"It is not necessary for this strike to take place and the union remains focused on reaching an agreement," said CWU general secretary Billy Hayes. "We hope that Royal Mail will also now be equally focused. CWU is determined to reach an agreement or make enough progress to pearl jewelry call off strike action next week."

Mark Higson, managing director of Royal Mail, yesterday condemned the union for raising the spectre of more strikes, warning it would "distract" from the peace efforts.

"The CWU's irresponsible behaviour underlines just how muddled and confused the thinking of the union is ¨C and how little it really cares about customers or the future of the UK postal service," Higson said.

"Thanks to the efforts of all our people who continue to biwa pearl work, to the dedication of managers and to the help of up to 30,000 fully vetted temporary workers engaged by Royal Mail, we will be able to limit the effect of the current strikes and expect to get any delayed mail to our customers by early next week, well ahead of the CWU's next planned action."

Yesterday Royal Mail said 25% of delivery workers had turned up for akoya pearl duty despite the strike. The figure was higher than the 20% of people who worked during last week's walkout by delivery employees,

The union representing striking postal workers will go to the high court this week in an attempt to stop Royal Mail recruiting 30,000 temporary staff who they allege are pearl jewelry being used as "strike breakers".

A spokesman for the Communication Workers Union said that, after two weeks of evidence gathering, it was now in a position to bring its case against the Royal Mail. The development came amid claims that Jobcentre Plus staff have been told to stop sending applicants for the temporary positions until the legality of Royal Mail's action has been established.

"We will be in the high court on either Monday or Tuesday, when we hope to stop Royal Mail recruiting more workers being used to break a legal trade dispute," said a spokesman for the union. The case could play a pivotal role in the future of the strike.

The company denies that the 30,000 employees are being used to biwa pearl break the strike, claiming that they are needed to cope with the high demand during the festive period. However, last year the business recruited only 15,000 extra temporary staff.

The threat of further industrial action in the run-up to Christmas would place acute pressures on Royal Mail. The CWU has warned that the current backlog of letters and packets could rise from around 65 million to 150 million as the autumn progresses. Royal Mail claims the current backlog totals only 35 million items of post.

Yesterday about 77,000 delivery and collection staff went on strike for 24 hours in protest at changes to pay and working conditions, the third successive day of industrial action by Royal Mail employees. Further action is planned for this month unless marathon talks between the akoya pearl two sides can produce a breakthrough. The union has announced a third wave of 24-hour national walkouts next Friday, 6 November, and on Monday, 9 November, involving all of its 121,000 postal members, although frantic efforts were continuing this weekend to find a peace deal.

Negotiators from the union and the company were considering a series of proposals drawn up during talks last week chaired by TUC general secretary Brendan Barber. The two sides want to resume negotiations soon and said they planned to make no comment this weekend on the prospects of finding an agreement.

Tony Blair is expected to bow out of the race to become the EU's first permanent president by the end of next week if he fails in a last-ditch effort to win public support from the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Allies of the former prime minister insisted last night that his bid for the top EU job was still alive and that there remained a "decent chance" of success ¨C despite Gordon Brown's failure to pearl jewelry win any substantial backing for him during informal discussions at a Brussels summit last week.

Hinting that Blair might now broaden his campaign and push for talks, in person, with Merkel and others in a final effort to turn things around, supporters said he had yet to lay out a "detailed case" to EU leaders about how he would approach the job and why his talents were needed.

They claimed that media reports of mass opposition from EU heads of governments in Brussels were exaggerated, and that negative comments had come mainly from MEPs who would not have a vote on who fills the posts.

The strongest attack on Blair's candidacy was delivered in Brussels by the German head of the Socialist group in the European parliament, Martin Schulz. He rounded on Brown on Thursday, saying that Blair had been a grave disappointment as prime minister because he had failed to take the UK into the euro, or the Schengen open borders agreement, and had split Europe over Iraq.

A furious Brown responded by telling those gathered, including Spain's Socialist prime minister, Jos¨¦ Luis Rodr¨ªguez Zapatero, and Austria's chancellor, Werner Faymann, that biwa pearl they risked "permanent irrelevance" if they rejected Blair and appointed a lesser known figure.

While the Blair camp insists that the "detailed work of negotiation" on the EU post has yet to begin, they recognise that, if Merkel cannot be won round within days, they will have to face reality and pull out before a special EU summit at which the positions will be filled, probably on 10 or 12 November. "Tony would certainly not want the humiliation of rejection when the issue comes to be formally discussed. He will take himself out of the running before then," said an EU Socialist source.

On leaving Brussels, Brown appeared to recognise that other candidates would come into play. "I recognise that there are many candidates who may come forward, some have already indicated their intention to do so, but I do believe that Tony Blair will remain an excellent candidate," he said.

Merkel's support is seen as key because if Germany swings to Blair, then President Nicolas Sarkozy of France would almost certainly follow, as would many smaller member states. For Merkel, however, backing Blair could be costly at home because of strong public opposition to the Iraq war.

On Friday, the German media appeared to gloat over Blair's inability to win support in Brussels. "Left dupes Blair," read a headline in Spiegel Online, while the daily S¨¹ddeutsche Zeitung commented: "Since Thursday, former British prime minister Blair's chance of getting the post of the president of the akoya pearl EU council is almost zero." Yesterday the German press hinted that Merkel might back the Dutch prime minister, quoting a remark she made about him in Brussels: "I can reveal that Jan Peter Balkenende has good German".

