German commentators on Monday say managers were looking for an easy buck at the taxpayers' expense.DPA German banks have not proven immune to the global finance crisis. The German bank Sachsen LB is in trouble. On Friday, it announced that a group of publicly owned banks was bailing it out to the tune of €17.3 billion ($23.3 billion) after it proved unable to provide the credit it had pledged.

The guilty party turned out to be an affiliate in Ireland called Ormond Quay. The affiliate, known in the finance world as a conduit, did not appear on Sachsen LB's balance sheet and specialized in issuing short-term debts backed up by securities. Ormond Quay, it turned out, was heavily exposed on the US sub-prime mortgage market and nervous investors had turned away from the credits it offered. The result? Serious liquidity problems.

The announcement came just days after German banks had reassured the public that they weren't overly affected by the problems in the US mortgage market. And it was the second such liquidity crisis to hit a bank in Germany in weeks.

Is the German banking sector facing a crisis?

But that is exactly what needs to happen: All bank boards, all controllers, auditors, analysts and control committees have to finally take a close look at the true state of risk in all their divisions and come up with a concrete plan of action.

The time of minimizing the dangers and sitting around doing nothing has to come to an end. Risk management is the core duty of every banker. Traditionally, banks earn their money by evaluating risk. In recent years, many German bankers have taken unusually high risks because in times of low interest rates, they could hardly survive on the interest differentials between outlay and income, and between short and long-term investments.

Those elevated risks included loans to finance investors and hedge funds, that promise unusually high returns. There is hardly a bank in Germany that hasn't succumbed to the temptation of improving its bottom line through such investments. Which is why all of them need to examine just how deeply they are involved.

The left-leaning paper Die Tageszeitung writes: "Too big to fail. German banks apparently rely completely on this status. Higher profits are possible with risky speculations than with classic bank deals and conservative investments. But so too are much larger losses. But who cares? When something goes wrong, the state and the other banks will jump in to help."

"Their interest in avoiding a financial crisis that will harm everyone is much too great. Such is the logic -- and it is a way of thinking which results in the general public being taken hostage by the gambling bankers. The state would be well advised to think long and hard about how to rein in the apparently out-of-control financial institutions so that their losses aren't one day so large that the public hand won't be able to ward off a financial crisis."

Many institutions now attempt to improve their bottom lines with very risky deals that, if they succeed, also promise high profits. Their desperation apparently leads them to take such irresponsibly high risks that a worldwide credit crisis -- as we are now seeing -- can break their necks. One worries that more crises loom. Action must be taken. Those institutions that are completely or partly state owned should be privatized. It is irresponsible when the taxpayer has to vouch for the overly risky business practices followed by individual banks."

Two Huntsville emergency management officials will meet with Rep. Charles Dent, R-Pa, the Huntsville Times reported. WND also has learned the briefing will include Sen. Arlen Specter R-Pa., and Homeland Security staffers for Rep. Dave Reichert R-Wash., Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and possibly others.

The Huntsville paper said the briefing will highlight the city's revitalization of its fallout shelter system, the training of responders on radiological safety and its use of radiological monitoring and detection equipment, including government vehicles equipped with detection devices.

The Wall Street Journal republished an article Friday from the Washington Monthly titled "U.S. Unprepared for an Urban Nuclear Attack." The article cited former Clinton administration officials who advised that "the federal government should revive the Cold War fallout shelter program, identifying places where people could safely wait."

"More than five countries have the capability to inflict an EMP attack. Rogue regimes and terrorists know all about EMP and are working to acquire this weapon. We know the odds of our house burning down in any given year are very low, but that doesn't mean we will cancel our fire insurance," said U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md. "If America doesn't develop insurance against EMP, we will increase the odds of inviting this type of unimaginable attack in the future."

The report was produced by Sage Policy Group of Baltimore and commissioned by Instant Access Networks, which is leading a pilot project with Frostburg State University and Public Technology Institute to analyze dangers from EMP. Experts have predicted the EMP attack essentially would destroy any electronics within range of its impact, leaving technology comparable to that available in the 1800s.

EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated anywhere from 10 miles above the Earth's surface to hundreds of miles. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field. The study said the detonation would deliver a burst of energy to any metallic surface in direct line of the explosion, particularly those exceeding one meter in length.

"These metal objects act like antennae and conduct a surge of energy along their span," the study said.

"[Targets] include not only the obvious - computers and telephones - but also the electronic devices that are embedded in virtually every aspect of a productive economy," the study said, listing cars, power transmission lines, pipelines that deliver fuel, ATMs, heating and air conditioning systems and elevators.

Such a weapon would move so fast ordinary surge protectors would be useless, and the attack would leave communications, broadcast, computer, weapons, public safety and emergency response systems as well as automobiles, utilities, water lines and other essential services virtually useless.

IAN's chief executive officer, Chuck Manto, said EMP "appears to be one of the least expensive ways to disable mission critical infrastructure on a broad scale." And the attack even could affect more than just the United States.

"For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico," Wood has noted.

Just today the Economic Policy Institute reported that real wages for American workers are declining: From 2003-2007 the median U.S. hourly wage dropped more than 1%. The average American in 2005 had a -1% savings rate - the lowest since the great depression - America and its people are living beyond their means and in debt.

How did this happen? Two causes stand out: low international wage rates in countries like China and Mexico that America will not and can not compete with, and America's abandonment of capital and knowledge intensive industries.

American workers can not and should not have to compete with third world wage rates. Some Chinese manufacturers are paid 33 cents an hour according to a 2005 AFLCIO report. This cents-an-hour pay in many countries around the world has caused American companies and entire industries to move abroad. It also lead Princeton economist Alan Blinder to estimate 42-56 million jobs could potentially be sent overseas.

Japan has successfully navigated the problem of China's low wage rates. China is one of Japan's biggest trading partners and yet Japan maintains a trade surplus with them. The labor in Japan is leveraged; one person operates equipment that can do the work of 100 ordinary laborers. America used to manufacture this way but now produces little by comparison and increasingly depends on imports at a net cost of $1.5 million per minute ($765 billion per year) to maintain our standards of living.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has resigned itself to live on increasing debts. Since 1987 home mortgages have gone from $1.8 trillion to $8.2 trillion, consumer debt from $2.7 trillion to $11 trillion and household debt has quadrupled. Add to that a national debt approaching $9 trillion and you do not have to be an economist to realize the economy may not be as rosy as America's GDP ranking.

Increasing debt, decreasing savings and exporting America's biggest asset - wealth producing companies abroad - is not sustainable or responsible long-term economic policy.

Years ago, the world's corporate elite lusted over the wealth generated by the American economy. So, they devised the concept of globalization and created multi-national 'free-trade' pacts such as NAFTA, WTO and GATS, which allowed them access to our markets to partake of our wealth.

Originally, it was done under the guise of restoring war-torn Europe and Asia, but these countries are now more than able to compete on their own without our help or subsidies. Yet these pacts are still in play today, growing in number and power to the detriment of the American people.

The WTO (World Trade Organization) has now become the world's super government. Congress is prohibited from passing legislation that violates its bylaws. In other words, our agreement with the WTO curtails what laws Congress is allowed to pass concerning US industrial policies. The WTO is fixed so that each member country has only one vote with no veto powers for anyone. Even though the United States is the benefactor, it only has equal footing with every developing country with cheap goods to dump on our markets.

China is a special case in point. Its unchecked flooding of our markets with cheaply made goods has created around a quarter of the $765 billion U.S. trade deficit. The Economic Policy Institute reported that, between 1997 and 2006, the massive U.S.-China trade imbalance took 2,166,000 US jobs, the bulk of which (1.8 million) were lost after China joined the WTO in 2001. Proponents of this affiliation wrongly predicted that China's trade surplus would decline and U.S. employment would bounce back.

The WTO and other "free-trade" pacts are developing into a virtual shadow, one-world dictatorship with the authority to override the sovereignty and laws of the U.S. These are intolerable conditions that most people are not aware of.

