The ICE said efforts had been made to counter terrorism threats. But the potential effects of climate change and system failures were not being taken seriously enough, it added. The ICE took evidence from more than 70 sources, including regulators, agencies and service providers, and concluded that work to improve utility networks was "piecemeal".

It said when the Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Burghfield, Berkshire, flooded in 2007 all its radiation detection alarms were disabled. Chief author of the report, Alan Stilwell, said: "It was only down to luck that the flood waters didn't lead to the spread of radioactive material that could have affected thousands of people and left the area near the factory uninhabitable for centuries." The ICE said in the same year 350,000 people were left without water for 17 days when Mythe water treatment works in Gloucestershire flooded, while the Ulley reservoir near Rotherham came close to breaching and threatened the M1 motorway.

And last year hundreds of thousands of people were hit by electricity blackouts when Sizewell B nuclear reactor in Suffolk and Longannet coal-fired power station in Fife unexpectedly broke down within minutes of each other. Mr Stilwell said: "WE SHOULD BE UNDER NO ILLUSIONS, THERE ARE DANGEROUS WEAKNESSES IN OUR CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE AND UTILITIES NETWORKS THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED. Well-defended critical infrastructure is central to the security and stability of the nation. We must work now to fortify our networks, or pay the economic, social and environmental price in the future."

The al-Shabab group has carried out amputations, floggings and an execution in the port of Kismayo but such punishments are rare in the capital. Al-Shabab and its allies control much of southern Somalia and are battling the UN-backed government. Hundreds of residents attended the hearing in north Mogadishu. Armed al-Shabab militants were on guard, while the accused were chained around their ankles.

The punishments already carried out in Kismayo have shocked many Somalis, who traditionally practise a more tolerant form of Islam. The transitional government says that al-Shabab has links to al-Qaeda and has brought hundreds of foreign fighters to Somalia.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, has declared a state of emergency and has appealed to Somalia's neighbours to send troops to help fight the hardliners.

Violence erupted after protesters claimed the elections were rigged. Iran has also said it is "reviewing" whether to downgrade relations with the UK, as diplomatic tensions increase. The UK has moved to expel two Iranian diplomats in response to Tehran's decision to order two UK diplomats to leave Iran, following allegations UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called "absolutely without foundation".

The British prime minister's spokesman said Downing Street was monitoring the situation. "Iran's decision to try to turn what are clearly internal matters for Iran into a conflict with the UK and others is deeply regrettable and without foundation," he said. Severe reporting restrictions placed on the BBC and other foreign media in Iran mean reports from the country cannot be verified independently.

Amid the restrictions, Western media outlets reported that 25 journalists and other staff at a newspaper owned by Mr Mousavi had been arrested.

The fiscal deficit is expected to rise to 14 per cent of economic output in 2010, compared to an average of 8.75 per cent in the 30 most developed markets, it says in a report. The OECD warned that "public finances have deteriorated sharply" since the beginning of the recession and called on the UK to continue to develop "a strong and credible" framework for reducing the ratio of debt to output.

"To improve stability, the government should continue to develop a concrete and comprehensive plan to ensure that debt is on a declining path once recovery takes hold," the OECD said. The organisation said the state of the UK's balance sheet meant the possibility of extra stimulus to the economy was curtailed. Ireland, the US and Spain are all expected to have fiscal deficits above the average figure next year, the report said.

It also said the UK economy was likely to recover "only mildly" in 2010, with any return to health dependent on an upturn in the housing market and credit availability.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) "reports that LOCUST SWARMS HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED IN SEVEN REGIONS IN THE COUNTRY, including in areas where there is no previous record of infestation," a statement said. "The government is expected to present a response plan specifying immediate and medium-term actions to be taken during the week," OCHA said.

It added that 1,390 hectares of land in several regions, mainly in southeastern Ethiopia had been sprayed in ground and air operations. The vast majority of Ethiopia's 77 million inhabitants depend on subsistence agriculture and have been badly hit by successive infestations of voracious locusts that destroy every plant in their path.

