Even though the Discovery mission suggested that Nasa had finally licked the fuel tank problems which triggered the 2003 Columbia accident, the shuttles' days are numbered.

After 16 scheduled missions to complete construction of the $100bn ISS, Nasa plans a 2010 retirement date for the space shuttle fleet.

Russian Soyuz and Progress ships will continue flying to the station, as they have been since the programme began. The capsules and cargo vessels were the only vehicles to fly to and from the station during the years Nasa grounded its shuttle fleet for post-Columbia safety upgrades.

But next year, if all goes as planned, there will be a new vehicle on the orbital scene.

The European Space Agency's (Esa) Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) is scheduled for a debut flight to the station.

Restraining hole

In all, Esa has promised five ATV cargo ships to the space station project through to 2015.

With the shuttles' retirement, that may not be enough. Nasa already is looking into transferring cargo originally earmarked for the shuttle to other carriers, including the ATV, which was designed to dock at the station's Russian ports.

Japan also is building a space station cargo carrier called the H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV).

"We're figuring out how to integrate the ATV and the HTV into our plans," said Joy Bryant, the space station programme manager for Boeing, Nasa's prime contractor on the project.
The ATV can haul about 7,000kg (15,000 pounds) of cargo to the ISS, but payloads are largely limited to items that go inside the station.

They must be small enough to pass through its hatch, which is a bit bigger than shoulder-width. Some items earmarked for addition to the outside of the station could fly on the ATV, but they would have to be taken out through an airlock during spacewalks, adding time and complexity during what already is among the busiest times of station operations.

Nasa plans to use ATVs, HTVs and possibly even commercial vessels well before the shuttles' retirement.

And Columbus, too

Nasa consolidated its shuttle manifest to reduce the number of station assembly flights as much as possible, with the intention of finishing construction by the time the shuttles retire.

There are no other vehicles that can carry to orbit and assemble the station's trusses, power modules and laboratories.

As a result, there is little room to spare on most flights for carrying spare parts and extra cargo to the outpost, a need Nasa hopes to fill by buying rides on other spaceships.
The ATV's biggest contribution is likely to be fuel. The shuttle cannot carry propellants used by the station to maintain itself in orbit, so it is solely reliant on Russian Progress ships for resupply.

Once ATV is operational, the partners will have a choice of using a Progress or an ATV for deliveries.

Though Nasa plans an extensive and extended checkout before allowing an ATV to dock, cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, who is scheduled to begin a six-month station mission in September, expects no problems with the vehicle.

"I think people make too much [of it]. The [system] is much safer than what people would expect. The motion control system is made of proven technology. I have no concerns," Tyurin said in an interview.

Europe has another station debut planned next year as well. The Columbus laboratory module is scheduled for launch aboard the shuttle shortly after the ATV's first mission.

If that doesn't give investors enough to worry about, here is one more thing. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is set to appear before congressional committees on Wednesday and Thursday to testify about the Fed's semiannual monetary policy report.

Two major U.S. economic reports, notably the Producer Price Index and the Consumer Price Index for June, will be released this week, along with the minutes of the Fed's most recent policy-setting meeting. Economists polled by Reuters expect that the PPI and the CPI rose in June, in the overall figures and the core indexes, excluding food and energy.

Wall Street will watch the PPI and CPI reports for signs of whether the pace of inflation is picking up, and comb through the Fed's minutes for clues on when the central bank might take a break from raising interest rates.

The violence in the Middle East, though, will keep Wall Street on edge.

"The real concern is not so much Israel going to Lebanon, but it's whether Israel is going to threaten Syria," said Steve Goldman, a market strategist at Weeden & Co. in Greenwich, Connecticut.

"With Iran's backing of Syria, that would bring up a whole new issue. It's this lingering concern, which makes it tougher for stocks to rebound at this juncture."

Last week, Israel launched a military assault against targets in Lebanon after two of its soldiers were seized and eight killed.

The assault drove the price of crude oil up on Friday to a record $78.40 a barrel in electronic trading, fueling concerns that U.S. consumers may cut spending as their gasoline bills soar.

For the past week, the Dow Jones industrial average (DJI) dropped 3.1 percent, while the S&P 500 index (SPX) shed 2.3 percent, while the Nasdaq (IXIC) lost 4.4 percent.

HOPING FOR A Ceasefire
Analysts said if there were any signs over the weekend that the Middle East tensions might ease, then earnings will take center stage in the week ahead. That could give the market a catalyst to crawl back up out of its slump.

"The geopolitical risks are a stiff headwind," said Joseph Quinlan, chief market strategist at Banc of America Capital Management in New York.

"Over the weekend," he said, "we do need to see a ceasefire ... Hopefully the G8 can craft some kind of deal that lowers the temperature," he added, referring to the Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations, which meets through Monday in St. Petersburg, Russia.

But "if things continue to boil, oil prices could break through $80 a barrel, and that would weigh on the stock market early on Monday.

