Two years after the last food crisis, when prices surged by nearly 15% in the UK, food inflation is back. Soaring global food prices have prompted City and food industry experts to warn that the cost of the weekly shop is set to rise by up to 10% in the coming months. As in 2008, rocketing prices are the result of rising demand and supply shortages caused by freak weather and poor harvests. Moreover, these conditions are exacerbated by speculation on commodity markets and changing diets in fast-growing Asian countries.

Last week, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) called an emergency meeting for 24 September to discuss the food crisis. In Mozambique, riots broke out following the government's decision to raise bread prices by 30%, leaving seven people dead and hundreds injured. At the same time the Russian government extended its export ban on wheat by another 12 months as it battles drought, shortages and inflation at home, which threatens to push up prices further.

European wheat prices hit more than 231 euros (192 pounds) a tonne last week, just below last month's two-year high of 236 euros but still 60% higher than a year ago in sterling terms. Corn prices are at their highest level since June 2009 while sugar has been on a rollercoaster ride after hitting a 29-year peak in February. The Grocer's food and drink editor Alex Beckett reckons that if prices for commodities such as wheat, sugar, cocoa and palm oil remain at current levels, by January the weekly shop could cost 10% more than 12 months previously.

The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh said the corporation's intolerance of religion is equivalent to its "massive" political bias against the Conservatives in the 1980s. He also accused the corporation of plotting a "hatchet job" on the Vatican in a documentary about clerical sex abuse on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Britain.

Cardinal O'Brien believes that atheists like Professor Richard Dawkins are given a disproportionate amount of airtime while mainstream Christian views are marginalised. He is also angered by a 15 per cent slump in religious programming over the past 20 years and believes the broadcaster should appoint a religion editor to address the decline.

He said: "This week the BBC's director general [Mark Thompson] admitted that the corporation had displayed 'massive bias' in its political coverage throughout the 1980s, acknowledging the existence of an institutional political bias. Our detailed research into BBC news coverage of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, together with a systematic analysis of output by the Catholic church, has revealed a consistent anti-Christian institutional bias." He added that insiders at the BBC had privately admitted that there is a cultural intolerance of Christianity at the corporation. "Senior news managers have admitted to the Catholic church that a radically secular and socially liberal mindset pervades their newsrooms".

The BBC dismissed Cardinal O'Brien's criticism of its religious coverage and denied that it had marginalised mainstream religious issues, which it said were placed "at the heart" of its schedule. A spokeswoman said: "The BBC's commitment to religious broadcasting is unequivocal. BBC news and current affairs has a dedicated religion correspondent, and works closely with BBC Religion, ensuring topical religious and ethical affairs stories are featured across all BBC networks."

Minutes of the central bank's August 10 policy meeting said several officials felt the outlook would have to deteriorate "appreciably" to trigger more action, which might include additional purchases of government debt or a promise to keep interest rates near zero for an even longer stretch.

The latest batch of data - particularly the employment report on Friday that showed stronger-than-expected private hiring in August - doesn't seem to fit that description. "Is there enough here to prompt the Fed to pull the trigger as early as at the September 21 meeting? Probably not," said Lena Komileva, an economist with Tullett Prebon in London.

So what might make the Fed flinch? Neil Dutta, an economist with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in New York, thinks the slow-but-steady economic slog will eventually prod the Fed into action, perhaps early next year. His firm predicts a "growth recession," which may sound like an oxymoron but essentially sums up what is happening now. The economy keeps growing, yet unemployment rises. Dutta said if monthly employment figures continue to show only modest hiring and rising unemployment, "the Fed is not going to sit idle."

Eurozone governments will try to raise 80 billion euros ($103 billion) in September compared with new bond issuance of 43 billon euros in August. Spain is expected to attempt to borrow 7 billion euros in September compared with 3.5 billion euros in August, according to ING Financial Markets.

Spain, Portugal and Ireland, so-called peripheral eurozone economies, are considered most in danger of being shunned by investors as worries persist over the health of their banks and economies. Greece is no longer a concern because it has emergency loans to cover its funding for the next two years.

Padhraic Garvey, head of rates strategy for developed markets at ING Financial Markets, said: "We are heading into a critical period as the chances rise that a government may fail to raise the money it needs. Some strategists say the return of most investors from holidays this week could increase volatility in these markets because many have put decisions on their portfolios on hold during the summer.

With most investors back at their desks, some could start selling peripheral debt in the coming weeks, particularly as the outlook for the global economy has deteriorated. In spite of some better than expected data out of the US last week, worries about a double-dip recession have increased

But hundreds of lives were saved by tough building rules, it was claimed. Only two injuries were reported. The quake was caused by the continuing collision between the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates, said Professor Mark Quigley, of Canterbury University. 'One side of the Earth has lurched to the right... up to 11ft and in some places been thrust up,' he said. 'We went and saw two houses that were completely snapped in half by the earthquake.'