He replied saying: "We had polls in different European countries and the question was 'would you prefer a national army or a European army?' and the outcome was about two-thirds for a European army. In Germany it's quite clear, WE DON'T WANT THE USE OF HUMANITARIAN FORCE UNILATERALLY, ONLY TOGETHER WITH OUR PARTNERS."

When asked about potential British opposition to such an army, he said "We have to have respect for this, it's quite clear. But the United Kingdom, it's a pity but it's the truth, has never been in the lead of European integration. GERMANY HAS TO BE IN THE LEAD OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION... the general direction is undisputed in Germany... No major party has ever tried to get support by a eurosceptic general direction."

A new book, compiled by Stanley Feldman, a professor of anaesthetics at London University, and Vincent Marks, a former professor of clinical biochemistry and dean of medicine at the University of Surrey, are questioning the end of the world and healthy eating tips. Writing in The Daily Mail, the pair discuss "Global Warming And Other --------: The Truth About All Those Science Scare Stories", where they examine the "facts" behind global warming, the future of polar bears and chef Jamie Oliver's nemesis, Turkey Twizzlers.

THE SUN IS BEHIND GLOBAL WARMING. Rather than man-made CO2 being responsible for global warming, they argue that there is evidence it is caused in part by the increase in the intensity of the Sun's heat.

CO2 LEVELS - Although the level of CO2 is higher today (0.038 per cent of the atmosphere) than the "pre-industrial" level (0.02 per cent), carbon dioxide levels have often been as much as 10 times higher than they are today.

POLAR BEARS AND PENGUINS ARE NOT DYING OUT - Most populations of polar bear are doing well. Despite the melting in the Arctic ice cap, numbers have more than doubled since 1950. They are also good swimmers. Although some Antarctic penguin colonies are decreasing in size, their numbers are also steady.

THE GULF STREAM IS NOT UNDER THREAT - The Gulf Stream is as strong as ever, and getting warmer. There is no evidence to suggest the Arctic ice melting is pushing it further south.

THE MALDIVES ARE NOT SINKING - Maldives property owners are so confident the sea is receding, they are building a number of upmarket seafront hotels. Tuvalu in the Pacific, often seen as being most at risk of flooding, has actually seen a fall in sea levels.

GLOBAL WARMING MIGHT BE GOOD FOR US - Warmer climate and an increase in CO2 could be good for farming and agriculture. Less severe winters will also allow more crops to be grown.

TURKEY TWIZZLERS ARE FINE - It is made of recovered turkey meat and provides the same amino acids as normal turkey breast.

THERE IS NO NEED TO CUT BACK ON SALT - Salt is an essential food. We need salt to control our body temperature through sweating. Exercise in a person with low salt can cause overheating, and in extreme cases, death.

WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT CAUSES HEART DISEASE - Many people with high cholesterol do not get heart disease. Many people with very low levels do. It may have more to do with cultural variations. Indeed, populations with a diet high in saturated fat, such as the Inuit or Siberian hunter-gatherers, have some of the lowest cholesterol.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered additional protection for Hawaii as a precaution, though experts say North Korea doesn't yet have a ballistic missile that can reach Hawaii and has not mastered mounting a nuclear bomb on a long-range missile.

Still, North Korea declared itself a "proud nuclear power" and warned it will strike if provoked. "IT WOULD BE A GRAVE MISTAKE FOR THE US TO THINK IT CAN REMAIN UNHURT IF IT IGNITES THE FUSE OF WAR ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA," the country's main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a commentary. The US, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has said it has no such intentions.

Obama assured Americans that "this administration, and our military, is fully prepared for any contingencies." His interview with CBS News' "The Early Show" was taped Friday for broadcast Monday. "I don't want to speculate on hypotheticals," Obama told CBS. "But I want... to give assurances to the American people that the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted in terms of what might happen."

Security forces were deployed in the capital to prevent further demonstrations after hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in more than a week of rallies. At least 17 people have been killed in the worst internal violence in the oil-producing nation of 66 million since the shah was overthrown in 1979.

Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main challenger in the disputed June 12 election won by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, urged his supporters to continue peaceful protests. Another of the three defeated presidential candidates, former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, yesterday called for a ceremony June 25 in memory of those killed in the protests.

The Revolutionary Guards, who answer directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and act as a counterweight to the Iranian army, warned the protesters to halt their activity.

Mexico issued a hurricane warning for the Pacific coast from just south of Manzanillo north to near Puerto Vallarta. To the south, officials in Acapulco prepared 120 shelters and warned residents to stay indoors, especially some 15,000 people in zones most at risk for flooding. Heavy rains late Sunday knocked down a few trees in the resort city. Forecasters said Andres was likely to brush the coast at hurricane strength around the port city of Manzanillo on Tuesday. Forecast models showed its center later pushing up the coast near towns such as Barra de Navidad that are home to some American and Canadian expatriates.

At Barra de Navidad, northwest of Manzanillo, Agapito Garcia Martinez, security manager at the Grand Bay Hotel-Isla Navidad Resort, said Monday that hotel staff were preparing, like taking in beach furniture and protecting hotel windows, but had not yet been advised by authorities to do so.

Late Sunday, ANDRES BECAME THE FIRST NAMED STORM OF THE EASTERN PACIFIC HURRICANE SEASON, which began May 15 and ends November 30 and is typically busiest between July and September. The US National Hurricane Center said Andres was centered about 125 miles (200 kilometers) south-southeast of Manzanillo at 2 am PDT (5 am EDT; 0900 GMT) Tuesday, and it had sustained winds near 70 mph (110 kph), with higher gusts.

Only about two years ago, scientists began to seriously suspect pets were transmitting the bacteria. In the July edition of THE LANCET INFECTIOUS DISEASES, Richard Oehler of the University of South Florida College of Medicine and colleagues lay out the latest thinking on MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and pets. THE INFECTIONS CAN BE TRANSMITTED BY ANIMAL BITES and most threaten young children, the researchers note.

"As community-acquired strains of MRSA increase in prevalence, a growing body of clinical evidence has documented MRSA colonization in domestic animals, often implying direct acquisition of S aureus infection from their human owners," they write. "MRSA colonization has been documented in companion animals such as horses, dogs, and cats, and these animals have been viewed as potential reservoirs of infection." Dog and cat bites make up about 1 percent of emergency room visits in the United States.

Severe infections can occur in about 20 percent of all cases, the researchers state, and are caused by Pasteurella, Streptococcus, Fusobacterium, and Capnocytophaga bacteria from the animal's mouth, plus possibly other pathogens from the human's skin. "Proper treatment of dog and cat bites should involve treatment of the immediate injury (whether superficial or deep) and then management of the risk of acute infection, including washing with high pressure saline if possible, and antibiotics in selected cases," the researchers suggest.

TEENAGERS RATED FAMILY, FRIENDS, MONEY, MUSIC AND EVEN REALITY TV SHOWS ABOVE FAITH. Other statistics which emerged from the report included: 59 per cent of children believed religion has had a negative influence on the world. 60 per cent only go to church for a wedding or christening. Only 30 per cent of teenagers think there is an afterlife… while 10 per cent believe in reincarnation. 47 per cent said organised religion had no place in the world. 60 per cent don't believe Religious Studies should be compulsory in schools. However, 91 per cent agreed they should treat others the way they wished to be treated themselves. It also revealed the south-east was the region with the least faith as only 28 per cent of those surveyed believed in God.

A Church of England spokesman said: 'Many teenagers aren't sure what they believe at that stage of their lives, as is clear from the number who said they don't know whether they believe in God. Also significant, and reassuring for those who are worried about children's values, is that 91 per cent think they should treat others as they wish to be treated.'