How did the current crisis start?

The Hezbollah raid into Israel, in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two were captured, was a stunning and provocative attack.

Some have argued that Hezbollah wanted to test new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is an unknown quantity as far as military crises go.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah has said that the soldiers were captured to pressure Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails.

The raid is clearly a gesture of solidarity towards the Palestinian militants in Gaza who have been holding an Israeli soldier since 25 June.

Hezbollah may also have had an eye on its own situation in Lebanon where there has been increasing pressure for it to disarm.

How has Israel reacted?

The result of the raid is that Israel is fighting on two fronts. Israeli officials have cast the Hezbollah raid as an act of war and responded with air strikes, shelling and a sea blockade, threatening operations that will "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years".

The aim seems to be, as in Gaza, to build up massive pressure on the Lebanese government and the Lebanese population. Civilian casualties in Lebanon have been high and the damage to civilian infrastructure wide-ranging.

The Israeli strikes on targets other that Hezbollah installations are at least in part punitive - power installations, roads and the international airport have been hit.

This has drawn some international criticism and calls for restraint, but Israel is unlikely to care too much about the criticism while Israelis are being killed by Hezbollah rocket fire into Israel.

What can the Lebanese government do about the situation?

Ordinary Lebanese may well be the main victims. The country is dealing with an Israeli land invasion for the first time since 2000, when Israel ended a 22-year occupation of the south.

Israel has made it absolutely clear that it holds the Lebanese government responsible for the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah.

Many analysts see this as unfair.

Even though Hezbollah is operating from Lebanese territory and the militant group has two ministers in the Lebanese government, central government is almost powerless to influence the militant group.

It is the Hezbollah militia that is deployed in southern Lebanon, not the Lebanese army.

The group is also very popular in Lebanon and highly respected for its political activities, social services and its military record against Israel.

Most Lebanese may believe that Hezbollah's capture of the two Israeli soldiers is deeply irresponsible. There is anger that the country is again being pitched towards war, but this is unlikely to translate into widespread anger towards Hezbollah.

Is there any way out of this crisis?

Israeli officials have insisted that there will be no direct negotiation with Hezbollah or Hamas over the return of its soldiers, and no Palestinian prisoner releases.

In the past, Israel has negotiated with Hezbollah and released hundreds of prisoners, but Israeli officials are now talking about a changed situation and new rules.

In both Gaza and Lebanon, the Israeli military appears to be taking advantage of the crisis to damage Hezbollah and Hamas as military organisations.

All sides are for now taking hardline positions, but it's difficult to see how the Israelis are going to get their soldiers back without some kind of ceasefire followed by negotiations that will almost certainly involve prisoner releases.

Will the conflict spread?

We're not yet at the stage of a regional conflict.

Much will depend on whether Israel extends its military operations to take in Syria and Iran, Hezbollah's sponsors and supporters. Officials have already laid much of the blame for the escalating crisis on Damascus and Tehran.

Iran and Syria are also the states that can influence Hezbollah more than anyone else.

Inevitably the role of the US, in restraining Israel and pushing the various parties towards some kind of ceasefire may at some later date be crucial.

Washington's stance in its "war on terror" may mean that its contacts with Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah, and its ability to influence them, may be limited.

The first signs of an international diplomatic intervention emerged when the UN's Kofi Annan and British PM Tony Blair called for the deployment of an international force in Lebanon.

But this may be some way off, if it gets off the ground at all.

Meanwhile, questions surrounding the disarmament of Hezbollah, as demanded by the UN Security Council, have been pushed way into the background for now. As are Mr Olmert's big plans for disengaging from parts of the West Bank.

It now has an important presence in the Lebanese parliament and has built broad support by providing social services and health care. It also has an influential TV station, al-Manar.

But, it still has a militia that refuses to demilitarise, despite UN resolution 1559, passed in 2004, which called for the disarming of militias as well as the withdrawal of foreign (i.e about 14,000 Syrian) forces from Lebanon.

As long ago as 2000, after Israel's withdrawal, Hezbollah was under pressure to integrate its forces into the Lebanese army and focus on its political and social operations.

But, while it capitalised on its political gains, it continued to describe itself as a force of resistance not only for Lebanon, but for the region.

Syria

The Islamic Resistance is still active on the Israel-Lebanon border. Tension is focused on an area known as the Shebaa Farms, although clashes with Israeli troops occur elsewhere.

Hezbollah, with broad Lebanese political support, says the Shebaa Farms area is occupied Lebanese territory - but Israel, backed by the UN, says the farms are on the Syrian side of the border and so are part of the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since 1967.

Another casus belli cited by Hezbollah is the continued detention of prisoners from Lebanon in Israeli jails.
The movement long operated with neighbouring Syria's blessing, protecting its interests in Lebanon and serving as a card for Damascus to play in its own confrontation with Israel over the occupation of the Golan Heights.

