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The cost of the rice has risen by more than three-quarters in two months and the price of wheat has more than doubled in the same time.

The desperation in dozens of countries has turned deadly of late. In the past week alone there have been violent, food-related riots in Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cameroon.

World Vision Australia head Tim Costello says the situation is desperate and chronic.

“It is an apocalyptic warning,” he said. “Until recently we had plenty of food. The question was distribution.

This synchronized global slowdown, which has become increasingly stark in recent months, is hobbling economic growth worldwide, affecting not just homes, but also jobs.

People in Anniston find themselves in this fix today largely because of the way Monsanto disposed of PCB waste for decades. Excess PCBs were dumped in a nearby open-pit landfill or allowed to flow off the property with storm water. Some waste was poured directly into Snow Creek, which runs alongside the plant and empties into a larger stream, Choccolocco Creek. PCBs also turned up in private lawns after the company invited Anniston residents to use soil from the plant for their lawns, according to The Anniston Star.

So for decades the people of Anniston breathed air, planted gardens, drank from wells, fished in rivers, and swam in creeks contaminated with PCBs—without knowing anything about the danger. It wasn’t until the 1990s—20 years after Monsanto stopped making PCBs in Anniston—that widespread public awareness of the problem there took hold.

The latest example of this is in the mass freezing of home equity lines of credit going on across the United States. Reeling from losses on their wretched loan decisions of recent years, lenders are preventing borrowers with pristine credit and significant equity in their homes from tapping into credit lines that they paid dearly to secure.

In the past 30 days, lenders have sent several hundred thousand letters advising borrowers that their home equity lines of credit are frozen, estimated Michael Kratzer, president of FeeDisclosure.com, a Web site intended to help consumers reduce fees on home loans.

Major lenders – including Washington Mutual, IndyMac Bank and the Greenpoint Mortgage Unit of Capital One – say that declining property values are prompting the decisions to cut off credit.

Banks have the right, of course, to rescind these credit lines at any time under the terms of the contracts they struck with borrowers. And as home prices have tumbled in many parts of the United States, banks are undoubtedly trying to protect themselves from exposure to additional losses.

But these actions are being taken even in areas where property prices are rising, Kratzer said. What’s worse, the letters provide no explanation for how the lenders determined that the property values underlying the equity lines had fallen.

But when the target opened the attachment, the application would usually crash, while the embedded code covertly installed a keylogger and data-stealing software that scooped up documents anywhere on the organization’s network to which the user had access.

The malware then forwards the stolen information to services called DNS bouncers in China, such as 8800.org, that attackers can use to obfuscate and rapidly change where stolen documents or passwords are sent. Finally, the code opens up what looks to be a legitimate document, in the hopes that the target won’t know his or her computer was just infected.

The espionage was highly successful, according to Hyppönen. One multi-billion-dollar defense contractor who went to F-Secure for help found that a single compromised Windows box had been secretly siphoning information to a server in mainland China for 18 months.

“Most attacks go unnoticed and targets don’t know they are hit,” Hyppönen said.

Hyppönen won’t declare that the espionage is the work of the Chinese government or hackers loyal to it, though all the evidence points that way.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department’s new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities — such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.

Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications.

“There is no basis to suggest that this process is in any way insufficient to protect the privacy and civil liberties of Americans,” Chertoff wrote to Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.), chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee and its intelligence subcommittee, respectively, in letters released yesterday.

“I think we’ve fully addressed anybody’s concerns,” Chertoff added in remarks last week to bloggers. “I think the way is now clear to stand it up and go warm on it.”

His statements marked a fresh determination to operate the department’s new National Applications Office as part of its counterterrorism efforts. The administration in May 2007 gave DHS authority to coordinate requests for satellite imagery, radar, electronic-signal information, chemical detection and other monitoring capabilities that have been used for decades within U.S. borders for mapping and disaster response.

But Congress delayed launch of the new office last October. Critics cited its potential to expand the role of military assets in domestic law enforcement, to turn new or as-yet-undeveloped technologies against Americans without adequate public debate, and to divert the existing civilian and scientific focus of some satellite work to security uses.

Democrats say Chertoff has not spelled out what federal laws govern the NAO, whose funding and size are classified. Congress barred Homeland Security from funding the office until its investigators could review the office’s operating procedures and safeguards. The department submitted answers on Thursday, but some lawmakers promptly said the response was inadequate.

In another sign of the intense pressure on leading banks, Deutsche Bank is attempting to offload some of its €35 billion (£28 billion) of toxic debt to a consortium of private-equity firms.

Huge exposure to American mortgages is expected to result in Citi taking a $10 billion hit to its accounts, dragging the bank to a first-quarter loss of almost $3 billion. Some analysts believe Citi’s write-downs could stretch to as much as $12 billion.