The quake cut power across the region, roads were blocked by debris and gas and water supplies were disrupted. Christchurch mayor Bob Parker said power was back to 90 per cent of the city and water supply had resumed for all but 15 to 20 per cent of residents. Roger Bates, whose dairy farm at Darfield was close to the quake's epicentre 19 miles west of Christchurch, said the new faultline had ripped up the surface across his land. 'The whole dairy farm is like the sea now, with real soil waves right across the dairy farm. We don't have physical holes (but) where the fault goes through it's been raised a metre or metre and a half.'

New Zealand records more than 14,000 earthquakes a year, but only about 150 are felt by residents. Fewer than ten a year do any damage.

After an international outcry, Iranian officials temporarily halted Ms Ashtiani's stoning sentence in July. However, campaigners fear Ms Ashtiani could still be hanged. The Vatican said it was "following this affair with attention and commitment," spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

"The Church's position against the death penalty is well known and stoning is a particularly brutal form of it," he said. Father Lombardi said the Vatican could use diplomatic channels to try to save Ms Ashtiani, but he told Associated Press news agency that no formal request to intervene had been made.

On Saturday, Mr Ghaderzadeh said an Iranian judge had sentenced his mother to 99 lashes for "spreading corruption and indecency" over a photograph published in a British newspaper purportedly showing her without a head covering. The photograph was published on 28 August but several days later the Times newspaper published an apology, saying the photograph was not of Ms Ashtiani, but of another Iranian woman.

Dr Patricia A Hunt and her colleagues at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Washington, exposed female mice to levels of BPA roughly equivalent to the levels humans are exposed to on a regular basis. The team discovered that in as little as 12 hours after exposure, egg production in exposed mice suffered reproductive damage. They believe exposure even altered the reproductive capacity of the mice's grandchildren.

According to the study report, BPA exposure negatively affects mitosis, the process by which cells divide their nuclei chromosomes in order to reproduce into new cells. BPA also disrupts other normal cell cycle functions and DNA replication, which researchers say can potentially shorten the "reproductive lifespan" of females. What makes BPA particularly dangerous is the fact that very low levels of exposure to it can cause significant harm.

According to reports, there have already been more than 200 studies conducted about BPA's dangers, many of which implicate the chemical as being highly dangerous even at extremely low levels. "The researchers indicated that such damage is a possible predictor of reproductive diseases in women, including fibroids, endometriosis, cystic ovaries and cancers," explains Andreas Moritz in his book Timeless Secrets of Health & Rejuvenation: Unleash The Natural Healing Power That Lies Dormant Within You.

"Two imported brands of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, namely Gardasil and Cervarix, were allowed to undergo clinical trial (Phase III) in India, before being granted permission for import and market authorization," explained S Gandhiselvan, minister of state for healthy and family welfare, in a statement to India's parliament. However, because of the deaths, he advised all states to stop vaccinating immediately.

According to reports, the trials were wholly unethical and illegitimate to begin with, and were nothing more than blatant exploitation by drug companies of disadvantaged people from a developing nation. Since many women in the industrialized world are now learning about the dangers of HPV vaccinations and rejecting them, Big Pharma has moved on to other populations in its quest to jab the entire world with the dangerous shots.

However, there have been 67 US deaths from HPV vaccinations reported thus far in the Vaccine Adverse Event Report System (VAERS), and countless reports of serious, life-damaging side effects, and officials have done nothing about it. So it is unlikely that the US will do anything to stop the poison from being marketed around the world as a cure.

For at least four years, AsiaNews has sounded the alarm bells against the risks due to the huge size reached by speculative finance. In 2008, we said that the attempt to save US banks could push the US debt beyond the point of solvency. Back then it could appear a bit overblown, but now even US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S Bernanke is warning the US Congress about the danger.

In a statement before the House Financial Services Committee, he said that the US public debt might no longer be sustainable very soon. Financial jargon aside, the subtitle of an article by The Washington Times - Stage is set in US for a Greek tragedy - says it all. Interviewed for the article, Bernanke says the United States is likely to face a debt crisis like the one in Greece sooner than later, "not something that is 10 years away".

In 2008, the size of the debt was such that it was quite clear that it was not sustainable. Now we have a timeframe to measure the likelihood of insolvency for the US public debt, and it is this year. The reason for that is described in an article whose title needs no explanation: "The bankruptcy of the United States is now certain".

They said that it was wrong to be expected to burden the cost of the tour around Scotland and England because the Pope is a religious figure. Taxpayers will shoulder 10-12 million pounds of the bill for the trip. Despite it being the first papal visit since 1982 when Pope John Paul II came to Britain, a separate Ipsos MORI poll also found a low level of interest in the tour, which begins on September 16.

The survey, carried out for the Tablet, a Catholic newspaper, discovered one in four support the Pope's visit, while 11 per cent oppose it.

Only one in five said they planned to follow the visit closely and this figure dropped to one in 10 of those with no religious affiliation.

"We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba,'' Roberto Leon Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. "It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases.''