But the withdrawal of Syrian troops in Lebanon last year - following huge anti-Syrian protests in the wake of Lebanese ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination - changed the balance of power.

Hezbollah became the most powerful military force in Lebanon in its own right and increased its political clout, gaining a seat in the Lebanese cabinet.

Analysts say Hezbollah has adopted a cautious policy since the Hariri assassination crisis erupted on 14 February 2005 - an event widely blamed on Syria, but which Damascus has vigorously denied.

Hezbollah leaders have continued to profess its support for Syria, while not criticising the Lebanese opposition. They have also stressed Lebanese unity by arguing against "Western interference" in the country.

Starting out

Hezbollah was conceived in 1982 by a group of Muslim clerics after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

It was close to a contingent of some 2,000 Iranian Revolutionary guards, based in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, which had been sent to the country to aid the resistance against Israel.
Hezbollah was formed primarily to offer resistance to the Israeli occupation.

It also dreamed of transforming Lebanon's multi-confessional state into an Iranian-style Islamic state, although this idea was later abandoned in favour of a more inclusive approach that has survived to this day.

The party's rhetoric calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. It regards the whole of Palestine as occupied Muslim land and it argues that Israel has no right to exist.

The party was long supported by Iran, which provided it with arms and money.

Passionate and demanding

Hezbollah also adopted the tactic of taking Western hostages, through a number of freelance hostage taking cells.

In 1983, militants who went on to join Hezbollah ranks carried out a suicide bombing attack that killed 241 US marines in Beirut.

Hezbollah has always sought to further an Islamic way of life. In the early days, its leaders imposed strict codes of Islamic behaviour on towns and villages in the south of the country - a move that was not universally popular with the region's citizens.

But the party emphasises that its Islamic vision should not be interpreted as an intention to impose an Islamic society on the Lebanese.

During the Synod debate the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, told participants that bishops had a special leadership role in the Church, and that just because it had women priests, it did not mean that women bishops were legitimate, the BBC reported. In the end the vote was 288 in favor of women bishops and 119 against.

The vote in favor of women bishops came shortly after data revealed the increasing presence of women clergy. Fourteen years after the go-ahead for women priests in the U.K., 283 women were recommended for the seminary last year, compared with 295 men, reported the London-based Times newspaper, June 24.

The experience of the Anglican Church in Britain was recently analyzed by Hilary De Lyon, chief executive of the Royal College of General Practitioners. She contributed a chapter to the study "Production Values: futures for professionalism," published June 22 by the U.K. think-tank Demos.

The first women deacons were ordained in 1987, and women were permitted to enter the full priesthood in 1994, explained De Lyon. Although it has been only 12 years since women were first ordained, they already make up over 20% of clergy, and hold 50% of the unpaid posts held by priests. In addition, they hold only one in six of the paid posts and one in five of the chaplaincy posts.

Two-tier church

The latest vote comes after a long period of tensions in the Anglican church. Shortly before the Synod meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that all the national churches would be asked to sign a covenant declaring they believed in the basic biblical tenets of Anglican doctrine, reported the Times newspaper, June 28.

Williams threatened that those who refuse to sign the declaration would be excluded from full membership of the Church and would instead become "associates." The proposal will be discussed by the Anglicans at the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

Anglican disunity is not the only threat; ecumenical relations are also in doubt. Before last weekend's vote Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, warned that allowing women to be ordained bishops would further complicate attempts to achieve unity.

In comments reported by the Times, June 7, the cardinal said that as it was, the ordination of women as priests had led to a "cooling off" in the relations between the two churches. The advent of women bishops would cause a "serious and long-lasting chill." He also warned that: "Without identity, no society, least of all a church, can continue to survive."

American divisions

On the other side of the Atlantic, the American branch of the Anglican Church, the Episcopalians, continues to be riven by disputes. In May, Episcopalians in San Francisco did avoid electing a homosexual as local bishop, reported the Washington Post, May 7. Instead they chose Mark Handley Andrus, currently the bishop suffragan from the diocese of Alabama.
Andrus ran against six other candidates, three of whom live openly with same-sex partners, according to the Post article.

But the following month controversy arose over the election by the Episcopal General Convention of Nevada bishop, Jefferts Schori, as its leader in America. She is the first woman to head a national grouping of the Anglican Communion, reported the Washington Post, June 19.

Her election immediately raised concerns. Schori had backed the election of a declared homosexual, V. Gene Robertson, as a bishop in 2003. Before this, no openly homosexual bishop had ever been consecrated in the history of the Anglican Church. Moreover, the same meeting of American Episcopalians that elected Schori refused to impose a moratorium on the election of additional homosexual bishops, reported Reuters, June 20.

Reacting to the election of Schori, the Bishop of Rochester, England, Michael Nazir-Ali, said that divisions between liberals and conservatives were so profound that a compromise was no longer possible. His comments came in an interview published June 19 by the British newspaper, the Telegraph.

