Restrictions on the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from the country’s banks amid an economic crisis and hyperinflation mean that soldiers, like the rest of the population, can only take out the equivalent of 50 pence a day - enough to buy a single banana.

Fourteen soldiers were arrested this week after scores went on the rampage in the capital Harare and the middle class suburb of Braeside, attacking foreign currency dealers with batons.

The soldiers had earlier swarmed into a city centre bank demanding more than the allocated maximum withdrawal but neither it nor any commercial banks, including Britain’s Standard Chartered and Barclays, have enough cash to placate the daily queues outside.

The soldiers had been expecting to pick up an ex gratia payment of Z$10 million (£4) from the department of defence, but the central bank could only pay half that sum, and only to soldiers from one barracks - the King George VI. The mood soon turned ugly.

“They went mad and started beating people up all over the place,” said a foreign exchange dealer.

Incidentally, in today’s durable-goods business-investment report for October, capital-goods shipments are falling at a 12 percent annual rate versus their third-quarter average. Orders are down 35 percent. (By the way, that third-quarter average was a negative number.)

So Mundell is clearly on to something. Business needs help. Without healthy business, there will be no significant new job creation or consumer spending power.

On money, Mundell had two interesting thoughts: First, the U.S. dollar and the Chinese yuan should basically be re-linked at roughly today’s exchange rate (about 6.8 yuan to the dollar). There should be no more Chinese currency appreciation. Incidentally, Mundell thinks the Chinese economy is actually in some trouble. And he’d know. Mundell travels to China about once every other month as a key advisor to the Bank of China.

Also on the currency front, Mundell would prefer a floor under the euro at roughly $1.25. That’s about where it is today. It’s also roughly the same as the original $1.18 euro initial public offering in 2000. So Mundell is pressing for dollar stability relative to Europe and China. And he believes that would be consistent with domestic price stability here at home.

Scandinavian nation reverses trend, mirrors results in Alaska, elsewhere.

After years of decline, glaciers in Norway are again growing, reports the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). The actual magnitude of the growth, which appears to have begun over the last two years, has not yet been quantified, says NVE Senior Engineer Hallgeir Elvehøy.

The flow rate of many glaciers has also declined. Glacier flow ultimately acts to reduce accumulation, as the ice moves to lower, warmer elevations.

The original trend had been fairly rapid decline since the year 2000.

‘’From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,’’ said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ’‘If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.’‘

Under Fannie Mae’s pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000—a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

All of this suggests that Clinton’s efforts to increase minority access to loans and capital also have spurred this decade’s gains. Under Clinton, bank regulators have breathed the first real life into enforcement of the Community Reinvestment Act, a 20-year-old statute meant to combat “redlining” by requiring banks to serve their low-income communities. The administration also has sent a clear message by stiffening enforcement of the fair housing and fair lending laws. The bottom line: Between 1993 and 1997, home loans grew by 72% to blacks and by 45% to Latinos, far faster than the total growth rate.

Lenders also have opened the door wider to minorities because of new initiatives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–the giant federally chartered corporations that play critical, if obscure, roles in the home finance system. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders and bundle them into securities; that provides lenders the funds to lend more.

In 1992, Congress mandated that Fannie and Freddie increase their purchases of mortgages for low-income and medium-income borrowers. Operating under that requirement, Fannie Mae, in particular, has been aggressive and creative in stimulating minority gains. It has aimed extensive advertising campaigns at minorities that explain how to buy a home and opened three dozen local offices to encourage lenders to serve these markets. Most importantly, Fannie Mae has agreed to buy more loans with very low down payments–or with mortgage payments that represent an unusually high percentage of a buyer’s income. That’s made banks willing to lend to lower-income families they once might have rejected.

The complaint, filed by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, alleges that Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings enriched themselves by assigning high ratings to bonds backed by mortgages “that were designed to fail” because of “unfair payment terms and insufficient borrower income levels.”

The firms “knew or should have known” that subprime loans disproportionately were marketed to minority consumers—a process known as “reverse redlining”—and that those borrowers would ultimately default and go into foreclosure at high rates, according to the coalition’s complaint.

If she says I’m wrong, she can sue and let’s have it out in open court, with her on oath.

Her behaviour has been reprehensible. Instead of doing the decent thing and resigning immediately, she hints sinisterly that Green is indeed guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday called on Pakistan to show “absolute” cooperation and “total transparency” with India in the investigation of who was behind the Mumbai attacks.

Rice called on Pakistan to show “absolute” cooperation and “total transparency” with India in the investigation of who was behind the Mumbai attacks.

“I don`t want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that is what we expect (from Pakistan),” Rice told reporters travelling with her to London.

Massimo Cacciari said: “These are exceptionally high waters. Don’t venture out unless it is necessary.”

The Centro Maree, which forecasts water levels, said sea levels in the city had risen by 1.56m - a level not seen since 1986.

In a statement released by the official Libyan news agency, the country said that Israel had sent two navy ships, a fighter jet, and a submarine to force the boat to turn around.

Independent Palestinian lawmaker Jamal Khoudari said the ship was carrying food, medicine, blankets and powdered milk, and after docking in Egypt, was set to sail from a Libyan Port to Gaza on Monday.

“This ship is coming to Gaza to help the Palestinian people who are under siege,” Khoudari told The Jerusalem Post by phone from Gaza. “This ship is safe and will help us since it is carrying food and medicine. There is no reason to stop it.”

The accomplished NHS doctors wanted to “kill and nothing else” in revenge for the invasion of Iraq, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

Jonathan Laidlaw QC said the men dreamed of grabbing headlines around the world with al Qaida-inspired improvised car bombs.

Bilal Abdulla, 29, and Mohammed Asha, 28, are accused of attacks on London’s West End and Glasgow Airport last summer.