The case stems from a 2006 blast from the San Francisco city board that called the Catholic church's teachings "an insult to all San Franciscans" and accused the Vatican of being a "foreign country" that "meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions."

The case is being fought by officials with the Thomas More Law Center, who are arguing that the Supreme Court should take this opportunity "to secure and maintain uniformity of decisions on an important issue of federal law." "The crux of the problem is that this court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence... tends to be hostile toward religion," the petition to the court said. The formal statement from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors attacked the church's belief because it prohibits the adoption of children by homosexuals.

The resolution, adopted March 21, 2006, calls the Vatican a "foreign country" that is meddling in the city's affairs. Further it states that the church's moral teachings are "insulting to all San Franciscans," "hateful," "insulting and callous," "defamatory," "absolutely unacceptable," "insensitive" and "ignorant." The resolution further references the Inquisition and calls on the archbishop of San Francisco and other Catholic officials to defy church teachings and beliefs.

According to the TMLC, Catholic doctrine teaches that allowing children to be adopted by homosexuals would mean doing violence to these children, "in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development." "Such policies are gravely immoral, and Catholic organizations must not place children for adoption in homosexual households," the center explained.

Catholic League spokesman Bill Donohue told WND at the time the comments denouncing church doctrine were "incredible, invective and bigoted comments." "This is beyond belief. It clearly is a hostile environment," he said.

The uprisings that removed Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14 and Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak four weeks later have shown the people are capable of doing it themselves, even when up against huge odds. Scholars and opposition figures, who all opposed the Iraq war, said the uprisings, which have so far sparked street action in Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Iran, also exposed the ulterior motives behind US backing for police states.

"The West must change its mistaken belief that we are not fit for democracy and freedom. Now is the time for Western powers to recognise the desires of the Arab people and to remove their support of their despotic allies," said Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident based in Washington. "Tunisians and Egyptians have proven Western powers and analysts wrong about the Arabs desire for freedom," he said.

Western countries long saw rulers such as Mubarak and Ben Ali as strongmen able to deliver on Western foreign policy needs while cracking down on convenient Islamist threats such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Ennahda party in Tunisia.

"I say to the fighters of the Islamic Resistance: Be ready. If a new war is imposed on Lebanon we may ask you to take Galilee, to free Galilee," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech to mark his Shiite party's martyrs' day. He vowed that the death of Imad Mughnieh, killed in a February 2008 car bombing in Damascus that Iranian-backed Hezbollah has blamed on Israel, would not be forgotten or go unpunished.

"I do not want to go into details. Suffice to say that our decision remains the same and will be executed, God willing, at the right time," he said to thunderous applause from hundreds of his supporters gathered in a stadium. "To the Zionist generals, I say: Anywhere you go in the world, at any time, watch out, for the blood of Imad Mughnieh will not go to waste."

A month-long war between the Shiite militant group and Israel in 2006 destroyed much of Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mainly soldiers. Nasrallah's comments came a day after Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak warned that his army may have to re-enter Lebanon to ensure Hezbollah "remembers" the 2006 war.

Israel's state-funded Channel One television said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a vociferously far-right partner in the conservative coalition, had spoken out of turn as the Defense Ministry "had preferred to ignore" the ships' approach. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel was tracking them and had alerted "friendly nations in the region" accordingly.

Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper described the two Iranian ships as a MK-5 frigate and a supply vessel, which would not present a significant danger to the Jewish state. Still, with Israeli-Iranian tensions long running high, the theoretical possibility of the geographically distant enemies encountering each others' forces in the Mediterranean Sea was enough to send oil prices surging.

Syria is one of Israel's neighboring adversaries. It has an alliance with Iran which has deepened along with Tehran's isolation from the West over its disputed nuclear program, which the Jewish state sees as an existential threat. The vessels will "dock at a Syrian port for a year," a senior Israeli official told Yedioth Ahronoth, adding there was no justification for Iran to put warships into the Mediterranean.

The US space administration NASA confirmed that Monday's solar flare was the largest in four years, and the event sparked predictions of heightened activity on the northern hemisphere of the sun. "X-class flares are the most powerful of all solar events that can trigger radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms," disrupting telecommunications and electric grids, NASA said.

Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X, with each class having a peak 10 times greater than the preceding one. NASA also said the flare caused "sudden ionospheric disturbances" in the atmosphere above China and the CMA warned there was a high probability that large solar flares would appear over the next three days.

In a letter addressed to President Abdulaziz Bouteflika, he said the government was no longer capable of addressing the nation's challenges. Mr Mehri, 84, said that change must come soon. "The voices calling for a peaceful change of this system are many. This change cannot be postponed any longer," he said.