"Anglicans are used to fudging things sometimes, but I think this is a matter of such seriousness that fudge won't do," said Bishop Nazir-Ali.

Nigeria's Anglican bishops had even stronger words, saying that the U.S. branch is "a cancerous lump" that should be "excised," reported the BBC on July 4.

Doubts over where Schori will lead Episcopalians were raised by her statements in the days following the election. In a sermon shortly after her election she referred to "our mother Jesus," reported the Times, June 22.

Then, in an interview published in the July 17 issue of Time magazine, Schori was asked: "What will be your focus as head of the U.S. church?" She replied saying: "Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus."

Meltdown

The sort of priorities outlined by Shori were strongly criticized by Charlotte Allen, Catholicism editor for Beliefnet, in an opinion article published July 9 by the Los Angeles Times. The fragmentation of Anglicanism, she explained, is not just due to doctrinal disputes. "It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity," she said.

Liberal Christianity was hailed as the future of the Christian Church, but Allen observed, all the churches and movements within churches that have "blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating."

"When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members" argued Allen. As recently as 1960 churches such as the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Lutherans accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today the number has plummeted to around 12%.

Allen cited data from the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, showing that in 1965 there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million.

Her comments echoed the thesis of the book, "Exodus: Why Americans are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity," (Sentinel) published last year. According to author Dave Shiflett, Americans are leaving liberal denominations for churches that preach strict moral norms and uphold traditional beliefs.

Liberal theologians and bishops get plenty of media coverage, observes Shiflett. But the average churchgoer wants to attend a church where they can get something not obtainable elsewhere, which doesn't include trendy opinions on current topics. "They want the Good News, not the minister's political views or intellectual coaching."

Shiflett explained that data from the Glenmary Research Center on church membership showed that conservative congregations are growing fastest. This includes the Southern Baptist Convention, up 5% in the decade 1990-2000; and Pentecostal groups such as the Assemblies of God, and the Church of God, up 18.5% and 40% respectively, in the same period.

As a general observation, churches that adhere to traditional teaching, offer transcendent truth and demand a high commitment from their members are those that enjoy growth. Following the latest liberal trends, on the other hand, leads to decline. Something for all Christians to consider.

"We need to have the militancy that says 'We're not going to lose a city,' " Gingrich said. He talks about the need to recognize World War III as important for military strategy and political strategy.

Gingrich said in the coming days he plans to speak out publicly, and to the Administration, about the need to recognize that America is in World War III.

He lists wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, this week's bomb attacks in India, North Korean nuclear threats, terrorist arrests and investigations in Florida, Canada and Britain, and violence in Israel and Lebanon as evidence of World War III. He said Bush needs to deliver a speech to Congress and "connect all the dots" for Americans.

He said the reluctance to put those pieces together and see one global conflict is hurting America's interests. He said people, including some in the Bush Administration, who urge a restrained response from Israel are wrong "because they haven't crossed the bridge of realizing this is a war."

"This is World War III," Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away:
"Israel wouldn't leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts."

There is a public relations value, too. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language" of World War III. The message then, he said, is "'OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?"

The United States asked Merkel to speak to Israeli officials and she told them Lebanon was in a fragile state and should not be destabilised, the magazine said, in a preview of its latest weekly edition.

Merkel's office and the foreign ministry were not immediately available for comment. Merkel hosted U.S. President George W. Bush during a visit to Germany on Thursday.

The German government said Merkel spoke with Jordan's King Abdullah on Saturday afternoon from St. Petersburg, where she is attending a Group of Eight summit.

"The German chancellor and the foreign minister, along with their counterparts from other EU countries, are having numerous conversations, including with representatives of Israel and the Arab countries," the statement said.

"The conversations are aimed at contributing to a de-escalation of the situation and stabilising the Lebanese government," it said.

Germany has acted as a mediator between Israel and Lebanon-based guerrilla group Hizbollah in the past.

Steinmeier said in a statement he had spoken by telephone with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora on Saturday and the two had agreed that all efforts must be directed towards an easing of the situation.

Steinmeier said he had been in intensive talks in recent days with officials in the region, including the foreign ministers of Israel, Egypt and Syria.

Israel launched an offensive against Lebanon after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight on Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in St Petersburg)

A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

Prof Kotlikoff said that, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt. "To paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary, is the United States at the end of its resources, exhausted, stripped bare, destitute, bereft, wanting in property, or wrecked in consequence of failure to pay its creditors," he asked.

According to his central analysis, "the US government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors, who, in this context, are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds".

The budget deficit in the US is not massive. The Bush administration this week cut its forecasts for the fiscal shortfall this year by almost a third, saying it will come in at 2.3pc of gross domestic product. This is smaller than most European countries - including the UK - which have deficits north of 3pc of GDP.

