The Liberal Democrat minister, who made the comments in an interview with the Independent, launches the consultation exercise today. She gave a "cast iron guarantee" that civil gay marriages would be law by the next general election despite the strength of opposition from church leaders. "There is no rolling back whatsoever," she said. "The essential question is not whether we are going to introduce same-sex civil marriage but how."

In a fierce attack on plans to legalise gay marriage, the UK's most senior Catholic, Cardinal Keith O'Brien described it as an "aberration" and compared it to slavery and abortion. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: "Imagine for a moment that the Government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that ‘no one will be forced to keep a slave’. Would such worthless assurances calm our fury? Would they justify dismantling a fundamental human right? Or would they simply amount to weasel words masking a great wrong?”

Miss Featherstone rejected fears that a change in the law would mean the church would come under pressure to accept religious marriages. Discussing the language used by critics, she said: "It adds nothing to the debate. It inflames. On these issues, we have a responsibility in leadership positions to make sure we don't fan the flames of homophobia."

Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras are already fitted in thousands of petrol station forecourts. Drivers can only fill their cars with fuel once the camera has captured and logged the vehicle’s number plate. Currently the system is designed to deter motorists from driving off without paying for petrol. But under the new plans, the cameras will automatically cross-refererence with the DVLA’s huge database.

When a car is flagged as being uninsured or untaxed, the system will prevent the fuel pump being used on that vehicle. The proposals will have a huge impact - forcing drivers to insure and tax their car if they want to drive. One in 25 drivers in the UK do not have insurance - one of the worst records in western Europe. According to recent figures, around 160 people are killed and 23,000 injured by uninsured and untraced drivers every year.

Downing Street officials are due to meet representatives from the major fuel companies in the next few weeks to discuss the idea. But some petrol retailers said the proposals were a “step too far” - claiming they put cashiers at risk. “This proposal will increase the potential for conflict. Our cashiers are not law enforcers.”

High-speed bullet trains serving northern Japan were halted and the two runways at Tokyo's Narita International Airport were closed after the quake but quickly resumed operations, local media reported. No abnormalities were reported at the Tokai No.2 nuclear power plant northeast of Tokyo, which has been shut for routine maintenance, or at Tokyo Electric Power Co's tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi and Daini plants, local media said.

The earthquake, which caused substantial shaking in Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures east of Tokyo, followed JUST A FEW HOURS AFTER A MAGNITUDE 6.8 QUAKE JOLTED NORTHERN JAPAN. A tsunami warning was issued but later lifted after that earthquake. Just over one year ago, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, Japan's strongest on record, and a massive tsunami, triggering the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

There has been A FIVE-FOLD INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF QUAKES IN THE TOKYO METROPOLITAN AREA SINCE THE YEAR-AGO DISASTER, the Tokyo University Earthquake Research Institute has said.

More than 20 million people are facing hosepipe bans after seven water companies announced restrictions earlier this week. Householders could be fined up to £1,000 for filling a paddling pool or washing their car. Water companies yesterday faced calls to invest in reducing leaks instead of imposing water restrictions on home owners. According to official figures, the companies are losing 3.4 billion litres of water a year to leaks, equivalent to 25 per cent of all water used.

Thames Water admitted that its last hosepipe ban, imposed in 2006, resulted in just a 5 per cent drop in water use. Ann Robinson, the director of consumer policy at USwitch, said: “I accept we have to try and save water but what is not acceptable is the incredible amount of leakage.” Families face an average price rise for water of 6 per cent to £376 per year from April, just before the hosepipe ban comes in. Southern Water, which missed its leak targets last year, is raising prices by more than 8 per cent.

Martin Baggs, the chief executive of Thames Water, warned that prices would have to rise even further to build reservoirs and new technology. The plant works by taking water from the river at low tide, filtering it and then pumping it through a membrane perforated by millions of minute holes. The water produced is so clean that beneficial minerals have to be put back into it. But the process is extremely costly and energy intensive.

