Haiti's rice farmers are dismayed. It's nearly harvest time in this fertile valley where the bulk of Haiti's food is grown, and they're competing once again with cheap U.S. imported rice.

Just down the road, vendors are undercutting them, selling the far less expensive grain. Subsidized U.S. rice has flooded Haiti for decades. Now, after the Jan. 12 quake, 15,000 metric tons of donated U.S. rice have arrived.

"I can't make any money off my rice with all the foreign rice there is now," said Renan Reynold, a 37-year-old farmer who makes an average of about $600 a year. "If I can't make any money, I can't feed my family."

Last month's catastrophic earthquake that killed an estimated 200,000 people and spurred emergency food needs for more than 4 million has raised a familiar predicament for aid organizations — how to help without undermining Haiti's fragile economy.

This nation born nearly 200 years out of a slave revolt hasn't been able to feed itself for more than two decades and now imports most of its food.

Since the quake, aid groups have spearheaded cash-for-work programs, some of which intend to help struggling farmers pay for seed. They're also helping with irrigation and crop diversification projects and working with Haiti's government to analyze soil.

But little is being done to change endemic problems, according to Jean Andre Victor, a Haitian agronomist. He is among analysts who believe Haiti needs radical agricultural reforms — not constant food aid.

"There's a long history in Haiti of groups like USAID flooding the market with rice and other imports," said Victor. "This is not what we need. We need real help and that means completely changing the agricultural system."

Agricultural production accounted for nearly half of gross domestic product in the 1970s. It now amounts to less than a third.

And U.S. rice imports have long eclipsed Haitian production, due in part to smaller local yields because of environmental degradation and the lowest rice import tariffs in the Caribbean community.

The earthquake has only exacerbated needs in farming provinces. The government says more than a half-million people have fled the capital for provinces, which lack the infrastructure and food to sustain such a population surge. The coming rains will only make things worse.

When the earthquake hit, Haiti was recovering from about $1 billion in crop damage from 2008 tropical storms. Now, farmers lack cash to buy seeds for the planting season that begins in two weeks, and food prices have already risen 10 percent since the quake.

Aid organizations say families caring for displaced people are spending their savings to feed new arrivals and consuming food stocks.

"Rural areas experiencing the highest levels of displacement from Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas are the most affected," said Dick Trenchard, Assessments Coordinator for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization in Haiti.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, which has been working in Haiti for decades, is providing more than $400 million in earthquake aid with U.S. taxpayers set to give some $113 million in food aid alone this year.

But U.S. farmers also stand to benefit from the earthquake.

Last year, Washington paid farmers some $12.9 billion in subsidies, which critics say have unfairly deflated international prices. That makes it harder for poorer nations to develop their economies by expanding markets abroad.

Paul O'Brien of Oxfam America says the lessons of the harm of flooding a country like Haiti with subsidized rice should have been learned a long time ago.

"The days are gone when we can throw up our hands in terms of unintended consequences; we know now what these injections can do to markets," he said. "The question we want asked is what is being done to guarantee long-term food security for Haitians."

Haiti's 2008 food price riots prompted President Rene Preval to announce subsidies that would lower the price of rice. And still, there is plenty of malnutrition.

Some 2.4 million Haitians — out of a population of nearly 10 million — cannot afford the minimum daily calories recommended by the World Health Organization.

With planting season just weeks away for crops including beans and spinach, the Haitian government is looking at ways to boost agricultural production.

But donors often sink more money into emergency aid than such long-term projects.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has warned only 8 percent of a $23 million appeal to help Haiti revive food production has been funded.

James Woolley, a senior agronomist working with USAID in Haiti, said the multiple challenges that must be addressed in order to boost production include the country's small farming plots and persistent litany of natural disasters.

One way of attacking the problem of getting Haiti to be able to feed itself again is to focus on diet.

Before the 1970s, Haitians only ate rice once or twice a week, getting starch from other local staples like sorghum and manioc, Woolley said.

Today, rice is a staple but often U.S.-subsidized rice costs less than locally grown crops. On Friday, a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of US rice cost about $36, compared with $60 for the same size sack of Haitian rice.

USAID said it is investigating reports that bags of donated rice are being sold on the market and studying whether its policies in Haiti are having adverse effects on local markets.

"USAID conducts regular analyses in Haiti and across the world to make sure that our food aid does not serve as a disincentive to local production," Moira Whelan, a spokeswoman for USAID in Washington, D.C., said in an interview Thursday.

