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Local giants Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics also run substantial government-support operations and would see some weapons projects cut, while other programs would receive budget increases.

In particular, the proposed budget would sharply reduce the number of contractors who help the Pentagon oversee and manage its vast weapons-buying apparatus following a string of reports chronicling cost overruns and other problems.

A CACI executive said the company is waiting for further details before commenting. The Arlington company has 12,300 employees, half of whom are in the D.C. region. Ninety-five percent of its $2.4 billion in revenue last year came from federal contracts for technical services and information technology and contracting oversight for the Army and Navy, as well as such Pentagon offices as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Missile Defense Agency.

Overall, the budget Gates proposed calls for major cuts to the weapons programs of some of the largest contractors.

One of the hardest-hit defense firms was Boeing. The Chicago company's $150 billion Future Combat Systems, a family of Army vehicles linked by high-tech communications, came under criticism from Gates for being costly and plagued by development problems. He proposed canceling the $87 billion vehicle part of the system -- a move that would hurt Boeing, SAIC and their subcontractors, BAE and General Dynamics.

Gates also proposed canceling some of Boeing's missile defense programs, including one to equip a modified 747 aircraft with a laser that can shoot down missiles soon after they're launched, saying the program "has significant affordability and technology problems and the program's proposed operational role is highly questionable."

Boeing would also be hurt because it makes one-third of the F-22 fighter jet and the Pentagon plans to stop ordering additional aircraft. Gates would also cancel the Air Force's program to build a new search-and-rescue helicopter, which had been awarded to Boeing. And it would not order more of Boeing's C-17 cargo planes. Boeing could also see a military satellite program, known as TSAT, end.

Lockheed Martin, of Bethesda, the biggest defense contractor in the world, also took hits on several of its major programs.

Gates said he would kill the company's bid to build the presidential helicopter, known as the VH-71, citing the fact that the program is six years late and has gone from initial estimates of $6 billion to $13 billion.

Lockheed was also hit by the move to not order more F-22 fighter jets. Perhaps hoping for support in Congress, the company has taken out newspaper ads explaining how its F-22 supports roughly 25,000 jobs around the country.

But the Pentagon proposed ordering more of Lockheed's F-35 known as the Joint Strike Fighter, and it would increase from two to three the number of littoral combat ships being built by Lockheed and General Dynamics to patrol near enemy coastlines.

In 2005, Moscow forgave 70 percent of Syria's total debt of 13.4 billion dollars.

In 2007, Russia agreed to supply Syria with eight MiG-31 fighters, known in the West by NATO codename Foxhound, for about $400-$500 million, the paper said. Kommersant, a commerce-oriented newspaper published in Russia, quoted an unidentified person close to Russia's state arms exporter as saying that Moscow had halted the contract due to pressure from Israel.

The commission expects inflation to fall well below the European Central Bank's target of 2%. It projects inflation to slow to 0.4% this year from 3.3% in 2008, and to rise to only 1.2% in 2010.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, is expected to contract 5.4% this year, while the UK and Italy are expected to shrink by between 4% and 4.5%. However the once-booming Irish economy will see a 9% drop and Latvia will shrink by 13.1%, the commission said.

The drop in trade will hurt investment and job creation, the bank said. It expects between 16 million and 17 million non-farm jobs to disappear this year, but said the key to avoiding instability was an effective social welfare system.

According to the latest World Bank global forecasts, published in December, the world economy is set to expand at a weak annual rate of 0.9% in 2009, with a 0.1% contraction in developed economies offset by growth in developing countries of 4.5%. A Chinese government think tank this month forecast first-quarter growth would slow to 6.5%, from a 6.8% pace in the fourth quarter last year.

Boosting bilateral trade between Russia and Latin America, which could reach $15bn (£9.9bn) this year, is another priority for the Russian president during his talks.

The Telegraph reported that Gordon Brown also claimed £153 twice for the same plumbing work at his constituency home - which No 10 said was done inadvertently and had been repaid. Justice Secretary Jack Straw claimed his entire council tax bill for his second home despite already enjoying a substantial discount from his local authority, worth a reported £1,500 a year.

Among other revelations, Ms Blears is said to have claimed for expenditure under the allowance on three different properties during the same year, spending £5,000 on furniture in three months. The Telegraph says by switching their designated second home between their London and constituency properties, Ms Blears and other MPs have been able to claim for household goods or other reimbursements for both.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson claimed for improvements on his constituency home after he announced he was leaving Parliament to become an EU Commissioner. He later sold the property for a profit of £136,000. He rejected claims he used taxpayers' cash to "renovate" his home for profit, insisting the money was spent on essential maintenance. He said the Telegraph's report - which details a £1,500 gardening bill and £1,350 in house repairs - was presented to provoke public anger. "The fact is that these allowances would not have been paid if they weren't within the rules," he told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme.

The WHO said on Monday that 985 cases of the virus had been officially reported across 20 countries. Person-to-person transmission has been confirmed in six countries.

"Virtually all of the United States probably has this virus circulating now," Dr Anne Schuchat said. "That doesn't mean that everybody's infected, but within the communities, the virus has arrived." She said that although she expected cases to become more severe and to lead to deaths, this in itself would not be unusual as every year 36,000 people die in the US after contracting seasonal flu.

Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova said that the virus appeared to have peaked between 23-28 April. "The evolution of the epidemic is now in its declining phase," he told a news conference.

France and Pakistan agreed to cooperate in the field of civilian nuclear energy during Mr Zardari's visit to Paris earlier this month, but details of the plan have yet to be agreed.

The 1979 revolution expropriated the assets of foreign investors and the nation's wealthiest families; oil had long been nationalized, but the mullahs seized virtually everything else of value--banks, hotels, car and chemical companies, makers of drugs and consumer goods. What distinguishes Iran is that many of these assets were given to Islamic charitable foundations, controlled by the clerics. According to businessmen and former foundation executives, the charities now serve as slush funds for the mullahs and their supporters.

Dozens of interviews with businessmen, merchants, economists and former ministers and other top government officials reveal a picture of a dictatorship run by a shadow government that--the U.S. State Department suspects--finances terrorist groups abroad through a shadow foreign policy. Its economy is dominated by shadow business empires and its power is protected by a shadow army of enforcers.

Ironically, the man most adept at manipulating this hidden power structure is one of Iran's best-known characters--Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been named an ayatollah, or religious leader. He was the speaker of parliament and Khomeini's right-hand man in the 1980s, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and is now chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, which resolves disputes between the clerical establishment and parliament. Rafsanjani has more or less run the Islamic Republic for the past 24 years.

He played it smart, aligning himself in the 1960s with factions led by Ayatollah Khomeini, then becoming the go-to guy after the revolution. A hard-liner ideologically, Rafsanjani nonetheless has a pragmatic streak. He convinced Khomeini to end the Iran-Iraq war and broke Iran's international isolation by establishing trade relations with the Soviet Union, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the 1990s he restarted Iran's nuclear program. He is also the father of Iran's "privatization" program. During his presidency the stock market was revived, some government companies were sold to insiders, foreign trade was liberalized and the oil sector was opened up to private companies. Most of the good properties and contracts, say dissident members of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, ended up in the hands of mullahs, their associates and, not least, Rafsanjani's own family, who rose from modest origins as small-scale pistachio farmers.