The threat was voiced by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a meeting with her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in New York on Monday, a diplomatic insider told Kommersant daily. “The invasion will happen before year’s end. The Israelis are de facto blackmailing Obama. They’ve put him in this interesting position – either he supports the war or looses the support of the Jewish lobby,” the diplomat told the Russian newspaper.

The source said Washington has given Tehran one last chance to solve the conflict peacefully and wants Moscow to deliver the message. Iran has to make progress with the P5+1 group, which consists of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. The group is to negotiate Iran’s controversial nuclear program with Iranian officials sometime in April. The exact timing and place of the talks are still under consideration. The negotiators want clarity from Iran over the potential militarization of its nuclear program. They also demand access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to a suspected nuclear site in Parchin.

“Spain has very large downside risks and it needs to tread very carefully – Spain is in a very fragile situation. Its problems are significantly worse than Greece’s,” Sony Kapoor, managing director at international think tank Re-Define said. He added that a “huge danger” was posed to the macroeoconomic situation and the social fabric of the country by the current austerity program and an expected 5 percent deficit adjustment.

“The financial panic is temporarily over but 2012 will be the year of austerity across Europe and Spain is a microcosm for the euro zone as a whole,” he said. Earlier this month the Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy, publicly defied Brussels-imposed targets, which were 4.4 percent of gross domestic product, saying that the targets were based on forecasts of economic growth when in fact the government expects the Spanish economy to contract this year. The country has the euro zones highest rate of unemployment - now over 22 percent.

Ben May, European economist at Capital Economics, told CNBC.com that underlying issues in Spain could derail any attempts to curb the budget deficit. “Spain is so much larger than Greece, so even if there is a small risk of a default or a bailout then it has much bigger implications for the euro zone than Greece had,” May added.

In a formal complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the three trade powers accused Beijing of trying to hold down prices for its domestic manufacturers and to pressure international firms to move operations to China. "We want our companies building those products right here in America. But to do that, American manufacturers need to have access to rare earth materials which China supplies," US President Barack Obama said at the White House.

Europe's trade chief said China's restrictions violated international trade rules and had to be removed. "These measures hurt our producers and consumers in the EU and across the world, including manufacturers of pioneering hi-tech and 'green' business applications," said European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht.

Rare earths are crucial for the defense, electronics and renewable-energy industries and are used in a range of products such as the iPhone, disk drives and wind turbines. China described the trade complaint on Wednesday as unfair, arguing that it only controlled 90 percent of global production because other countries, notably the United States, had long ago closed their own rare earths refineries on pollution concerns.

The service was part of celebrations marking the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of the Camaldolese branch of the Benedictine order. Camaldoli monks and nuns live and pray at the Church of St Gregory and have an active program of ecumenical contacts.

"We hope that the sign of our presence here together in front of the holy altar, where Gregory himself celebrated the eucharistic sacrifice, will remain not only as a reminder of our fraternal encounter, but also as a stimulus for all the faithful - both Catholic and Anglican - encouraging them ... to renew their commitment to pray constantly and to work for unity, and to live fully in accordance with the 'ut unum sint' (that all may be one) that Jesus addressed to the Father," Pope Benedict said during the evening prayer service.

Faith is a gift of God, but it requires a response, the pope said. "It requires the commitment to be reclothed in Christ's sentiments: tenderness, goodness, humility, meekness, magnanimity, mutual forgiveness and, above all, as a synthesis and a crown, 'agape' - the love that God has given us through Jesus, the love that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts," he said. Camaldoli monks and nuns - wearing hooded white robes - were joined by cardinals, Anglican and Catholic faithful and representatives of other Christian communities in Rome for the prayer service.

According to a set of guidelines sent out by the FBI as part of its Communities Against Terror program, ordinary citizens need to be on the lookout for suspicious characters who follow patterns of behavior of a covert operative.

The latest revelation from the FBI files? Paying in cash for coffee. The most recent update asks coffee shop owners, baristas and other customer-service specialists to lookout for the enemy who walks among us… Using cash for small purchases like a cup of coffee, gum and other items is a good indication that a person is trying to pass for normal without leaving the kind of paper trail created using a debit or credit card for small purchases.