A former leader of the country's ruling FLN party and one of the founders of the Algerian state, Mr Mehri played a pivotal role in Algeria's bloody struggle for independence. He helped negotiate the Evian Treaty, ending 130 years of French colonial rule in Algeria.

Inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, opposition parties and human rights groups have been staging pro-democracy rallies in the capital. They say they will march every Saturday until democratic change is introduced. Meanwhile, Algeria's Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia has said the government will lift a 19-year state of emergency by the end of the month.

The British Geological Survey (BGS) has issued a geomagnetic storm warning, and says observers might be able to see aurorae from the northern UK. The eruptions are expected to hit the Earth's magnetic field field over the next couple of days, causing an increase in geomagnetic activity.

The unpredictable activity on the Sun can interfere with modern technology on Earth, such as electrical power grids, communications systems and satellites - including the satellite navigation (or sat-nav) signals used on Earth. In 1972, a geomagnetic storm provoked by a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone communication across the US state of Illinois.

And in 1989, another storm plunged six million people into darkness across the Canadian province of Quebec.

Researchers say the Sun has been awakening after a period of several years of low activity.

At least two people died in the police operation, according to the opposition, while 100 sustained injuries. The protesters are calling for wide-ranging political reforms and had been camped out since Tuesday. Clashes earlier in the week left two dead and dozens injured in the country.

Ahead of the storming of the square the US had expressed concern at the violence and called for restraint and respect for the "universal rights of its citizens" and "their right to protest". Bahrain is a key US ally, hosting the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the US was "watching events from Bahrain and around the region very closely".

Since independence from the UK in 1971, tensions between the Sunni elite and the less affluent Shia have frequently caused civil unrest. Shia groups say they are marginalised, subject to unfair laws, and repressed. In 2001, voters approved a National Action Charter that would transform Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy. The next year, Sheikh Hamad proclaimed himself king and decreed that a National Assembly be formed. He also began a cautious process of democratic reform. There was also greater protection of democracy and human rights. Although political parties were banned, "political societies" could operate.

Dozens of people were injured in violent demonstrations on Tuesday night in the eastern city of Benghazi. The unrest there followed the detention of an outspoken government critic. Pro-democracy protests have recently swept through several Arab nations, with the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt forced to resign amid growing unrest. But this week's demonstrations were the first display of defiance in Libya, where dissent is rarely tolerated.

Witnesses say that at one stage up to 2,000 people were involved in the protests early on Wednesday in Benghazi, which saw a march on government offices in the city. The protesters are said to have thrown stones and petrol bombs, and set vehicles alight. Witnesses said police used rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse them.

The protests reportedly began after the arrest of Fathi Terbil, who represents relatives of more than 1,000 prisoners allegedly massacred by security forces in Tripoli's Abu Salim jail in 1996. He was later said to have been freed. In a speech broadcast on Wednesday evening, Colonel Gaddafi made no mention of the unrest but said the "revolutionaries" would prevail.

"Down with the enemies, down with them everywhere; down with the puppets everywhere, the puppets are falling, the autumn leaves are falling!" Mr Gaddafi said. "The puppets of the USA, the puppets of Zionism are falling."

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995. "Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right," he said. "They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy."

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell's speech to the United Nations in which the then US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld's memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.

The careers of both men were seriously damaged by their use of Janabi's claims, which he now says could have been - and were - discredited well before Powell's landmark speech to the UN on 5 February 2003. The former CIA chief in Europe Tyler Drumheller describes Janabi's admission as "fascinating", and said the emergence of the truth "makes me feel better". "I think there are still a number of people who still thought there was something in that. Even now," said Drumheller.

In a series of meetings with the Guardian in Germany where he has been granted asylum, he said he had told a German official, who he identified as Dr Paul, about mobile bioweapons trucks throughout 2000. He said the BND had identified him as a Baghdad-trained chemical engineer and approached him shortly after 13 March of that year, looking for inside information about Saddam's Iraq. "I had a problem with the Saddam regime," he said. "I wanted to get rid of him and now I had this chance."

The panel is to draw up changes at a breakneck pace - within 10 days - to end the monopoly that ousted President Hosni Mubarak's ruling party once held, which it ensured through widespread election rigging. The initial changes may not be enough for many in Egypt calling for the current constitution, now suspended by the military, to be thrown out completely and rewritten to ensure no one can once again establish autocratic rule. Two members on the panel said the next elected government could further change the document if it choses.

