The top brass will meet every six weeks, combining the heads of Treasury, Federal Reserve, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and key exchanges.

Mr Paulson has asked the team to examine "systemic risk posed by hedge funds and derivatives, and the government's ability to respond to a financial crisis".

"We need to be vigilant and make sure we are thinking through all of the various risks and that we are being very careful here. Do we have enough liquidity in the system?" he said, fretting about the secrecy of the world's 8,000 unregulated hedge funds with $1.3trillion at their disposal.

The PPT was once the stuff of dark legends, its existence long denied. But ex-White House strategist George Stephanopoulos admits openly that it was used to support the markets in the Russia/LTCM crisis under Bill Clinton, and almost certainly again after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"They have an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem," he said.

"In 1998, there was the Long Term Capital crisis, a global currency crisis. At the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together and propped up the currency markets. And they have plans in place to consider that if the stock markets start to fall," he said.

The only question is whether it uses taxpayer money to bail out investors directly, or merely co-ordinates action by Wall Street banks as in 1929. The level of moral hazard is subtly different.

Mr Paulson is not the only one preparing for trouble. Days earlier, the SEC said it aims to slash margin requirements for institutions and hedge funds on stocks, options, and futures to as low as 15pc, down from a range of 25pc to 50pc.

The ostensible reason is to lure back hedge funds from London, but it is odd policy to license extra leverage just as the Dow hits an all-time high and the VIX 'fear' index nears an all-time low - signalling a worrying level of risk appetite. The normal practice across the world is to tighten margins to cool over-heated asset markets.

The move is so odd that conspiracy buffs are already accusing SEC chief Chris Cox of juicing the markets to help stop the implosion of the Bush presidency.

As it happens, I used to eat Mexican enchiladas with Mr Cox 20 years ago at a dining club in Washington, where California Reaganauts gathered to plot the defeat of Communism. Die-hard Republican he may be, but I can think of nobody less likely to betray the public trust in such a way.

So one is tempted to ask if Mr Paulson and Mr Cox know something that we do not: whether other hedge funds are in the same sinking boat as Amaranth Advisers and Vega Asset Management, keel-hauled by bets on natural gas and bonds.

Or whether currency traders with record short positions on the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc are about to learn the perils of the Carry Trade, a high-stakes game of chicken where you bet against fundamentals with high leverage to make a quick profit. Everybody knows it will blow up if the dollar goes into free fall.

They had a fright last week when US growth for the third quarter came in at just 1.6pc, and new house prices plummeted 9.7pc year-on-year in the sharpest drop since the property crash of 1981.

The dollar dived from 119.65 to 117.57 yen in a heartbeat. With $2.9trillion of derivatives now trading daily on the currency markets alone - according to the Bank for International Settlements - is this the start of the most vicious short squeeze ever seen?

The futures markets have priced in a 77pc chance of a flawless soft-landing for America's obese economy, now living 7pc of GDP beyond its means off foreign creditors. They are counting on moderating oil prices, and - a contradiction? - another year of torrid world growth. Nice if you can get it.

They have not begun to price in the risk of recession, typically entailing a drop in the S&P 500 stock index of 28pc from peak to trough. Evidently, the equity markets assume the Fed can and will rescue them by slashing rates in time, if necessary.

They should examine a recent report by the New York Fed warning that whenever the yield on 10-year Treasuries has fallen below 3-month yields for a stretch lasting over three months, it has led to each of the six recessions since 1968.

The full crunch hits 12 months later as the delayed effects of monetary tightening feed through, even if the Fed starts easing frantically in the meantime. By then it is too late. "There have been no false signals," it said.

As of last week, the yield curve was inverted by 29 basis points, was continuing to invert further, and had been negative for over three and a half months. If the Fed is right this time, the recession of 2007 is already baked into the pie. Those speculative positions may have to be unwound very fast.

It said Michelle Santangelo, 20, has acknowledged downloading songs on the family computer and that her brother, Robert, 16, had been implicated in statements his best friend made. It accuses the two of downloading and distributing over 1,000 songs, including "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)" by the Offspring, "MMMBop" by Hanson and "Beat It" by Michael Jackson.

"In short, each of the defendants participated in the substantial violations of plaintiffs' copyrights at issue and then concealed their involvement, standing idly by as Patricia Santangelo repeatedly protested their innocence and chastised plaintiffs for filing allegedly frivolous litigation," the complaint said.

The Santangelos' lawyer, Jordan Glass, disputed the recording industry's allegations and said he was at Michelle Santangelo's deposition and does not recall her "admitting or acknowledging downloading."

Patricia Santangelo, who a federal judge called "an Internet illiterate parent," drew attention last year when she denied downloading songs and refused to settle with the recording industry, which she said demanded $7,500 to keep her name out of a lawsuit for illegally downloading music.

Defenders of Internet freedom helped pay for her attorney. She proclaimed her innocence on TV. But the question remained whether her children had done it. Santangelo said she had no knowledge of them downloading and, if they did, the blame lay with computer programs, not with her or the children.

The industry is requesting an injunction, unspecified damages for each download and court costs.

The record companies have sued thousands of people, including many minors, for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks, most of which have been forced out of business.

