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Wallace Souza, a former police officer who used his lunchtime television slot to rail against the violence sweeping the jungle city of Manaus, is suspected of commissioning at least five murders to prove his claim that the region is awash with violent crime.

“Manaus can no longer live with this wave of crime,” Souza, 50, frequently told the audience of his daily show Canal Livre. “Nowadays everyone is killing.”

In a 2008 speech at Manaus’s local parliament, Souza boasted that Canal Livre enjoyed complete editorial freedom and was conducted with “journalistic responsibility”.

But prosecutors in the remote Amazon city say the politician’s actions went far beyond the call of journalistic duty, accusing Souza of links to drug trafficking, death squads and organised crime, and possessing illegal arms.

“Our investigations indicate that they went as far as creating facts,” Thomaz Augusto Correa, the local police intelligence chief, told a Brazilian news channel. “Crimes were committed in order to create news for the group and for the programme.”

Souza was the most voted-for politician in the last elections in the state of Amazonas and is in his third term. But his transformation from politician and TV presenter to suspect began last October when his former security guard Moacir Jorge da Costa, an ex-police officer, was arrested and accused of nine murders. Costa reportedly confessed that at least one of the murders had gone to air on his employer’s TV show.

The arrest triggered a police raid on Souza’s house that uncovered more than £100,000 as well as an arsenal that included several high-calibre assault rifles. So far nearly 20 people have been arrested in connection with the case, including Souza’s son and several senior police officers.

Burnham was confronted by Castle on GMTV after researchers said the antiviral drug’s benefits did not outweigh its side-effects during the flu pandemic.

Castle said his older daughter, Georgina, had a “respiratory collapse” and “suffered very heavily” after being “just handed” the drug without a proper diagnosis.

The presenter said: “I can tell you that my child – who was not diagnosed at all – she had asthma, she took Tamiflu and almost died.”

Burnham sympathised with Castle, saying it must have been “very worrying”, but maintained that advice to parents to treat swine flu with Tamiflu remained unchanged.

The MP said Georgina would have been given Tamiflu during the earlier “containment” phase of swine flu.

He stressed that the research dealt with seasonal flu, not swine flu: “It’s very much a safety-first approach.”

Given that swine flu had a “disproportionate effect” on children, the minister maintained that the antiviral drug was “our only line of defence”.

Some 300,000 people in England, including children and adults, have received Tamiflu through the government’s National Pandemic Flu Service for England.

But yesterday, Oxford University researchers said children should not be given the antiviral drug to combat swine flu. They urged the Department of Health to rethink its policy on giving the drug to under-12s during the current pandemic.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), warned that Tamiflu could cause vomiting, which could lead to dehydration and the need for hospital treatment.

The researchers said children should not be given the drug if they had a mild form of the illness, although they urged parents and GPs to remain vigilant for signs of complications.

Parents of children with a compromised immune system or a condition such as cystic fibrosis should discuss the harms and benefits with their GP, they said.

But overall, the researchers said, children who were otherwise healthy could suffer more harm than benefit from taking Tamiflu or another antiviral, Relenza.

As the White House and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prepare to release new deficit estimates this month, several economists say the news is likely to be as bad as or worse than forecasts.

“This is going to be a very depressing outlook,” predicts former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top adviser to Republican John McCain in last year’s presidential election. “They have just a nightmare in terms of these health care bills, which do nothing but make things worse.”

Treasury yields have been rising and are back at levels last seen in early June, with the yield on 10-year notes trading at 3.84 per cent on Monday.

Traders would not be surprised to see the benchmark test 4 per cent ahead of a $23bn auction on Wednesday.

The sale will be held about an hour before the Fed’s meeting finishes, which could result in lacklustre demand for the new notes.

David Ader, head of government bond strategy at CRT, said his research and trading house was “leaning” towards a bearish view of the Treasuries market with a test of 4 per cent yield level for the 10-year note.

“The trading environment is not very liquid, volumes are low and the risk appetite of dealers is also limited,” he said.

Even though the nation is 73 per cent self-sufficient in food production, higher than during the 1950s, the food chain is at risk from global influences such as a worldwide increase in population, climate change bringing extreme weather patterns, higher oil prices and more crops being grown for bio-fuel instead of food.

Supplies in future may also be disrupted by animal disease outbreaks, disruption of power supplies, trade disputes and interruptions for shipping and at ports.

The UK however has one of the highest cereal production capabilities in the world with seven tonnes grown per hectare, compared a world average of 3.3 tonnes per hectare.

In the event of an extreme event, cereal crops would be used to feed the nation and ensure that each person received sufficient daily calories.