Prof Kotlikoff, who teaches at Boston University, says: "The proper way to consider a country's solvency is to examine the lifetime fiscal burdens facing current and future generations. If these burdens exceed the resources of those generations, get close to doing so, or simply get so high as to preclude their full collection, the country's policy will be unsustainable and can constitute or lead to national bankruptcy.

"Does the United States fit this bill? No one knows for sure, but there are strong reasons to believe the United States may be going broke."

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

Paul Ashworth, of Capital Economics, was more sanguine about the coming retirement of the Baby Boomer generation. "For a start, the expected deterioration in the Federal budget owes more to rising per capita spending on health care than to changing demographics," he said.

"This can be contained if the political will is there. Similarly, the expected increase in social security spending can be controlled by reducing the growth rate of benefits. Expecting a fix now is probably asking too much of short-sighted politicians who have no incentives to do so. But a fix, or at least a succession of patches, will come when the problem becomes more pressing."

The US has been supporting Lebanon's independence and leading calls for an end to Syria's interference in the country.

Yes, America is concerned that Hezbollah is still a political force in the country and represented in the government.

It has called on Lebanon take steps to disarm Hezbollah.

But America wants to strengthen - not weaken - Lebanon as an independent state.

When Israel targets Lebanon, it undermines those efforts and increases the sectarian divide in a country that is trying to emerge from decades of civil war.

Deliberate provocation?

Then there are the broader regional issues.

The US fears that this is a deliberate attempt by Tehran and Damascus to provoke Israel and divide international opinion.

Is this also an attempt to divert attention from Syria's interference in Lebanon and the controversy over Iran's nuclear programme?
Is it an effort by those countries to further feed Muslim anger against America?

Will there be repercussions for America's presence in Iraq? The alarm bells have already sounded.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned that any Israeli attack on Syria would provoke a fierce response.

This has the potential to spark a wider conflict in the whole region.

Limited options

So what can the United States do? It can hardly condemn Israel for its response to an act of "terrorism".
At best President Bush can urge restraint. The question is how much pressure does the US place on Israel.
In public, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has already stepped up that pressure.

Speaking on her way to the G8 summit, she said it was "extremely important" that Israel exercised restraint in its acts of self-defence. In private those messages will be put more forcefully.

America hopes that restraint by Israel can avoid a split in the international community. The US does not want to be the only country left defending Israel's actions. Washington wants to turn international condemnation towards Hezbollah, Syria and Iran instead.

But it is very hard to see how the US can turn the current crises in Lebanon to its advantage.

"The Zionists and their protectors are the most detested people in all of humanity, and the hatred is increasing every day," the president was quoted as saying by Iranian state television.
"The worse their crimes, the quicker they will fall," added Ahmadinejad, who has already called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map" and relocated as far away as Alaska.
Israel, the president asserted in his latest attack, "has blackened the pages of history".
The official news agency IRNA reported earlier that Larijani, during a flying visit to close ally Syria on Wednesday, had declared "the Islamic republic's decisive support for the Palestinian and the Lebanese resistance against Israel."
The report said Larijani had met "Palestinian movement leaders who are against the peace process", including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command (PFLP-GC).
The visit came as Israel launched offensives against both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip over the killing and capture of Israeli soldiers by militants.

And by understanding embryo developmental processes better, a host of other diseases might be treated using stem cells, they say.

The study is published in the journal Developmental Cell.

Growing sperm

The experiment was carried out using mice and produced seven babies, six of which lived to adulthood.

However, the mice showed abnormal patterns of growth, and other problems, such as difficulty breathing.

As well as the safety concerns, using stem cells from embryos to create sperm also raises ethical questions.

"For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm" said Professor Karim Nayernia

Stem cells are special because they have the potential to develop into any tissue in the body.

Professor Karim Nayernia and colleagues at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, took stem cells from a mouse embryo that was only a few days old and grew these cells in the laboratory.

Using a specialised sorting instrument they were able to isolate some stem cells that had begun to develop as sperm.

They encouraged these early-stage sperm cells, known as spermatogonial stem cells, to grow into adult sperm cells and then injected some of these into female mouse eggs.

The fertilised eggs grew and were successfully transplanted into female mice and produced seven babies.

Professor Nayernia, who now works at Newcastle University in the UK, said: "For the first time we have created life using artificial sperm. This will help us to understand how men produce sperm and why some men are unable to do this.

Restoring fertility

"If we understand this we can treat infertility in men."

In the future, men with fertility problems might be able to have their own stem cells harvested using a simple testicular biopsy, matured in the lab and then transplanted back.

It is estimated that one in seven UK couples have difficulty conceiving - about 3.5 million people. In about a third of all couples having IVF, male fertility is a contributory factor.

About 1% of all men don't produce sperm and a further 3-4% of men have a low sperm count that could lead to infertility.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield and honorary secretary of the British Fertility Society, said: "To be able to make functional sperm under controlled conditions in the laboratory will be very useful to study the basic biology of sperm production.