Whelan would not respond, however, when asked what the analyses had determined in Haiti.

U.S. intervention in Haitian agricultural policy is not without precedent.

In the 1970s, fearing indigenous pigs could spread swine fever, the United States — in conjunction with USAID — moved to replace all of Haiti's hearty Creole pigs with pigs from Iowa. The end result was the fragile U.S. pigs often became sick, preferred expensive feed and had fewer litters.

Reynold, meanwhile, stands hunched over the small rice paddy he rents from a property owner and hopes opportunity will come out of Haiti's latest crisis.

He needs cheap credit, cheaper fertilizer and more government aid, he said.

"Each year, it gets harder to survive."

Mom-and-pop service stations are running into a problem as gasoline marches toward $4 a gallon: Thousands of old-fashioned pumps can't register more than $3.99 on their spinning mechanical dials.

The pumps, throwbacks to a bygone era on the American road, are difficult and expensive to upgrade, and replacing them is often out of the question for station owners who are still just scraping by.

Many of the same pumps can only count up to $99.99 for the total sale, preventing owners of some SUVs, vans, trucks and tractor-trailers to fill their tanks all the way.

As many as 8,500 of the nation's 170,000 service stations have old-style meters that need to be fixed — about 17,000 individual pumps, said Bob Renkes, executive vice president of the Petroleum Equipment Institute of Tulsa, Okla.

At Chip Colville's Chevron station in this eastern Washington town, where men in the family have pumped gas since 1919, three stubby, gray pumps were installed when gas was less than $1 a gallon. They top out at $3.999, only 30 cents above the price of regular gas at Colville's station.

"In small towns, where you don't have the volume, there's no way you can afford to pay for the replacements for these old pumps," Colville said. "It's just not economically feasible."

The problem is worse in extremely rural areas, where "this might be the only pump in town that people can access," said Mike Rud, director of the North Dakota Petroleum Marketers Association.

Demand for replacements has caused a months-long backlog for companies that make or rebuild the mechanical meters — and that's just for stations that can afford the upgrade.

For many station owners — who, because of relatively small profit margin on gas, aren't raking in money even though gas prices are marching higher — replacing the pumps altogether with electronic ones is just not an option.

"The new ones run between $10,000 and $15,000 apiece," Colville said. "It's an expense that's not worth it."

Mechanical meters can be retrofitted with higher numbers when pump prices climb another dollar. The last time that happened was in late 2005, when gas went over $3 a gallon, and owners of the older pumps installed kits that went to $3.999.

This time around, owners of the old pumps will need to install another kit that can handle prices up to $4.999, and possibly higher. Industry experts say those changes could cost as much as $650 per pump.

It costs less to change the meter to raise the maximum price from $2.99 to $3.99 a gallon, but that option raises the risk of a breakdown, said said Pete Turner, chief operating officer for APS Petroleum Equipment Inc. of Anniston, Ala.

"The computer that they're upgrading was not designed to go any more than what it's going now, and if you do it, they don't last long enough," Turner said. "They run so fast that the gears are wearing out."

The price of fixing the meters jumped in the past three years because old pumps are being phased out for new electronic pumps and demand for refurbished meters is down, Al Eichorn, vice president of PMP Corp., which makes the mechanical meters.

The Avon, Conn., company has hired extra employees who are working overtime but still has a 14-week backlog of orders, Eichorn said.

To deal with the problem, some state regulators are allowing half-pricing — displaying the price for a half-gallon of gas, then doubling the price shown on the meter.

In North Dakota, regulators recently told service stations their mechanical pumps could use half-pricing, provided they use signs to alert costumers and find a permanent solution by April 2009.

South Dakota is preparing similar rules, officials say. And in Minnesota, rural service station owners whose pumps cannot display the right price are being told to cover up the incorrect numbers.

"The consumer can only see the gallons turning," said Bill Walsh, a spokesman for the Minnesota Department of Commerce. "Then they just have to settle up with a calculator, basically." Colville and about a dozen other service station owners in Washington have received temporary variances from the state to allow them to half-price fuel.

Stations granted variances are required to post signs telling customers that the final price they will pay is twice what the pump meter indicates.

"No, that don't bother me. The price does," said Jim Puls, a third-generation rancher who pulled up to Colville's diesel pump to fill up his flatbed truck at $4.41 a gallon. "I can understand what they have to do."