Sarkozy insisted on Friday that there would be a single Franco-German candidate, and hinted that it might not be Blair, whom he had backed last year.

"With Chancellor Merkel, we completely agree that we are going to have the same approach, the same vision and support the same candidate when the time comes," he said. "I think it's very important that France and Germany ¨C on a choice that is important as this one ¨C show their determination to pearl jewelry walk hand in hand down this road."

But Sarkozy added: "The names that first come out of the hat are not necessarily those that are finally chosen."

Last night there were signs that Wolfgang Schl¨¹ssel, the centre-right former Austrian chancellor, might be gaining ground, while Balkenende was also being talked up by EU sources. Other names still in the race are Luxembourg's prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, and former Belgian leader Guy Verhofstadt.

Meanwhile, David Miliband has won the crucial backing of the European commission president, Jos¨¦ Manuel Barroso, to become the EU's foreign policy supremo. Were Blair to remove himself from the contest, the UK would be seeking another top EU job, and Miliband would be thrust into the biwa pearl spotlight.

With the UK government still pushing Blair for EU president, Miliband has so far insisted that he is "not available" for the foreign affairs job, which would also put him in charge of a vast new EU diplomatic service. But he has been careful not to rule himself out if circumstances change, or if Blair's candidacy fails. Since no single EU country can fill both posts, Brown could not lobby for both Blair and Miliband at the same time in Brussels.

The 44-year-old foreign secretary now faces the biggest dilemma of his political life. A switch to Brussels would remove him from British politics for five years and end his chances of succeeding Brown as Labour leader. It would also trigger a byelection in his South Shields constituency, which Labour held with a majority of 12,312 at the 2005 election.

Barroso's support is critical because the foreign policy chief will also become a vice-president of the European commission and Barroso has to give his personal approval to the akoya pearl appointment. Commission sources said Barroso admired Miliband's enthusiasm for the European project and believed he would do the job well. "He certainly would not resist him for the job," said one source.

A senior Nato adviser on piracy has criticised the government for failing to investigate adequately whether ransom payments to Somali pirates fund Islamist groups including al-Qaida.

Lord Jopling, who also wrote a report into money laundering and terrorism for the House of Lords, has warned that paying off pirates could encourage terrorist groups into further acts of piracy.

His comments come after the demand for $7m (£4.2m) for the safe return of Paul and Rachel Chandler, the British couple taken hostage nine days ago as they travelled from the Seychelles to Tanzania. Almost 300 pirate attacks were logged worldwide in 2008 alone.

At present, British law allows ship owners to pay ransoms for the release of hijacked vessels. But if the government established a link between the pirates and terrorist groups, the payment of ransoms would be considered as funding terrorism and be banned by law.

Jopling, the author of the Nato report The Growing Threat Of Piracy, said that many people suspect terrorist groups are behind the capture of dozens of ships off the Horn of Africa. He called on the government to put "more effort" into finding out whether there is a link to pearl jewelry terrorism. "There is as yet no evidence that money goes to terrorists, but given all of the rumours that al-Qaida has active cells in Somalia, it would not be of huge surprise if there is a connection there. We will not find out until the government takes the initiative with other interested states to find out and look at the magnitude of the sums involved and where the money is going. It is of concern."

The Home Office promised in June to investigate possible links between pirates in the Gulf of Aden and Somali terrorist movements such as Al-Shabab, widely thought to be part of al-Qaida. In July, the House of Lords' European Union committee published a report on terrorism funding that voiced concern over the lack of information about a pirate-terrorist connection. In Washington, the biwa pearl Treasury Department asked the Office of Foreign Assets Control to investigate how Al-Shabab is financed.

The initiatives have stirred some concern in the City, headquarters of London's leading law firms and maritime insurance groups. Ship owners who pay ransoms that are reimbursed by insurance groups are not obliged to file a suspicious activity report with the Serious and Organised Crime Agency.

This summer the Lords sought to change the law by authorising courts to start proceedings against companies paying ransoms without telling the British authorities. But the Home Office said in a response to the Lords report last month "it isn't up to the government" to issue rules on suspicious activity reports.

The empty yacht belonging to the Chandlers, who are from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, was found during counter-piracy operations. The couple are being held on the Kota Wajar container ship, which is registered in Singapore and owned by one of the world's largest shipping companies, Pacific International Lines. The company is believed to be talking to the pirates to negotiate a ransom that will include the Kota Wajar, which has also been seized by the pirates, and its crew as well as the Chandlers.

The ransom demand for the return of the couple was made on Friday in a akoya pearl call to the BBC in which the pirates' representative blamed Nato operations in the area for destroying the local economy. "Nato operations have destroyed a lot of equipment belonging to poor fishermen... they illegally transfer the fishermen to their own prisons and prisons of other [foreign] countries."

A spokesman for the Foreign Office confirmed it had employed a negotiator and said: "We are aware of reports that a ransom demand of $7m has been made. HMG's policy remains clear: We will not make substantive concessions to hostage takers, including the payment of ransoms."

The brother of Rachel Chandler, Stephen Collett, told the Observer the Foreign Office was doing an "excellent" job.