Ministers have promised to remove "unnecessary barriers" for religious groups that want to provide state education and are preparing the ground for a dramatic expansion. While there were 376,000 Muslim children aged between five and 15 at the last census, there are only 1,770 pupils in the seven state-funded Muslim schools in England.

But there are 115 independent Muslim schools, where families have to pay fees.

Professor Robert Winston revealed that his London laboratory at Imperial College had succeeded in producing its first litter of experimental pigs. Lord Winston plans to breed pigs whose sperm has been modified so that it blocks genes that trigger their immune system.

This means that organs such as hearts could be transplanted into humans without the fear of rejection. His team have already managed to modify the sperm of mice in this way. "The key is to create animals with a human-like immune system, which will not be rejected," he said.

"I believe we are two years away from breeding these animals, they are very close."

Waqf officials say the digging of the trench, 500 meters long and 1.5 meters deep, is necessary to replace 40-year-old electric cables. But the petitioners say the work "is causing irreversible damage to antiquities and archaeological artifacts of the greatest importance, and is being carried out illegally, without the requisite authorizations."

The petition, against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, other cabinet ministers and the Israel Antiquities Authority, maintains that Temple courtyards were located where the dig is taking place, and that some 400 tons of dirt removed in the process contain priceless archaeological artifacts from various periods.

"The excavations were carried out in an area where the bedrock is sometimes at a depth of only half a meter," the petition stated. "Therefore, massive digging to a depth of a meter and a half entails damage to ground layers, some of which may have been in place since the first Temple stood there 3,000 years ago. Excavating with heavy equipment and tractors severely damaged the ground and directly caused the destruction of ancient stones and other artifacts."

The petitioners charged that law enforcement authorities are failing to meet their obligation to uphold the Antiquities Law on the Temple Mount.

The [Pope's] homily centered on the mantra of the early Christian martyrs of Abitene: "Without Sunday we cannot live."

The Pontiff said: "Sunday has been transformed in our Western societies into the weekend, into leisure time. But Sunday," said the Pontiff, "also calls to mind 'the day of the dawning of creation'. Therefore Sunday is also the Church's weekly feast of creation - the feast of thanksgiving and joy over God's creation."

"At a time when creation seems to be endangered in so many ways through human activity, we should consciously advert to this dimension of Sunday too."

Today was the first session that markets in Asia were open since the widely-watched non-farm US payroll figures released on Friday showed that the economy lost jobs for the first time since 2003. The figures have helped fuel fears that the slump in the US housing market could drag the economy into recession.

Weaker economic data out of Japan today did little to brighten the mood or the risk appetite of investors. The economy, still the world's second-biggest, shrank at twice the annual rate that economists had been expecting in the second quarter. The 1.2pc annual contraction makes it less likely that the country's central bank will raise interest rates further this year.

Takehireo Sata, an economist at Morgan Stanley, told Bloomberg News that "a cloud is hanging over the domestic and global economy."

Current UK passports contain a traditional message from the British sovereign printed inside the front cover requesting 'assistance and protection' for the holder anywhere in the world 'in the Name of Her Majesty'.

But the time-honoured passage could be dropped as a result of the new European Treaty - which critics claim is simply a repackaged version of the discredited EU Constitution.

A new message would set out rules under which any EU citizen who gets into trouble in a country where their own state has no representative can go to the British embassy and demand help.

This huge refinancing, mainly through London, exceeds the $100 billion that became due in mid-August, and which sparked the most serious phase in the money-market crisis, which has seen banks scrambling for funds and market interest rates rising sharply. "This is a serious pressure point," said one leading banker.

Another senior executive of one of Britain's top five retail banks said: "These are the worst conditions I have seen in money markets for 20 years".

The refinancing of the commercial paper is expected to start tomorrow and end on September 20. In that short period the City is braced for huge market volatility.

The company said the job cuts could be lower if interest rates fell and mortgage market prospects improved. But on the basis of the current interest rate environment it was predicting a 25 per cent fall in the total mortgage market in 2008.