Nationally, the average price for a gallon of gasoline rose past $3.70 Sunday, while diesel was selling for an average of $4.33 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.

Small stations are struggling to make a profit on gas, even as the price rises. Its small profit margin makes it less lucrative that snacks and other products the stores sell inside.

"If gas is the profit driver and you are one of those guys with the old pumps, you're either evolving or getting out," said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for the National Association of Convenience Stores, a trade group that represents about 115,000 stores that sell gasoline.

"If you're just that kind of image of the '50s gas station where you have a conversation, fill up and have a cup of coffee, that's in the movies."

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Associated Press Writer Dale Wetzel in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

President Bush signed into law Wednesday legislation that will bring more fuel-efficient vehicles into auto showrooms and require wider use of ethanol, calling it "a major step" toward energy independence and easing global warming.

The legislation signed by Bush at a ceremony at the Energy Department requires automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent to an industry average 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also ramps up production of ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022.

Bush said the new requirements will help "address our vulnerabilities and dependency" on foreign oil by reducing demand for gasoline and diversifying the nation's fuel supply.

"We make a major step ... toward reducing our dependence on oil, fighting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations ... a nation that is stronger cleaner and more secure," said the president.

Bush was flanked by Democrat and Republican members of Congress who had ushered the legislation through.

The House passed the energy bill Tuesday by a 314-100 vote after the Senate cleared it last week following lengthy negotiations and sometimes testy confrontations. Bush had vowed to veto the original legislation passed by the House because it included $21 billion in taxes.

The tax provisions were dropped to get the bill approved.

Congress delivered the legislation to the White House late Tuesday in a gas-hybrid sedan.

Bush noted that earlier this year he had proposed a plan to cut gasoline use by 20 percent over the next 10 years. But the president has long opposed arbitrary numerical standards for vehicle fuel economy.

The legislation increases the federal standard automakers must meet to an industry wide 35 mpg for passengers cars, SUVs and small trucks. The standard for cars today is 27.5 mpg and for trucks and SUVs 22.2 mpg.

It requires refineries to increase the use of ethanol from about 6 billion gallons a year this year to 36 billion gallons by 2022 and mandates that by then at least 21 billion gallons are to come from feedstocks other than corn.

Bush praised that provision which would spur the development of ethanol from cellulosic feedstocks such as prairie grass and wood chips.

"We understand the hog growers are getting nervous. The price of corn is up," said the president.

Flanking Bush were Senate Majority Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California as well as Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime protector of the auto industry. Dingell played a key role in working out a compromise on the vehicle fuel economy measure.

Democrats have hailed the legislation as a turn to a new direction in U.S. energy policy.

"I firmly believe this country needs to have a comprehensive energy strategy," said Bush before signing the bill. He referred to the need for more nuclear energy and domestic oil production — issues that the new energy bill ignores.

Instead, the bill focuses largely on conservation, calling for more energy efficiency in "light bulbs to light trucks" as Dingell observed during the House debate on the legislation.

"This is a choice between yesterday and tomorrow" on energy policy, Pelosi said Tuesday shortly before the House passed the bill, sending it to the White House.

The bill also calls for improved energy efficiency of appliances such as refrigerators, freezers and dishwashers, and a 70 percent increase in the efficiency of light bulbs. It also calls for energy efficiency improvements in federal buildings and construction of commercial buildings.

The new lighting standards alone are projected to lower consumers' annual electricity bills by $13 billion in 2020, remove the need for 60 mid-size power plants and reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, by 100 million tons a year, said the advocacy group Alliance to Save Energy.

Democrats said the fuel economy requirements will save motorists $700 to $1,000 a year in fuel costs and reduce oil demand by 1.1 million barrels a day when the fuel-stingy vehicles are widely on the road.

The overall bill including more ethanol use and various efficiency requirements and incentives, will cut U.S. oil demand by 4 million barrels a day by 2030, more than twice the current daily imports from the volatile Persian Gulf, Democrats said.

The Senate passed a trimmed-back energy bill that would bring higher-gas mileage cars and SUVs into showrooms in the coming decade and fill their tanks with ethanol.

The measure was approved Thursday with strong bipartisan support 86-8 after Democrats abandoned efforts to impose billions of dollars in new taxes on the biggest oil companies, unable by one vote to overcome a Republican filibuster against the new taxes.

