The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120- degree-plus heat.

Mr. Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel laureate in economics, bluntly declared on Tuesday that "the Bush fiscal policy is the worst policy in the last 200 years."

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".

John Howard under fire for denying in Parliament that he privately met prominent businessman and political donor Dick Honan - who was lobbying for assistance for his ethanol production company - After the private meeting, the Government overhauled its fuel policy to give benefits worth tens of millions of dollars to Honan's company, Manildra.

Defending Howard's insistence that he had not misled Parliament when he denied meeting Honan, Abbott said it was a question of the context. "It's very clear, I think, from the totality of the Opposition's question and the totality of the Prime Minister's answer, exactly what the context of the answer was," Abbott said valiantly.