"There are currently many things we don't know about how sperm are formed let alone why it sometimes goes wrong and leads to infertility in some men."

But he added: "It is more difficult to say whether artificial sperm produced this way could ultimately be used as a new treatment for male infertility. There are many technical, ethical and safety issues to be confronted before this could even be considered."

Ethical and safety issues

Professor Harry Moore, professor of reproductive biology at the University of Sheffield, said: "These processes in the test-tube are far from perfect as the mice that were born by this process were abnormal.

"We therefore have to be very cautious about using such techniques in therapies to treat men or women who are infertile due to a lack of germ stem cells until all safety aspects are resolved. This may take many years."

Anna Smajdor, a researcher in medical ethics at Imperial College London, said: "The creation of viable sperm outside the body is a hugely significant breakthrough and offers great potential for stem cell research and fertility treatments.

"However, sperm and eggs play a unique role in our understanding of kinship and parenthood, and being able to create these cells in the laboratory will pose a serious conceptual challenge for our society."

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, agreed.

She said the use of adult stem cells from sources such as umbilical cord blood had consistently produced more promising results than the use of embryonic stem cells.

Professor John Burn, professor of clinical genetics at Newcastle University, believes stem cells will be a treatment for all types of diseases.

"The same approach could ultimately allow us to control the development of liver cells, heart cells or brain cells... and make treatments for virtually any tissue that is damaged or diseased."

Mr Reid also said that he intended to continue to impose control orders on terror suspects, despite two high court rulings that they breached human rights laws. The Home Office confirmed last night that a further order had been imposed since Mr Justice Sullivan's ruling that they amounted to "an affront to justice", bringing the total in force to 15 - six on British nationals.

The home secretary is battling against both rulings in the court of appeal.
The public system of five different threat levels, ranging from "normal" to "critical" will be introduced next month in response to criticisms that the existing secretive, but widely leaked, system is complicated and misinterpreted. However, the intelligence which led to the threat assessments will remain secret, as will the measures the police and security services take in response to intelligence.

The assessments will be made on the "best judgment" of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (Jtac), based at MI5's headquarters. Senior Whitehall officials said yesterday that an attack may come without warning, as it did on July 7 last year when there was no intelligence.

The officials said the threat levels applied in general terms to the whole country, and not to an immediate threat to a specific target. Controversy over the existing system erupted when it emerged that Jtac had lowered the threat level a month before the July 7 suicide bombings. It then raised the threat level to "critical", the highest. It was about to downgrade the threat on the morning of the failed attacks of July 21.

It is now at "severe (general)", indicating that an attack is a "priority for the terrorists and is likely to be mounted".

As Mr Reid was publishing a detailed counter-terrorism strategy in the Commons, Tony Blair was preparing to meet the Algerian president today to secure a "no torture" agreement so that Algerian terror suspects in Britain - the majority of the 27 held pending deportation - can be sent back.

Whitehall officials have given up hope that they will be able to secure a formal "memorandum of understanding" with Algeria. Instead the Foreign Office is hopeful that a "deportation with assurances" deal will be struck alongside a separate extradition agreement.

The Home Office disclosed yesterday that a third element of Mr Blair's 12-point action plan has also fallen by the wayside. After consultations the prime minister has given up his attempt to impose a maximum time limit on extradition cases involving terrorism. He has already dropped his plan to close mosques which are used to foment extremism.

Iran has the second largest reserves of crude oil on the planet. Iran is the second largest oil exporter in OPEC and the fourth largest in the world, shipping more oil than Venezuela, Nigeria or Mexico. Iran's territory nearly surrounds the all-important Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly all Persian Gulf oil must pass.

At the same time, Iran is the country now threatening to choke off the vital supply of energy to the West, using its oil as the ultimate economic weapon of mass destruction. If Iran's threats were vague or coming strictly from low-level officials, Bush, Blair, Putin & Company might not have to pay too much attention. But the threats are coming unambiguously from Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, leaving the G8 leaders in a collective state of shock. Just last month, Khamenei proclaimed that any Western attempt to punish Tehran over its nuclear program would jeopardize energy shipments. And he directly implied that Iran would seek to choke off the massive amounts of oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Indeed, according to our resident arms specialist, John Burke, Iran can deploy helicopters, dedicated mine layers and Russian-built Kilo-class submarines. It can launch its large fleet of fast-attack "swarm boats." It can deploy its vast array of sea, air and land-launched missiles targeting commercial and military ships that must pass through the Strait.

This is critical. The Persian Gulf is responsible for 32% of the world's oil production capacity ... 45% of the world's natural gas ... and 57% of the world's oil reserves.

Problem: Almost all of this oil and gas passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Only a very small percentage leaves the region through alternate routes, such as the East-West oil pipeline across Saudi Arabia. So just as soon as the West threatens Iran with sanctions, Iran can threaten the Strait of Hormuz, cut off up to one-third of the world's energy supply, and drive prices into the stratosphere.