The bill now goes to the House, where a vote is expected next week. The White House issued a statement saying President Bush will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk, as is expected. Bush had promised a veto if the oil industry taxes were not removed.

The bill calls for the first major increase by Congress in required automobile fuel efficiency in 32 years, something the auto companies have fought for two decades.

The car companies will have to achieve an industrywide average 35 mile per gallon for cars, small trucks and SUVs over the next 13 years, an increase of 10 mpg over what the entire fleet averages today.

And it would boost use of ethanol to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, a nearly sixfold increase, and impose an array of new requirements to promote efficiency in appliances, lighting and buildings.

This bill "will begin to reverse our addiction to oil. It's a step to fight global warming," said Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

The increased auto efficiency by 2020 will save 1.1 million barrels of oil a day, equal to half the oil now imported from the Persian Gulf, save consumers $22 billion at the pump, and reduce annual greenhouse gases emissions by 200 million tons, said Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii., whose committee crafted the measure.

"It demonstrates to the world that America is a leader in fighting global warming," he said.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a longtime protector of the auto industry that is so important to his state, called the fuel economy measure "ambitious but achievable."

For consumers, the legislation will mean that over the next dozen years auto companies will likely build more diesel-powered SUVs and gas-electric hybrid cars as well as vehicles that can run on 85 percent ethanol. They will push engineers to develop new technologies to save fuel.

"Automakers can meet the new standards with today's technology," said David Friedman, research director at the Union of Concerned Scientists Clean Vehicle Program. "Cars and trucks will be the same size and perform the same way they do today."

But they may be using a different fuel.

The energy legislation would require that ethanol use as a motor fuel be ramped up at an unprecedented pace to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. And at least 21 billion gallons will have to be ethanol from feedstock other than corn such as prairie grasses, switchgrass and wood chips.

About 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol were expected to be used as a gasoline additive this year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, which represents ethanol producers.

The legislation also would increase energy efficiency requirements for appliances and federal and commercial buildings and require faster approval of federal energy efficiency standards.

These measures, said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., "will eventually save more energy than all our previous energy efficiency measures combined."

Tax breaks for a wide range of clean energy industries, including wind, solar, biomass and carbon capture from coal plants, were part of the tax package that was dropped. Senate Democrats earlier also abandoned a House-passed provision that would have required investor-owned utilities nationwide to generate 15 percent of their electricity from solar, wind and other renewable sources.

While many environmentalists viewed almost certain approval of the automobile fuel economy increase as a major victory, some were critical Thursday of the Democrats' inability to push through taxes on major oil companies, which have been making huge profits in recent years.

"The Senate Democrats should show some backbone," said Brent Blackwelder, president of Friends of the Earth. "If Republicans want to block progress on clean energy and global warming, they should be forced to mount a real filibuster — for weeks if necessary."

Republicans had made it clear they would require the Democrats to find 60 votes on the oil taxes and the White House had said repeatedly the $13.5 billion in taxes on the five largest oil companies over 10 years would assure a veto.

On the 59-40 vote that failed to overcome a GOP filibuster, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., whose state's economy is dominated by oil and energy activities, was the only Democrat to break ranks. Nine Republicans supported the tax measures.

The White House has said the taxes would lead to higher energy costs and unfairly single out the oil industry for punishment. A Democratic analysis showed that the $13.5 billion over 10 years amounted to 1.1 percent of the net profits that five largest oil companies would be expected to earn given today's oil prices.

WASHINGTON — The House approved the first increase in federal automobile fuel efficiency requirements in three decades Thursday as part of an energy bill that also repeals billions of dollars oil company tax breaks and encourages use of renewable fuels.

The bill, passed by a vote of 235-181, faces a certain filibuster in the Senate and a veto threat from the White House.

Democrats characterized the legislation as "a new direction" in U.S. energy policy away from dependence on fossil fuels. But Republicans said the actions amount to government mandates that would lead to higher energy prices, while doing little to produce more domestic oil or natural gas — fuels they say will remain essential for decades to come.

"We will send our energy dollars to the Midwest, not the Middle East," countered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, referring to the bill's emphasis on promoting renewable energy sources, especially ethanol, which would see a sevenfold increase by 2022 to 36 billion gallons a year.

"The point of this is, are we about the past or are we about the future," declared Pelosi, D-Calif.