The military's choices for the panel's makeup were a sign of the new political legitimacy of the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist group that was the most bitter rival of Mubarak's regime. Among the panel's members is Sobhi Saleh, a former lawmaker from the Brotherhood seen as part of its reformist wing.

The eight-member committee, which met with Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi on Tuesday, also includes a Christian supreme court judge, along with other judges and legal experts, one of its members Mohammed Hassanein Abdel-Al, a legal scholar told The Associated Press. The panel is headed by Tareq el-Bishri, a widely respected former judge and scholar who was once a secular leftist but later became one of the most foremost thinkers of what Egyptians refer to as the "moderate Islamic" political trend and is seen as a bridge between the movements.

The Two faces of the Brotherhood:

Moaz Abdel Karim, an affable 29-year-old who was among a handful of young activists who plotted the recent protests here, is the newest face of the Muslim Brotherhood. His political views on women's rights, religious freedom and political pluralism mesh with Western democratic values. He is focused on the fight for democracy and human rights in Egypt.

A different face of the Brotherhood is that of Mohamed Badi, 66-year-old veterinarian from the Brotherhood's conservative wing who has been the group's Supreme Guide since last January. He recently pledged the Brotherhood would "continue to raise the banner of jihad" against the Jews, which he called the group's "first and foremost enemies." He has railed against American imperialism, and calls for the establishment of an Islamic state.

Israel, which shares a long and porous border with Egypt, fears that if a moderate wing of the Brotherhood exists - and many in Israel's leadership are skeptical that it does - it could be shoved aside by more extreme factions within the group.

The Brotherhood's conservative wing has for years put out anti-Israel comments and writings, and helped fund Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. It has also spoken out in support of attacks against US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"If the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, through elections or some other way, that would be a repeat of 1979 in Iran," when moderate governments installed after the shah gave way to the ayatollahs, says a senior Israeli official. "It's something we're looking at with great caution."

A call has been put out on the internet for protests across Libya on Thursday. There is no independent confirmation of the overnight protests in Benghazi, but eyewitnesses say that at one stage some 2,000 people were involved. They say stones were thrown at police who are said to have responded with water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets. Later, state television showed pictures of several hundred people in Benghazi voicing their support for the government. The government has so far not commented on events in the city.

The Middle East has seen a wave of protests fuelled by discontent over unemployment, rising living costs, corruption and autocratic leaderships. They began with the overthrow of Tunisia's leader, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in January. Last week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned. In recent days there have also been anti-government demonstrations in Yemen, Bahrain, and Iran.

Plastic bullets and tear gas were used to try and disperse large crowds in major cities and towns, with 30,000 riot police taking to the streets in Algiers alone. There were also reports of journalists being targeted by state-sponsored thugs to stop reports of the disturbances being broadcast to the outside world.

But it was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime. Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. "The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria.

"Security forces are armed to the teeth out on the street, and they're also doing everything to crush our uprising on the internet. Journalists, and especially those with cameras, are being taken away by the police." President Hosni Mubarak had tried to shut down internet service providers during 18 days of protest before stepping down as Egyptian leader on Friday. Mostafa Boshashi, head of the Algerian League for Human Rights, said: "Algerians want their voices to be heard too. They want democratic change."

This man is a word machine, a one-man talk show that leaves no subject unexamined. Youssef al-Qaradawi has to talk: about former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, about mothers' milk banks, and about the right of Palestinian women to blow themselves up. He is a driven man.

There are so many decisions to be made in this godforsaken modern age, and yet there is only one mufti, only one Islamic scholar like Qaradawi, who knew the Koran by heart by the time he was 10, only one man who can help the faithful understand the world.

Qaradawi is the father figure of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the country's best-organized opposition group. The Brotherhood is sure to play a part in deciding what path Egypt will now take. Qaradawi advocates establishing a "UNITED MUSLIM NATIONS" as a contemporary form of the caliphate and the only alternative to the hegemony of the West. He hates Israel and would love to take up arms himself. In one of his sermons, he asked God "to kill the Jewish Zionists, every last one of them."

In January 2009, he said: "Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Adolf Hitler."

The CPI figure is the highest since November 2008, and will put pressure on the Bank of England to lift interest rates to curb accelerating inflation. The CPI measure has now been one percentage point or more above target for 14 months.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King has now written to the government, after sending three such letters last year, explaining the outlook for inflation and what will be done to tackle it.

In his letter he says inflation is likely to rise towards 5% in the coming months. Referring to expected interest rate increases, he added: "The MPC's central judgement, under the assumption that Bank rate increases in line with market expectations, remains that inflation will fall back so that it is about as likely to be above the target as below it two to three years ahead."