If Ayatollah Khamenei were just a religious figurehead, the threat might be pooh-poohed.
But nothing could be further from the truth. In the surreal world of Iranian politics, Khamenei can ? and does ? overrule Iranian energy ministers, Iranian Parliament, Iranian courts and even the increasingly powerful Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His word is final.

If Iran had a history of empty threats and false alarms, the Western powers might also be somewhat less alarmed. But alas, that, too, is contrary to the facts. Over a quarter-century ago, the Shiite revolutionaries of Iran threatened to keep 55 U.S. diplomats hostage, and they did. They threatened to drive world oil prices to the stratosphere, and they did. They said they would create turmoil for the economies of the West, and they did.

Most alarming of all ...

If the threat from Iran were purely about oil, a measured counter-threat from the West might be adequate.

But, unfortunately, that is also not the case. Along with its threat to cut off oil supplies, Iran is also plowing full speed ahead with its master plan to become a nuclear power. And unlike Saddam's Iraq, where no weapons of mass destruction were ever found, the evidence is overwhelming that today's Iran is second only to North Korea in the rogue development of nuclear technology.

Iran is also The World's Largest and Most Blatant Sponsor of International Terrorism

Many still think al Qaeda is the biggest threat to America's interests. But as I've been warning for months, you're now starting to hear more about Shiite militias, especially those operating in Iraq. Just yesterday, these militias rampaged through Baghdad, spreading terror, dragging Sunnis from their homes, killing at least 40, and plunging Iraq deeper into violent civil war. What is the primary source of their financing and training? Iran! And most prominent among the Iranian organizations behind the Iraqi militias is an international organization called "al Quds."

Unlike al Qaeda, al Quds is not a nationless, renegade band. It's a highly organized strike force operating under the leadership of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. And unlike al Qaeda, al Quds doesn't have to beg for refuge or financing. It gets all the protection it needs on Iranian soil ... and all its funding from the Iranian treasury, which, in turn, is liberally lubricated with oil money. Moreover, al Quds (meaning "Jerusalem") is not an upstart. For about two decades, al Quds has been operating in Lebanon, providing military guidance and support for terrorist attacks against Israel, especially those carried out by Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist organizations.
For many years, al Quds has also been operating as an elite international hit squad, responsible for political assassination in Europe and the Middle East.

Al Quds is joined at the hip with one of the most powerful Shiite militias currently operating in Iraq ? the Badr Brigade. And, most disturbing of all, a person who has played a prominent leadership role in the founding and training of both al Quds and the Badr Brigade is none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now the president of Iran. Now do you see why Iran has emerged as a far more urgent concern to the G8 heads of state than the U.S. trade deficit, the Chinese budget surplus or the sinking dollar?
And now do you see how important it is for you to pay attention to this rapidly deteriorating situation?

How the Next Few Days Could Seal the Fate of Your Money for Years to Come

Right now, sitting on the desks of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmadinejad is an offer to end Iran's nuclear research program. This is the offer submitted to Iran last month by Germany and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council ? the U.S., U.K., France, China and Russia. So far, the only answers these countries have gotten from Iran is defiance or silence. But just two days from now, Wednesday, July 12th, Iran must respond or risk retaliation by the West. That's the deadline imposed by the U.S. and its allies. What will Iran do? No one can say for sure. But we do know what they say they'll do: They've vowed to ignore the July 12th deadline, providing no official response until August.

That leaves only two scenarios:
Scenario #1. The U.S. and its allies move promptly to retaliate against Iran. Result: Oil traders, fearing Iran will soon start choking off oil shipments, rush to buy oil before supplies dry up.

Scenario #2. The U.S. and its allies let the July 12th deadline pass with no action. Result: The entire world is given a spectacle of Iran's growing muscle and the West's fading prowess. Oil traders, fearing an emboldened Iran and still more trouble ahead, rush to secure oil supplies just the same.

In either scenario, oil prices are likely to surge, despite temporary setbacks. And in either scenario, you must be prepared. Oil Is Already Rising In Anticipation of What's to Come ...Although international investors still underestimate the potential magnitude of this crisis, they aren't entirely oblivious to the dangers.

That's why the price of oil shot up to $75.78 on Friday, an all-time high. That's why oil is widely expected to smash through the $80 mark very soon. And it's also why we've been urging you to allocate a portion of your funds to investments that are tied to oil ... and to assets that tend to move in tandem with oil, such as precious metals.

Two vehicles to consider:
Vehicle #1. Exchange-traded funds: Like traditional mutual funds, ETFs own shares in multiple companies, especially individual sectors or regions. Plus, there are now ETFs based on commodities ? gold and silver. A key advantage: Unlike most mutual funds, ETFs trade just like individual stocks listed on the exchanges. So you can buy and sell them throughout the trading day. You don't have to wait until for close.