He was arrested on Friday and charged over the weekend. A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "He didn't make his point very well and that is why he has landed himself in bother." Ahmed has been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence and will appear at Dewsbury Magistrates Court on 20 March 2011.

The soldiers were killed on March 6 in the deadliest single attack on British forces in Afghanistan since 2001 when their Warrior armoured vehicle was blown up by a massive improvised explosive device (IED). The deaths take the number of UK troops who have died since the Afghanistan campaign began in 2001 to 404.

It seems you have to be careful if you have an opinion on Facebook these days.

Bus passenger Zoe Frost said looting began immediately and she was pushed aside as people went for the valuables. "They wanted to get the gold and jewellery out of the shop window and where it had fallen on to the ground," she said. Inspector Yvonne Bruton, from West Midlands Police, said: "We are looking into reports that a number of people stole items of jewellery from the shop, with some apparently forcing onlookers out of the way to get to the items. One girl crawled under the bus to get a handful of stuff”

"This group of individuals had no regard for the welfare of those caught up in the incident and it appears simply sought to make their own ill-gotten gains." Police said they would be looking at CCTV footage.

In countries where gay marriage is legal, the terms 'husband’ and 'wife’ are disappearing. David Cameron told last year’s Conservative Party conference that he supported marriage and that it didn’t matter whether it was “between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and another man”. If this sounds complicated to say, it’s going to be even more complicated to legislate.

Last month Stonewall published a draft gay marriage bill which removes the words “husband and wife” from the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, replacing them with “parties to a marriage”. When asked to explain, Ben Summerskill, the CEO, said: “In some clauses you have to replace the words husband and wife because you cannot have two husbands or two wives.” I doubt many husbands and wives will be happy to have the legal definition of their marriages re-written in such a way.

The remainder of their simplistic bill grants wide-ranging powers for a minister to amend the rest of the statute book on marriage, presumably to get rid of all the other references to husband and wife. The minister is going to be busy. The word “husband” appears 1,003 times in statute; “wife” appears 888 times; “spouse” occurs 2,740 times. In all, there are 3,000 references to marriage in current law. The oldest is in an Act passed in 1285, in the reign of King Edward I, part of which is still in force.

Given our present economic situation, why does Mr Cameron think that so much parliamentary time and energy should be dedicated to a change in the law which would obliterate vast amounts of our cultural and legal heritage? Surely not to burnish his “modernising” credentials?

Officials called the find “significant” and added, "Surveys conducted in recent months found oil in the target strata. The potential oil reservoir is 128 million barrels of oil, and the contingent reserves are an additional 120 million barrels."

"Bottom line, there is oil. It's 100 percent. Secondly, the quantities are commercial,” said Tzachi Sultan, controlling shareholder of Modiin. The Gabriella license is near shore in shallow water. “At a time of soaring oil prices, this is good news for IDB, Modiin, Adira,” said Chaim Gavriella, CEO of the IDB holding company that owns most of Gabriella’s shares.

The oil was defined as “high quality” and reportedly can be extracted even easier than the gas.

Khulood Badawi, who Honest Reporting says works as an Information and Media Coordinator for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is responsible for sending the photo out on Twitter. In a message disparaging to Israel, she wrote, “Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by #Israel. Another father carrying his child to a grave in #Gaza.”

Here’s the problem: The photo was taken in 2006 by Reuters, and ... the girl ... was injured by falling off a swing.

It said limited supplies were being wasted, and nations had to implement existing legislation more effectively.The EEA presented its findings at the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille. "The critical thing for us is that we are seeing an increasing number of regions where river basins, because of climate change, are experiencing water scarcity," said EEA executive director Jacqueline McGlade.

"Yet behavioural change, and what that means, hasn't really come about." Professor McGlade said the main purpose of the report was to raise awareness about the issue. "Member states need to be clearer about the opportunities they can make in order to enhance their use of a scarce resource," she told BBC News.

"Nations need to use different kinds of methods. Instead of just having a hosepipe ban to fix this year's problem, you need to invest in a very different way. Long-term investment needs to recognise these different uses of how water is allocated, how it is used [and the need for] different water qualities."