The survey was carried out to mark Penguin's publication of the controversial novel 'Killing God' by Kevin Brooks. Mr Brooks, who is a popular teenage author, said: 'I can't say I am surprised by the teenagers' responses. Part of the reason that I wrote Killing God was that I wanted to explore the personal attitudes of young people today, especially those with troubled lives, towards organised religion and the traditional concept of God. HOW CAN THE MORALITIES OF AN ANCIENT RELIGION RELATE TO THE TRAGEDIES AND DISORDERS OF TODAY'S BROKEN WORLD?'

A pair of more disparate twins hasn't existed since the muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger and the sharp-tongued, diminutive Danny DeVito played twins in the Hollywood movie of that name. One, the Israeli, is tall and thickset and often wears tailored suits. He is a gifted speaker and a militant anti-Iranian. The other, the Iranian, is short and slight and is almost always seen wearing an ordinary-looking beige windbreaker. He tends to be somewhat gauche and is a rabble-rousing populist and a self-declared enemy of Israel. The two men couldn't be more different.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 59, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 52, are twins in spirit, which is not to imply in any way that they are morally equivalent. BOTH MEN ARE CONVINCED OF THE ABSOLUTE VALIDITY OF THEIR BELIEFS, both are obsessed by what they see as their higher calling, and BOTH ARE CONVINCED THAT THEIRS IS A MESSIANIC MISSION - A MISSION TO "HONOR" A RELIGION OR "SAVE" A PEOPLE.

There is every indication that the coming nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran - if, indeed, they begin in the next few months with Ahmadinejad still Iranian president - will end in a stalemate by the end of the year. If that happens, US President Barack Obama will push for tougher sanctions against Tehran in early 2010, with the reluctant support of the Russians and Chinese. The leadership in Tehran will interpret this as an aggressive act and will likely speed up its uranium enrichment, meaning that Iran will only be a few months away from having the capability to build a nuclear bomb.

AT SOME POINT NEXT SPRING, things could have proceeded so far that THE ISRAELIS COULD DECIDE, EVEN WITHOUT WASHINGTON'S APPROVAL, TO LAUNCH ATTACKS AGAINST IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES. The entire Middle East would see thousands of casualties, and the consequences for the global economy would be devastating.

"The British proved this again spectacularly last Friday, by limiting the impact of a historic European agreement strengthening financial control". Vittori argues the BRITISH MUST DECIDE "ONCE AND FOR ALL IF THEY WANT TO BE IN EUROPE OR OUTSIDE IT".

Writing in The Mail on Sunday Peter Hitchens argued that "The time for [euro]scepticism is long past. What is there left to have doubts about? THE THING IS AS BAD AS WE FEARED. THE TIME FOR SECESSION HAS ARRIVED."

Despite promises from the Irish government that they would not force people to vote on exactly the same text a second time around, the deal reached at the EU summit last week makes no change whatsoever to the text of the Treaty, MEANING IRISH VOTERS WILL BE VOTING ON EXACTLY THE SAME TEXT THEY REJECTED LAST YEAR. EU leaders agreed to attach a series of 'declarations' as a protocol to the Treaty after the second Irish referendum and once it is already in force, but the text of the conclusions of the summit notes that: "THE PROTOCOL WILL CLARIFY BUT NOT CHANGE EITHER THE CONTENT OR THE APPLICATION OF THE TREATY OF LISBON."

Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer said: "It is an explanatory clarifying text which changes not a dot nor comma of the Lisbon Treaty." The Irish Times reports that former Green MEP Patricia McKenna said that THE 'GUARANTEES' GIVEN TO IRELAND WERE NOTHING MORE THAN A "LUDICROUS CHARADE" and that the public had been given the false impression of legal certainty when this didn't exist.

According to Saturday's Irish Times, newly elected Socialist MEP Joe Higgins repeated at a press conference that the EU summit was an "elaborate charade" meant to distract attention from the key issues. "The debate on the Lisbon Treaty has yet to be held because we've been dealing with side issues." He said: "The reasons why people voted No to the treaty have not been addressed or rectified, and for that reason, once that message gets across to people, I don't think they are going to change their vote."