Vehicle #2. Small-cap stocks: These offer some of the advantages of options without one of the key disadvantages: As with the purchase of options, there's no risk or obligation beyond your initial investment in these shares (plus any commissions you pay your broker, of course). And unlike options, there's no expiration date. Provided the company remains solvent, you can hold them as long as you want, and no one can place a time limit on the opportunity.

The leverage can be huge, including the potential to transform a modest investment of $6,000 into over $51,000.(That report was posted to our website on Saturday. So now there's only one day left for the opportunity he's talking about.)

Meanwhile, be sure to ... Avoid investments vulnerable to higher energy costs, accelerating inflation and rising interest rates. That includes long-term bonds, banks and virtually all housing-related industries. Make safety your first priority! That means keeping most of your money in investments that protect your capital in almost any market environment.
My favorites: Short-term U.S. Treasury securities or Treasury-only money market funds.

Good luck and God bless!
Martin Weiss, Ph.D.

World War III has begun. It's not perfectly clear when it started. Perhaps it was after the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Perhaps it was the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993.

What is clear is that this war has a long fuse and, while we are not in the full-scale combat phase that marked World Wars I and II, we seem to be heading there. The expanding hostilities mean it's time to give this conflict a name, one that focuses the mind and clarifies the big picture.

The war on terror, or the war of terror, has tentacles that reach much of the globe. It is a world war.

While it is often a war of loose or no affiliation, and sometimes just amateur copycats, the similar goals of destruction add up to a threat against modern society. Even the hapless wanna-bes busted in Miami ordered guns and military equipment from a man they thought was from Al Qaeda. Islamic fascists are the driving force, but anti-American hatred is a global membership card for any and all who have a grievance and a gun.

The feeling that the wheels are coming off the world has only one recent comparison, the time when America's head-butt with communism sprouted hot spots from Cuba to Vietnam. Yet ultimately the policy of mutual assured destruction worked because American and Soviet leaders didn't want their countries hit by nuclear bombs.

Such rational thinking is quaint next to the ravings of North Korean nut Kim Jong Il and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They both seem to be dying to die - and set the world on fire.

And don't forget Osama Bin Laden's declaration that it is the duty of every Muslim to acquire a "Muslim bomb." Is there any doubt he would use it if he had it?

I sound pessimistic because I am. Even worse than the problems is the fact that our political system is failing us. Democratic Party leaders want to pretend we can declare peace and everything will be fine, while President Bush is out of ideas. Witness Bush now counseling patience and diplomacy on North Korea. This from a man who scorned both for five years.

But what choice does he have now that the pillars of his post-9/11 foreign policy are crumbling? As Harvard Prof. Joseph Nye argues in Foreign Affairs magazine, Bush's strategy of "reducing Washington's reliance on permanent alliances and international institutions, expanding the traditional right of preemption into a new doctrine of preventive war and advocating coercive democratization as a solution to Middle Eastern terrorism" amounted to a bid for a "legacy of transformation."

The first two ideas have been repealed. The third brought Hamas into power and has so far failed to take root in Iraq or anywhere else.

I believed Iraq was the key, that if we prevailed there, momentum would shift in our favor. Now I'm not sure. We still must prevail there, but Iraq could mean nothing if Iran or Bin Laden get the bomb or North Korea uses one.

Meanwhile, I'm definitely not using any tunnels.

Relations between the economic powers have been soured by trade disputes.

'Chinese wall'

Brussels has accused China of "dumping" cheap leather shoes on the European market and has imposed temporary tariffs on imports.

It is currently examining other cases of possible trade distortion involving items such as plastic bags, with a view to similar action.

As a member of the World Trade Organization and a key player in the global economy, China must respect trade rules, Mr Mandelson said.

This required it to give fair treatment to European firms doing business there and honouring intellectual property laws.

Failure to act by Beijing in this area would only fuel calls for greater protectionism in Europe, Mr Mandelson warned.

"China sometimes talks as if it is at the edge of the WTO system looking in," he said. "But China now is the system."

"Too often Europe's businesses meet a Chinese wall rather than an open door."

Accepting reality

The EU is China's largest trading partner, while China is the EU's second largest trading partner after the United States.

However, the relationship has become increasingly unequal with the EU's trade deficit with China growing to more than 100bn euros (£70bn).

In return for China accepting the responsibilities that come with being a global economic power, Mr Mandelson suggested that Europeans needed to turn down the rhetoric over cheap imports and unfair competition.

He said many European firms now used China as a low-cost manufacturing base to export to the rest of Asia, while complaining about the threat to jobs in their own markets from Chinese goods.

"Europe must accept the Chinese challenge to adapt and compete.

"What do we mean when we say that cheap Chinese exports are threatening European livelihoods?"

Friday's conference - addressing the challenges posed to Europe by China's economic growth - will be attended by Chinese vice minister of commerce YU Guangzhou.