The bill would roll back $13.5 billion in tax breaks enjoyed by the five largest U.S. oil companies with the money to be used for tax incentives for development of renewable energy, including cellulosic ethanol from grasses and wood chips and biodiesel, and to spur energy efficiency programs and conservation.

"There's nothing in here that's going to lower gas prices in America ... nothing that is going to help American families deal with heating costs this winter ... nothing to increase production," complained Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.

The centerpiece of the bill is a requirement to boost automobile fuel economy by 40 percent to an industry average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, the first such increase since 1975, when Congress enacted the federal auto fuel economy requirements.

Pelosi garnered enough support to assure passage by working out a deal with Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., a longtime staunch protector of the auto industry. Dingell more than a year ago warned auto executives the tide had turned on fuel economy and it was inevitable that stricter requirements were in the offing. He got some concessions to help the industry in return for his support of the bill.

The White House said if Congress passes the bill President Bush will be advised to veto it.

"The bill raises taxes in a way that will increase energy costs facing consumers," the White House said a statement, calling the new taxes on the oil companies unfairly "punitive" to a single industry. The White House also objected to the requirement for electric utilities nationwide to use renewable fuels such as wind and solar to generate 15 percent of their electricity, saying some regions can't comply with such a mandate without higher electricity costs.

Pelosi was determined to get the bill through the House this week with Senate action likely next week before lawmakers depart for the holiday recess.

Her decision to insist on including the tax increases on oil companies — costing them $13.5 billion in taxes over 10 years — surprised even some environmentalists and set the stage for a contentious fight in the Senate where Republican leaders have indicated they will try to strip it from the bill.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Thursday an energy bill could pass the Senate, but without the "twin millstones of tax hikes and utility bill increases around its neck."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada told reporters he will move quickly to take up the bill if it passes the House. When asked about its prospects, Reid said, "I don't know. We're going to try very hard."

Growing cotton has rarely been a more risky proposition than it is now, which is precisely why cotton farmer Frank Williams is planning to sow his fields with wheat.

From Williams' California fields to the Texas plains, farmers are plowing under cotton — once the king of U.S. agriculture — to seed crops that make more money.

Cotton also has lost ground for another reason that became apparent this week as the Senate debated the 2007 farm bill: The United States' cotton subsidy program is enmeshed in a global trade battle.

Last month, the World Trade Organization ruled subsidies handed out to American cotton farmers broke international trade laws, opening the door for foreign countries to levy billions of dollars in penalties against the U.S.

The current bill on the Senate floor leaves those programs virtually intact, despite the threat of further legal complaints and concerns that international sanctions ultimately could cause layoffs and patchy unemployment. Monday, the Bush administration threatened to veto the multibillion-dollar farm package wholesale, saying the Senate bill would impair negotiations with the WTO.

For Williams, that risk, coupled with predicted water shortages, is too much to bear.

"We can probably do just as well growing grain with just the same amount of water or less," said Williams, 56, who plans uproot the downy Upland cotton he grows in Firebaugh, about 160 miles southeast of San Francisco, and leave in only a lucrative, organic variety of the crop. "It's just not worth it."

This year, cotton acreage nationwide dropped 28 percent, hitting an 18-year low at 11.1 million acres, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Acreage dropped by about 22 percent in Texas, the national leader, and by nearly 20 percent in California, which ranks seventh in domestic production.

The sharpest declines were in the Southeast and Mississippi Delta regions, where drought has parched fields that grew the crop since before the Civil War.

As textile mills moved offshore over the last decade to set up shop where labor costs are cheaper, the market for U.S. cotton also shifted abroad. Producers now ship 70 percent of their bales to foreign markets, often to mills and spinners in India, Pakistan and China.

That means domestic subsidy programs are increasingly prone to international scrutiny. In 2003, bitter arguments over U.S. farm support programs, including cotton subsidies, contributed to the collapse of world trade talks in Cancun, Mexico.

In 2003, the Brazilian government took its case against American cotton to global trade court, claiming U.S. farm subsidies were driving down the worldwide price of cotton and harming Brazilian farmers. Two years later, the WTO sided with Brazil, an emerging cotton heavyweight, and forced the U.S. to eliminate a particular cotton payment.

Last month, a WTO compliance panel went a step further, saying the U.S. had failed to scrap another series of illegal subsidies paid to American cotton growers.

Those very programs have been left almost intact in the bill currently under debate, prompting outcry from reformists who want farm policy to support a more diverse produce basket.