Merrill will suffer $5 billion of write-downs, analysts say, which would push the bank $2.7 billion into the red.

It is expected to knock a further 20% from the value of its sub-prime holdings, in spite of the fact that it announced $18 billion of write-downs only three months ago.

The new rash of Wall Street losses and write-downs come in addition to the billions that have already been recorded.

The world’s biggest banks have suffered losses and write-downs totalling almost $250 billion since the beginning of 2007, according to analysts. Last week the IMF shocked markets by saying that global losses from the credit crisis could rise to $945 billion.

JP Morgan is expected to offer the only glimmer of hope from this week’s results, posting a small profit, in spite of huge exposures to leveraged loans.

Some of the world’s biggest banks are beginning to work on new solutions to relieve tension in the financial markets.

Deutsche Bank is understood to be talking to a number of private-equity funds about a disposal of some of its backlog of loans to venture-capital firms.

The value of leveraged loans sitting on Deutsche’s balance sheet is greater than its shareholder equity. The bank is planning to sell on the loans to the private-equity funds at a loss to free up its balance sheet, according to market sources.

An executive who works with a big Icelandic bank recalls: “Upon entering the bar I was approached by one of the hedge fund managers. He informed me that all people in this party – except for him, of course – were shorting Iceland.” The executive says the fund manager described Iceland’s profit-making potential as the “second coming of Christ”.

“As dinner progressed – some people actually decided not to eat at all but just sit at the bar – and more drinks were downed, the conversation and questions started to get more hostile and short positions openly declared,” the executive says.

What started as an alcohol-fuelled evening has become a full-blown investigation by Iceland’s Financial Supervisory Authority into an alleged speculative attack by hedge funds on Iceland’s currency, banking system and stock market. Jonas Jonsson, director-general of Iceland’s FSA, says the authorities are “searching whether some parties have systematically been distributing negative and false rumours about the Icelandic banks and financial system in order to profit from it”.

Mr Jonsson admits such cases are “difficult to ascertain and prove” but adds that “we would not be using our time if we didn’t think there was a good reason to investigate”. He is concerned that funds may have been “front-running” – taking trading positions on the basis of privileged information, in this case their own forthcoming negative reports.

The stock exchange is also examining its trading records and will send anything suspicious to the FSA. “There is nothing wrong with taking short positions. But if false rumours have been spread around the markets, that, in my view, is a clear case of market manipulation,” says Thordur Fridjonsson, president of the exchange.

Details of the investigation are confidential, but the authorities are expected to pay close attention to movements in the credit default swap markets for Iceland’s banks. Spreads in these markets – a proxy for investors’ fears the banks will collapse – have ballooned from about 50 last August to more than 1,000, indicating a very high level of fear about their viability.

The suspicion is that speculators exerted undue pressure on the illiquid CDS market in the knowledge that the wider the spread went, the more fear of a banking collapse would contaminate the stock and currency markets. There are also concerns about the way rumours were spread about the alleged reliance of Iceland’s banks on internet deposits, which triggered reports in UK newspapers that such deposits could be withdrawn rapidly.

Icelandic economy

The chief executives of the three main banks, Landsbanki, Glitnir and Kaupthing, made clear in interviews last week there is no evidence this is the case, despite the negative publicity about Iceland. They firmly believe such rumours were started deliberately in order to spark fears of a run on their overseas deposits.

Iceland’s most senior officials have declared open war on the speculators. David Oddsson, governor of the central bank and former prime minister, says: “There is an unpleasant odour of unscrupulous dealers who have decided to make a last stab at breaking down the Icelandic financial system.”

Concern that hedge funds are profiting from spreading malicious rumours is not limited to Iceland. In recent weeks, the Financial Services Authority in the UK stated that it would not tolerate market abuses after rumours of liquidity problems at HBOS’s hit the British bank’s stock price. Ireland’s financial regulator is also examining unusual trading patterns in its market, while Lehman Brothers, the US bank, told the Securities and Exchange Commission it had been the target of malicious rumours after its shares plunged on speculation that it faced a cash shortage.

Sympathy for US investment banks may be hard to find these days but the image of tiny Iceland, with a population of just 313,000, battling to protect its economy against the sharpest minds in global capitalism has captivated the local population and global market practitioners alike.

Fame of a sort was achieved when Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was asked about the alleged attacks on Iceland during testimony to Congress, a development greeted with bewildered pride in Reykjavik. “We’ve made it,” commented one senior Icelandic banker ironically.