Chavez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies. "I have called it a Good Life Card so far,'' Chavez said in a brief statement made on the government television channel. "It's a card for you to purchase what you are going to take and they keep deducting. It's to buy what you need, not to promote communism, but to buy just what you need.''

Former director of Venezuela's Central Bank, Domingo Maza Zavala, said this could become a rationing card that would limit your purchases in light of the country's recurring problems with supplies. Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said that Venezuela's current problems of scarce supplies are very similar to those Cuba faced when Fidel Castro introduced the rationing card.

"The card emerged when goods began to become scarce,'' Suchlicki said. "The government had seized many companies that did not work because the government managed them poorly. Then they decided to distribute groceries through those cards.'' And although the cards were introduced as a mechanism to deal with scarcities, Suchlicki said, they later became an instrument of control. "People depended on the government to eat, and nothing gives you more power than having people depend on you to get their food quota,'' he said.

Frightened residents fled from their homes to find streets covered in rubble and glass, but despite the extent of the damage only two people were seriously injured in the city of 340,000 people. Christchurch mayor Bob Parker said he was "horrified by the amount of damage" which daylight showed was considerably worse than first thought. "There would not be a house, there would not be a family in our city that has not in some way had damage done to their person, to their property," Parker said on national radio.

Few people were on the streets as the quake hit but building facades crashed to the ground, crushing parked cars and showering the roads with shattered glass, while gas and water electricity supplies were cut. A state of emergency was declared in Christchurch and a curfew imposed in the city centre as initial estimates put the damage at up to $NZ2 billion dollars ($1.57 billion).

Residents were warned to stay away from damaged buildings for fear of further collapses as severe aftershocks continued to rock the city. "I think we've been extremely lucky as a nation that there's been no fatalities... we're blessed actually," Civil Defence Minister John Carter said after being briefed on the impact of the quake he described as a "significant disaster". The quake, initially recorded at a magnitude of 7.4, struck at 4:35am at a depth of five kilometres (three miles) some 45 kilometres west of Christchurch, the US Geological Survey said.

New Zealand sits on the so-called "Ring of Fire", the boundary of the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, and experiences up to 15,000 tremors a year. It averages at least one a day that is magnitude 4.0 or stronger. Meanwhile, as residents took stock of the quake damage they also had an eye on looming bad weather with destructive gale-force winds up to 130 kilometres (80 miles) an hour predicted to arrive tomorrow.

"Winds of that speed can be damaging and with many buildings extensively damaged (by the earthquake) it could cause a major headache for emergency services," a weather service spokesman said.

"That has significant implications clearly for where we may choose to headquarter our institution. I want to be crystal clear. Our preference is to be headquartered in the UK," added Mr Gulliver. Mr Gulliver, whose bank did not receive any direct government support during the financial crisis, made his comments in response to an audience question at an industry conference in London.

He said it would be "very very regrettable" if the commission came to a decision "that causes the banks that actually didn't take any money from any government anywhere in the world to have to move their headquarters." He also noted that no other country was looking at breaking up banks in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

Many economists and policymakers concluded in the wake of the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers that the large international banks had become "too big to fail". If a bank is so big that its collapse would bring down the entire financial system, governments would always be forced to rescue them. The concern is that if banks know that governments will always come to their rescue, they may be encouraged to take on too much risk.

HSBC moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to London in 1991 after its acquisition of Midland Bank. It currently occupies one of the largest tower blocks in Canary Wharf.

A Vatican communique reported, "Concerning the renewal of direct contacts between Israelis and Palestinians, scheduled for today in Washington, the hope was expressed that this may assist in reaching an agreement that is respectful of the legitimate aspirations of the two peoples and capable of bringing lasting peace to the Holy Land and to the entire region." In Washington DC, the first direct peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in nearly two years took place today.

Other topics of the "cordial" discussion included the Holy Father's pilgrimage to the Holy Land in May, 2009, as well as interreligious dialogue and the international situation. The Vatican reported that "the discussions also permitted the examination of the relations between the State of Israel and the Holy See and those of the state authorities with the local Catholic communities."

The Holy See is currently in negotiations with Israel over the terms of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement. The Fundamental Agreement established diplomatic relationships between the Holy See and Israel. Since then, the two sides have been negotiating the particulars of tax exemptions and property rights for the Church, in particular for the holy sites. The next plenary session of the commission will take place December 6 at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Peres also met with the Pontiff's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and the secretary for relations with states, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti.

Peres met Wednesday with Gilad Shalit's parents, Noam and Aviva, in advance of his meeting with the Pope. "We must never lose hope, we must continue to fight for Gilad's return," he said. Shalit's parents have led a campaign to bring their son home even at the expense of releasing many hundreds of convicted terrorists, including those responsible for multiple murders.

Peres praised the two for their struggle, saying, "I am proud of the noble way in which you are struggling to bring back your son Gilad, and I am proud of the Israeli public for standing at your side." Shalit's parents asked the president to use his influence to push for Gilad's release. After meeting with the Pope, Peres plans to remain in Italy over the weekend to attend an economic and diplomatic conference and to defend Israel in the media.