"We're telling farmers to go ahead and grow conventional cotton for a market that has come under a WTO cloud," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization that advocates for farm policy reform. "All that does is get us into trouble with our trading partners."

The panel won't make a final decision until mid-December, and American cotton industry officials said they were hoping by that time the WTO would reverse course.

"U.S. cotton production and U.S. acres are all down, and world cotton prices are at some of the highest levels they've been at in the last five years," said Gary Adams, chief economist with the National Cotton Council. "I question how they could make a claim as to the U.S. program having any detrimental impact on any other producers."

Still, the threat of billions of dollars in sanctions helped motivate Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., to write an amendment they plan to introduce on the Senate floor next week to eliminate subsidies for cotton and all other commodities and replace them with an insurance-type program that all farmers could participate in.

Brazilian diplomats said they weren't optimistic that would be enough to satisfy their farmers.

"This farm bill will continue the practice of giving subsidies to U.S. producers," said Emerson Kloss, second secretary for agriculture and biofuels at the Brazilian Embassy in Washington. "I can tell you that will be a problem for us."

The global economy faces a period of uncertainty, with risks to continued growth much higher than they were six months ago, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Monday.

Spain's Rodrigo de Rato said recent turbulence in credit markets, the worst in a decade, is a warning that the continually expanding global economy of recent years cannot be taken for granted.

"We still do not know the full extent of the decline in the house market and the subprime problems of the U.S. economy," he said, referring to risky mortgages made to borrowers in the U.S. with spotty credit or low income.

He said further disruption in financial markets and further falls in housing prices could lead to a global economic downturn, making other risks — rising food and oil prices, a falling dollar — loom larger.

As a result of the turbulence, he said the IMF expects "a slowdown in growth but not a recession in the United States, and a smaller slowdown in other advanced economies."

De Rato spoke at the closing meetings of the IMF and its sister institution, the World Bank. It was his last address to the group; he is stepping down as the head of the 185-nation lending organization after 3 1/2 years. His successor, France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn, takes over Nov. 1.

Groups demonstrating against global warming and war snarled traffic Monday around the U.S. Capitol.

The demonstrations involved several hundred people, part of a "No War, No Warming" protest combining environmentalism with an anti-war stand. About 60 people were arrested at various locations, Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said.

The protests were part of a series of demonstrations that have taken place in Washington since Friday, the first day of the annual meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. Most of the protests have been peaceful.

De Rato said that, so far, movements in currency exchange rates have been orderly, "but there are risks that an abrupt fall in the dollar could either by triggered by, or itself trigger, a loss of confidence in dollar assets.

"And there is a risk that exchange rate appreciation in countries with flexible exchange rates — including the euro area — could hurt their prospects, and that, in these circumstances, protectionist pressures could worsen."

He said over the past few months the world has lived through an earthquake in credit markets.

"Like most earthquakes, it has been something distant for most people, something they read about in the newspapers. But there is still a risk of aftershocks, and the full effects of the disruption we have already had will only be felt over time."

He told his audience of finance ministers and central bankers that, along with the IMF, they need to consider what actions to take to limit the damage and what lessons can be learned from the crisis.

Speaking for the host country, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said innovations in financial markets over the past five years have made them more complex.

"We need to continue to be vigilant because all of our capital markets are not functioning normally. As we move to address current problems, we must also address policy issues to prevent a repeat of recent excesses."

Addressing his first plenary session of the two institutions, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the bank had to stretch itself to become more relevant to the poor and middle income countries it tries to help.

Zoellick, a former U.S. diplomat, trade representative and investment banker who took over July 1., said the bank's main priorities would be combatting poverty, helping countries emerging from civil strife, promoting regional cooperation to combat disease and climate change, aiding the Arab World and providing technical assistance.

"There is a great need — and a compelling opportunity — for the World Bank group at this point in history," he said.

The IMF-World Bank meetings took place against a backdrop of soaring oil prices, a falling dollar and the worst credit crisis in a decade, brought when markets essentially froze.

The Group of 24 developing countries noted wryly in their communique that, for once, a financial crises began in one of the advanced nations instead of in Asia or Latin America, as has happened in the past.

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Associated Press writer Brett Zongker contributed to this report.

For a whole month, one writer practiced a kind of abstinence so she could better understand her own complicity in our throwaway culture. It wasn't easy.