These events serve as a testament to Iceland’s transformation from fishing-based backwater to northern European tiger economy. Icelanders have certainly grown richer. Its economy may be the smallest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with a gross domestic product of about $20bn (£10bn, €13bn) but GDP per capita income is approximately $60,000, among the highest. Private jets swoop into Reykjavik’s airport bearing home-grown billionaires, while black Range Rovers purr through the capital’s streets amid a forest of cranes.

Significantly, the fishing industry’s share of GDP has declined from 16 per cent in 1980 to 6 per cent in 2006, replaced largely by finance, insurance and property, whose combined share of GDP rose from 17 per cent in 1998 to 26 per cent in 2006. However, banking sector assets have grown from about 96 per cent of GDP in 2000 to about 10 times today – the main source of concern about the country.

Perhaps more fundamentally, there has been a profound shift in attitude. Icelandic entrepreneurs have developed a reputation for aggressiveness, snapping up assets in the UK and shocking their consensus-driven Nordic neighbours with an almost American attitude to acquisitions and risk. For a country that was for more than 500 years under the control of Denmark, these developments have unleashed a dormant sense of national pride.

But growth has not been without its costs. Iceland reported a current account deficit of 16 per cent of GDP in 2007, while inflation stood at 8.7 per cent in March – well over its central bank’s target of 2.5 per cent. Iceland’s new rich are feeling the heat. “A Toyota Land Cruiser that cost IKr10m ($140,000, £70,000, €90,000) in January is now IKr13.8m,” says Ulfar Steindorsson, president of Toyota Iceland.

Such factors have undermined investor confidence, sending the stock market lower by nearly 16 per cent this year. The currency has fallen more than a fifth over the same period, further stoking inflation. In response, the central bank this month imposed an emergency interest rate increase of 1.25 percentage points to a record 15 per cent.

Such numbers make for uneasy comparisons and help explain hedge fund interest in Iceland. The country has the second highest interest rates in Europe after Turkey’s 15.25 per cent and its current account deficit puts it in the same league as volatile, high-growth economies in the Baltic and central and eastern Europe. Banking-sector borrowing is also high by international standards.

But these outwardly negative numbers, as Halldor Kristjansson, chief executive of Landsbanki, points out, require further analysis. The current account deficit, for example, is set to contract sharply once exports from new aluminium smelters start in the next few months. This will alleviate pressure on the krona and bring inflation back to within the central bank’s target range next year, it is forecast. Interest rates are expected nearly to halve to about 8 per cent in 2009 as economic growth slows to under 4 per cent.

As for the banks, they have responded to criticism by diversifying funding away from wholesale markets and relying more on deposits. Speaking for the industry, Larus Welding, chief executive of Glitnir, points out they have all diversified geographically and generate more income from a wider range of products, boosting fee and commission income. All are well capitalised by international standards and have survived various stress tests devised by the FSA with flying colours.

Speaking from the modest prime ministerial residence close to the waterfront in Reykjavik, Geir Haarde does not deny the country faces serious hurdles. But he does have a problem with these hurdles being raised artificially by the alleged actions of speculators. “We would like to see these off our backs,” he says. He has made it clear that he is prepared to intervene in the markets.

It is widely expected that Iceland’s central bank will announce – possibly on Thursday – a tie-up with other Nordic central banks to provide support for the banking sector. Mr Haarde also stated that the government, which runs a budget surplus, can easily issue bonds to bolster foreign exchange reserves of just $2.6bn. These moves will ensure the Icelandic central bank can be a lender of last resort in both Icelandic krona and foreign currencies, reducing the risk of a systemic collapse.

All indications are that the measures taken so far are working. The currency is strengthening, spreads in the credit default markets have narrowed and there has been no run on bank deposits. Whether this proves enduring will depend upon the soon-to-be-announced package from the central bank and the government.

But the dust is unlikely to settle quickly. Experts now expect a renewal of a long and tempestuous debate about whether Iceland should pursue membership of the European Union and the eurozone. It is already a European Free Trade Association member, but has shied away from deeper participation, saying it needs an independent monetary policy. This may now have to change. “If Iceland wants to play a role in the wider world then it can’t do it as an independent operation,” says one well-placed commentator.

Significantly, a recent poll revealed for the first time that a majority of people thought EU membership was a good thing and the business community has stepped up its support. Insiders say debate in government on the issue is “at a completely different level” now compared with a few years ago, but that internal party sensitivities make any public discussion tricky.

In the meantime, the economy is gradually tying itself to the eurozone as more companies adopt the euro. Fridrik Mar Baldursson, a professor at Reykjavik University, cautions against this gradual “euroisation”. “The more this happens the smaller the effect of [domestic] monetary policy on prices, wages, demand etc, and that equals more and more instability,” he says.