At the first demonstration, police fired nonlethal bullets and bean bags at demonstrators who blocked the Port of Oakland's entrance in a protest against two shipping companies they said were helping the war effort. Dozens of activists and longshoremen on their way to work suffered injuries ranging from welts to broken bones and have won nearly $2 million in legal settlements from the city.

The extent of the officers' involvement in the subsequent march May 12, 2003, led by Direct Action to Stop the War and others, is unclear. But in a deposition related to a lawsuit filed by protesters, Deputy Police Chief Howard Jordan said activists had elected the undercover officers to "plan the route of the march and decide I guess where it would end up and some of the places that it would go."

It was revealed later that the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center, which was established by the state attorney general's office to help local police agencies fight terrorism, had posted an alert about the April protest. Oakland police had also monitored online postings by the longshoremen's union regarding its opposition to the war.

The documents showing that police subsequently tried to influence a demonstration were released Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union, as part of a report criticizing government surveillance of political activists since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The ACLU said the documents came from the lawsuit over the police use of force.

Jordan, in his deposition in April 2005, said under questioning by plaintiffs' attorney Jim Chanin that undercover Officers Nobuko Biechler and Mark Turpin had been elected to be leaders in the May 12 demonstration an hour after meeting protesters that day.

Asked who had ordered the officers to infiltrate the group, Jordan said, "I don't know if there is one particular person, but I think together we probably all decided it would be a good idea to have some undercover officers there."

Several months after the rally, Jordan told a city police review board examining the April 2003 port clash that "our ability to gather intelligence on these groups and this type of operation needs to be improved," according to a transcript provided by the ACLU.

"I don't mean same-day intelligence," Jordan told the civilian review panel. "I'm talking about long-term intelligence gathering."

He noted that "two of our officers were elected leaders within an hour on May 12." The idea was "to gather the information and maybe even direct them to do something that we want them to do," Jordan said.

"I call that being totalitarian," said Jack Heyman, a longshoremen's union member who took part in the May 12 march. He said he was not certain whether he had any contact with the officers that day.

Jordan declined to comment when reached at his office Thursday. In his deposition, he said the Police Department no longer allows such undercover work.

City Attorney John Russo said he was not familiar with the police infiltration of the protest, but said the city had made "significant changes" in its approach toward demonstrations after the port incident. Police enacted a new crowd-control policy limiting the use of nonlethal force in 2004.

The ACLU said the Oakland case was one of several instances in which police agencies had spied on legitimate political activity since 2001.

Mark Schlosberg, who directs the ACLU's police policy work and wrote the report released Thursday, cited previously reported instances of spying on groups in Santa Cruz and Fresno in addition to the Oakland case. He called on state Attorney General Bill Lockyer and local police to ensure that law-abiding activist groups don't come under government investigation.

"It's very important that there be regulation up front to prevent these kinds of abuses from occurring," Schlosberg said at a news conference.

Schlosberg said the state needs an independent inspector looking into complaints and keeping an eye on intelligence gathering at such agencies as the California National Guard and the state Department of Homeland Security.

Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for Lockyer, said the attorney general had not yet read the ACLU report. But he said his boss "won't abide violations of civil liberties. There's no room in this state or anywhere in this country for monitoring the activity of groups merely because they have a political viewpoint."

Following the Oakland port protest and disclosures about the monitoring of activists, Lockyer issued guidelines in 2003 stating that police must suspect that a crime has been committed before collecting intelligence on activist groups.

But Schlosberg said the ACLU had surveyed 94 law enforcement agencies last year and found that just eight were aware of the guidelines. Only six had written policies restricting surveillance activities, he said.

The move is part of the US authorities' attempts to limit paedophiles' access to sites like MySpace. The act has already received widespread support, and was passed by 410 votes to 15 in the US House of Representatives at the end of July.

"The social networking sites have become, in a sense, a happy hunting ground for child predators," US House Representative Michael Fitzpatrick is reported to have said.

However, opponents of the act claim it will cut off a large number of other sites from students. Already a "Save your Space" campaign has begun by some MySpace users to gather support for a petition against the plans. The campaign is aiming to collect some 1 million signatures within a month.

The move by the US government is not a surprise, with parents there becoming increasingly concerned about the rise of social networking sites. In March in the US there was widespread parental outcry when two men were arrested in Connecticut, accused of illegal sexual contact with underage girls they had met through MySpace.

