have an effect on the interest rates the state pays," he said.

He also warned that if France was downgraded it would weaken the status of the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism, two instruments set up by eurozone leaders to confront the crisis. Any suggestion that France's debt of 1.7 trillion euros ($2.2 trillion) is becoming unmanageable could send the interest rate it pays on bonds soaring. Earlier, the French treasury announced that it would need to raise 178 billion euros ($232 billion) in medium and long-term bonds next year.

The Fitch credit rating agency also warned on Tuesday that the eurozone's new bail-out fund could lose its triple-A debt status. "Fitch Ratings says the 'AAA' rating on debt issues of the European Financial Stability Facility largely depends on France and Germany retaining their 'AAA' status," the company said in a statement. "The revision of the rating outlook on France to 'negative' last Friday implies that the risk of a downgrade of EFSF debt has increased," it said.