But people would have to consume less — the average number of calories eaten per day in the early 1960s was about 2,100, whereas the most recent figure compiled by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is 2,800.

Even during the Second World War Britain did not have to rely wholly on domestic food production, but Hilary Benn, the Cabinet Minister with overall responsibility for food policy, has ordered officials to prepare for a scenario where the country could feed itself.

In the event of an extreme emergency the most dramatic consequence would be every person eating a predominantly vegetarian diet — more cereals, fruit and vegetables and less meat and poultry. Cereals used to feed farm animals would be shifted into human food production.

A paper setting out the food security assessment states that the food on offer would be “a highly restricted, if sufficiently nutritious diet”.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R), chairman of the National Governors Association, and Vice Chairman Gov. Joe Manchin (D) of West Virginia penned a letter opposing the Pentagon proposal, which they said would hinder a state’s effort to respond to a disaster.

Current law gives governors control over National Guard forces in their own states as well as any Guard units and Defense Department personnel imported from other states.

The letter comes as the Pentagon proposes a legislative fix that would give the secretary of Defense the authority to assist in response to domestic disasters and, consequently, control over units stationed in an affected state.

“We are concerned that the legislative proposal you discuss in your letter would invite confusion on critical command and control issues, complicate interagency planning, establish stove-piped response efforts, and interfere with governors’ constitutional responsibilities to ensure the safety and security of their citizens,” Douglas and Manchin wrote to Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and America’s Security Affairs.

“One of the key lessons learned from the response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 was the need for clear chains of command to avoid duplication of effort and to ensure the most effective use of response resources,” the governors wrote.

Though the Pentagon has said the legislative fix would increase the number of Defense Department personnel available to respond to disasters, Douglas and Manchin expressed skepticism, arguing that current law already allows the Pentagon to order personnel to key areas inside the U.S.

A similar fix was removed from the Defense Department appropriation measure in conference committee for fiscal 2009.

So growing numbers of new graduates — or, more often, their parents — are paying thousands of dollars to services that help them land internships.

Call these unpaid internships that you pay for.

“It’s kind of crazy,” said David Gaston, director of the University of Kansas career center. “The demand for internships in the past 5, 10 years has opened up this huge market. At this point, all we can do is teach students to understand that they’re paying and to ask the right questions.”

Not that the parents are complaining. Andrew Topel’s parents paid $8,000 this year to a service that helped their son, a junior at the University of Tampa, get a summer job as an assistant at Ford Models, a top agency in New York.

“It would’ve been awfully difficult” to get a job like that, said Andrew’s father, Avrim Topel, “without having a friend or knowing somebody with a personal contact.” Andrew completed the eight-week internship in July and was invited to return for another summer or to interview for a job after graduation.

Andrew’s parents used a company called the University of Dreams, the largest and most visible player in an industry that has boomed in recent years as internship experience has become a near-necessity on any competitive entry-level résumé.

The company says it saw a spike in interest this year due to the downturn, as the number of applicants surged above 9,000, 30 percent higher than in 2008. And unlike prior years, the company says, a significant number of its clients were recent graduates, rather than the usual college juniors.

DiPascali, 52, is scheduled to enter his plea tomorrow in federal court in Manhattan, U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin told a judge in an Aug. 8 letter that didn’t specify the charges. DiPascali would waive indictment and plead guilty, which signals to lawyers that he is cooperating to lessen his prison term.

“I believe he’s cooperating,” said John J. Fahy, a former federal prosecutor not involved in the case. “He would be very valuable to the government because he has been close to Madoff for so many years and had to have seen some of the fraudulent transactions that went on. From what we know of Madoff, he trusted very few people.”

Madoff, 71, is serving a 150-year prison term after pleading guilty to running the largest fraud to pay early clients with money from new investors. Madoff’s failure to identify accomplices or substantially help the receiver locating assets of his firm, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, makes DiPascali valuable, said attorney Andrew Hruska.

“From what I understand, he was perfectly placed to understand all aspects of the fraud,” said Hruska, a former federal prosecutor not involved in the case.

DiPascali spent 33 years at the firm, playing a key role in operations on the 17th floor of the midtown Manhattan building where Madoff’s fraudulent investment advisory business was based, according to investors. Investor Tim Murray said in January that DiPascali was a “street-smart New Yorker” who fielded phone calls about his money at the firm.

‘He is the Guy’

“To a Madoff customer with a discretionary account, he is the guy,” Murray said. “There is nobody else.”

Only Madoff and the firm’s outside accountant, David Friehling, have been charged so far with crimes. Friehling has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

DiPascali was “closest to the actual operations of the Ponzi scheme,” said Columbia University Professor John Coffee, a securities law expert.