The US is not alone in trying to restrict access to the sites from public networks. In the UK for example, a number of private schools have banned pupils from accessing Bebo and other social networking sites.

Similarly in Ireland, several schools have already made moves to ban these sites from their networks, and from September, the ban will be widespread.

New guidelines from the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) published earlier in the summer proposed tough punishments for students who misuse the school networks, including expulsion. The NCTE wants internet access to be used only for educational purposes, and will impose tough new restrictions including banning students from using their personal details online and from arranging any meetings with people they know online.

The ban in Ireland comes amid fears that the sites are being used by paedophiles to prey on unsuspecting children. Other concerns also include the use of the sites to bully other students.

"The country slides deeper into self-imposed isolation and misrule, the democratic opposition and ethnic minority groups continue to be shut out of the political process, and Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest," White House spokesman Tony Snow said in a statement.

The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate last month approved the three-year extension of the 2003 Burmese Freedom Freedom and Democracy Act.

Myanmar's army has refused to turn over power to a government that was elected in 1990. The government offered in 2003 a "road map to democracy" but Western nations have dismissed it as a sham.

The bank - the world's third biggest behind Citigroup and Bank of America - attributed the increase to an upsurge in bankruptcies and individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs), which it suggested was being encouraged by companies that specialise in making these arrangements for those struggling to pay off large debts.

Michael Geoghegan, who took over as the chief executive in March, said: "We are concerned that independent advisers, who are not regulated, are telling kids to just not bother paying their debts. They are saying, 'Give us a couple of grand and we'll make it go away'."

HSBC said that while the latest UK default figures represented a sharp increase on the first half of 2005, they were steady against those in the second half of last year.

Across the entire group, whose operations straddle 77 countries, bad debts were 19 per cent higher at $3.9bn. However, they were down 14 per cent on the last six months of 2005.

Stephen Green, the bank's chairman, gave an optimistic appraisal of the global economy and his bank's prospects, characterising the global operating environment as "broadly favourable".

Overall, HSBC's interim profits before tax were 18 per cent higher this year than last, driven by a marked improvement at its corporate and investment banking business (CIBM) and booming emerging markets.

HSBC ushered in a banking season that is widely expected to see Britain's biggest banks - Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS, Barclays and Lloyds TSB - yet again deliver record profits that are sure to cheer investors and anger consumer groups in equal measure.

Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrat's Treasury spokesman, said: "With soaring profits seemingly unrelated to the standard of customer service, whether it be overdraft charges or cheque clearing times, there will be increasing pressure for a windfall tax on banks."

HSBC's profits in China, Brazil and India were all up by a fifth or more, while muscular global equity markets bolstered its investment bank. At $3.1bn, profits at CIBM were the highest since it began to recruit aggressively three years ago. They were 37 per cent higher than for the same period last year.

Revenues from structured derivatives products jumped 85 per cent, while HSBC also landed high-profile advisory mandates on four of the five biggest deals in Europe during this time.

The self-styled "world's local bank" advised Mittal Steel on its bid for French rival Arcelor and is the sole adviser to E.ON, the German utility giant, on its move for Spain's Endessa.

But more cautious industry observers said HSBC's investment bank would need to deliver a strong performance amid more challenging conditions before the City finally gave it the benefit of the doubt.

Others suggested that Stuart Gulliver, the sole head of the division since John Studzinski announced his departure earlier this year, signalled a change in emphasis yesterday.

HSBC shares edged 3p lower to 971p, valuing the bank at £111.5bn. At 15 cents, the interim dividend was 7 per cent better.

Maria Bergan, 23, of Lakewood, was charged Sunday night with identity theft and receiving stolen property. She was arrested at her home in suburban Cleveland and was jailed in Westlake to await a court appearance.

The 22-year-old waitress, whose name was not released, called police last week and said she had been handed her own stolen driver's license by a woman trying to prove she was 21. The woman, who became suspicious of the delay as the waitress went to call police, fled the Moosehead Saloon, but her companion provided her name.

The waitress said she had lost her wallet July 9 at a bar in Lakewood.

The victim also had a credit card stolen. The stolen card has been used to make $1,000 in purchases, Turner said.