He is an unapologetic socialist and proud of it. Even his admirers admit that he lacks social skills, and he tends to speak in tirades. Yet that has not stopped him winning eight consecutive elections to the US House of Representatives.
"Twenty years ago when people here thought about socialism they were thinking about the Soviet Union, about Albania," Mr Sanders told the Guardian in a telephone interview from the campaign trail. "Now they think about Scandinavia. In Vermont people understand I'm talking about democratic socialism."

Democratic socialism, however, has hardly proved to be a vote-winning formula in a country where even the word "liberal" is generally treated as an insult. Until now the best showing in a Senate race by a socialist of any stripe was in 1930 by Emil Seidel, who won 6% of the vote.

John McLaughry, the head of a free-market Vermont thinktank, the Ethan Allen Institute, said Mr Sanders is a throwback to that era. "Bernie Sanders is an unreconstructed 1930s socialist and proud of it. He's a skilful demagogue who casts every issue in that framework, a master practitioner of class warfare."

When Mr Sanders, a penniless but eloquent import from New York, got himself elected mayor of Burlington in 1981, at the height of the cold war, it rang some alarm bells. "I had to persuade the air force base across the lake that Bernie's rise didn't mean there was a communist takeover of Burlington," recalled Garrison Nelson, a politics professor at the University of Vermont who has known him since the 1970s.

"He used to sleep on the couch of a friend of mine, walking about town with no work," Prof Nelson said. "Bernie really is a subject for political anthropology. He has no political party. He has never been called charming. He has no money, and none of the resources we normally associate with success. However, he learned how to speak to a significant part of the disaffected population of Vermont."

Mr Sanders turned out to be a success as mayor, rejuvenating the city government and rehabilitating Burlington's depressed waterfront on Lake Champlain while ensuring that it was not gentrified beyond the reach of ordinary local people. "He stood this town on its ear," said Peter Freyne, a local journalist.

"I tried to make the government work for working people, and not just for corporations, and on that basis I was elected to Congress," Mr Sanders said. He has served 16 years in the House of Representatives, a lonely voice since the Republican takeover in 1994. He has however struck some interesting cross-party deals, siding with libertarian Republicans to oppose a clause in the Patriot Act which allowed the FBI to find out what books Americans borrowed from libraries.

He says his consistent electoral success reflects the widespread discontent with rising inequality, deepening poverty and dwindling access to affordable healthcare in the US. "People realise there is a lot to be learned from the democratic socialist models in northern Europe," Mr Sanders said. "The untold story here is the degree to which the middle class is shrinking and the gap between rich and poor is widening. It is a disgrace that the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty of any industrialised country on earth. Iraq is important, but it's not the only issue."

In a state of just over 600,000 people he also has a significant advantage over his Republican opponent, Rich Tarrant, a businessman who has spent about $7m on his campaign. "Sanders is popular because even if you disagree with him you know where he stands," said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Vermont's Middlebury College. "He pays attention to his political base. He's independent and iconoclastic and Vermonters like that."

Among the various religious groups, 76 per cent of Protestants, 64 per cent of Catholics and 30 per cent of Jews said they are "absolutely certain" there is a God while 93 per cent of Christians who describe themselves as "Born Again" feel certain God exists.

When questioned on whether God is male or female, 36 per cent of respondents said they think God is male, 37 per cent said neither male nor female and 10 per cent said "both male and female."

Only one per cent think of God as a female, according to the poll.

Asked whether God has a human form, 41 per cent said they think of God as "a spirit or power than can take on human form but is not inherently human."

As to whether God controls events on Earth, 29 per cent believe that to be the case while 44 per cent said God "observes but does not control what happens on Earth".

The survey was conducted online between October 4 and 10 among 2,010 US adults.

AFP

Although the Caribbean nation has carried out its social-economic development in a rocky field, it has been successful in health, education and sports, and today is world renowned in these areas.

But it is undeniable that the blockade is generating shortages and important needs in the daily life, and recently Cubans are holding meetings of reflection to examine the real impact of the US siege.

A recent event organized by the UN Cuban Association, attended by representatives from 138 non-governmental organizations, termed President George W. Bush"s government genocidal.

In the closing ceremony of this event, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque made a detailed analysis on the group of punitive measures applied by the northern nation to asphyxiate the country"s economy and condition a subsequent armed invasion.

All this popular debate is generated by the island"s report entitled "Need to end the US-imposed economic, trade and financial blockade on Cuba," to be discussed by the 61st UN General Assembly on November 8, as it has over the last 14 years.

In the 2005 voting, 182 states spoke out that US authorities must unconditionally lift the blockade, in a clear example of the most generated international rejection.

They agreed to give up their own bid for the seat and supported Panama as a compromise candidate for the 35-member Latin American and Caribbean group, said Cordovez, who hosted two rounds of talks between Guatemalan Foreign Minister Gert Rosenthal and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro.

Cordovez said the two ministers will present the choice to a meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean group on Thursday for approval. After that, the UN General Assembly must vote.

Guatemala and Venezuela were vying for the Latin American seat that Argentina will vacate on Dec. 31. Guatemala, backed by the United States, led Venezuela by about 25 votes in all but one of the 47 rounds of balloting that started on Oct. 16. But Guatemala fell short of a required two-third majority to secure the seat.

Earlier on Wednesday, the assembly decided to suspend a new round of voting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon and postponed the balloting to next Tuesday.